British empire smut rag The Times has a new article out titled “Azov Battalion drops neo-Nazi symbol exploited by Russian propagandists,”
which has got to be the most hilarious headline of 2022 so far (and I’m
including The Onion and other intentionally funny headlines in the
running).
“The Azov Battalion has removed a neo-Nazi symbol from
its insignia that has helped perpetuate Russian propaganda about Ukraine
being in the grip of far-right nationalism,” The Times informs us. “At
the unveiling of a new special forces unit in Kharkiv, patches handed to
soldiers did not feature the wolfsangel, a medieval German symbol that
was adopted by the Nazis and which has been used by the battalion since
2014. Instead, they featured a golden trident, the Ukrainian national
symbol worn by other regiments.”
Yeah that’s how you solve Ukraine’s Nazi problem. A logo change.
Claiming
it’s “Russian propaganda” to say the Azov Battalion uses neo-Nazi
insignia, and is ideologically neo-Nazi, is itself propaganda. A month
ago Moon of Alabama published an incomplete list
of the many mainstream western outlets who have described various
Ukrainian paramilitaries as such, so if it’s only “Russian
propagandists” who’ve been saying the Azov Battalion is neo-Nazi then
Silicon Valley social media platforms should immediately ban outlets
like NBC News, the BBC, The Guardian, and Reuters.
Before
this war started this past February it wasn’t seriously controversial
to say that Ukraine has a Nazi problem except in the very most virulent
of empire spinmeister echo chambers. Even in the early days of the
conflict it was still happening with mainstream publications who hadn’t
yet gotten the memo that history had been rewritten, like this NBC News article from March titled “Ukraine’s Nazi problem is real, even if Putin’s ‘denazification’ claim isn’t.”
So plainly it is not “Russian propaganda” to highlight the
established fact that there are neo-Nazi paramilitaries in Ukraine who
are receiving weapons from the US and its allies. The change in insignia
isn’t being made to correct a misperception, it’s being made to obscure
a correct perception.
The change in insignia is a rebranding to a more mainstream-friendly logo, very much like Aunt Jemima rebranding to Pearl Milling Company due to the Jim Crow racism
the previous branding evoked. The primary difference is that the
corporate executives of Pearl Milling probably aren’t still interested
in turning America back into an apartheid state.
As journalist Alex Rubenstein noted on Twitter, al Qaeda in Syria went through a similar rebranding not long ago for the exact same reasons:
thegrayzone | As the United States undergoes a national mourning process over a
spate of mass shootings, American white nationalists with documented
histories of violence are attaining combat experience with advanced
US-made weapons in a foreign proxy war.
That’s according to the Department of Homeland Security, which has
been gathering intelligence on Americans who have joined the ranks of
the more than 20,000 foreign volunteers in Ukraine.
The FBI has indicted
several American white nationalists associated with the Rise Above
Movement after they trained with the neo-Nazi Azov Battaliion and its
civilian wing, the National Corps, in Kiev. But that was almost four
years ago. Today, federal law enforcement has no idea how many US
neo-Nazis are participating in the war in Ukraine, or what they are
doing there.
But one thing is for certain: the Biden administration is allowing the Ukrainian government to recruit Americans – including violent extremists – at its embassy in Washington DC
and at consulates across the country. As this report will show, at
least one notorious extremist fighting in Ukraine has received extensive
promotion from mainstream media, while another who is currently wanted
for violent crimes committed in the US was mysteriously able to evade
FBI investigators looking into war crimes he previously committed in
Eastern Ukraine.
According to a Customs and Border
Patrol document released thanks to a May 2022 Freedom of Information Act
request by a nonprofit called Property of the People, federal
authorities are concerned about RMVE-WS’s, or “racially-motivated
violent extremists – white supremacy” returning to the US armed with new
tactics learned on the Ukrainian battlefield.
“Ukrainian nationalist groups
including the Azov Movement are actively recruiting racially or
ethnically motivated violent extremist white supremacists to join
various neo-Nazi volunteer battalions in the war against Russia,” the
document states.
“RMVE-WS individuals in the United States and Europe announced
intentions to join the conflict and are organizing entry to Ukraine via
the Polish border.”
The document, which was drafted by
Customs and Border Protections, the Office of Intelligence, and other
Homeland Security sub-agencies, contains write-ups of interviews
conducted by law enforcement with Americans en route to Ukraine to fight
Russia.
One such volunteer interviewed in
early March “admitted to contacting the Georgian National Legion but
decided against joining the group as they were accused of war crimes,”
according to the document. Instead, the volunteer “ hoped to obtain a
work contract with the Azov Battalion.”
That interview was conducted nearly a month before additional war crimes committed by the Georgian Legion were reported by The Grayzone. However, the volunteer’s allegation may also refer to the illegal execution
of two men who had attempted to break through a Ukrainian checkpoint,
or an additional, unreported crime known to insiders within volunteer
networks.
One key “intelligence gap” listed in
the document speaks to the US government’s complete lack of oversight in
the proxy war it is sponsoring in Ukraine. NATO arming campaign which
has offered no assurances that Western weapons won’t fall into the hands
of Nazis. “What kind of training are foreign fighters receiving in
Ukraine that they could possibly proliferate in US based militia and
white nationalist groups?” the document asks.
NYTimes | Under the fire of
Russia’s long-range arsenal and facing a desperate need for ammunition
and weapons, Ukrainian forces remain outgunned on the long and
pockmarked eastern front, according to military analysts, Ukrainian
officials and soldiers on the ground.
Just
one engagement on Thursday and Friday on a small swath of the line, in a
forest north of the town of Sloviansk, sent about a dozen Ukrainian
soldiers to a military hospital with harrowing shrapnel wounds.
“You
ask how the fighting is going,” said Oleksandr Kolesnikov, the
commander of a company of soldiers fighting in the forest, interviewed
on an ambulance gurney outside a military hospital in Kramatorsk. “There
was a commander of the company. He was killed. There was another
commander. He was killed. A third commander was wounded. I am the
fourth.”
Out on the highways in the Donbas region, trucks towing howitzers and flatbeds carrying tanksrumbled east on Saturday, suggesting the Ukrainian military was reinforcingits front lines. The army does not disclose its force numbers but has publicized the arrival of Western weaponry, including American M777 artillery guns.
“We
needed to move a group to the left flank and they immediately started
pounding us with mortars,” said Mr. Kolesnikov. “That is how I was
wounded.”
He
called for artillery fire from the Ukrainian side to hit the Russian
mortar crew, but said the Ukrainian battery was only able to shoot a
dozen or so shells, which did not halt the Russian mortar attack.
The
deputy commander, Anatoly Ignatyenko, was wounded a day earlier in the
same spot. The two soldiers, now off the front line, comforted one
another in the ambulance, and Mr. Ignatyenko helped his commander drink
from a bottle of water.
Both
said President Biden and the leaders of other Western nations need to
hasten the supply of long-range weapons, such as rocket artillery, to
even the odds in the battle for the Donbas.
“Let
Biden not be stingy with weapons,” said Mr. Ignatyenko. Russian
artillery attacks were relentless, he said: “There is not an hour
without a pause.”
Also
on Friday, a Ukrainian logistics unit resupplying the soldiers in the
forest suffered losses. Soldiers drove an armored personnel carrier to
the position to deliver food and ammunition.
When the soldiers inside stepped out, a mortar landed nearby, killing the commander of the carrier and wounding two others.
“I’ve never seen such hell,” said Mykola Pokotila, a soldier wounded by shrapnel in the forest.
Another
wounded soldier, Serhiy Osetrov, sat gingerly in the same ambulance,
wincing from shrapnel still lodged in his right leg.
The
Ukrainian soldiers were deployed to the forest to repel a Russian
advance in the area, on the western edge of the larger battle raging in
the east. “We try to push them back but it doesn’t always work,” said
Mr. Kolesnikov. “We don’t have enough people, enough weapons.”
Nearby, another more heavily wounded man was wheeled out on a stretcher, his headbandaged.
Bloodied field stretchers were stacked up in a line against the wall,
traces of the daily cost from the front lines of the Donbas.
theguardian | After several weeks of deadlock, Russia’s military
appears to have found a way to advance in the Donbas – pounding it with
such intense, unsophisticated artillery that Ukraine’s exhausted
defenders are having to yield.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy rarely gives casualty figures but Ukraine’s president said last Sunday that “50 to 100 Ukrainian troops die on Donbas frontlines each day”, meaning perhaps 3,000 a month in the grisly war of attrition.
Wounded
will typically be three or perhaps four times as much, a serious loss
for a Donbas defence force estimated at 30,000 before the war began,
although the numbers increased following Ukraine’s mass mobilisation.
“Russian
forces have secured more terrain in the past week than efforts earlier
in May,” reported the Institute for the Study of War on Tuesday, in
particular approaching the frontline city of Sievierodonetsk and in
villages nearby.
“The shelling of
Sievierodonetsk is growing exponentially,” said Serhiy Haidai, the
governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, which is now 95% controlled by the
Russians. He estimated 10,000 Russian troops and an extra 2,500 pieces of equipment had been committed to the attack.
The Russian advances are not dramatic but they
reflect a new strategy. Gone for now are the attempts at wider
encirclements of Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, which included a failed river crossing
in early May. Instead units are focused on smaller encirclements – or
“cauldrons” – and a sheer concentration at Sievierodonetsk.
That
was confirmed by the militia head of the self-proclaimed pro-Russian
republic in Donetsk, Eduard Basurin, who said Russian forces had adopted
an approach of creating smaller encirclements to deprive Ukrainian
troops of logistics and reinforcements, rather than pursuing a single
large one.
WaPo | The
ambulances hurtled into the parking lot one after the other, each
carrying wounded troops directly from the nearby front line. One young
man stared straight ahead, his face swollen, his neck and back dripping
with blood. Others lay silently under foil blankets.
Some
stumbled out the back doors and collapsed into wheelchairs as staff
members rushed to push them inside. Nearby, bloodied cots sat propped
against a tent and other wounded soldiers lingered about, their faces
grim, their heads, arms or legs bandaged as the sound of outgoing
artillery boomed across the sky.
About
10 wounded soldiers arrived at this hospital in eastern Ukraine in less
than an hour Sunday morning — the latest military casualties as
Ukrainian forces, outgunned by Russia in the country’s east, continue to
lose territory at a critical moment in the war.
The
Washington Post is withholding the name and precise location of the
hospital out of concerns from staff members that it could be targeted by
Russian forces.
“Seventy
people from my battalion were injured in the last week,” said a soldier
and ambulance driver just outside the hospital gates who identified
himself only as Vlad, 29. “I lost too many friends; it’s hard for me. I
don’t know how many. … It’s getting worse every day.”
The
night before, he said, the shelling was so loud he hardly got any
sleep. “It’s all artillery bombing down,” he said. “All the wounded are
coming from shrapnel. Most guys in the trenches haven’t even seen the
enemy face-to-face.”
Last
week, one battalion of young soldiers on a road near Kramatorsk spent
their days digging defensive trenches in a pocket not far from the front
line.
They
were gearing up to provide additional support for the soldiers battling
the Russians head-on, preparing for a worst-case scenario in which
Russian forces continue or accelerate their current advance. That would
be a potential turning point on the battlefield.
It
would come at a particularly desperate moment for the Ukrainians. Kyiv
is already enraged that some Western voices are floating the idea of
ceding territory to Moscow. And the Biden administration is taking weeks
to decide whether to provide heavier weaponry that could aid Ukrainian
troops at this critical juncture in the war.
“Everyone’s
tired,” said Bohdan, a 30-year-old soldier and officer in the battalion
who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used and his
precise position not be given. “But we are ready to stand and protect
until the last man.”
taibbi | Last week, in the trial of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael
Sussmann, prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis asked ex-campaign manager Robby
Mook about the decision to share with a reporter a bogus story about
Donald Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank. Mook answered by giving up his
onetime boss. “I discussed it with Hillary,” he said,
describing his pitch to the candidate: “Hey, you know, we have this,
and we want to share it with a reporter… She agreed to that.”
In a
country with a functioning media system, this would have been a huge
story. Obviously this isn’t Watergate, Hillary Clinton was never
president, and Sussmann’s trial doesn’t equate to prosecutions of people
like Chuck Colson or Gordon Liddy. But as we’ve slowly been learning
for years, a massive fraud was perpetrated on the public with
Russiagate, and Mook’s testimony added a substantial piece of the
picture, implicating one of the country’s most prominent politicians in
one of the more ambitious disinformation campaigns we’ve seen.
There
are two reasons the Clinton story isn’t a bigger one in the public
consciousness. One is admitting the enormity of what took place would
require system-wide admissions by the FBI, the CIA, and, as Matt
Orfalea’s damning video above shows, virtually every major news media
organization in America.
More importantly, there’s no term for the
offense Democrats committed in 2016, though it was similar to
Watergate. Instead of a “third-rate burglary” and a bug, Democrats sent
schlock research to the FBI, who in turn lied to the secret FISA court
and obtained “legal” surveillance authority over former Trump aide
Carter Page (which opened doors to searches of everyone connected to
Page). Worse, instead of petty “ratfucking” like Donald Segretti’s
“Canuck letter,” the Clinton campaign created and fueled a successful,
years-long campaign of official harassment and media fraud. They
innovated an extraordinary trick, using government connections and press
to generate real criminal and counterintelligence investigations of
political enemies, mostly all based on what we now know to be
self-generated nonsense.
The Clintons, and especially Hillary,
have been baselessly accused of all sorts of things in the past, the
murder of Vince Foster being just one example. The “vast right-wing
conspiracy” was so successful that the Clintons ended up aligning with
and helping fund its chief architect, David Brock, ahead of the 2016
cycle. Along with Perkins Coie and the research agency Fusion-GPS,
headed by former Wall Street Journal reporter and current
self-admiring sleaze-merchant Glenn Simpson, they engineered three long
years of phony “collusion” headlines. No matter what papers like the Washington Post try to argue this week, this was an enormous scandal.
The
world has mostly moved on, since Russiagate was thirty or forty
“current things” ago, but the public prosecution of the collusion theory
was a daily preoccupation of national media for years. A substantial
portion of the population believed the accusations, and expected the
story would end with Donald Trump in jail or at least indicted,
scrolling for a thousand straight days in desperate expectation of the
promised justice. Trump was bounced from Twitter for incitement, but
Twitter has a policy against misinformation as well. It includes a
prohibition against “misleading” media that is “likely to result in widespread confusion on public issues.”
I’m
not a fan of throwing people off Twitter, but how can knowingly
launching thousands of bogus news stories across a period of years,
leading millions of people to believe lies and expect news that never arrived, not qualify as causing “widespread confusion on public issues”?
Let’s
travel back in time to the first months of 2017, when “Russiagate”
became the dominant news story in the world. Full panic arrived on the
wings of a series of blockbuster events. One was the release of an Intelligence Assessment
by the office of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on
January 6, 2017, which concluded Russia ordered an “influence campaign”
with a “clear preference” for Trump. Days later, there was an “absolute bombshell” of a leak reported in CNN,
about four intelligence chiefs — Clapper, CIA head John Brennan, FBI
chief James Comey, and the NSA’s Mike Rogers — who supposedly presented
president-elect Trump with “claims of Russian efforts to compromise
him.”
Instantly, much of America was in a fever of speculation
over the suddenly plausible-sounding possibility that the incoming
president was a real-world “Manchurian Candidate” under Russia’s
control. That phrase would be used by the Washington Post, New York Times, Vanity Fair, Salon, Daily News and countless others:
FP |U.S. President Joe Biden has approved
a Defense Department plan to redeploy American troops to Somalia to
shore up counterterrorism efforts against one of Africa’s deadliest and
most powerful militant groups.
Biden’s decision will send several
hundred U.S. special operators back into Somalia to help the fragile
Somali federal government fight off the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab
terrorist group. The decision largely reverses former President Donald
Trump’s directive to withdraw some 750 U.S. troops from the East African
country shortly before leaving office in January 2021, as part of his
broader efforts to draw down the U.S. military’s presence abroad.
A senior Biden administration
official, speaking on condition of anonymity in a briefing to reporters
under ground rules set by the White House, characterized Trump’s
directive as “an abrupt and sudden transition to a rotational presence”
that allowed the al-Shabab terrorist group to gain further strength and
step up attacks against the Somali government and civilian targets in
recent years.
The senior official said “under 500”
U.S. troops would be redeployed to Somalia under the new plan but did
not give additional details on the troops being deployed, citing
security. The United States had about 750 troops in Somalia until Trump
ordered the withdrawal that took place just days before Biden’s January
2021 inauguration. Since then, U.S. troops have rotated in and out of
Somalia for specific missions, which the official characterized as a
difficult and inefficient system that undermines U.S. efforts to help
Somalia and other partnering governments fight al-Shabab.
“Restoring a persistent U.S. military
presence will help to increase the security and freedom of movement of
other personnel, such as State Department and [U.S. Agency for
International Development] colleagues as they conduct critical
diplomatic and development missions,” the official added.
Biden also reportedly authorized the Pentagon to target top al-Shabab leaders in addition to the new troop deployment, as the New York Times reported.
The news of Biden’s decision comes
after a major international anti-Islamic State coalition conference in
Morocco last week, where leaders from dozens of countries warned that
the terrorist group was gaining traction across western Africa even as
it lost territory and influence in the Middle East. American gunsights,
in contrast, are trained on the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab in Africa’s
east. Biden has authorized at least five drone strikes against al-Shabab since he took office.
Al-Shabab, considered one of the
world’s deadliest terrorist groups, has claimed responsibility for a
spate of attacks targeting the federal Somali government and
peacekeepers from the African Union. It orchestrated the siege of a
Kenyan university that killed nearly 150 people and a massive truck
bombing in Mogadishu in 2017 that killed nearly 600. It was also
responsible for a 2020 attack on a U.S. air base in Manda Bay, Kenya,
that killed three Americans.
In 2021, after Trump’s decision to
withdraw U.S. forces, al-Shabab stepped up its attacks, particularly
around Somalia’s elections, and was expected to be implicated in over
2,000 violent incidents and a 28 percent increase in clashes with
government security forces, according to a report last July from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
U.S. military officials have long
believed that al-Shabab has the intent to attack the United States,
though it lacks the capabilities to do so currently, and the Pentagon
considers the group both the fastest-growing and most kinetically active
terrorist cell on the continent.
borkena | Hermela
Aregawi, born in Ethiopia and raised in the United States, is making
headlines in the Ethiopian media after she exposed pro-Tigray People’s
Liberation Front (TPLF) supporters in the diaspora in connection with
the delivery of humanitarian assistance in the Tigray region of
Ethiopia.
Her
favorite quote displayed on her Twitter profile reads “if all the
truth were known abt everything in the world, it would be a better
place,” and that is what she seems to be doing.
A journalist by
profession, works for CBS, from ethnic Tigray background, tweeted
earlier this week that the Pro-TPLF Tigreans in the diaspora “don’t want
aid to get to people because it will make @AbiyAhmedAli Government look
good.”
The Ethiopian government has been under immense pressure
from the US government and European Union, among other actors, on
alleged grounds of obstructing humanitarian aid delivery to the Tigray region.
Hermela
Aregawi’s view of the conflict in northern Ethiopia, including aid
delivery and alleged blockade of it, seems to have changed.
In fact, she said it in her three parts tweet:
“My
perspective on Tigray evolved bc of inconsistencies I’ve seen &
heard in 10+ mnths. I stayed quiet for mnths hoping to see a shift
towards peace & truth bc lives of millions – including my families’ –
depend on it. There was no such shift. #Ethiopia 1/3 … If you’re going
to label this a genocide from Day 2 then you can’t also try to control
efforts to send life-saving basics to the poor ppl in it. Likely
millions$ raised in diaspora but little to no accountability about where
it’s going. To fund a civil war? #Tigray #Ethiopia 2/3 …We’ve seen
counts of # of civilians killed in Tigray, but how many young soldiers
have been killed fighting this questionable war? Diasporans should have
the conscience to ask these ?s before continuing to blindly support an
ethnic-based war in the year of 2021. #Ethiopia 3/3”
Reacting
to a picture of a child affected by famine, she tweeted “Heartbreaking
images. I care enough to ask this ?: If it’s true @UN claims that
Ethiopian govt has aid blockade in effect, how is it @UNEthiopia
recently reported 466 aid trucks went into Tigray since July 12? A claim
neither side of the conflict denied.”
It
was only last week that the UN branch office in Ethiopia disclosed that
only 38 of 466 trucks that went to the Tigray region returned.
Ethiopia’s Ministry of Peace has confirmed the claim by the UN office.
Unverified video footage circulating on social media showed the trucks
being used by the TPLF to transport its forces to the battle front in
the Amhara region ,one of the regions where the TPLF took its war after
the Ethiopian Defense Force withdrew from Tigray region at the end of
June following unilateral declaration by the Ethiopian government.
Ethiopians
who have been trying to expose TPLF crimes on Twitter have been hailing
Hermela for standing for the truth. In reaction to her inquisitive
remark about Associated Press statement published on September 20,
Teshome Borago wrote :
“You are good woman of honor
Please
know that the writer of this article Cara Anna recently justified z mass
killing of Amharas in #ChenaMassacre by saying the Amhara civilian
victims were fighting back vs TPLF
These Westerners just want us Ethiopians to fight forever”
Many
other Ethiopians have been expressing appreciation for Hermela for what
she has revealed and for being inquisitive about narratives that were
rather regarded as distorted despite they seem to have been used by
policy makers including in the U.S government.
Last week, president Joe Biden signed an executive order approving action regimes against Ethiopia.
midwesterndoctor | In the 1990s, school shootings transition from being very rare to a
frequent facet of American life. As this timeline overlaps with the
entrance of SSRIs to the US market, many articles have evaluated the
link between mass shootings and psychiatric medications. I will quote a
one of the more comprehensive summaries (written in 2013) which attempted to analyze all known mass shootings:
•Eric
Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18
(Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students
and one teacher and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves.
Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public.
[A detailed summary of the clear contribution of the psychiatric
medication's to their mass shootings can be found here].
•Jeff
Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the
average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his
grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake,
Minnesota. He then shot himself. Ten dead, 12 wounded.
•Cory
Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on
Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to
his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the
event.
•Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.
•Kip
Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they
slept then went to school and opened fire, killing two classmates and
injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.
•Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.
•A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed standoff at his school.
•Michael
Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school
prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed,
five others were wounded.
•Andrew Golden, age 11,
(Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people,
killing four students, one teacher, and wounding ten others.
•TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his classmates.
•James
Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South
Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing
two young girls and wounding seven other children and two teachers.
•Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania
•Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon, California
•Neal
Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported having been
court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.
•Hammad
Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had
been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and “other
drugs for his conditions.”
•Matti Saari, a 22-year-old
culinary student, shot and killed nine students and a teacher, and
wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an
SSRI and a benzodiazapine.
•Steven Kazmierczak, age 27,
shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself
in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his
girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax, and Ambien.
Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in
his system.
•Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18,
had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and
wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.
•Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.
•Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his New York high school.
The
article also discussed a few recent school shootings where the
information to determine if a psychiatric medication was used was not
available:
•What drugs was Jared Lee Loughner on, age 21…… killed six people and injuring 14 others in Tuscon, Az? [I was unable to locate any information on this case]
•What drugs was James Eagan Holmes on, age 24….. killed 12 people and injuring 59 others in Aurora Colorado? [Holmes was on Zoloft, which likely triggered violent behaviors in him in the weeks preceding the mass shooting, all of which his psychiatrist ignored.]
•What drugs was Adam Peter Lanza on, age 20, Killed 26 and wounded 2 in Newtown Ct.? [Lanza was later confirmed
to have been prescribed Celexa in the past and was on a questionable
antipsychotic, fanapt, known for inducing violent behavior at the time
of the shooting]
Since the time this article was published, there have been four additional large school shootings:
•Christopher Harper-Mercer (2015) who killed 10 was likely on psychiatric medication but there is no definitive proof.
•Nikolas Cruz (2017) who killed 17 was likely on on psychiatric medication but there is no definitive proof.
•Dimitrios
Pagourtzis (2018) who killed 10 was probably not on a psychiatric
medication. His attorney said he was not (which may have been a
deceitful legal maneuver, but most likely was the truth), while the
president of the NRA said he was (and I was not able to determine his
basis for this assertion).
Lastly, for Salvador Ramos (2022) who
recently killed 22, there have been many posts stating he was on
antidepressants, but while there is some circumstantial evidence
suggesting this, there is presently no reliable information to confirm
or deny it. For a more detailed summary of my thoughts on this matter,
please see this comment.
Here’s what we know so far, based on haunting videos
from the scene outside Robb Elementary School and statements from
police officials themselves. Salvador Ramos murdered 21 people. Despite
earlier, misleading claims from law enforcement officials, it appears
that no police officers engaged with the shooter before he entered the
school. Instead of rushing in to protect the children and staff when
reports of a gunman approaching the school were made at 11:30 a.m.,
police instead waited outside and aggressively confronted
parents who were begging them to enter. The parents were threatened
with arrest — one cop brandished a Taser — as they attempted to access
the school to save their kids themselves.
One mother who was urging the police to enter the building, Angeli Rose Gomez, was handcuffed.
When she was released, she managed to run into the school, grab her
kids, and bring them out to safety, which is the alleged job of the
police. According to one Texas Department of Public Safety lieutenant interviewed by local news, some officers did run into the school — but only to grab their own children.
The Border Patrol SWAT team that eventually engaged with and killed
the shooter — 40 minutes to an hour after first shots were reported —
was not able to break down the door to the classroom where the killer
was holed up with more children. A staff member had to unlock it with a
key. According to the chilling firsthand account
of a fourth grader in the room, cops told children to yell “if you need
help”; when one little girl did, the gunman immediately shot her.
The police failed at protecting the schoolchildren, yes, but we
should not be under the illusion that this is an example of the cops
failing at their jobs. As far we can tell from reports, police at the
scene acted as they usually do, in accordance with standard policing
practice: Rather than risk a hail of gunfire to stop the killer, they kept themselves safe.
As Akela Lacy noted on Wednesday in The Intercept, the approach is not an outlier: “As the number of school resource officers has ballooned over the last two decades, so has the number of school shootings. There is no evidence that police have the ability to stop these shootings from happening.”
WaPo | The Washington Post has spent years tracking how many children
have been exposed to gun violence during school hours since the
Columbine High massacre in 1999.
Beyond the
dead and wounded, children who witness the violence or cower behind
locked doors to hide from it can be profoundly traumatized.
The
federal government does not track school shootings, so The Post pieced
together its numbers from news articles, open-source databases, law
enforcement reports and calls to schools and police departments.
While
school shootings remain rare, there were more in 2021 — 42 — than in
any year since at least 1999. So far this year, there have been at least
24 acts of gun violence on K-12 campuses during the school day.
The count now stands at more than 311,000 children at 331 schools.
The Post has found that at least 185 children, educators and other people have been killed in assaults, and another 369 have been injured.
The Post’s search for more shootings will continue, and it’s
possible reporters will locate additional incidents from previous years.
Hundreds of outlets cover the deadliest
attacks, such as the Feb. 14 rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in
Parkland, Fla., where a 19-year-old man with an AR-15 rifle killed 17
people.
Others are covered by a single
newspaper, such as a 2001 shooting at Pearl C. Anderson Middle School in
Dallas, where a 14-year-old boy held a revolver to a girl’s chest and
asked her whether she was “ready to die” before a bullet fired, grazing
her hand.
Even as the list of incidents has expanded, however, the trend lines have remained consistent.
Among The Post’s most important findings: the disproportionate impact of school shootings on children of color.
dailybeast | As families in this rural town prepare to bury the 19 children and two adults gunned down
in a brutal school massacre this week, they are left shell-shocked by
not only the devastation the gunman wrought, but by the revelation that,
as they see it, those who were sworn to protect and serve them did just
the opposite.
“While those babies were in there dying, they stood
there with their thumbs in their asses trying to figure out what to
do,” said Roger Garza, a friend of the family of teacher Irma Garcia, who was killed by the gunman as she tried to shield her fourth-grade students.
“I
mean don’t we pay them to rush in and protect people? Somebody needs to
be held accountable for this,” Garza told The Daily Beast.
“We were waiting outside and yelling about how we wanted to go in and
storm the classroom,” said Javier Cazares, whose fourth-grade daughter,
Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack. “I came running and the
police were in a panic trying to figure out what to do. Now we know
children, including my daughter, were dying in there. That is what
hurts. Knowing they could have maybe protected her and those other
kids.”
Cazares wants to know why they didn’t do anything; it is a question that everyone here is asking.
“While
those children sat in there with this madman, as many as 19 officers
had to think about what to do,” said Ignacio Perez, who was doing his
best to comfort Cazares. “I promise you these parents had a plan and
were ready to act on it. Where was the bravery? In those kids. That is
where it was.”
Amid the growing outrage over the botched police response,
authorities in Uvalde have reportedly called in reinforcements from
around the state to protect the local officers from potential threats.
The
additional cops, from various agencies in other jurisdictions, will
supplement Uvalde’s ranks for an unspecified period, and will also
provide security for the mayor, officials with the Texas Police Chiefs Association told CBS DFW.
In
the immediate aftermath of the May 24 massacre at Robb Elementary, Gov.
Greg Abbott lauded the police response, insisting that officers had
acted heroically and saved numerous lives. But he lashed out angrily
when a different narrative later emerged, saying he was “livid” over
having been “misled.” Federal agents on the scene said no one seemed to be in charge, and at one point, agonized parents waiting outside considered rushing the school themselves.
One Uvalde cop claimed there “was almost a mutiny,” telling People magazine that he and his colleagues “felt like cowards” for not storming the building earlier.
usnews | The European Commission proposed on Wednesday to make breaking European
Union sanctions against Russia a crime, a move that would allow EU
governments to confiscate assets of companies and individuals that evade
EU restrictions against Moscow.
Breaking EU sanctions on Russia is
now a criminal offence in 12 EU countries. It is either an
administrative or a criminal offence in 13 and two treat it only as an
administrative offence, Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said.
Penalties for sanction breaking across the EU vary accordingly.
The
Commission proposal aims to unify that approach to make sanctions
evasion a serious crime in all members of the 27-nation bloc, he told a
news conference.
"Today's
proposals aim to ensure that the assets of individuals and entities that
violate the restrictive measures can be effectively confiscated in the
future," the Commission said in a statement.
The EU has so far frozen 10 billion
euros in physical assets and more than 20 billion euros in bank accounts
of Russian oligarchs helping the Kremlin's war effort in Ukraine.
But
before these assets could be confiscated and sold off, the oligarchs
would first have to be convicted of either trying to evade sanctions or
of other crimes and the assets seized would have to be linked to that
crime only.
The new EU law,
which has to be unanimously approved by all EU governments and get a
majority in the European Parliament, would also penalise those who help
break sanctions, like lawyers or bankers working with those who
circumvent restrictions.
The
Commission also proposed to make it generally easier to confiscate
assets of criminals in the EU, making it possible to impose an immediate
freezing order to prevent the assets from being moved, before a proper
court order confirms it.
The
Commission estimates annual revenues of criminal gangs in the EU at 139
billion euros, only 2% of which become frozen by the authorities. Only
half of the frozen assets are later confiscated.
americansforprosperity | What happens when the federal government blatantly violates a court
order and takes the property of citizens who are not under criminal
suspicion?
Why should innocent property owners have to prove their innocence in order to get their property back from the government?
These
are a few of the questions that have come into play when law
enforcement agencies seized private property through the most recent
horror story involving civil asset forfeiture.
In
this ongoing case in California, federal agents exceeded their
authority, took property from citizens not even under criminal
suspicion, and are refusing to give it back unless they can successfully
navigate the government’s demands.
The stories of these
people are unfortunately not the first example of the government
violating our rights in this manner, but they are certainly not any less
shocking.
The raid on U.S. Private Vaults
On March 22,
2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Agency
acted under a warrant to shut down a Beverly Hills, California business
called U.S. Private Vaults.
USPV provided bank-style safety deposit boxes to customers who wanted anonymity.
Through biometric identifiers, or a nondescript key, boxholders could
store valuables without ever having to identify themselves by name.
Prosecutors say it was a criminal business however, and a grand jury indicted the company on charges of conspiracies to launder money, distribute controlled substances, and structure transactions.
The
warrant authorizing the raid allowed investigators to seize a list of
items, including deposit box keys, money counters, biometric scanners,
security cameras, and computers.
There’s no public
indication however, that law enforcement had specific information about
criminal suspects with boxes there or had identified boxes that held
ill-gotten gains from specific crimes. And the warrant specifically prohibited law enforcement from seizing the contents of the more than 800 privately held safe deposit boxes at the business:
This
warrant does not authorize a criminal search or seizure of the contents
of safety deposit boxes … in accordance with their written policies,
agents shall inspect the contents of the boxes in an effort to identify
their owners in order to notify them so that they can claim their
property.
That restriction was ignored. Prosecutors seized the contents of the boxes, intentionally casting a wide net that took in all customers, innocent or otherwise. The FBI now says it intends to hold onto $85 million in cash, and an unspecified haul of gold, silver, and precious metals.
On
June 22, U.S. District Judge Gary Klausner found that the FBI “provides
no factual basis for the seizure of Plaintiffs’ property,” and issued a temporary injunction against the seizures.
treasury.gov | The
Treasury Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture (TEOAF) administers the
Treasury Forfeiture Fund (TFF). The TFF is the receipt account for
deposit of non-tax forfeitures made pursuant to laws enforced or
administered by Treasury and Department of Homeland Security agencies.
About
Established in 1992, the Treasury Executive Office for Asset
Forfeiture (TEOAF) was established to affirmatively influence the
consistent and strategic use of asset forfeiture to disrupt and
dismantle criminal enterprises. Asset forfeiture is a vital legal tool
that serves a number of compelling law enforcement purposes and is
designed to deprive criminals of the proceeds of their crimes, to break
the financial backbone of organized criminal syndicates and drug
cartels, and to recover property that may be used to compensate victims
and deter crime.
TEOAF administers the Treasury Forfeiture Fund (TFF), which is the
receipt account for the deposit of non-tax forfeitures made pursuant to
laws enforced or administered by Treasury and Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) law enforcement agencies:
Other statutory member agencies include the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network (FinCEN), and the Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
The TFF is a special fund, i.e. a federal fund collection earmarked
by law for a specific purpose. The enabling legislation for TFF (Title
31 U.S.C. § 9705) defines those purposes for which Treasury forfeiture
revenue may be used. The funds can be allocated and used without the
enactment of an annual appropriation by the Congress.
TEOAF’s priorities in administering the Treasury forfeiture program are to:
Administer and manage the Treasury Forfeiture Fund (TFF) program
in a fiscally responsible manner that seeks to minimize administrative
costs and maximize the benefits for law enforcement and the compensation
of eligible victims.
Ensure program policies protect due process rights of individuals.
Focus resources on strategic cases and investigations that
result in actions against high profile criminals and criminal
enterprises to affect the greatest financial damage to criminal
organizations.
Foster a strong working relationship between federal and state or local law enforcement agencies.
Additional information about the TFF is included in the following Treasury orders and Directives:
We are
marking Africa Day today, a holiday that symbolises the African peoples’
unbending will and uncompromising struggle in the name of freedom and
independence.
Russia
has played a leading role in decolonisation and in consolidating
decolonisation processes, as well as drafting UN resolutions.
Unfortunately, some of them have been sabotaged by former metropolises
to this day. We stand in solidarity with your demands for the complete
liberation of Africa from the last vestiges of colonial legacy.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Allow me to read out President Vladimir Putin’s message to heads of state and government of African countries.
Please accept
my warmest wishes on Africa Day, a holiday symbolising the aspirations
of the countries on your continent for freedom, independence, peace
and prosperity.
This year
marks 20 years since the Organisation of African Unity was transformed
into the African Union. That change marked the emergence
of a multilateral pan-African platform on a qualitatively higher level
of interaction in the political, socioeconomic and other spheres.
African
states have achieved a great deal together over the past two decades.
They have developed mechanisms for a collective response to local
conflicts and crises, and are consistently promoting regional
integration processes in various formats. Africa
enjoys growing prestige on the global stage and plays an increasingly
important role in resolving important issues on the international
agenda.
Our country
has always placed particular emphasis on expanding friendly relations
with our African partners. The Russia-Africa Summit held in Sochi
in 2019 paved the way for expanding fruitful cooperation, both
bilaterally and multilaterally. I am confident that by rallying
together, we will be able to ensure the development and implementation
of many useful and innovative projects and initiatives in various fields
for the benefit of our countries and peoples, in the interests
of strengthening security and stability in Africa and around the world.
I wish you
good health and every success in your public endeavours , as well as
peace, well-being and prosperity to your fellow citizens.
Vladimir Putin.
There is no
doubt that we can do more above and beyond the existing level of
political and economic integration within the African Union. I am
confident that our friends will continue to move forward and fulfill
their goals in the interest of ensuring the well-being and prosperity of
their respective countries.
We will
continue to provide comprehensive support and to expand mutually
beneficial cooperation. Russian-African relations are traditionally
friendly and are making good progress.
Russia has always been and will remain a reliable partner and friend to the countries of Africa. Today, we are confronted with certain Western countries’ unscrupulous attempts to constrain our engagement with Africa. I’m referring to the all-out hybrid war against Russia declared by Washington
and its European satellites in connection with the special military
operation in Ukraine, the reasons for which you are well aware of.
It is not so much about Ukraine,
which is used as a bargaining chip in the global anti-Russian game. The
main problem is that a small group of US-led Western countries keeps
trying to impose the concept of a rules-based world order on the
international community. They use this banner to promote, without any
hesitation, a unipolar model of the world order where there are
“exceptional” countries and everyone else who must obey the “club of the
chosen.”
The
US congressmen who are busy drafting a law on countering “malign
Russian activities in Africa” are an integral part of this neo-colonial
policy. The United States and its allies are pursuing a similar policy
regarding Africa's cooperation with the People's Republic of China.
The attempts
to reverse history and to subjugate the peoples of the continent once
again grossly violate the sovereignty and independence of the countries
of that region. They jeopardise the entire international relations
system that relies on the UN Charter and the principle of respect for
the sovereign equality of states.
It pleases me
to state that African countries have adopted a balanced and objective
stance with regard to the developments in Ukraine. We know that the
African countries openly oppose the Western countries’ unceremonious
behaviour. I’m confident that our friends will not succumb to
Washington's discriminatory pressure. We highly appreciate your
willingness to further expand the political dialogue with our country
and to build up cooperation in the economy, culture and other spheres.
In the
interests of our peoples, it is important to work together to maintain
and expand mutually beneficial trade and investment ties in the new
circumstances in order to be able to rely on dependable supply and
finance mechanisms that are protected against external interference. It
is important to facilitate the mutual access of Russian and African
economic operators to each other's markets and to encourage their
engagement in major infrastructure projects.
These tasks
are central to preparations for the second Russia-Africa summit. In
conjunction with our African friends, we hope to agree on the variables
for holding the summit and its content soon.
We know that
African countries are among the most vulnerable in terms of food
security. Some of them are critically dependent on agricultural imports
from Russia. We are aware that these supplies are of great importance
for maintaining social stability and achieving the benchmarks stipulated
by the UN-approved Sustainable Development Goals.
I would like
to reassure everyone that Russia is fulfilling and will continue to
honestly fulfil its obligations under international contracts in terms
of export supplies of food, fertilisers, energy and other commodities
that Africa needs.
At the same
time, we call on our friends, the African Union, to strongly demand that
the West lift illegal unilateral sanctions that undermine the transport
and supply infrastructure that international trade depend on, which
creates risks for vulnerable groups of the population. Africa’s voice
must be heard. The UN Secretary General must adopt a more principled
stance on this matter.
I’d be remiss
not to mention professional training which is a traditional sphere of
our partnership. About 27,000 African students are studying in our
country. The Government has decided to gradually increase the annual
quota of students admitted from Africa. In addition to student
exchanges, we will continue to focus on expanding and deepening social,
scientific, youth and sports contacts.
Colleagues, friends,
I would like
once again to wish us all a happy holiday and peace and prosperity to
our countries and peoples. I wish you personally and your loved ones
good health, successes, prosperity and all the best.
NakedCapitalism | As even legacy media outlets in the West (including El PaÃs, the Financial Times and Foreign Policy)
are conceding, the US is fast losing influence not only globally but
also within its own neighborhood. And it needs to change tack, fast.
While China was able to pull off a smoothly run virtual summit with
Latin American and Caribbean foreign ministers in December, culminating
in a unanimously agreed three-year action plan, the Biden Administration
has managed to antagonize many of the region’s leaders even before
sending out invites to the Summit.
This is after failing to give Latin America and the Caribbean the
attention it deserves, even as Washington hopes to reassert influence in
the region. The Biden Administration has not even sent
ambassadors to many of the region’s nations, including Brazil, Chile,
Panama, Haiti, Salvador, Panama, Bolivia and Cuba. Even more incredible,
it has not even nominated an ambassador to the Organization of American
States (OAS), the organization that organizes the Americas Summit.
As Anguilar notes, Washington will need to buck its ideas up if it
wants to maintain a leadership role in the region. That will mean
changing the way it treats many of its neighbors:
In Washington’s list of priorities should be, without a
doubt, not taking for granted that these Latin American countries will
be aligned with the United States.
This is especially true given the recent election of left-of-center
governments in Bolivia, Honduras, Argentina, Peru, Chile and the likely
electoral triumphs of Gustavo Petro in Colombia this coming weekend and
Lula in Brazil in October. Many countries in the region are no longer
willing to accept Washington’s insistence on democratic credentials,
particularly given Washington’s own predilection for supporting brutal
autocracies in other parts of the world as well as its long history of
toppling democratically elected nations in Latin America (and beyond).
The irony has not been lost on the US’ biggest geostrategic rival,
Beijing, which is determined to take advantage of perceived US weakness
in the Americas. “Instead of benefiting Latin America . . . the US has
brought Latin America wanton exploitation, wilful sanctions, inflation,
political interference, regime change, assassination of politicians and
even armed aggression,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said last week.
Unlike the US, China generally does not try to dictate how its
trading partners should behave and what sorts of rules, norms,
principles and ideology they should adhere to. What China does — or at
least has by and large done over the past few decades until now — is to
trade with and invest in countries that have goods — particularly
commodities — it covets. As Anguilar notes, it has worked a treat in
Latin America and the Caribbean:
What China is doing in Latin America is what it is doing
in other regions, through its infrastructure initiatives, generating a
tremendous volume of trade. In the last 20 years, China has gone from
investing $18 billion to $450 billion, with projects ranging from
nuclear power plants in Argentina, the Bogotá Metro, not to mention the
[$64 billion of] trade generated with Venezuela, which allows Venezuela
to subsist.
China is very important, because for the United States it really is
the new adversary… I believe that this has them very concerned — as it
well should… If [Latin American countries] only think in the short term,
[they] can also commit the enormous error of ceding sovereignty to a
superpower like China. If China buys up ports in Chile, what
implications does it have for geopolitics, sovereignty and security?
In an urgent effort at damage control, Washington dispatched a team
to bend AMLO’s ear last week. Since then US Ambassador to Mexico Ken
Salazar has called in on Mexico’s National Palace so many times that
some pundits have quipped that he may as well install an office next to
AMLO’s. Washington has also pledged a partial relaxation of restrictions
on Cuba. But it could all be too little, too late.
AMLO has said he will confirm his attendance definitively today
(Friday, May 27). Personally speaking, I think it is unlikely that
Washington’s paltry concessions will be enough to twist AMLO’s arm,
though I could be wrong. The decision to invite Spain to the conference
is unlikely to help matters either given AMLO’s recent clashes with
Madrid, particularly over his proposed energy reforms.
Even if the Biden Administration wanted to make bigger concessions,
its hands are most likely tied by electoral considerations, particularly
in Florida. Once the perennial swing state, Florida has been taking on a
deep shade of red of late, but is still considered key to the
Democrat’s electoral ambitions for this November’s mid-terms. Any
significant concessions given by Biden to Latin America’s “axis of evil”
(Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua) will be seized upon by Republicans as a
gesture of appeasement. And that sort of messaging is likely to be
lapped up by many within the Latin American diaspora in Florida.
Even more concerning is the fact that Washington does not seem to be
able or willing to change its ways when it comes to regional relations.
Margaret Thatcher’s classic dictum “there is no alternative” (Aka TINA)
appears to be the name of the game.
The US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations last week put forward
the “Upholding the Inter-American Democratic Charter Act of 2022.” The
proposed “bipartisan” legislation includes initiatives aimed at
“strengthening” US cooperation with the OAS, which AMLO himself has
talked about replacing with a “body that is truly autonomous and not
anybody’s lackey,” as well as addressing “ongoing and emerging threats
to democratic governance in the hemisphere, including on issues related
to election interference, dis/misinformation, and corruption.”
Same Old, Same Old
If passed, the legislation will attempt (and most likely fail) to
reinstall the US as the dominant force in the region, with zero
tolerance for governments that do not meet its high standards of
democratic governance.
“While important progress has been made to advance good governance
and the rule of law since the signing of the Inter-American Democratic
Charter, we must recognize the fact that the Western Hemisphere is not
immune to the current wave of democratic decline and creeping
authoritarianism facing the world. From Havana to Caracas, Managua to
San Salvador, now is the time to bolster the United States’ diplomatic
strategy to help confront challenges that are threatening the
underpinnings of the Charter’s norms and principles,” said Chairman
Menendez.
Washington still appears to be blind to the actual aspirations, needs
and interests of the countries south of the Rio Grande. It is also
apparently blind to its own democratic decline and creeping
authoritarianism. It seems to be incapable of thinking in anything but
neo-colonial terms. It does not want to listen to its counterparts or
treat them as equals; instead it will continue to impose — or at least
try to impose — its own political system and values on others while
ensuring they continue to adhere to US economic and geo-strategic
interests.
sputnik | "Mexican President López Obrador has increased the risk of embarrassing Biden,
who will be the host of the meeting in Los Angeles, as he has already
announced that his country will not participate in the summit with the
absence of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua," says Gustavo Guerreiro,
executive editor of the journal World Tensions and a member of the
Brazilian Centre for Solidarity with Peoples and Struggle for Peace
(CEBRAPAZ). "The likely boycott of the summit denotes the collapse of US
hegemony over Latin America."
Honduran
President Xiomara Castro de Zelaya stated on Twitter that "if not all
nations are present, it's not a Summit of the Americas." For his part,
Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez said that he would participate
in the meeting but cited deep concerns about excluding nations.
Meanwhile,
Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei said last Tuesday that he
would not attend after Washington barred Maria Consuelo Porras, the
country's top prosecutor, and her family.
"Giammattei said he would not participate in the Americas summit after
the US criticized the appointment of Guatemala Attorney General,
Consuelo Porras, for another four years," says Guerreiro. "This is yet
another case of the US interference in the internal affairs of another
country. President Giammattei said that although his country is small,
his sovereignty must be respected."
US Lost Control in Latin America
Meanwhile,
the US is scrambling to avoid a boycott. On 19 May, US special adviser,
former Senator Chris Dodd, tried to persuade the Mexican president to
visit the SOA summit. The same day, the Biden administration pointed the
finger of blame at Cuba for "fuelling controversy over its possible
exclusion" from the summit to portray the US as a "bad guy."
"It
is not justified at all," Guerreiro highlights. "On the contrary,
Washington insists on maintaining a criminal embargo, which imposes
seemingly endless draconian economic and political sanctions, which
mainly penalise the population of Cuba. Cuba has every right to manifest
against any form of isolation that hegemonic power imposes on him."
On
23 May, the US signaled that it was looking for ways to represent the
people of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua in the upcoming SOA: "We are
still evaluating options on how to best incorporate the voices of the
Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan people into the summit process," a US
state department official said.
However,
Guerreiro forecasts that these attempts are likely to be opposed by a
bipartisan coalition of American politicians: "One of those in the
campaign against Cuba's participation is Senator Robert Menendez, a New
Jersey Cuban-American Democrat who heads the Senate Foreign Affairs
Committee," he says.
The
scholar notes that the controversy surrounding the summit shows deep
changes in Washington's traditional perception of Latin America as its
backyard. "The US no longer governs the region," he says.
At
the same time, the US is at pains to maintain the crumbling status quo
and has difficulties in establishing working relations with left-wing
democratic governments of Latin America, according to the scholar.
"The
US remains a great world power and will probably continue to be,"
Guerreiro says. "However, they can no longer command Latin America as
before. Of course, there are differences between some leaders, this is
natural. However, the US command is no longer accepted and there is
awareness that Latin American countries are capable of forming a bloc of
common interests."
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