AFRICAN LEADERS HAVE FAILED! Kofi Amponsah

John Dramani Mahama of Ghana

By Ekow Mensah

Mr Kofi Amponsah, former Director of Research of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) has lashed out at current African leaders calling them failures.

In a 35 page article submitted to The Insight for serialization, Comrade Amponsah wrote “Africa is underdeveloped because African leaders are joking with the urgent need to accelerate the development of science and technology.

 “The way African citizens are treated everywhere in the world has a direct relationship with Africa’s poverty emanating from its scientific and technological backwardness”.

Comrade Amponsah wrote that “Africa is the second largest continent in the World after Asia with a total land area of about 30 million square kilometers and with a population of one billion.

“It is about three and a half times the size of the USA, and ten times the size of India, Therefore, the present tragic and humiliating beggar image of the continent is totally uhnaccetable.

 “We must clearly understand the pace of development at which our critical situation demands if we are to modernize and take our rightful place among the technically advanced nations of the world”.

Comrade Amponsah wrote that Ghana like most African states is in the grip of neo-colonialism under Western Europe and America.

 According to him Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s exposure of the character of neo-colonialism led to the situation in which he was regarded by both Britain and France as the most dangerous politician on the African continent.

President Jacob Zuma of South Africa

 He writes that although the developing world covers a vast area, the continent of Africa has become the imperialist powers main battle field for the following reasons;

·         Africa on the whole was the most backward continent

·         Africa was the most clear-cut embodiment of the colonial empires, and the rivalry between the colonialists is deeply rooted in the history of this area.

·         Colonial regimes in Africa were the last to fall.

·          Africa is remarkably well endowed.  It’s raw material power and human resources are of considerable interest to imperialist countries, despite the structural changes that have taken place in the material production of the capitalist world economy.

Comrade Amponsah claimed that some international financial institutions particularly the World Bank and the international Monetary Fund deepen the underdevelopment of Africa.

Editorial

SYRIA WILL WIN

There are very strong indications that the Syrian armed forces are winning the war unleashed by agents of the West.

From region to region and from district to district, the patriotic armed forces of Syria are scoring significant victories and putting insurgents to flight.

The use of chemical weapons by the insurgents clearly points to the fact that they are becoming increasingly desperate.

Another sign of desperation is the bombing of a research facility in the Syrian capital Damascus by the Israelis.

 In the face of the defeat of the insurgents other surrogates of the West including Israel have been compelled to get directly involved in the absolutely senseless aggression against the Syrian people.

The Insight firmly believes that in the final analysis justice will prevail over injustice in Syria and the paid agents of imperialism will be ushered into disgrace and defeat.

 The forces of résistance in Syria and the Middle East will prevail over the dark forces of capitulation and surrender.

  

Victory is certain.

Chad, Victim Of Western Imperialism

By Finian Cunningham

A failed coup in the North African country of Chad this week is just another repercussion from the wave of Western state-sponsored violence and destabilization, stretching from Central Asia, through the Middle East and across Africa.

The Chadian regime of President Idriss Deby said it had thwarted a coup attempt after it arrested an unknown number of army personnel and at least one opposition politician. Chadian authorities in the capital Ndjamena accused Libya of complicity in the plot by giving cross-border support to rebel groups - a charge denied by Libya.

Whatever the truth about that specific claim, however there seems little doubt that the bid to topple Deby in Chad is bound up with the wave of violence and instability that Western powers have intensified over the past two years in their pursuit of wider geopolitical interests.

Western state meddling - much of it covert and all of it criminal - in Libya and Syria is fanning sectarian, ethnic and political violence into Iraq and as far East as Pakistan, while also rebounding into North, West and Central Africa. This global trail of violence is compounding the explosive legacy already left by more than a decade of American-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Chad’s Idriss Deby has been a staunch supporter of Western powers in their so-called “War on Terror” purportedly aimed at defeating “Islamic extremism.” When France launched its military onslaught on Mali in January this year, Paris claimed that the dramatic move was to “save” the government of Mali from being overrun by “Islamic terrorists.” A more plausible explanation was France using the spurious War on Terror charade to regain a foothold in resource-rich Africa out of old-fashioned imperialist and criminal interests.

Neighboring Chad was one of the first African states to offer troops to support the more than 4,500 French forces dispatched to Mali. That gave French neo-imperialism a welcome “African face.” When French Mirage warplanes first began bombing northern Mali on January 11, they reportedly operated from bases in Chad, which like Mali, is also a former French colony. Chad also sent some 2,000 of its troops to join French forces in routing rebels from the northern Malian cities of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal. At least 30 Chadian soldiers have been killed in rebel attacks over the past three months compared with six French servicemen.

Chad itself has been wracked with civil war between disparate rebel groups opposed to the authoritarian rule of Deby, who came to power in a military coup in 1990. The Chadian rebels are not motivated by a unifying ideology and the country does not fit easily into a puerile Western narrative of Islamists pitted against a Western-backed regime. The only unifying motive seems to be a desire to get rid of a corrupt ruler.

But it seems likely that Western-instigated instability in Libya has now spilled over into Chad, as it has done in Mali when secessionist militants declared independence in northern Mali in April 2012. With Deby’s forces stretched in Mali to support French troops that created a renewed opportunity for Chadian rebels to challenge the regime in Ndjamena.

Meanwhile, last month, the President of the Central African Republic (CAR), Francois Bozizé, was ousted in a coup by Seleka rebels. On 24 March, Bozizé, who had fallen out of French favor, fled to Cameroon. He accused Chad of supporting the rebels who ousted him. Notably, France did not intervene to salvage the crumbling government of Bozizé as it had done in Mali, even though it had troops stationed in its former CAR colony. That fact alone points up the cynical double standards employed by Paris to justify its Malian intrigue.

In this seemingly confused ferment of coups and violence across North, West and Central Africa can be traced the hands of Western imperialism - some of it by design, some of it as an unintended consequence of illicit meddling. But the upshot is that Western imperialist interference is unleashing violence and suffering on a global scale.

When the Arab Spring revolts tipped at the end of 2010 and early 2011, they were the main genuine social revolts against corrupt Western-backed despots. This could be seen in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Since then, the Western powers have either co-opted reactionary elements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia and Egypt, to restore the old pro-Western order; or they have brutally repressed popular uprisings as in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to prop up incumbent pro-Western dictatorships.

Libya and Syria were in a different category. Here the Western powers saw an opportunity to use the Arab Spring as a cover for long-held plans for regime change. On the one hand, Libya under “new political management” represented a huge gain of oil and gas wealth for Western energy companies, and a key geopolitical bridgehead into the African continent that could be denied to global rivals, China and Russia. Whereas, on the other hand, Syria if brought under Western tutelage, would represent a grave blow against the Axis of Resistance to Western-Zionist imperialist interests across the Middle East. Dislodging Syria from the Axis, according to the Western calculation, would deal a major setback to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to Iran, as well as undercutting Russia and China in a vital energy region.

To that end, small-scale protests against Gaddafi and Assad were quickly infiltrated by Western proxy forces and fomented into armed conflicts against the state. In the case of Libya, the Western NATO military alliance became directly involved in mid-March 2011 with the deployment of warplanes and cruise missiles launched from warships in the Mediterranean. That cynical military intervention by NATO to topple the government of Muammar Gaddafi went well beyond the legal terms of the No-Fly Zone that was supposedly mandated by the UN Security Council.

In Syria, the NATO powers have so far limited themselves to covert military intervention, although the recent Western lies about chemical weapons may prompt a change in tactics. In spite of official claims to the contrary, there are many credible reports that Washington, London and Paris have been supplying weapons and logistical support to the disparate mercenary groups that are battling to overthrow the government of Bashar Al Assad in Damascus.

American Senator Rand Paul earlier this month disclosed that former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told him that Washington has been complicit in the supply of weapons to Syrian militants from Libya since at least September 2012. Senator Paul says that the main organizer of this channel for weapons and Jihadist mercenaries from Libya to Syria was the former US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, who was killed when the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi was attacked by as yet unknown assailants on 11 September 2012.

It is understood that the weapons supplied to Libyan militants during the regime-change operation against Gaddafi came from NATO or the NATO conduits of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. This same arrangement of NATO using the Persian Gulf Arab dictatorships to run arms and mercenaries into Syria still pertains, with the additional players of Turkey and Jordan.

The Western states have also been running guns and missiles into Syria using routes other than Libya. The CIA is known to have coordinated cargo planes loaded with armaments from Croatia via Turkey and Jordan into Syria.

The extremist ideology of the mercenaries in Libya and Syria is influenced by the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia. This “Takfiri” fundamentalism is especially driven by a pathological hatred towards Shia Islam, but also all other Islamist sects and religions or non-religions that, by twisted definition, do not conform to the “puritanical” Wahhabist beliefs.

This extremist fundamentalism has served Western imperialist interests well dating back to the British Empire’s defeat of the Ottomans during the First World War and during America’s Cold War proxy counterinsurgency against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Out of the latter conflict would emerge the American and British-run so-called Al Qaeda network. That network comprises an alphabet soup of mercenary brigades ranging from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group to the al-Nusra Front in Syria. Geographically diffuse, these various groups are commonly grounded in the same extremist Wahhabism and a propensity for unrelenting violence. While the Western governments have claimed to be locked in a “War on Terror” against this network, history has shown that far more often than not, the Western states have colluded with these terrorist groups for geopolitical objectives. There is a straight line of evolution from Afghanistan during the 1980s to present-day Syria and beyond.

But this collusion with extremist proxies for the attainment of imperial ambitions has opened up a toxic can of worms on a global scale. NATO’s covert warmongering in Libya has spilled over into Syria, which is in turn inflaming internecine violence between Sunni and Shia in Lebanon, Iraq and as far east as Pakistan. The Western imperialist warmongering in Libya has also fanned into Mali, Algeria, and now Chad and other African countries.

What we are seeing on a global scale is the pernicious consequences of Western imperialist powers recklessly trying to carve up the planet to suit their capitalist ruling interests. There seems no end to this trail of violence and destruction as one consequence inexorably leads to another deadly consequence. But one way towards ending it is for people of the world and the Western public in particular to understand the underlying motive forces behind the seeming confused miasma of misery. Those forces emanate from the ruling class and their servile politicians in Western capitals. Those forces are pitted against the ordinary public of Western countries as much as they are against the people of Asia, the Middle East and Africa. This is a global war on the people of the world by elite capitalist power either in direct confrontation using NATO and financial market forces or under the cover of proxy terrorism.

Stupidities of US government about Iran

US President Hussein Obama (L) and George Bush (R)

It could be that the American government is deluded about Iran. Even apparently intelligent people can have illusions. But that is taking too charitable a view. The truth is that the USA government is just stupid.

The first stupidity is claiming knowledge of a country without having an embassy there. Missing a prime source of information, the USA’s analysis and understanding of Iran is not only wrong but over thirty years out of date. Consequently the USA is locked into a condition of permanent hatred for being ignominiously booted out for supporting the brutal regime of Shah. Like a spoilt child, it is in a condition of stunted development and is unable to grow up.

The second stupidity is letting prejudice get in the way of objective analysis. Even when the USA does receive real information it wrecks the value of that information by viewing it through the prism of ignorance and spite. The result is that the USA is unable to understand that the Iranian Revolution has established deep roots so that Iran, despite sanctions, is burgeoning into a modern, technologically advanced society. In particular, Iran is politically stable so that the chances of its population wanting a ‘Green revolution’ (i.e. a sell-out to the militarist globalist financial capitalism which is now wrecking the world) are nil.

The third stupidity is thinking that sanctions will stop Iran’s progress in civilian nuclear energy or in anything else. Nothing will stop that progress. Besides, more and more nations are quietly making agreements with Iran.

But, such the bigotry and arrogance of the USA (and such its supreme hubris in thinking that the world looks up to it instead of, increasingly, despising it) it makes the fourth stupidity of thinking it can bully Iran into a grovelling submission. Which is a big mistake because when the Iranians see that they are being bullied, exactly the opposite happens - Iranian resolve is strengthened, national pride is doubled and even more effort is put into forwarding the Revolution. On top of that Iranians then remember that the USA has been militarily aggressive every year for the last seventy years; that it assassinates and tortures; that its economy is collapsing; and that a creeping internal fascism will soon be jumping up and stamping on the face of its population.

In short, the Iranians are a proud people with a civilised history going back many centuries before the time the USA stopped slaughtering Native Americans (just over one hundred years ago). Iranians simply are not amenable to being bullied.

But nothing stops the USA from trying. Convinced that what the USA stands for (i.e., rich-poor division, food stamps and war) is what is wanted elsewhere in the world, the USA is hoping to achieve a change of regime in Iran. To that end, the USA is making an unprecedented effort to terrify the Iranian people into submission. On 6th May, for three weeks, the navies of thirty countries, headed by the USA, will pollute the Persian Gulf and shake hands with the local vicious autocracies. The navies will be hosted by Bahrain which is ruled by a bunch of preening thugs. Significantly, the Western media are keeping as quiet as they can about the whole monstrous enterprise.

A more sickening display of moral and military corruption cannot be imagined and it is happening because the USA is in desperate need of achieving some sort of success somewhere in the world. It has been kicked out of Iraq; is being kicked out of Afghanistan; it hashed up Libya; and is in the process of hashing up Syria. So the American image needs a bit of burnishing and its Zionist rulers think a ‘Green revolution’ in Iran would be just the thing.

But there is news for the stupid USA. The celebrations of the Iranian Revolution in February (when there were many millions on the streets of the cities) should have been the clue that the Iranians support their country. It’s as simple as that and they despise the USA for thinking that it could be any different.

Furthermore, everybody realises that the USA (implementing the desires of its Zionist masters) is destabilising the Middle East in every way it can including financing and arming the terrorists of al Qaeda. What is more, there will be a huge turn-out for the Presidential election in June. The Iranians are great democrats and they will show the world.

The American government should grow up. But it seems it can’t. Like some ogre in a fairy tale it is doomed to behave badly for ever.

Nevertheless, intelligent people realise that those thirty navies are in the Persian Gulf to threaten Iran, to provoke Russia, to support vicious autocracies and to further destabilise the Middle East. But, one day, which will come sooner rather than later, a world which is quietly but powerfully re-arranging itself will see the collapse of the American dollar and a lessening of, even an end to, American militarism and adventurism in the Persian Gulf.

And about time, too.

America’s unspoken civil war

By Gordon Duff

Over the past decades, America has planned and executed civil wars across the globe, turning nation after nation into a cesspool of blood, as “tool of foreign policy.” Now the cabal that has kept the world aflame for a lifetime or longer has now turned inward, targeting America.

Far from “conspiracy theory,” the highest levels of America’s military and intelligence are, not just aware, aided by privatization of key security functions now “outsourced” to what can only be described as America’s real enemies.

The term those assigned the hopeless task of protecting America from the vast criminal empire that has seized “the high ground” in every aspect of society and culture use to describe what may well have already destroyed America is “bifurcation.”

Deep divisions within the military, intelligence and law enforcement organizations, divisions that now extent into the hundreds of “contractor” groups run by retirees, is now nearing open warfare.

The treasonous group, calling themselves “right wing patriots,” a bizarre combination of adherents to the “Dominionist” apocalypse death cult, “middle management” of the drug cartels and Bolshevik “Neocons” totalitarians, have proven themselves willing and capable of any outrage.

Turning away from freedom

Since the appointment of Bush (43) by the Supreme Court, a move increasingly accepted as a coup de etat by legal experts, a “nation within a nation” was established, answerable to no laws, domestic or international, no controls, no regulations, a government that faces no elections, no limitations on power, a “criminal gang” capable of waging war, controlling currencies and crashing economies.

The “Bifurcated Government of the United States,” a conglomeration of political extremists, secret societies and corporate criminals, has now turned “inward” after a decade of staging terror attacks, waging wars, looting economies and murdering millions.

Gangster rule

When president Obama, last week at the White House Correspondents Dinner, spoke of Sheldon Adelson’s $100,000,000 personal “contributions” meant to buy the American presidential election, it was an admission of the “bifurcation” threat.

Who “they” can’t buy, they smear or bankrupt or imprison or murder. With control of several special operations commands and most military and “intelligence” (read “narcotics smuggling”) contractors, murders, packaged as suicides, illnesses, accidents or “street crimes,” have become commonplace.

America’s second government

Even the drones America has used to keep Afghanistan aflame as a cover for its $100 billion narcotics empire, stretching from Kabul to Bagdad to Dubai to Baku to Tel Aviv to Kosovo to Zurich, have now been brought home, armed and operating over America.

While the pop-culture media, very much a part of the mechanism of entropy, is tasked with its smears and deceptions, very real conspiracies, many highly classified, are now “on the radar” as a “clear and present danger” to America’s security.

Today’s story on Syria, another hoax claiming the US has announced plans for military intervention, is “business as usual” for America’s “not so secret” criminal masters.
Even when the American government refuses to accepted falsified intelligence or to be bullied or blackmailed into treason, the controlled media plants hoax articles too often used as “open source intelligence” by world leaders whose “handlers” are blind to internal struggles in the US.

The recognized threats

From the list of “official” threats that can never be spoken of:

1. Five acts of terrorism against America are officially recognized, under highest security classification, as “false flag.” Among these are Oklahoma City, 9/11, Sandy Hook and Boston.
2. The United States Supreme Court is controlled, a combination of bribery, blackmail and mental instability, allowing, not just the Bush 943) coup but the suspension of all constitutional rights and full control of America’s electoral process by drug cartels. (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 -2010)
3. A Bush policy of forced integration of defense and intelligence firms with partner companies in Israel has created a “superhighway” for espionage, placing America’s most sensitive military “tech” on the world market.
4. Erosion of individual rights and a dramatic increase in unrestricted private data-mining, not just Google, but literal control of America’s communications infrastructure by foreign corporations tied to intelligence services, has quietly brought the long feared Orwellian threat to full fruition, shielded by its control of all information that would expose its capabilities and dire purpose.
5. Key defense mechanisms, originally seized by the Bush/Cheney administration and moved outside accountability have allowed extremist political groups inside the US to wage war using government resources. Most notable was the 2007 Barksdale/Minot nuclear incident where a religious cult seized a B-52 bomber armed with nine thermonuclear missiles, some of which are unaccounted.
6. Under the guise of a secret protocol with Mexico to protect both nations from powerful drug cartels, heavily armed drones have been deployed up to 1000 miles inside the US. These missions are both unauthorized by any constituted authority and quite likely represent a form of “piracy.”“Bifurcation” groups working with cartels can, at will, use these lethal systems to simulate disasters, terror plots or eliminate potential opposition.
7. Due to, not just massive political bribery through “Citizens United” but illegal redistricting called “Gerrymandering,” the US House of Representatives has been fully compromised, using its legislative role to war against America on behalf of criminal groups that now control all leadership positions in that legislative body. Their role has been to paralyze the American government, protecting the interests of the criminal elements thatare, at times, themselves shocked and sickened at the excesses of American politicians whose moral and ethical standards would leave even Roman Emperor Caligula uneasy.

Background

During the 1930s, Marine General Smedley Butler, spoke out against the use of America’s military might by organized crime. In 1934, a treasonous cabal from the American Legion (a veterans groups tied to Italy’s Mussolini), Dupont Corporation and Merrill Lynch, tried to hire Butler to lead an insurrection, arresting the president and establishing a police state under Wall Street control.

No student of American history is ever taught of this. Even the internet has been cleansed of any mention of it, any mention that resembles the truth, that is.

Butler is unique in that he is the first and only military leader, a two time Medal of Honor winner, to speak out openly against, not just “gangsterism,” but the control Wall Street has had over the American military and, through the service academies, the officer corps, typically feudal, typically resentful of America’s dwindling freedoms.

From 1933, Smedley butler:

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

Clearly, Butler foresaw the current state of affairs. America’s military had been used at home many times, to rout veteran “bonus marchers,” to wage war on workers seeking unionization and a living wage and today, a “bifurcated” America, with key elements of taxpayer funded agencies and private “contractors” tirelessly waging a treasonous war on America’s people and their last remaining freedoms.