date:1961-00-00

Every US President Makes Unilateral Nuclear Threats. It’s an American Tradition | Black Agenda Report
▻https://www.blackagendareport.com/every-us-president-makes-unilateral-nuclear-threats-its-american-

http://www.blackagendareport.com/sites/default/files/2017-08/trumpacolypse-01-360.jpg

In 1946 and 1948 President Harry Truman threatened the Soviets over Iran and Berlin, respectively, and the Chinese in 1950 and 51.

President Eisenhower also threatened the Chinese over Korea in 1953, and again in 1956 over Quemoy and Matsu. He offered the French nukes to use against the Vietnamese at Dienbienphu in 1954.

President Kennedy threatened a nuclear strike at the Soviets over Berlin, and sent nuclear armed missiles to Turkey on the Russian border in 1961. Though these were later wisely withdrawn after the nuclear standoff of the Cuban missile crisis, the US has consistently based its nukes on its fleets and bases in the Pacific, in Europe and Asia, and for decades in South Korea.

Presidents Johnson and Nixon menaced North Korea, Vietnam and the Soviet Union with air and seaborne nukes, and President Gerald Ford ordered nuclear armed bombers from Guam to loiter for an extended time off the coast of North Korea. Jimmy Carter issued the Carter Doctrine, reaffirmed by Ronald Reagan which committed the US to a nuclear response if its vital interests in the Middle East were every threatened. Ronald Reagan terrified the world, though he did briefly consider a lasting arms treaty with the USSR.

Bush 1, Bush 2 and Bill Clinton all menaced North Korea and Iraq, and Obama declared “all options on the table” against Iran.

The AFSC list does not include vital US assistance in developing nuclear weapons technology given to apartheid South Africa which later relinquished its nukes, and apartheid Israel, which currently has missiles aimed at every Arab capital within a thousand miles, and at Iran.

So while Donald Trump’s “fire and destruction” bombast IS criminal and detestable, it’s not new. It’s merely the latest installment in a long running crime wave by the planet’s number one nuclear armed felon, the United States of America.

#Etats-Unis #traditions

Fidel #Castro says Obama’s ‘syrupy words’ were enough to cause a heart attack
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fidel-castro-says-obamas-syrupy-words-were-enough-to-cause-a-heart-attack/2016/03/28/35bda23c-f4f2-11e5-8b23-538270a1ca31_story.html

Castro, after a long and somewhat rambling recounting of the failed U.S.-sponsored exile invasion of Cuba in 1961, and a critique of U.S. policy toward racism in southern Africa, wrote that he doubted Obama was unaware of the history between #Cuba and the United States.

He offered a “modest suggestion” that the American president reflect on that history “and not offer elaborate theories about Cuban politics.”

“Each of us probably had a heart attack” while listening to Obama, Castro wrote. “After nearly 60 years of ruthless blockade. And how many have died from mercenary attacks on boats, in Cuban ports, on an airplane full of passengers that exploded in full flight, in mercenary invasions and multiple acts of violence and force?

#Etats-Unis #Histoire #histoires

The story of one of the Cold War’s greatest unsolved mysteries — and the new effort to solve it - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/30/the-u-n-wants-a-new-investigation-into-one-of-the-cold-wars-greatest

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Frustrated by the U.N.’s inability to deal with the Belgian-backed forces, Congo’s first prime minister, the charismatic socialist and African nationalist Patrice #Lumumba, appealed to Moscow for aid. He was soon ousted by forces loyal to Congolese army chief Joseph #Mobutu, whom, it later emerged, was the beneficiary of what was then one of the CIA’s most lavishly funded support operations. Lumumba was murdered in 1961 while in the custody of Katangese troops.

#Hammarskjold, who was no friend of Lumumba, still cared deeply about backing Africa’s newly decolonized states. This was a time when the West looked warily at the emerging “third world” of independent nations, many of which were once subservient colonies but now, at least in the Western imagination, risked becoming Soviet proxies. African countries still ruled by white-supremacist governments supported Katanga’s breakaway — seeing it as a bulwark against African nationalism — but Hammarskjold sought a unified #Congo.

The flight he took to Ndola to meet with Katangese representatives left under the cover of darkness to avoid being tracked or intercepted by Katanga’s air force. As the report of the Hammarskjold Commission details, there are still many questions over what happened aboard the flight and during its attempted descent. The crash site was sealed off and likely tampered with by North Rhodesian authorities before its discovery was even announced. Some investigators who have examined the case in recent decades are now convinced that the plane was shot down by a second aircraft, piloted possibly by a Belgian mercenary.

One of the most intriguing revelations discussed by the 2013 commission is the testimony of Charles Southall, an American official with the National Security Agency then stationed at a listening post in Cyprus. Southall, now retired, told the commission that a few hours before Hammarskjold’s death, he received a communique from a supervisor telling him “something interesting is going to happen.” Upon arriving at the U.S. facility, he heard over loudspeaker what seemed to be the voice of a mercenary announcing his attack on a transport plane.

Southall told the Wall Street Journal that the intercept was overheard through CIA, not NSA, circuit. “The #CIA refused to confirm or deny the existence of any intercept following a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request by The Journal. The agency upheld its decision after The Journal appealed it,” the Journal reports.

Following the General Assembly’s vote this week, though, the Obama administration may be obliged to declassify relevant documents.

For the Congolese people, Hammarskjold’s death was a footnote to decades of war and misery. While #Katanga ended its secession in 1963 (and its leader served briefly as Congolese prime minister), pro-Lumumba forces launched a rebellion. To quash it, white mercenaries and Western-backed forces rushed in. As an article in Foreign Affairs details, the United States, mostly through the CIA, spent tens of millions of dollars backing pro-Western figures in the Congo. It paid off massive bribes to other factions and even supplied “an instant airforce,” piloted by Cuban exiles:

Washington was joining a particularly bloody conflict. When they seized rebel-held areas, the white mercenaries and government forces indiscriminately slaughtered the rebels and civilians they found there. Although there was no systematic counting of the casualties, it is estimated that at least 100,000 Congolese perished during this phase of the war.

By 1965, Mobutu, with American support, was in full control. He would go on to become one of the continent’s most heinous tyrants, an “African #Caligula.” The legacy of his rule, and decades of fractious politics and weak governance, has left Congo a mess of warring militias and a society traumatized by mass violence.

Hammarskjold may not have prevented that, but a new investigation into his death will shine light on a very dark corner of the Cold War’s history.

La #guerre_froide a bon dos quand même.

Britain’s involvement in assassination of Congo’s Lumumba confirmed - World Socialist Web Site

▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/18/lumu-a18.html

A senior British politician has revealed Britain’s involvement in the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first prime minister.

The leader of the Congolese independence struggle from Belgium was brutally murdered just seven months after taking office on the direct orders of the US and Belgium. Britain, whose involvement had long been suspected, also had a hand in it.

#afrique #lumumba #royaume-uni #royaume-unafrique