United States Coups & Entrapment of Immigrants

The vast majority of the public is clueless about large portions of our history, and the claim that the United States is "the leaders of the free world," and that we've been fighting to "defend freedom and democracy" for decades!

For a long time I was one of them even though I paid close attention to the news and I thought I was better informed than most people. Mark Twain once said "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." This is as true today as it was when he was alive; if anything it's much worse, since over 95% of the media is now controlled by a fraction of 1% of the wealthiest people in the world.

It wasn't until I started reading alternative media or good non-fiction library books that I started to realize how bad traditional media was and that they withhold or distort an enormous amount of history or current events. For a while I even cheered on a few of our wars based on lies, without realizing the lies were much worse than I thought, although even then I had relatively minor criticisms of how they were carried out.

When Joe Biden recently tweeted that he supported democracy and independence of five Central American countries someone quickly pointed out that this was a list of countries we've done coups in, or at least intervened in and attempted coups, and there were many more countries that suffered even worse damages, as some of the responses pointed out.

A couple people questioned whether we supported a coup in Costa Rica and El Salvador; however, even if some people don't think this fits the category there was plenty of intervention in both those countries and dozens more countries where the CIA did support coups. Perhaps the most comprehensive list of coups and interventions came from William Blum author of Killing Hope and he continued adding to his list of interventions after his book was published, with at least one updated edition, listing about three dozen successful coups and another two dozen additional coups. Two of those attempted coups were in Costa Rica, which probably had less intervention than most of Central or South America.

According to Wikipedia there was a coup in El Salvador in 1979, even though William Blum doesn't list this as one of the CIA's successful coups, the Carter and Reagan administration supported the new government after the fact, even when they began killing their opponents in the eighties with notorious death squads. There's a possibility that the CIA was just never caught at that coup, but even if they weren't involved at all, the support they provided later was as bad if not worse than a coups when El Salvador became a terrorist state torturing and killing their own people like many other Central or South American countries. The only country that I know of that didn't have much if any intervention from the United States is Belize; however, they were under control of the British at least until 1981, and British troops remained there after they became independent, which may be the only reason the CIA left them alone, along with the fact that they're so small.

William Blum reported on many coups and efforts to suppress democracy around the world by the United States, but even he couldn't cover them all; another one that he may have missed was a coup by Fulgencio Batista, who was actually involved in two coups, but the first one was against another tyrant, and in cooperation with other prominent Cubans and resulted in the 1940 Constitution of Cuba which was "widely considered one of the most progressive constitutions at the time, it provided for land reform, public education, a minimum wage and other social programs."

Batista served as the first president under this Constitution; however, when his chosen successor lost he began to undermine the Cuban government as U.S. Ambassador Spruille Braden indicated when he wrote:

It is becoming increasingly apparent that President Batista intends to discomfit the incoming Administration in every way possible, particularly financially. A systematic raid on the Treasury is in full swing with the result that Dr. Grau will probably find empty coffers when he takes office on October 10. It is blatant that President Batista desires that Dr. Grau San Martin should assume obligations which in fairness and equity should be a matter of settlement by the present Administration.[40]

Shortly after this he left Cuba for the United States. "I just felt safer there," he said. He stayed in the United States until shortly before he ran for office a second time and conducted the second coup when it was clear that he was going to lose, and little is reported about what he did in the United States at that time. Once in office he enabled the mafia to do pretty much what they wanted, as long as he got a big cut, and he also enabled United States business interests to dominate other sectors of the economy, at the expense of the people who were being oppressed and paid a heavy price. During the presidential campaign, after he was overthrown, John F. Kennedy said:

Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years ... and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state—destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista—hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend—at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.[49]

While he was in office, American corporations dramatically increased their investment in Cuba, at the expense of the people, which is part of the reason that the CIA was so interested in Cuba, and between the kickbacks from corporations and the mafia, he amassed $300 million, and he and his supporters may have looted another $700 million in fine art and cash as the fled into exile. This is part of a pattern of behavior for many corrupt politicians, including ones installed as a result if CIA coups, like Augusto Pinochet, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and probably the Somoza family, all had fortunes when they were removed from power, although Pinochet hid his fortune better than others. The Somoza's rose to power, before the creation of the CIA, partly with the help of the marines and stayed in power with the help of the CIA even if many sources don't officially claim the coup putting the first Somoza in power involved the US government, but they supported him shortly after under FDR who famously said "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." Once the CIA was established they supported the Somoza family from the beginning, and when they were overthrown, they supported the Contras, who were closely tied to the Somoza's when the Somoza family was too toxic to support.

I have no doubt that if you search through the list of countries where there were coups supported by the CIA that you'll find many more dictators that made a fortune plundering their country, while helping international corporations increase profits, often by oppressing their people, in many cases with death squads and massive amounts of torture to keep them in line, like Pinochet and the Shah. One of the most famous was Ferdinand Marcos, who wasn't initially a favorite of the CIA, but once he was in power, the CIA agreed to work with him and look the pother way while he plundered his country. It's standard operating procedure for the CIA to put the wealth of multinational corporations well ahead of poor people, even when they're being tortured and killed on a massive scale, including most South or Central American countries many that had notorious death squads with the support of the United States.

One of the most notorious coups followed by death squads with the support of the CIA was the 1976 Argentine coup d'état. According to Wikipedia, "The coup d'état had been planned since October 1975, and the United States Department of State learned of the preparations two months before its execution. Henry Kissinger would meet several times with Argentine Armed Forces leaders after the coup, urging them to destroy their opponents quickly before outcry over human rights abuses grew in the United States.[11][2][3]." This means that, at a minimum, the United States offered tacit support for the coup before it happened then active support of it immediately after it happened. Kissinger's advice is something that Machiavelli recommended hundreds of years ago to control the masses through fear. However, if you consider Operation Condor which was a CIA plan of repression and state terror that was implemented throughout the cone of South America in at least six countries it may be more likely that this coup was actively supported and encouraged by the CIA ahead of time, since it played into their hands putting a right wing junta in power that was willing to carry out their agenda.

Most credible estimates show that at least 60,000 were killed; according to the Archives of Terror there were "50,000 people murdered, 30,000 people disappeared and 400,000 people imprisoned.[3][4]" This should be considered a minimum, although it's virtually guaranteed that many more weren't documented, and there's a good chance that a large portion of those "disappeared" were killed. There's little or no chance that they would even want to keep a thorough record of all the people killed, especially the ones that had little value, that might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, often family members, including women and children that they didn't want to live to tell the tale.

Furthermore, many of us were given the impression that Jimmy Carter was much more concerned with civil rights and preventing torture than other presidents, and in some cases, like Nicaragua, he wasn't nearly as bad as those before or after him, but even he supported the Contras, although he didn't support their terrorism, which didn't escalate until Reagan was in office, giving the Nicaraguans a chance to begin some reforms with limited success before the Contras started terrorizing them. But he completely looked the other way at the South American state terror operations and even praised Argentina's dirty war, and gave the shah support as well leading to the revolution in Iran and inciting even more hatred when he gave him shelter, instead of requiring him to be held accountable for his crimes, which would have also implicated the CIA and previous administrations. Furthermore there were at least sixteen or seventeen, if not over twenty, countries liked on Wikipedia's Death squad death squad article that were backed by the United States while the were implementing state terror killing and torturing hundreds if not thousands, often after CIA sponsored coups like Iran, Guatemala, Chile and Argentina.

There were only a couple countries from that article, Russia and East Germany, that were supported by the USSR during the Cold War, although this list may not be complete. Hungary is listed; however, those death squads were while the Nazis were still in power. But, if the stories many of us were told before the Cold War ended were partly true, many of the Warsaw countries may also have had death squads as well, so the Soviets may not have been much better than our allies, although we were misled about both sides, covering up atrocities of our allies and exaggerating those of our enemies. In an article, If Communism Killed Millions, How Many Did Capitalism Kill? 07/27/2020 Umair Haque does a rough estimate showing that Capitalism almost certainly kills far more than Communism, and even though his review isn't what many people would consider a thorough study, I'm inclined to believe that he's right.

Furthermore, the Soviet Union, China and Yugoslavia didn't become as brutal as they were because they actually carried out many of the Socialists policies, or those recommended by Marx and Engels, they claimed to support but because they only pretended to support them and implemented centralized authoritarian dictatorships imposing brutal policies on the people that resulted in mass murder. In the United States they did become brutal in so many other countries because they were supporting their extreme version of Capitalism. In the United States itself, mostly under FDR they implemented many policies that are partially socialists which improved the lives of our own people, which lasted for several decades before there was a massive movement to dismantle these improvements, which haven't caused us to become as oppressive as many of the tyrants we supported in the past, but we're moving in that direction as we speak. Also, if you look at many Social Democracies in Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. it's clear that they did a better job implementing policies helping their own people without resorting to extreme militarism and death squads, either in their own countries or supporting them in pother countries.

Most of the best research on all of this is almost completely absent from the mainstream media, only reported in academic journals or alternative media that most people never see. This includes the following excerpt from Evo Morales speech at the U.N., which was only reported in low profile media outlets when reported at all:

MSM Adamantly Avoids The Word “Coup” In Bolivia Reporting 11/11/2019 by Caitlin Johnstone

At a United Nations Security Council meeting last year, President Morales summed up the true nature of America’s role in the world very accurately, and, it turns out, very presciently.

“I would like to say to you, frankly and openly here, that in no way is the United States interested in upholding democracy,” Morales said. “If such were the case it would not have financed coups d’etat and supported dictators. It would not have threatened with military intervention democratically elected governments as it has done with Venezuela. The United States could not care less about human rights or justice. If this were the case, it would have signed the international conventions and treaties that have protected human rights.It would not have threatened the investigation mechanism of the International Criminal Court, nor would it promote the use of torture, nor would it have walked away from the Human Rights Council. And nor would it have separated migrant children from their families, nor put them in cages.”

“The United States is not interested in multilateralism,” Morales continued. “If it were interested in multilateralism it would not have withdrawn from the Paris Agreement or given the cold shoulder to the global compact on migration, it would not have launched unilateral attacks, nor have taken decisions such as illegally declaring Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. This contempt for multilateralism is motivated by the thirst of the United States for political control and for the seizing of natural resources.”

“Each time that the United States invades nations, launches missiles, or finances regime change, it does so behind a propaganda campaign which incessantly repeats the message that it is acting in the course of justice, freedom and democracy, in the cause of human rights or for humanitarian reasons,” Morales also said.

“The responsibility of our generation is to hand over a fairer and more secure world to the following generation,” Morales concluded. “We will only achieve this dream if we work together to consolidate a multipolar world, a world with common rules that are respected by and defended from all the threats ranged against the United Nations.” Complete article

Evo Morales was right about his claims, including the coups supported by the United States, and even though the mainstream media doesn't report it, this is well documented in a variety of truth commission or other investigations that have gone on over the past several decades. The coup in Argentina was investigated and exposed within a few years after democracy was partly restored and these conclusions are still available today. Apparently Evo was one of the few people familiar with these investigations. I'm sure there are a lot more people in Latin America, and a smaller percentage of people in the United states that are also familiar with the truth about coups in many countries; however, since the corporate media, in the United States, as well as other countries declines to cover it properly the majority of the public is unaware and might be willing to dismiss this as a conspiracy theory, even though the evidence is conclusive and accepted by many academics and governments.

I went into this more in Could Bolivian Coup Threaten Us All? and since then, Elon Musk virtually admitted his support for the coup when he responded to a Tweet criticizing it by Tweeting, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” He deleted that tweet within a day or so after it sparked an enormous amount of out rage, and some say it was an obvious joke; however, the circumstances overwhelmingly implies that he was serious and exceptionally smug about it. If you check some traditional media outlets there appears to be an effort to create an alternative version of history, as often happens after coups, and the current government is trying to portray itself as defending democracy, even though they're constantly trying to suppress or distort new elections, and smear Evo Morales. However, this version of truth doesn't stand up to scrutiny with a minimal amount of research, especially for those that remember the more reliable stories as the coup was going on.

And, of course, every-time these coups happen there are an enormous number of refugees looking for some place to go safely, including many that head for the United States, whether they understand what kind of involvement the CIA had in supporting many of these coups or not. It's unlikely that many, if any refugees came all the way from Bolivia, but we get an enormous amount of refugees from Honduras as a result of the coup eleven years ago, and there are still plenty of refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and other countries our government has intervened in; and, instead of accepting them as refugees, they often deny them asylum, possibly because giving it would be a virtual admission that their part in the coup cased it, then refer to them as "illegal aliens."

A Wikipedia article, Immigration to the United States: Contemporary immigration describes the situation by saying:

Approximately half of immigrants living in the United States are from Mexico and other Latin American countries.[86] Many Central Americans are fleeing because of desperate social and economic circumstances created in part by U.S. foreign policy in Central America over many decades. The large number of Central American refugees arriving in the U.S. have been explained as "blowback" to policies such as U.S. military interventions and covert operations that installed or maintained in power authoritarian leaders allied with wealthy land owners and multinational corporations who crush family farming and democratic efforts, which have caused drastically sharp social inequality, wide scale poverty and rampant crime.[87] Economic austerity dictated by neoliberal policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and its ally, the U.S., has also been cited as a driver of the dire social and economic conditions, as has the U.S. "War on Drugs," which has been understood as fueling murderous gang violence in the region.[88] Another major migration driver from central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) are crop failures, which are (partly) caused by climate change.[89][90][91][92][93] "The current debate … is almost totally about what to do about immigrants when they get here. But the 800-pound gorilla that’s missing from the table is what we have been doing there that brings them here, that drives them here," according to Jeff Faux, an economist who is a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute.

Another well researched article describes it as a "conspiracy against refugees;" however, there's an enormous amount of credible evidence to support this conclusion, so we shouldn't dismiss it based on the stereotypes of conspiracy theories:

From Central America to Syria there is a conspiracy against refugees 12/03/2018

Watching the ongoing debate between liberal and right-wing pundits on US mainstream media, one rarely gets the impression that Washington is responsible for the unfolding chaotic situation in Central America. In fact, no other country is as accountable as the United States for the ongoing chaos and resulting refugee crisis. So why, despite the seemingly substantial ideological and political differences between right-wing Fox News and liberal CNN, are both media outlets working hard to safeguard their country’s dirty little secret?

In recent years, state and gang violence — coupled with extreme poverty — have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras, among other countries in Central and South America. The mainstream media in the US, however, is rarely interested in the root cause of that reality.

Fox News, for example, is tirelessly peddling the offensive language used by President Donald Trump, which portrays the refugees as criminals and terrorists who pose a threat to US national security. At a press conference in October, Trump urged a reporter to take his camera into ”the middle” of a caravan of migrants on the treacherous journey through Mexico, to locate ”Middle Eastern” people who have, he alleged, infiltrated the crowd. In Trump’s thinking, “Middle Eastern people” is a synonym for terrorists.

CNN, on the other hand, has laboured to counter the growing official and media anti-immigrant sentiments that have plagued the US, a discourse that is constantly prodded and manipulated by Trump and his supporters.

However, few in the liberal media have the courage to probe the story beyond convenient political rivalry. Most persist in their hypocritical and insincere humanitarianism that is divorced from any meaningful political context.

The fact is that the Central American refugee crisis is similar to the plethora of Middle East and Central Asian refugee crises of recent years. Mass migration is almost always the direct outcome of political meddling and military interventions by the West. From Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya and Syria, millions of refugees have been forced, by circumstances beyond their control, to seek safety in some other country. Millions of Iraqis and Syrians have thus found themselves in Lebanon, Jordan or Turkey, while a far smaller number trickled across to Europe; all sought safety from the grinding wars in their own lands.

........

The irony is that the hapless refugees, whether those escaping to Europe or to the United States, are perceived to be the aggressors — the invaders, if you like — whereas the reality is that it was the US and its allies which had, in fact, invaded these once stable and sovereign countries.

Trump has often referred to the Central American migrants’ caravan as an “invasion”, a claim which has been parroted by Fox News. The US President, incredibly, injected the possibility of having the refugees shot upon arrival. If Fox News lacked the decency to treat refugees as human beings deserving of sympathy and respect, CNN lacked the courage to expand the discussion beyond Trump’s awful language and inhumane policies.

To expand the parameters of the conversation would expose a policy that was not introduced by Trump, but by Bill Clinton, and applied in earnest by George W Bush and Barack Obama. Media grandstanding aside, Democrats as well as Republicans are responsible for the current refugee crisis. Complete article

There's no doubt, at least to the well informed, that our immigration policies, combined with foreign policies supporting coups and tyrants serving the best interests of Wall Street corporations is a massive form of entrapment, framing immigrants that committed no crime.

The biggest criminals are those controlling the government and international corporations, while the victims are being demonized, and in some cases entrapped or framed. This is also a major contributing factor for real crimes by the working class, since they're forced into desperation and a small percentage of them will strike out one way or another, often against other working class people, since they rarely have an opportunity to strike at their true oppressors, assuming they even know who they are.

Noam Chomsky — "Everyone's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's really an easy way: Stop participating in it."

The following is a long list of related articles, including many coups in Central or South America; to find additional articles on coups in the Caribbean or other parts of the world simply Google "United States intervention in (Choose your country):

‘We Will Coup Whoever We Want’: Elon Musk and the Overthrow of Democracy in Bolivia 07/29/2020

Elon Musk’s Latest Antics Are Enough to Radicalize Most Decent People. 07/28/2020

‘We will coup whoever we want’: Elon Musk sparks online riot with quip about overthrow of Bolivia’s Evo Morales 07/25/2020

Smedley Butler on Interventionism 1933 "I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. ...... I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service."

Smedley Butler "War is a Racket" 1935

Wikipedia: United States involvement in regime change

Wikipedia: United States involvement in regime change in Latin America

Mapped: The 7 Governments the U.S. Has Overthrown 08/20/2013 This clearly should be titled "7 of the Governments the U.S. Has Overthrown"

35 countries where the U.S. has supported fascists, drug lords and terrorists 03/08/2014

The Significance of Foreign Involvement in Third World Coups - CIA 09/23/1986 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release by CIA

U.S. Wars and Hostile Actions: A List – Let's Try Democracy by David Swanson

Jimmy Carter Offered Fawning Praise of Argentine Dirty War 08/14/2016

The Carter Administration and Human Rights in Chile, 1977-81 11/14/2019

Amnesty International, Torture in the Eighties (London, 1984),

Intervention and Exploitation: US and UK Government International Actions Since 1945

They Are (Still) Refugees: People Continue to Flee Violence in Latin American Countries 06/01/2018

THE RIGHTS OF IMMIGRANTS -ACLU POSITION PAPER

Unintended Consequences of US Immigration Policy: Explaining the Post-1965 Surge from Latin America 07/30/2012

USA: "YOU DON'T HAVE ANY RIGHTS HERE" Oct. 2018

Trump's hard-line immigration policies build on the history of former US presidents 07/12/2019

How Barack Obama Has Made $20 Million Since Arriving In Washington 01/20/2017

Where refugees to the U.S. come from 02/03/2017

Ex-CIA Agent Recalls Marcos' Rise to Power 04/05/1986

Newly Declassified Documents Outline Americas Bloody History in Argentina 05/10/2019

Argentina Declassification Project: History

Secret archives show US helped Argentine military wage "dirty war" that killed 30,000 05/14/2019

Wikipedia: Juan Perón 1955 coup

Imperialism by Another Name: The US “War on Drugs” in Colombia 08/22/2017

50 years of US intervention in Colombia | Part I 10/04/2013

‘Plan Colombia’: How Washington learned to love Latin American intervention again 09/18/2016

New U.S. military intervention subverts peace in Colombia and Venezuela 06/05/2020

Wikipedia: Act of Independence of Central America

Quick Facts About Costa Rica Independence Day

America's Role in El Salvador's Deterioration 01/20/2018

Time for a US Apology to El Salvador 04/15/2016 Obama recently expressed regret for US support of Argentina’s “dirty war.” It’s time Washington did the same regarding our active backing of right-wing butchery in El Salvador.

Wikipedia: Salvadoran Civil War A coup on October 15, 1979, was followed by killings of anti-coup protesters by the government and of anti-disorder protesters by the guerrillas, and is widely seen as the start of civil war.[24]

United States calls situation in El Salvador a communist plot 02/19/1981

How the US Created Violent Chaos in Honduras 08/10/2019

Status of violence against women in Honduras July 2014

History of US intervention in Honduras 11/27/2009

For those who believe there is NO war on women: 07/16/2014 Honduras is the country currently sending the largest number of refugees – 50,000 children in the past several months alone. Why Honduras? In addition to the brutal suppression of civil, legal and human rights in that country (in fact, in all of Central America) supported and financed by a succession of US Governments – Democratic and Republican – Honduras can be identified as a failed state if consideration is given to the quality of life there.

The U.S.-Supported Coup in Bolivia Continues to Produce Repression and Tyranny, While Revealing How U.S. Media Propaganda Works 07/23/2020 by Glenn Greenwald Bolivia is the latest in a long line of thriving democracies destroyed as U.S. institutions cheer and lend support.

The coup in Bolivia has U.S. fingerprints all over it 11/29/2019

Bolivian Coup Reflects Long History of US Intervention in Latin America 02/14/2020

Wikipedia: Bolivia–United States relations

Many wanted Morales out. But what happened in Bolivia was a military coup by Gabriel Hetland 11/13/2019

Wikipedia: Military dictatorship in Brazil: United States involvement Brazil actively participated in the CIA-backed state terror campaign against left-wing dissidents known as Operation Condor.[15]

Wikipedia: Operation Condor Operation Condor (Spanish: Operación Cóndor, also known as Plan Cóndor; Portuguese: Operação Condor) was a United States-backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents, officially and formally implemented in November 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America. Including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Peru.

The US Role in the 1964 Coup in Brazil: A Reassessment 2016

The United States and Brazil: On Reaping What You Sow 03/06/2015 A half century since the U.S.-backed coup, Washington continues to interfere in Brazil’s domestic politics.

The US Role in the 1964 Coup in Brazil: A Reassessment 06/20/2016

US Intervention in Brazil 1964, 2002

Documenting U.S. Role in Democracy’s Fall and Dictator’s Rise in Chile 10/14/2017

Declassifying U.S. Intervention in Chile 09/25/2007 by Peter Kornbluh

1975 Congressional Report: Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973

US Foreign Policy and the 1973 Coup in Chile 02/12/2016

Wikipedia: United States intervention in Chile

William Blum "Killing Hope: Ecuador, 1960 to 1963: A Textbook of Dirty Tricks"

U.S. Military Returns to Exert ‘Influence’ in Ecuador and the Region 10/05/2018

Ecuador under President Moreno: Rethinking the U.S. relationship 05/26/2017

Why Ecuador released Julian Assange: rudeness, spying, and poop 04/12/2019

Julian Assange Arrested in London After Ecuador Withdraws Asylum; U.S. Requests Extradition 04/11/2019

Ecuador Cuts Internet Access for Julian Assange to Preserve Neutrality in U.S. Election 10/18/2016

AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN GUYANA IN 1953

U.S. Intervention in British Guiana A Cold War Story By Stephen G. Rabe

U.S. Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story 02/23/2006 See also William Blum "Killing Hope"

U.S. Intervention in Paraguay Continues 08/24/2007

Paraguay: the US Army has arrived 03/07/2019

Paraguay's Forgotten Coup 12/26/2013 Did a bloody confrontation over land rights lead to a coup against the country's former President Fernando Lugo?

Wikipedia: Paraguay–United States relations

Wikipedia: CIA activities in Peru

U.S. Will Assist Peru's Army in Fighting Cocaine and Rebels 01/25/1992

Building Trust: The Effect of US Troop Deployments on Public Opinion in Peru 2019

Peru and the United States, 1960–1975 2010

That Time We Almost Invaded Suriname 11/28/2014

C.I.A. REPORTED BLOCKED IN PLOT ON SURINAMESE 06/01/1983

William Blum "Killing Hope: Uruguay, 1964 to 1970: Torture—as American as apple pie"

Chapter 13 Uruguay: Interventions and Their Effects February 2019

Why the Threat of U.S. Intervention in Venezuela Revives Historical Tensions in the Region 01/25/2019

Trump's Venezuela Moves Follow Long History Of Intervention In Latin America 02/22/2019

Despite pandemic, U.S. government threatens intervention in Venezuela 04/03/2020

Congressional Research Service: Venezuela: Background and U.S. Relations 08/26/2020

Was the US involved in a coup attempt in Venezuela? 05/08/2020

The History - and Hypocrisy - of US Meddling in Venezuela 01/28/2019 Later, during the Dutch-Venezuelan crisis of 1908, the US Navy helped Venezuelan Vice President Juan Vicente Gómez seize power in a coup. Gómez, known as “The Catfish,” would rule the country either directly or through puppet presidents, until his death in 1935. His regime was one of inconceivably medieval brutality. ...... The exploitation of Venezuela’s tremendous petroleum resources has been the constant objective of US policy and action toward the South American state for over a century. This meant backing the viciously repressive dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1948-1958), whose regime forces subjected political prisoners to tortures every bit as horrific as those committed during the Gómez era. Jiménez was as generous to transnational corporations as he was cruel to his own people.

Wikipedia: Costa Rican Civil War: Figueres and United States policy

In Costa Rica, the United States is Eclipsed by its own Shadow 05/03/2013 Costa Rica’s economic recovery was based on promoting a stronger role for the private sector, reduced public spending and foreign investment on a large scale. While based on consensus among Costa Rica’s leaders, these initiatives were also strongly encouraged by the U.S., the World Bank and the IMF. The U.S. promoted the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), which entered into force in 1984, to strengthen the economic recovery (as with the Alliance for Progress, Costa Ricans played an important role in the development of the CBI). ..... However, this influence and local perceptions regarding it are still powerful. In particular, the political left in Costa Rica has never forgiven the U.S. for what it sees as its role in undermining the country’s social development model and state institutions during the 1980s.

Costa Rica in 1948: Cold War or Local War? April 1996

Congressional Research Service: Costa Rica: Background and U.S. Relations 06/02/2009

William Blum "Killing Hope: Guatemala, 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized “final solution” See also Chapters 10 & 23

Impacts of U.S. Foreign Policy and Intervention on Guatemala: Mid-20th Century January 2013

Wikipedia: CIA activities in Guatemala

Wikipedia: 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état

United States intervenes in Mexican Civil War The United States intervened in the Mexican Civil War. The United States intervened decisively on the side of General Obregon. Because of American force, Mexican President Victoriano Huerta was forced to surrender.

Wikipedia: United States involvement in the Mexican Revolution

United States Interventions in Mexico 1914 – 1917

The Last Time the U.S. Invaded Mexico 02/04/2017 In the early 1900s, Woodrow Wilson was plagued by our Southern neighbor’s “bad hombres.” Trying to interfere got him nowhere.

US Intervention Has Facilitated Nicaraguan President’s Ability to Repress Nation 04/12/2019 by Benjamin Waddell

Intervention in Nicaragua Calvin Coolidge | January 10, 1927

United States Intervention in Nicaragua 1909-33

Nicaragua History

U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua, 1911/1912

Wikipedia: United States occupation of Nicaragua

US Imperialism in Nicaragua and the Making of Sandino 02/21/2020

United States intervention in Nicaragua (1912-1933)

Terror Is the Most Effective Weapon of Nicaragua's 'Contras' 01/09/1986

U.S Intervention in Nicaragua during the 1980s -The Reagan Era 2001

Teaching Nicaragua a Lesson Noam Chomsky 1992

Wikipedia: Contras

Wikipedia: United States and state-sponsored terrorism including Nicaragua, Cuba and other countries.

United States invades Panama, Dec. 20, 1989 12/20/2018

The Death of Manuel Noriega—and U.S Intervention in Latin America 05/30/2017

How Our 1989 Invasion of Panama Explains the Current US Foreign Policy Mess 12/23/2014

The Legality of the United States Invasion of Panama

The U.S. invades Panama 12/20/1989

Wikipedia: United States invasion of Panama

Wikipedia: Manuel Noriega: CIA involvement and U.S. support

Panama's Noriega: CIA spy turned drug-running dictator 05/30/2017

Wikipedia: Archives of Terror

U. S. Interventions in Venezuela, Peru, and Paraguay 03/18/2015

Forgotten History: Long list of interventions.

United States Interventions

The Ten Most Lethal CIA Interventions in Latin America 10/11/2016

Operation Condor: Deciphering the U.S. Role By J. Patrice McSherry July 2001

Crimes of War.org archive from Wayback Machine 2015

Interventions by the United States in Mexico and Central America: The continuation of the war economy 06/21/2017

‘U.S. Is Greatest Threat to World Peace’ 01/06/2020

The threat from America 08/04/2018

Revealed: The CIA and MI6’s secret war in Kenya 09/21/2020

Wikipedia: Death squad

Wikipedia: Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Iran

Wikipedia: Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte Chile

Wikipedia: Carlos Castillo Armas Guatemala

Wikipedia: Anastasio Somoza Debayle Nicaragua With regard to educating the workforce, Somoza replied, “I don’t want an educated population; I want oxen.”[6]

Pahlavi Fortune: A Staggering Sum 01/17/1979

Shah's fabled riches: Millions? Billions? 04/23/1980

Pinochet made millions after coup 02/14/1999

Ex-dictator had millions in U.S. bank 07/15/2004

The Wealth of Anastasio Somoza 07/27/1979

Wikipedia: List of presidents of the United States by net worth

Wikipedia: List of richest American politicians

Somoza family seeking comeback 05/07/2000

Fidel Castro Net Worth: $900 Million "If they can prove that I have a bank account abroad, with $900 million, with $1 million, $500,000, $100,000 or $1 in it, I will resign." .... However, in recent years a handful of prominent Cuban business people and exiles have come forward to claim that during his life Castro controlled perhaps more than a dozen commercial enterprises that had a collective value of at least $500 million based on comparable corporations abroad at the time.

Daniel Ortega Net Worth: $50 Million

Evo Morales Net Worth: $500 Thousand

Carlos Castillo Armas

Wikipedia: 1940 Constitution of Cuba

Jeb Bush, Oliver North and the Murder of CIA Drug Smuggler Barry Seal in 1986 04/03/2013

Did George H.W. Bush Say He Would Be ‘Lynched’ If Americans Knew the Truth? 12/04/2018

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George H.W. Bush: The Inconvenient Truth 12/04/2018

The Bush Crime Family: The Inside Story of an American Dynasty By Roger Stone, Saint John Hunt 2016 George Bush "Sarah, if the American people ever find out what we have done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us"

This quote was disputed, but not until after it circulated for over a decade, and the early sources don't attribute it to Sarah's newsletter where they checked it and didn't find it, meaning it may still be inconclusive.

Alien technology shared? Or Massive & Sophisticated Hoax?

There's an enormous amount of evidence to show that either aliens have already visited us, possibly beginning thousands of years ago, influencing our early civilization and beginning to share more advanced technology shortly after World War II; or that there's a massive effort, which may be even more far fetched, to convince many people of this even though it's not true.

Those who rely on the traditional media might not have a clue about this, since they do such an incredibly bad job covering this subject, as well as just about any other subject. Those that check Ancient aliens just long enough to see how absurd it is without checking other sources may be even more uninformed. They may be tempted to spot a few incredibly obvious blunders and the absurd presentation, then dismiss the entire subject. However, if there is nothing to it, why is the History Channel be going to so much trouble to create these shows, knowing that many people are believers. Furthermore, those of us who have looked close enough have found that even though Ancient Aliens isn't presenting their research in a credible manner, they do make lots of good points; the most difficult to dismiss out of hand may be how massive ancient megaliths were moves long distances even though experiments show that megaliths much if any bigger than ten tons should be impossible to move with ancient technology.

Additional major unsolved mysteries include crop circles, cattle mutilations, alleged alien abductions, mystics, and much more, of course including a massive number of UFO sightings going back at least seventy years, if not much longer. One of the biggest UFO sightings in history was in Fatima Portugal October 13th 1917, when fifty thousand people saw something in the sky, within our atmosphere, which they referred to as "The Miracle of the Sun," and most interpreted it as a religious experience.

There are also thousands of credible witnesses, including people in positions of power, like police officers, veterans, college professors, politicians, including Jimmy Carter, and many more, if you look through incredibly long lists, including one from Wikipedia of reports on UFO sightings, which are virtually absent from the mainstream media. One of the most credible witnesses is Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt who was initially a skeptic but claimed he saw a craft far beyond known technology at Rendlesham Forest in 1980 and there are thousands more credible witnesses providing small pieces of evidence to this unsolved mystery, which can't easily be explained away.

The vast majority of these witnesses only provide limited testimony to a small aspect of this unsolved mystery; however, a close look at efforts to discredit them often creates as many problems as the UFO claims. Nevertheless, most of them don't provide strong evidence for alleged sharing or technology, or reverse engineering; however, Philip Corso, author of "The Day After Roswell," may be the most credible exception that I know of and there are many more making similar claims, although most, if not all of them have credibility problems. Philip Corso alone shows that either alien technology has been shared with corporations, which would have a major impact on rapid development of science for the past seventy years, or there's a massive effort to make it seem like it has. Philip Corso had ties to the military and support from numerous institutions that enabled him to turn his book into a best seller.

Richard Dolan is probably one of the most credible researchers into UFOs and he reports on many more sources that claim that aliens have shared technology, as well as many other aspects of UFOs in "UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991" 2009. The most well known source that claims he shared technology was Bob Lazar, who Dolan covers, has many credibility, but Dolan has indicated that some aspects of his claims may have been partially confirmed, even if other claims are almost certainly false. Perhaps the strongest evidence that Bob Lazar was right about something was the development of element 115, which no one knew about in the eighties, when he first made his claim, that was first synthesized in 2003, but it wasn't officially acknowledged until 2015, so Richard Dolan wouldn't have known about it for his book. Bob Lazar claims that the aliens were able to synthesize a stable version of this; however, they still haven't been able to synthesize a stable molecule, so at best, this has only been partially confirmed.

There are also dozens of more credible sources, or sources in high positions of power, that have made similar claims, including Lord Hill-Norton, a five-star naval officer rank, the highest rank of the British Royal Navy, Paul Hellyer, former Minister of National Defense for Canada, William Lear, inventor of the Lear Jet and eight track cassette, his son John Lear, a CIA agent and pilot, Joe Firmage and Robert Bigelow both of whom are worth close to, if not much more than a billion dollars, and have contributed to high technology including space travel. There are also at least two high tech billionaires, Sky Dayton and Bob Duggan, who are members of Scientology, which is by many accounts a UFO cult.

Unfortunately the mainstream media hasn't been remotely scientific when it comes to researching UFOs, instead treating it with ridicule most of the time they mention it at all. If you want to see any of the claims from these sources, and many more, you have to check with alternative media outlets or UFO research books, which are often mixed in with an enormous amount of disinformation. In many cases high ranking people like Paul Hellyer, John Lear or Joe Firmage make many claims that seem to have serious credibility problem; however, when someone with so much power shows they believe things that are so absurd, either there might be some truth to it, or you should wonder how such irrational people became billionaires or obtained high government jobs.

Robert Bigelow doesn't strike me as nearly as irrational as some other people making far-fetched claims about UFOs, and he's one of the few people that get network attention as the following article, with excerpts from "Sixty Minutes" shows:

Bigelow Aerospace founder says commercial world will lead in space 05/28/2017

NASA and Las Vegas entrepreneur have partnered on a technology that could change how humans live and work in space

.........

But on this canyon road just outside Las Vegas, Robert Bigelow's story takes a turn that some may find, to put it lightly, improbable. He told us this is where his grandparents had a close encounter with a UFO.

Robert Bigelow: It really sped up and came right into their face and filled up the entire windshield of the car. And it took off at a right angle and shot off into the distance.

The story sparked his obsession, and explains the alien looking out from the side of Bigelow Aerospace. And it made for the kind of conversation you don't ordinarily have with an accomplished CEO.

Lara Logan: Do you believe in aliens?

Robert Bigelow: I'm absolutely convinced. That's all there is to it.

Lara Logan: Do you also believe that UFOs have come to Earth?

Robert Bigelow: There has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence. And I spent millions and millions and millions -- I probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject.

Lara Logan: Is it risky for you to say in public that you believe in UFOs and aliens?

Robert Bigelow: I don't give a damn. I don't care.

Lara Logan: You don't worry that some people will say, "Did you hear that guy, he sounds like he's crazy"?

Robert Bigelow: I don't care.

Lara Logan: Why not?

Robert Bigelow: It's not gonna make a difference. It's not gonna change reality of what I know.

Lara Logan: Do you imagine that in our space travels we will encounter other forms of intelligent life?

Robert Bigelow: You don't have to go anywhere.

Lara Logan: You can find it here? Where exactly?

Robert Bigelow: It's just like right under people's noses. Oh my gosh. Wow.

The FAA confirmed to us that for years, it referred reports of UFOs and other unexplained phenomena to a company Bigelow owns. He told us he's had his own close encounters, but declined to go into detail.

Robert Bigelow's quirky and he knows it, but when you have as much money as he does, no one -- not even NASA -- seems to care. Complete article

Robert Bigelow comes off as very credible, assuming your open minded enough to consider UFOs; however, he doesn't go into any further detail or provide any evidence. All you really have here is a wealthy person, that made his fortune in the hotel industry, before he became involved in high-tech supporting NASA and investing in research of UFOs. He claims to have had his own UFO encounters, in addition to the one his grandparents had but gives no details; the FAA officially admits they referred research to his company, but, once again they provide no details. For many this seems like just a tease, enabling skeptics to easily dismiss it or believers to easily cite it as strong evidence. Frankly, the best evidence is elsewhere, in sources not covered by mass media, and often mixed up with claims that have serious credibility problems so it's difficult if not impossible to sort out.

William Lear, inventor of the Lear jet, the eight track tape player and numerous other things, also claimed to have seen a UFO and hinted at the possibility that the military was researching anti-gravity as early as the mid-fifties, although it's unclear if he suggested it might be a result of alien technology; however his son, William Lear, who worked for the CIA and flew for them during the Vietnam War and on other occasions, made it clear that he believes that he believed that aliens were sharing technology no later than 1987, when the following letter, which discusses his theories about aliens who allegedly made contact in secret decades earlier, was first posted on the internet:

John Lear Letter 12/13/1987

John Lear
1414 Hollywood Blvd
Las Vegas, Nevada 89110
December 13, 1987

Dear Steven:

It was nice talking to you last night. I have enclosed the Dulce papers for your information. Also enclosed is a transcript of the McCampbell conversation with Paul Bennewitz and project Beta. Also the Gary Stollman statement. What follows is my current hypothesis formed after my 2 week trip through Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona talking to various individuals, some Air Force, some Sandia and some others.

MJ-12 representing the U.S. Government made a deal with the EBE's (extra- terrestrial biological entities) or "Greys" around the period of 1969- 1970-1971. The "deal" was in exchange for technology that they would provide to us we would ignore the abductions that were going on. The EBE's assured us that these abductions were merely ongoing monitoring of developing civilizations: (in fact these abductions have been for at least 3 purposes: (1) insertion of a tiny probe about 3 millimeters in size into the brain for monitoring and programming purposes; (2) post hypnotic suggestion concerning an important event that will occur in the next 2 to 5 years and giving the subject someplace to go and something to perform at that time; under our best hypnotic techniques we were unable to find out when or where or what this event is, and (3) genetic crossbreeding between the EBE's and humans. In many of the abductee hypnotic regressions of women with unusual terminated pregnancies they have been shown these "cross- breeds", usually frail tiny beings with comparatively large heads, thin skin, very thin arms and legs. Since we weren't aware of these facts we went along with the agreement but insisted on a list of the abductees to be submitted periodically to the National Security Council and MJ-12.

The EBE's have a genetic disorder in that their digestive system is atrophied and not functional. Some speculate that they were involved in some type of nuclear war or possibly on the back side of a genetic curve. In order to sustain themselves they use an enzyme or hormonal secretion obtained from the tongues and throats of cows or humans. (Note: cows and humans are genetically similar. In event of a national disaster cow blood can be used by humans). This secretion is mixed with H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) and another substance and is either spread on the skin, or the hands are dipped in the solution. The body then absorbs the mixture and excretes the waste back through the skin. ......

During the period of 1979 through 1983 it became increasingly obvious to MJ-12 that things were not going as planned. It became known that many more people (in the thousands) were being abducted than were listed on the official abduction list being supplied to the National Security Council and MJ-12 and that the abductions included much more that the "simple monitoring of an advancing civilization". In addition, it became obvious that some, not all, but some of the nation's missing children had been used for secretions and other parts required by the aliens.

In 1979, there was an altercation of sorts at the Archuletta laboratory. Delta Force was called in to try and free a number of people trapped in the facility who had become aware of what was really going on. 66 of the soldiers were killed in the effort and our people were not freed. .....

Meeting at the "Country Club", a remote lodge with private golf course and lavish sleeping and working quarters built by and exclusively for the members of MJ-12, it was a factional fight of what to do now. Part of MJ-12 wanted to confess the whole scheme and shambles it had become to the public, beg their forgiveness, and ask for their support. The other half of MJ-12 argued there was no way they could do that, that the situation was untenable and there was no use in exciting the public with the "horrible truth" and the best plan was to continue the development of a weapon that could be used against the EBE's under the guise of "SDI", the Strategic Defense Initiative, which had nothing whatever to do with a defense from Russian nuclear missiles. As these words are being written, Dr. Teller "father of the H-bomb", is in the test tunnels of the Nevada Test Site driving his workers and associates in the words of one, "like a man possessed". And well he should for Dr. Teller was a member of MJ-12, along with Dr. Kissinger, Bobby Inman and possibly Admiral Poindexter, to name a few of the current MJ-12.

Before the "Grand Deception" was discovered and according to the meticulous plan of metered release of information to the public, several documentaries and videotapes were made. William Moore, a Burbank, California-based UFO researcher came into possession of a videotape through his contacts with MJ-12 who had taken a great interest in Mr. Moore's book, "The Roswell Incident", published in 1980. .... They decided to use Moore as one of several conduits to help in the gradual release of the existance of aliens to the public. The video Mr. Moore had was an inter- view by 2 well known newsmen of a military officer associated with MJ-12. In the interview the military officer answers questions relating to the history of MJ-12 and the coverup, the recovery of a number of flying saucers, the existance of a live alien (one of three living aliens, designated or named EBE1, EBE2, and EBE3) being held in a facility designated as YY-II at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The only other facility of this type is at Edwards Air Force Base in Mojave, California. The officer named names as previously mentioned plus a few others: Harold Brown, Richard Helms, Gen. Vernon Walters, and Von Karmon. The officer also relates the fact that the EBE's claim to have created Christ. The EBE's have some sort of recording device that has recorded all of the Earth's history and can display it in the form of a hologram. ..... The crucifixion of Christ on the Mount of Olives has allegedly been put on film to show to the public. The EBE's claim to have created Christ in view of the "Grand Deception" could be an effort to disrupt traditional values for undetermined reasons. .....

Certain of Moore's statements leads one to believe that Moore himself is a government agent working for MJ-12, not being strung along, but stringing along ever hopeful ufologists that the truth is just around the corner. .....

That's all I have for you now except to tell you that Moore has shown the videotape to 5 well known persons to judge reactions. One of those persons was Paul Harvey, well known news commentator and personal friend. Paul says he has seen the evidence but rejects the content. I talked with him briefly over the telephone the other day to tell him that the video was essentially true but there was some very important information that he should be aware of known as the Grand Deception. I told him that one thing, the story that the EBE's invented Christ, was probably not true. He said he didn't believe that part anyway. Complete letter

Richard Dolan mentioned this in his book, indicating that due to the bizarre nature of his claims many people were highly skeptical and he couldn't assure people that his claims are accurate. There's good reason to be skeptical of some, if not all of his claims; however, we can, once again, narrow it down to two possibilities, either he believes this and there might be something to it, although he presents it as theory, so it doesn't have to be completely accurate; or he went to a lot of trouble to make these claim up and continued to do so decades after this letter was first posted. He did a three part interview with George Knapp within the past couple years, clearly indicating that he's more convinced in his beliefs (listed below).

At the time his letter was first posted on the internet Bill Moore was one of the most notably UFO researchers from several organizations, and few people suspected him of working with the CIA or other intelligence organizations as John Lear claimed; however, as Richard Dolan points out in his book, two years later he admitted to spreading disinformation for intelligence organizations, proving John Lear to be right. I had heard a lot about William Moore in numerous UFO shows or books, but until I recently read Dolan's book I was unaware of this, even though he admitted to it three decades ago. Most UFO shows credit Stanton Friedman with releasing these documents, and he does mention Bill Moore and Jaime Shandera, but I've never heard him disclose the fact that Moore had admitted to spreading disinformation. Nevertheless, I did have some of my own doubts about Stanton Friedman years ago which I pointed out in Is Stanton Friedman working for the CIA to refute reverse engineering claims? and this might add to the evidence to support my "Recruit a Group Of Crackpots" theory, which is described in that article. This theory basically speculates about the possibility that the CIA or other espionage organizations releases reliable information through unreliable sources, often mixing it up with false information to make it hard to sort out the truth.

His claim that the aliens might have created Christ, which both him and Paul Harvey doubted, doesn't have any more confirmation than the rest of his claims; however, there may be stronger evidecne that UFOs might have influenced religion as a result of the alleged "Miracle of the Sun" in Fatima Portugal as I pointed out in UFO Hypothesis Far More Credible Than Catholic Claim of A "Miracle Of The Sun," so I wouldn't completely rule it out, although most rational skeptics would want additional evidence.

But of course, John Lear also had ties to the CIA long before he made his disclosures; how can we be certain that he isn't spreading disinformation as well? We can't of course; furthermore, if there is an effort to either release more accurate information mixed up with false information or just make the entire mythology up there are numerous more documents that are very long which would require a lot of effort either way. One of those was the Serpo documents released in 2005, which many people claim were faked; although, Mike Bara author of Hidden Agenda: NASA and the Secret Space Program 2016. is skeptical of these claims since it would take a lot of effort to manufacture them and he couldn't imagine why anyone would fake, leading him to believe they're probably legitimate. He asked "If it is fake, the effort to create the air of authenticity is off the scale. Why would anyone even bother, especially if they're giving the information for free?"

However, even though Mike Bara did have a legitimate concern, that there must have been a significant motive for making it up, there are serious problems with it; on the third disclosure from this web page, Posting Three by Anonymous (7 November, 2005), they described the planet the aliens allegedly came from orbiting the Zeta Reticuli system saying that it was 91 million miles from one sun in the system and 96 million miles from the other, which is obviously false; not only would one of the suns be 350 billion miles away in this system, but if it were another system, they couldn't possibly have consistent distances like this since they would be orbiting one of the suns, unless the two stars were very close to each other and the planet was orbiting both, which would have made them about the same distance, but it would have still fluctuated. This series of documents also includes Serpo Release 27a transcript for Reagan's briefing on Roswell, which was the first one I read, and I had doubts about that as well especially when they made a big deal about wasting time and security clearances after Reagan asked how long it took the aliens to get to earth; then after wasting a lot of time they answered his question anyway, which makes no sense.

These Serpo documents repeat many of the same claims, or variations of them, as John Lear, possibly to control the mythology of UFOs whether they're mixing up pieces of the truth or making it all up. And these two are not the only ones making similar claims, there are many more including Roswell Alien Interview Revisited ➱ Full Version Including Intro. & Postscript 05/24/2014 which is a long letter by an elderly nurse who claimed to have been the companion for an alien captured at Roswell decades earlier when she was much younger and that she had kept it secret until she was close to dying shortly before she planned to end her life, which was becoming to painful due to her illnesses.

I don't know how many more low profile claims that have been released similar to these three, but there are probably more, including another one which I came across after Michael Shermer attempted to debunk Joe Firmage's beliefs, that involved being visited by an alien and given what looks like a "revelation" of some sort, although he didn't seem to be skeptical of at least one aspect of his story as described in the following excerpt:

Michael Shermer "Why People Believe Weird Things" 1997 p.307-9

In like manner did the multi-millionaire Silicon Valley business genius Joe Firmage respond when I interviewed him on the radio.86 The 28-year old founder of the $3 billion Internet company USWeb (who had already sold his first Internet company for $24 million when he was only 19), he requested that he be introduced as the founder and chairman of the International Space Sciences Organization (ISSO) and was interested only in discussing his love of science and his new work as a “scientist” for ISSO (to my knowledge he has no formal training as a scientist). What about all those press reports that erupted immediately following his announcement that he was quitting USWeb to pursue his belief that UFOs have landed and that the United States government had captured some of the alien technology and “back-engineered” it and fed it to the American science and technology industries? They exaggerated and distorted what he really believes, Firmage explained. He never actually said that he believed the U.S. government stole alien technologies. Nor did he really want to elaborate upon a 1997 experience he had (he seemed genuinely uncomfortable when I brought it up) with an alien intelligence. The media, he explained, exaggerated that one as well. This I found odd, even disingenuous, since it was his own public relations company that generated all the media attention, including the stories of stolen alien technology and his life-changing alien encounter.

In the fall of 1997 Firmage says that he was awakened in the early morning to see “a remarkable being, clothed in brilliant white light hovering over my bed.” The being asked Firmage: “Why have you called me here?” Firmage says he replied: “I want to travel in space.” The alien questioned his desire and inquired why such a wish should be granted. “Because I’m willing to die for it,” Firmage answered. At this point, says Firmage, out of the alien being “emerged an electric blue sphere, just smaller than a basketball … It left his body, floated down and entered me. Instantly I was overcome by the most unimaginable ecstasy I have ever experienced, a pleasure vastly beyond orgasm … Something had been given to me.” The result was Firmage’s ISSO and his 1999 Internet electronic book immodestly entitled The Truth, a rambling 244-page manuscript filled with warnings to humanity that could have been taken out of a 1950’s B science fiction film. The book is heavily sprinkled with the jargon of physics and aeronautics, including Firmage’s goal to convince the “scientific establishment” of the reality of UFOs and such advanced technologies as Zero Point Energy from the vacuum of space, “propellantless propulsion” and “gravitational propulsion” for “greater-than-light” travel, “vacuum fluctuations” to alter “gravitational and inertial masses,” and the like.87

Again, my point is not to belittle, but to understand. Why would a smart man like Joe Firmage give up such a remarkably lucrative and successful career as a Silicon Valley wizard to chase the chimera of aliens? Well, he was raised as a Mormon but in his teen years he “began to have questions about the more dogmatic aspects of the religion.” Mormons believe in direct human-angel contact based on the claim that the Church’s founder, Joseph Smith, was contacted by the angel Moroni and guided to the sacred golden tablets from which the Book of Mormon was written. In The Truth, Firmage explains that the revelation “was received by a man named Joseph Smith, whose descriptions of encounters with brilliant, white-clothed beings are almost indistinguishable from many modern-day accounts of first-hand encounters with ‘visitors’.”88 So, Joseph Smith had a close encounter of the third kind. And apparently he was by no means the first. Eighteen hundred years earlier St. John the Divine received his “revelation” from which the last book in the Bible was written, and shortly before that a carpenter from the tiny hamlet of Nazareth experienced his own visions and epiphanies from on high. Although he does not say it directly, the inference is clear: Jesus the Christ, St. John the Divine, Joseph Smith, and Joseph Firmage each made contact with one of these higher beings, and as a consequence changed the world. Firmage found his calling, and the meaning of his close encounters:

One of the purposes of this Internet book is to share with each of you fundamentally new ideas — ideas that one day could transform the world. In this work, I wish to propose a way to completely restructure over time our economic institutions to operate in a manner compatible with a living Earth, while preserving the proven entrepreneurial creativity that has built a remarkable modern civilization… Is this a radical proposal? Absolutely. Is it insane? Yes. Is it a utopian fantasy? Totally. Radical and insane proposals are necessary to save a short-sighted and dangerously hubris nation from self-destruction… My business partner and I built USWeb Corporation, the largest Internet services company on the planet, so I know what I am talking about creating here. 89

Indeed he does. He is a smart man with a weird belief and a lot of money to legitimize it. But neither the smarts nor the money alter one iota the fact that there exists not one piece of tangible evidence of alien visitation. And where evidence is lacking, the mind fills in the gaps, and smart minds are better at gap filling. Complete article

I'm also skeptical of Joe Firmage's claims, even though I often don't agree with Michael Shermer, especially since, after searching the internet for more information I found no more supporting evidence, and perhaps more that raised doubts about his claims.In some cases after taking a close look at alleged mystics like Andrew Jackson Davis, Padre Pio, Helena Blavatsky, and others, I often found that some of them did have unexplained mysteries surrounding them that skeptics couldn't explain; but in Joe Firmage's case there doesn't seem to be anything that can't be rationally explained by normal means; although there is one major issue that I'm skeptical about.

How did Joe Firmage manage to create a company and sell it for $24 million when he was only 19? This claim has been reported elsewhere, but there's little or no explanation, based on internet searches on him, as to what he or his companies did or how they earned all this money and convinced investors they were worth so much. It's hard to imagine how a nineteen year old could sell a company for that much money especially when few people even know what it did. Few if any of the most noted geniuses were able to develop a business that fast and sell it for that much, including Einstein, Edison, Tesla, Hawking and many others. Although young overnight multimillionaires became more common in the computer age, but even Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg weren't able to start a business that early. Furthermore, Michael Shermer mentions that he doesn't know of any scientific training that would enable him to develop advanced computer programs of some sort, yet he accepts without question that he was worth the sale of a $24 million company and that his other company, at the age of 28 was worth $3 billion, although other estimates are lower.

According to Billionaires who've made their fortunes 'overnight' 04/13/2018 there were at least seventeen billionaires that made their fortune in a surprisingly quick time, although none of them did so as young as Joe Firmage made his $24 million, and to the best of my knowledge none of them became millionaires that early either; they did include an extra "one to watch," Sandile Shezi who became a millionaire at age twenty-three. Another article points out 6 Overnight Millionaires 01/30/2020 but none of them made their millions by the age of nineteen either. If Joe Firmage sold his first company at age nineteen for $24 million that would be a more impressive feat than any of these people and I would think it would merit more attention, Yet neither Michael Shermer or anyone else seems that interested. I went into overnight billionaires more in Do Aliens own Stock in Monsanto, DuPont, or Microsoft? and Who's Controlling Oligarchies Dividing The Market? Aliens? where I pointed out that most if not all of these overnight billionaires became rich at about the same time that high tech companies that may have been developed with the help of reverse engineering that Philip Corso reported about, assuming he was telling the truth.

Most if not all of these people making these claims almost certainly could have presented their case better, including Paul Hellyer, who claims that aliens would share more technology if we were less violent, that there's a real Illuminati and that aliens have the technology to reverse climate change, but for some reason the so-called Illuminati prefers to help the oil companies; although, to the best of my knowledge he doesn't say why they would prefer to help oil companies instead of reversing climate change.

We certainly should be less violent and reevaluate our stock of nuclear weapons which we should have known decades ago could never be used. It certainly seems reasonable for aliens to be concerned with this; however, if they were, as Hellyer claims, then it should be clear that the way to address this would be communicate with all people, not just government insiders. If aliens have shared technology with the elites, then there would no doubt be some kind of a control group, which John Lear refers to as MJ-12, others call it the deep state and Hellyer refers to it as the Illuminati, although if there is a real thing it wouldn't be any of the exaggerated versions of the Illuminati that skeptics have used to ridicule and stereotype this claim. Whether aliens have shared technology with the elites or not, there's no doubt that the vast majority of power is in the hands of a small fraction of the public, including billionaires, who control large corporations, the media and political parties.

Even without alien technology there's no doubt that we have the technology to partly reverse climate change, although it's not clear whether we can do it nearly fast enough, and there should be no doubt that we should have started using our best research to do this decades ago, yet for one reason or another we're not. Helping the oil companies seems like a rational explanation, but even oil executives must know that they'll destroy them selves as well as the rest of us if they go beyond the point of no return, so unless they have a plan to address it, they're suicidal or they're ideological fanatics, you would think they would be acting differently, and that there would be a better motive than greed.

With or without alien technology it's virtually guaranteed that our ruling elite has an undisclosed motive for not acting on climate change. One thing that is certain is that our government has been studying weather modification for at least seventy years; the evidence for this came from mandatory weather modification from the sixties and additional research reports that haven't gotten adequate media attention since then. In several previous articles, including my most recent one, Forgotten History Exposing The Illusion Of Democracy & Government Reports on Weather Control, I discussed the possibility that this could be part of a weather control research project. This may be more likely with coordination with aliens, assuming they have made contact and shared technology, since without their knowledge it would be insane to play chicken with the survival of our species. However, even with their help it would still be insane, since these aliens, assuming they've been around for thousands of years have been deceiving us and misleading us since they first intervened in our development and may be responsible for many cults indoctrinating and controlling the human race.

If aliens are sharing technology, then it's almost certain that this includes medical technology, and if part of the reason that they're keeping it secret is that they're conducting research that might not always be in the best interest of the majority, that research almost certainly includes medical research as I went into in several other articles including Spectacular Heart Transplant for Sophia But at What Cost. If this is the case, then many people are being used for research without adequate consent, and they may not be the beneficiaries of the research. This is true even without the help of alien technology.

There should be no doubt that if we started repairing our environment now, encouraged preventive medicine on a massive scale, and allowed Single Payer Health care so there wouldn't be so many middlemen making it far more efficient, then we could save far more lives than our current system. However, there wouldn't be as large a supply of research subjects available, especially if they required full disclosure and consent, only using people for research with permission. This is true, with or without alien technology. Furthermore, if they are using us for research then we can't get the full benefit without disclosure, and at the current time the sacrifices are far bigger than the benefits, especially since we're risking the destruction of our ecosystem.

If there's another explanation for these unsolved mysteries besides alien intervention or a massive conspiracy to make it seem like there's intervention when there isn't, what could it be? I can't imagine any other possibility. If it has to be one of these two possibilities, which one is more likely?

Both these possibilities have some serious flaws; however, there's an enormous amount of credible evidence mixed in with the false claims that may indicate that alien intervention and sharing of technology is more likely. Furthermore, even though this theory would still have to correct many misconceptions and fill in much more details, it begins to explain many major unsolved mystery which the other theory ignores.

So-called scientific-skeptics seem to think that when it comes to things they consider fringe ignoring evidence that doesn't support your beliefs, and resorting to ridicule is an acceptable part of the scientific process, despite the fact that they would never accept this tactic from religious people or believers in spiritualism, the paranormal, or UFOs among other things. I'm not completely ruling out the possibility that there's a massive effort to fake all this, but in order to make this theory more viable a lot of unexplained mysteries have to be explained, including how massive megaliths were moved by people who shouldn't have had the ability to move them, thousands of UFO sightings, Crop Circles, Cattle Mutilations, mystics, incredibly rapid development of technology and much more.

Another fringe belief, which sounds insane, that may have to be explained is alleged religious prophecy about the coming of the anti-Christ, followed by the coming of Christ, which I went into over four years ago in Yes Virginia There Is A Trump And Clinton Conspiracy; at the time I focused on conspiracies with stronger evidence, like the fact that a small fraction of the public controls powerful institutions before moving on to more far-fetched ones about how the 2016 campaign seemed to have many characteristics from the book of Apocalypse. I considered this part of the conspiracy absurd, and indicated that it should fall apart. But instead the political system just kept getting even more insane, even though they should know better and could avoid this insanity.

If there are some similarities then the Bible seems to predict that the anti-Christ, which many people think appears to be Trump will be removed when it says, "But the beast was taken prisoner, together with the false prophet who had worked miracles on the beast's behalf and by them had deceived those who had accepted branding with the mark of the beast and those who had worshiped his statue. These two were hurled alive into the fiery lake of burning sulphur." Apocalypse 19:20

I'm not ruling out the possibility that this could be a massive insane charade; but there's no doubt we have to stop letting our leaders make decisions for us, even if they do avoid total self-destruction, since it would only be for their benefit not ours and they've clearly indicated they're not interested in the best interests of the majority.

The following are some additional sources or related articles:

Aliens Have Visited Earth, Space Entrepreneur Robert Bigelow Believes 06/01/2017

Aliens are here, and they’re not our friends, John Lear says — Part 1 11/11/2019

John Lear says MJ-12 controls UFO secrets in government — Part 2 11/07/2019 Ridicule buries UFO reports, just as intended, John Lear says

UFO actions were hostile, John Lear says — Part 3 11/07/2019 Cattle mutilations and beyond: John Lear and 'the grand deception'

John Lear, Pilot of the CIA “We control Alien Technology and there are Colonies on the Moon and Mars” (Video) 02/07/2020

Joe Firmage "The Truth" 1999 read online

Wikipedia: USWeb In 1999, during the merger of USWeb and CKS,[6] one of the founders and CEO of USWeb, Joseph P. Firmage, was asked to step down as CEO after he claimed to have been visited by extraterrestrials in his bedroom. Firmage publicly claimed that extraterrestrials had revealed advanced technologies to him and knowledge of alien civilizations.[7][8][9]

CEO Quits Job Over UFO Views / Advances in technology a gift of aliens, Silicon Valley pioneer believes 01/09/1999

That Extraterrestial Joe Firmage Brand of Truth: Naïve or Groundbreaking? You Decide

Source Watch: Joseph Firmage

The Truth, probably 12/09/1998 To encourage mankind to abandon the profit motive, he is developing EarthCity, an online shopping scheme that will fund charities. And to open our minds to his message, he has published The Truth at http://www.the-word-is-truth.org/truth.cfm – a book on the web telling the history of UFO visits to Earth.

Joe Firmage "The Truth" 1999 On Wayback Machine, missing large portions of it.

Silicon Valley CEO turns UFO evangelist 03/17/1999

TRUTH IS OUT THERE TV producer sues ‘CIA scientist’ in bid to expose ‘government UFO cover up’ and blows whistle on mysterious anti-gravity research project 04/05/2019 Kiviat, who lives in Los Angeles, first joined InterNASA in January 2018 - after their chief executive Joe Firmage told him that they had secured funding and CIA backing for his research into an anti-gravity machine. ...... He says he performed multiple tasks for InterNASA and was told he was working for both Firmage and CIA operative Pandolfi

Joe Firmage To Join Reorganized USWeb Central Worldwide as Chairman 10/07/2011

Paul Hellyer, Canada's ex-defense minister: Aliens would give us more tech if we'd stop wars 01/05/2014

Illuminati is real, claims Paul Hellyer, former Canadian Defense Minister 02/13/2018

Popular Mechanics: Pentagon Has ‘Off-World Vehicles Not Made on This Earth’ 07/25/2020

Ex Defense Official Appears On CNN Stating “UFOs Are Clearly Under Intelligent Control” 08/12/2020

Trump may end up at Rikers Island by the end of 2023 if he loses re-election: legal experts 09/14/2020

The new American religion of UFOs 06/04/2019

UK UFO Files Show High Level Officials Were Concerned 08/28/2011

Twining-Schulgen memo 09/23/1947

Originally published in France in 1999, the Cometa Report

Here's The List Of Studies The Military's Secretive UFO Program Funded, Some Were Junk 01/18/2019

Thousands witness UFO Over New Jersey Sept 14, 2020, 4 Videos, UFO Sighting News. 09/15/2020

UFO Brings New Jersey Highway To A Standstill As Everyone Stops To Film It 09/15/2020