Washington Launches Its Attack Against BRICS — Paul Craig Roberts

Preface by Pam Barker | TLB staff writer

Two articles by prominent journalists have been pursuing the same theory this week, already historically well-supported, that the crisis Dilma Rousseff is currently facing is due to pressure and machinations from the neocons in Washington.  This in keeping with decades of evidence that Washington cannot permit a truly representative, pro-people government to flourish in Latin America, especially when BRICS’ membership is brought into the mix.

The second short article by Paul Craig Roberts, published in its entirety below, explores this theme in relation not only to Brazil but Argentina, Venezuela and others.

The first, prefaced below, co-written by Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Fishman and David Miranda of The Intercept, describes some of the specifics relating to Rousseff’s impending impeachment.

A week ago, Brazil’s lower house of Congress voted to impeach Rousseff, although it will still take a trial followed by a two-thirds Senate vote to oust her permanently. As Greenwald, Fishman and Miranda relate in their article, the person who pushed the Congressional vote over the required mark last week was Dep. Bruno Araujo, a member of the right-wing opposition, whose party has kept losing elections to Rousseff’s and who himself is strongly suspected of having received illegal funds. The House Speaker, Eduardo Cunha, who presided over the impeachment vote, is himself guilty of hiding millions in Swiss bank accounts that he has lied on record about owning.   They report a Globe and Mail finding in which 318 of 594 members of Congress are under some sort of investigation or facing charges. This the body of elected representatives who voted against Rousseff last Sunday. And if the Senate decides to conduct a trial into Rousseff, her automatic replacement during this time will be Michel Temer of the PMDB party who is under investigation for being part of an illegal ethanol purchasing scheme.

Yet several of the large media outlets such as the New York Times and The Economist, who variously dislike Rousseff’s pro-people policies, acknowledge that she has done nothing of a criminal nature and that the charges against her are likely politically motivated.

Rousseff has characterized the effort to remove her a ‘coup’, which is hardly surprising in view of the evidence that has emerged of US and UK involvement in the 1964 coup that installed 20 years of a brutal pro-US right-wing military dictatorship in Brazil. Indeed, some of her enemies have favorably referenced this historical coup in the context of her impeachment.

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Rousseff has also gone on record denouncing NSA spying, especially that which targeted Brazil, and its BRICS’ membership, along with extensive business dealings with China and Russia, has made it a target of Washington, so goes the plausible theory.

News emerged this week of one of Brazil’s high-profile opposition party members, Sen. Aloysio Nunes, being invited to Washington for meetings with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Washington lobbying firm, Allbright Stonebridge Group, headed by Clinton’s former Secretary of State, Madeleine Allbright. He, too, is the subject of corruption allegations. The meeting was ordered by Michel Temer of the PMBD party even though Rousseff hasn’t yet been removed from office.

Nunes is a target of corruption investigations and, as president of Brazil’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has advocated closer relations with the US and UK.

I can highly recommend the well-referenced Intercept article.

Enjoy below Paul Craig Roberts’ big picture take on Brazil, Argentina and the Washington view.

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By Paul Craig Roberts

Having removed the reformist President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Washington is now disposing of the reformist President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff.

Washington used a federal judge to order Argentina to sacrifice its debt restructuring program in order to pay US vulture funds the full value of defaulted Argentine bonds that the vulture funds had bought for a few pennies on the dollar. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/us-vulture-funds-argentina-bankruptcy  These vultures were called “creditors” who had made “loans” regardless of the fact that they were not creditors and had made no loans. They were opportunists after easy money and were used by Washington to get rid of a reformist government.

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Former President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner 

President Kirchner resisted and, thus, she had to go. Washington concocted a story that Kirchner covered up an alleged Iranian bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994. This implausible fantasy, for which there is no evidence of Iranian involvement, was fed to one of Washington’s agents in the state prosecutor’s office, and a dubious event of 22 years ago was used to clear Kirchner out of the way of the American looting of Argentina.

In Brazil, Washington has used corruption insinuations to get President Rousseff impeached by the lower house. Evidence is not necessary, just allegations. It is no different from “Iranian nukes,” Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” Assad’s “use of chemical weapons,” or in Rousseff’s case merely insinuations. The Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, notes that Rousseff “hasn’t been accused of anything.” The American-backed elites are simply using impeachment to remove a president who they cannot defeat electorally.

In short, this is Washington’s move against the BRICS. Washington is moving to put into political power a rightwing party that Washington controls in order to terminate Brazil’s growing relationships with China and Russia.

The great irony is that the impeachment bill was presided over by the corrupt lower house speaker, Eduardo Cunha, who was recently discovered to have stashed millions of dollars in secret Swiss bank accounts (perhaps his pay-off from Washington) and who lied under oath when he denied having foreign bank accounts. You can read the sordid story here:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-complicity-after-vote-to-remove-brazils-president-key-opposition-figure-holds-meetings-in-washington/5521059

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Kirchner and Rousseff’s “crimes” are their efforts to have the governments of Argentina and Brazil represent the Argentine and Brazilian peoples rather than the elites and Wall Street. In Washington these are serious offenses as Washington uses the elites to control South American countries. Whenever Latin Americans elect a government that represents them, Washington overthrows the government or assassinates the president.

Washington is close to returning Venezuela to the control of the Spanish elite allied with Washington. http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2016/04/new-coup-plot-hatched-in-venezuela.html The presidents of Ecuador and Bolivia are also targeted. One reason Washington will not permit its British lapdog to honor the asylum Ecuador granted to Julian Assange is that Washington expects to have its own agent back in as President of Ecuador, at which time Assange’s asylum will be repealed.

Washington has always blocked reform in Latin America. Latin American peoples will remain American serfs until they elect governments by such large majorities that the governments can exile the traitorous elites, close the US embassies, and expel all US corporations. Every Latin American country that has an American presence has no future other than serfdom.

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Original article

TLB recommends other articles by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts and The Intercept 

Reference

https://theintercept.com/2016/04/18/after-vote-to-remove-brazils-president-key-opposition-figure-holds-meetings-in-washington/

About the authors

Glenn Greenwald is one of three co-founding editors of The Intercept. He is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law.

Andrew Fishman is a journalist and researcher. Before joining The Intercept, he was a freelance journalist and multimedia producer.

David Miranda is a staff writer at The Intercept.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

About the contributor

TLB image Pam

Pam Barker is a TLB staff writer/analyst. She has an extensive background in the educational system of several countries at the college and university level as a teacher and administrator

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