An Excellent, To-The-Point Russian Assessment of the Bolivian Coup — Col. Cassad

The events effectively used the Venezuela blueprint – street protests in major cities by the right-wing, attacks on ruling party activists, denial of legitimacy by the US & Co, pressure on the army to end support for Morales. Using the OAS to delegitimise Morales, he was proposed to leave for Mexico. As a result, what did not work in Venezuela, where all this instrumentation, including the president appointed by Washington, was designed to overthrow Maduro, as a whole worked in Bolivia, allowing to overthrow the president, who in democratic elections gained 600,000 votes more than his opponent.

De facto, it’s a banal colour coup, like the Ukrainian coup....

Summary analysis follows.

Anti-Empire
An Excellent, To-The-Point Russian Assessment of the Bolivian Coup

Col. Cassad

A more detailed analysis

Counterpunch
Bolivia and Venezuela: Two Countries, But Same Hybrid War
Nino Pagliccia

A Sino-Russian firewall against US interference —M. K. Bhadrakumar

The US is provoking color revolutions for regime change in China and Russia, who are reacting as may be expected. It's on.

India Punchline
A Sino-Russian firewall against US interference
M. K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service

Cambodia Warns of Foreign Regime Change “At Any Cost” — Joseph Thomas

Just as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen alluded to, many of the “dissidents silenced” are media platforms literally run by foreigners. This includes the US State Department-funded and directed Voice of America and Radio Free Asia as well as the previously American-owned and operated Cambodia Daily newspaper.
There are also political entities like the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) whose members regularly operate out of Washington D.C. itself.
CNRP leader Kem Sokha has openly admitted to Washington’s role in propping up his party and its bid to seize power in Cambodia not through elections, but through the same sort of destructive colour revolutions that have swept through Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East....

Why Cambodia, you ask? Because Southeast Asia is part of the rimland surrounding the heartland of China. This is not really about Cambodia and "human rights" there. It is about Western (US) dominance.

NEO
Cambodia Warns of Foreign Regime Change “At Any Cost”

Joseph Thomas

Joseph Thomas — Vietnam Locks Up US-Funded Agitators

There is a growing understanding of US regime change strategies and tactics. It used to be that the CIA would work covertly to build opposition movements that would remove governments that did not cooperate with the United States and its corporate interests. This still occurs but many of those functions have been buttressed by the US Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy. Countries are catching on to this. The article below describes how Vietnam is responding to US funded and trained regime change activists.

Popular Resistance
Vietnam Locks Up US-Funded Agitators

Joseph Thomas, Asia-pacificresearch.com

RT — Cambodian PM calls US democracy 'bloody & brutal' in row over USAID-funded NGO

Political tensions have been rising between Phnom Penh and Washington, after Cambodia ordered a USAID-supported organization to halt its activity in the country. The Asian nation says it is defending its sovereignty, while Washington questioned its democracy.

In the latest development to the worsening dispute between the two nations, Cambodia's long-ruling leader, Prime Minister Hun Sen, accused Washington of interference in his country's domestic affairs.

"We wish to send a clear message again to the US Embassy that we defend our national sovereignty," the Cambodian government said in an open letter Thursday, as quoted by Reuters....

Earlier this week, the Cambodian Foreign Ministry announced it was expelling the US-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI) after a series of publications in local media suggesting that the non-profit organization attempted to act against the government. Phnom Penh said the NGO had violated national registration rules....

Although in its mission statement the institute, which has been operating in Cambodia since 1992, claims that it works with all political forces, some of its materials leaked online allegedly showed its political bias and moves to assist the opposition to overthrow the government.

The intentions of other NGOs operating in Cambodia and funded by USAID (US Agency for International Development) have also been questioned by the media, suggesting those organizations might be tools of the US State Department promoting Washington's foreign policy.

"There are... NGOs who also will want to create a color revolution and topple the government like they have successfully in other countries," one of the publications on Cambodia's Fresh News said.

Busted. Libya and Ukraine changed things.

RT
Cambodian PM calls US democracy 'bloody & brutal' in row over USAID-funded NGO

Color revolution in Venezuela and Nicaragua

We can conclude that the upcoming violence in Venezuela is not a spontaneous action of the opposition but the implementation of a plan that has been around since at least May 2016. It is likely to follow the color revolution by force script the U.S. developed and implemented in several countries over the last decade. Weapon supply and mercenary support for the opposition will come in from and through the neighboring countries the CIA head visited.…

To overthrow the Venezuelan government has been tried since the first election of a somewhat socialist government in 1999. The U.S. instigated coup in 2002 failed when the people and the military stood up against the blatant interference. The "regime change" methods have since changed with the added support of a militant "democratic opposition" fed from the outside. The use of that tool had negative outcomes in Libya and Ukraine and it failed in Syria. I am confident that the government of Venezuela has analyzed those cases and prepared its own plans to counter a similar attempt. 

The U.S. just ordered the relatives of its embassy employees out of the country. Such is only done when imminent action is expected.

Moon of Alabama
Countdown To War On Venezuela
b

Ortega's government in Nicaragua on the list, too? China is building a competitor canal through Nicaragua to evade US control of the Panama Canal.

Astute News
The US’ Anti-Nicaragua Sanctions are Supposed to Spark a Hybrid War Against China
Asif Aziz

C. J. Hopkins — Goose-stepping Our Way Toward Pink Revolution

The deep state, of course, is not a conspiracy. It is simply the interdependent network of structures where actual power resides (i.e., the military-industrial complex, multinational corporations, Wall Street, the corporate media, and so on). Its purpose is to maintain the stability of the system regardless of which party controls the government. These are the folks, when a president takes office, who show up and brief him on what is and isn’t “possible” given economic and political “realities.” 

Despite what Alex Jones may tell you, it is not George Soros and roomful of Jews. It is a collection of military and intelligence officers, CEOs, corporate lobbyists, lawyers, bankers, politicians, power brokers, aides, advisers, and assorted other permanent members of the government and the corporate and financial classes. Just as presidents come and go, so do the individuals comprising the deep state, albeit on a longer rotation schedule. 

And, thus, it is not a monolithic entity. Like any other decentralized network, it contains contradictions, conflicts of interest. However, what remains a constant is the deep state’s commitment to preserving the system … which, in our case, that system is global Capitalism.

I’m going to repeat and italicize that to hopefully avoid any misunderstanding. The system the deep state primarily serves is not the United States of America, i.e., the country most Americans believe they live in; the system it serves is globalized Capitalism. The United States, the nation state itself, while obviously a crucial element of the system, is not the deep state’s primary concern. If it were, Americans would all have healthcare, affordable education, and a right to basic housing, like more or less every other developed nation.… [paragraphing introduced for readability]

Pretty much as I have been saying.

The author shows how the Left has been duped into supporting totalitarian corporate globalism in an effort to provoke a color revolution in the United States.

Counterpunch

Goose-stepping Our Way Toward Pink Revolution
C. J. Hopkins, American ex-pat author living in Berlin

The Saker — A “Color Revolution” Is Under Way in the United States

A Russian joke goes like this: “Question: why can there be no color revolution in the United States? Answer: because there are no US Embassies in the United States.”

Funny, maybe, but factually wrong: I believe that a color revolution is being attempted in the USA right now....

And Killary was dissing the Donald during the campaign for suggesting that he might not immediately accept the reported results of the election. What irony — or hypocrisy.

Clinton royalists loyalists versus Cromwell Trump?

I think that the Saker goes over top on this but a lot of people don't. He is hardly original in his analysis.

The takeaway is that the US is passing the point of political differences to division. This probably has not been this extreme since the lead up to the Civil War.

The Unz Review
A “Color Revolution” Is Under Way in the United States
The Saker

Andrew Korybko — The US-Saudi Plan To Prompt An Iranian Pullback From Syria

The US and Saudi Arabia have been conspiring with one another to engineer a series of crises that could prompt Iran to pull back its troops in Syria and redeploy them back to the homeland. The modus operandi has been to encourage peripheral insurgencies inside the Islamic Republic’s borderland regions concurrent with a terrorist threat to the interior, all while stirring up Color Revolution commotion. In short, Washington and Riyadh are working hard to wage a multidimensional Hybrid War on Iran, and all indications point to each respective component of this campaign intensifying in the coming months as the US turns up the heat against its decades-long Mideast rival.…

Destabilization as a favorite US strategy. Using Wahhabi and Salafi proxies is an integral part of it.

Katehon
The US-Saudi Plan To Prompt An Iranian Pullback From Syria
Andrew Korybko

Vladimir Platov — Armenia is Swarmed by Western NGOs

The tactics of employing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the preparation of so-called “color revolutions” in North Africa, the Middle East and a number of former Soviet states has been the modus operandi of the US and its satellites, which have been thoroughly discussed in various NEO articles.

It’s curious that these NGOs who are heavily sponsored by Washington choose to act precisely in those moments when a specific state begins resisting pressure applied on it by the so-called Western World. This resistance often is manifested as a reluctance to support certain projects that were put forward by Washington.

If we are to talk about post-Soviet regions, all Western NGOs, and American ones in particular, have been particularly active in Central Asian and Caucasus states over recent years in a bid to launch “color revolutions” across the majority of them.

Western NGOs have been particularly active in Armenia recently, which remains Russia’s most faithful ally in the Caucasus region. In an effort to repeat a Ukrainian-style scenario in Armenia and to force this country away from Russia, these Western-backed organizations have been trying to use any minor concern among the civilian population to provoke demonstrations and unrest, taking advantage of the huge funds they have been receiving.…

It's called subversion and it is a hostile act. That's why it is called hybrid warfare.

This is an aspect of liberalization in neoliberalism as the part of the trifecta of liberalization, deregulation and privatization used to impose transnational global capitalism under the control of the American Empire. Because freedom and democracy.

Platov does have an overactive imagination through, so read with a grain of salt.

NEO

Armenia is Swarmed by Western NGOs
Vladimir Platov

Nadia Prupis — Evo Morales: Latin America Must Fight US Coups with 'Democratic Revolution'

Bolivian President Evo Morales called on leftist governments in South America to counter U.S. plans to control the region with a "democratic revolution."

"In some countries it should be like a wake-up call where [governments] must start permanent conferences to relaunch democratic and cultural revolutions for Latin America and the Caribbean [region]," Morales said during an interview in Cuba on Monday night with the program Cubavisión, according to TeleSUR.

"It is the plan of the American empire that wants to regain control of Latin America and the Caribbean, and especially in South America, and there surely is an ambition to establish a United States presence in these countries and recover subservient governments as a model, as a system," he continued.…

"When the right wing returns to power they will remove the socialist benefits and shrink the state, which will generate a reaction," he said.

Common Dreams
Evo Morales: Latin America Must Fight US Coups with 'Democratic Revolution'
Nadia Prupis

Pedro Marin — Coup in Brazil: the International Connection

Auditoriums filled to the last seat, sound trucks, offices. Organizations such as the Millenium Institute, Free Brazil Movement (MLB), the Liberal Institute, the Ludwig Von Mises Institute – Brazil – and Students for Liberty Brazil as if by magic emerged in Brazil’s political scenario, publishing books and organizing demonstrations with huge structures, as well as giving training and lectures – a process that found a fertile breeding ground in the country, due to the global crisis and the Lava Jato operation.

But despite the attempts by its founders and by part of the media to paint the projects they promote as something “for Brazil”, originated by the Brazilian people and “spontaneous”, all these organizations are funded and trained from abroad, as Marina Amaral reported in an article for Agência Publica, showing how a network of NGOs promote leadership training and fund “intellectuals” in order to build consensus as well as movements to put the streets on fire.  Among such organizations present in Latin America is the Atlas Network.

Founded in 1981 with the goal of “promoting free market economic policies around the World”, Atlas is a think-tank that openly funds right-wing activities in more than 90 countries.  With an annual budget of U$ 11,5 Million, it acts by funding and shaping neoliberal figures.  As U.S. legislation prohibits such organizations from funding political agitation around the world, each movement is supported by “formation institutes”, which  are free to receive funds.  That’s the relationship between the education center Students for Liberty (EPL) with the professional activism of the Free Brazil Movement, for instance. EPL’s budget this year amounted to R$ 300,000 (about $ 85,000). “In the first year we have about R$ 8,000, in the second year we had about R$ 20,000, and in 2014 and 2015 it grew a lot. We receive money from foreign organizations as well, such as Atlas. Atlas, with Students for Liberty, are our main donors. In Brazil, the main organizations are Friderich Naumann, a German organization, which aren’t allowed to donate money, but they pay for our expenses”, said Juliano Torres, executive directors of the Brazilian branch of Students For Liberty.

In Ukraine – where there was a coup d’etat against elected President Viktor Yanukovich in 2014 – Atlas funded the Bendukidze Free Market Center and the Center for Social and Economic Research. The first one has members such as the former President of Georgia and current governor of Odessa, Mikheil Saakashvili, and Deputy head of the (post coup) presidential Administration of Ukraine, Alexander Danyluk. The former is also funded by Open Society Foundation, of known speculator and color revolutions’ man, George Soros, and has among their partners government agencies from Ukraine, Canada, England, as well as USAID (U.S.A) and the World Bank.

In 2014, Atlas Network gave about $ 4,5 million to various organizations around the World. In Latin America alone they gave $ 984,000 to organizations that follow the teachings of Milton Friedman, Hayek and Mises, and target the progressive governments of the region. That’s the case of Cedice Libertad, in Venezuela, and of organizations such as the U.S based Human Rights Foundation, created by Venezuelan Thor Halvorssen, Leopoldo López’ cousin and son of an ambassador of Andrés Pérez’ government, which target non-aligned governments of Venezuela, Cuba and Russia, and which became known in 2015 for creating an online campaign to push propaganda into North Korea’s territory.

But Atlas itself is also funded by various corporations and foundations. Companies such as Google, Exxon Mobil and organizations such as DonorsTrust [1], State Policy Network – created by businessman and Ronald Reagan’s adviser Tom Roe – and Charles G. Koch Foundation, linked to the known Koch Industries, are only some of the names that helped Atlas to donate more than U.S.$ 4 million around the world.

A Color Revolution in Brazil?…

Follow the money. Cui bono?

OffGuardian
Coup in Brazil: the International Connection
Pedro Marin | OutrasPalavras

Rostislav Ishchenko — Nine theses about the war we [Russia] are engaged in

Backgrounder on color revolution in hybrid warfare.

The Vineyard of the Saker

Nine theses about the war we are engaged in
Rostislav Ishchenko, eNews (original in Russian)
Translated by Seva

Jeff Brown — Baba Beijing lowers the communist boom on foreign NGOs

Last year, I reported about the draft law proposed during the National People’s Congress (NPC), March 2015, to govern the activities of foreign NGOs (FNGOs) in China. Every law proposed in China is published for public comments, from both Chinese citizens and outsiders. This proposed FNGO law created such a hue and cry among Western governments and agencies, bordering on apoplexy, that the NPC tabled it for further review and consultation. China’s law was largely based on Russia’s FNGO law passed previously, and which was also largely adopted by India.

In the interim, China’s NPC passed a comprehensive update to its National Security Law, which has many common features with the FNGO legislation.

A year later, it’s official. On April 28th, China’s new “Management of Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations”, was signed into law by the NPC Standing Committee.…

Turning up the heat on foreign NGOs operating in the PRC in order to foil attempts at color revolution. Russia and India have taken similar steps.

China Rising
Baba Beijing lowers the communist boom on foreign NGOs-China Rising Radio Sinoland 16.4.30

Jeff Brown

See also

Legally India
China learns from India, passes law to restrict foreign NGOs
Gaurav Sharma, IANS

World Politics Review (May 18, 2015)
Foreign NGOs Hamstrung by Indian Funding Regulations

Of course, the US also has laws against subversion and requires registration for foreign agents.

There is also a push on to push out PRC-sponsored US branches of the Confucius Institute, which teach Chinese language and culture in US universities.

Lawmakers are investigating whether academic freedom is being threatened at universities building campuses in China and partnering with the Chinese on "Confucius institutes" in the U.S.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chairman of a House subcommittee focusing on human rights, said at a hearing before the panel Thursday that he will seek a Governmental Accountability Office study of agreements between U.S. universities and China that allow China to promote its culture and language here through education programs it supervises and finances.

Smith said Congress could decide to withhold money for the Education Department or for State Department exchange programs if it decides the Chinese-sponsored efforts are compromising academic freedoms in the U.S.

"I think we can all agree that U.S. colleges and universities should not be outsourcing academic control, faculty and student oversight or curriculum to a foreign government — in this case a dictatorship," said Smith, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations.

USA Today (December 4, 2014)
House panel investigates 'Confucius institutes'
Nicole Gaudiano, USA TODAY

Eric Draitser — China’s NGO Law: Countering Western Soft Power and Subversion

China has recently taken an important step in more tightly regulating foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) inside the country. Despite condemnation from so called human rights groups in the West, China’s move should be understood as a critical decision to assert sovereignty over its own political space. Naturally, the shrill cries of “repression” and “hostility toward civil society” from western NGOs have done little to shake the resolve of Beijing as the government has recognized the critical importance of cutting off all avenues for political and social destabilization.

The predictable argument, once again being made against China’s Overseas NGO Management Law, is that it is a restriction on freedom of association and expression, and a means of stifling the burgeoning civil society sector in China. The NGO advocates portray this proposed legislation as another example of the violation of human rights in China, and further evidence of Beijing’s lack of commitment to them. They posit that China is moving to further entrench an authoritarian government by closing off the democratic space which has emerged in recent years.

However, amid all the hand-wringing about human rights and democracy, what is conveniently left out of the narrative is the simple fact that foreign NGOs, and domestic ones funded by foreign money, are, to a large extent, agents of foreign interests, and are quite used as soft power weapons for destabilization. And this is no mere conspiracy theory as the documented record of the role of NGOs in recent political unrest in China is voluminous. It would not be a stretch to say that Beijing has finally recognized, just as Russia has before it, that in order to maintain political stability and true sovereignty, it must be able to control the civil society space otherwise manipulated by the US and its allies.

New Eastern Outlook
China’s NGO Law: Countering Western Soft Power and Subversion
Eric Draitser

Mike Wheatley — Defence Ministry to Take Steps to Prevent Color Revolution in Russia

Russia’s Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu said at the Army 2015 forum the military will conduct research to prevent the recurrence of of a “color revolution” in Russia, or events similar to what occured between 1991 and 1993

Russia Insider
Defence Ministry to Take Steps to Prevent Color Revolution in Russia
Mike Wheatley

Alexrpt — Ukraine all over again! European Commission orders Skopje government to reform or else no EU membership

Color revolution being engineered in Macedonia, coincidently? through which Turk Stream would run to reach Greece. Alexrpt shows the parallel propaganda with the run up to the Ukraine. Only the names of the the country are changed.

Red Pill Times
Ukraine all over again! European Commission orders Skopje government to reform or else no EU membership
Alexrpt

See also

That would be democratically elected PM.

Sputnik
EU Calls for Regime Change in Macedonia, Current PM Determined to Stay

Liberalism being used as a cover for transnational corporatism and neoliberal globalization.

South China Morning Post — People's Daily warns against colour revolutions, blames 'spread of Western ideology'

People’s Daily has launched an assault on colour revolutions, saying the movements are a byproduct of the United States spreading its ideology.

The Communist Party’s mouthpiece yesterday filled its page five with five articles written by scholars exploring the roots of colour revolutions, their negative impacts, and how China might learn from the experience of those nations affected....

Zhang Zhizhou, professor of International Relations at Beijing Foreign Studies University, wrote that colour revolutions were an “aftershock” that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. He said blindly introducing Western social reforms led only to chaos.
“There should be exploration of one’s own path and model instead of following the ‘superstition of Western institutions’,” Zhang wrote.

Other articles warned of “a high price to pay for nations that fall into the trap of colour revolutions” and described the movements as “enemies of national security” and “a source of rioting”....

Russia, China and India have all passed laws strictly regulating foreign-funded NGOs.

South China Morning Post
People's Daily warns against colour revolutions, blames 'spread of Western ideology'
Mimi Lau
ht Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism

Regnum — US State Department attacks the St. George ribbon in Kazakhstahn and other former Soviet republics

This may look like a tempest in a tea pot, but it is not isolated. Rather, it is occurring throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the countries that were part of the former USSR, that is, the countries surrounding Russia. Moreover, there is evidence being brought forward that the US State Department and NGOs are involved.

So what. Isn't is a good idea to promote "freedom"?

The issue here is perceptions, whether true or not. The perception is that the US is attempting historical revisionism, equating Soviet Communism with German Nazism and denying the enormous role played by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazism, as well as minimizing the sacrifices its people made, in containing the Nazi advance and reversing it, driving to the Elbe.

This may seem like a slight at most to many Americans, for whom WWII is generations removed and all but forgotten. However, it is still present to many people in these countries, who have far from forgotten and are alarmed at what they see as a resurgence of the enemy.

These people see current events as a resurgence of Nazism, on one hand. On the other, they view the alliance of the US with ultra-nationalists for control over the region as especially alarming. In other words, this looks to them like deja vu.

Americans may dismiss this imaginative paranoia, but anyone familiar with geopolitics, geostrategy, foreign policy, and hybrid warfare, not to mention the history of US operations in places like Latin America, can understand their concerns.

For example, the US leadership denies it but it's pretty transparent that the US would like to see Putin replace with a different regime. The problem with this is that the liberals that the US would like to see in power in Russia are a minuscule faction and the dominant faction is one that sees the world in terms set forth above. Putin is doing his best to keep the lid on them, but if the Putin regime would become destabilized, these are the people that most likely would assume power.

The perception is that American "exceptionalism" is a simply a modified version of Nazi superiority, especially given the degree of US militarism. The attempt to revise history is tantamount to denying the Holocaust. Many, many more people were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators than Jews.

Failure to understand this is extremely dangerous for the West. It's not possible that the American and British leadership doesn't understand it, and certainly the European leadership does. It is also evident to a lot of people in Europe.  But most Americans don't get it — they are not only not told but told the opposite —and they are therefore unaware that the world is becoming a much more dangerous place day by day.

Fort Russ
US State Department attacks the St. George ribbon in Kazakhstahn and other former Soviet republics

Regnum
Translated by Kristina Rus

See also

Reveals the total disconnect between the US and Russian views, and portrays the Russian view as imaginative and exaggerated, ignoring the implications.

Definitely worth a read.

Vox
"America has a simple ideology": how one of Russia's top US experts tries to explain America

Max Fisher

More disconnect.

Mr. Putin’s remarks reflect a deep-seated paranoia. It would be easy to dismiss this kind of rhetoric as intended for domestic consumption, an attempt to whip up support for his war adventure in Ukraine. In part, it is that. But Mr. Putin’s assertion that the West has been acting out of a desire to sunder Russia’s power and influence is a willful untruth.

The Washington Post
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. tried to help Russians
Editorial Board

Western leaders are staying away from this year’s Victory Day, which mourns the loss of 20 million Russians who died to defeat Nazi Germany

The Independent (UK)

Once again, the West fails to understand Russia

Mary Dejevsky

Putin forthright.

Sputnik
Putin: ‘Cynical Attempts to Whitewash Nazism, Militarism Unacceptable’

Christoph Germann — 150 Tons of US "Diplomatic Mail" Stirs Kyrgyzstan

The US previously sent color revolution expert Richard Miles to Kyrgyzstan. Some people there are getting nervous about a manufactured coup.

Russia Insider
150 Tons of US "Diplomatic Mail" Stirs Kyrgyzstan
Christoph Germann