Cliff Kincaid investigates the Associated Press’ shameless shilling for the Castro dictatorship and the Castro regime’s American lap dog, Fulton Armstrong. A very interesting and revealing report.
Castro’s Spy, the CIA, John Kerry and AP
Special Report from the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism
With wars raging in the Middle East, and Russia still threatening Ukraine, the problem of anti-Americanism in Latin America has been put on the back burner. But since Secretary of State John Kerry declared last year that the Monroe Doctrine was dead, Vladimir Putin of Russia has traveled to Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua and Cuba. This doesn’t seem like an accident. The Obama administration is inviting aggression against the U.S.
During the Cold War, Cuba hosted Soviet nuclear missiles targeting the U.S., and the Castro regime sponsored terrorism on American soil carried out by such groups as the Weather Underground and the Puerto Rican FALN. Cuba continues to protect anti-American terrorists on the island such as Joanne Chesimard, a cop-killer who fled the U.S. with the help of the Weather Underground.
None of this bothers Putin, of course. And Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is talking about establishing new military bases in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Russia’s clout in the region has dramatically increased, while American influence has declined. Again, this doesn’t seem like an accident.
The Monroe Doctrine was supposed to protect U.S. national security interests in the Western hemisphere by prohibiting foreign meddling in America’s backyard. Putin seems to share Kerry’s belief that this national security doctrine is dead.
President Obama made sure that the CIA was taken out of the business of destabilizing anti-American regimes in the hemisphere. Now, limited democracy-promotion programs in Cuba, financed by the U.S. and mandated by Congress, are coming in for strong criticism from the Associated Press (AP) news organization.
The media campaign has all the earmarks of a political influence operation whose ultimate goal is to get the U.S. out of the “regime change” business, even when the regime being changed is a dictatorship that oppresses its people and poses a military threat to the U.S.
The context is important: President Obama has been cordial to Cuban dictator Raul Castro, greeting him warmly at the Nelson Mandela memorial service in South Africa. It is clear that his heart (and much of his “progressive” base) is with the idea of normalizing relations with the Cuban regime.
But Congress has had other ideas. It is not so enamored with the communist dictatorship, and mandated that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) establish programs to give Cubans a chance to enjoy such things as freedom of the press and access to information, so that they can understand and appreciate the rights that have been denied them. Now, all of these programs are in jeopardy.
Interestingly, a key source for the controversial AP stories—which portray the USAID programs as sinister—is former top CIA analyst and John Kerry aide, Fulton Armstrong.
The AP allegations against U.S. efforts to foster democracy in Cuba have played into Castro’s hands, and may have been designed that way all along. They became front-page news in Granma, the organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, which cited the “American press” as saying that the USAID had been caught engaging in “subversive actions in Cuba.” The charge is typical communist propaganda.
Unfortunately, media coverage benefiting Castro is not new. “In revealing U.S. operations in Cuba and presenting the communist Cuban regime as a victim of U.S. intrusion,” says analyst Toby Westerman, “the AP is following the pro-Communist, anti-freedom example of Herbert Matthews, The New York Times correspondent who gave invaluable publicity to Castro and his guerrillas in the early days of his revolution.”
He adds, “The AP misinforms its readers. The AP does a disservice to those who are risking their lives to resist Communist oppression in Cuba, and it completely ignores the Cuban regime’s espionage offensive against the United States as well as against the Cuban people. As such the AP gives a distorted picture of what the United States is attempting to do in Cuba, and why.”
Continue reading HERE.
And how amusing that Kennedy’s reputation is lifted in praise for his courageous stand against missiles in Cuba, after he sold us down the river, yet now when missiles are back in Cuba, it’s not even worthy of notice.
Kerry has the face of an over-groomed basset hound which fancies itself a borzoi. I pity the fool, or I would if he weren’t such a slimeball.
Again, if Armstrong were a Republican operative connected with a high-ranking Republican senator and the exact same thing had been done involving a right-wing dictatorship, all the usual suspects, starting with the media, would be on this like white on rice and screaming bloody murder. But it’s Castro’s Cuba, which is of course treated differently. VERY. Same old shit.