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The US and Israel’s (Covert and Overt) Political and Election Meddling, on Multiple Continents, Is Off the Charts

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In stark contrast with Russiagate, there is little coverage, let alone outcry, in the Western legacy media. 

Remember when legions of high-ranking intelligence officials, politicians, editorial writers and opinion-makers accused Russia of meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections, and the storm of outrage it sparked? Yet after three years of digging, the Special Counsel’s investigation “did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election.”

Russiagate was ultimately much ado about nothing, a largely manufactured storm in a teacup. But the damage inflicted was immense, as the late, great scholar of Soviet and post-Soviet history and politics Stephen F Cohen warned in his prescient article, “The Real Costs of Russiagate”, published in The Nation in March 2019:

Nearly three years of Russiagate’s toxic allegations have entered the American political-media elite bloodstream, and they almost certainly will reappear again and again in one form or another.

This is an exceedingly grave danger, because the real costs of Russiagate are not the estimated $25–40 million spent on the Mueller investigation but the corrosive damage it has already done to the institutions of American democracy—damage done not by an alleged “Trump-Putin axis” but by Russsigate’s perpetrators themselves…

Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin “attacked our elections” and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections everywhere—national, state, and local. If true, or even suspected, how can voters have confidence in the electoral foundations of American democracy? Persistent demands to “secure our elections from hostile powers”— a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems—can only further abet and perpetuate declining confidence in the entire electoral process…

Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political, economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived, as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized “Putin’s Russia,” thwarted Trump’s necessary attempts to “cooperate with Russia” as somehow “treasonous,” criminalized détente thinking and “inappropriate contacts with Russia”—in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war.

Fast forward to today, seven years after that article’s publication, NATO is trapped in a proxy war of attrition with Russia in Ukraine that threatens to escalate into a regional war or perhaps even a nuclear war. And it is the US and Israel, not Russia, that are meddling, often openly, sometimes brazenly, in the electoral and political processes of democratic countries around the world. Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, there is little outcry in the mainstream media.

In the space of just 12 hours on Sunday night, the Trump administration intervened directly and overtly in the political and electoral processes of two supposedly sovereign nations: the United Kingdom, a fellow five-eye intelligence partner, and Colombia, once considered Washington’s “Israel in South America”.

In the case of the UK, Trump posted a tweet confirming that Keir Starmer was going to resign — hours before the prime minister finally fell on his sword. Piers Morgan described the tweet as the “ultimate humiliation” for a totally isolated Starmer:

Almost a Fitting End

This is almost a fitting end for a man who essentially served as a sleeper cell agent for both US and Zionist interests. As Declassified UK uncovered in 2023, five years after the fact, Starmer had joined the highly secretive Washington-based Trilateral Commission between 2017-18 while he was Corbyn’s shadow Brexit secretary, becoming one of only two serving British MPs to have been a member, according to available records.

Labour leader Keir Starmer was photographed with then US secretary of state Mike Pompeo (R) and then US ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, in London, 21 July 2020. Pompeo had said in 2019 that the Trump administration “will do our level best” to stop Jeremy Corbyn getting elected. Which is the precise role Starmer performed, with ruthless effictiveness, as the following tweet outlines:

But the job was not yet finished, points out zei_squirrel:

Corbyn remained popular among the Labour mass base. So he put himself forward as a candidate for leader to replace Corbyn as a[n] orthodox Corbynite. Some may be cynical, [Starmer thought,] like that damn squirrel on twitter, but I know what to do to ease peoples’ minds: I will make 10 firm concrete socialist left pledges, from nationalization to abolishing tuition fees, and I will put my signature underneath each of them and vow to be a “competent” version of Corbyn that will win the election and implement the same policy platform…

Exactly as I and some others said he would do, [Starmer] immediately began ripping up the “ten pledges” he made and that he was elected on. And then he began waging an all-out total war on the entire socialist left in the party, including Corbyn himself who was expelled for “anti-Semitism”, meaning for Starmer’s Israel lobby masters. And he revealed what he always already was, a neocon neoliberal Blairite Zionist Israel First… degenerate war criminal.

Starmer’s two-year tenure as prime minister has been an abject disaster for both the British Labour Party and the British people. His legacy achievements include scaling back the ancient right of trial by jury, launching a full-frontal attack on lawful speech, approving the nationwide deployment of facial recognition systems, implementing digital identity through the back door and, worst of all, lending unwavering UK support to Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and beyond.

 

Washington’s Out of Control Meddling

All of this, however, should not take away from the fact that Trump once again intervened directly and overtly in the domestic political processes of the UK, a supposed allied nation and intelligence partner, at a very delicate moment in its history. While Trump 2.0 has made a habit of meddling in other nation’s business, that habit is now getting out of control — especially on the American continent.

Washington’s recent electoral interference in Colombia is a clear case in point. First, Trump issued two endorsements for the far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella in the weeks leading up to the run-off election. Then, on Sunday night US Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated De la Espriella on his electoral triumph before the results of the preliminary count had even been announced.

As Drop Site News notes, “Rubio’s early recognition has drawn criticism from observers who argue it seeks to shape international perception and build consensus before any official results are made public.”

Rubio’s tweet was quickly retweeted by Stephen Miller, one of the main driving forces behind Trump’s Shield of the Americas. The initiative has drawn comparisons with Operation Condor, the US-coordinated campaign of political repression by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America in the late 70s and early 80s.

But there’s one clear difference: today’s brand of US gangster imperialism, intertwined with the  power structures of Silicon Valley and Palantir’s military tech systems, seeks to impose a techno-feudalist takeover of vassal-countries, as we are now seeing play out in Argentina.

Allegations of Israeli Cyber Interference

Colombia’s outgoing President Gustavo Petro has alleged that Israel also interfered directly in the election, citing alleged irregularities in the country’s vote counting process. Again, from Drop Site News:

With preliminary results showing 49.3% for Abelardo de la Espriella and 49% for Gustavo Bolívar Cepeda, Petro noted that neither candidate can be declared president until the official scrutiny process is completed, which under Colombia’s electoral system determines the final result.

  • He cited changes to the national registry’s server IP addresses, which he said indicate the electoral software may have been compromised.
  • Petro claimed that “the only entity in the world capable” of carrying out the alleged cyber interference is “the state of Israel.”

Petro alleged several additional irregularities in posts on X, including:  

  • Lawyers being blocked from entering the main vote counting center in Bogotá.  
  • Unsigned E14 polling forms being uploaded by election authorities.

He called for:  An independent forensic audit of the electoral software.  A recount of all polling stations.  Judicial oversight of the scrutiny process.

For the moment, these accusations are (as yet) unproven. However, there is certainly enough cause for concern, especially given De la Espriella’s narrow margin of victory — one of the narrowest in the history of presidential runoffs in Colombia:

  1. Colombia’s Command, Control, Communications & Computing Centre (C4) networks have heavily integrated Israeli defence technology and systems, particularly through the Israeli company Elbit Systems. As the renowned Mexican-Lebanese geopolitical analyst Alfredo Jalife notes, Israel has long dominated Colombia’s cybersecurity and telecommunications systems, just as it has in Mexico.
  2. The company in charge of the counting software for the elections, Thomas Greg & Sons, has a long history of dubious practices. The company, owned offshore by the Bautista brothers, convicted fraudsters in the US, botched Colombian elections in 2014 and 2022, when 400,000 votes for Petro’s party went missing. The company’s vice-president, Camilo Bautista, was sentenced to nine years in prison in the United States in 1989 for committing what was until then one of the largest bank frauds in US history.
  3. The role of overseas votes. As in Peru, it appears that overseas voters have played a decisive role in awarding the election to the far-right, Trump-endorsed candidate. Petro and others have suggested that massive electoral fraud was committed in these votes, particularly US-based consulates.

It is impossible to know to what extent fraud played a part in the victories of both Keiko Fujimori in Peru and De la Espriella in Colombia, and to what extent that fraud was instigated by Israeli agents or assets. One thing that is clear is that the De la Espriella campaign was much more effective at dominating the online discourse, through its simplistic messages of aspiration, order and moral restoration.

That does not take away from the fact that both elections took place under unprecedented pressure and interference from the US.

Further, Petro’s allegations that Israel tampered with Colombia’s national voting registry come just weeks after French authorities tied the Israeli tech firm BlackCore to digital interference campaigns targeting elections featuring leftist, pro-Palestine candidates in France, Scotland, New York City, Angola, and Togo. French investigators have not publicly identified who commissioned the operations.

Israel clearly has a motive for seeking a change of government in Colombia. During his four-year presidency, Gustavo Petro became a fierce critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza and even turned his words into actions by severing diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv and restricting Colombian trade with Israel. Petro’s chosen successor, Ivan Cepeda, would have presumably followed the same course.

De la Espriella, by contrast, is a fervent Zionist who has already offered to re-establish diplomatic ties with Israel as well move Colombia’s embassy to Tel Aviv. In a statement yesterday, Netanyahu said:

Congratulations to President Elect Abelardo de le Espriella. I hope to work with you to strengthen ties between Israel and Colombia. The friends of Israel keep winning. Long live the Isaac Accords.

A Long-Established Practice

Israeli government agencies and firms have been meddling in foreign elections since long before October 7, 2023. In the UK, the Israeli embassy and lobbies such as Labour Friends of Israel were instrumental in smearing Jeremy Corbyn’s pro-Palestinian Labour Party leadership with bogus charges of anti-Semitism, as Al Jazeera reported in its “Labour Files” investigation:

A senior political officer at the Israeli embassy was covertly recorded discussing with a British civil servant how to deal with MPs who are critical of Israel. “Can I give you some MPs that I would suggest you take down?” he asks her. The investigation forced the Israeli Ambassador to apologise to the British government and the diplomat was sent home.

In early 2023, an international investigation by a consortium of journalists from 30 outlets revealed that an Israeli firm had sought to influence more than 30 elections around the world for clients by hacking, sabotage and spreading disinformation. From France 24:

The firm was dubbed “Team Jorge” by investigating journalists who posed as potential clients in order to gather information on its methods and capabilities.

Its boss, Tal Hanan, is a former Israeli special forces operative who boasted of being able to control supposedly secure Telegram accounts and thousands of fake social media profiles, as well as planting news stories, the reports say…

The 50-year-old told three undercover reporters that his services, often called “black ops” in the industry, were available to intelligence agencies, political campaigns and private companies.

“We are now involved in one election in Africa… We have a team in Greece and a team in [the] Emirates… [We have completed] 33 presidential-level campaigns, 27 of which were successful,” the Guardian quoted him as saying.

Most of the campaigns – two-thirds – were in Africa, he claimed.

Israel also features heavily in the recent Hondurasgate scandal. As Al Jazeera reports, the scandal has failed to scandalise, having been almost completely ignored by the Western corporate media:

One batch of audios, for example, indicates that Israel financed the release from prison of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a 45-year sentence in the US for drug trafficking and other transgressions. As per the write-up on the Hondurasgate website, Hernandez will now play a key role in carrying out US-Israeli military and economic designs in the region.

The name Hondurasgate is, of course, a play on “Watergate,” the notorious political scandal that rocked Washington in the 1970s and ended the presidency of Richard Nixon. And yet the current scandal has failed to, well, scandalise. The news has been largely ignored by the Western corporate media, although various Spanish-language outlets have reported it.

There are a few possible reasons for the lack of interest. The first is that the US and its Israeli accomplice have a lengthy history of dirty tricks in Latin America – arming right-wing dictators, training death squads in the art of slaughtering peasants, and so forth – which renders the Honduras leaks slightly less than shocking.

The second, perhaps, is that the world has reached such a distinctly abominable state that nothing really shocks us any more.

In one of the leaked audios, the (supposed) voice of Orlando Hernández can be heard giving the following instructions to Thomas Zambrano, an Honduran politician serving as a member of the National Congress:

“If we have to kill people to be rest assured, we will do it. If we have to return to repression to control the country, we’ll do it. We have to do everything we can to hold onto power. Everything that happens — deaths, assassinations, kidnappings… we should blame it all on the communists.”

The UK’s Double Down News also covered the story. In one leaked audio, Romeo Vázquez Velazquez, a retired general who led the successful 2009 coup against left-leaning president Manuel Zelaya, can be heard reassuring Orlando Hérnandez that everything is in place for the purges to begin:

I have a group more or less ready in the armed forces, including the administrator. They’re all on board to begin the hunt.

It’s not hard to see why Israel would seek to intervene in the electoral processes of democratic nations in Latin America, Europe and other parts of the world, including, most importantly, the United States of America. As public support for Israel collapses across the West (see graph below), both Tel Aviv and Washington are determined to install as many Israel-friendly governments as possible in Latin America.

Imagen

And it’s working like a dream, albeit of the nightmarish sort, thanks largely to the tireless work of the US State Department and US Southern Command. The following infographic, courtesy of Joshua Collins, gives an idea of the mindboggling extent of US political interference in Latin America under Trump 2.0. Keep in mind that most of these actions have taken place in just the past six months or so.

As Benjamin Fogel points out in the tweet below, if Colombia and Peru do fall under US-Israeli de facto control, as looks extremely likely, the only two progressive holdouts (of any great size) left over in the region will be Brazil and Mexico.

Brazil will be heading to the polls in October and the US has already begun to stir the pot by designating two Brazilian gangs as ‘terrorist’ organisations. As we have already seen in Mexico, such a move can serve as a precursor to covert destabilisation efforts, or in the more extreme case of Venezuela, direct US military intervention.

 

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