The 'Nazi Stench' and U.S. 'Fascism' (La Jornada, Mexico)

Friday, 13 June 2014

The 'Nazi Stench' and U.S. 'Fascism' (La Jornada, Mexico)

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'Cleansing' Wall St. of Occupy: When privacy is history, protesting

is criminalized, and well-connected multinational firms effectively

own your elected representatives, what do you call it? ... Fascism.

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The 'Nazi Stench' and U.S. 'Fascism' (La Jornada, Mexico)

"The stench that emanated in the wake of 9/11 and the series of martial regulations and war powers granted to the Executive under laws based on anticipatory self defense are reminiscent of the 1933 fire at the German Parliament set by the Nazis for the purpose of seizing power. ... It is in this context that one grasps the significance of President Eisenhower's warning about the threat to freedom and constitutional rights posed by the military-industrial complex. ... In the words of Chris Hedges, the U.S. has entered a post-constitutional era."

By John Saxe-Fernández*

Translated by Ricardo Cidra

June 11, 2014

Mexico – La Jornada – Original Article (Spanish)

The other 9-11: On September 11, 1973, the democratically-elected president of Chile, Salvadore Allende, was toppled in a CIA-backed coup led by right-wing General Augusto Pinochet. His is just one example of why much of the world views Washington's rhetoric about freedom and democracy with such skepticism.

INTERNET DOCUMENTARY: The CIA, Chile and Allende, Feb. 9, 2009, 00:10:22

Any pretense of benevolence promoted via propaganda about the exercise of U.S. power has collapsed since the war of aggression launched over Iraqi oil in 2003 and a regime was installed there under U.S. leadership. This realization was driven home by the indelible images of torture in Abu Ghraib prison and the bombing of people in Baghdad. The stench that emanated in the wake of 9/11, and the series of martial regulations and war powers granted to the Executive under laws based on anticipatory self defense, are reminiscent of the 1933 fire at the German Parliament set by the Nazis for the purpose of seizing power, as written about by Golo Mann. After the Second World War and in parallel with military setbacks in Korea and Vietnam, as has been highlighted by Gabriel and Joyce Kolko, U.S. influence has become greatly constrained. In particular since the 1970s, this has been due to persistent multi-polarization in the industrial and high tech fields, and the significant loss of corporate control over global hydrocarbon reserves, which became public property [were nationalized].

The first to smell the stench were the Iranian people in 1953, when they confronted a coup d’état articulated by the CIA and MI6 against President Mohammad Mosaddegh for nationalizing Iran's oil. The corrupt regime of the Shah that followed sowed terror, while the crude oil that flowed enriched the West. In Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz was overthrown for interfering with the United Fruit Company’s interests in that country. Thanks to the vast natural resources that make Latin America a strategic reserve, that coup was followed by a string of military interventions, bloodshed, and episodes of state terror, from the overthrow of João Goulart in Brazil (1964), to Manuel Zelaya in Honduras (2009) and Fernando Lugo in Paraguay (2012), through to Salvador Allende in Chile (1973).

Not long ago, just over 350 official documents on U.S. operations in Chile from 1969 to 1973 were added to a vast archive on covert political-electoral actions regarding economic and financial sabotage practiced by the IMF, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. These included assassinations and destabilization typically deployed on behalf of U.S. companies against undesirable governments, like that of Salvador Allende in Chile, for nationalizing copper in his country, or what we're seeing today in Venezuela toward the Chávez/Maduro government for nationalizing oil revenue.

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The documents include subsequent reports about Allende’s electoral victory, which consist of Nixon asking Kissinger to "make the Chilean economy scream," in order to prevent Allende from gaining power, and to "kick Chile in the ass" for having nationalized copper, and which detail plans for a coup d’état on September 11, 1973, which was followed by a Hitler-like bloodbath led by Augusto Pinochet.

The greatest contribution of these documents, according to the director of the Chile Project at the National Security Archive, where the collection of documents is available to the public, is that it enables anyone to follow the development of these events in Washington. In one notable document, Kissinger asks then-CIA director Richard Helms for a plan, as detailed as possible, to include orders to be issued on September 5th, i.e.: “to whom” and “in what manner.” Such is the detail these documents make available about the modus operandi of the coup and its aftermath.

With the promotion of ties between the Pentagon and local militaries in the form of training programs, visits, scholarships and weapons sales, the balance between civilian and military gets thrown out of kilter. Not only outside the U.S., but inside as well, especially after 9/11, when the U.S. instituted a state of emergency and launched at home and abroad irregular types of warfare, including several campaigns against terrorism, drug trafficking, and organized crime. It is in this context that one grasps the significance of President Eisenhower's warning about the threat to freedom and constitutional rights posed by the military-industrial complex, which have been collected, analyzed, and theorized by C. Wright Mills in his masterful The Power Elite, in which he lays out the ascension of the military into the upper echelons of politics and the corporate sphere.

This is a serious matter now that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review a decision on a lawsuit led by Chris Hedges (truth-out.org), who was joined by Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, among others, against a subsection of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2012, which allows the military to capture and indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without due process of law. With this refusal, Hedges says the law remains in force.

"It means the nation has entered a post-constitutional era. It means that extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil by our government is legal. It means that the courts, like the legislative and executive branches of government, exclusively serve corporate power—one of the core definitions of fascism."

The Nazi stench comes from a variety of sources, but not the Kremlin.

*John Saxe- Fernández is a Mexican citizen born in Costa Rica. He is a doctor in Latin American Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). The first prize winner of journalism in 2008; national investigator level III; coordinator of the 'El Mundo en elSiglo XXI' program of the Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Ciencias y Humanidades (CEIICH) of the UNAM.