This day. The Barbados crime, Cubana flight 455 (I)

By TONY SEED

This article was first published in October 2014 by TML Weekly and Global Research. It is of particular relevance to an understanding of the ongoing “war on terror” in the Americas and the role of successive US and Canadian governments.

Today, October 6th, is the anniversary of the first act of terrorism against civilian aviation in the western hemisphere – the unparalleled Cubana air disaster on the coastline of Barbados on October 6, 1976 – the Barbados crime. Cubana flight 455 was hit by two C-4 explosives bombs at an altitude of 18,000 feet just after the aircraft took off from the then Seawell Airport (now the Grantley Adams International Airport) in Barbados.

Bridge of Spies: Will the real James B. Donovan stand up?

Tom Hanks is today’s Everyman good guy movie star – an honest, trustworthy and stand-up white man just like Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck and, yes, even John Wayne. In the recent film Bridge of Spies, one of those “inspired by true events” obfuscations, Hanks plays a certain James B. Donovan. In the movie, Donovan is an insurance lawyer lured into defending Soviet spy Rudolf Abel back in the good old days of the Cold War in order to prove that this is the land of justice and due process. Bridge of Spies, directed by Steven Spielberg, appears to be headed into Oscar territory.

Air America: Venezuelan officials find large cache of weapons at airport delivered from Miami

Venezuela’s Deputy Minister of Public Security, Endes Palencia (first from left), reveals the shocking discovery of a cache of weapons that was delivered on by a commercial cargo plane from Miami on Sunday. February 3rd | CUENTA DE TWITTER DEL GENERAL ENDES PALENCIA ORTIZ

 

By TONY SEED

(February 10, updated February 14) – It was inevitable. On Sunday, February 3, the day before the Lima Group countries met in Ottawa to fraudulently call for a “peaceful transition of power” in Venezuela and  demand it allow a puppet parallel government to accept its “humanitarian aid”, a Boeing 767 took off from Miami International Airport loaded with warfare equipment. It landed at the Arturo Michelena International Airport in the northern city of Valencia, Venezuela’s third-largest city, and some 170 kilometres directly west of the capital, Caracas.

Huawei case: Trudeau Liberal’s mockery of the rule of law

(From a Facebook post of Dec. 13, revised Dec. 24) – Six people appeared in Halifax provincial court on Monday, December 10 to face charges of mischief and obstructing a peace officer, stemming from Sunday night’s protest at the Canada Post mail-processing plant on Almon Street in that city. The real reason they were arrested is that they were protesting the federal government’s criminalization of their rights.

Lebanon in US action movies: Beirut starring Jon Hamm

By AS’AD ABUKHALIL*

Lebanon often provided a venue for American and Western action films.  In the 1950s and 1960s, it was a place of international intrigue and espionage where spies intersected with other spies, and where car chases on mountainous roads provided for good movie scenes.  There were so many US and European movies shot in Lebanon in those times, with such titles: The Sell-out, Masquerade, Man on the Spying Trapeze, Agent 505, Embassy, among others. But that so-called peaceful Lebanon (where successive Israeli invasions and massacres don’t get a mention in Western movie accounts, and are rarely listed as the reason for undermining the old Lebanon—with all its flaws, inequities, and injustices) does not exist anymore.  The Lebanese civil war provided a totally different venue for American action films that were to come in the 1980s.

This day. Cuba remembers the victims of the 1976 terrorist attack and demands justice

This peaceful people has suffered the loss of 3,478 of its citizens due to brutal terrorist acts, among them the victims of the in-flight bombing of a Cubana de Aviación plane over Barbados

Nicaragua, unraveling a plot

The United States’ National Endowment for Democracy distributed some 4.2 million dollars in Nicaragua, between 2014 and 2017, to train “new leaders” to overthrow the Sandinista government | Francisco Arias Fernández*

(June 29) – AS early as 2016, talk of war against Nicaragua could again be heard in Miami, at a time when the streets of this nation were a regional example of security, peace, and prosperity, where a hardworking, tranquil people proudly enjoyed the social and economic advances achieved by the Sandinista government, that had established a national consensus, in the wake of one of the worst interventions carried out by the United States in Central America. 

War on Syria: CIA program supplied money, weaponry and training to terrorist forces

Introduction

Timber Sycamore was a classified weapons supply and training program run by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and supported by various Arab intelligence services, most notably that of Saudi Arabia. The program is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. It is further evidence that the United States and/or any of its collaborators and accessories including the Canadian government, with its proxy support, training and arms programs in Kurdistan, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are guilty of crimes against humanity through aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic, a sovereign country. The use of proxy mercenary armies camouflaged by a fictitious “civil war,” according to the Obama Doctrine, masks the identities of their sponsors. It cannot hide them however, nor their aggression, from the light of day nor the reaches of international law.

The other side of the Washingon Post’s Katharine Graham

The Post’s Watergate team, including from left to right, publisher Katharine Graham, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Howard Simons, and editor Ben Bradlee.

Hollywood loves to make heroes of The Washington Post, whose sole owner is a CIA contractor, for the rare moments when it has seemingly stood up for journalism – while forgetting the blood-soaked cases of the Post spreading lies to justify wars, writes NORMON SOLOMON*. To this day it continues to violate universal journalistic protocol by refusing to disclose its $600 million conflict of interest when reporting on the US intelligence community. Its recent efforts include publishing a predictably fact-challenged op-ed arguing that the US Congress must reauthorize the surveillance program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is deliberately used to collect communications of US citizens. – TS

(Dec. 20) – Movie critics are already hailing “The Post,” directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Meryl Streep as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham. Millions of people will see the film in early winter. But the real-life political story of Graham and her newspaper is not a narrative that’s headed to the multiplexes.

CIA’s Bin Laden forgery is a psyop: three articles

By TONY SEED

In the context of the offensive of the Trump regime against Iran and for domination of West Asia (Middle East), the CIA released on November 1 a “never-before-seen 19-page document,” as well as a 228-page “journal” ostensibly written by Osama Bin Laden as all U.S. and Canadian media (as directed by the U.S. government) are promoting.

Venezuela’s response to US interference

1. Government rejects CIA Chief’s interventionist admission

The following statement was issued by the Government of Venezuela on July 25, 2017.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela categorically rejects the declarations of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, Michael Pompeo, and denounces before the international community the systematic attacks against Venezuela from the USA, including:

Che continues to be the man most feared by imperialism

Forty-nine years ago, a vile hired assassin, a terrorist, contracted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, believed he had killed a man in Bolivia | OSCAR SÁNCHEZ SERRA*

(October 12 ) – Forty-nine years ago, on October 9, 1967, a vile hired assassin, a terrorist, contracted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency, believed he had killed a man in Bolivia. But what the bloodthirsty executioner Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía didn’t know then was that his crime actually immortalized his victim. Che continues to be a threat, a challenge, an insurmountable impediment to imperialism.

Looking into the eyes of the terrorists who blew up a Cuban plane

40 YEARS SINCE THE BARBADOS CRIME

We planted the bomb… and so what?

By ALICIA HERRERA

Forty years after the bombing of a Cubana airlines flight off the coast of Barbados on October 6, 1976, which killed 73 innocent people, those responsible for this horrific terrorist act remain unpunished, despite the overwhelming evidence filed to incriminate its material and intellectual authors and their accomplices, and presented to the United States intelligence services.

The Cuban people, revolutionary government, and in particular the families of victims of the Barbados crime have not rested, in all these years, in their struggle for justice. Their pain was transformed into the strength and courage to establish the truth regarding the case, in all settings, not only on the island but across many countries of the world. This long-awaited justice, however, has not materialized.

Vigil to honour victims of terrorism

A gathering to honour the victims of the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner mid-flight off the coast of Barbados was held yesterday evening, October 5, at Havana’s José Martí Memorial, with families of the martyrs in attendance | Alejandra García

Africa Liberation Day at 53: Pentagon and CIA continue to destabilize continent

Today the African Union faces formidable development and security challenges.May 25, 2016 marks the 53rd anniversary of the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now known as the African Union (AU) since 2002.| ABAYOMI AZIKIWE

The ‘Free Syrian Army’ media efforts are a British government operation

The U.S. government, via its CIA, has financed the “moderate” anti-Syrian mercenaries fighting against the legitimate Syrian government with at least $1 billion a year. The Wahhabi dictatorships in the Middle East have added their own billions to finance al-Qaeda’s efforts against the Syrian people. The U.S. continues to purchase and transport thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition to feed the war against the Syrian people. It also pays the various fighters and opposition groups. The U.S. efforts for regime change in Syria have been running since at least 2006 when the U.S. government started to finance anti-Syrian exile TV stations and held intensive planning talks with various anti-Syrian Islamist elements.

US delivers 3,000 tons of weapons and ammo to Al-Qaeda & Co in Syria

The United States via its Central Intelligence Agency is still delivering thousands of tons of additional weapons to al-Qaeda and others in Syria.

The British military information service Janes found the transport solicitation for the shipment on the U.S. government website FedBizOps.gov. Janes writes:

Flashback: Belgium’s ‘apology’ for assassinating Patrice Lumumba

Europe sheds crocodile tears for Africa

Patrice Lumumba (July 2, 1925–January 17, 1961)

I only gave voice to words of freedom and brotherhood, words they couldn’t accept. Just words. – Patrice Lumumba

Neither state nor individual terrorism is justifiable. But when the European rulers issue self-serving statements that the violence in Brussels is an attack on Europe – and further are silent on the terrorist attacks in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen – then they too must be condemned and the issues gone into soberly. It is these rulers themselves whom, as the statement of CPC(M-L) points out, “block the peoples of Europe from sorting out the problems of nation-building in the 21st century, starting by disavowing the colonialist past and imperialist present of the big European powers and dismantling the U.S.-led aggressive military alliance NATO.”

For the information of readers, we are reproducing an article from our archives by BARRACK MULUKA on how Belgium disavowed its colonial past; the assassination on January 17, 1961 of one of Africa’s most outstanding independence leaders, Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2001, an official inquiry in 2001 produced a painstaking account of how officials, ministers and even Belgium’s King Baudouin either plotted to kill Lumumba just months after independence or were aware that others were doing so. The American president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had long given the green light for the CIA to plan the elimination of Lumumba, according to Madeleine Kalb in her book, Congo Cables, published by Macmillan in 1982 based on leaked State Department cables.

Under the reign of terror instituted by King Leopold II of Belgium (who ran the Congo Free State as his personal fief from 1885 to 1908), the population of the Congo was reduced by half — as many as 8 million Africans (perhaps even 10 million, lost their lives. Today, Belgium is providing “logistical support” as does Canada for the French military occupation and plunder of Mali, the aggression against Libya and the support of “jihadi” terrorists to overthrow the secular government of Syria.

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of El Mehdi Ben Barka

By TONY SEED
With the attendance of Fernando González Llort, Hero of the Republic of Cuba and Vice President of ICAP, a flower offering was laid at the foot of the bust of the Third World leader El Mehdi Ben Barka on the 50^th anniversary of his assassination on October 29, 1965 in Paris, France in a solemn ceremony held at the Havana headquarters of the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAL).

Why Russia shut down US NGOs – fronts of the US state

The neocon-flagship Washington Post has fired a propaganda broadside at President Putin for shutting down the Russian activities of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), but left out key facts like NED’s US government funding, its quasi-CIA role, and its plans for regime change in Moscow, writes ROBERT PERRY in Consortium News. The Harper government’s Dept. of Foreign Affairs has been covertly awarding millions of Canadian taxdollars to NED, and its subsidiaries, the National Democratic Institute (e.g., $374,206 on June 18, 2015; $426,054 on March 5, 2015; $698,227 on October 24, 2014) and the International Republican Institute (e.g., $6,000,000 on April 28, 2014 for “Strengthening Multiparty Democracy” in Ukraine and $1,000,620 and $1,125,390 on December 8, 2015). – TS

(July 30) – The Washington Post’s descent into the depths of neoconservative propaganda – willfully misleading its readers on matters of grave importance – apparently knows no bounds as was demonstrated with two deceptive articles regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and why his government is cracking down on “foreign agents.”

Seymour Hersh and Bin Laden disinformation: killing the messenger

The credibility crisis of the US monopoly media and the role of media to disinform

It has largely been forgotten that after 9/11, the Taliban offered to supply Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind, to a third country for trial. The Bush administration refused, choosing to invade Afghanistan, a strategic country rich in natural resources, and to launch the “war on terrorism” for self-serving ends. Ten years later, the Obama administration, instead of putting him on trail, boasted that it had assassinated him, though suspiciously the body was never produced. The assassination by US special forces was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. TREVOR TIMM* in the Columbia Journalism Review examines the media reaction to Seymour Hersh’s recent exposé challenging the credibility of the Obama White House and its narrative of the high-profile event. Hersh stated in conclusion: “High-level lying nevertheless remains the modus operandi of US policy, along with secret prisons, drone attacks, Special Forces night raids, bypassing the chain of command, and cutting out those who might say no.”

(May 15) – SEYMOUR HERSH HAS DONE THE PUBLIC a great service by breathing life into questions surrounding the official narrative of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Yet instead of trying to build off the details of his story, or to disprove his assertions with additional reporting, journalists have largely attempted to tear down the messenger.

From our archives: Dossier on the 60th anniversary of the victory over fascism

Shunpiking Magazine’s Online Dossier, May-June 2005

INTRODUCTION

May 8, 2005 marked the 60th anniversary of the surrender of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich in 1945 and the defeat of Nazi Germany in Europe. Called Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day) in the English-speaking countries, it is celebrated on May 9 in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union where it marks the victory of the Great Patriotic War. The defeat of fascism in Europe was a historic event with a permanent significance not only for Europe but for all peoples, who made the greatest contribution to its defeat. Imperialists can be stopped and their weapons silenced.

With this Dossier we want to give our readers a vivid idea of how war may and will creep up on them if it is not opposed. We want to try and discover the real political and economic origins and causes of WWII and its conduct, length and end, the war aims of the different parties, and show how war can be hatched in the greatest secrecy. How was the fate of the peoples of Europe sealed? How was fascism defeated? This has special urgency in our own day, when the imperial Washington of George W. Bush has taken on the task of declaring itself above international law and the Charter of the United Nations.

US fifth column: Pretext for regime change in Argentina?

The Politicization of the AMIA Investigation

A fifth column exists in Argentina. It should be noted that some of the individuals involved in this case are leftover elements from the period of the military dictatorship in Argentina that collaborated closely with the US.

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya*

History has a strange way of replicating itself. Argentina has been going through a process similar to the post-1999 years, after Boris Yeltsin stepped down and Vladimir Putin took his place in the Kremlin as the president of the Russian Federation. While it has been struggling to throw off the foreign yoke, the Argentine federal government in Buenos Aires has been consolidating its economic and political power.

Whodunit: Argentina’s reconnaissance work against US and Israeli spy networks

By NIL NIKANDROV*

(Feb. 17) – Two recent high-profile suicides – one in France and another in Argentina – are very similar. A successful and well-liked French police chief by the name of Helric Fredou was found dead after launching an investigation into the terrorist attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo weekly. Official reports claim the officer shot himself in his office using his service weapon before he had completed his report on the high-profile terrorist attack in Paris. 

Discovering Iran: a travelogue

By SORAYA SEPAHPOUR-ULRICH 

Marcel Proust once said: “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” During the past two decades, I visited Iran on numerous occasions staying 10-14 days at a time. This time around, I stayed for 2 months and heeding Proust, I carried with me a fresh pair of eyes. I discarded both my Western lenses as well as my Iranian lenses and observed with objective eyes. It was a formidable journey that left me breathless. 

The CIA in Latin America: From coups to torture and preemptive killings

By NIL NIKANDROV*

José Vicente Rangel

(Jan. 22) – The observations made by the Venezuelan journalist José Vicente Rangel are generally regarded as well informed and accurate. For the television program Los Confidenciales («Reliable Sources») he recently reported on the work of the supplemental staff at CIA stations in Latin America. According to Rangel, at least 500 reinforcements have arrived at the US Embassy and other US headquarters in South America in order to help the other operatives escalate their subversive and espionage activities.

American lethal military aid to Ukraine is a throwback to Iran-Contra days

By WAYNE MADSEN*

Antonov AN 124 heavy lift cargo plane

(February 3) – It was inevitable. As calls increased by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and NATO military commander General Philip Breedlove, among others, for lethal military equipment to be shipped by the United States to the putschist regime of Ukraine, a flurry of Ukrainian cargo transports landing at military supply airports in the United States and Europe hearkened back to the days when non-descript transports plied the world’s air routes clandestinely and simultaneously delivering weapons to Iran and Nicaraguan rebel forces.

Whodunit: Argentine prosecutor mysteriously dies as CIA steps up efforts to topple President Kirchner

By NIL NIKANDROV*

(Jan. 31) – Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found shot dead on 18 January, a pistol by his side. He had been hours away from outlining his accusations against President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner at a congressional hearing. The prosecutor was to deliver a report on the investigation of Argentina’s worst terrorist attack – a bombing in 1994 that killed 85 people and left dozens wounded at a Jewish community centre. The Argentine special services and the prosecutor’s office first traced it to Iran, then the «Syrian trace» emerged, dirty cops from Buenos Aires were also on the list of suspects. Iran immediately denied its involvement.

Review of ‘The Nazis Next Door: How America Became A Safe Haven For Hitler’s Men’

‘Not just “nominal” Nazis, but ardent Nazis such as SS officers and both alleged and proven war criminals, responsible for over 60 million deaths.’ Nor is this ancient history. Thousands of Nazis and Nazi collaborators, including an estimated 5,000 members of the Waffen SS, were also admitted to Canada after the Second World War. As of 1997, only two had ever been prosecuted. It is no accident that the US, Canada and Ukraine were the only three countries voting against the annual United Nations anti-Nazi resolution adopted by the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly November 21, 2014. It called for ‘Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.’

US ‘perception management’: The ‘evil enemy’, from Reagan to Obama

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pioneered “perception management” to get the American people to “kick the Vietnam Syndrome” and accept more U.S. interventionism, but that propaganda structure continues to this day getting the public to buy in to endless war, writes ROBERT PARRY*.

(Dec. 28) – To understand how the American people find themselves trapped in today’s Orwellian dystopia of endless warfare against an ever-shifting collection of “evil” enemies, you have to think back to the Vietnam War and the shock to the ruling elite caused by an unprecedented popular uprising against that war.

While on the surface Official Washington pretended that the mass protests didn’t change policy, a panicky reality existed behind the scenes, a recognition that a major investment in domestic propaganda would be needed to ensure that future imperial adventures would have the public’s eager support or at least its confused acquiescence.