- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

minimizing "comms platform change" friction - "world’s most bloodthirsty killer award" - modern Western warfare
by Zenaan Harkness 29 Nov '16

29 Nov '16

* As we saw yesterday, president-elect of the USA, Donald Trump refuses "traditional" media "presidential monitoring, milking, shaming and all around manipulating", and instead launched his own Youtube channel! This is a defining moment in history. In what ways can we help speed, support and otherwise ride, this process of democratization of communications? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service * Blatantly counter factual news is de rigueur for the modern Western lame stream media. As we saw yesterday, Trump continues his royal middle finger to the establishment liars (sorry, media) by starting his own Youtube channel to make his public announcements - so not only has the game changed irrevocably, but at least one "leader" is on the page for shifting power away from the lying "main stream" media. Regarding censorship, the main limitation of Trump's unilateral communication using Youtube over the lamestream media, is that YouTube, like Twitter and Facebook, is just another central point of failure. "They're just a private company, they can censor all they like" does NOT cut it! Go to hell you fascist idiots, or rather, do the world a favour and go live in North Korea! * Since these corporations (who are supposedly allow to "censor all they like, since they're just their to make profit") are a virus against our rights of free speech and rights to communicate with one another, EVIDENTLY we must route around this virus! And Donald Trump is doing the best he can (it seems) to so route around said virii. * The next step of democratization of our collective public / "community" communications, is full peer to peer / P2P networked communications platform. The traditional establishment media is not getting their way, and of course the kickback is to be expected see for eample the lame excuses from Twitter here ("we didn't mean to, it was someone else - yet they completely disable dozens of "hate speech" accounts that go too far against their establishment propaganda dictate): https://heatst.com/tech/twitter-bans-all-mentions-of-twitter-alternative/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/twitter-try-one-long-running-alternatives/ * Full commoditization/ democratization of our comms platforms/ tools, implies end-user control, individual capacity to "launch" or "speak" publicly, and that those who want to listen can listen to those they want to listen to, without a single point of failure of a Twitter Inc, a Facebook Inc or a Google / Alphabet Inc to shut down their streams of comms between speakers and listeners, choosing freely to so speak and to so listen! - We have the right to speak to those who want to listen to us. - We have a right to listen to those we want to listen to speaking. ( apropos s/speak/write|type|read|view|etc/ ) Now is about a good an opportunity as we will ever see, to maximize impact from deployment of "new" tech, to solve a real problem of censorship, in the public eye. Let's get tools in the hands of Team Trump, Milo Yianoppoulos, Breitbart, and every other so-called "alternative" media source, left or right, "extreme" left or right or otherwise, which tools reduce platform change friction to as close to zero as possible. * The foundation of such tech is stable public identification. An "identification regime" that folks are already familiar with is probably the best start, backed by funky fully decentralised DHT type tech. For on purely random e.g. (never used Twitter sorry, so this is not in any way technically accurate!): - start with say Twitter handle syntax, [.]@... - add something small to this regime, say [.]@@... or [.]@UID... - back this with gnunet or something similar - build tools / GUIs to seamlessly transition folks from Twitter, Facebook etc Imagine this: - "your account got banned? Just use Gwitter!" - "your tweets aren't getting out? Just add a second '@' symbol!" - "you're not seeing Milo's tweets? Just use Gwitter!" We can imagine gateways between say Gwitter and Twitter, where every individual who uses Gwitter and Twitter, becomes a gateway (if they so choose), and a war where Twitter Inc shuts down more and more gateway accounts, which would only highlight (to normies/ regular folk) the foundational problem of the centralization and censorship inherent in corporate fascist centralised "platforms" - this highlighting and raising of awareness can only be a great thing! * Additional things like privacy, anonymity, secrecy etc, are not even on the scale at the moment - the foundations must be handled first. Can we solve "freedom of speech, as in I'm free to communicate with whom I choose to communicate with, which may involve nothing more than listening to those I wish to listen to"? * And here's just another example that triggered my snowlflakey self into launching this tirade about why we need to get this done :) Syria: Theater of the Absurd Gets Crazier http://journal-neo.org/2016/11/25/theater-of-the-absurd-gets-crazier/ $ akw gnunet Package: gnunet Description-en: secure, trust-based peer-to-peer framework (meta) GNUnet is a peer-to-peer framework which focuses on providing security. All link-to-link messages in the network are confidential and authenticated. The framework provides a transport abstraction layer and can currently encapsulate the peer-to-peer traffic in UDP, TCP, or SMTP messages.

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Re: [Cryptography] Use of RDRAND in Haskell's TLS RNG?
by grarpamp 29 Nov '16

29 Nov '16

Any recent processor from Intel has between 1B and 8B transistors. Not a single modern processor from them has been publicly decapped and audited. Both Intel and the fabs they are built in are closed source. And the NSA and others intercept your deliveries and backdoor your microcode. Audits... there, really? Trying to start with and prove out that mess? LOL, you're fucked. Instead of pouring yet another hundred messages into the quarterly circle jerk about 'random', why not try figuring out how to create something that might be worthy of some level of objective trust. #OpenFabs On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 1:24 PM, Ray Dillinger <bear(a)sonic.net> wrote: > > > On 11/23/2016 02:23 AM, Darren Moffat wrote: >> What is a "proper audit" and why do you think that Intel hasn't done that >> already ? What more find they (or any chip designer/builder) do to convince >> you? >> >> Darren >> > > A proper audit is one that's sufficient for anybody with a copy of the > audit to notice if there's a mistake in the claimed implementation. > Therefore, it would include a discussion of the exact design specs, the > design process, and why the design is expected to meet those specs. > Then it would show both images of the relevant parts of the chip die and > the source code that resulted in that layout, so that people can check > those things against the claimed implementation. And it would be > publicly available so security researchers and random grad students > anywhere in the world can inspect it, publish papers about it, freely > quote it, etc. without need of an NDA and without worrying about getting > sued. > > If this document existed we'd know about it because researchers and grad > students in Shanghainese and Russian universities, and everybody else > whose governments or sponsors are suspicious of American companies and > would budget a whole lot of university research, would be publishing a > firehose stream of papers about it. > > Lite Verification means making the pre-whitening random-process output > available from the chip and letting people verify that that the RDRAND > output does indeed correspond to those bits and the whitening process > claimed in the audit. Likewise, we'd know about it, and there'd be > another firehose stream of papers coming out. > > Full Verification involves decapping randomly selected chips that have > been sold to the general public, and inspecting them under an electron > microscope to make sure the implementation claimed in the audit is > what's actually there. And to make sure that it's actually hooked up so > people can tell that it is the part of the die which is used to handle > that particular instruction. Full verification could *in principle* be > repeated by as many people, in as many different countries, as there are > chips sold, with notice to or participation by the manufacturer neither > required nor given nor expected. > > Publishing the audit would be simple and easy. We assume that document > already exists, it just hasn't been published. Lite verification would > require additional chip design, possibly additional output pins, and > would raise the cost of the chip, but designing to make it possible > would have been well within Intel's capabilities. Full Verification > would be an absolute bugger for anybody to do, very expensive, and IMO > is unlikely to be done by anyone save nation-states who will never > publish their findings. Nor, indeed, even admit they've done it. > > Bear > > > _______________________________________________ > The cryptography mailing list > cryptography(a)metzdowd.com > http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

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Re: [Cryptography] Gaslighting ~= power droop == side channel attack
by grarpamp 29 Nov '16

29 Nov '16

On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 10:21 AM, Henry Baker <hbaker1(a)pipeline.com> wrote: > I (finally) saw the 1944 movie Gaslight yesterday, and a prominent plot element was the dimming of the gas lights in a house when someone turned on the gas lights in another room. In particular, the dimming of the gas lights indicated that someone else was in the house, and the brightening of the gas light indicated when that person left. Ingrid Bergman's character eventually correlates the gas light dimming precisely with the absence of her husband -- supposedly to his rented office to compose music, but in reality, he's rummaging around in the attic. > > The sudden prurient interest of our utility companies (and Google) in precisely monitoring our electrical power and our gas usage possibly be called "gaslighting surveillance". What worries me is that our state PUC's (Public Utility Commissions) force us all to pay for this surveillance as part of our utility bills. > > What's worse is that these utilities want to insert the camel's nose further into our tents by asking us to install "smart" -- aka more precise surveillance -- thermostats in our homes, so we (and, of course, they and the NSA/FBI/DHS via the 3rd party doctrine) can access this information via our smart phones. Of course, having a perch on our home networks, they can monitor a heck of a lot more than our power consumption and our home temperature. > > God forbid we ever get another Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter in the White House; our "smart" thermostats will turn us into the secret energy police for pushing our thermostats above the "recommended" temperature. > > And don't even start talking about Amazon's Echo/Alexa and Google's Home and Apple's Siri. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_%281944_film%29 > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting No reason you cannot, or should not, install a battery buffer between you and the snoops, solar / wind power, share and tap.

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There is no greater school than a revolution. "Ten Days That Shook the World" John Reed
by Zenaan Harkness 29 Nov '16

29 Nov '16

Enjoy :) http://isreview.org/issue/82/education-literacy-and-russian-revolution "THERE IS no greater school than a revolution. It is therefore not surprising that some of the most innovative, radical, and successful literacy campaigns are those that are born out of revolutions—when, on a mass scale, people fight for a better society. In revolutionary periods, ideas matter as never before, and literacy needs no motivation as it becomes a truly liberatory endeavor. Thus, from the trenches of the US Civil War and the Russian front to the battle lines of El Salvador, there are innumerable stories of soldiers teaching each other to read newspapers in the midst of war and famine. One of the most inspiring examples of the revolutionary transformation of literacy and education is the Russian Revolution of 1917."

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#StandingRock Forced Evacuation order! Army Corp plays it's Trump(sic) Card
by Razer 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

They mention the violence in passing then wham bam: 'to prevent death illness or serious injury due to winter conditions' https://www.rt.com/usa/368213-standing-rock-camp-closing/ December 5th.

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Technocracy: "...all of us went along with it, because the simplicity was reassuring."
by Razer 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

Adam Curtis @BBC: "We live in a strange time. Extraordinary events keep happening that undermine the stability of our world. Suicide bombs, waves of refugees, Donald Drumpf, Vladimir Putin, even Brexit. Yet those in control seem unable to deal with them, and no-one has any vision of a different or a better kind of future. This film will tell the story of how we got to this strange place. It is about how, over the past 40 years, politicians, financiers and technological utopians, rather than face up to the real complexities of the world, retreated. Instead, they constructed a simpler version of the world in order to hang on to power. And as this fake world grew, all of us went along with it, because the simplicity was reassuring..." HyperNormalisation 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM (2h, 40m, 28s) Rr Ps: A prologue to the film by Adam Curtis, who also brought us "The Power of Nightmares" BBC documentary defining the roots of modern terrorism, which originated in the lecture halls of a certain well-known philosopher influential with the American Neocons, and the article "The Baby and the Baathwater", regarding the US government's assisting the Baath Party to power in the Middle East at the end of World War Twice... Living in an Unreal World, a Short Film Adam Curtis Made for VICE About Your Life. http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/adam-curtis-living-unreal-world-short-film

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Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is DEAD!!!
by xorcist at sigaint.org 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

> John Newman: > Alcohol is a drug Chemically, yes but not legally or socially, or you'd be in jail and out of a job, fam > you snipped out bullshit about "eat a half gram and find out" Cuz you didnut try it, or address it .5g flower is 100mg THC I said 500mg THC Eat it > freak out like a little girl Hate women, do ya =D > No one gives a fuck how you drink, pal =) You did, or ya wudent have been fishing for tips BSides, alcohol becomes sugar and you get diabeetees > marijuana Propoganda, much > legalization is sweeping the country I not live in yer country, fam .

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Neo-Punk / Alt-Punk? - How Donald Trump Made It Cool To Be Gay Again
by Zenaan Harkness 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

For the sheer subversiveness of it, the subject title of this article grabbed me immediately, and slightly less than 369 ms later I burst out laughing. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but wow! What a concept. And the content is cogent, clear and well reasoned. Here's just one quote to pique: " Once again, it used to be the religious right that was the chief obstacle to intellectual inquiry, with blasphemy laws and bans on stem-cell research. But now it’s liberals who want trigger warnings in every textbook and therapy sessions after they hear an offensive dangerous idea. They’re more intellectually stunted than the religious right ever were. You see, when gays set aside their determination to force gay culture on everyone, they find they share a lot of common ground with Republicans and conservatives. The Christian baker who doesn’t want to bake you a cake is also the gun owner that would defend you from a terrorist, and the concealed carry trainer who will teach you to defend yourself against a threat at a gay nightclub. " If nothing else, this "Alt-Right" phenomenon, busting every politically correct Lefty terrorist they can get their words on, seems we have a what could be called Neo-Punk or Alt-Punk. No wonder Milo is railed at by the non-Christian owned MSM. How Donald Trump Made It Cool To Be Gay Again http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/08/11/trump-brought-subversion-decadence… -- Presidente of Vice, Le Ministry of Winning Certified (R) Deplorable (TM) Fake News (TM) Which Hunter (C) Shilling for buxom Russian swastika clad minxes since 1988

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Ride for Free! Hackers Hold SF's MTA's Computer Network Hostage For $73k Ransom
by Razer 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

http://hoodline.com/2016/11/hackers-hold-sfmta-s-computer-network-hostage-f… Muni passengers were treated to free rides for much of the weekend after a cyber attack on Muni's computer network Friday afternoon left ticketing kiosks inoperable. But the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency looks poised to lose more than a weekend of fares, Hoodline has learned. According to the pseudonymous hacker, the agency's computers are being held ransom for more than $73,000 dollars with only one day left to pay—and nearly 25 percent of Muni's network has been compromised. The severity of the attack still remains unknown to the public. However, documents released by one of the hackers suggest many vital agency functions have been compromised, including payroll, email servers, Quickbooks, NextBus operations, various MySQL database servers, staff training and personal computers for hundreds of employees. In all, the hackers claim to control 2,112 of SFMTA's 8,656 computer network. In a statement released by agency spokesperson Paul Rose, “The incident remains under investigation, so it wouldn't be appropriate to provide any additional details at this point.” The attack, first reported by the Examiner on Saturday (link), left kiosks across Muni's downtown stations with a message reading, “You Hacked, ALL Data Encrypted. Contact For Key(cryptom27@yandex.com)ID:681 ,Enter.” Unable to process fares, Muni left turnstiles open for passengers to ride freely.Muni's computers have been hijacked using the HDDCryptor ransomware, which targets Windows machines. Also known as Mamba, the ransomware encrypts hard drives and requires a password to unlock, leaving Muni without access. Reached at the provided email, the hackers, calling themselves “Andy Saolis,” demanded 100 Bitcoin—the equivalent of more than $73,000—from San Francisco's transit agency: if You are Responsible in MUNI-RAILWAY ! All Your Computer’s/Server's in MUNI-RAILWAY Domain Encrypted By AES 2048Bit! We have 2000 Decryption Key ! Send 100BTC to My Bitcoin Wallet , then We Send you Decryption key For Your All Server's HDD!! We Only Accept Bitcoin , it’s So easy! you can use Brokers to exchange your money to BTC ASAP it's Fast way! The hackers followed up, writing, “say to company owner we are waiting one more day for deal and after it this email closing for security reason!” In another email, they declared, “we only encrypt 2000 important server and PC , another systems don't point to us !” Andy Saolis—a pseudonym commonly used in HDDCryptor ransom attacks—also provided a list of all 2,112 machines under their control, as well as a Bitcoin wallet to which the ransom could be paid. So far, no transfer have been posted to that wallet, but it is likely the hackers provided different wallets to each email contact to avoid being easily tracked. SFMTA's backup servers did not appear to be among the thousands of impacted machines, which could allow the agency to avoid paying the ransom and restore their computers from previous copies of their system data. However, depending on how old the backups are, they still could risk losing critical information.

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Truth is a bitter pill to swallow: Lessons on the death of Fidel Castro
by Razer 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

>From Facebook. A pretty definitive history of the Cuban Revolution: [Note: Sam "Momo" Giancana is mentioned in this article. Mike Ruppert brought up one of his CUBAN MAFIA operations in "Crossing the Rubicon" as Heroin smuggling to the docks in New Orleans. As Ruppert put it. Hardhat divers would work the 'legs' of oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Lousyanna removing containers of Heroin the CIA's hardhat divers put there and bring it into port on the workboats. My dad, a regional coordinator for the ADL in the SE US and US Army intel since WWII lit up when I mentioned Giancana's name in passing ,,, Everyone in spookworld knew this was happening. The Cubans who fled here when Castro took power were te oligarchs, Mafioso affiliated with the CIA, and later, all the thugs Castro released from prison and told to go to the US. Many are sitting in prisons in the Southeast US for the rest of their lives for crimes committed in the US and no place to exile them to... Tsk... tsk.] "Truth is a bitter pill to swallow: Lessons on the death of Fidel Castro and his revolutionary freedom-fighter legacy in the world. (Please bear with me. I have tried to condense all the researched material, but this is still a lengthy post..well worth the read though) History can be a very useful tool. The need to always research the truth, and understand its relevance is the key to defeating fascism wherever its ugly head pops up. The true revolution is the evolution of consciousness. If you rely on the mainstream media or utterances of "elected" U.S. government officials, you will never truly 'see', or understand, what is happening all around you, nor will you ever break free of the chains of mental, as well as economic and physical slavery. Cuba was one of the last colonial possessions under Spanish rule just 90 miles south of Florida. As Spain’s Imperial power was in decline, Washington had imperial ambitions to expand its influence on Cuba. Cuba had the potential to produce unlimited profits for U.S. business interests. Even organized crime got into the picture when they became a major player in Cuba in the early 1930’s. The Mafia managed to expand their gaming industry, prostitution and drug trade operations to Cuba to avoid harassment from the U.S. government [Citation: "Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and then Lost it to the Revolution", an excellent expose of how the mafia operated in Cuba, by T.J. English]. Cuba was to be their base of operations as they were looking to expand into other Caribbean nations. During that time, Cuba was under the leadership of President Fulgencio Batista, a good friend to organized crime, who had close political ties to Washington and its multinational corporations. Cuba became a cesspool of corruption, illegal drugs and prostitution which became a playground for the rich and famous while the majority of ordinary Cubans lived in extreme poverty. This is an historical account of Cuba before 1959, a time period that explains why Cuba’s Revolution was a long time in the making. We all know the story of how Cuban leader Fidel Castro established the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere, leading an overthrow of the corrupt military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959, ruling over Cuba for nearly five decades, and irking the great American superpower after nationalizing U.S.-owned businesses in Cuba without compensation since 1960. What you don't know is what led to it. The U.S. has been intervening in Latin America since President James Monroe established the Monroe Doctrine, a foreign policy that prevented European powers from colonizing any sovereign nation in “their backyard”. Unable to convert Spanish-controlled Cuba into a slave plantation to serve the interests of the U.S. against the Confederacy in 1860, the U.S. Congress eventually passed the ‘Teller Amendment’ in 1898 which did guarantee Cuba’s independence but was replaced in 1901 by the ‘Platt Amendment’ which gave Washington the power to intervene in Cuba if their interests were threatened. By 1908, Cubans who fought against Spain created a new independent political party but were oppressed and eventually massacred by the U.S. backed Cuban government. The Partido Independiente de Color (PIC) was composed of former African slaves and war veterans of the1896 Cuban War of Independence. The PIC won enough votes that undermined the ruling liberal party under President José Miguel Gómez. President Gomez ordered the party to disband under Cuban law which outlawed any political party based on race although the law favored white Cubans. The PIC staged a revolt under General Evaristo Estanoz. However, General Jose de Jesus Monteagudo suspended constitutional rights and ordered an attack against Afro-Cubans. The U.S. intervened and sent troops to back President Gomez and protect its vital business interests. More than 5,000 Afro-Cubans were massacred by lynch mobs because of their skin color. All Afro-Cubans were under suspicion by the Gomez regime. Several successions of Presidents eventually led to Batista whose first term was benign. His second term was a different story though. Batista created an anti-Communist secret police to silence the public with violence, torture and public executions. It is estimated that there were between 10,000 to 20,000 people murdered under the Batista regime with financial and military support from the Washington. During Batista’s reign of terror, the "July 26 Movement" organized by Fidel Castro and other anti-government groups throughout Cuba were forming a rebellion against the Batista government. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. who was a writer, historian, speechwriter and a Special Assistant to President John F. Kennedy who worked primarily on Latin American issues analyzed Batista’s Cuba on the president’s request and said: > "The corruption of the government, the brutality of the police, the > regime’s indifference to the needs of the people for education, > medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice is an > open invitation to revolution" Batista was concerned about Castro so he ordered his secret police to torture and murder people in public to install fear in the population in case they were considering joining the growing revolution. Batista’s actions only angered the Cuban people and increased support for the July 26 Movement. Many organizations joined the movement from all types of backgrounds from the middle class including lawyers, doctors, accountants and many others united with the poor (who were already fighting against government forces). An attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago led by Fidel Castro was defeated by Batista’s armed forces on July 26, 1953, but with the handwriting on the wall, on December 11, 1958, U.S. Ambassador Earl Smith told Batista that the United States could no longer support his government. The U.S. denied Batista asylum and suggested that he go to Spain. On New Year’s Eve party, Batista told his government officials that he was leaving Cuba and flew to the Dominican Republic with between $300 and $700 million according to various estimates. Portugal’s António Salazar, a dictator allowed Batista to enter his country. By 1972, Batista settled in Marbella, Spain where he eventually died of a heart attack. Setting aside the two-faced hilarious irony for a minute, whenever you hear leaders of the United States describe another world leader as a "ruthless brutal dictator", invariably it brings to mind several distinct suppositions. The basic one is that this leader must be someone who successfully resisted attempts by the U.S. to infiltrate, pillage and exploit that country's mineral resources. It is the height of hypocrisy for any American politician, given the brutal history of the United States, as well as its present ruthless racist practices, to condemn, or see fit to criticize, the internal policies of another nation. The secondary one is that the 'offending party' must be one who defied the U.S. to an exasperating point of submission. Without the efforts of Fidel Castro, South African Apartheid, as we knew it, would never have ended. Don't buy into the American false narratives that "protests" by liberals in the U.S. was instrumental in the fall of Apartheid. If protesting and marching ever produced significant results, racism would have been a thing of the past a long time ago. Hell, we've been marching for hundreds of years.......still marching. "638 Ways to Kill Castro" is a Channel 4 documentary film, broadcast in the United Kingdom on November 28, 2006, which tells the story of some of the numerous attempts by the C.I.A. to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Fabian Escalante, the former Head of the Intelligence Directorate, and the man who had the job of protecting Castro for many of the 49 years he was in power, alleges that there were over 600 plots and conspiracies known to Cuban agents, all dreamt up to end Castro's life. Some were perpetrated directly by the C.I.A., especially during the first half of the 1960s, and others, from the seventies onwards, made by Cuban exiles who had been trained by the C.I.A. shortly after Castro took power in 1959. Directed by Dollan Cannell and produced executively by Peter Moore, the film, whose subtext is a commentary on the contemporary "War on Terror", also contains extensive material shot with Antonio Veciana, the Cuban exile who came close to killing Castro on three occasions over 17 years (and now runs a 'marine supplies store' in Miami). All these men, the film reveals, were supported and funded by the U.S. government. At one point the C.I.A. even sought the help of the Mafia in the hope they would be able to succeed where so many others had failed. Other characters in the documentary are Cuban exile Félix Rodríguez, the C.I.A. operative who trained Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion, and who was present when the Bolivian Army killed Che Guevara in 1967 at the request of the Bolivian President at the time, and Enrique Ovares, possibly the first man to make an attempt on Castro's life after he took power. Robert Maheu is also interviewed, the Hughes associate who served as liaison between the C.I.A. and mobsters "Johnny" Roselli and Sam "Momo" Giancana, in another plot to kill Castro, this time using poison pills. In 2006, the documentary was the center of a controversy surrounding U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. In it the Miami Republican, who had been recently tapped to become the top Republican on the House International Relations Committee, states "I welcome the opportunity of having anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people." A clip of her statement made its way to YouTube where the newsmedia quickly picked up the story. There was a subsequent public questioning of Ros-Lehtinen's morals and suitability for her job. She responded by asserting that the clip was spliced together and that it was taken out of context, but after her account was contested by the film's director, she eventually released a statement, on Christmas Eve, accepting that she had made the remark. It is mind-boggling that America, a country which brutally murdered upwards of 100 million Native-Americans, stole their land, raped their womenfolk and children, and all but ethnically-cleansed them from the face of the earth....a nation which gleefully engaged in a repressive African Slave trade Holocaust which saw the violent deaths of up to 50 million Africans, and led to the forced labor, and Jim Crow laws that resulted in the emergence of America as a 16th century global power through the tobacco and cotton international trade, and continues to marginalize, exploit, murder people of African descent, and exploit African mineral resources, till today....a Republic that dropped the first, and only nuclear weapons on Japan, killing up to a quarter of a million people within days, and almost that much in the resulting radiation fallout which lasted years.....a nation that dropped 280 million cluster bombs on Laos, a country with which it wasn't even at war, a country that has invaded or bombed over 90 countries, would have the arrogant temerity and sagging cojones to dissect the policies of another sovereign nation. Until the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship in 1974, apartheid in South Africa was secure. There was no substantial resistance anywhere in southern Africa. Pretoria’s neighbors comprised of buffer zones that protected the racist regime: Namibia, their immediate neighbor which they had occupied for 60 years; white-ruled Rhodesia; and the Portuguese-ruled colonies of Angola and Mozambique. The rebels who fought against minority rule in each of these countries, operating without any safe haven to organize and train, were powerless to challenge the status quo. South Africa’s apartheid buffer, supported by the United States of America for economic purposes, would have remained intact for the foreseeable future, solidifying apartheid and preventing any significant opposition, but for one man: Fidel Castro. In October of 1975, South Africa invaded Angola at the behest of the U.S. government to overthrow the left-wing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the soon-to-be independent country. Without Cuban assistance, the apartheid army would have easily cruised into Luanda, crushed the MPLA, and installed a puppet government friendly to the apartheid regime. Afraid of having a government staunchly opposed to white domination so close to home, South Africa rushed to prevent self-determination for the Angolans. They were aided by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who believed the threat of black liberation in Africa, which would lead to local control of their own resources at the expense of foreign investors, could still be contained. Bear in mind that at the same time the C.I.A. were engaged in another brutal massacre in South America, intended to eradicate communist or Soviet influence and ideas, and suppress active or potential opposition known as "Operation Condor", a campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassinations of up to 70,000 opponents, which started in 1968, but "officially" implemented in 1975, by the right-wing dictatorships of South American countries. To understand how an individual, group, entity or State, operates, you have to think in parallel terms. It will better illustrate the patterns of action that individual/entity/State operates under. In addition, the rest of the world was still aghast and in shock over the American annihilation of almost half a million Japanese civilians. Operation Condor's key members were the governments in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. The U.S. government provided technical support and supplied military aid to the participants until at least 1978, and again after Republican Ronald Reagan became President in 1981. Such support was frequently routed through the Central Intelligence Agency. South Africa launched an invasion to topple the MPLA and install the guerilla Jonas Savimbi, leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the smallest and least popular of the three groups, as a puppet dictator in Angola. Savimbi, a collaborator with the Portuguese dictatorship before Angolan independence, was known for his ruthlessness, terrorism, and hunger for power. An avowed anti-communist who had already aligned with South Africa, Savimbi would have made the perfect Angolan facade for apartheid control, and undoubtedly, had he prevailed, would have been touted by the U.S. as " a hero". Agostinho Neto, the President of Angola, and distinguished poet who has led the MPLA since 1962, appealed to Cuba to send troops to ward off the apartheid army’s invasion. On November 4, 1975, Castro agreed. Several days later the first Cuban special forces troops boarded planes for Angola, where they would launch "Operation Carlota". Research the Battles of Quifangondo and Ebo to fully understand the impact of the Cuban victory, and how its effects resonated far beyond the battlefield. More important than the strategic gain, the victory of black Cuban and Angolan troops against the whites South African racist army shattered the illusion of white invincibility. A South African military analyst described the meaning of his country’s defeat: “The reality is that they have won, are winning, and are not White; and that psychological edge, that advantage the White man has enjoyed and exploited over 300 years of colonialism and empire, is slipping away. White elitism has suffered an irreversible blow in Angola, and Whites who have been there know it.” [cited by Piero Gleijeses] Cuba’s 30,000-man strong military intervention in Angola managed to change the course of that country and reverberate throughout Africa. By ensuring independence from the white supremacists, Angola was able to preserve its own revolution and maintain its role as a base for armed resistance groups fighting for liberation in nearby countries. The Americans were furious. “Kissinger’s response to Castro’s intervention was to throw mercenaries and weapons at the problem,” Gleijeses writes. [Citation: Gleijeses, Piero. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (Envisioning Cuba). The University of North Carolina Press, 2002]. The U.S. Secretary of State was afraid that after their successful intervention in Angola, Cuba would put the rest of the racist regimes in the region in jeopardy: “We can’t say Rhodesia is not a danger because it is a bad case. If the Cubans are involved there, Namibia is next and after that South Africa, itself … If the Cubans move, I recommend we act vigorously. We can’t permit another move without suffering a great loss.” [Citation: “National Security Council Meeting, 4/7/1976” of the National Security Adviser’s NSC Meeting File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. (pg. 21) http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/…/document/0312/1552402.pdf] Sore losers that they were, after losing the war, in 1978, the South African SADF massacred 600 unarmed Namibians at a refugee camp in Cassinga, but the U.S. opposed any sanctions against them in the UN Security Council as the apartheid government kept up its relentless fight for survival. Throughout the 1980's Angola was subjected to various incursions and invasions by South Africa confrontations which climaxed in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in late 1987. With the military confrontation raging, talks started between Angola, Cuba and South Africa, with the United States moderating, in London in early 1988. In instructions to the Cuban delegation, Castro reflected on the South Africans and American mindset. “The fact they have accepted this meeting in London at such a high level shows that they are looking for a way out because they have seen our advance and are saying, ‘How is it that Cuba has converted itself into the liquidator of Apartheid and the liberator of Africa?’ That’s what is worrying the Americans, they’re going to say: ‘They’re going to defeat South Africa!” Castro said. [Citation: Instructions to the Cuban Delegation for the London Meeting, ‘Indicaciones concretas del Comandante en Jefe que guiarán la actuación de la delegación cubana a las conversaciones de Luanda y las negociaciones de Londres (April 22, 1988)’] Castro also told his delegation that the goal was not to pursue a war or military victory, but to achieve negotiations over SADF withdrawal from Angola and implementation of Resolution 435, which would grant independence to Namibia. “They should know that we are not playing games, that our position is serious and that our objective is peace,” he said. President Reagan administration's efforts to seek modification of United Nations resolution 435 on Namibia to allow South African a say, received a serious rebuff from Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, until eager to keep doing business with the mineral resource-rich Angola, and surreptitiously keep funding other brigands in nearby Congo, the U.S. succumbed. In the American version of Cold War history, Cuba was carrying out aggression and acting as proxies of the Soviet Union. Were it not for one persistent and meticulous scholar, we might never have known that these are nothing more than dishonest fabrications. In his monumental books “Conflicting Missions” and “Visions of Freedom,” historian Piero Gleijeses uses thousands of documents from Cuban military archives, as well as U.S. and South African archives, to recount a dramatic, historical confrontation between tiny Cuba and Washington and its ally apartheid South Africa. Gleijeses is the only foreign scholar to have gained access to the closed Cuban archives. He obtained thousands of pages of documents, and made them available to the Wilson Center Digital Archive, which has posted the invaluable collection online. Gleijeses’s research made possible a look behind the curtain at one of the most remarkable acts of "internationalism" of the century. “Internationalism, (or the duty to help others), was at the core of the Cuban revolution,” Gleijeses writes. “For Castro’s followers, and they were legion, this was not rhetoric. By 1975, approximately 1,000 Cuban aid workers had gone to a dozen African countries, South Yemen, and North Vietnam. In 1976-77, technical assistance was extended to Jamaica and Guyana in the Western Hemisphere; to Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia in Africa; and to Laos in Asia....all places that had suffered bombings and illegal incursions at the hands of the U.S. Even the C.I.A. noted: "The Cuban technicians are primarily involved in rural development and educational and public health projects... areas in which Cuba has accumulated expertise and has experienced success at home." [Gleijeses, Piero. Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-1991. The University of North Carolina Press, 2013]. The fight against apartheid, for the liberation of people who suffered for centuries under colonialism and racial subjugation, was truly a David versus Goliath conflict. In addition to having a strong military itself and being armed with Israeli-supplied nuclear weapons, South Africa enjoyed the diplomatic support of the United States, the world’s largest superpower. Of course, this was because the main industries propping up the evil Apartheid regime were American corporations. Within this context, Cuba’s intervention....a poor Caribbean island under relentless attack from a racist juggernaut backed by the world’s leading imperial power, is even more remarkable. Explaining how the significance of Cuba’s role in Angola is “without precedent,” Gleijeses writes: “No other Third World country has projected its military power beyond its immediate neighborhood. The engine was Cuba. It was the Cubans who pushed the Soviets to help Angola. It was they who stood guard in Angola for many long years, thousands of miles from home, to prevent the South Africans from overthrowing the MPLA government.” He notes that while the Soviet Union later sent aid and weapons, they never would have become involved unless Castro had taken the lead (which he did in spite of Russian opposition): In Castro's Cuba, $1 could buy half a pint of milk, a month's childcare for one toddler and a box at the opera to see the visiting Bolshoi Ballet, and with one of the best healthcare systems in the world, cures for certain forms of cancer (which currently cost about one dollar in Cuba), Cuba's defiance, spanning the span of 11 U.S. presidencies, finally brought America to its knees as President Obama recently restored diplomatic relations with its hated enemy, after over half a century of enduring tactics the Gestapo would have been proud of. As usual, salivating over anticipated profits for Big-Pharma, what passes for American morality has been superseded by prevalent greed. It didn't assuage the much-vaunted American arrogance, either, that Russians had already signed a deal to drill for oil off the Cuban coast where Havana says there may be 20 billion barrels of oil, although the U.S. estimates there are only five billion barrels. So in conclusion, do these actions seem to you, the actions of a "brutal dictator" who cares nothing for the well-being of people? Whenever you read, or hear that Castro, or anyone else for that matter, was "a menace and brutal dictator", do your own research. People all around the world are lamenting the passing of this bearded revolutionary hero, who survived a crippling U.S. trade embargo as well as hundreds, of assassination plots for half a century. Castro overcame imprisonment at the hands of dictator Fulgencio Batista, exile in Mexico and a disastrous start to his rebellion before triumphantly riding into Havana in January 1959 to become, at age 32, the youngest leader in Latin America. For decades, he served as an inspiration and source of support to revolutionaries spanning Latin America to Africa. There is not a dry eye in Cuba, and many parts of the world today, and a 9-day period of mourning has been declared in Havana. The only ones rejoicing....well, you know it, the Americans, Cuban exile descendants of the Batista-era elite, and lapdog governments of France and Britain...as well as those who, either have something to gain from this news, or lacking historical context, just don't know any better. My footnote to the sordid tale of the Portugues-South African-American pillaging of Angola is that 40 years later, Portugal is broke...and Angola, crude oil-rich, graciously came to the rescue of their former brutal colonial oppressor, paying off their foreign debts. That is the true African spirit. America should borrow a page from the book of African humanity before it's too late....but in true 'Murices fashion, are busy draining Namibia of its uranium, Congo of its Coltan, and Botswana of its diamonds. Let it be known......Castro was a true hero. [Acknowledgements to Global Research from which portions of this post is extracted]. Images at the Facebook public post: https://www.facebook.com/tokunboh.jiboque/posts/10154719863578134

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