Dan Kovalik Quotes

Why does the U.S. government not lift the blockade against Cuba? I will answer: because it is afraid. It fears our example. It knows that if the blockade were lifted, Cuba’s economic and social development would be dizzying. It knows that we would demonstrate even more so than now, the possibilities of Cuban socialism, all the potential not yet fully deployed of a country without discrimination of any kind, with social justice and human rights for all citizens, and not just for the few. It is the government of a great and powerful empire, but it fears the example of this small insurgent island.

Some of the wars America fought were "simply for profit" and the sanctions it has imposed on certain countries have been as destructive as wars... The American people have virtually no say over when we go to war. These decisions are made in back rooms somewhere...The American people continue to be lied to about why we go to war, because again, one of the big reasons is simply for profit, and that's always been true to some extent, but now it is in a very naked way.

[On the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan] From a strategic point of view, it has to be seen as a complete failure, and yet it went on for 20 years, why did it go on for 20 years? Because the defense industry companies that make the bombs, that make the planes, that make the vehicles, and also the private military contractors that now are fighting the wars in lieu of public military personnel, they made trillions of dollars as long as the war continued. So they didn't care if the war was ever won, the goal was for the war to simply continue forever... the point is not to win the war, but to make sure it never ends because you're going to keep making profits.
The U.S. is not advancing human rights through its military interventions. It's not advancing humanitarianism. In fact, it's undermining it in a huge way.

In this way, we in the U.S., who may otherwise be moved to care about the fate of millions in Yemen whose lives are being upended with our own government’s complicity, are lulled into complacency, with our comfortable feeling about our nation’s inherent goodness fully intact. The result is that those in power in our ostensibly democratic government are given a free hand to aid and abet such atrocities as the near-total destruction of Yemen without the fear of any reprisal or approbation.

The US appears to be intentionally spreading chaos throughout strategic portions of the world, leaving virtually no independent state standing to protect their resources, especially oil, from Western exploitation. And, this goal is being achieved with resounding success, while also achieving the subsidiary goal of enriching the behemoth military-industrial complex.

..in terms of the damage, sanctions and wars do deliver similar results... They do deliver death. They do deliver destruction of infrastructure, in the same way, that bombs and bullets do...If we can't just overthrow you, we will destroy you, and that's what the U.S. has done time and again. The sanctions... have also prevented Venezuela, which has the world's largest proven oil reserve, from maintaining its oil industry and maintaining its power grids... Sanction is war by another means...You're just denying the people the economic benefits of their industries, and also, again, you're denying them electricity, other infrastructure, again in much the same way that you could or would through actual military means...However, most Americans don't see sanctions as war and they don't know the consequences so they tolerate it more and think the sanctions are somehow a legitimate form of coercion...When you look at the results, they're the same or similar to actual military warfare...

As if to prove Carter’s assertion, Vice President Mike Pence told the most recent graduating class at West Point that it “is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life... You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen.” Clearly referring to Venezuela, Pence continued, “Some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere.” In other words, Pence declared, war is inevitable, a certainty for this country.

Former president Jimmy Carter recently made a profound and damning statement — the United States is the “most warlike nation in the history of the world.” Carter contrasted the United States with China, saying that China is building high-speed trains for its people while the United States is putting all of its resources into mass destruction. Where are high-speed trains in the United States, Carter appropriately wondered.

And, this is a big omission, for as the International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) has recently reported, Yemen had more people displaced last year due to conflict than any other country on earth. Thus, 2.2 million people were displaced by the armed conflict in Yemen in 2015, a figure which accounts for over 25% of the 8.6 million people displaced around the globe due to conflict last year. In addition to Yemen’s refugee crisis, the IDMC also notes that over 14 million Yemenis are on the verge of starvation as a result of the current conflict.

...The only discussion I have found that NPR gave to Yemen in the context of the world refugee crisis was one, solitary piece back on May 11, and that piece was very telling in what it refused to say about the causes for Yemen’s mass displacement problem... The result of this disproportionate news coverage is that the listener could very well miss out entirely on any discussion of such issues as U.S.-backed crimes in Yemen. And, even if one does hear a segment or two on this matter, this issue will be easily forgotten and certainly not taken as seriously or treated as urgently as the misdeeds of the U.S.’s ostensible enemies, such as Syria’s Assad government, to which NPR gives nearly obsessive attention.

Grateful for a government on their side and flouting U.S. extortion, the poor came out to vote in large numbers for Mr. Maduro.... These are the same poor, by the way, who came down from the mountains in 2002 to demand the return of Hugo Chavez to power after he was overthrown in a U.S.-backed coup and kidnapped. But you never hear the voices of these poor people in the U.S. press. You never hear their side of the story, how they have benefitted from the Bolivarian Revolution and how desperately they do not want to go back to how things were before. While they have been given a voice in Venezuela, it remains muzzled in this country, and by a press which passes off pro-intervention and pro-war propaganda as journalism. It is no wonder the United States continues to careen into one disastrous military adventure after another.

It is these U.S. wars, along with the U.S.’s over 800 military bases in more than 70 countries (Russia has bases in only one country (Syria) outside the former Soviet Union) which has led to the U.S. rightly being viewed in a poll of people in 65 countries as by far the greatest threat to world peace... President Trump’s expressed desire to stop antagonizing Russia and to work with it... should be welcomed as eminently reasonable and indeed necessary to avoid a possible nuclear confrontation. This should also be welcome by an American public whose resources have been drained by the greatest military-spending spree by far on the planet....Certainly, liberals, who at least once stood for peace and for greater social spending, should be in the lead in cheering such overtures instead of drumming up anti-Russian hatred which can only lead to more war and more impoverishment of our society.

Instead of taking responsibility for its own failings, the US government, and its compliant media, have taken to trying to scapegoat others... Russia is taking measures to confront the pandemic which the US has failed to do, particularly in the epicentre of the pandemic, Moscow... far exceeds the efforts of the US which has yet to announce plans for mass testing of individuals for the virus... The US has always prided itself at being number one in the world, and it continues to be number one in many categories – for example, the number of prisoners held in jails, the most mass shootings, and the most costly and ineffective healthcare system in the industrialised world. And now, the US has the dubious distinction of being number one in terms of the number of COVID-19 cases and the number of people killed by COVID-19

This week, NPR has had some significant segments on the world’s refugee crisis, the worst since World War II. While Syria is always mentioned in these segments and gets much mention on NPR in general, there is barely a mention of the refugee crisis emanating from Yemen.

...I am simply baffled by what appears to be the prevailing view in this country... that Russia is somehow a threat to the United States....While I certainly understand it is in the interest of the military-industrial complex... to continue to vilify Russia in order to justify our already-bloated military spending... Russia was our ally in WWII in defeating the Nazis. And, contrary to what most Americans are taught, it was Russia that truly won that war in Europe, having lost over 20 million people to the war... 80 percent of the... Nazi['s] kills... [USA lost ~400,000]... certainly since 1960 and up to the present time, the U.S. has been much more brutal and blood-thirsty than Russia. It is not even a close call...