THE CIA'S WORLD WIDE DEATH SQUADS - PLUS VENEZUELA UPDATE - DR JEREMY KUZMAROV COVERT ACTION EXPERT

[00:00:00]Hello, Garlin Nixon here and we're hanging out with Dr. Jeremy Kazmarov and we're going to talk about CIA hit squads and they're not just in the past. Let's talk Hello, Garland Nixon here and we're we're hanging out with a friend Dr. Jeremy Kuzmerov and um he's got a great website covertaction magagazine.com exposing covert action since 1978.

[00:00:52]Um, outstanding. One of my favorite sites. Again, something that I point people to if you want to know what's happening, if you want to understand what's happening, particular with covert actions and intelligent agencies, actually started by Philip AG, former a reformed CIA employee. All right, let's get rolling. This is the first story, and I think it's critical. Um this is an important one and we're going to talk we're going to start with today and go backwards but it's CIA has run death squads in countries around the world right and um that's you know something that most people know but we're going to get into the some of the details in it.

[00:01:28]The Phoenix program in um in uh Vietnam of course it was done in Indonesia, Guatemala, etc. But let's start with Ukraine. Let's start with modern day and work our way backwards.

[00:01:42]Right. What we've seen is a couple of things. Now, one of the things I thought was interesting about modernday Ukraine, let me find it, that I wanted to start by asking you about uh and that is the Mir Vets website, right? The Ukrainians have this. the Ukrainians.

[00:02:09]There's a website that is connected to Ukraine and the website basically marks people for death and then after they're killed um it puts liquidated and puts a line through them, right? And some people that may not even be on it when they're killed suddenly their name pops up on it. My understanding is the actual site, if you look it up, it's out of Langley, Virginia, and it's clearly a CIA website. And there are even Americans, at one point, Rand Paul was on it, an American senator, Scott Ritter, lots of Americans, British Westerners are on this website, and it seems to be a CIA kill list. Um, and that the CIA is still running these death squads and arrang and and Ukraine seems to be the modern-day Phoenix program.

[00:02:58]Dr. Cooper.

[00:02:59]>> Uh yeah. Well uh and that that's throughout the Cold War and that's you know I uh studied this for a book I published uh with the University of Massachusetts Press in 2012 called modernizing repression police training and nation building in the American century. And that was one of the purposes of these covert police training program during the Cold War was to help uh upgrade, you know, police uh technology uh and also create data banks, you know, use computers to create blacklists of subversives uh that were then targeted in roundup operations or death squad operation like the operation Phoenix. And it seemed they're doing this now right out in the open with that Marott Verrett's website.

[00:03:48]Uh and the the the the blacklist included a lot of journalists, uh bloggers, politicians, uh some elected politicians, uh you know, town mayors, and they've been assassinated. You know, once they're on that list, they're marked for death, and then they knock them off when when they're killed. They crossed them off with an X and they celebrated it.

[00:04:14]And u this was actually reported there was an article in the Economist about this uh that and there were a few in in the New York Times like it was there was a front page article in the New York Times how they were planning car bombs and killing like town mayors, you know, whose town was more leaning toward Russia in the conflict or just wanted peace with Russia. towns in eastern part of Ukraine uh were being subjected to car bombing and and overt terrorism and that was reported on the front page of the New York Times which as we know had been very very zealous in its support for Ukraine and kind of framed it as you know anti-terrorist operations uh although anybody reading that article rationally would see it as outright terrorism uh and morally abhorrent And if you look at this website, Yeah.

[00:05:10]is is disgusting. I mean, it reflects a fascist mentality. Uh there are displays of Russian dead, you know, gruesome photos of of dead Russians and they're celebrating their deaths. Um and it it is a fascistic website. Uh but yeah, it it comes from Lang, it says up front, Langley, so we know who helped develop that. We know that the Ukrainians um secret services, the SBU, uh is heavily um coordinated, you know, trained and received a lot of financing by the CIA.

[00:05:50]It's not really a secret that they're major the CIA has uh uh major offices and the headquarters.

[00:05:59]uh although you know it's not publicized and I guess all the details aren't known how the CIA is helping to run the SBU but um all the indications make clear that the CIA is is is playing a heavy role in the SBU which is carrying out the what is a Phoenix type operation.

[00:06:20]You know, the Phoenix, for those listeners who are not uh aware or younger listeners, the Phoenix project was a program in Vietnam, uh where the CIA coordinated with local militia, paramilitary groups to act on the the blacklist that the the CIA helped establish in coordination with the South Vietnamese police and intelligence. They they used computers to collate those blacklists and then they acted on it. And it was usually the South Vietnamese proxy force, the pro known as the provincial or reconnaissance unit that would carry out kidnappings of the people on the blacklist. And often they just murdered them or, you know, it was a snatch and grab operation where they would often just uh enter their homes in a pre-dawn raid, kidnap them and they were tortured in these were known as provincial picss.

[00:07:17]I think the interrogation centers were known for hideous tortures and even medical experimentation and and some were tortured to death in those facilities. Others were murdered outright. Uh, and it evolved into an extortion racket where, uh, people who had private vendettas would just, uh, kill their enemy, uh, and say he was, you know, Vietkong or they would extort people for money and say, "We'll put you on the blacklist unless you, uh, pay us a lot of money." Uh, and I think something like that is probably happening in Ukraine. I mean, we're not getting a lot of reporting uh because there's no really there's no coverage at all of that war apart from propaganda, but uh some of it and and you know, the newspapers have cut their staffs. Uh so they're not even they don't have many field reporters uh out there. Um but you know it was reported certain things have been reported in the New York Time and economist and recently they they assassinated um a nuclear engineer. So and yeah Americans were on the list. In fact I got on that website for a time because I did an article there was a press conference hosted by Scott Rither uh who was petitioning the US Congress.

[00:08:38]You know, Rither uh in his remarks said that he was, you know, made the point that he had served the US as as a Marine Corps, you know, in the Marine Corps, Marine Intelligence. He was a patriotic American and he was on this death list and he was afraid because there were Ukrainian extremists in, you know, living near him in upstate New York and they had these fascist camp. There have been some articles I've read where they have these summer camps for youth where they're indoctrinated with a kind of fascist benderite neo-Nazi ideology. So Rither said he was living near some of these people and he was afraid he had to check his car that they could plant a a car bomb and kill him and he was asking for protection uh from the US Congress and that for other US citizens that they have a right to free speech uh and that they're being threatened by being placed on this death list. Of course, none of the congressmen responded. I think he directed his letter to Gillibrand and other congressmen in the state of New York where he lives. Uh so anyway, it was an online event and and there were some other people as well um who spoke. So I did an article reporting that and then because my article was published for the covert action magazine then I got put on the death list. But Henry Kissinger was also on that list because even he suggested things had gotten out of hand in Ukraine and it was a rising threat of nuclear war, you know, before he passed away. Uh so he was actually urging some caution as far as US foreign policy and that was enough to get him on the list. and Edward Lutvak, who is a a conservative military analyst who I think is actually CIA, but he was also uh you know saying things had gotten out of hand in Ukraine uh you know rationally he got on the list. So there were some very conservative uh people on that list and that just shows how extreme the people who are running that are. That's the far far right. I mean uh if you go back to the 70s Yeah.

[00:10:51]Kissinger sometimes was somewhat of a moderate compared to some of the neoconservatives. I mean, you know, Kissinger has a bloody record as most viewers of the show know, but um you know, he was somewhat of a mo in the 70s. He had been advocating for, you know, pushed for a day policy and that's why there had been a coup against Nixon Kissinger in the 70s and again before his death he was, you know, pushing for somewhat of a day with Russia. So anyway, it just showed that this is the extreme right neoconservative fascist elements. Uh and the CIA, yeah, I think is controlled now by these elements. Uh historically there were actually some more liberal elements in the CIA who favored like the non-communist left uh was their approach you know and they would fund all these uh non-communist left groups. Uh but I think you know the people pushing this is the extreme right with fascist sympathies.

[00:11:57]you know, there's an article that you mentioned um that I'd like to uh let's let me find it. So, this isn't the original article, but this is in fact um a reproduction of it inside Ukraine's assassination program. This was uh first I think it was done in the in the Economist.

[00:12:19]I mean, they put so many advertisements on here sometimes it's very very hard to fungus for God's sake. Who wants to see that? Anyway, so what they do is in this argument inside Ukraine's assassination program, they go to talk about um its agents have become an expert in dark revenge, but I worry some clear strategy is is is is absent, right? Um if you're asking about creating a version of Assad, we don't need to. It already exists. In fact, the origins of political assassinations are a little closer to home. So we look at uh MSAD learned much of his craft from the Soviet era secret police and its founding practitioner. So according to them who is now occupied southern Ukraine. Well whatever and there's going to be some anti-Russia stuff in it.

[00:13:05]Right. But the bottom line is you look into this inside Ukraine's assassination program and recognize something. Ukraine has an assassination program and that assassination program is pretty much controlled by the by the I mean as the New York Times tells us, we call it a Ukraine assess ass assassination program. It's a CIA assassination program.

[00:13:29]>> Yeah. And I quote in this article uh on death squad and we can look at some of the other case studies uh but I quote a Ukrainian ex member of parliament Andre Telzenko who said the CIA is just everywhere in Ukraine and I I did another article where I interviewed him about Kier Budenov is the current chief of staff uh and he is clearly a CIA asset who was wounded in battle and taken to Walter Reed and he was one of the running death squads. Uh he was involved in terrorists operationally in Crimea. They bombed the bridge heading to Crimea. Uh and he oversaw that operation.

[00:14:14]He's a terrorist and and and Telzenko said that he and his uh group would uh go you in the early days of the war after the Maidan coup when things first flared up in eastern Ukraine. He and his buddies would would murder rich they would target rich people in eastern Ukraine, murder them and their families and then steal, you know, and then steal everything from their apartments and sell it on the black market like, you know, if they had uh fancy artwork or jewelry. Uh so he's an outright criminal and terrorist. And now the army chief of staff and he was recruited into the CIA when he went to uh and this is uh Telzenko was telling a story how he got wounded and they brought him to Walter Reed. you know, they only bring uh special people who they're grooming for high positions and the CIA is recruiting to Walter Reed. And then now he the army, he's the president's top advisor and chief of uh chief of staff. And they say, you know, it could be uh either he's there maybe to protect Zilinski from a coup or he could carry out a coup himself. But uh he was uh involved in these uh assassination squads. And yeah, Telzenko made clear your point that the the CIA has enormous influence in Ukraine much like uh in South Vietnam, you know, in the 60s. the CIA was kind of running the show when when you know they were supporting God DM uh late 50s early 60s and then when he started making overtures to peace with the North Vietnamese and was becoming an embarrassment the Buddhist uh emulation and he antagonized the Buddhist population too much and they started burning themselves to death and the world was starting to pay notice. Then the CIA backed a coup uh against YM Lucian Conine the CIA operative uh who worked under Edward Lansdale was the key uh CI liaison with the coup plotters and they brought in some new military generals and then the CIA was heavily uh supportive of Nuian Danfu the the later leaders of South Vietnam new Koki and Nuian Danfu who were also outright gangsters. Nuen Koko Ki had been removed from a a mission for smuggling drugs into Laos. Uh and was a political gangster. Uh and Vanf is just a a sleazy guy. Uh and they had the worst level of political prisoners I think in world history in South Vietnam in part because of the Phoenix program. They were rounding up so many people and they had built up and and that's what I studied in my book modernizing repression. And I had a key chapter on Vietnam and I was doing I did a lot of research in the national archive to build off uh research uh incredible research that Douglas Valentine had done and uh that's what I you know found that the US had created a massive police state and that the prison there were so many prisoners because they were doing all these roundup campaigns and it was a record number of political prisoners and they didn't have the ability uh to house all these prisoners. the and I was actually reading the reports in the national archive where uh a guy's job would be to inspect the South Vietnamese prisons.

[00:17:45]You know, he was working for the USAD office of public safety which was used as a cover for the Phoenix program and he would file a report and the report was you could read at the National Archive and and the advisor was discussed. This guy who's filing the report was disgusted. He's like, "This prison is totally uh, you know, over capacity. The prisoners are sleeping on top of each other. There's no room for them to sleep. There's no beds. Uh there's not enough food. They have to start cooking at 4 in the morning to try and feed everybody. Diseases are running rampant. There's rat." Some reported like huge rat. I said they're rats the And I remember this and because I and this is like uh I did this research about 15 years ago and I it was just like it's the kind of thing where you read a report and your hair starts to stick up like oh my god what in the hell is going on here because like this is a guy working for USAD is like outraged at the inhumane conditions and he's like saying they're rats the size of cats and all these things. Uh, and then they're saying that the South Vietnamese army was stealing. They did budget some money to expand the prison, but it was stolen by the corrupt uh, South Vietnamese army officers who were, you know, in charge of the oper operation.

[00:19:09]And they said they were using the prisoners to do private work. They were like treating them like slaves and having them do work on the homes of the South Vietnamese army officers. So, um, that's the kind of horrible corruption and human rights abuses that took place under the Phoenix program. And we're starting, you know, uh, from denters in Ukraine, we're starting to get a picture that some horrific things are going on there because their prison system also, you know, and and an article I did uh, recently, one featured an interview with Telzenko who served in the, you know, he was a pretty high level Ukrainian official and then he had to flee the country for his life because he couldn't stomach, you know, he became a whistleblower and he lived somewhere in Europe. Uh and then uh Tucker Carlson did an interview with a former speech writer for Zalinski and she was also that was an interesting interview and she was talking about how horrible the prisons are. At one point that came up and she said, "Oh, the p like her body started like shaking and she's like, "Oh, the prisons are just horrible." Uh and there's some other accounts like you know Gonzalo LRA was tortured to death in the Ukraine prison and a book by Benois Pare that's very good. Um he was a UN official from France in Ukraine in Eastern Ukraine and he wrote wrote an eyewitness account and there's stuff about the prisons and torture. Uh so uh it's really a horror show and um it's yeah it fits that pattern of continuity that the CIA uh creates these horrific police states is is implicated in torture and assassination and is empowering some of the worst of the worst in those countries and you can see in the Morett Britz website the fascistic value that's glorifies death and killing and viol violence. That is the essence of fascism.

[00:21:18]Uh so this is something that any decent decent people have to um try and stop this.

[00:21:28]Yeah. Um absolutely. But what what you have what you have done here is you've shown this um what we'll call a pattern um of uh violence, a pattern of murder and abuse of uh you know far you know fascist right-wing ultraist death squads. One of the things that I find interesting is that here's what you say.

[00:21:52]Over time the Phoenix program developed into a giant extortion racket. PRU agents and South corrupt Vietnamese and corrupt South Vietnamese officials would use it to carry out private vendettas, kill personal enemies or force people to give them huge sums of money under the threat of death. You know, one of the things that Gonzalo Lero said when he got out for a little while was he was threatened and they told him they you know he had to pay. Um, we are hearing that in that's something that's happening in Ukraine. As you said, there was murder and and theft, but that there's a great deal of extortion, people having to pay large sums of money so they won't be um inducted into the army and sent to the front for certain death. Um, people paying large sums of money to government officials to get out of the country. Um it seems to me that that's one of the things that can seems consistent is that with these death squads and with these types of activities, there's rampid corruption, drug dealing, etc. >> Absolutely. And yeah, another case in that article because that article uh started by summarizing, you know, there was a um article in the New York Times magazine uh recently about Afghanistan.

[00:23:06]you know, some Afghan uh army veterans who are struggling to make ends meet in the United States, you know, working very marginal jobs. And it turned out that this guy was part of a zero unit.

[00:23:19]You can see the picture of the mask they're wearing, like they're wearing these skulls. It's like uh you know, human evil Skeletor. You know, if you watch cartoons as a kid, that's the kind of mask that the bad guys wear, the Skeletor.

[00:23:35]uh from the He-Man, which is one I watched when I was a kid. And uh yeah, this guy was part of a a terrible death squad that uh massacred a lot of people and that even angered the Afghan government. You at one point the CIA said, "Oh, that's you know, because some of this came to light and the CIA was like, "Oh, that's Taliban propaganda."

[00:23:58]But even the Afghan government had filed the complaint the elements of the Afghan government because they were going into some provinces and then they had even targeted some Afghan government officials and I think killed them or tortured them. Uh so they had gone way too far and uh angered even the Afghan government. So, you know, this pattern, as you point out, it's a pattern and we've got to try and break this terrible pattern because every intervention ends up with something like this. The the US CIA is running these death squads. Uh they get out of control. It attracts almost unsavory people. Uh it fuels orgy of corruption. Often they're off the book. They're funded through off the books. you know there it's kind of a since it's illegal what they're doing and it's not promoted even to the US Congress. So uh it's you know funded through either black budgets or off the books means often narcotics uh like in country like Afghanistan and Indochina the money you know easy way to make money off the books is is through the drug trade and yeah the article you know just points to the pattern and you know you had the Phoenix program in Vietnam you also had the LA the secret war in Laos uh you know the and there Theodore Shackley was the CIA station chief in Saigon for some key years of the Phoenix project. I think from 1968 to 72. But before that, from ' 66 to '68, Shackley was in Laos helping to run the secret war in Laos and they were bribing and the CIA created its own army among the Mong minority group who are used to do a lot of the dirty work and they were running death squads in Laos.

[00:25:52]And earlier I had researched the case of a uh left-leaning politician named Quinnim Falsa who was trying to forge an alliance between the neutralists and the Pett Lao the left-wing group that would ally with the Vietnam uh to create a a coalition government.

[00:26:11]The ptheette law had actually won elections, but then they were driven underground by the CIA and extreme right, which the CIA and State Department and Pentagon had been supporting. And Falsa was trying to bring the PT Laauo into a coalition government that would stabilize the country and have peace. Uh, and he was uh assassinated by a police death squad that was linked to the CIA. Uh, and that was in 1963, which predated Shackley.

[00:26:40]But um you know Shackley came in and took over this program. So they were assassinating you know politicians, civilian politicians and usually progressive ones who had the best interests of their own country and were trying to work for peace. And I mean that is politics. Build a coalition of groups and that's how you work in politics and and stabilize your country and and have a peaceful future. And that's what he was trying to do. And this guy was a good guy. uh and they assassinate him and and often it's the good ones that get assassinated. And that's why you have these countries descend into fascism or chaos or violence or ripe for for uh imperial intervention and plunder because they're weakened. Um so it's it's a dirty game of empire. Um and um the CIA is at the heart of it doing that dirty work. and Shackley, like they said, uh I was reading some articles about Shackley and I'm doing another uh going to be doing another um article on him. Uh because yeah, he was a key figure uh and actually he was the guy um who uh led the spy operation on Philip Agy. That's one reason I was starting to research his career more because I'm going to do an article on that. Uh you know, and they tried to shut down Phil Agy after he wrote a book critical of the CIA.

[00:28:06]Uh but he was a key figure and um you know there was I came across this quote of a guy who worked under Shackley and uh there was an NLF double agent and um they're debating what to do about him and uh this guy Chipman said, "Oh well let's execute him." He said Shaq won't mind. He he carried out at least uh 250 political murders in in Laos. Uh so just kill him. And you know because Shackley was the boss and he was working under Shackley but he didn't even need his approval because he said oh he did this regularly in Laos he just carried out all these political murders. So uh and that's why you know the US arouses hatred in so many countries. They're u committing political murders often of progressive politicians and it's outright terrorism. It showed the the war on terror fraud. I mean this is the textbook terrorism uh you know murdering people to intimidate them or intimidate the population and in Ukraine they are using you know car bombings and they bomb the cafe they target allegedly pro-Russian blogger they bomb the entire cafe where he was giving a talk and he was killed and I don't know how some other people were killed as well who were attending his talk. Uh so this is a sadistic behavior and it's synonymous with imperialistic foreign policy.

[00:29:39]Um another article that uh I find quite interesting and we need an update since kidnapping of Maduro is Venezuela capitulating to US imperialism. And one thing you talk about is that uh Venezuela was run by a US puppet government by a western puppet government. um and you know the m the the standard oil um which later became Exxon Mobile and others like ran Venezuela and basically plundered all of its oil wealth and they seem to be going back down that um down down that path.

[00:30:13]>> Yeah. There was um a trade union activist said we're going back a hundred years and to the um era of there was a Venezuelan leader named Juan Vicente Gomez. So when I read those comments, I did I took out a book uh from my library. I found the book uh about Gomez and it showed that he just yeah uh allowed these oil corporations and that was the era where they you know they had I think struck oil uh in the late 1800 early 1900s and that's when the Rockefeller Creole oil uh saw a huge uh you know dollar sign in Venezuela and this guy Juan Vzente Gomez you know his predecessor had um I think was a guy named Castro, ironically enough, had tried to, you know, keep Venezuela in control. And I mean, he didn't block the foreign oil companies from coming in, but he was forcing them to pay taxes and and trying to ensure that the local population would benefit uh at least to some extent from the oil treasure. Uh but then this guy Gomez, you know, carried out a violent coup and you know, Theodore Roosevelt referred to Castro in all these derogatory terms and then helped significantly help Gomez, you know, helped finance the coup he carried out and then finance his security forces to keep order. And then Gomez passed all these laws that basically reduced the taxes to almost nothing uh that Rockefeller and other oil companies had to pay and uh the labor laws like uh made sure that there are no labor laws.

[00:32:00]I think you know Castro had been trying to establish certain rights for laborers and um you know Gomez just kept it in the dark ages and there were even pro you know pro and then he cracked down on all the scent and then there were you know international prot like you know human rights groups I found in in the US like EB de boys and you know progressive-minded people uh I think like the head of the ACLU they u had a campaign and petition against the dark thing that were going on in Venezuela.

[00:32:34]Uh so yeah, it was a horror show then and I mean that seems to be what we're returning to now. They've used they got rid of Maduro with Deli Rodriguez. they seem to be able to control her and she, you know, there was an article in the New York Times that she's talking to Marco Rubio all the time and it referred to Marco Rubio as like the viceroy of uh Venezuela back in colonial times and there was another article in the Washington Post that one of Rubio's friends uh from the you know anti-Castro virulent right-wing Cuba lobby and there there's a lot of similarity the like the the rightwing Ukrainian fascists that we were discussing with the Marott Barrettes seem to have a lot of common with these fanatical uh anti-Castro Cubans, you know, who live in Miami. And if you talk to these people, they're they're just irrational. You can't have a conversation with them. They just have a hatred uh for anything anyone who's on the left and uh hatred of the leaders in that case the Castra family and the socialist leaders of Cuba they don't have a good grasp of their own country's history how they were a neoc colony or a direct colony before you had the socialist revolution in Cuba that tried to establish the sovereignty of their country uh and you know redistribute the wealth and establish free health care.

[00:34:03]They don't seem to care at all about any of that. They just have this uh irrational passionate hatred. And one of their leaders is now uh key businessmen who seems to be brokering all these deals for foreign oil companies. And somehow he's making decisions for the Venezuelan government as far as in you know bringing in these investors into the country. And I mean some level of foreign investment may you know is not bad for a country. You know there are certain technical expertise that could help maybe boost production. But what we're seeing is just u a return yeah to a colonial age where you're allowing foreign companies to dominate the economy take over the oil oil all the oil treasure um and sifen wealth out of the country. And it's not a development model. In fact, under Chavez, Venezuela really progressed significantly as far as because the huge inequality in the country. Uh but when Chavez took over, he nationalized a lot of the oil, used the revenue to uh fund program to help the poor, fund education, health care, infrastructure, and the country was really really progressing. Uh but then the US waged an economic war on Venezuela to [ __ ] their economy.

[00:35:28]uh and um you know there may have been some internal mistakes or problems but the the outside pressure was was certainly uh cataclysmic but this is is left out of any media accounts of Venezuela makes it seem like the social because the socialists took over they ruined the economy and there's no mention of the US economic warfare uh and the impact of that nor any of the positive uh uh things uh that occurred under Chavez and Maduro, which is why so many Venezuelans support those leaders and why they won so many elections. Um, and I think Venezuelaners still want the Bolivarian Revolution to endure and they don't want to become a neo colony. And this is a kind of insidious way for the US to do it by uh appears uh they may have blackmailed Rodriguez or um backed her into a corner, intimidated her that she has to make so many concessions. Uh so without I mean they they they got rid of Maduro and they're using her they're kind of uh using her to to do away with most of the gain of the Bolivar and Revolution without an outright military invasion and and coup although it was a coup of sorts that appears to have taken place and this may be the new approach that may be what they're trying with Iran although I don't think it's working there but kill the kidnap or kill the leaders And you can see the gangster nature, you know, it goes back to our discussion of death squads. I mean, when it comes down to it, the US foreign policy is just like, you know, Don Corleó or Tony Soprano, you know, they kill uh uh and murder and take out leaders. And I think the approach now because they, you know, outright military invasions are not working. Uh so they try and kill the leaders like they did Iran, then replace him with somebody who they can um get to to change the policies in the way they want, which is to open up the country for foreign investors and have the country sell off its economic assets basically.

[00:37:46]Yeah, it certainly appears that um you know Venezuela what's interesting is the parallels between Iran and Venezuela in that these are both countries that the US overthrew the governments in the past um uh plundered their wealth for many many years. Countries that were able to wrestle power back from the United States and have some level of success.

[00:38:09]And now the United States is coming back to both Venezuela and Iran saying, "We're going to come back and we're going to take the wealth. We're going to get back to where we were before and plunder your wealth." And Venezuela has the does not have the uh military and intelligence wherewithal to resist. And Iran does. And that's the difference.

[00:38:29]>> Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

[00:38:31]Yeah. And they'll always come back. It shows uh if if you look, you know, they play the long game. They may, you know, suffer a setback like the Chavez revolution, but they're never going to give up. And look how many coups, you know, in 2002, they plotted the coup against Chavez. They failed there. Uh, but they have their way, you know, they and and that's what they use the sanctions uh as an important toolkit in the US foreign policy arsenal to kind of weaken a country over time.

[00:39:03]I think the strategy is that we'll do these sanctions for 10, 15 years and that'll slowly break them down and then we can move in with a more more force.

[00:39:13]And look, they did that in Syria very effectively uh after coordinating the the Arab Spring uprising. Then they use the sanctions combined with in that case arming terrorist forces out of Jordan and Turkey. the operation timber sycamore create conflict civil war destabilize the country impose the sanctions and then you'll gradually erode support uh for for Assad who had been very popular uh for that that's the strategy they're doing with Russia but it's failed there you know Russia is a bigger country and they have astute leadership now who's able to cope with the sanctions and is forming uh uh different alliances to withstand that.

[00:39:57]So, I don't think they'll succeed in Russia, but that was the strategy. And yeah, it's the same strategy they apply everywhere. But yeah, as you point out, Venezuela just doesn't have the strength. And I I think that is the regional alliances are key. uh the Bolivarian revolution um would would have been stronger if if Venezuela could forge, you know, more powerful alliances if other countries uh also experienced socialist revolutions or had governments that were in alignment with the ideal of the Bolivarian revolution. They could have formed a powerful block. That's why the US was so active in countries around Venezuela, including Colombia where they interfered the election. Yeah. And brought in this right-wing fanatic who's similar the kind of leader, you know, in Ukraine, a fascistleaning >> and they, you know, targeted Nicaragua, targeted Cuba, and you know, these >> Malay Malay is clearly an operative.

[00:40:57]They he was literally going to lose in the United States. He wrecked the economy. the United States came in and gave him $40 billion on top of money they had already given him. And they even said, "Well, we're doing it because of, you know, he won't get elected if otherwise." So, you came and gave $40 billion of of our money that should have gone to American interests here um to uh basically they just gave Malay here's $40 billion. We know the likelihood is that a significant amount of it was stolen because this money changes hands and there's always massive amounts of corruptions and fingers in the pot. But the United States basically bailed $40 billion worth of debt and and disastrous policies out from Malay to keep him in office. So they're doing whatever they have, including buying their way in with money that we can't afford because we're already $40 trillion in debt.

[00:41:52]>> Absolutely. Yeah, they're trying to build a a right-wing network uh in Latin America to counter the Bolivarian Revolution um and and destroy it. I mean, their goal is to destroy and allow corporation to plunder uh Latin America like they had done in the past. You know, there's a book by um Eduardo Galeno I read a while ago uh you know, pillillage of a continent or something. open veins of Latin America, the pillillage of a continent uh which is a good history of that and yeah they'll keep coming back uh and find ways to destroy these revolutionary movements uh including through you know sanction or try and isolate those countries if they can't achieve regime change like Cuba but they'll isolate they'll weaken it weaken it over time uh wage economic warfare and and look the the US was involved in Bolivia you know, that was a key with Evo Morales when he came in and he was forging powerful relation with Venezuela. So, they had to sabotage his uh government and there the coup in was it 2019 or sometime around there and then more recently they've been uh active and pushing the right wing.

[00:43:07]Honduras had more of a left-leaning uh government taking root. They had to get rid of that. uh they released one Orlando Hernandez and interfered in the recent election there. So every country they're active to try and prevent uh a broader coalition forming that could uh you know strengthen you know Venezuela was such a key country with the Chavez revolution and um it could have grown across the continent and that was a similar idea of pan-Africanism you know in the in Africa you had neuruma uh who promoted the idea of African unity because one country alone uh can you fight the whole uh capitalist imperialist system. But if they unify together, they can empower each other e economically. They can forge military alliances and really defend themselves from the outside interference that will inevitably come. And and the Kruma wrote very eloquently about this. He was a very good writer. He wrote a number of books about neoc colonialism and that with the idea of pan-Africanism. But yeah, if you look at US foreign policy, they they target Necruma was overthrown in a CIA back coup in 1966.

[00:44:22]Uh they targeted Nerrera.

[00:44:24]Any left-leaning leader, Lumambbo was murdered. Uh Gaddafi was trying to revive the Panaffrican project. They took out him. And you know, Africa is is is weak now and its ability to withstand foreign the West. Although, you know, China, it's another story is how China's moving in there to replace Western imperialism, but that's maybe another story. But well, that that's kind of happening in South America, too. But but China, you know, has its own interests. It's not it may bring some benefits, but uh to achieve real autonomy, these countries um yeah uh need to forge an independent path. And that's what Venezuela was doing. And that's why it was targeted.

[00:45:10]>> Yeah. I mean, you could go back to Marcus Garvey when he had his shipping company, the Black Star Lines, you know, and it was going to bring goods to Africa and the people of African descent around the world. And what did they do?

[00:45:20]The FBI charged him with some they they said now here is a guy who was running a shipping company and they were afraid because he was going to become very very wealthy and very very powerful and they charged him with um I think it was mail fraud or something for uh they alleged that he sent somebody $25, a guy who owned a shipping lines. They they alleged that he uh tried to send somebody $25 in the mail and you know so that they could of course you know trump up a charge against him. And in court um it's well known they literally and for evidence they put a an empty envelope out envelope out and said yes there could be you know potentially $25 in this envelope that he would then hand to someone. So time and again people who were like okay the and of course at that time particularly in the US and in South America former slaves were a great great source of extremely cheap labor. And so he was going saying to these this gigantic source of cheap labor in the Americas, hey perhaps we should come together and you should look out for yourselves and try to advance yourselves economically and I'm going to get the shipping line and we're all going to do that. And he was a very smart and brilliant man who obviously was on course. He had um newspapers with tens of thousands of people on o on path to be extreme extraordinarily wealthy and of course extraordinarily uh virulent and you know his his his fight for the freedom of people of African descent. So what did they do? They coo they couldn't kill him because he was here. So, they cooked up some they cooked up a, you know, phony um uh uh charges and and we've seen that time and time again with the FBI or whoever cooking up phony charges against someone who pushes back against, you know, the uh the oligarchs.

[00:47:15]>> Well, look at the phony drug trafficking charges on on Nicholas Maduro. I mean, he was continuing the Chavez revolution and then they accuse him of being a drug trafficker and they used that as a pretext to kidnap him and then to insidiously take over the country uh for for US corporations and oil uh the oil companies. So yeah, history repeats itself in slightly different ways. And I mean, Noriega, you know, I don't think he was a good guy, but when he tried to reclaim control, you know, when he tried to, you know, initially they were using him to funnel weapon to the Contras, uh, but then he became, you know, he distanced himself from the US, he decided he was going to put Panama closer to, uh, Cuba and he was going to reclaim, you know, control over the Panama Canal. And that's when they uh brought to light his nefarious drug dealing and he died in Miami prison, I believe. Uh so yeah, they they used those fabricated charges and then they support the worst gangsters as we've been describing the Keys, the Fuse, the Juan Orlando Hernandez, you know, he was a big-time drug smuggler. And then, you know, Trump pardon and he was convicted.

[00:48:30]So, I mean, the evidence was overwhelming against him and he was given 40 years and yet Trump pardoned him after he served maybe one year. Uh, so >> I think the um what is the the current president of Nigeria? Wasn't he um wasn't he uh a drug smuggler in Chicago?

[00:48:51]>> I don't know as much about him, but I know the pattern. Yeah.

[00:48:55]And >> there we go. Here's one. Here's an article right here. Let me you know something that you're quite familiar with. Let me see.

[00:49:12]Here's an one of many articles. Bola Akmed Tonubo. From drug lord to presidential candidate from Gary, Indiana to Abujun Na area via stopover in Chicago. Here's how the bagman for a 1990 Chicago drug ring has become a front runner for Nigeria as well. Then not just front runner, he became president. And you see it again.

[00:49:31]Somebody from the US becomes the the the you know, it's like when the US first overthrew the government of Ukraine and uh the um uh the um what's it called? The Greyzone did an article about this woman who went over to Ukraine from I think she was from New Jersey and she was an American citizen and she became the person in charge of all of their finances and they had to like change the law because she was an American citizen. She wasn't even a Ukrainian. So they'll take someone from here and they'll send him over to the country to run their money. In other words, steal it all. And this guy just another drug dealer. And the the the beauty of having a drug dealer um as the in charge of something is it's already set up. You say to him, "Look, you're a drug dealer. Go run this country. Do everything you want or we bring you back and reinstitute the charges against drugs and put you in jail." That's already said.

[00:50:28]>> Mhm.

[00:50:30]Yeah. Exactly.

[00:50:31]>> Kubu, that's the guy's name. Well, thank you very much once again everybody. Let me show remind everyone about this fantastic website. And the website is covertactionagazine.com.

[00:50:44]All kinds of great things there. And if you want to know about I mean you can search whatever. If you want to know about Ukraine, if you want to know about 9/11, if you want to know about the JFK or the MLK assassinations, if you want to know about the um what was the guy's name in Guana, the Jim Jones um case in Guana um Jonestown where it was alleged that the CIA was involved in MK Ultra experiments and assassinations there. So um there's so many things at Covert Action Magazine. just go up there and click on series for your feature series or you can actually go search for those kinds of things and find like absolutely outstanding information at um covertaction.com.

[00:51:27]Dr. Jerry Kosmaro does a fantastic job there. It's one of my favorite sites.

[00:51:31]Thanks a lot. Uh Jerry, did I say Jerry?

[00:51:33]Jeremy, I think I got that right this time. Thanks a lot, Jeremy. And >> Yep. And look forward to talking to you again soon. All right, everybody. This is a great segment that we do weekly and we've got to really get it out there.

[00:51:46]Certainly, you know, the algorithms are no friend. I recently find out I mean Twitter to say I am shadowbanned is an understatement of the year. You know what I mean? Uh all over. And I recently, guess what? I'll send it to you. I recently got an email to talk about how bad it is shadowbanning from someone that says, "You better check your Patreon account." And what they said was number one that and the person sent me something from their account and it had all of the Patreon um um there that they subscribed to and it had the name and then it had monthly and then it had you know where they take the money out whatever say $5 a month.

[00:52:26]Successful successful successful and then it said Garland Nixon Substack Patreon. Yeah, I think it was Patreon.

[00:52:32]No, it was Substack. It said Garland Nixon unable to process and then after that it says Garland Nixon you're no longer uh uh basically subscribed. So a the person's credit card and they what they said is look at this I used the same credit card before your account all every single one of them worked when it got to yours account it says unable to process and then after your account they all worked again and then it said that I've been unsubscribed from your Substack but I never unsubscribed from you. So, first it wouldn't let you pay me for it wouldn't let them pay and then it unsubscribed them. So, you got to understand that when we do things like this, it only makes sense that they're going to say, "No, we don't want the American people knowing that kind of crap or anybody else." And that's why you out there in the chat have to share this on all your social media platforms because that's the only way it's going to get there.

[00:53:23]Thanks a lot, uh, Jeremy. None of these things are surprising to you, I'm sure.

[00:53:28]Yeah, studying history, you become pretty cynical of how the rich and powerful will try and preserve their power and mistreat others, their callousness. Uh uh but uh we try our best to yeah educate people and be decent in our our own personal lives.

[00:53:46]>> Yeah. All right. Thanks a lot. All right, everybody. Share this on all your social media platforms. We're out.