The Obama administration on Friday formally removed Cuba from a U.S. terrorism blacklist as part of the process of normalizing relations between the Cold War foes.

Secretary of State John Kerry signed off on rescinding Cuba's "state sponsor of terrorism" designation exactly 45 days after the Obama administration informed Congress of its intent to do so on April 14. Lawmakers had that amount of time to weigh in and try to block the move, but did not do so.

For most consumers of alternative news and media, the lineup of the players constitutes the tyrants and their systemic control, and the enlightened underground, with both sides fighting the great battle of winning the hearts and minds of the rest of the public.

For the alternative news and information community, the possibility of large-scale psychological operations within alternative media itself are generally outside the spectrum of the possible.

Indeed, crowds today are sill cheering on Assange and his Vaudeville Whistleblower Roadshow with Bradley-Chelsea Manning, and more recently, finding themselves intellectually snowed-in by our last hero, Snowden.

Enter Jade Helm...

Jade Helm 15

In 2015, the focal point has become the Jade Helm 15 training operation across at least 7 states, with SOCOM running the training exercise for realistic military training. The brief document lists role-playing involving Texas and Utah as "hostile" areas, with insurgents in Southern California and other states like Colorado, California and Nevada as "friendly."

On the surface, the exercise gives credence to the ultimate fears and paranoia of tea party and militia groups - clearly the U.S. government is prepping for everything from "martial law," to "economic collapse," and everything else under the sun that can be gleaned from a Google search and baseless YouTube speculation.

Everyone, from political pundits in Washington to the Pope in Rome, including most journalists in the mass media and in the alternative press, have focused on the US moves toward ending the economic blockade of Cuba and gradually opening diplomatic relations. Talk is rife of a 'major shift' in US policy toward Latin America with the emphasis on diplomacy and reconciliation. Even most progressive writers and journals have ceased writing about US imperialism.

However, there is mounting evidence that Washington's negotiations with Cuba are merely one part of a two-track policy. There is clearly a major US build-up in Latin America, with increasing reliance on 'military platforms', designed to launch direct military interventions in strategic countries.

Moreover, US policymakers are actively involved in promoting 'client' opposition parties, movements and personalities to destabilize independent governments and are intent on re-imposing US domination.

In this essay we will start our discussion with the origins and unfolding of this 'two track' policy, its current manifestations, and projections into the future. We will conclude by evaluating the possibilities of re-establishing US imperial domination in the region.

Origins of the Two Track Policy

Washington's pursuit of a 'two-track policy', based on combining 'reformist policies' toward some political formations, while working to overthrow other regimes and movements by force and military intervention, was practiced by the early Kennedy Administration following the Cuban revolution. Kennedy announced a vast new economic program of aid, loans and investments - dubbed the 'Alliance for Progress' - to promote development and social reform in Latin American countries willing to align with the US. At the same time the Kennedy regime escalated US military aid and joint exercises in the region. Kennedy sponsored a large contingent of Special Forces - 'Green Berets' - to engage in counter-insurgency warfare. The 'Alliance for Progress' was designed to counter the mass appeal of the social-revolutionary changes underway in Cuba with its own program of 'social reform'. While Kennedy promoted watered-down reforms in Latin America, he launched the 'secret' CIA ('Bay of Pigs') invasion of Cuba in 1961and naval blockade in 1962 (the so-called 'missile crises'). The two-track policy ended up sacrificing social reforms and strengthening military repression. By the mid-1970's the 'two-tracks' became one - force. The US invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965. It backed a series of military coups throughout the region, effectively isolating Cuba. As a result, Latin America's labor force experienced nearly a quarter century of declining living standards.

Al-Nusra Front has taken to the airwaves with a message for all Westerners and Americans in particular - they really aren't that bad. And there are no plans to attack Americans. They are just your friendly neighborhood terrorist organization, funded handsomely by the West and the GCC, raping and beheading their way across the Middle East. There's nothing to worry about so long as the US allows them to continue to rape little girls, cut off heads, impose savage Sharia law, and eat the hearts and livers of the occasional dissident.

This message was brought to you by the feudal monarchy of Qatar and its mouthpiece organization, Al-Jazeera and conducted with a journalist whose past is checkered with a conviction of supporting al-Qaeda.

The alleged leader of al-Nusra Front, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, appeared on al-Jazeera with a setting fit for a king (or Emir *ahem*) to discuss Nusra's plans for Syria and the West. The man alleging to be Julani and alleging to be the leader of Nusra, despite claiming to be "fearless," sat with his face covered and his back to the camera. The set was ornately decorated and almost appeared to be some type of palace room or high government building.

The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and Vietnam have signed a free trade zone agreement. It became the first international document on creating a free trade zone between the EEU and a third party.

The prime ministers of Russia and Vietnam Dmitry Medvedev and Nguyen Tan Dunghave also signed an agreement for Vietnam to provide Russian investors and service distributors with the most favorable treatment.

The EEU will sign free trade zone agreements with other countries, Medvedev said after signing the agreement with Vietnam.

"Around 40 states have opted for holding talks on concluding this kind of agreements on a free trade zone with EEU, and of course we will be thinking this through as carefully as possible, so that those agreements are useful to our countries," Medvedev said.

Iraqi army forces backed by fighters from the Popular Mobilization units have engaged Islamic State militants in the country's western province of Anbar, killing more than three dozen of them in the process. A provincial security sources report 37 ISIS militants were killed as Iraqi forces struck their positions in the district of al-Harariyat as well as the city of Fallujah, located roughly 69 kilometers west of the capital Baghdad. Earlier, On April 11, Islamic State executed four of its own senior commanders in Iraq's northern province of Salahuddin on the grounds that they had fled clashes with Iraqi government forces.

Following his resignation as Middle East peace envoy, former Prime Minister Tony Blair is planning to take up the mantle of unofficial liaison point between Israel and the Arab world, aides have said.

His resignation was revealed on Tuesday, before he officially sent his formal letter of notice to the UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon.

The former prime minister served as a peace envoy for the Quartet Group, made up of the UN, the US, the EU and Russia, for eight years.

Further cuts to the UK defense budget will begin to impact on Britain's operational capacity, critics argue, as Chancellor George Osborne presses ahead with military austerity measures worth £1 billion.

British military spending in 2012: $62.7bn
British military spending in 2014: $57bn

BBC.com, February 5, 2014
It says that while it is true that the UK has been cutting its defense spending levels, this fall to fifth place is partly due to exchange rate effects: if sterling-dollar exchange rates from last week were applied to UK defense spending levels instead, these would rise from $57bn to $61.1bn in US dollar terms, above Saudi Arabia and into fourth place.

Even without the exchange-rate effect, IISS analyst Giri Rajendran notes, the fall in the UK's ranking [military spending] is not nearly as significant as it might first appear.

When the UK was third, in 2012, it was only spending about 1.5% more than Russia in US dollar terms, meaning that a relatively minor currency depreciation or decline in spending levels would produce a fall in its ranking.

In January 2014 British Prime Minister David Cameron was championing Britain's defense budget as still the fourth largest in the world, so maybe he was right after all.

The move could also end Britain's ability to meet the symbolic contribution of two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to NATO - a topic of fierce debate in the run-up to the recent general election. The Treasury has requested the Ministry of Defense (MoD) make cuts of £1 billion. One ministry insider warned the Times newspaper that defense austerity, applied to this extent, would "not be a thing you could just swallow and carry on."

In a statement, an MoD spokesperson said: "We are confident that we will spend two percent of GDP on defense in this financial year. "The prime minister has also made clear that there will be an annual 1 percent real-terms increase in spending on defense equipment throughout this parliament." Some experts suggest savings could be made by delaying the bringing into service of certain equipment, like the controversial and long delayed F-35 Typhoon combat aircraft.

Federal officials have indicted former House Speaker Dennis Hastert for lying to the FBI about $3.5 million he agreed to pay to an undisclosed subject to "cover up past misconduct."

The indictment was unsealed in the District Court of Northern Illinois on Thursday. The Justice Department alleges that Hastert made large withdrawals after agreeing to pay the money.

The indictment does not explain precisely what the "past misconduct" is, but instead details at length various withdrawals and financial transactions he made with the unidentified subject. The payments totaling about $1.7 million occurred over a period of years beginning in 2010 and ending in 2014.

The good ol' US of A is at it again. Fighting injustice, dispensing truth, kickin' corrupt corporate butt and taking names. No evil-doers are safe, not even outfits that most people in the US Justice Dept. have probably never heard of, like FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football.

If, like most of the rest of the world, you think that this 'scandal' has anything to do with the US government's desire to see justice served, then I have a chemical weapon storage facility in Syria to sell you. This 'scandal' is nothing more than a bare-faced and embarrassingly pathetic attempt by the US empire-builders to prevent Russia from hosting the 2018 soccer world cup. Like a petulant, spoiled child that has been told 'no', this is the US government's version of throwing a tantrum and screaming "I HATE YOU!"

The official story is that, over the course of several years from the 1990s, the 14 indicted officials had accepted bribes for voting to award FIFA events to particular countries, primarily Qatar, South Africa, and various Latin American nations. But these days, no US government-inspired 'scandal' is worth promoting if it doesn't target Russia, the American empire's favorite whipping boy.

Russia was awarded the 2018 World Cup in 2010, at a time when the US government still thought it could 'contain' Russia. With last year's events in Ukraine however, all bets were off and Putin's Russia leaped to an all time high in the league table of states in need of 'regime change'. So while there is no doubt that FIFA is as perfidious as any other global corporation, there is obviously more to this situation than mere bribery.

So given that corruption within FIFA has been an open secret for years, the question becomes, why now? FIFA is scheduled to elect its next president today, with the incumbent Sepp Blatter, who is up for reelection, viewed as a pro-Russian because he presided over the awarding of the 2018 games to Russia. Blatter's opponent is vice president Prince Ali of Jordan, Jordan being a US client state that has been used as a staging ground for Western-backed 'Syrian rebels' (aka ISIS) to attack Syria. Coincidentally (or NOT!) just one day before the US DOJ indictments, US Senators John McCain and Robert Menendez sent a letter to the FIFA congress urging it to remove Russia as the host country for 2018. Their schizoidal rationale was that: "allowing Russia to host the World Cup would bolster the Putin regime at a time when it should be condemned".

Now, isn't it 'funny' that the world's pre-eminent financiers and supporters of terrorism and brutal dictators have the cojones to call the Russian government a "regime"? Isn't it a hoot that the same global mafia bosses who orchestrated the overthrow of the Ukrainian government last year and ushered in a civil war that has cost the lives of at least 5,000 civilians have the effrontery to accuse Russia of "violations of Ukraine's territorial integrity"? But the hypocrisy doesn't end there. The two signatories to the above letter are far from squeaky clean. McCain is an ardent supporter of Muslim terrorists who has spent the last 4 years loudly advocating for US tax payers' money to be sent to 'Syrian rebels' aka 'ISIS'. In April this year, Menedez was indicted by the same US DOJ on corruption charges for using his Senate office to push the business interests of a friend in exchange for cash and gifts.

Another detail in the background here is the fact that FIFA was considering suspending Israel due to their treatment of Palestinian footballers. The 'scandal' has proven so glaringly 'fortuitous' for Israel that even the Times of Israel had to call it out and admit that the distraction of the 'scandal' will leave the Palestinian authority's attempt to have Israel banned dead in the water.

But take a moment to fully grasp the extent of the desperation of the Anglo-American empire builders in their attempt to vilify Russia. The very idea that Russia might enjoy the positive propaganda of hosting the 2018 World Cup caused such fulminous frothing of the mouth at the US State Dept. that the organisation that had awarded the games to Russia had to be taken down, including its president.