Daily Mirror - Print Edition

In the US, the chickens are coming home to roost - EDITORIAL

18 Nov 2020 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}      

The US elections are over, but not quite done and dusted as many would like to think. On 14 November the media announced former US Vice President and presidential contender Biden, had won the State of Georgia. Earlier in the week, CNN and all other media sites informed audiences worldwide that ex-Vice President Joe Biden had won the presidency having passed the 270 mark needed to be declared president of the US.  


The beleaguered incumbent Trump, however, continues proclaiming he won the election and that his defeat had been engineered by massive voter fraud. He has however not given any of us ordinary mortals a peek into the veracity of his claims. Neither has he enlightened ordinary US citizens (25% or more of whom live below the poverty line) of the proof he based his claims on.  
Leading members of his party (Republicans) back up their leader’s claims. The US State Department - according to the president-elect, does not pass on information or messages addressed to him from world leaders, nor includes him in briefings.  


Secretary of State - Mike Pompeo a former head of the CIA under President Trump - and who presently heads the State Department, fielding questions as to when his department would start transitioning power to a Biden administration, answered “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration”!  
It is not unusual for defeated presidential/prime ministerial candidates from unstable countries to dispute election results. But this time around it comes from the self-styled leader of democracy itself... 
how come?  


According to the ‘Washington Post’ of 23 December 2016; between 1947 and 1989, the United States tried to change other nations’ governments 72 times. These include 66 covert operations and six overt ones. The report adds... 26 of the operations successfully brought  US-backed governments to power.  
For example in 1953, a US-backed coup toppled the elected Iranian premier Mossadegh. The US poured millions to finance street protests. The military, later seized the prime minister, who lived the rest of his life under house arrest.   


In Guatemala (1954), US-Guatemala relations soured when Guatemalan President Árbenz attempted land reforms that threatened the holdings of the US-owned United Fruit Company. A US-backed coup in 1954 forced Árbenz from power.   
In 1960: Patrice Lumumba a socialist, was elected the first independent prime minister of the Congo. His regime was toppled by Congolese President Joseph Kasavubu with US-supported Belgian 
military intervention. 


In 1963 US relations with Vietnamese leader, Ngo Dinh Diem was growing increasingly strained. According to the Pentagon Papers, on Aug. 23, 1963, South Vietnamese generals plotting a coup contacted U.S. officials about their plan. After some fits and starts plus a period of U.S. indecision, the generals seized and killed Diem on November 1, 1963 with US support, which by some accounts, partially came in the form of $40,000 in CIA funds.
Again in1964, according to de-classified government records - fearing the government of Brazilian President Joao Goulart would, “make Brazil the China of the 1960s, the US backed a coup led by Humberto Castello Branco, then chief-of-staff of the Brazilian army in 1964 and toppled the government.  


In Chile the US opposed the election of socialist candidate Salvador Allende, as President of Chile in 1970. The CIA supported three Chilean groups, each plotting a coup against Allende in 1970 providing weapons. When its plans fell apart.. The CIA and the US Government backed General Augusto Pinochet who led a military coup against Allende in 1973.  These are but few of the regime changes undertaken by the US via its CIA across the world.   
Having engineered coups, created chaos, mayhem and untold suffering around the world through its interventions, today it appears a coup is being put into operation in the US itself.  


The incumbent president, claiming election fraud, is refusing to hand over power to his elected successor. The ex-leader of the CIA and present Secretary of State is backing the ex-president’s attempts to stage a ‘coup-de-tat’. Crowds of Trump supporters are being brought out on to the streets chanting support for the defeated candidate and claiming voter fraud.  Around the world democracies are slipping into dictatorships and today it appears the US is not immune.  
From engineering coups and regime changes world-wide it appears a coup is underway in the US itself.  It looks as though ‘the chickens are coming home to roost” in the US.