Free Yourself From the GTF:
10 Facts on Korea, Venezuela, and the “Good Guys”

March 4, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

This past week has seen continued turmoil in the international situation. The summit meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un collapsed, heightening the conflicts in an explosive region. The sharp conflict over trade and all-round cutthroat competition between the U.S. and China simmered. And the U.S. continued to threaten the country of Venezuela with a possible military invasion, claiming that the regime is illegitimate and maniacally “starving its own people.”

All this is very dangerous. But what is the framework that you’re being given by the politicians, pundits, and the education system to understand all this—and everything else of any significance that happens in the world? It’s the GTF—and listen here as Bob Avakian breaks down just what that is.

Now, check out the facts that we have marshaled below that blow apart this bullshit, and dig into the articles we’ve run that take it deeper.

North Korea:

1. Over three million Korean people were killed during the 1950-1953 U.S.-led war on Korea.

2. U.S. warplanes dropped more bombs and napalm during the Korean War than they had during the entire Pacific campaign of World War 2, and also used chemical and biological weapons.

3. More than 99 percent of all buildings in North Korea over one-story high were destroyed by U.S. bombing during the Korean War, and the bombing killed 30 percent of North Korea’s population. In 1950 that would have been proportional to 45 million Americans being killed.

4. The U.S. stationed nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s, officially remains at war with North Korea today, regularly conducts provocative military exercises near its border, and has 28,000 American troops stationed on the border—and yet denounces North Korea as being “dangerous” and “aggressive.”

5. The U.S. and UN have imposed harsh and far-reaching economic sanctions on North Korea, affecting the masses of people in that country. According to the New York Times (March 2, 2019), the most recent round of sanctions since March 2016 have expanded beyond weapons and nuclear-related equipment to “entire export sectors, including minerals, metals, coal, agriculture and seafood” as well as energy sales. “Hard-line administration officials” want these sanctions to continue, the Times noted, because of “the far-reaching nature of the sanctions—and the suffering they were causing.”

For more, see “Take the Korea Pop Quiz: What do you REALLY know about Korea?” and “American Crime: Case #93: U.S. Invasion of Korea—1950.”

Venezuela:

6. The U.S. has imposed crippling economic sanctions against Venezuela and seized billions of dollars worth of Venezuelan funds, which has prevented its government from buying much-needed food and medicine and deliberately caused hunger and shortened life spans.

7. Former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield said “perhaps the best solution would be to accelerate the collapse” of Venezuela, acknowledging that this would bring on “fairly severe punishment” for Venezuelans “who are already having great difficulty finding enough to eat, getting themselves cured when they get sick, or finding clothes to put on their children....” But, Brownfield said, “the desired outcome [of installing a pro-U.S. regime] justifies this fairly severe punishment.”

8. U.S. officials and top politicians have openly called for the Venezuelan military to revolt against the government of Nicolás Maduro.

9. After directly consulting with the Trump/Pence regime, Juan Guaidó, head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, declared on January 23 that Maduro was illegitimate and that he was the legitimate interim president. The U.S. and dozens of its allies then immediately recognized Guaidó as the president and started giving him millions in aid.

10. What the U.S. is doing in Venezuela now is part of a history of such crimes in Latin America, under both Democrats and Republicans—from the 1973 CIA coup in Chile to the backing of death squads and massacres of indigenous people in El Salvador and the coup in Honduras engineered by Obama and Clinton, to literally hundreds and hundreds of other invasions, embargoes, coups, manipulations, and other acts of aggression.

For more, see “Venezuela: Escalated War Threats and U.S. ‘Aid’ as Weapon: U.S. Media and Democrats Obediently Line Up with Fascist Trump/Pence Regime on Regime Change in Venezuela”; American Crime series installments on the CIA coup in Chile, U.S. backing of death squads in El Salvador, and the coup in Honduras.