All Monsanto’s Men Part II - Coup, Coup Ca-choo Latin America

Nobel Peace Prize winner, President Barack Obama has declared Venezuela an extraordinary threat to the United States of America and has initiated economic sanctions against the government.  Nicolas Maduro, president of the oil rich socialist nation, has been on the Obama Administration’s Latin American hit list for a long time.  So it’s coup, coup ca-choo Venezuela.

Earlier in the year Vice President Joe Biden was slithering around Venezuela meeting with opposition leaders to lay the foundation for a violent coup against the Maduro government. 

Think you’ve seen this movie before?  In my blog post “Ukraine Meet Your Future,Wash Rinse Repeat” I described the coup blue print as such:

Excerpt:

For so long now, the robotic motions of: 1) preemptively attack a cash poor, resource rich country, 2) remove their leader, 3) steal or give away the rights to all their resources, 4) provide a democratic “election” for a new leader who is Western friendly from a pool of pre-approved candidates and 5)  foment unending chaos and war for profit.   Wash, rinse, repeat.

I believe Nicolas Maduro knows the formula, after all he has banned U.S. officials from entering his country calling them terrorists.  According to the Washington Times, Biden was quite busy during his February trip to Venezuela for an “energy summit” in Caracas.

Excerpt:

Vice President Joseph R. Biden met Wednesday at the White House with the spouse of a jailed Venezuelan opposition leader just a week after the South American nation’s president accused Mr. Biden of actively helping to plot a coup against him.

Sources familiar with the meeting said Lilian Tintori, whose husband Leopoldo Lopez was arrested last February in Caracas, pressed Mr. Biden and others in the Obama administration to be more aggressive in condemning human rights violations in Venezuela.

Mr. Biden’s office confirmed the meeting had taken place, saying in a statement that the goal was to “underscore” the administration’s “commitment in promoting human rights around the world.”

Jiminy Cricket, do those assholes even hear themselves?  They are meeting with CIA assets, conspiring to overthrow the Venezuelan government in a coup just like they did in Ukraine.  So who is this guy Leopoldo Lopez that has been in prison since last February?  From Bloomberg News, February 2014:

Excerpt:

….Leopoldo López tweeted on Feb. 15 after Venezuelan police raided his home. The unofficial head of Venezuela’s newly active opposition movement, López, 42, was addressing President Nicolas Maduro, who has been in office since April 2013, following the cancer-related death of his mentor, Hugo Chávez.

Three days before, Maduro issued an arrest warrant for López, charging him with terrorism and murder after gunmen opened fire on a thousands-strong antigovernment demonstration as it was dispersing in Caracas.

Maduro’s people say protesters, led by López, initiated the violence. The demonstrators say the authorities opened fire to scatter the crowd, and killed three.

Man oh man, its déjà vu all over again.  So the Obama Administration denies they are conspiring to overthrow the government of Venezuela. 

Mr. Maduro said Mr. Biden was trying to foment his ouster during a Caribbean energy summit the U.S. vice president hosted last month in Washington. He claimed the U.S. vice president had told regional heads of state attending the summit that the government in Caracas was near collapse, and they should abandon it.

The accusation came as a surprise, since Mr. Maduro and Mr. Biden had been photographed while shaking hands and expressing mutual interest in warmer relations during an impromptu meeting a month earlier in Brazil.

Never trust a snake like Biden, next thing you know his ne’er do well son, Hunter will be running your energy companies.  These people are such clumsy liars.

While the U.S. remains a significant buyer of Venezuelan oil, the recent developments have cast a shadow over hopes that the two nations might improve their long-rocky relationship in light of the Obama administration’s recent push for a thaw in relations with Cuba, Caracas‘closest strategic and ideological ally.

Hey, wasn’t the Obama Administration’s State Department rep in Cuba meeting with “dissidents” just as America was opening relations with the Castro’s?  From Think Progress:

Excerpt:

The highest-ranking U.S. diplomatic official to visit Cuba in more almost 40 years met with seven leading dissidents there on Friday, to the seeming annoyance of the communist nation’s leadership.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson had breakfast with dissidents on Friday after a day of talks with the regime focused on the practicalities of restoring long-dormant diplomatic relations.

But leaders in Havana saw the decision to speak with a wider range of Cuban civil society as meddlesome interference in the country’s internal affairs.

Coup, coup ca-choo Cuba.  So what did Maduro do in response to the Obama sanctions?  He declared U.S. politicians terrorists and instituted a requirement for American visitors to obtain visas to travel in Venezuela.  From The Anti-News:

Excerpt:

(ANTIMEDIA) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro recently announced that VISAs are now mandatory for US citizens visiting the country.

He also banned George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from Venezuela, among other American politicians, calling them terrorists for their war crimes…

“Former US President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and Republican Congress members Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Robert Menendez, and Marco Rubio will be denied visas into the country, labeling Bush and Cheney as “terrorists.””

… “In order to protect our country…I have decided to implement a system of compulsory visas for all Americans entering Venezuela,” the president said in a speech.

So Obama is hell bent on overthrowing Maduro whose oil based economy has been suffering since the price of oil has cratered after being manipulated by Saudi Arabia.    

But the absolute gall of the Obama/Biden cabal knows no limits.  Take these recent statements by Obama as reported by teleSUR TV:   

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama declared Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to national security” March 9 on the basis of alleged human rights abuses and political corruption. This is part of an ongoing U.S. campaign of aggression toward Venezuela, which includes actively supporting right-wing Venezuelan opposition forces in fomenting chaos and instability in attempts to execute a coup against President Nicolas Maduro…

Yep that’s the “new” America brought to you by the United States Senate and Supreme Court coup.

Human rights, democracy, and anti-corruption are supposedly core values of U.S. foreign policy, yet these buzzwords are reduced to little more than rhetorical tools for the U.S. in crafting its own narrative about the countries in the region to suit its own political and economic agenda.

For example, human rights is never portrayed as a serious issue for U.S. allies like Mexico and Honduras, both of which have high rates of murder, femicide, human rights abuses, and political repression. A few case studies in hypocrisy demonstrate that the U.S. interest in portraying itself as the global champion of democracy and human rights is highly selective and politically strategic.

Hmmm “human rights” in Mexico and Honduras isn’t of any importance to the Obama Administration. 

On January 6, Obama met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at the White House. Prior to the meeting, a senior administration official said Obama was looking to partner with Mexico to encourage “positive change in Cuba and reinforce democratic principles.”

Obama is partnering with Mexico to promote “human rights?”  That would be laughable if it weren’t so deadly.

Peña Nieto had been lauded by political and media elites in the United States. For example, the 47-year-old photogenic Mexican president adorned the cover of the February 24, 2014, edition Time Magazine with a gushing, accompanying story entitled “Saving Mexico”--a story that was much derided as a puff piece.

Nieto and his predecessor Calderon both came to power in Mexico through “made in America sham elections.”  A gushing press in America is all we have left, because any investigative reporters that delve into the corruption in America’s government are charged with espionage.

Seven months later Peña Nieto and his “new” Mexico would be unmasked. On Sept. 26, 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college were disappeared and six others killed in the Mexican State of Guerrero.

This horrifying event sparked outrage across the country. Protests mushroomed across Mexico, not only to demand the safe return of and justice for the students, but for the indignation of the Mexican state’s involvement and complicity in this case and scores of others like it…

Since 2008, when Pena Nieto’s predecessor Felipe Calderon executed Plan Mexico, there have been over 42,000 people disappeared in the country, according to a 2013 report by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission. In addition, the drug war has killed well over 100,000 Mexicans.

And that is the human rights that the Obama/Biden Administration want to bring to Cuba.  And as for Obama’s other partner in bringing “positive results and human rights” to Cuba, Honduras well I’ll let teleSUR tell the story:

In June 2009, a U.S.-backed coup ousted Honduras’ democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya. Amid popular cries of unconstitutionality in Honduras and throughout the region, coup perpetrators, including four generals trained at the U.S.-based School of the Americas, installed a de facto coup regime that committed widespread human rights violations, after Zelaya was whisked out of the country.  

Latin American leaders and regional bodies were quick to denounce the coup and demand the return to democracy. However, the Obama administration did not ask for Zelaya’s reinstatement and refused to label the crisis a military coup.

Zelaya’s modest shift to the left, including raising the minimum wage, buying oil from Venezuela, and joining ALBA, ruffled right-wing feathers and gave fodder for framing Zelaya as “another Chavez” to justify his ouster….

Yep, if you are an elected leader of a cash poor, resource rich country that believes in the dignity of human life, believe that your people deserve a living wage and that oil revenues should be used to improve the living standards for your people, you are a candidate for coup, coup ca-choo.

And how have the people of Honduras fared since the coup, coup ca-choo? 

Since the coup, Honduras has notoriously become known as the “murder capital of the world.” Violence has indeed soared, but it’s not a coincidence. Rather, it is a consequence of police corruption, increased militarization (including the introduction of a controversial hybrid military-police force), extrajudicial killings, impunity, and extreme neoliberal politics that – with the helping hand of the U.S. – exacerbate inequalities while harshly criminalizing dissent.

And remember all those children pouring in over the southern border that O’Biden (sic) wants to fast track citizenship for?  From Common Dreams:

Excerpt:

If you're reading this, you probably follow the news. So you've probably heard of the latest iteration of the "crisis at the border": tens of thousands of children, many of them unaccompanied by an adult, crossing the desert from Mexico into the United States, where they surrender to the Border Patrol in hope of being allowed to remain here permanently…

The fact that Honduras is the biggest source of the exodus jumped out at me. That's because, in 2009, the United States government — under President Obama — tacitly supported a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras.

"Washington has a very close relationship with the Honduran military, which goes back decades," The Guardian noted at the time. "During the 1980s, the US used bases in Honduras to train and arm the Contras, Nicaraguan paramilitaries who became known for their atrocities in their war against the Sandinista government in neighbouring Nicaragua."

Honduras wasn't paradise under President Manuel Zelaya. Since the coup, however, the country has entered a downward death spiral of drug-related bloodshed and political revenge killings that crashed the economy, brought an end to law, order and civil society, and now has some analysts calling it a "failed state" along the lines of Somalia and Afghanistan during the 1990s.

Another success story for the “new” America.  So, what did the UN and other Latin American nations have to say about the Honduran coup, coup ca-choo?  According to The Guardian:

Excerpt:

The military coup that overthrew Honduras's elected president, Manuel Zelaya, brought unanimous international condemnation.

The O’Biden Administration could care less.  This is the “new” America run out of the bowels of the Pentagon.

The first statement from the White House in response to the coup was weak and non-committal. It did not denounce the coup but rather called upon "all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter".

This contrasted with statements from other presidents in the hemisphere, such as Lula da Silva of Brazil and Cristina Fernandez of Argentina, who denounced the coup and called for the re-instatement of Zelaya. The EU issued a similar, less ambiguous and more immediate response.

I’ll bet the EU regrets they ever threw their lot in with the illegitimate Bush/Obama administrations. 

From BBC News:

Members of the Alba regional group expressed their support for Venezuela on Tuesday in the face of increasing tensions between the US and Venezuela.

At an emergency summit, Latin American left-wing leaders urged the US to repeal an executive order which declared Venezuela a threat to the national security of the US…

Tension shot up after the US published an executive order on 9 March announcing sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials suspected by the US of committing human rights abuses…

In the order, US President Barack Obama stated that the situation in Venezuela, including "the government's erosion of human rights guarantees (...) constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States"…

"Venezuela has no plans, did not have, nor will it ever have plans to attack the United States or hurt anyone," Mr. Maduro said at the Alba summit in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

He received strong backing from the Cuban leader, Raul Castro.

                 

Mr. Castro, who announced a rapprochement between his government and that of the US in December after decades of animosity, said that "the US needs to understand once and for all that it cannot seduce or buy Cuba, just as it cannot intimidate Venezuela".

Bolivian President Evo Morales said that "the US government must understand we are not living in imperial times of the past".

Evo Morales said Latin American nations stood united against "US imperialism"

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said that it was the US and not Venezuela which was "a threat to global security, this is not rhetoric, it is reality".

Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino questioned what the US, a country which he said "has made torture legal and (...) developed the most powerful mass surveillance system", could teach Latin American nations about human rights.

At a Senate hearing in Washington, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary for South America and Cuba, Alex Lee, meanwhile urged Latin American nations "to emphasize to the [Venezuelan] government the absolute importance of holding free and fair elections".

She means an “American made sham election.” 

Parliamentary elections are due to be held in Venezuela later this year. The exact date has yet to be announced.

Mr. Maduro won the presidential polls in 2013 by a razor-thin margin.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles cried foul, but following an audit of the electronic voting system, the election authority confirmed Mr. Maduro's poll victory of 50.7% of votes to Mr. Capriles's 49.1%

I have a quiz, what do the Latin American countries have in common?  Answer “Monsanto”

Venezuela 1993 - From Green Left:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias has announced that the cultivation of genetically modified crops will be prohibited on Venezuelan soil, possibly establishing the most sweeping restrictions on transgenic crops in the western hemisphere…

Before a recent international gathering of supporters in Caracas, Chavez admonished genetically engineered crops as contrary to interests and needs of the nation's farmers and farmworkers. He then zeroed in on Monsanto's plans to plant up to 500,000 acres of transgenic soybeans in Venezuela.

Chavez emphasised the importance of food sovereignty and security…. Instead of allowing Monsanto to grow its transgenic crops, these fields will be used to plant yucca, an indigenous crop, Chavez explained. He also announced the creation of a large seed bank facility to maintain indigenous seeds for peasants' movements around the world.

Imagine that, a country who actually stands up to Monsanto on behalf of their farmers.  After the 2000 coup in the United States of America. 

Venezuela 2002 - From The Guardian:

Washington's involvement in the turbulent events that briefly removed left-wing leader Hugo Chavez from power last weekend resurrects fears about US ambitions in the hemisphere.

It also deepens doubts about policy in the region being made by appointees to the Bush administration, all of whom owe their careers to serving in the dirty wars under President Reagan.

One of them, Elliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair.

Man, the world must have been heartsick after watching the Supreme Court and the United States Senate overthrow our government and all those lunatics from Reagan’s administration with their “new world order” plans all set to go.  And remember President Clinton left a $5 billion dollar surplus to play with.

What does the United Nations have to say about Venezuela’s human rights record?

From TeleSUR:

Excerpt:

Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), praised Venezuela Thursday for its efforts to eradicate poverty in the country.

Barcena, who was in Venezuela at the invitation of President Nicolas Maduro, visited working class communities in the capital of Caracas to familiarize herself with the social programs of the Venezuelan government.

Looks like Venezuela just got a seat on the U.N. Security Council against the strong objections of the “new” America.   America wanted Turkey to get the seat, you know that paragon of human rights.

UNITED NATIONS — Despite objections by the United States, Venezuela secured a seat on Thursday at the global table of high power, the United Nations Security Council, while Turkey, a vital but complicated American ally, was resoundingly defeated.

So war drums are beating and war is in their blood.  From Black Agenda Report:

Excerpt:

U.S. manic belligerence towards Venezuela may seem counterproductive, given Washington’s growing isolation in Latin America. But the logic of imperialism dictates that it must destroy the Venezuelan model of economic and political development. “Venezuela is no threat to US ‘national security,’ but its resistance to Empire is a threat to US hegemony.”

So, its coup, coup ca-choo Latin America, and like in the song “Mrs. Robinson” any way you look at it you lose.

By Patricia Baeten

All Monsanto’s Men

Part I  April Fools:  Obama’s Monsanto Protection Law Marks 1 Year Anniversary

With April Fool’s Day around the corner, so marks the one year anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize Winner’s Monsanto Protection Law.  And what a year it has been for Monsanto, spreading death, illness, mutations and despair across the world. 

One year ago, with the stroke of a pen, Obama condemned to death the people of America, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Russia, Venezuela, Argentina, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Greece, Mexico, Bolivia, Canada and the hit list goes on.  So what was Obama’s 2014 April Fool’s Day Joke?  From Friends of Syria:

Excerpt:

Obama Signs Monsanto Protection Act

Barack Obama recently signed a bill into law that was written by the billion-dollar corporation that will benefit from it. The Monsanto Protection Act allows Monsanto to override United States federal courts on the issue of planting experimental genetically engineered crops all across the US. The government has no power whatsoever to stop Monsanto and other biotechnology corporations from planting and harvesting…

We are seeing the power of the fact that multinational corporations own the government…

Yep, that’s the “new” America birthed out of the 2000 election coup in America.  You know, the coup that was orchestrated by members of the United States Senate in both parties and 5 members of a corrupt for profit United States Supreme Court.

To reiterate, this new law forces the USDA to approve all GMO planting permits desired by the Monsanto Corporation and other biotech firms no matter what….  As large corporations are able to ultimately make decisions, the government just exists to give people the illusion that they make the decision. Barack Obama did not make this decision, the Monsanto Corporation did. So who owns the Monsanto Corporation then?

Obama is just a spokes model for the special interests that own congress, nothing more and nothing less.

The Monsanto Corporations major shareholder is Fidelity Investments, The Vanguard Group and State Street Corporation. All of these are major financial institutions.

These three financial corporations have their hands in all industries and all major corporations that govern them. These three corporations also own ALL of the major biotechnology companies that manufacture GMOs like Amgen, Genentech, and Genzyme…

So here we have a case of major financial institutions owning the government. We must then ask, who owns the major financial institutions? That’s easy, the FEDERAL RESERVE does….

My, my, my.  One year later and how does that look for America?  Not so well according to Farm Aid. An article written in 2011 in the Farm Aid website, lays out all the ways the Obama Administration has launched chemical attacks on the American people.

Excerpt:

With a new mission to squash “burdensome” regulation and play nice with U.S. businesses, the Obama Administration has been in a frenzy green-lighting genetically engineered (GE) crops.

Just weeks into the New Year, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced the full deregulation of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa—a genetically engineered crop variety designed to withstand Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. The move gave the OK for commercial planting to take place this spring without restrictions.

A week later, USDA announced the deregulation of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets, followed by the deregulation of Syngenta’s Enogen corn, a variety genetically engineered for biofuel production. Meanwhile, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is now considering the commercial release of genetically modified salmon.

Hmmm, with all help from Obama why would Monsanto need to be protected from the people?  Was the Monsanto Protection law even necessary?

One of the biggest problems GE crops have presented in the real world is the contamination of non-GE crops. The newest wave of deregulated GE crops presents a very real risk that such contamination will happen again.

Take alfalfa, which is pollinated by bees. Bees can generally cover a five-mile range as they buzz from plant to plant, collecting and spreading pollen. Since bees don’t tend to observe property lines or fences, GE alfalfa pollen could, for example, be spread to and pollinate a non-GE alfalfa plant, in turn contaminating a neighboring field with GE genes.

This cross-fertilization would be especially disastrous for organic farmers. If organic fields are contaminated, an organic farmer’s certification is at risk, since the use of GE crops is prohibited under the organic label…

Organic livestock farmers would face similar consequences if their cattle consumed contaminated alfalfa, and the organic industry as a whole could suffer from severe supply problems if organic alfalfa can’t be maintained with integrity…

Well, the farmers and organic farmers are sore losers that’s how free market capitalism works in the “new” America. 

What does all this mean for eaters? Do we eat GE foods? The quick answer is: almost certainly.

Remember that the vast majority of our corn and soy come from GE seed, and that these crops are generally used as feed for cattle, hogs and poultry, or otherwise used in the many processed foods found in grocery store aisles.

Alfalfa is the fourth largest crop grown in the U.S. and is most commonly used to feed dairy cows and beef cattle.

So, if you drink milk, eat beef, enjoy the occasional slice of bacon with your breakfast, order chicken in your Caesar salad or ever indulge in processed foods, cereals and desserts with ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and soy lecithin, GE crops are part of your food chain.

Unfortunately, you can’t be sure when you eat them or in what form, because there is no requirement to label foods with GE ingredients. As discussed above, the release of GE alfalfa also puts several organic foods at risk for contamination—further eroding our choice as consumers to avoid GE foods if we wish.

Guess what?  In today’s Business section of the news there was this little tidbit from The American Register:

Excerpt:

US stocks rose on Friday pushing the Nasdaq to a 15-year high. The Standard & Poor’s 500 also benefited breaking a three-week of losses. Much of this was driven by a pullback of the dollar and gains by Nike and other biotech firms.

Who knew Nike was a biotech firm?

The biotech index for NASDAQ spiked for the eighth session straight, gaining 7.4 percent since March 10; and it rose by 0.5 percent on Friday following a 9.8 percent rise in Biogen Idec to $475.98.

Biogen claimed that its experimental drug is the first medication to treat Alzheimer’s disease in a way that significantly arrested cognitive decline and reduce brain plaque in patients who have the aging disease.

Gee, it seems to me that I recently read that neurological and cognitive diseases like Alzheimer’s and Autism are linked to Monsanto’s Roundup.  From Veterans Today:

Excerpt:

Recent research reveals the main toxic effects of glyphosate, the main ingredient in the Monsanto weed killer Roundup, are identical to the typical biological markers for autism and Alzheimer’s disease. MIT researcher Dr Stephanie Seneff PhD is also alarmed by the correlation between growing Roundup use and a big increase in the incidence of autism.

So biotech stocks are soaring because the Biotech Industry believes it has found a cure for the diseases their “unlabeled” products cause.  What a racket.

The NASDAQ closed with 22 points from its record high and the S&P 500 left with less than 10 points beneath its record close. Meanwhile, the gains recorded this week seems to stem from the Federal Reserve’s announcement on Wednesday that it was not ready to raise interest rates yet as against what investors had earlier hoped.

“The Federal Reserve’s created a situation where there’s very little alternative to equities, so the path of least resistance for stocks will be up for a period of time,” said Robert Lutts, president and CIO at Cabot Money Management in Salem, Mass.

Meanwhile Obama has taken Monsanto’s war on humans on the road.  Next stop, Venezuela.  Remember when Joe Biden and John Kerry were trying their damnest to bomb the shit out of Syria claiming Assad used “chemical” weapons on his own people? 

That’s rich now isn’t it?  The country that has made it illegal to require Monsanto to label their dangerous products that cause cancer and neurological damage to its people, especially babies, is accusing a world leader of using chemicals against his own people.   From One Radio Network:

Obama Wants to Bomb Syria, But Monsanto Is Already Carpet-Bombing Us

Recently, Maria Rodale, the CEO of the publishing company Rodale, Inc., wrote an open letter to President Obama regarding Syria, urging him to reconsider his position to press for a military strike against Syria….

Biotech corporations such as Monsanto have created a patent- and profit-driven agricultural system which requires the wholesale destruction of biodiversity (and human health) through the use of broad spectrum biocides, and that because the adverse human health effects are now so well-known that it can be construed as intentional harm.

Yes, the war in Syria is where ISIS, the equivalent of a genetically engineered army of terrorists, was created by the “new” American government to depose Assad.  But alas, seems like the Syrian war is losing its luster for people like Lebanese pop star Fadel Shaker.  From Christian Science Monitor:

Excerpt:

AMMAN, JORDAN — Lebanese pop star Fadel Shaker gave unique momentum to jihadists in Syria when he took up their cause in 2012. But his sudden defection has had the opposite effect.

Mr. Shaker is the latest and the most high-profile of hundreds of jihadist fighters and supporters turning their backs on Islamist militias in Syria, disillusioned after three years of warfare failed to improve conditions for Sunni Muslims or establish Islamic law.

Shaker stunned the music industry and the wider Arab world in September 2012 by renouncing his multimillion-dollar music career for hard-line Islamist activism. He aligned himself with Lebanese jihadist cleric Ahmed al-Assir, who reportedly maintains strong ties with Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra.

Shaker became a figurehead for hard-line Islamist militias fighting in Syria, urging disenfranchised young Muslims to “stand up and defend Muslim lands” in Syria, even singing in a television rally “God gave me the gift and invited me to join the jihad … Death does not frighten me, and my wish is to become a martyr.”

Well now I bet that’s one radical Muslim that the “new” American government can get behind.  Those must be the “moderates” that McCain and Biden are sending money and arms to.  But wait, what’s this?

Yet on March 8, in his first televised interview in nearly two years, Fadel Shaker appeared on Lebanese LBC network, clean-shaven and in a pressed suit, announcing that he had severed ties with Assir and wanted back his “normal life...”

The crooner’s about-face stands as a symbol of a wider crisis facing jihadist groups in Syria.

Over 100 Jordanian fighters have reportedly defected from jihadist militias such as Al Nusra and the Islamic State, in addition to dozens of Saudi nationals and reportedly hundreds of European fighters who have attempted to break ranks and return to their homeland.

Like Shaker, they too feel misled by clerics promising jihad and glory, and fed up with turf wars between different militant groups that detracts from their fight against Assad. Now they simply wish to return to their “normal lives” away from the front lines.

Boy, I can sympathize, I’d love to get back to my “normal life” before the coup in 2000. But not to worry our delusional United Nations Ambassador, Samantha Power is demanding Russia get out of the way and let the “new” America assassinate Assad and hand the government over to ISIS.  From ABC News:

Excerpt:

In a brief interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Samantha Power said the civil war continues because the council is unable to get Russia to pressure Assad, its ally. "The things we think are indispensable, Russia is not prepared to do," she said…

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations says Russia's vetoes against holding Syria's government accountable are "extremely disruptive" to the U.N. Security Council's ability to restore peace in the conflict, and have emboldened President Bashar Assad to do "almost whatever he wants…."

Power said of Assad, "his day will come," but she warned that justice can be slow.

The ambassador spoke shortly after visiting an exhibit of an archive of photographs smuggled out of Syria by a former crime scene photographer for the government, who now lives in exile and used the pseudonym "Caesar."

Caesar???  What Curveball wasn’t available, or maybe it’s a relative.  So anyway, Assad gave permission to the “new” American government to use its air space to bomb ISIS.  That’s pretty risky with Obama’s use of drones to kill anyone he wants, anywhere he wants.  Just ask Noam Chomsky:

It seems an American drone was flying around in Syria, where the “new” American government has a stated goal of killing or capturing the elected leader of Syria, Bashir Assad.  So the drone was innocently flying around and Syria shot it down.  From US Today:

Excerpt:

The attack could represent a serious escalation if the Syrians shot the unmanned plane down in a region that had previously been deemed safe for operations. But it appears the mistake may have been on part of U.S. forces who allowed the drone to stray into sensitive airspace, said the senior official and another officer...

"We certainly continue to believe that that is what the Assad regime should do, which is not interfere with our ongoing efforts there as we deal with ISIL and some other extremists that may pose a threat to the United States and our interests around the world," Earnest said. "That — our insistence that they not interfere is — still applies."

Syria stop interfering with our invasion of your country.  So while the “new” America has produced nothing but terror across the world, with the shit storm in Iraq falling to pieces, Syria embroiled in a civil war fighting against ISIS terrorists trained and financed by the United States, no lessons have been learned.  Putin has warned Ukraine’s puppet government against allowing America to train terrorists on its border.  From LA Times:

Excerpt:

Russia's Foreign Ministry on Thursday called the arrival of U.S. military trainers in western Ukraine a “provocation” and warned Ukrainians that they should rethink the consequences of hosting Western forces.

“U.S.-Ukrainian military drills in the western Ukrainian Lviv region threaten Russia's security,” ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement carried by the official Tass news agency…

Russian officials and state-run news media sounded alarms over the arrival of the trainers, an element of U.S. defense aid the Pentagon announced early this year. As many as 300 American troops are to be sent to the Lviv region on Ukraine's western border to train Ukrainian soldiers.

When they say Ukrainian soldiers, they mean whatever mercenaries show up to collect a paycheck, because that’s what the “new” America does.  It trains terrorist to overthrow elected governments, it’s the “New American Way.” 

Ukraine’s elected President Yanukovych was removed from office in a coup after he refused a trade deal with the European Union that demanded Monsanto and biotech firms be allowed to introduce genetically engineered agribusiness which was illegal under the elected regime.  From Consortium News:

Excerpt:

Behind the U.S.-backed coup that ousted the democratically elected president of Ukraine are the economic interests of giant corporations – from Cargill to Chevron – which see the country as a potential “gold mine” of profits from agricultural and energy exploitation, reports JP Sottile.

On Jan. 12, a reported 50,000 “pro-Western” Ukrainians descended upon Kiev’s Independence Square to protest against the government of President Viktor Yanukovych. Stoked in part by an attack on opposition leader Yuriy Lutsenko, the protest marked the beginning of the end of Yanukovych’s four year-long government.

That same day, the Financial Times reported a major deal for U.S. agribusiness titan Cargill.

Well guess what?  The citizens of Ukraine’s close neighbor Kazakhstan have been suffering from a strange neurological disorder that induces comas.  From The Guardian:

Excerpt:

For the last two years the residents of Kalachi have been falling into unexplained bouts of sleep - sometimes for weeks at a time. With no cause yet identified, Joanna Lillis meets the victims resisting relocation by the authorities.

Hmm, for the last two years, that’s when Ukraine was handed over to Monsanto.

One day last summer, Viktor Kazachenko set off across the steppe from his village in northern Kazakhstan. He was driving to the nearest town on some errands, but he never arrived.

“My brain switched off,” he says. “That’s it. I don’t remember.” Kazachenko had been hit by the so-called “sleeping sickness” that is plaguing Kalachi, a remote village about 300 miles west of the country’s capital Astana.

The mysterious illness has sent residents into comas, sometimes lasting days on end. “I was going to town on 28 August ,” Kazachenko told EurasiaNet.org, still disoriented by the experience. “I came round on 2 September. I understood [on waking up] in the hospital that I’d fallen asleep….”

“After this slumber, my blood pressure started going up for no reason,” Kazachenko explained. “Headaches – that’s not the word. For six weeks, I didn’t know where to put myself. It strongly affects your mentality. I’m very on edge.”

For two years, residents have been falling into comas and suffering debilitating symptoms – dizziness, nausea, blinding headaches and memory loss – as a result…

“Some measures must be taken,” the mayor, who has herself suffered a bout of the sickness, said. “This is a good chance for the residents of our village to find a new home and a new job.”

Working with local administrations and employers, authorities have already resettled around 100 residents across the Akmola Region – a 56,500-square-mile administrative area of northern Kazakhstan. But there are 425 residents still living in the village.

It is a “voluntary resettlement” Sadvokasova insists – but some villagers are resistant.

Looks like now the government of Kazakhstan is fearful that their government is going to be overthrown just like the government in Ukraine was overthrown.  And if history is any judge they don’t have to look far to substantiate their fears.  According to The State Weekly, Kazakhstan like Ukraine had decided to ban Monsanto GM seeds from their country when they were proved to be dangerous.

Excerpt:

Kazakhstan’s chief sanitary doctor, Zhandarbek Bekshin declared a ban of Monsanto’s genetically modified NK603 corn imports into his country…

In September, France’s government threatened to ban Monsanto’s NK603 corn imports after discovering results of a study conducted by University of Caen scientists, which concluded that GM Roundup-ready corn as well as the herbicide Roundup causes tumors and premature death in rats….

So the “new” America tried to overthrow the government of Kazakhstan.  From the Christian Science Monitor:

 Excerpt:

CIA Tried of overthrow Kazakhstan government

AKTAU, KAZAKHSTAN — An outspoken critic of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev was accused on Thursday of colluding with a billionaire fugitive to overthrow the government in a trial the United States says will test democratic reforms in the oil-rich former Soviet state.

Isn’t it weird that the CIA always installs a “billionaire fugitive” in office after they overthrow a government?

Prosecutors accused Vladimir Kozlov, leader of the unofficial political party Alga!, of helping orchestrate dissent among striking oil workers in the prelude to deadly rioting on Dec. 16-17 that shattered Kazakhstan's reputation for stability….

One of the accused, 54-year-old local oil worker Akzhanat Aminov, pleaded guilty. The other activist, Serik Sapargaly, 60, said he accepted some blame without admitting full guilt…

Britain granted political asylum to Ablyazov last year as he awaited embezzlement charges brought by his former bank, which he has said are politically motivated. But his whereabouts are unknown since he fled after being convicted in February of contempt of court.

Robert Blake, U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said Kazakhstan had a "particular responsibility" to demonstrate reforms it pledged as chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2010.

"We hope that (the trial) is going to be conducted in a fair, impartial and open way," Blake told reporters in Almaty….

January's election allowed three parties into Kazakhstan's parliament for the first time in 20 years of independence, a small concession to democracy in the face of growing frustration over the unequal distribution of the country's mineral wealth.

Maybe it’s easier just to sicken the population with chemical and neurological toxins so they have to move.  No muss, no fuss, no people to have to deal with.  Sounds like Monsanto found the winning concoction for taking over cash poor, resource rich countries.

So, with April Fool’s Day just around the corner, what will America’s Nobel Peace Prize winner have in store for the world this year? Next stop for All Monsanto’s Men is Venezuela.  See you there.

By Patricia Baeten