Tag: Assassination

Death From Above In Venezuela

Over the weekend while I was lounging with my honey, daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law news came about that the elected president of Venezuela had been a target of an assassination attempt…..

“This was an assassination attempt, they tried to assassinate me,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said in blaming a drone attack Saturday on a far-right plot. As Reuters reports, an explosives-laden drone detonated at a military event in Caracas as Maduro was speaking, leaving the leftist leader unharmed but injuring seven members of Venezuela’s National Guard.

The event was to celebrate the 81st anniversary of the National Guard. Maduro said he saw a “flying device” that he thought might be part of a fireworks display in his honor; the AP describes him as “visibly shaken” after two explosions were heard. Maduro is blaming rightist detractors he says are linked to Colombia and Florida; he says some “material authors” of the attack are in custody.

My first thought was….”did the Trump people try to assassinate Maduro?”

I mean why would that come to mind?  Well to answer that question with a post from last month here on IST……https://lobotero.com/2018/07/27/gunboats-are-circling/t

That post has a bunch of historical facts in it……especially the Monroe Doctrine…..but let’s look at the US and its involvement in conflict in the hemisphere…..

The US has a long rich history of interfering in the affairs of South and Central America…..is this incident just another?

President Must Die!

Please if any of the Right wing noise machine is reading then let me say here and now….I am NOT talking about anything happening to Trump or his extended family.

Okay we all know that I do enjoy dropping some history from time to time…….this time I would like to let my readers know the most whacked out attempts to assassinate a president.

Anyone can change the course of history. You can start a movement, run for office, or if you’re too insane for that kind of thing, buy a cheap gun and try to kill the President.

Now killing the President requires a lot of planning, but when you’re crazy, planning involves casting imaginary spells and talking to ghosts. All of which makes it even stranger that some of the craziest assassination plots ever hatched by some of the craziest people came so close to succeeding.

http://www.cracked.com/article_16705_the-6-most-utterly-insane-attempts-to-kill-us-president.html

History is a cool thing to keep track of….I mean there is so much to draw from…..and I try to draw as much as possible…..even those that find fault with history could learn a thing or two…..there is the rub….learning is not their strong suit.

Stay tuned………

RFK–A ‘What If’

50 years ago Bobby Kennedy was assassinated on the campaign trail in LA……some say if that had not occurred he would have won the Democratic nomination and ultimately the presidency.

Recently I wrote that his son, RFK, Jr has said that he believes there were 2 shooters maybe more when his father was shot….

https://lobotero.com/2018/06/04/closing-thought-04jun18/

But let’s think about the 1968 election…..let’s look at history as if RFK had won the election….what would that mean to the US?

It is one of history’s great “what ifs.” What if Robert Kennedy had not been assassinated 40 years ago and gone on to become president of the United States? It’s safe to say that his presidency would have followed a different course from that of Richard Nixon. And it may just be that American politics would not be endlessly refighting the 1960s. Kennedy was a less polarizing figure than Nixon, who exploited the divisions that have now hardened into Red States and Blue States. But Kennedy himself was a complex and mercurial figure, so all we can really do is speculate. It’s an intriguing guessing game—if one does not get too dreamy about the mythology of RFK.

One reality check to start: it is far from a sure bet that RFK would have been nominated, and if nominated, elected. Kennedy was winning most of the primaries at the time of his death in June 1968, but under the old rules the bosses still controlled the Democratic Party. Hubert Humphrey, LBJ’s vice president and Kennedy’s real rival for the nomination (not Sen. Eugene McCarthy, the poet-politician who was fading in the stretch), was the favorite of the bosses. Kennedy was regarded as too “hot” and too radical by the big city and Big Labor chieftains. RFK was counting on Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley to turn the tide, but Daley was not a sure bet (despite some romantic and unconfirmed reporting that Daley promised his support in a phone call to Bobby just before Kennedy was killed). And RFK would have faced a formidable foe in Richard Nixon in November. The New Nixon was an expert at divide and conquer, and he was building a Silent Majority of white middle-class Americans fearful of rioting blacks and hippie college radicals.

http://www.newsweek.com/what-if-bobby-kennedy-had-become-president-90655

50 years ago the US was set for a change and those shots in LA destroyed the chances of a new way forward……robbed the country of a brilliant leader

Closing Thought–04Jun18

Here we go again!

June 1968 Bobby Kennedy is shot in LA…that is your history lesson the reason another Kennedy was not it the White House…..

Nope today I want to talk about RFK’s son, RFK,Jr.

Believe it or not he has fallen into the conspiracy ranks about the shooter in 1968…..

Nearly a half-century after bullets took the life of Robert F. Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of firing those bullets, has an unlikely defender: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The slain presidential candidate’s third-eldest child tells the Washington Post that “I got to a place where I had to see Sirhan” because “I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence” and “disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father.” After a three-hour jailhouse visit with the convicted assassin in December—a conversation he won’t discuss in detail—Kennedy Jr. says he believes that there was a second shooter at the Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968, and that Sirhan did not fire the fatal shots. Kennedy Jr., who was 14 when his father was assassinated, is now calling for a reinvestigation into his death.

He joins Paul Schrade, who was also shot that night, but survived. The case isn’t without evidence: Sirhan was standing in front of Kennedy, but the autopsy showed that the fatal shots hit Kennedy from behind. Evidence in later years showed that as many as 13 shots were fired, though Sirhan’s weapon held only eight bullets. “Yes, he did shoot me. Yes, he shot four other people and aimed at Kennedy,” Schrade says. “The important thing is he did not shoot Robert Kennedy.” Says Kennedy Jr., “Once Schrade showed me the autopsy report, then I didn’t feel like it was something I could just dismiss. Which is what I wanted to do.” Sirhan has long held that he has no memory of the assassination, and some witnesses have said there was a second shooter.

This should be good for a couple TV shows and a possible movie deal…..

But if an innocent man was sent to prison then there should be some sort of restitution made.

Oh goody……another subject for the wackos in the conspiracy world (Alex Jones should have a field day with this one)……the Kennedys are an endless supply of conspiracy fodder…..and like I said….Here we go again!

Good day my friends…much love and respect….chuq

Closing Thought–13Apr18

The poisoning of the ex-Russian spy in England got me to thinking about my youth and all the spy novels that I read…of course the sex was a cool part but I also was interested in the ways there were to kill their opponents…..poisoning was one way….but do you know some of the most clever ways?

http://www.dw.com/en/spy-assassinations-the-top-5-deadly-poisons/a-42909685

One final note….that poisoned spy and his daughter now that they are getting better may be in for a move…

A former Russian spy and his daughter who were poisoned by a nerve agent are not only feeling better, they may move to America. A top Whitehall official tells the Sunday Times that Sergei and Yulia Skripal could be “offered new identities” and relocated to the West—if not the US, then another country in the “five eyes” intelligence-sharing agreement that also includes New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. “The obvious place to resettle them is America because they’re less likely to be killed there and it’s easier to protect them there under a new identity,” the source says, per Reuters. The source adds that MI6 intelligence has been talking to the CIA about resettling the Skripals. The British Foreign Office is yet to say anything about the report.

Maybe then the next time an attempt is made on his life the US will get all the press….after all is that not what it is all about?

Closing Thought–04Apr18

Today is the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  50 Years ago today……

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a balcony outside the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The 50th anniversary of his death brings with it a wave of headlines and remembrances. Among them: Bells across America will ring 39 times Wednesday night, with each chime signifying a year of King’s short life, reports CNN. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports bells will toll first at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis at 6:01pm local time—the time King was shot—with the rest of the city and country following. Some of the best coverage:

  • In an excerpt from Redemption: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Last 31 Hours published in the Guardian, Joseph Rosenbloom delves into King’s 43-minute final speech at the Mason Temple the night before his death. It returned, over and over again, to the topic of death. King recalled the 1958 incident in which a woman stabbed him at a Harlem book signing; doctors had told him that had he sneezed, the knife blade that sat perilously close to his aorta would have ended it all. Telling that story “seemed to transport him into a profound gloom about mortality—his mortality,” writes Rosenbloom, who notes that while King talked about death on many occasions, it was never in such a morose tone. “This night in Memphis, however, he seemed near panic.” The full excerpt explains why.
  • The bullet that took King’s life was fired by James Earl Ray, something that five investigations into King’s death have established. But that hasn’t eliminated the conspiracy theories, with NPR reporting that even some of King’s children have expressed serious doubt that Ray acted alone. NPR gives some reasons why—Ray, who was nabbed at a London airport, recanted his confession, for one, and lawyer William Pepper believed him. NPR has much more here.
  • AL.com has the story of the lawyers originally assigned to Ray’s case, and it has an odd start: They were flown to London to represent “Ramon George Sneyd.” They only learned it was Ray while sitting knee-to-knee in the most secure location they had available: a shower stall.
  • At CNN, John Blake asks “some of the people who knew King best”—an acclaimed biographer, a friend who was with King at the Lorraine Motel, and experts on King’s life—to imagine what the world would be like today had the bullet missed King. He presents four scenarios that he admits “may seem trivial to consider in light of King’s murder. But part of the reason so many people still deeply mourn King a half-century later is not just because of what the world lost—it’s the tantalizing possibility of what more it could have gained.” Read them here
  • CBS News asks the question, “50 years later, where do we stand?” And it gets some big names to answer that and other questions. Read reflections from Gen. Colin Powell, Loretta Lynch, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, California Sen. Kamala Harris, and musician Trombone Shorty here.
  • The AP reprints three stories from its coverage of the assassination. You can read them here.

I still think that the non-violence where it had its place was not the complete answer that MLK thought it would be…..plus churches have turned away from the teachings of MLK….and that could explain the situation of race relations today.

We should always thank MLK for his contributions……

10 Most Important Assassinations

Today I return to giving my readers a history lesson…..(heavy sighs and eye rolls notwithstanding)….learn something it is not that painful….

In the course of world affairs there are always assassinations to end a rule, make a point, for just the Hell of it……but let us look at the 10 most important assassinations in history……

Ever since the Moabite King Eglon was stabbed to death on his throne in 1200 BCE (Judges 3:12-30)—and probably long before that—political leaders have been killed for any number of reasons. Usually they are murdered because they are deemed a threat by others in authority, or because of some controversial political stand they have taken, but sometimes the rationale can be as simple as the quest for revenge or the desire by the assassin to be famous. In any case, usually these murders are but minor footnotes in history, but occasionally they can and have had a profound impact on not only a nation, but on history itself. So who were these men—and a few woman—whose deaths have had such immense repercussions?

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-important-assassinations-in-history.php

Can you think of any others that may need to be added?

That did not hurt now did it?

US Wars And Hostile Actions

That time again…..the IST history lesson…..

After listening to the speech given by Pres. Trump at the UN when he talked about those “rogue nations” that are a threat to the stability of the world….and it got me to thinking about the history of the US and I wanted to look back…..

Do you know how many wars or hostile actions the US has been involved with since World War Two?

I am sure that most everyone can name up to twenty conflicts…..but is this so much more than that…..

There is a reason that most countries polled in December 2013 by Gallup called the United States the greatest threat to peace in the world, and why Pew found that viewpoint increased in 2017.

But it is a reason that eludes that strain of U.S. academia that first defines war as something that nations and groups other than the United States do, and then concludes that war has nearly vanished from the earth.

Since World War II, during a supposed golden age of peace, the United States military has killed some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 82 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on people in over 30 countries. The United States is responsible for the deaths of 5 million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and over 1 million just since 2003 in Iraq.

Source: U.S. Wars and Hostile Actions: A List – Let’s Try Democracy

Included in the lists above is the number of leaders the US has tried to assassinate…..

  • 1949 – Kim Koo, Korean opposition leader
  • 1950s – CIA/Neo-Nazi hit list of more than 200 political figures in West Germany to be “put out of the way” in the event of a Soviet invasion
  • 1950s – Chou En-lai, Prime minister of China, several attempts on his life
  • 1950s, 1962 – Sukarno, President of Indonesia
  • 1951 – Kim Il Sung, Premier of North Korea
  • 1953 – Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran
  • 1950s (mid) – Claro M. Recto, Philippines opposition leader
  • 1955 – Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India
  • 1957 – Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt
  • 1959, 1963, 1969 – Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia
  • 1960 – Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, leader of Iraq
  • 1950s-70s – José Figueres, President of Costa Rica, two attempts on his life
  • 1961 – Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, leader of Haiti
  • 1961 – Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo (Zaire)
  • 1961 – Gen. Rafael Trujillo, leader of Dominican Republic
  • 1963 – Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam
  • 1960s-70s – Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, many attempts on his life
  • 1960s – Raúl Castro, high official in government of Cuba
  • 1965 – Francisco Caamaño, Dominican Republic opposition leader
  • 1965-6 – Charles de Gaulle, President of France
  • 1967 – Che Guevara, Cuban leader
  • 1970 – Salvador Allende, President of Chile
  • 1970 – Gen. Rene Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of Army, Chile
  • 1970s, 1981 – General Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama
  • 1972 – General Manuel Noriega, Chief of Panama Intelligence
  • 1975 – Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire
  • 1976 – Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica
  • 1980-1986 – Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya, several plots and attempts upon his life
  • 1982 – Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran
  • 1983 – Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, Moroccan Army commander
  • 1983 – Miguel d’Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua
  • 1984 – The nine comandantes of the Sandinista National Directorate
  • 1985 – Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese Shiite leader (80 people killed in the attempt)
  • 1991 – Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq
  • 1993 – Mohamed Farah Aideed, prominent clan leader of Somalia
  • 1998, 2001-2 – Osama bin Laden, leading Islamic militant
  • 1999 – Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia
  • 2002 – Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Afghan Islamic leader and warlord
  • 2003 – Saddam Hussein and his two sons
  • 2011 – Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya

Just a sampling of the info available in this article……Fascinating reading….I will leave you to it…..enjoy!

What must one do to be known as a “rogue nation”?

Closing Thought–14Sep17

It is just fun watching the reactions to the world has to anything North Korea does……you really have NO idea how many plans are out there to deal with the ego of Li’l Kim…..

South Korea has come up with a plan that could eliminate the use of nukes by anybody…..

South Korea has taken the unusual step of publicly speaking about plans to assassinate Kim Jong Un and other North Korean leaders in the event of conflict. After North Korea’s latest nuclear test, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young Moo told lawmakers that he was speeding up the creation of a “decapitation unit” capable of crossing the border for nighttime missions against North Korean facilities and its “wartime command,” the New York Times reports. Officials say the special forces unit, which will apparently be comprised of members of the “Spartan 3000” unit, will be capable of striking anywhere in the Korean Peninsula within 24 hours. Song has said he wants to have the unit ready by the end of the year.

The creation of the unit is part of South Korea’s “Massive Punishment and Retaliation” plan for possible war with the North, Vox reports. Analysts say that by disclosing facts about the “decapitation unit,” Seoul appears to want to make Pyongyang nervous enough to think twice about its nuclear program and return to the negotiating table. “The best deterrence we can have, next to having our own nukes, is to make Kim Jong Un fear for his life,” says retired Gen. Shin Won Sik, formerly the South Korean military’s chief strategist. President Trump, meanwhile, said Tuesday that tough new sanctions are “no big deal” compared to “what ultimately will have to happen” to North Korea, CNN reports.

South Korea has been dealing with the attitudes of the Kim family for over 50 years…..and in all that time they never considered taking the culprit out?

What were their plans before this one?

Closing Thought–06Sep17

Hunting Down The Enemy!

I admit it…..back in the day I was a true fan of pulp fiction….mostly spy novels….the location, the women, the equipment……

Then there are real life situations that smack of good fiction…..especially in the spy world……I recently wrote a post about the death of Russian ambassador……

Source: What The Hell? – In Saner Thought

Then there are those that see a conspiracy everywhere and this situation is no different….granted this is a Russian site and is a bit biased in their thoughts….but it does make for some interesting reading….

The more time passes, the more the deaths of Russian ambassadors abroad starts causing suspicions. It seems that something ominous happens. The ambassador of the Russian Federation in Sudan Mirgayas Shirinsky, who was found dead in the swimming pool of the office villa on August […]

Source: The New Entertainment of the American Intelligence Agencies Is Hunting Down Russian Ambassadors?

Whatcha think?