The Washington-recognized interim government which just ascended to power via US-backed military coup in Bolivia is already shifting the nation’s foreign policy into alignment with the US-centralized empire, severing important ties with two governments which have resisted absorption into the imperial blob.
“Bolivia’s caretaker government isn’t wasting any time overhauling its foreign policy, announcing Friday that it will expel hundreds of Cuban officials and break ties with longtime ally Venezuela,” The Miami Herald reports. “In a series of statements, Bolivia’s new foreign minister, Karen Longaric, told local media that about 725 Cubans — including doctors and medical staff — would begin leaving Bolivia on Friday.”
“In that same interview she also said she’d be recalling Bolivia’s diplomatic staff from Venezuela,” Miami Herald adds. “Later, asked if she would maintain ties with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, she said, ‘Of course we’ll break diplomatic relations with the Maduro government.’”
Of course they will.
In more it's-totally-not-a-coup news, the self-proclaimed "President" of Bolivia – after seizing power as the left-wing President was sent into exile & warning him he'd be arrested if he returned – cut off relations with Venezuela & expelled Cuban doctors https://t.co/ovXx0J57ai
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 15, 2019
This news comes as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. US foreign policy is essentially an endless war on disobedience, in which governments that refuse to bow to US interests are toppled by any means necessary and replaced by governments who will.
International affairs are much easier to understand once you stop thinking in terms of separate, sovereign nations and start thinking in terms of alliances and empire. What we are witnessing can best be described as a slow-motion third world war between what amounts to an unofficial globe-spanning empire centralized around the United States and its military on one side, and all the nations which have refused to be absorbed into this empire on the other. Nations which allow themselves to be absorbed are rewarded with the carrot of military and economic alliance with the empire, and nations which refuse are punished with the stick of invasions, sanctions, trade wars, and coups, with the ultimate goal being total unipolar global domination. The bigger the imperial blob grows, the stronger and more effective it becomes in undermining the interests of unabsorbed nations like Venezuela and Cuba.
Nothing takes precedence over this agenda of unipolar hegemony. As long as a nation remains loyal to the empire, it can fund terrorists, butcher Washington Post columnists, and create the worst humanitarian crisis in the world without fear of any retribution of any kind from the US-centralized empire. As a leaked State Department memo explained in 2017, so far as the empire is concerned human rights violations are nothing more than a strategic narrative control weapon with which to attack unabsorbed nations, and to be ignored when they are perpetrated by absorbed nations.
It should therefore also surprise no one that this same Washington-recognized government installed via US-backed military coup is now murdering demonstrators who object to it.
#Bolivia | Police and military forces repress protests against the coup. At least five killed by bullet impact in Sacaba, Cochabamba.
#GolpeDeEstadoBolivia pic.twitter.com/qFzqRbAKez
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) November 16, 2019
As of this writing there have been five protesters confirmed to have been killed by gunfire in Cochabamba, where security forces are cracking down on demonstrations with extreme aggression against majority-Indigenous demonstrations in support of the ousted president Evo Morales.
The narrative managers at The New York Times are reporting on the events in Cochabamba with the obnoxious insinuation that it may actually be Morales and Bolivia’s Indigenous population who are to blame for current tensions. Here are a couple of excerpts from NYT’s latest contribution to the narrative matrix titled “Ethnic Rifts in Bolivia Burst Into View With Fall of Evo Morales” (emphases mine):
Mr. Morales’s nearly 14 years in power represented a breakthrough for the three-quarters of Bolivians who are either of Indigenous descent or identify as members of Indigenous groups. But he also reinforced his base of support with explicit appeals to racial identity that many Bolivians found threatening and polarizing.
…
“Racism exists in Bolivia; it existed before Evo, and it will never disappear,” said Michelle Kieffer, an insurance broker, as she sipped a cappuccino in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of the country’s administrative capital, La Paz.
“While Evo started an important discussion,” she added, “he also manipulated the race issue, and that has caused disunity. And now people of different races look at each other with suspicion.”
Right. Gotcha. Maybe it’s the impoverished brown-skinned people who are in fact the real fascists, and not the literal Christian fascist coupmongers whose US-backed government takeover they are protesting. Thanks, NYT.
Cochabamba, Bolivia. This is the coup regime Canada’s supporting pic.twitter.com/BoeFItUB32 #cdnpoli #GolpeDeEstadoEnBolivia
— Derrick O’Keefe (@derrickokeefe) November 15, 2019
Morales won re-election by over ten percentage points last month, and his previously-elected term wasn’t scheduled to end until January. He was commanded to resign during a current term by the military despite fully acquiescing to demands for a new internationally supervised election. Now it’s being reported that the popular leftist party to which he belonged, MAS, may be banned by the Jeanine Añez-led interim government from participating in the next elections.
Despite all this the western mass media are continuing their cartoonishly ridiculous pattern of resisting the use of the word ‘coup’ when reporting on Bolivia, except to admonish people for using that word as in the case of recent narrative management pieces by The Washington Post, The Washington Examiner, and The Economist.
“Supporters of the coup in Bolivia can’t call it a coup,” US politician Lee Carter recently noted. “The US has a law preventing us from sending foreign aid to a new government if it was installed by a coup. So they come up with absurd claims that the military forcing Evo out somehow isn’t a coup.”
And the western mass media are falling right in line with the government forces in refusing to use this word, despite the ousting of a government by the military being exactly the thing that a coup is. This is because in a plutocracy, plutocrat-owned media is functionally the same as state media. Reporters for plutocratic media know what they are and are not permitted to say without being told, so they advance narratives which favor the status quo upon which their plutocrat employers have built their respective kingdoms. This is the status quo of the US-centralized empire, which just absorbed Bolivia and pivoted its foreign policy against the unabsorbed governments of Venezuela and Cuba.
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47 responses to “Bolivia’s New Puppet Regime Wastes No Time Aligning With US Foreign Policy”
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Yep – the System didn’t want some communist pachamama indigenous dwarf running the country and nationalizing all that lovely natural gas, lithium and indium… Only statuesque, fair-skinned Caucasian Christian people are allowed to be in charge
It’s not a coup, it’s a coo, like the coo made by a contented dove. (A dove! Not a pigeon! Pigeon is French for “sucker,” and Americans are not suckers! They’re doves. Cooing, contented doves. /s
You know, Pepe Escobar’s useful-idiot mancrush on China annoys the hell out of me, but I have to give him props for referring to Bolivia’s self-proclaimed interim president Jeanine Áñez as “Barbie Guaidó.” It works on two levels: Barbie, the hollow, plastic, window-dressing doll, and Klaus Barbie, the SS/Gestapo torture specialist who took the ratline to Bolivia when the jig was up back in Europe and is suspected of assisting in Bolivia’s 1980 coup.
(Okay, so it really should have been Guaidó Barbie, like Malibu Barbie or Puppet Barbie or Christian Fascist Barbie, but English is not Pepe’s first language and his American cultural literacy is obviously not 100% up to snuff, so I’m going to let it pass for now.)
we are many, and they are a few. a little courage will go a long way.
Jeanine Anez may be on top of the world right now because she has the USA’s stamp of approval as Bolivia’s interim coup leader, but I remind her of a famous quote from Albert Einstein:
“That which goes up must come down!”
Thanks again Caitlin for helping us understand what the empire is doing in Bolivia. In Australia the media has been completely and utterly absorbed by the evil entity. While the Australian Broadcasting Commission produce many excellent programs, their news service falls directly in to line behind the MSM propoganda, so we are literally paying to be lied to.
BDS works, and only BDS works.
i agree, i think the abc regurgitates what i recieves from overseas media without thinking
Just think about the TIMING…they let Morales Rule for 14 years and He imposed total ban on Lithium Exports…Now that the world really is been pushed to go electric ..The world needs Bolivian Lithium at any cost and the price Corporation would get is double the amount they would have if they mined it 14 years ago..That’s genius man..
It seems…He was safeguarding the “Gold of the Gods” without knowing it ofcourse.
Its a Non Human Entity..Possibly ConeHeads/Reptilian/Grey being that control US government….The same beings who controlled Egypt and Rome are in control of US….Their Intelligence is Far beyond what we humans can think of…
I’m in India and the Push for Electric Cars began this year with government hinting banning all fuel vehicles by 2022 while giving tax free breaks for electric cars, same in China..I could not believe the stupidity then of Indian government as to where the hell they gonna get Lithium for batteries…NOW IT’S PERFECTLY CLEAR…
I can bet my last cent, Morales is never ever coming back and Bolivia will be Part of the EMPIRE for ever…Bolivian caretaker government is same as US caretaker government ..The policies are set outside Human Domain..US and Bolivian people are on the same boat..USED
In any country the ” streets ” belong to the ” government “. When the government does not want you on their streets they make sure that you ” get the message “!
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/16/police-bolivia-pepper-spray-journalist-purpose-during-live-coverage-anti-coup?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Weekly%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Weekly%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email
Outstanding article. It was so perfectly clear, it makes me want to nitpick something. “US interests” is what they say to make it sound like the interests of the US oligarchy are the interests of the US people. I’m sure that was clear to anyone reading here.
I just started thinking about how I wish my CNN brainwashed loved ones would see this article, and what they would say if I showed it to them. I honestly think they would see only gibberish, and attack me. That is terrifying.
I was thinking about Caitlin’s recent article suggesting we be our true selves, i.e. ditch the bullshit narratives about worrying what other people think and stuff. I think if I started saying what I really think, I would have no family or friends left.
Yes I’ve been there. There has been a split in my family over my views. My brothers and to some degree, my mother are pretty much wrapped up with the establishment narrative and think I’ve been brainwashed by Putin, so we have gone separate ways. Some of my close friends are no longer, one in particular called me a Putin agent, working for the enemy, simply because I refuse to blame Russia for everything. What it comes down to is a decision. Do you tow the line for the sake of unity or do you stand up for what you believe?
I made my decision, it was a costly one, but it has made me much more stronger as a person, knowing that I will stand on my convictions regards of the consequences.
Nobody can make that decision for you, you have to live with what ever you decide and both outcomes have a downside.
Thanks for your thoughts. All of my close friends have become casual friends, or not friends. Is this better than no friends? Some days yes, some days no.
Leon & Minecritter: I relate to both of you. I’ve been called a Putin lover, a conspiracy theorist, brainwashed by anti American sites, asked numerous times if I’m okay (as in – do I need to speak to someone) whenever I’ve pointed friends or acquaintances to various independent sites like here, Strategic Culture Foundation, Moon Of Alabama, The Grayzone, etc, the response is just silence.
I get the strong impression they didn’t even look at those sites. Didn’t want to know.
It’s immensely frustrating and frankly, sad. I would rather be Alone than be round people who wilfully refuse to even acknowledge the vast crimes of the Empire, who actually boast: “well capitalism’s been really good for us” when I’ve pointed out the consequences of Neoliberalism on society, and who in a kneejerk response, blame everything on Assad and Putin.
It’s ABOUT morality and ethics and having a conscience. If you have no conscience, then…?
I thought Caitlin’s comparison to people in a cult, or abusive relationship was the most interesting theory I’ve heard on how to reach such people. If they won’t listen, do you just disown them? I think Caitlin’s suggestion was to just let them know you will welcome them back when they change their mind.
same here, with some close friends. i’m either a putin dupe, or a deplorable who is motivated by hitherto unsuspected racism. but hey, i support bernie and assange, so it has to be one or the other, right?
@Minecritter:
“US interests” = Fortune 500 interests.
Sounds about right.
Expelling Cuban and Venezuelan personel will be looked upon favorably by the we all know who. Still, it’s small fry. But, kicking out Russians, on the election meddling or using chemical weapons ( in this case killing these innocent civilians ) – pretext, would cement their gilded throne with we all know who. However, bearing in my mind the habit of ( disposing of enemies and friends alike ), this throne would be safe. For the time being.
The ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ (or ‘Republic’) is a symbol only, and certainly is no break with capitalism. The Bolivian (and Venezuelan) bourgeoisie still exist and still control large swathes of the economy. The ‘Bolivarian’ state has not changed and is still committed to defending capitalist private property and profits. Until the bourgeois state is shattered and replaced by a workers state that expropriates the ruling capitalist oligarchs, there will be no escaping this cycle of ‘socialist’ governments being swept away by the rulers when the next opportunity arises.
No matter what its complexion, a political party at the head of a bourgeois state is still at the mercy of that state (its military, cops, courts, bureaucracy), and still must do the bidding of the ruling class and its social system to exist for any length of time, at which Morales was effective. But the state that defends and upholds the rulers’ property and privileges is always the dagger at the throat of any ‘socialist’ government.
Within 5 or 10 years (say), another ‘socialist’ government in Bolivia yet again will win impeccably-run and clean elections and yet again will be overthrown at the first opportunity by the Bolivian bourgeoisie’s US-funded and trained helpers within and outside the state machine. These are all very predictable cycles and only conform to: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” [provenance disputed].
While the capitalist class is allowed to exist, especially in the belly of the imperialist beast, this insanity will only persist.
Boy if this shit doesn’t get old hearing about it. Just how many lives have been destroyed by US foreign policy since WW II? 15 million? More? The capitalists have to feed and the US govt will always comply with their demands. I think their eyes are on Bolivia’s lithium. Just pay for it like the rest of us have to as we buy tablets or smartphones requiring batteries. Peace, for now, The Ol’ Hippy
I lived in Bolivia in 98 and 2000, not for long, but long enough to notice the apartheid style regime. We lived in a vibrant part of La Paz, but Bolivian colleagues at our school were horrified. They told us we were in danger despite a complete absence of any incidents all the time we lived there. I was able to walk around at all times of day or night in safety. It was more peaceful than any British city. But my colleagues ha d never even visited that part of La Paz, they were so sure about its dangers.
There were two Bolivias, one well off and accessing foreign travel and education, living in comfortable homes, well off without apparently needing to do much. The other, people living in their cigarette or salchipappa kiosks, or working day and night in hotels for a sleep space in the lobby. The reason that upper class Bolivians don’t think racism is really an issue is that they don’t believe Indians count as real humans. They are seen as the cross they have to bear, a problem, rather than an enduring and fascinating culture.
Bolivia knows which side the bread is buttered on. Years of pro socialism has gotten them nothing. Time to try a little US capitalism with lots of foreign aid to see where it goes. Gimme the beef.
1) Bolivia didn’t decide to try “US capitalism with lots of foreign aid”; the military imposed the coup on the country.
2) There is no “US capitalism with lots of foreign aid”. Jim Perkins, author of “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, explained in that book the real aims of American imperialism in South America; set up a client regime of criminals to loot a country at the expense of everyone else and set up a debt trap to eliminate that country’s sovereignty.
Really? So Khatika, how many coups has there been in Bolivia in the last 50 odd years? Who was Hugo Banzer? Google him.
Want Truth? Free Assange, Manning, Snowden, etc. with the people from this bs. Fuck USA
After reading an article today, I thought about Mr. Assange and the ” treatment ” being done to him has been done to many others that dare to tell the truth about the United States government.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/16/paul-robeson-and-the-battle-for-the-soul-of-america/
Then I read this article about what my government does not want us to know:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/16/charlottesville-and-ukraine-the-parallels-that-mainstream-media-dont-want-you-to-see/
BDS the enemies of the people everyday and in every way you can! cut back on consumption of corporate products as much as you can. it’s good for your wallet as we llas for your soul!
US military recruiters are now in high schools signing up 17 yr olds. We should be denouncing the military at every opportunity.
The CIA basically controls the U.S. and European press. CIA Director Dulles, who had a background in advertising, called the press a “wurlitzer” as I recall, which meant an organ that could be played.
Political ” leaders ” full of ” good intentions ” for the populations of their country always need ” someone watching their back ” for the ” evil-doers” that are always lurking around everywhere. The ” Evil Empire ” is awash with money to bribe most people into doing their bidding. Such are the pitfalls of ethical leaders.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/15/bolivia-more-lessons-from-a-noble-experiment-gone-awry/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/16/charlottesville-and-ukraine-the-parallels-that-mainstream-media-dont-want-you-to-see/
This looks like a Monty Python skit, except people are really dying.
One thing seems to be true. Bolivia contains 50% of the worlds lithium reserves and there’s really not enough of it to last more than 100 years as worldwide demand increases for more lithium batteries caused by Green Energy Fallacies. It’s really a simple scheme for these oligarchs to convince the people with propaganda that CO2 is destroying our environment so the sheeple will accept new laws forcing them into EV’s so they can make trillions mining lithium and making batteries. The oligarch owned MSM hides the fact that mining lithium is an ecological disaster and should not be considered Green at all.
Well that was quick. Tells how independent the new Bolivia will be. About as independent as Australia is.
Or Palau. Or Haiti.
And perhaps we can all stop dignifying the slime who lie and censor for Empire and Imperialism as ‘reporters’ or ‘journalists’.
John Pilger, Eva Bartlett, Chris Hedges, Vanessa Beeley and Max Blumenthal are journalists.
Creatures who write for The Guardian, New York Times, Washington Post, or ABC are presstitutes and stenographers. They have sold their souls. They are dutiful servants of the 0.01% and the Deep State.
Now that a bunch of fascists have taken power in Bolivia, and are licking Pompeo’s and Trump’s boots, don’t except the truth about Bolivia to be reported. Expect a lot of whitewashing instead.
The monroe doctrine clearly states the US is the final word in Morth and South America. Now fall in line and do as you are told
And I think of the many hundreds of thousands who have died because of the ‘Monroe Doctrine’. I think about the massacres in Guatemala and El Salvador, the death squads, the murder of priests and nuns, the horrors under the Pinochet dictatorship, the fascist junta in Argentina under Videla, the Stroessner dictatorship in Paraguay, on and on. And you say…. ‘fall in line’.
Your comment is a gross insult to all those who died because of the ‘Monroe Doctrine’.
Hindsight is always 20/20. However instead of America interfering in South America, it would have ended up like Africa as a dozen or more countries fought over resources. Even China is making inroads into africa. Dont blame that document for the strong oppressing the weak. It would have happened regardless.
Great article’s but how do I forward them there is no Facebook or twiter way and I would love people to see what you have put
I receive Caitlin’s pieces via e-mail and forward them.
If you look at the bottom of the article, you’ll see the word “Share” and then lots of social media icons, including Facebook and Twitter.
It has never been clear why the US turned on Noriega in Panama, but some reports were that he was cooperating with foreign intelligence other than the Americans. Also, Michael Dukakis had called out Bush I for his cozy relationship with Noriega because of the CIA drug running and money laundering operations that went through Panama, so part of the calculus may have been to innoculate himself against such charges for his re-election campaign.
Also during Bush I, Saddam Hussein was advocating oil sales demoniated in currencies other than $US. That action had to be punished, so a ginned up first Gulf War ensued, punishing Hussein but failing to remove him from power. Then again, in 2000, Hussein begin insisting on selling oil for euros, propping up the value of the euro against the dollar. The 2001 WTC attack (which has never been linked to Iraq or Hussein by any evidence) provided the opportunity for demagoguery as cover to invade and complete the task of ousting him from power for daring to suggest anything but the $US could be the world’s currency. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/16/iraq.theeuro
More examples abound, of course, as General Smedley Butler spoke about in the early part of the XXth Century:
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/115545.Smedley_D_Butler
“It has never been clear why the US turned on Noriega in Panama”
America’s 99-year lease on the Panama Canal was set to expire, and Noriega was making some “unacceptable” demands about Panamanian sovereignty.
Thanks for the reminder. Part of Mr. Carter’s downfall as POTUS, IIRC, had to do with the charge of “giving away” the Panama Canal when he was negotiating over its control.
Let’s also not forget that Panama independence was a product of US interference so that the canal could be built on the Americans’ terms.
Unfortunately it is always the same old story with the victims of the United States government. It is a shame that it still continues to happen. Please peruse these:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/14/trump-ignites-war-on-native-americans-from-the-arctic-circle-to-tierra-del-fuego/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/15/western-media-whitewash-us-backed-coup-in-bolivia/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52527.htm
The U.S. is the Nation of coup- coup’s!
Pence, Bolton, Abrams, Pompeo, Little Marco, etc., etc.
They fly over the nests of Central & South American natives like buzzards awaiting death then swooping down and guzzling the spoils.
“Here a coup….there a coup….everywhere a coup-coup”
the nation that invented BANANA REPUBLIC is couping itself