Acting like an 'imperial power'

Trump's message did not go down well in Morocco.

"The US president acts like one would expect from an imperial power," Nabila Mounib, the general secretary of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU), told DW. "We've been observing this behavior in all relationships between the US and countries of the global south."

"Trump is well versed in the language of intimidation and threats, but we Moroccans should no be concerned by the logic of the jungle," Mounib said, insisting that every country is entitled to make a bid. "Instead, we should try creating a more humane, fraternal and just global order."

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The image of Argentina's Daniel Passarella lifting La Selección's first ever World Cup with General Jorge Rafael Videla grinning in the background has a sinister dramatic irony to it.  

Astonishing guest
And what happened next is the subject of fierce debate. Several Peru players have now told Channel 4 News, Videla took with him a most astonishing guest: one of the world's most powerful statesmen - the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Football and politics - inextricably linked?

○ Not fixing what's broken: the World Cup and its troubling relationship with dictatorships

'Cowboy mentality'

Moroccan actress Latifa Ahrar was similarly surprised by Trump's comments. "This tweet belongs to the realm of psychological warfare," she told DW. "It shows his cowboy mentality."

Moroccans should not react emotionally, but continue with their World Cup bid in a rational manner instead, Ahrar said.  

F*ck America First! insanity

Trump Threatens Supporters of Moroccan 2026 World Cup Bid | Moroccan World News |

Two months ahead the FIFA Congress vote, scheduled to take place in Moscow on June 13, Morocco is gathering votes from all the corners of the world, including Europe, as the solo bid against the joint American bid.

Countries that have already pledged to support Morocco 2026 include Lebanon, Palestine, Nigeria, Qatar, Botswana, France, Luxembourg, Russia, Belgium, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, and Kenya.

The US President also threatened to withhold support from countries that will not side with the US bid and its decisions. "Why should we be supporting these countries when they don't support us (including at the United Nations)?" Trump asked, referring to the stance of UN members on the Jerusalem question.

This was not the first time Trump threatened cutting US support to other nations. On January 2, the US President took to his Twitter account threatening to cut US fund to Palestinians.

It's not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing, but also many other countries, and others. As an example, we pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don't even want to negotiate a long overdue...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018

Two months ahead the FIFA Congress vote, scheduled to take place in Moscow on June 13, Morocco is gathering votes from all the corners of the world, including Europe, as the solo bid against the joint American bid.

Countries that have already pledged to support Morocco 2026 include Lebanon, Palestine, Nigeria, Qatar, Botswana, France, Luxembourg, Russia, Belgium, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, and Kenya.

On 30th Anniversary of Argentine Coup | The National Security Archive |

On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the National Security Archive posted a series of declassified U.S. documents and, for the first time, secret documents from Southern Cone intelligence agencies recording detailed evidence of massive atrocities committed by the military junta in Argentina. The documents include a formerly secret transcript of Henry Kissinger's staff meeting during which he ordered immediate U.S. support for the new military regime, and Defense and State Department reports on the ensuing repression. The Archive has also obtained internal memoranda and cables from the infamous Argentina intelligence unit, Battalion 601, as well as the Chilean secret police agency, known as DINA, which was secretly collaborating with the military in Buenos Aires.

The documents record Washington's initial reaction to the military takeover. "I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States," Secretary of State Kissinger ordered his staff after his assistants warned him that the junta would initiate a bloodbath following the coup. According to the transcript, Kissinger's top deputy on Latin America, William Rogers, told him two days after the coup that "we've got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long."

State Department cables, including some obtained previously by the Argentine newspaper, Clarin, show that U.S. officials had prior knowledge of coup plotting. More than a week before the coup, Ambassador Robert Hill sent Assistant Secretary Rogers a secret cable reporting that the commander of the Navy, Admiral Emilio Massera, had requested that the U.S. embassy "indicate to him one or two reputable public relations firms in the U.S. which might handle the problem for a future military government." Massera, according to the cable, promised that the Argentine military would "not follow the lines of the Pinochet takeover in Chile," and would "try to proceed within the law and with full respect for human rights."

But although the military repression in Argentina drew less international attention than the Pinochet regime's in Chile, it far exceeded it in terms of human rights violations. By mid 1978, according to a secret cable from the DINA station in Buenos Aires, posted here publicly for the first time, the secret police battalion 601 had "counted 22,000 between dead and disappeared, from 1975 to the present date [July 1978]." Thousands of additional victims were killed between 1978 and 1983 when the military was forced from power.

○ Israel's War Command and the Kissinger Lessons
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Henry Kissinger one of the worst war criminals after the Second World War, living a life with impunity in the United States and getting lauded for his lifetime of "service" by both Republicans and Democrats ... what a tainted world of affairs inside the "Deep State" of repression, propaganda, torture, rendition and arbitrary choice of inhumane regimes to be called allies of America. There will always be a day of reckoning, Donald Trump may just be the person floated to the presidency before the abyss.

Henry Kissinger has always been close to advise Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton among many others.

○ Morrell and Negroponte Endorse HRC for President
○ Obama Administration Honors War Criminal Henry Kissinger With Distinguished Public Service Award
○ Argentina Sentences 6 to Life in Prison for Crimes Against Humanity During US-Backed Dirty War | TeleSur |

Yeah, much appreciated!