Robert S. Rodvik: On "Liberation" and Lies

"A careful examination of U.S. foreign policy history reveals over 400 overt military interventions and over 6,000 covert interventions into at least 100 countries, killing millions of innocents. The first recorded use of U.S. Armed Forces abroad occurred in 1798 when the Marines were dispatched to Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. Eighty-five interventions later, the U.S. Armed Forces invaded the Hawaiian Islands in 1889 to protect U.S. "interests" in the coastal city of Honolulu. Several hundred more interventions occurred between 1890 and the present. The Marines have been practicing and refining their destabilizing intervention techniques into coastal cities for 200 years. Virtually all of these interventions have violated international laws."
- (Who are the REAL Terrorists? - S. Brian Willson, 1999)

Once again the world has been force-fed the indigestible. With the "weapons of mass destruction" charade exposed like the bare bones on an X-ray film the Armageddon gang running the White House reverted to that pathetically over-used justification: "liberation"; as in, liberate the people from the despotic dictator - never mind that Saddam the Cruel was installed by the ruling gang of thugs whose progeny are now in charge of snuff teams trying to eliminate their Frankenstein monster.

But, as we see above, the US has been in the "liberation" business for centuries. Yet none of this we are told has anything to do with "empire." Rather surprising when we examine the record of the "humanitarian" crew that has ruled the world from the days of cutlasses to the calculated depravity of body-shredding cluster bombs. In fact, empire seems to be the guiding factor in the entire history of US foreign policy - from the genocidal massacre of native Indians throughout the US to the establishment of military bases across the globe. And, in this latest of "liberations" to which the present administration has been committed by God one might look back to an earlier, similarly defined comparison, that of Cuba and its"liberation" by the Gang of God headquartered in Washington, DC.

In 1868 Cubans rose in rebellion against the Spanish occupiers. It was a brutal struggle that lasted for ten years in which some 80,000 Spanish soldiers perished while many thousands of Cubans also died and the countryside laid waste. In the meantime in the US House of Congress it was stated over and over again that it was US "destiny" to control Cuba, much like the "manifest destiny" that virtually wiped out the Indians of the US whose bad fortune was to be located in the land that English settlers were determined to conquer.

President McKinley, also inspired by God, was the first in a long line of US presidents who achieved office via massive financial support from corporate America. In the course of the so-called Spanish-American war McKinley - like Born-Again Bush - claimed his inspiration from God the Almighty. In the course of grabbing the Philippines, along with Puerto Rico and Cuba, McKinley declared: "When I realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I didn’t know what to do with them...I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way...We could not leave them to themselves - they were unfit for self-government...that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died." (Nov.21,1899)

And then McKinley brought his Secretary of War Elihu Root into his office, pointed out where the Philippines were on the map and thus began the massacres of the "dagoes" "niggers" and "savages" soon to be Christianized by the Brotherhood of Love squatted over the "civilization" throne in Washington. McKinley had already worked his love-fest in Cuba, much in the same fashion as did ‘Bush the Holy’ in the rejection of Iraqi overtures to avoid war by allowing the US free reign to search for WMD in Iraq - pushed aside much as did his father in the first Gulf War when Bush Sr. refused to negotiate an Iraqi retreat from Kuwait. Saddam had only asked that his troops not be shot in the back as they retreated. Bush Sr. said no and then proceeded to massacre the retreating Iraqis along the Highway of Death - and to demonstrate his goodness in the massacre of tens of thousands, Bush attended church the next day and declared his obeisance to God.

In Cuba McKinley demonstrated that fine Yankee touch of double-dealing which seems to come so naturally to all who ascend the presidency. On April 10, 1898 McKinley received a cable from the American Minister at Madrid which advised that immediate peace in Cuba could be achieved by negotiation and that Spain had agreed it would grant the Cuban rebels autonomy, or independence, or even would cede the island nation to the US. The very next day, April 11, McKinley addressed Congress and advocated "the forcible intervention of the United States as a neutral to stop the war" since the ongoing war was "a constant menace to our peace" and that sending US troops was justified "by the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people and by the wanton destruction of property and devastation of the island."

It was clear that US corporate business interests were guiding the McKinley comments and that this was the beginning of corporate rule over the US. The battleship Maine had already blown up in Havana harbor and William Randolph Hearst, owner of numerous US newspapers had led the charge to invade and occupy Cuba, declaring that the Maine had gone down via Spanish duplicity - much later revealed that an explosion in the boiler was the likely cause. In the event Congress rallied behind McKinley - as the co-plunderers typically do - and war was declared on April 19, 1898. The Teller Amendment to the declaration states that: "The United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island, except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination when that is accomplished to leave the government and control of the island to its people." And, naturally, the entire world believed that.

The Treaty of Paris, signed in that city on December 10, 1898 provided for the independence of Cuba while ceding Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the US. The first day of January 1899 saw US military occupation under General Leonard Wood begin its course of "pacification" of Cuba at which completion thereof the US was obliged to abandon the island to its own people. As usual, it was a hollow promise.

As in Iraq today US agreed-upon delegates were convened in a constitutional convention in the capital, Havana. And, as with Iraq, they received instructions to write a constitution and frame a treaty which would outline the island’s relations with its masters in Washington. As the delegates worked on the constitution and the treaty with God’s Gang a messenger arrived bearing the word from on High. Also known as the Platt Amendment, the instructions were a study in duplicity and double-dealing.

Without going through its many Articles, the one that interests me the most is the infamous Article VII - the piece of US-inspired legalese that maintains sovereignty in US hands, rather than the suggested moral goodness of US declaration. As stated in Article VII: "To enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the Cuban Government will sell or lease to the Unites States the land necessary for coaling or naval stations, at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States."

On June 12, 1901 the Platt Amendment was added to the Cuban constitution since, to resist, was to declare that pacification had not ended and US troops to stay indefinitely.

This Article of legislation forced upon the Cuban people was the key to establishing the massive US Naval Station Guantanamo. One of the demands of Cuba for generations back is for the US to leave Guantanamo and make the island Cuban in totality. As is to be expected from God’s Gang, however, one should not hold their breath in worldly anticipation of such occurrence.

But it wasn’t only that Guantanamo served as a "coaling station" and re-supply stop. The naval base also serves to control the entire Caribbean (remember that threatening speck of an island known as Grenada), and the north coast of South America. It also serves as a pretext point for the invasion of Cuba itself. There have been any number of US plans to invade Cuba and overthrow its government - from the Bay of Pigs to those still under wraps. CIA memos from the 1960s offered all sorts of invented incidents in order to invade the island. A "Remember the Maine" memo proposed what sounds suspiciously like the assault on the twin towers in New York City: "We could blow up a US warship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," the memo suggested.

In the last few years we have seen the declassification of certain amazing documents, among them the disgustingly detailed Operation Northwoods. As author James Bamford stated: [I]n light of the Operation Northwoods documents, it is clear that deceiving the public and trumping up wars for Americans to fight and die in was standard, approved policy at the highest levels of the Pentagon."

The US is still in Guantanamo - and Cuba - a century later. Remember therefor, that when the Pentagon and the White House - residences of God’s Warriors - make the claim that they are in Iraq merely to "liberate" the poor Iraqi people and will "get out" soon enough, it’s time to sterilize your shoes ‘cause there’s an awful lot of hogwash scattered underfoot to smell up the odorous claptrap.

- Robert S. Rodvik Author/media analyst "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience…Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring" -- Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

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