Date: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/the-us-governments-viciousness-and
https://theduran.com/the-u-s-governments-viciousness-hypocrisy-ecuadors-experience/
The U.S. Government’s Viciousness & Hypocrisy (Ecuador’s Experience)
Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)
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UPDATE, 24 September 2024: Gallup issued today a new report about the percentage of people in scientifically representative samples of 1,000 people, in each of 140 countries and areas around the world, the percentage who answered “Yes” to “Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the area where you live?” That percentage is the lowest in Ecuador. Gallup’s report is titled “2024: The Global Safety Report”, and its page five is headlined “Ecuadorians Least Likely in the World to Feel Safe.” Shown there is a graph which indicates that whereas prior to 2017 — which happened to be the year when the U.S. Government took over Ecuador’s government (as this article will explain) — that percentage averaged slightly higher than 50%, it headed downward starting in that year and is now only 27%. Gallup reports there that “Excluding active war zones, feelings of safety in [the province of] Guayas, Ecuador, are the lowest in the world [11%],” and also notes that “the country has spiraled into a deep security crisis. Ecuador is an increasingly important node in global cocaine trafficking.”
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In the March 2022 issue of the academic journal Global Environmental Change, appeared an article by Hickel, Dorninger, Wieland and Suwandi, “Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015”, which reported that:
in 2015 the North net appropriated from the South 12 billion tons of embodied raw material equivalents, 822 million hectares of embodied land, 21 exajoules of embodied energy, and 188 million person-years of embodied labour, worth $10.8 trillion in Northern prices – enough to end extreme poverty 70 times over. Over the whole period, drain from the South totalled $242 trillion (constant 2010 USD). This drain represents a significant windfall for the global North, equivalent to a quarter of Northern GDP. For comparison, we also report drain in global average prices. Using this method, we find that the South’s losses due to unequal exchange outstrip their total aid receipts over the period by a factor of 30. Our analysis confirms that unequal exchange is a significant driver of global inequality, uneven development, and ecological breakdown.
This is being done by the mega-imperialistic U.S. Government and its colonies or ‘allies’, against the global South, and the operation’s center is the U.S. Government, which, itself, is, amongst all of its empire, the paragon of economic inequality: it is the country where 30.3% of U.S. wealth is owned by richest 1%, and where the richest .01% donate 57.16% of all of the political money, so as to control their Government, in order to be able to get for themselves, virtually all of the profits from this looting of the world.
Whereas U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) had, during August 1941 till his death on 12 April 1945, been carefully planning his “United Nations” (which he even named), so as to eliminate and replace all empires and imperialisms for after WW2, and produce a U.N. which would be a democratic world federal government of independent nations, his immediate successor Harry Truman reversed all of that planning, on 25 July 1945, and started the planning for the Military-Industrial Complex that he and his personal hero General Dwight Eisenhower, and also the secret Rhodesist Winston Churchill, had advised him to do in order for the U.S. Government, instead of the U.N., ultimately to take control over the entire planet, every nation, including especially all of the Soviet Union. The way that Eisenhower had put this matter to Truman, was that unless the U.S. will control the entire world, the Soviet Union will; and this purely win-lose thinking that excluded any possibiity of a win-win result (plus Churchill’s seconding that) led Truman, on 25 July 1945, to demand from the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, that Stalin grant the U.S. Government a veto power over both the domestic policies and the foreign policies of the nations that the Soviet Union had captured from Hitler’s forces. Truman proudly wrote to his wife that night, saying that Stalin “seems to like it when I hit him with a hammer.” (In other words: Stalin didn’t like it at all.)
Stalin couldn’t accept Truman’s demand, any more than Truman would have accepted a similar demand from Stalin about the nations that America and its colonies such as the UK had conquered in Europe. Stalin (like FDR would have done if he had survived) made no such demand upon Truman or anyone else; and, from that date forward, Stalin recognized that unless he could change Truman’s mind on this (which never happened), the U.S. Government would be at war against the Soviet Government. It turned out to be (on the American side at least) a war not actually between capitalism versus communism (as Truman, Ike, and Churchill, propagandized it to be) but instead between the U.S. against the entire world — to take all of it — as was made clear when U.S. President GHW Bush started, on 24 February 1990, secretly instructing his stooge leaders, such as Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand, that their war against the soon-no-longer-communist Russia would secretly continue until it too becomes a part of the U.S. empire — that America’s NATO will expand all the way up to Russia’s borders.
So, America’s Deep State was born on 25 July 1945, when the U.S. Governmental Executive decision was made that not the United Nations — as FDR had intended — but instead the U.S. Government itself, should take control over the world after WW2 ends. Until 25 July 1945, Truman had been undecided about this, but now he made the decision for a future all-encompassing global American empire, and this decision has profoundly affected the U.S. Government in all of the years that followed. It was the actual beginning of America’s Deep State: the rule over the U.S. Govenment by America’s super-rich, for unlimited expansion of their empire to control the entire planet. It’s a money-funnel not merely from all Americans to America’s few super-rich, but from all people throughout the world, to America’s few super-rich. And that is how it operates, while cutting in the local aristocracy within each colony, to split with them the local take.
Althouth many examples of this imperial rule over its colonies (or ‘allies’) by the U.S. Government are well known, such as the entirely lie-based U.S. invasion of Vietnam (for ‘democracy and freedom’), and the entirely lie-based invasion of Iraq (against ’Saddam’s WMD’), plus numerous U.S. coups such as against Iran and Guatemala and Chile and Ukraine, many other such cases are little known, such as in Ecuador, which is the example that will be discussed here:
An excellent article about how corrupt the U.S. Government is was published on 8 February 2022 and headlined “What if, instead of a movie, I got flung in jail? This lawyer who fought Chevron was”, by Erin Brockovich. It described the case of the U.S. lawyer for Ecuador, Steven Donziger, whom the U.S. regime imprisoned for having won a court case against Chevron/Texaco, to pay a nearly $10 billion fine for having recklessly poisoned indigenous Ecuadorians. The polluter refused to pay, and U.S. courts instead sent to prison Ecuador’s lawyer — and had him disbarred. The victims got nothing. The question of Chevron/Texaco’s guilt was ignored: the fine was simply cancelled. Crucial to Donziger’s penalties was the decision by what Brockovich referred to as “In 2018, an international tribunal ruled that Chevron had been previously released from liability for pollution in the Amazon and ordered Ecuador not to enforce the $9.5bn judgment.” But that ‘tribunal’ wasn’t actually a court-case; it was an arbitration-case, and Ecuador had never authorized sidelining their case, moving it out of the courts and into the extremely corrupt ICSID private system of international arbitration that the U.S. Government had largely created in order to protect the investment assets of its billionaires. Actually, ICSID was started by the U.S. controlled World Bank in 1966, to provide ICSID “arbitration panels” to settle ISDS disputes that international corporations have against governments, substituting for law courts and judges, so as to give corporate investors rights above and beyond those which governments have (rights against foreign governments); therefore, this was a straight-out fascist (or libertarian/neoliberal) invention by the U.S. regime with the cooperation of its colonies. In fact, the entire ISDS system had first been proposed and instituted in 1959, by the former leading Nazi banker Hermann Abs, along with Britain’s Baron Shawcross. ICSID’s real growth that made these fascist (or ‘libertarian’) arrangements common started with Nixon in 1974, and then expanded afterwards by Clinton’s NAFTA treaty, and then by Obama’s proposed TPP, TTIP, and TISA, treaties — and all of that since 1974 has veered way off the rails of the U.S. Constitution, but the U.S. Supreme Court has deferred to the other branches of the U.S. Government, to interpret the Constitution regarding commercial treaties, because America’s billionaires like it that way — regardless of what the Constitution says about ALL treaties (and even though the Supreme Court was, by its passivity on this matter, allowing, basically authorizing, blatant violation of the Treaty Clause in the U.S. Constitution, by allowing the Legislative and Executive Branches of the Government to interpret the Constitution — as-if allowing that didn’t itself violate the Constitution and its separation-of-powers clauses). So, the corruptness here runs as deep as possible.
Though the initial case between Ecuador and Texaco/Chevron was about pollution and deaths from it, that case was nullified by Chevron’s amassing a team of hundreds of lawyers from 60 firms who swamped Donziger and financially destroyed him and got a far-rightwing U.S. judge to convict him with the federal crime of racketeering, by the judge’s accepting the bribed testimony of the Ecuadorian judge who had assessed the $9.5B fine against Chevron, to testify that he had been bribed by Donziger to rule in his country’s (Ecuador’s) favor against Texaco/Chevron. There was no evidence that Donziger had bribed him, but clearly Chevron did, and yet the ‘trial’ judge (whom Chevron had managed to get to handle this case) arbitrarily chose to believe him and thus absolved Chevron of any wrongdoing, and disbarred Donziger and placed him into prison.
Even Wikipedia’s article on Donziger makes clear that his treatment by the U.S. regime was barbaric, corrupt, and illegal, but the regime prides itself not on adhering to any international laws-based order, but instead to its own international rules-based order (where those ‘rules’ are whatever the U.S. regime says they are — no democratic procedure produces them). ICSID is setting some of those “rules.” WarOnWant.org concluded, about the Texaco-v.-Ecuador case: “This case is unprecedented, as far as we know, in directly overturning a democratically accountable, national court judgement. Until now, ISDS tribunals have, on occasion, been asked to order legal proceedings to be put on hold until after the outcome of an ISDS case, but no more. The Chevron case sets an incredibly dangerous precedent that could lead to ISDS tribunals trespassing into domestic courts all over the world, rewriting justice in favour of corporate power.”
In fact, the judge’s ruling against Donziger was so corrupt so that on 26 February 2020, the ABA Journal headlined “Lawyer blasted by judge for conduct in Chevron case should get his law license back, ethics referee says”. The referee was highly critical of the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, who found Donziger to have committed fraud against Texaco/Chevron, and the referee brought forth character witnesses who were themselves highly credible, saying that Donziger is a person of extraordinary integrity and courage. One of these character witnesses was John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and other books against megacorporate criminality and governmental corruption, who is certainly an expert on the subject and who said “from knowing Steve he is incredibly honest.” The referee also grilled Donziger himself, and found him persuasive that Judge Kaplan’s allegations against him were false and that Donziger had presented to Kaplan evidence to that effect, which Kaplan simply ignored in the opinion he wrote. The referee then noted that the susequent Appeals Court decision made at least one crucial false statement in affirming Kaplan’s ruling. There were other remarkable findings by the referee, such as “A total of fifteen to seventeen judges reviewed the Chevron charges of fraud and concluded ‘…contrary to Judge Kaplan.’” The referee noted that “There appears to be no case like this. While Respondent is often his own worst enemy and has made numerous misjudgments due to self-confidence that may border on arrogance, and perhaps too much zeal for his cause, his field of practice is not the usual one.” He urged “that Respondent’s suspension immediately be ended and that he be restored to the bar of this State.” However, it was not done.
On 24 January 2022, the 67-page detailed “Report of monitors: United States v. Steven Donziger” headlined and documented “Donziger Criminal Contempt Proceedings Violated International Human Rights Law and Standards”, and concluded:
After carefully reviewing the transcripts and relevant laws and standards, the Panel’s unequivocal assessment of the criminal contempt proceedings against Steven Donziger is that he has been subject to multiple violations of his internationally protected human rights, including his right to a fair trial by an independent and impartial tribunal and his right to the presumption of innocence. These violations have resulted in prolonged arbitrary detention for Mr. Donziger [which still continues]. …
In instance after instance, when a procedural rule could be deployed against the defendant, the prosecutor and judge did so. Judge Kaplan and Judge Preska consistently interpreted and deployed laws and rules in ways that gave a “rule by law” air of legitimacy to proceedings aimed toward seemingly predetermined conclusions while disregarding fundamental principles of the rule of law. The result was multiple violations of international human rights law and standards. …
The Panel further notes that a proposed visit from the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers has been outstanding since 2014, and recommends that the visit be arranged on an urgent basis.
On 27 January 2022, The Nation headlined “Chevron’s Prosecution of Steven Donziger: Documents reveal a close collaboration between the oil giant, its law firm, and the ‘private prosecutor’ who sent the environmentalist lawyer to federal prison.” Donziger, who still was in prison, was quoted: “Private corporations aren’t supposed to be able to help put people in prison, which is what Chevron did to me. Corporations can sue you in a civil proceeding, but they aren’t allowed to finance a criminal prosecution. If Chevron gets away with this, what kind of a country are we living in?” Of course, the answer is clear.
This case had been dealt with first by a criminal court in Ecuador, against Texaco/Chevron, during the Presidency of that country’s progressive President Rafael Correa, in order to deal with illegal pollution and resulting illnesses and deaths, that were due to Texaco then Chevron’s dumpings of toxic wastes into the forest. In February 2011, an $18 billion judgment — later reduced to $9.5 billion — was rendered against Chevron by the Ecuadorian court. On 4 March 2014, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (in Manhattan) ruled that the $9.5 billion Ecuadorian judgement was the product of fraud and racketeering activity, and thus unenforceable.
Correa’s Presidency ended in 2017 because of term-limits, and he campaigned for his former Vice President Lenin Moreno, who had been pretending all his life to be a democratic socialist like Correa, but, then, as soon as taking office as President, Moreno revealed himself to be a fascist and ruled in the exact opposite way from Correa. During that 2017 campaign, Moreno had been running against the billionaire Guillermo Lasso, who was overtly a fascist; so, it had seemed at the time, that Correa’s policies would be extended; but, instead, all of them were undone and reversed, and fascist rule of Ecuador began with Moreno, then his successor Lasso, then Lasso’s successor and fellow-billionaire, Daniel Noboa. The fascists’ record has been just as bad as the progressive Correa’s record was good. Here are the data from Wikipedia, on what Correa’s record was:
Between 2007 and 2014, poverty decreased from 36.7% to 22.5%. At the same time, inequalities, as measured by the Gini index, decreased from 0.55 to 0.47.[201] Between 2006 and 2016, poverty decreased from 36.7% to 22.5% and annual per capita GDP growth was 1.5 percent (as compared to 0.6 percent over the prior two decades). At the same time, inequalities – as measured by the Gini index – decreased from 0.55 to 0.47.[202]
BY CONTRAST: For the 9 years after Correa, World Bank figures showed that Ecuador’s economy stagnated, so that per-capita GDP PPP plunged 12% during 2014-2020, and then recovered by 2023 to around what it had been in 2014 when Correa had left office. Correa had also brought down Ecuador’s murder-rate, and it stayed down until late in the Presidency of his immediate successor, the U.S. stooge Lenin Moreno. Then, under the next two Presidencies, of the likewise U.S. stooges, billionaires Lasso and Noboa, it soared to the highest in Latin America, having risen from around 8 per hundred thousand residents in 2020, to 44 in 2023 — almost sixfold in three years. In that sense, Lasso and Noboa performed even worse than even the fascist Moreno did.
On 11 April 2019, RT headlined “Who is Lenin Moreno and why did he hand Assange over to British police?” and reported that:
Following his 2017 election, Moreno quickly moved away from his election platform after taking office. He reversed several key pieces of legislation passed under his predecessor which targeted the wealthy and the banks. He also reversed a referendum decision on indefinite re-election while simultaneously blocking any potential for Correa to return.
He effectively purged many of Correa's appointments to key positions in Ecuador's judiciary and National Electoral Council via the CPCCS-T council which boasts supra-constitutional powers.
Moreno has also cozied up to the US, with whom Ecuador had a strained relationship under Correa. Following a visit from Vice President Mike Pence in June 2018, Ecuador bolstered its security cooperation with the US, including major arms deals, training exercises and intelligence sharing.
Following Assange’s arrest Correa, who granted Assange asylum in the first place, described Moreno as the “greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history” saying he was guilty of a “crime that humanity will never forget.”
Despite his overwhelming power and influence, however, Moreno and his family are the subject of a sweeping corruption probe in the country, as he faces down accusations of money laundering in offshore accounts and shell companies in Panama, including the INA Investment Corp, which is owned by Moreno's brother.
Damning images, purportedly hacked from Moreno’s phone, have irreparably damaged both his attempts at establishing himself as an anti-corruption champion as well as his relationship with Assange, whom he accused of coordinating the hacking efforts.
On 14 April 2019, Denis Rogatyuk at The Gray Zone headlined "Sell Out: How Corruption, Voter Fraud and a Neoliberal Turn Led Ecuador’s Lenin to Give Up Assange: Desperate to ingratiate his government with Washington and distract the public from his mounting scandals, Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno has sacrificed Julian Assange – and his country’s independence”, and he described some of the documentation for the accusations that Moreno was corrupt.
On 12 April 2019, Zero Hedge headlined "Facebook Removes Page Of Ecuador's Former President On Same Day As Assange's Arrest”, and opened: “Facebook has unpublished the page of Ecuador’s former president, Rafael Correa, the social media giant confirmed on Thursday, claiming that the popular leftist leader violated the company’s security policies.”
On 12 January 2024, the Primecius.ec site in Ecuador (which here is translated into English) headlined “Ecuador's internal conflict in the sights of the United States and Russia: Several countries have offered cooperation to President Daniel Noboa to confront the internal armed conflict, including the United States. Meanwhile, Russia ‘hopes' that Ecuador will resolve the insecurity crisis independently.” It reported:
The United States announced that it will send the head of the Southern Command, Laura Richardson, and senior anti-narcotics and diplomatic officials, to cooperate with intelligence sharing, combating cybercrime, assistance in implementing prison reforms and for tax investigations.
For its part, the Argentine government said it supports President Noboa in his "fight against the actions of organized crime." And the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, offered to send "security forces if necessary to help Ecuador.” …
On January 10, President Noboa announced that he would accept U.S. assistance, especially with “the exchange of Ukrainian and Russian scrap for $200 million worth of modern equipment.”
The Executive hopes to have this transaction completed by the end of the month.
But on January 10, the Kremlin itself, from Moscow, was clear in adding that they expect the Ecuadorian authorities to put an end to the unrest "and to do so independently, without any external interference."
And on January 11, Russia 's ambassador to Quito, Vladimir Sprinchan, warned that such a possible exchange of equipment "would be an unfriendly step."
The diplomat said that "the Americans do not need this equipment, especially when it is called junk" and that only "those who know how to use it need it."
President Noboa's statements and the alarm of the Russian government could be part of Washington's efforts to support Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion since February 2022.
At the time, Guillermo Lasso 's government strongly condemned the Kremlin's actions and backed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And when Ecuador joined the UN Security Council, as a non-permanent member, it also called for an end to the invasion.
And it was then, at the beginning of 2023, that the United States tried to convince several Latin American countries to donate their old Russian equipment to Ukraine, in exchange for new weapons.
The Financial Times recalled in February of that year that Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador had purchased transport helicopters or, in some cases, Russian surface-to-air missiles or anti-tank missiles. All equipment compatible with that used by the Ukrainian army.
Left-wing governments immediately refused. And the New York Times, in April 2023, revealed that leaked US intelligence documents corroborated attempts to convince Ecuador to be the first to make the helicopter donation.
However, at that time, the Foreign Ministry denied that such talks were taking place and responded that it is not legally possible for Ecuador to donate military equipment to another country.
A year later, the government of Daniel Noboa is talking about sending scrap metal to the United States in exchange for new equipment. Although the President has not taken a public position on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, he did meet with Zelenskyy when they met in Argentina. …
Can military personnel from other countries enter Ecuador?
The President was clear in saying that Ecuador needs support "in soldiers" and added that this is not the time to say that "we are going to protect our sovereignty.” …
On 24 January 2024, Primecius headlined “Richardson: The United States has a five-year security plan for Ecuador: The head of the Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, spoke with PRIMICIAS about the Security Assistance Roadmap for Ecuador and the USD 93.4 million investment portfolio that the United States has for the country in this area.” It opened:
On her second visit to Ecuador , General Laura Richardson met with President Daniel Noboa, Attorney General Diana Salazar, the Ministers of Defense and Interior, and the high command of the Armed Forces and the Police, to discuss the security crisis facing the country.
General Richardson is the head of the United States Southern Command and arrived in Ecuador on January 22, along with a Ukrainian plane carrying a donation of critical security and emergency response equipment.
In conversation with PRIMICIAS, the commander spoke about the Security Assistance Roadmap for Ecuador and the investment portfolio of USD 93.4 million in this area, which the United States has for the country.
She also provided details of some military cooperation agreements that allow for the exchange of intelligence information between both countries and joint operations against threats from organized crime.
The head of U.S. Southern Commnd addressed questions such as, in the interview’s opening:
What are the first conclusions after your meetings with President Daniel Noboa and Attorney General Diana Salazar?
The meeting focused on security and the current situation in Ecuador, the tremendous efforts to counter criminal activity, President Noboa's decision to declare those 22 gangs as terrorist organizations and authorize the military and police to work together, which is very important and has worked very well in those missions.
Today (23 January), we had a full day of meetings. It was really good to meet with the Attorney General to hear her perspective. We also visited the Commander of the National Police and the Minister of Government and the Interior.
"It was good to hear those perspectives, what organized crime was like several years ago and what it is now and what the challenges are."
My next two days will be filled with military visits, meetings and engagements with the Minister of Defense, the Head of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, and the commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
Then we will go to Guayaquil and meet with the 19th Jungle Brigade, we will have a donation ceremony. And also with the marines, with the Risk Authority, which is the equivalent of our Federal Emergency Management Agency.
This will donate nearly $1 million worth of much-needed equipment .
In practice, what will be the impact of this cooperation?
We already have a very solid investment portfolio with Ecuador. Obviously, it is over time. And it is about cooperation between military forces, between the United States Southern Command and the Ecuadorian Army.
So our portfolio is worth USD 93.4 million and it includes not only the transfer of military equipment, but it also includes humanitarian assistance and disaster response, professional military education.
And this education is important, not only because Ecuadorian soldiers go to the United States to receive training, but also because of several things that we bring to Ecuador, such as mobile training teams, which can train more in Ecuador, compared to a few who travel to receive training.
It also includes cyber assistance training, special forces exchanges. And so we have a multitude of these types of exchanges that occur throughout the year.
"For fiscal year 2024, we have a total of 124 activities planned in Ecuador."
But we are also trying to speed up some things that were already planned. For example, we will deliver a C-130 aircraft on February 23. And we also have other things in the works to speed up the increase in the transfer of military equipment.
Is this investment portfolio non-refundable cooperation?
That's right. Yes, it is an investment by the United States and Ecuador together.
The United States is funding the bounty program in Ecuador and has announced an increased presence of FBI agents in the country. What does this type of work entail and what can these agents do on Ecuadorian soil?
It's to allow Ecuador the opportunity to offer rewards for information, something we've done in the United States for quite some time. And to obtain information that leads to a conviction and arrest of someone for criminal activity.
I think it's important in terms of interagency intelligence sharing between all government agencies, from the tactical level, whether it's the police or the military, to law enforcement, arresting and sentencing someone for those criminal activities.
It's just a tool, which is very effective in obtaining information.
On 30 January 2024, Primecius headlined “Security: This is how cooperation with the United States will work: Once President Daniel Noboa ratifies the agreements negotiated by his predecessor, Guillermo Lasso, military cooperation between Ecuador and the United States will grow.” It opened:
The results of the frequent visits of senior US officials to Quito during the government of Guillermo Lasso are beginning to emerge. In May, September and October 2023, the former president managed to close three military agreements with Washington.
The US press highlighted the "silent" process with Ecuador, with which the administration of President Joe Biden was betting on "sending military personnel in the midst of the explosion of drug cartels" in the country.
This line of cooperation is not new. Previously, in September 2021, both countries signed a regional memorandum of understanding for the exchange of information to combat drug trafficking .
In July 2023, the US Department of Defense and the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense signed another memorandum of understanding , with a specific roadmap on security matters.
And cooperation in the area has been growing since Correa left power. Ambassador Michael Fitzpatrick said in November 2023 that the different entities of his government were already disbursing around USD 1 million annually in security cooperation.
A new political context
Although the security crisis has been plunging the country into a wave of violence for three years, it was not until January 9 that President Daniel Noboa declared an internal armed conflict and declared 22 criminal groups as terrorists.
And this coincided with the approval of the Constitutional Court, on January 11, for two of the three military agreements with the United States: the one on the Status of Forces and the one on Operations against Illicit Transnational Maritime Activities. One on Assistance for Air Interception had been in place since July 12, 2023.
So, the worse that things get there, the more tightly the colonial aristocracy clings to its imperial master.
On 12 September 2024, the GrayZone headlined a youtube “VIDEO: Ecuador’s exiled ex-president Correa discusses the US lawfare agenda with The Grayzone”, and Correa there presented a damning portrait of the U.S. Government, citing his own experience of it, but going way beyond that to also a detailed structural description of how the U.S. Government conquers and takes over countries without invading them, and then conrols it evermore deeply so that the longer the country has been in America’s grip, the more difficult it will become for the country to regain its sovereignty..
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
