Nicaragua accuses CIA, Spanish party of training saboteurs

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Xinhua

Nicaragua accuses CIA, Spanish party of training saboteurs

www.chinaview.cn 2008-06-16 09:57:57

MANAGUA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The official radio station of Nicaragua's ruling party Sunday accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a Spanish party of training young people to destabilize the country.

The CIA and the Popular Party (PP) of former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar are training people to provoke confrontation in Nicaragua, said La Nueva Radio Ya, or the New Radio Already.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega had previously denounced the U.S. government of funding a rightist group against his government.

However, this was the first time that the official radio station of the ruling Sandinist Front of National Liberation (FSLN) openly pointed to the CIA and the PP for training saboteurs.

"This group of young people are working in Nicaragua after being sent to Miami of the United States and Spain to attend seminaries on how to generate chaos," said the radio station. Theyalso took trainings in universities at home, it said.


Read more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/16/content_8377448.htm

[pattmarty]

1. Jesus fucking Christ, now we're bringing back the Reagan "contra" years??

[Arctic Dave]

2. The MIMC is going to lose their cash cow in the ME

next year, so they are looking to find a new revenue stream. What better way to scare people then the good ol days of "a communist under every bed". War is a racket.

[Mudoria]

3. All the best news from the official mouthpiece of the

Chinese government.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

4. You're thinking of "Better Believe It." -nt

[Judi Lynn]

6. Maybe you'd be good enough to point out all of the lies therein.

You'd be doing everyone a real favor.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Interestingly, this Chinese news agency is one of the best sources for objective

news--good, old-fashioned, straightforward, informative news--that I have seen on events in South America. They may be performing (for Chinese business people) the function that the WSJ news pages used to perform for U.S. business people, who really must have accurate news, in order to make good business decisions. (The op-ed pages of the WSJ might be foaming-at-the-mouth fascist, but the NEWS pages used to have in-depth, informative articles, found nowhere else, about REAL political and economic conditions here and abroad.) And you gotta wonder how many U.S. business people have made BAD decisions about South America, because they were so badly mis- and dis-informed by the heavily propagandistic U.S. news services.

You always have to take news agency owners into consideration, when analyzing their news content--whether corporate, government or whatever. It appears to me that at least the Chinese business community (if not its general population) is being better served by this news agency, on South American news, than our business community is getting here. And that may be why Chinese investors are making such headway against U.S. investors in South America. They are more savvy about REAL political opinion and economic policy and trends in South America than U.S. business people are.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Your tax money (USAID-NED) training fascist 'brownshirts' for the western hemisphere.

There is no end to the misuse of government funds by the Bush Junta. Your tax money to rightwing political groups for a presidential recall election, in Venezuela, for instance, and to support rightwing candidates in Venezuela and throughout Central and South America. Your tax dollars to coup plots, assassination plots, CIA "dirty tricks," and plans to create civil wars, in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina. Your tax dollars paying Mark Penn's P.R. firm to create a false poll for use in a coup plot in Venezuela, supporting white supremacists against the indigenous president of Bolivia, and $5.5 BILLION of your tax dollars to arm the fascist thugs, murderers and drug traffickers running Colombia, where they chainsaw union leaders and throw their body parts into mass graves, and slit children's throats on suspicion of their parents being leftists. That is the preferred form of government by the Bushites--government by heinous murder. Your tax dollars are paying for it--and for on-going Bushite efforts to install government by heinous murder wherever they can get a foothold to destabilize and topple democratic governments.

Recently, your tax dollars paid for a Colombian bombing/raid into Ecuador that almost started a war between Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela (that situation is still very tense)--a naked attempt by the Bushites to destabilize the region. (The Colombians used U.S. "smart bombs," and high tech surveillance, and possibly U.S. aircraft and personnel--as well as their own U.S. taxpayer funded military.) Your tax dollars recently reconstituted the 4th Fleet (a nuclear fleet) to roam the coast of Venezuela as a provocation. And, frankly, I see a U.S./Bush war plan in all of this, orchestrated by Donald Rumsfeld (his 'retirement' project), to split off the oil rich provinces of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, into fascist mini-states in control of the resources. Your tax dollars are paying for the training of 'student' brownshirts to foment civil war in these countries--and, apparently, in Nicaragua as well (deja vu all over again).

But all of your tax dollars have been pretty much wasted, from a Bushite point of view, as country after country have elected leftist (majorityist) governments, committed to social justice, self-determination and regional cooperation. Twelve South American countries just formed UNASUR, a few weeks ago, the foundation for a South American "Common Market" and (proposed by Brazil) a common defense, without the U.S. South America has only one enemy--the U.S. All of the above is why they need a common defense.

Contrary to everything you have heard from our war profiteering corporate 'news' monopolies, Venezuela's government, and its president, Hugo Chavez, is well-liked and admired in most of Latin America. The president of Brazil, for instance, said of Chavez: "You can criticize Chavez on many things-- but not on democracy." He also called him "the great peacemaker" for his role in defusing the war that the U.S./Bush-Colombia tried to start with Ecuador.

Latin Americans know that Venezuela is a democracy, with a scrupulously lawful and very popular and beneficial government--information that the Bushites spend yet more of your tax dollars to prevent you from knowing. Venezuela's visionary leader and social movements have spurred many an initiative that is beneficial to all countries, including, for instance, the Bank of the South (local financing of development), which has pretty much evicted the U.S.-dominated World Bank/IMF loan sharks from the region.

So far, the Bush Junta's utter misuse of our tax dollars in Latin America has yielded nothing but hostility and determination to get out from under the U.S. dictatorship. The Bushites' "divide and conquer" tactics, violence, funding of fascist groups, and attempts to overthrow democratic governments, have failed. There may be more bloodshed and grief before it's over. I'm sure that the Bushites would like to hand Barack Obama one more disastrous quagmire--an oil war in South America--to shackle his administration. They may try this summer. I'm also quite sure they have long term plans--a long war of attrition, if all else fails--using resources put in place with our tax dollars (for instance, Blackwater in Colombia, and other armed paramilitaries), and billions stolen from our coffers in Iraq. Rumsfeld & co. are desperate to regain control of South America's oil, and I doubt they will not stop trying, no matter what happens in November.

I don't have any illusions about the beneficence of Obama policy in Latin America--except that it will probably be less bloody-minded. And if I were Latin American, I'd be plenty wary of Obama's "win/win" corporate talk. But I think that the upshot of the Bolivarian Revolution is that this is Latin America's century, not ours. And our corporations and war profiteers had best accommodate themselves to that reality, unless they want permanent alienation between the northern and southern halves of the western hemisphere. We are poised at the moment of that decision, right now.

[Judi Lynn]

7. No strings attached? How US funding of international press may be buying influence

No strings attached? How US funding of international press may be buying influence
Submitted by jonathan on Thu, 2008-06-12 08:57. Propaganda and War | Newswire
Full Story:
by Jeremy Bigwood, In These Times

Domestic propaganda campaigns like the "Pentagon Pundits" fiasco have been exposed and decried. Mainstream media outlets hired high-ranking military officers to provide "analysis" about the war in Iraq. Turns out they had ties to military contractors with a vested interest in continuing the war.

Below the radar, another journalism scandal is brewing: the U.S. government is secretly funding foreign news outlets and journalists. Government bodies -- including the State Department, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and the U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP) -- support "media development" in more than 70 countries. In These Times has found that these programs include funding hundreds of foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), journalists, policy-makers, journalist associations, media outlets, training institutes and academic journalism faculties. Grant sizes can range from a few thousand to millions of dollars.

"The bottom line is that we are teaching the mechanics of journalism, whether it be print, television or radio," USAID spokesman Paul Koscak says. "How to do a story, how to write with balance ... all of those types of things that you would expect in a professional piece that is published."

But some people, especially those outside the United States, see it differently.

"We think that the real issues here are the foreign policy objectives behind these media development programs," says a high-level Venezuelan diplomat who asked not to be identified. "When the objective is regime change, these programs have proven to be instruments for the destabilization of democratically elected governments that the United States doesn't support."

Isabel MacDonald, communications director at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a New York-based media watchdog nonprofit, is also critical. "This is a system that, despite its professed adherence to norms of objectivity, has often worked against real democracy," she says, "by stifling dissent and helping the U.S. government spread misinformation serviceable to U.S. foreign policy goals."

Show me the agency

Measuring the size and scope of independent media development is difficult because similar programs exist under different rubrics. Some agencies consider "media development" to be its own field, while other agencies categorize it under "public diplomacy" or "psychological operations." That makes it hard to figure out how much money goes into these programs.

In December 2007, the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) -- a State Department-funded office at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- reported that in 2006, USAID doled out almost $53 million for foreign media development activities. According to the CIMA study, the State Department spent an estimated $15 million on such programs. NED's budget for media projects was an additional $11 million. And the small Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Institute for Peace may have contributed up to $1.4 million more, according to the report, which did not examine Defense Department or CIA media funding.

The U.S. government is by far the largest funder of media development in the world, giving more than $82 million in 2006 -- not counting money from the Pentagon, the CIA or U.S. embassies in recipient countries. To complicate matters, many foreign NGOs and journalists receive media development funding from more than one U.S. government source. Some receive funding from various U.S. subcontractors and "independent international nonprofit organizations," while others receive money directly from the U.S. embassy in their country.

More:
http://reclaimthemedia.org/propaganda_and_war/no_strings_attached_how_us_fun%3D6035

[MasonJar]

9. Again??????? It is time that we demand that this interference in other

nations' business stop. NOW!!!!!!

[countryjake]

10. K&R!

[readmoreoften]

11. Good god when are we going to get over this idea of building a canal through Nicaragua???

Yes, the CIA was there along with professors from Duke University back in the 80s. I stayed in Bluefields for awhile, this is what folks told me. The strangest thing I saw was TV sets.

We're talking about a city with 70,000 people and 2 roads with about 95% of the houses being "unsealed" (the walls not meeting the roof). When I was there the HOSPITAL interior was made out of shower curtains, gurneys, and one David Lynchian flickering fluorescent light and about 8 hours of electricity a day in the hospital. Most homes had no electricity; wealthy folks had a few hours a day. Unemployment was at 90% and a professional salary was $25 a month. BUT....BUT...

All these folks had $200+ TV sets. When I asked where the damn TV sets came from I was told "people from the US came down there and gave out TV sets" Why? To create a desire for US products. :crazy: Or as one woman put it "to make our kids want to go to Disneyland."

We're still fucking fighting the god damn cold war and we always will be so long as there are poor people in our way who might rise up against us.

[stillcool]

12. I wonder if Blackwater is doing the training...

or is it still up to the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation?

[AlphaCentauri]

13. Aznar and his right wing crap party is pulling strings in latin america

They are regrouping in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/514697.html

[formercia]

14. Another 'Dirty War' for Central America

As long as there are Knights of Malta (SMOM) in the US intelligence services, we will continue to see the US promoting the agenda of a foreign power.

This is the same thing as in the 80's except instead of Argentinian right-wing reactionaries, we have Opus Dei Spanish right-wing reactionaries attempting to overthrow a democratically elected government with the help of right-wing reactionaries in the CIA.

Come January, someone needs to do a good house cleaning and start issuing pink slips.