The CIA and the Assassination of Zairean President Patrice Lamumba

Brian Burden, one of the great commenters on this blog, posed this question on my review of History Debunked’s video about the real brutality and evil of the hero of the film Hotel Rwanda:

“My question is, what did the UN actually do to stop the massacres? Sod all, it seems. They did not even do the obvious thing and dynamite the radio-station which was pouring out non-stop incitement to the Hutus to go out and murder Tutsis. There is a pattern here. In 1960(?) UN peacekeepers, called into the Congo by elected leader Patrice Lumumba to quell a rebellion by the Civil Guard, confiscated their weapons on arrival, but shortly afterwards, on orders from above, handed them back! When UN representative Conor O’Brien took serious steps to end the illegal secession of mineral-rich Katanga, he was promptly recalled. Next, UN “peace-keepers” stood by while Katangese troops seized and beat Lumumba – the man who had called the UN in in the first place – and then took him away and murdered him. According to a report in the Sunday Express, UN troops riding in an open truck at the back of a passenger train they were supposed to be protecting, sat tight while rebels stopped the train and massacred the passengers. In 1967, UN peace-keepers occupying the border area between Israel and Egypt withdrew without a demur when Nasser ordered them out so that he could launch an attack on Israel. No thanks to the UN that Israel resisted and prevailed. Has there ever been a conflict where UN peace-keepers have justified their title? Were they in former Yugoslavia facilitating the bloodshed, I wonder? Can’t be bothered to check!”

This is deep question, one that probably needs a whole book to itself. I don’t think the Peacekeepers facilitated the horrors in the former Yugoslavia, but there certainly were occasions when they did absolutely nothing to stop them. The massacre of Srebrenica, which was supposed to be a safe haven, is an example of this. From what I gather UN forces simply left and let the Serbs enter and massacre at will. I have come across a book by a Muslim author suggesting that the UN and British presence in Yugoslavia is part of a covert plot to guard the oil pipeline coming up through the Balkans. The same book also suggests, however, that the 7/7 bombings were also a false flag operation by the intelligence services to provide a pretext for the various invasions, but I don’t really believe this.

However, Susan Williams’ book, White Malice, shows that Patrice Lamumba of Zaire was overthrown and murdered by the CIA. Zaire was the supplier of the type of uranium used in the Manhattan Project which created the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Americans were desperate to retain control of the mines producing the uranium and had Lamumba killed because he was felt to be too close to Communism.

Lobster quotes Williams’, showing that the Americans were operating secretly in the Congo with the CIA’s predecessor, the OSS.

“The OSS station in the Belgian Congo had a unique, top-secret mission: to protect the export of uranium from the Congo to America and to keep it out of enemy hands. Congolese ore was essential for the Manhattan Project, which produced the world’s first atomic weapons and was led by the United States, with some assistance from Britain and Canada. This uranium was used to build the first atomic bomb to be tested: the Trinity test in New Mexico, in July 1945, which launched the atomic age. It was also used to build the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki the following month—on 6 August and 9 August, respectively.

The source of the ore was the Shinkolobwe mine in Katanga, the southern province of the Congo. Shinkolobwe produced uranium that was far richer than any other uranium in the world: it assayed as high as 75 per cent uranium oxide, with an average of 65 per cent. By contrast, ores of marketable quality from the Colorado Plateau in the US and from Canada contained two-tenths of 1 per cent . . . .’ (pp. 30/31)”

The review states

“In retrospect it is obvious that any African leader in the Congo who didn’t swear allegiance to the American embassy and promise to let the US control the uranium was going to be disposed of. Patrice Lumumba, the nationalist Congolese leader at the time, didn’t understand this or didn’t care (which of
those isn’t clear to me) so he was ousted and killed. Williams devotes 250 pages to the Congo and the death of Lumumba. The events, military, political and diplomatic, preceding that murder are detailed day by day, sometimes even hour by hour. To justify the killing of Lumumba and the installation of an
American puppet, the CIA duly invented a ‘communist plot’.”

Lamumba is only one of a whole string of foreign politicians and heads of state, who have been assassinated or overthrown in American-backed coups. William Blum devotes a whole chapter to these in one of his books, and another chapter to US secret interference in foreign elections.

See: https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster82/lob82-cia-africa.pdf

Abby Martin on the Jimmy Dore Show Talks about US Crimes of Empire: Part 1

This is a longish segment – about half an hour – from the Jimmy Dore Show, in which the two discuss the horrors of US imperialism abroad, domestic oppression and exploitation at home, and the complicity of the mainstream media. Martin is the presenter of The Empire Files on TeleSur English, the South American alternative broadcaster. The show was formerly hosted by RT, for which Martin has been pilloried as a ‘Commie’ and ‘collaborator’. Despite the fact that she has never said anything in prize of the arkhiplut Putin, the latest Kremlin silovik kleptocrat.

With her intelligence and fierce determination to tell the story she wants, Martin comes across to me like a younger, far more politically motivated and impassioned version of Kate Adie, the Beeb journo, who once put the fear of the Almighty into Colonel Qaddafy. It shows the major failings of US mainstream media that, as talented and committed as she is, she does not have her own show on the national networks. I’m a great fan of The Young Turks, and was delighted when they sent Nomiki Kunst over here to talk to the peeps at the Labour party conference back in October. I wish she’d come over this side of the Pond to do something over here. Our politicos are also neoliberal, neocon puppets for the War on Terror. I heartily wish we had someone like her on British TV. Instead, all we’ve got are the corporate shills from Murdoch, the Barclay Twins and Paul Dacre, who turn up occasionally on Have I Got News For You. People like Julia Hartley-Brewer.

The show begins with Dore paying tribute to the how intelligent her work is, calling it ‘Talk smart’. The two then joke about how she’s accused of being a ‘Russia-bot’ to the point where even she’s wondering if she’s human or just an on-line AI. They then go on to discuss her show, The Empire Files. She states that she’s trying to do what Oliver Stone did in his history of the US – covering the untold history of America, and particularly US imperialism. She takes the view that history is written by the victor, but she wants to give the stories of the marginalised, the excluded. The victims of Empire, and counter the dominant story told by the corporate media. She states that she has been most proud of going on location to places like Palestine. Now that she isn’t in RT, she has complete journalistic freedom, and so could spend four weeks in Palestine simply listening to its people. She states that everything, every issue, needs to be examined through the lens of Empire. She admires Dore’s show, because he also talks about the warmongering and imperialism. She states that the First World has risen on the backs of the colonised.

Dore replies by saying that Judah Friedlander, another comedian he’s had on his show, said he learned from travelling around the world that different peoples have a different perspective. Like in Vietnam they don’t talk about the Vietnam War. They talk about the War with the Americans. They also discuss how America is the world’s biggest purveyor of terrorism, as shown by Iraq, and the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But when you talk about how horrendous that is, you just hear b*llshit from people about how the Japanese shouldn’t have bombed Pearl Harbour. Which by the same logic means that the Mexicans have every right to nuke the US for what the US has done to them.

They then dissect American exceptionalism. This is the belief that America can run rampant across the world, because America’s morally superior to every other country. They joke that it means that everyone else in the world gets healthcare, but not Americans. As for the reasons why Iran hates America, it’s because the US launched a coup against the last, democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq. And why are we friends with the Saudis? It’s because of the Petrodollar. Kerry even went and publicly admitted it.

They then talk about whether Americans really understand the crimes that are being committed in their nation’s name, or whether they do, but the mechanism does not exist for them to influence their lords and masters in Congress. Martin states that it’s the latter, though she doesn’t think that the great American public truly understand how horrendous the situation really is. But she points to Trump as one indicator that people know to a certain extent what’s going on. Trump was elected partly because his rhetoric was occasionally anti-interventionist. People do see through this façade, but the mechanism to change anything isn’t there.

Dore concurs. He states that he’s a night club comedian. He switched to doing this show, because there was no proper media, not even the press. The media was pro-war, and attacked the critics, who opposed the invasions. Phil Donahue had the show with the highest ratings on CNN, but they sacked him because he spoke out against it. Ed Schulz got sacked from the New York Times because he opposed the TPP. Martin states that she joined RT because it was the only network that would allow her to tell this story. She and Dore then discuss the self-censorship of journos like Piers Morgan. Martin states that she paid for editorial freedom that others choose not to do. They then talk about how the media carries adverts for Boeing, the big American aerospace manufacturer and military contractor. As if ordinary peeps could afford to buy a plane.

To be continued in Part 2.

RT Footage of Workers’ Protests against Trump and Japanese Prime Minister

RT has put up this short clip of less than a minute in length, showing workers demonstrating in Tokyo against Donald Trump, who has gone on an official visit of their country, and their Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe.

The brief description for the video runs

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tokyo on Sunday in occasion of the 20th National Worker’s Meeting, to protest against the policies of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the visit of US President Donald Trump.
Protesters contested Abe’s economic plans in the realm of company privatisation, the country’s nuclear power policies and the US troops’ presence in Japan among other things.

The marchers bang drum, and as well as carrying placards, many of them also wear headbands bearing slogan. Some of the placards have the slogans in English ‘No War’, ‘No Poverty’, ‘No Trump’. Trump and Abe are hanged in effigy, and there’s a performance in which a man, masked and dressed as Trump, is attacked and buried under cardboard boxes, bearing the words ‘War’, ‘Poverty’, ‘Kairoshi’. I’ve no idea what the last means, except it’s probably a very Japanese concept describing some godawful aspect of the present administration.

I am really not at all surprised that Japanese working people are protesting. As is notorious, they work extremely hard, but the continuing problems of the Japanese economy mean that people are being laid off, and there is very little in the way of a state welfare system to support them. A few years ago the BBC did a piece on the current state of the Japanese economy, and showed some of the victims living in tents under a bridge. One of these poor homeless souls came up to explain a few things to the programme’s host. According to the presenter, it was a bitter complaint about the government and the economy.

I am also not at all surprised at their anger against Trump. The orange buffoon’s aggressive stance towards North Korea, threatening to go to nuclear war with the Stalinist thug, is obviously going to frighten a nation that stands pretty much in the firing line. The last missile North Korea lobbed in America’s direction overflew them. The Japanese people probably remember only too well the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and are all too horrified by the prospect of a repeat.

The presence of American troops in Japan, where there’s a base on the island of Okinawa, is another major source of irritation. You may remember that there were also massive demonstrations against it a few years ago. I think that while the Cold War was on and Communism remained a threat, real or perceived, the Japanese were prepared to accept it. But now the Japanese, or at least a sizable part of them, see it as American occupation.

Trump and Putin Revive Nuclear Arms Race

Yesterday, Mike put up another piece commenting on statements by the American president-elect and Vladimir Putin that they want to strengthen their countries’ nuclear arsenals. Trump had made a tweet on Thursday saying “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

Trump did so the same day that Putin issued his own statement, declaring that “We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defence systems.”

Mike makes the point that the threat of nuclear Armageddon will not make the world more secure. It will not make rogue states like North Korea abandon their nuclear programmes. Instead, Mike urged us to listen to George Takei, whose family personally experienced the horror of the atomic bomb in Japan in World War II.

Star Trek’s Mr Sulu tweeted “Trump wants to expand our nuclear arsenal. I think of my aunt and baby cousin, found burnt in a ditch in Hiroshima. These weapons must go.”

Absolutely. I can remember the very large, and vocal demonstrations against nuclear weapons in Japan during the new Cold War of the 1980s. The Japanese had every good reason to demand the reduction and abandonment of the world’s nuclear arsenals: their country had experienced the terrible carnage produced by these horrific weapons.

Mike also reports that back in May, Trump also stated that he would support South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia acquiring nuclear weapons for their own protection.

See: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/12/23/why-are-trump-and-putin-suddenly-keen-to-revive-the-cold-war/

Mike’s also reported that Trump has followed up his idiotic tweet by making his intentions clear in an interview with Mika Brzezinski, one of the presenters on MSNBC’s Morning Joe programme. He said, ‘Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all’.

Mike makes the point that his comments risk needlessly inflaming tensions with Russia, pointing out that what is currently repeated in the western media about eastern Europe and the Middle East is propaganda designed to manipulate public opinion. He also argues that Putin could adopt the opposite approach, and concentrate on saving precious money and resources through the same policy, that has been considered by Labour Jeremy Corbyn. This means killing or otherwise neutralising terrorists’ leaders through surgical strikes, leaving them without effective military direction.

He also points out that technological weapons are also increasingly susceptible to infiltration and sabotage.

See: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/12/24/while-trump-spends-all-his-money-on-nuclear-weapons-what-will-the-russians-do/

Trump’s determination to ramp up America’s nuclear arsenal is bizarre, given his previous statements during his presidential campaign in which he deliberately gave the impression that he would be scaling down America’s military intervention around the globe. However, on examination this does seem very much in line with Trump’s determination to go back on every single one of his election promises, with the exception of repealing Obamacare.

Remember the noise he was making about going to Washington to ‘drain the swamp’, and would stop the corporate domination and corruption of Congress? That’s gone. After attacking Hillary for being a fully paid-up stooge for Wall Street, Trump has himself gone and appointed Wall Street bankers – including one from Goldman Sachs – to his cabinet. In fact, if anything, he’s increased the amount of corporate corruption. He’s allowed his daughter, Ivanka, to stay with him during negotiations with heads of government in either Japan or China, despite the fact that Ivanka Trump is also a businesswoman, who could use the information from these interviews to gain a clear economic advantage. And his sons have been raising money for their father by selling tickets to the extremely and not-quite-so filthy rich for them to attend dinners with him and go on hunting trips. All Trump’s talk about tackling corporate power has been a lie. Instead, it’s very much business as usual.

And it appears to be very much the same here. Counterpunch has published several articles over the past couple of months discussing how Barack Obama has been talking to senior military staff in Washington. He has already started to expand America’s stockpiles of nuclear weapons. He has also considered the possible use of low-megaton ‘battle field’ nukes in a limited nuclear war in Europe. The American comedian Jimmy Dore has several times ripped into Obama on his internet show, bitterly attacking the false image of the soon to be ex-president as some kind of dove and peacemaker. Far from stopping wars, Obama has carried on George Dubya’s brutal military policies in the Middle East, from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, as well as Libya and Somalia. And so this new policy, announced by Trump, really isn’t new at all. It is, as Max Headroom used to say, merely ‘more… of the same’. The difference here is that Max was a fictional character with a satirical edge talking about pop music. The pilot for his series, 20 Minutes into the Future, showed a decaying Britain with massive poverty and homelessness, dominated by ruthless and unscrupulous media corporations. It’s a dystopian vision that is still very relevant today, even if the human brain is far too complicated to be successfully mapped and modelled electronically to produce an AI like Max.

As for the reason behind this dangerous policy, Counterpunch also published a piece describing Hillary Clinton’s vision of America’s role in the world. She seemed to be intent on expanding America’s military power to the utmost. She and the rest of the hawks talked about ‘full spectrum domination’, which means that America is the superior, dominant military superpower with the ability to bomb everyone else back into submission. At the same time, her domestic policies were aimed at keeping the working class as poor and as desperate as possible, so that she could sell American products cheaply to the emerging east Asian market.

It’s also been argued that America spends so much on the military because it is the only way that the American state can stimulate the country’s economy. Leftwing commenters and political analysts have argued that the experience of the Second World War after the Great Depression taught the American industrial and political class that America needed state intervention to create prosperity. This is, however, the Keynsian economic position, which is vehemently rejected by the Republicans and Libertarians as ‘socialism’ or even ‘Communism’. The only way the American state can effectively intervene in the American economy in a manner that is ideologically acceptable, is by doing what the Nazis and Fascists did in Germany and Italy, and invest massively in a re-armament programme. And like the Fascist states, the state has to use its armed forces to maintain its investments and public support for the rearmament programme. This was part of the reason for the outbreak of the Second World War.

As for Trump’s statement that he is prepared to allow South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear weapons, this is grossly irresponsible. Especially in the case of Saudi Arabia. In the case of Japan, it unacceptable for the same reason that the country has difficulty launching its own spacecraft. In the 1980s Japan developed its own rocket launcher to carry its satellites and probes into space. One of these probes was amongst the small flotilla of spacecraft that met Halley’s Comet in 1986. From what I’ve read, the country has only used its launcher a few times because of fears that it would be taken as a missile attack by the Chinese. The same would be true of South Korea. Political scientists and foreign policy analysts have argued very strongly against threatening China, as they respond by passing on nuclear technology and armaments to other nations, such as Pakistan.

And I cannot imagine anything more stupid, more calculated to result a nuclear holocaust, than giving atomic weapons to Saudi Arabia. This is a militant theocracy that has sponsored horrific terror campaigns throughout the Middle East and against America itself. Elements within the Saudi aristocracy and political elite, including its intelligence minister and possibly, if I remember correctly, the current king, sponsored al-Qaeda and ISIS. Terrorist organisations like them, who use suicide bombers and deliberately target civilians, simply cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. But that is what would happen if Trump allowed Saudi Arabia to acquire them.

Trump’s renewal of the nuclear arms race is therefore simply a continuation of Bush’s, Obama’s and Hillary’s arms policies. And it’s insane. During the Cold War of the last century, there were at least three instances where NATO and the former Warsaw Pact were on the edge of full-scale nuclear war. We escaped some of these by the skin of our teeth. This time, we may not be so lucky.

The Young Turks: Trump Can’t Work Out Why America Doesn’t Use Nukes

This is the strongest argument yet for keeping The Donald well away from the White House, or indeed, civilised society. In this video, Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola discuss how Joe Scarborough, one of the big reporters in America, stated on his programme, Morning Joe, that a foreign policy advisor had told him that three times when he’d been talking to Trump, the coiffured megalomania had asked him, ‘Why don’t we use nukes?’ They state that this is the reason Trump has no foreign policy advisors around him, because they’re horrified by the man’s insane stupidity and bloodlust. Trump is just so round the bend that even General Haydn, whom Cenk Uygur, The Turks’ main anchor, loathes because the man is in favour of torture, mass wiretapping without warrant, and other human rights abuses, was shocked and outraged. The Turks make the point that the system is designed for efficiency, with the American President have the sole authority needed to launch nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear strike on the homeland. Of course, he could be blocked by the Vice President, but as they point out, the Vice President is legally bound to obey the president. If he doesn’t, he can be sacked, and another vice president appointed who is willing to comply.

They go on to make the point that Trump is so ignorant, he didn’t actually know who the ‘nuclear triad’ was – the West, Russia and China, if I recall, though at least three other countries also have nukes – Pakistan, India, and Israel, although the Israelis strongly deny it. They make the point that arms limitation and the unwillingness of the US or any other country has acted as a powerful incentive towards non-proliferation. However, if other countries feel threatened by the possibility of a nuclear attack, they will seek to acquire nukes to protect themselves. And Trump’s attitude is especially dangerous and irresponsible at this time of international tension and arms build-up between NATO and the Russian Federation. They discuss how Trump in one of his debates stated that he would be willing to use nuclear weapons. He was then asked if he would use them in Europe. No, said Trump, he could see no reason why he would want to use nuclear weapons in Europe. So, said his interlocutor, you’re not going to use nuclear weapons in Europe. Trump denied that as well, and said he wasn’t going to rule anything out. They ask rhetorically how this looks to Europeans and to the Japanese after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This European can answer that it looks extremely terrifying, and I imagine many, many other people over our great continent have the same views, particularly in Germany. The Germans don’t like nuclear power and there is a very strong campaign against the siting of American nuclear weapons in the Bundesrepublik. I can remember the campaign against nukes in the 1980s led by Petra Kelly. As for the Japanese, this must be particularly chilling to them, as they are the only nation to have suffered nuclear attack. It would be particularly interesting to know what the Japanese Christian church makes of this, as the Roman Catholic cathedral was directly underneath the bomb when it exploded. Christians in that particularly city – I can’t remember at the moment which one it was – see themselves as having been particularly martyred by the bomb. Of course, the majority of Japanese are Buddhists or practitioners of Shinto, or both, and I can remember a few years ago when there was a particular strong outcry from Japan against nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war. Among the peace campaigner were a group of survivors from the attack, terribly scarred by the blast. Japan is also similar to Germany in that America still has bases on its soil – in Okinawa – and its military presence is resented by many Japanese as a continuing occupation.

The Turks also point out that Trump is psychological unsuited to having control of American foreign policy because he is thin-skinned, and reacts with rage to any insult or challenge, real or perceived. And that brings the danger of war even closer.

Here’s the video: