1
Latin American Publications!
123 readers
98 users here now
A community for Latin American publications.
NOTE: All the publications in this feed are Latin American in origin; that does not mean they only report on Latin American news.
founded 3 months ago
MODERATORS
2
3
4
5
6
1
Minneapolis General Strike: Working Class Takes Step Into Revolutionary Future
(orinocotribune.com)
By Larry Holmes – Feb 13, 2026
The general strike in Minneapolis on Jan. 23 that shut the city down and catapulted forward the general strike movement that has been stirring below for some time may turn out to be the biggest step forward that the working class has taken in our lifetime. It is a sign that the virtual frozen iceberg that has slowed the development of the working class for too long is thawing.
After the Minneapolis strike, thousands of people across the country, especially students, joined a call for a national general strike, but that was only a preview of what’s coming.
Groups including labor unions, migrant solidarity forces and antiwar activists are calling for a general strike on May Day 2026. In the recent past, there have been calls for general strikes on May Day, but until now, they’ve been symbolic or not taken seriously. Some activists have been talking about and planning for a general strike for many months. They see Minneapolis as proof that they are on the right track.
Boston, Jan. 30, 2026. Photo: Stevan Kirschbaum/WW.
Some major unions have targeted May Day 2028 for a major labor general strike, when a number of big labor contracts expire. It seems that workers are not willing to wait two years.
The Minneapolis general strike, which was also called an economic blackout, was in response to the violent and murderous occupation of the city by thousands of storm troopers under the direct control of the White House. It is significant that the last general strike in this country — 20 years ago May Day 2006 involving millions of migrant workers across the country called “A day without immigrants” — was also in response to repression against migrant workers.
Police state repression provoked the working-class strike in Minneapolis. But the underlying causes of the strike go beyond state repression and have been long in the making. The deeper context for what happened in Minneapolis is the unprecedented crisis of U.S. imperialism and the capitalist system. It is this crisis that is behind the emergence of Donald Trump and everything that he and the billionaires who back him have been doing or trying to do here and around the world in order to save U.S. imperialism.
The working class is now in the process of rediscovering the weapon of the general strike out of a realization that marches, protests and bourgeois elections are not enough and relying on a bourgeois opposition to Trump to stop the attacks are ineffective. Workers are starting to understand that fighting and smashing the danger of fascism is a class struggle and ultimately a struggle to end the capitalist system.
Accordingly, the working class needs far more powerful weapons in their arsenal, like the general strike. Big Bill Haywood, the leader of the Industrial Workers of the World at the peak of its strength and influence in the working class, predicted that “the general strike is the measure by which the capitalistic system will be overthrown.” The bourgeois opposition to Trump will try to stop the general strike movement, or co-opt it, tame it and extinguish its militancy, its class character and its radical and revolutionary potential. They will try to bring it back under the control of the capitalist ruling class.
However, the growing anger below will not make this easy for them to do, and revolutionary forces should understand this, unite and by doing so, make it that much harder for the ruling class to subordinate the working class to its class interest.
All over the country, there’s been militant mass opposition to the war against migrant workers, people of color and all of those who have risen to their defense. Minneapolis has opened up a new phase of the resistance, but it is just a beginning. Minneapolis has pushed the Trump regime back and widened the cracks in Trump’s ruling-class support. But this new phase has not stopped repression and war. Indeed, the war at home and abroad is going to intensify.
A decaying, dying systemBecause of a dying capitalist system and an imploding and desperate U.S. imperialist empire that is still powerful and dangerous, the world is descending deeper and deeper into a catastrophic crisis under the threat of the U.S. launching more economic and military wars. The next eruption is not coming later; it is in progress right now.
Will an imperialist war be launched against Iran? How far will the imperialists go to try to overthrow the Cuban revolution? Will Trump invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and try to cancel the midterm bourgeois elections? At a minimum, he’s already trying to disrupt them. Will the capitalist economic crisis collapse the economy? Will the imperialist war drive spiral into a civilization-threatening global war?
Already, the majority of the working class cannot afford the basic necessities of survival. The magnitude of the economic crisis that is looming will be far bigger than 2008 and push the conditions of the working class beyond the breaking point. The reason for pointing this out is not to spread fear and demoralization. To the contrary, it is to illustrate the necessity of the working-class and revolutionary forces to prepare for a wider and bigger class struggle, including a struggle for power.
The general strike is not new; it has been part of the development of the working class for almost 200 years. In the past, throughout the world, especially where the working class movements were strong, revolutionaries have analyzed and debated every aspect of the general strike and every experience with it. Every question raised by the general strike — from what it is, the conditions for it, what its aims are, how it should be organized and how the working class prepares for it — has been studied.
The rich history of the general strike is important. At this moment, the fundamental goals of a new general strike movement in the U.S. must be viewed in the context of the present situation of the working class, its level of political and class consciousness, organization and experience. This can’t be done by proceeding as if there are no important differences in the situation of the working class in other places and other periods compared to today.
Today in the U.S., from the perspective of a united class struggle against the capitalist class, the working class is only finally awakening. After a long period of being weak organizationally and also tied to the political apparatus of the bourgeoisie, the working class’s priority is acquiring — based on conditions and experience – its identity as a class unto itself and the capacity to act as such transcending all geographical or circumstantial boundaries.
This basic goal is not separate from all other goals, but it is nonetheless a critical goal at this moment, because the ruling class has historically waged an effective war against class consciousness.
Especially now, because of the unprecedented and generalized nature of the crisis, the capitalist class is absolutely dependent on dividing the working class, turning workers against each other, primarily on the basis of white supremacy. The ruling class cannot rule without this weapon. Nothing is more important for the development of the working class right now than overcoming this divide-and-conquer weapon of the enemy class.
The Trump regime and the ruling class want to derail and crush the development of the class struggle by diverting it into a civil war against workers of color based on maintenance of white supremacy.
A class warWe are in a sense back to the basics of class consciousness, class solidarity and united class action 101. This is the only way that the true character of the struggle can be understood and acted upon. This is a struggle between classes. The realization of this in the living struggle is precisely what the ruling class fears more than anything else. A general strike movement has to be more than about a particular strike but rather a deep political and social process of education, learning from experience and moving to the next battle. Minneapolis has opened the door to this realization.
Minneapolis has given us the template for a workers’ general strike that fits present conditions. The strike was not called by or organized by labor unions, although many unions supported it, and union and unorganized workers found creative ways to leave work and participate in the strike. The success of the strike was due to workers and students regardless of union affiliation or circumstances. Most businesses of all sizes were either convinced or pressured to close.
In a way, the Minneapolis general strike succeeded, without knowing it, on the basis of the advice that the great revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg offered to the working-class movement 120 years ago in her pamphlet “The Mass Strike.”
Luxemburg wrote, “The plan of undertaking mass strikes as a serious political class action with organised workers only is absolutely hopeless.” She continued, “If the mass strike, or rather, mass strikes, and the mass struggle are to be successful they must become a real people’s movement, that is, the widest sections of the proletariat must be drawn into the fight.”
It is essential that a political and mass strategy that involves organized and unorganized workers be strengthened to push the leadership of the labor movement into supporting general strikes. Much, much more must be considered, organized and implemented towards this end.
Preparation for general strikeThere is a critical role for young militants, many of whom were drawn into the struggle for almost three years in solidarity with Palestine, to play in the general strike movement. Many of these activists have already been establishing a widening network of community organization with no dependence or control by the capitalist government or its apparatuses.
This grassroots, working-class, community organizing includes defense of migrant workers, anti-police violence, tenant organizing, mutual aid, anti-imperialism and solidarity with revolutionary resistance to the U.S. throughout the Global South. This could be part of a critical mass infrastructure of preparing for a general strike. That preparation would of necessity include mass, popular education upholding the reasons for classwide solidarity and mass action.
Italian dockworkers stop armed shipments to Zionist Israel, Aug. 4, 2025. Photo: Unione Sindacale di Base.
On numerous occasions since Oct. 7, 2023, the Palestinian liberation movement has called for worldwide solidarity general strikes. On Feb. 6 and 7 of this year, dockworkers in a number of countries shut down docks to stop the shipping of weapons to Israel. But this is only the beginning of realizing the potential for more massive, global workers’ strikes against occupation and imperialist war.
Here. at the center of world imperialism, the most politically advanced forces — and our numbers are growing — must view making a general strike movement, or any other expression of the class struggle at home, intrinsically connected to the struggle of workers of the world, and in particular the liberation movements in the Global South. And this needs to be more than symbolic, but rather politically strategic, because it’s more than solidarity; it is the only way our class can prevail worldwide.
There can be no denying, and no tolerance for the denial, that more than ever the class struggle is global. This fact is more than a theoretical principle or a future aspiration. This is a practical and immediate reality. The class struggle everywhere is interconnected, interactive and interdependent. To proceed in our work as though it is otherwise weakens our class and helps the class enemy.
All of these things and more can be accomplished, but only if going forward there is forged a level of unity among like-minded revolutionaries that corresponds to the world crisis and the urgent needs that this has crystallized for the world class struggle.
Larry Holmes is Workers World Party’s First Secretary.
From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.
7
1
Laura Dogu and Washington’s Regime Change Playbook: Nicaragua, Honduras, Venezuela
(orinocotribune.com)
8
9
By Jesús Arteaga – Feb 13, 2026
This article, originally published on the portal Cimarrón, was titled “Fulfilling Duty in the Storm.” Its author, journalist Jesús Arteaga, narrates his actions from the moment his sleep was interrupted by the sound of the explosions from the US imperialist bombing of Caracas on January 3, 2026.
I was awakened by the sound of explosions and the buzzing of planes. Immediately, at 1:57 a.m., I received a call from Miranda, my daughter: “Dad, they are bombing us.” She and Gabriela, her mother, knew what to do, which made me calm.
I looked out the window of my house that faces the center of Caracas: the night was clear, and the explosions of the missiles lit up the sky with red flashes. The roar was terrifying.
Miranda and Gabriela live in La Pastora, in a place with a view over much of the Caracas valley. With their binoculars, they were able to see the places the US was attacking. They gave me an excellent report, both acting with composure in difficult moments.
Miranda was in her mother’s womb in April 2002 [during the failed coup against Hugo Chávez]. Gabriela has some experience with such situations; she breathed in quite a bit of gas during our student days.
My brother Juan and I immediately went to Radio Rebelde. My sisters, distressed, stayed at home. Almost in unison, they told us, “Take care of yourselves.”
Jesús Arteaga, journalist and political activist.
We arrived at the radio station very quickly, immediately waking up Camacaro, a member of the Rebelde team who lives on the radio premises, and we started broadcasting at 2:15 a.m.
Juan, the operator, interrupted the music that was playing—I think it was Edgar Alexander—activated the speaker that can be heard in the nearby area, and started playing Alí Primera.
Once “América Latina obrera” started playing, I began: “People of the glorious west of Caracas, at this moment we are being attacked by US imperialism. It is time to honor the legacy of our liberators. Let us show them that we are the sons and daughters of Bolívar. Let us follow the example of Chávez and Guaicaipuro. No one surrenders here!”
I passed the charge to Camacaro, who, along with Juan, executed the plan that we had reviewed thoroughly: first, convey calm and rally the population; second, maintain the radio’s operability for as long as we could. The speeches gave way to the voice of Alí Primera and Commander Chávez. The listeners participated with their reports and questions.
There are threats that, even though they are obvious, many insist on not seeing, as a spell to prevent them from materializing.
At Radio Rebelde, we held several meetings to discuss the threat from the United States and what to do when the aggression would occur. Some producers did not participate because they were of the opinion that nothing would happen here, as if their wish could prevent the attack. Others were punctual and made their contributions, and a few were present when the time came.
I went out on my motorcycle to report on the situation in areas of Catia and to establish some contacts. The streets were deserted, of course, it was 2:00 in the morning.
The Bolivarian National Police (PNB) officers who were in Sucre Square stood firm, without hesitation.
We could hear the voices of some drunks who continued the New Year’s Eve party and seemed unaware of what was happening, sometimes muffled by the flying planes.
Carmelitas corner a little while after the bombing. Photo: Jesús Arteaga.
From the square, I made the first report that spread like wildfire. I sent a message to my comrade Gabriela—not Miranda’s mother, another Gabriela—she replied immediately, informing me that the enemy planes were still in full flight. She, too, was “fulfilling her duty in the storm.”
I continued to apply the protocol, I communicated with Toro, the person in charge of the Sucre parish, and went to the designated place. I immediately verified that the civic-military-police unity is no joke: women and men arrived and obediently followed the instructions.
The place of the gathering was illuminated by a beautiful, bright moon, which provided enough light to recognize some comrades. Among the people present at that place were several officers of the Bolivarian National Armed Force. They were in civilian clothes, but their stature and confident demeanor revealed that they were our soldiers.
“Coffee is ready!” A female voice could be heard saying. Women had prepared that elixir and were distributing it.
From Gramovén, I went out with Toro to tour several key points of Sucre parish. We arrived at Coopercentro, where the people were active, including my buddy Yovani. We also toured other areas of Catia, and the attitude of the organized groups was the same: an absolute willingness to defend the homeland.
We returned to the point of gathering, and people kept arriving.
Alcides, who was in Maracay and whom I woke up at 2:00 a.m. with the news of the bombing, called me to tell me that he had made a connection with a journalist from the New York Times. She had seen my first report made from the Catia square, and he asked if I wanted to speak to her. I said yes, that it was necessary to tell everyone what was happening, to inform the world about the US aggression and the determined attitude of our people. The journalist called me, and I told her the story. I do not know if they published anything.
While I was in Gramovén, my colleague Francisco Trías, a photographer, called me and sent some pictures of the city center. We agreed to meet at the corner of Santa Capilla, where José Valero and Luis Hugas were already. We were the only journalists at the scene. It was still dark, and people were already starting to arrive to support President Nicolás Maduro.
Francisco and I went out to explore Caracas. The rumor of the bombing of the Cuartel de la Montaña made us go up there, where we verified that the 4F monument was still standing and intact. Francisco took some photos, and I wrote another report.
At the roundabout of block 7, the people were ready for defense, and Ramón Padrón was there commanding a large group. We went down to the Coordination Committee, and its members, as always, were ready for battle.
From the 23 de Enero neighbourhood, we headed east, touring the strongholds of the opposition. Altamira Square was deserted. A couple of guys from the Chacao Police were watching us from the south sidewalk of Francisco de Miranda Avenue. We went down to the highway and passed in front of La Carlota, and we did not notice anything unusual. We were not able to see the attacked area.
We decided to go to El Valle. Everything was silent, and there were few people on the street. We noticed that there was no electricity service because the traffic lights were off. In front of the Pedro Emilio Coll high school, Nicolás Maduro’s supporters were beginning to gather.
We arrived at checkpoint number 3 of the Tiuna Fort. There were some people who wanted to return to their apartments; they had left their houses while the bombs were falling.
Checkpoint 3 of Tiuna Fort. Photo: Jesús Arteaga.
An Army officer told them that they could not go back, that they were in danger. However, he let a few in to retrieve documents and something to change into because they had escaped in their nightclothes.
Among those people, there was a very beautiful woman in her 40s, wearing a short, very pretty pajama set. I asked Frank: “Did you take a picture of the girl?” “Nooo Chu, how could you even think of that?” he responded. “Ahh, but you saw her.” “Of course I saw her!”
In contrast was a man of about 70 years, short and fat, he too had sensual clothing: worn-out boxers, a stretched undershirt that had been white in the past, and barefoot.
We returned to Santa Capilla. More people had arrived: there were representatives from the National Assembly, Mayor Carmen Meléndez, and PSUV leaders. That is where I found out, as Desiree Santos Amaral informed me, about the president’s kidnapping by the US.
Venezuela to Iran: The Fate of Our People is Not Determined by Bombs
In Santa Capilla, I did a live report for Radio Rebelde. I interviewed Councilor José Reyes and a National Assembly deputy whose name I forgot.
There was brother Matías, an Argentinian journalist who had made Venezuela his home, and Venezuela had made him its own. We gave each other a tight hug. Mati said to me, “I knew I would find you here, Chu.”
Matías and I decided to keep looking for news. We went to the [opposition] Copei party headquarters to get the opinion of its leaders. That was a bust.
I returned to 23 de Enero, and this time I was able to talk to Juan Contreras, the historical leader of the Simón Bolívar Coordination Committee. I asked him about his son, Freddy Sebastián, a brave kid who fights for his life every day. Then we exchanged information and said goodbye with a strong hug, knowing, without saying it, that we were risking our lives.
From 23 de Enero, Mati and I set off to meet with Toro. Now there were more people in our group. Wilfredo and Yaguaramay arrived there by car. From Gramovén, we left with clear instructions and everything else to exert absolute control over our territory.
Back at the radio station, Vicente and his partner Nena, both with military training in the Militia, were waiting for us, as well as Rondón, Nelson, Reyes, Maikel, and Marcos. Then Franki, Vicente’s brother, two “tenants” of the Citadel, Jhon and Evelio, and Matías joined us. With everyone, we organized the defense of the Citadel, then José Félix joined, who, along with Juan, Camacaro, and Rondón, kept the audience of Rebelde informed.
Several people arrived, including women who asked to be taught how to use weapons to defend their land, their neighborhood, and their children. Nena, who was the instructor, had to conduct several sessions of a rifle handling “workshop.” The will and conviction of our people were manifested with the same firmness as always.
Camacaro had been in charge of the “ranch” for months. We had stored some food, water, and, of course, more coffee—so necessary during the sleepless nights.
We managed to form a larger team than planned, and there was no shortage of timely midnight coffee, messages of support, commitment, and love for this homeland.
On Sunday, January 4, I received another call from Miranda: “Dad, where are you? We are at the march.” “I am on my way, daughter, wait for me, I am heading there now,” I told her. I arrived with my sister, Denis. It was my daughter calling me, and I could not let her down.
People march in Santa Capilla on January 4. Photo: Radio Rebelde.
Thus passed the first days after January 3 for this people who resist, who demand the liberation of their president and first lady, who support comrade Delcy Rodríguez as acting president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Many young people joined, in various ways, in the defense of the homeland. My daughter did it her way. I feel a deep pride in her. Gabriela and I had not worked in vain. Neither had Simón and Hugo.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.
10
11
12
13
14
2
Trump Confirms Future Venezuela Visit as US is Forced to Negotiate With Chavismo
(orinocotribune.com)
15
16
17
18
6
The US Military Aided Mass Child Rape in Afghanistan. Now Its Soldiers Are Committing This Crime at Fort Bragg
(orinocotribune.com)
By Alan MacLeod – Feb 9, 2026
There is an epidemic of child sex crimes in and around Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Since 2021, and the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, dozens of elite soldiers stationed at the military base have been convicted of raping children, distributing child pornography, and other similar offenses.
Many of these soldiers served in Afghanistan, where it is now acknowledged that the U.S. military aided their local allies in “bacha bazi” (boy play): the practice of kidnapping and keeping boys as sex slaves, large numbers of whom were enslaved on U.S. military compounds.
MintPress News explores this dark and deeply disturbing topic.
Unspeakable Crimes
In August 2023, Joshua Glardon – a first sergeant in the 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg – was sentenced to 76 years in prison, followed by lifetime supervised released, for the distribution of child pornography across the internet. An unnamed woman – his accomplice – was sentenced to 30 years in prison after she “confessed to allowing him to rape” her child.
Just two weeks later, Major Vincent Ramos was arrested at North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham International Airport on one count of statutory rape of a child younger than 15, seven counts of statutory sex offense with a child younger than 15, and two counts of indecent liberties with a child. A logistics officer based at Fort Bragg, he was later charged with two more counts of indecent liberties with a child.
And one month after that, in October 2023, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Stuart P. Kelly of the 82nd Airborne Division was sentenced to 16 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge after pleading guilty to raping and abusing a child under the age of 12. Kelly had made the child touch him and perform oral sex on camera.
Meanwhile, Staff Sergeant Carlos Castro Callejas was handed a 55-year jail term, a dishonorable discharge, and a demotion to the rank of private, after facing 13 charges of rape of a child under 12 years old.
All four of these men were not only based at Fort Bragg, but have served lengthy tours in Afghanistan. But they are merely the tip of a shockingly large iceberg of dozens of individuals from Fort Bragg who have been arrested on crimes related to abusing and trafficking minors.
According to investigative journalist Seth Harp, who uncovered a massive narcotics smuggling and distribution network run by elite military operators at the base in his book, “The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces,” there has been a tenfold increase in such cases since 2021 and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. But even more chilling is the choice of victims for these sexual predators; “I have not heard in years about one case of these special forces guys raping a woman. In the same time, I’ve heard about 15 cases of them raping children,” he told Abby Martin and Mike Prysner on the Empire Files podcast.
All this raises a plethora of serious questions about what is going on at the base, and what sort of dark and chilling secrets are being kept there.
“Laughing Off” Child Sexual Assault
A sprawling, city-sized base on the outskirts of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Fort Bragg is home to some 50,000 military personnel, making it one of the largest military installations anywhere in the world. It is home to many of the U.S.’ most elite organizations, including JSOC, Delta Force, the 3rd Special Forces Group, and the 82nd Airborne Division.
It also lies minutes away from I-95, the primary north-south interstate route on the American Eastern Seaboard. I-95 stretches from Miami in the south to the Canada/Maine border in the north, making it a crucial transport highway. Fayetteville is near its halfway mark. “It is a natural point, almost like a city that grew up upon the Silk Road in ancient times,” Anthony Aguilar told MintPress News, “It is a matter of fact that throughout this part of North Carolina, along the 95 corridor, there are vast amounts of sex trafficking and human trafficking in these areas. It is because of the accessible route from border to border that these things are trafficked or smuggled.” Anthony Aguilar is a former United States Army Lieutenant Colonel, Special Forces Green Beret, and a former Battalion Commander at Fort Bragg. In 2025, he became a whistleblower, revealing serious misconduct about U.S.- and Israeli-backed operations in Gaza.
He alleged that other commanders at Fort Bragg are well aware of the epidemic of child sex crimes, but “laugh about it or brush it off,” stating:
“Military leadership at the highest ranks are aware of what is happening, and they choose to cover it up. Not ignore it; they don’t ignore it. They acknowledge it. They choose to cover it up, because nobody wants to look like their unit is a bad and undisciplined unit. Nobody wants to look like troublemakers.”
Aguilar shared with MintPress an example of this from was when he was a commander of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg. A warrant officer was accused multiple times of sexually assaulting and abusing his stepdaughter – a minor – and producing pornography of these events. His chain of command decided not to do anything about it, but simply transfer him to Aguilar’s unit.
“He came to ours, and he did it again. My position on it was: court-martial, grand jury hearing, criminal case, criminal prosecution before a military judge,” he said. However, he was unable to carry this out as, “a three-star general circumvented my authority to charge him, and took that court-martial case up to his level, and then recanted those charges, and simply offered him a deal: ‘get out the Army and we won’t charge you criminally.’” The warrant officer took the deal, was discharged, and faced no criminal charges. Clearly disturbed by the event, Aguilar noted:
“That is why this continues to happen. That is why this is part of the culture. That is why these things continue to grow. It is because commanders at the highest level continue to hide it. They lie about it. And they do not hold those who do it accountable, in fear that it makes them look bad as a commander.”
“Women Are For Children, Boys Are For Pleasure”
Many American soldiers and operators encountered a similarly widespread practice of child sexual assault in Afghanistan – and found a correspondingly permissive attitude from U.S. officials and military top brass.
The practice is called bacha bazi, a process by which men exploit and enslave adolescent boys, coercing them into cross-dressing, wearing makeup, dancing suggestively, and acting as sex slaves. The bachas (boys) are generally aged between nine and fifteen years old, and inordinately come from impoverished or vulnerable backgrounds. Many grew up in orphanages, are street children, or have been sold into slavery by relatives facing starvation. Others are simply abducted. Bacha Bazes (boy players) are typically older, wealthier men who consider the ownership of one or more young boys to be a status symbol, often giving them money and expensive clothing. In Afghanistan’s strictly gender segregated society, a common saying is that “women are for having children, boys are for pleasure.”
The United Nations has condemned bacha bazi. “It is time to openly confront this practice and to put an end to it,” Radhika Coomaraswamy, then Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, told the U.N. General Assembly in 2009. “Laws should be passed, campaigns must be waged and perpetrators should be held accountable and punished,” she added.
Although it had been known for centuries, occurrences in Afghanistan exploded in the 1980s with the ascendancy of the U.S.-backed Mujahideen government. It was briefly quashed under the Taliban (1996-2001), but returned again in the 21st century under the U.S.-protected Afghan government, made up of many of the same elements who were in power two decades previously.
How Washington Participated In Mass Child Sexual Slavery
A U.S. soldier takes position in Mush Kahel village, Ghazni province, Afghanistan, July 23, 2012. Andrew Baker | DoD
The United States government actively tried to ignore the practice – an open secret in military and diplomatic circles. However, as it was withdrawing from the country, the State Department belatedly released a report admitting that, for nearly 20 years of occupation, there existed, “a government pattern of sexual slavery on government compounds.” U.S.-trained and funded authorities, it noted, “continued to arrest, detain, penalize, and abuse many trafficking victims, including punishing sex trafficking victims for ‘moral crimes’ and sexually assaulting victims who attempted to report trafficking crimes to law enforcement officials.” NGOs who helped the children, the report noted, advised them not to go to the police, as they were often the ones responsible for enslaving them in the first place.
Bacha bazi was primarily practiced by high-status individuals put in power by U.S. occupation forces – police, military, teachers, and government officials. Many of these people lived with their boys on U.S. compounds. This meant that, in practice, the U.S. taxpayer was subsidizing the widespread rape of children, one of the many reasons that American personnel were so unpopular with the local population, and why the U.S.-installed government fell within days of the 2021 military pullout. As Harp stated:
“The whole time that the U.S. was in Afghanistan, they were working with, protecting, funding, and arming guys who were systematically raping little boys, keeping them in chains on U.S. military bases – chained children on U.S. bases who were raped on a nightly basis! What can we even make of this? I struggle to wrap my mind around not only the evil of it, but how little anybody ever said about it.”
One example of the levels of depravity of the U.S.’ allies comes from Jordan Terrell, a former Fort Bragg paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne. At Forward Operating Base Shank in Logar Province in 2014, Terrell recalls seeing a group of young bachas running around the base. One, he noticed, “had something hanging out of his butt.” At first confused by the site, he later realized that what he saw was the child’s prolapsed anus from being repeatedly sodomized. “Dudes were exposed to that stuff so much,” he said, “The Afghan National Army, Afghan police… The contractors who cooked our food. Those guys raped children.”
Officially, Washington saw nothing. On 5,753 occasions between 2010 and 2016, the U.S. military was asked to review Afghan units to see if there were any gross human rights abuses noted. American law requires military aid to be cut off from any offending unit. On zero occasions did they report any abuses.
Yet bacha bazi was so widespread that virtually all U.S. personnel had heard about it. Aguilar stated that soldiers were relieved to make it to Friday every week, joking that: “It’s man-boy love Friday, so we are not going to get attacked very much today, because they are all having sex with their young boy concubines.”
The practice was as open as it was widespread. In 2016, an Afghan police commander invited a Washington Post journalist to his office for tea, where he gleefully showed off what he called his “beautiful boy slave.” The Afghan police were just one of a myriad of organizations the U.S. government sponsored during its 20-year, $2 trillion occupation of the country.
“I heard of it a number of times from both U.S. military and State Department officers throughout Afghanistan and in D.C., usually off-hand, with an exasperated what are you going to do type affect to their comments,” Matthew Hoh, a former U.S. Marine Corps Captain and State Department official told MintPress News, adding:
“It was clear that such crimes were not to be intruded upon. I doubt there was official paperwork to that effect, but it was clearly understood that we were to accept the rape of children as part of the bargain in our relationship with the Afghans we had put and kept in power.”
In 2009, after growing increasingly disillusioned with the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, Hoh resigned from his position at the State Department in Zabul Province.
Other Americans who tried to blow the whistle on the disturbing practice (and American complicity in it) ended up dead. One was Lance Corporal Gregory Buckley Jr., who was kept up at night by the shrieks of children being raped by Afghan police in rooms beside him at Forward Operating Base Delhi in Helmand Province.
Via a phone call, Buckley told his father that, from his bunk, “we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it.” His officers told him to “look the other way” because “it’s their culture.” It would be the last time his father heard Buckley’s voice, as he was murdered on the base days later by the very locals he was trying to train and protect.
Others who have taken matters into their own hands have had their careers destroyed by the military. Green Berets Captain Dan Quinn and Sergeant First Class Charles Martland found out that a local police commander in Kunduz Province had kidnapped a boy and was keeping him chained to the bed as a sex slave. After learning that she had turned to the Americans for help, the commander also beat up the boy’s mother. Quinn and Martland confronted him, but he laughed it off, telling them “it was only a boy,” after all. Incensed, the pair threw him to the floor, punched and kicked him.
Quinn was relieved of his command and sent back to the United States, where he left the military. Martland was originally going to be expelled from the Army, but, after a public backlash, he was quietly reinstated.
Drug Abuse, Child Abuse
The prevalence of Bacha bazi closely mirrors that of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. The practice was far less common in the 1970s and 1980s, under the U.S.S.R.-backed, secular, Communist government. In an effort to overthrow the regime and bleed the Soviets dry, Washington spent $2 billion funding, training, and arming local Mujahideen militias (including Osama bin Laden). The Mujahideen seized control of Afghanistan in 1992, not long after the demise of the Soviet Union.
Presented as brave and gallant freedom fighters, the Mujahideen were lauded in the West. But, as in Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and much of the rest of the world, the U.S. so often allies itself with deeply unsavory movements in order to achieve its ends.
Not only were the Mujahideen religious reactionaries, but they displayed a conspicuous penchant for kidnapping and molesting children, and the practice exploded once they attained power.
Although bacha bazi was widely adopted by the Mujahideen, it was never accepted by much of the public, who saw it as barbaric and monstrous. Therefore, despite their depiction as the Afghan equivalent of the Founding Fathers in the Western press, many in Afghanistan saw their new rulers as little more than a gang of U.S.-imposed pedophile warlords.
The Mujahideen would be supplanted in only four years by the Taliban, who rose to power in no small part due to the nationwide revulsion and outrage over bacha bazi. Indeed, Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban until his death in 2013, shot to fame due to his prominent opposition to the practice. In 1994, he led a group of armed men on a series of raids to rescue kidnapped and enslaved boys and girls.
The stunt made him a national hero, and greatly increased the Taliban’s strength and prestige. From a force of just 30 fighters, his militia grew to 12,000 by the year’s end, as thousands joined his cause, paving the way for their march on Kabul in 1996. Upon seizing power, the Taliban outlawed bacha bazi, making it punishable by death. Thus, while the Taliban are hardly known for their human rights policies, they were at least able to gain some public support through their actions to stamp out child rape.
This period, however, proved to be short-lived, as just five years later, in 2001, the United States would invade Afghanistan in order to topple the Taliban, putting in place many of the deposed Mujahideen figures from the previous regime. The return of the U.S.-backed government saw the reemergence of bacha bazi, with many top government, police and military officials flaunting their child concubines. This included even family members of President Hamid Karzai.
Likewise, drug production in Afghanistan directly correlates with U.S. involvement in the country. In the 1970s, heroin production was minimal, and largely for domestic consumption. But as the Western-backed regime change war dragged on, Washington looked for other ways to support the insurgency. They found their answer in opium, and soon, refineries processing locally-grown poppy seeds sprang up on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Trucks loaded with U.S. taxpayer-funded weapons entered Afghanistan from their ally, Pakistan, and returned filled to the brim with opium.
As Professor Alfred McCoy, author of “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,” told MintPress,
“What the resistance fighters did was they turned to opium. Afghanistan had about 100 tons of opium produced every year in the 1970s. By 1989-1990, at the end of that 10-year CIA operation, that minimal amount of opium — 100 tons per annum — had turned into a major amount, 2,000 tons a year, and was already about 75% of the world’s illicit opium trade.”
The operation caused a worldwide boom in opium consumption, with heroin addiction more than doubling in the United States alone. The drug became a cultural touchstone, as illustrated in popular movies such as Trainspottingand Requiem for a Dream. By 1999, annual production hadrisen to 4,600 tons.
Once again, the deeply religious Taliban stepped in to suppress the practice. A 2000 ban on opium cultivation led to a precipitous drop in production, with just 185 tons harvested the following year. Although the prohibition hit local farmers hard, it did begin to combat Afghanistan’s terrible opioid crisis, again gaining the Taliban some legitimacy with the local population.
Like with bacha bazi, though, the U.S. occupation reversed this trend. Under American supervision, opium production skyrocketed, reaching a high of 9,000 tons in 2017. Afghanistan became the world’s first true narco-state, with McCoy noting that by 2008, opium was responsible for well over half of the country’s gross domestic product. By comparison, even in Colombia’s darkest days, cocaine only accounted for around 3% of its GDP. More land in Afghanistan was under cultivation for opium than was used for coca across all of Latin America.
Many of those making fortunes from the business were the U.S.’ closest allies. This again included the Karzai family; the president’s brother, Ahmed Wali, was among the biggest and most notorious drugs kingpins in the region.
Shortly after coming back to power, the Taliban again banned the production of opium, sending teams of men across the country to eradicate poppy fields. In what even Western corporate media called “the most successful counter-narcotics effort in human history,” production fell by over 80% almost overnight, and has only continued to decrease since then. The speed and success of the operation raised serious questions about the United States’ true relationship with the global drug trade.
An Incredibly Lucrative Business
Soldiers at Fort Bragg were closer than anyone else to the unseemly underbelly of the Afghanistan occupation. Units such as JSOC, Delta Force, the 3rd Special Forces Group and the 82nd Airborne Division worked closely with Afghan security forces, and had a front row seat to their activities.
“The Fort Bragg Cartel” uncovers a giant gun and drug trafficking network centered around the base, revealing how soldiers used military planes to sneak arms and narcotics into America, distributing them across the continent. Criminals in the U.S. military, Aguilar notes, have learned a great deal about trafficking and smuggling contraband, stating that:
“When you deploy as a military and you have all of your 90 cubic inch containers that get locked up will all your stuff in it. Those don’t get inspected when they fly back over on a military aircraft and land at Fort Bragg…[They learn] How easy it would be to transport and traffic weapons, drugs, and yes, even humans, back and forth, from country to country. It is all very doable. And it is all very lucrative.”
Military bases are the perfect smuggling operation centers. There is little oversight or inspection, and soldiers can move around the country from base to base, and are less likely to be stopped and searched by the police. A disproportionate amount of those soldiers convicted came from backgrounds in logistics, where they were trusted with transporting large shipments of goods to and from the U.S., all with minimal input or scrutiny from higher ups.
Selling guns and drugs is one thing. But trafficking and raping children is quite another. How could anyone consider engaging in such sickening behavior? And why has the practice exploded around Fort Bragg? For some, the answer was psychological: American troops, taught to dehumanize their enemies and exposed to child abuse on a daily basis come to see it as normal behavior. As Terrell suggested, “In some sick way…when they came back, maybe they just internalized it, and turned it into a sexual proclivity.”
There is, however, a simpler explanation: money. Some Fort Bragg soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and exposed to bacha bazi came back to the United States and see an opportunity to make huge amounts of money trafficking humans, and creating and selling child pornography.
“It is less of a matter of soldiers coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan and having this learned behavior of sexual deviance, child pornography, or abusing children, it is a learned behavior that child pornography and sex trafficking minors is very very profitable,” Aguilar said; “They see that, and they think, ‘This is really lucrative.’”
The Taliban have once again made bacha bazi a capital offense. It is unclear if the new law has suppressed the practice, or merely driven it underground. After all, Afghanistan’s sanction-hit economy means that the economic incentives for destitute families to sell their sons to rich officials are as pressing as ever. Moreover, there are reports that some Taliban commanders allegedly hold bachas themselves.
What is clear, however, is that the tactics and practices used by the United States military abroad are increasingly being used against the domestic population. From surveillance and militarized policing to increasing intolerance of dissent, civil liberties are being eroded by forces using techniques honed on subjects in Western Asia. In November, an Afghan commando and former member of a CIA-trained death squad, carried out a mass shooting in Washington, D.C.
While it is clear that the U.S. invasion destroyed Afghanistan, it also took its tole on America itself. The occupation directly contributed to the opioid crisis at home. And it appears that it is also connected to the epidemic of child sexual abuse documented here, as soldiers abuse children for profit. What has been happening at Fort Bragg, then, is part of the wider psychological degradation of American society, one that is controlled a by a government that has sacrificed everything sacred to protect and advance its imperial ambitions.
From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.
19
20
1
US Officials Boast Their Illegal Sanctions ‘Collapsed’ Iran’s Economy, Causing High Inflation and Protests
(orinocotribune.com)
By Ben Norton – Feb 12, 2026
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent boasted Trump’s illegal “maximum pressure” sanctions seek to “collapse” Iran’s economy by cutting off oil exports, fueling inflation: “Making Iran broke again”.
Donald Trump has openly called for “regime change” in Iran. He has surrounded the country with what he calls a “massive armada”, and has suggested that he wants to kill Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
While Trump threatens to bomb Iran again, after attacking it in 2025, the US government has been dropping devastating economic bombs on the nation.
Top US government officials boast that they are trying to “collapse” Iran’s economy.
The Trump administration is waging what it calls a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran, which the White House says is “aimed at driving Iran’s oil exports to zero”.
Washington’s strategy is to starve Iran of export revenue by sabotaging its oil industry. By denying Tehran access to hard currency, the US aims to cause high rates of inflation and destroy the value of Iran’s currency, the rial.
This US economic warfare does great harm not only the Iranian government, but to all of the 93 million Iranians who live in the country. Civilians are bearing the brunt of the pain.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on “making Iran broke again”
Washington’s strategy for scorched-earth economic warfare was clearly spelled out by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a billionaire hedge-fund manager from Wall Street.
In an interview with Fox News in January, anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Bessent about the impact of the sanctions that the US government has imposed on Iran.
Bessent bragged that these unilateral coercive measures, which flagrantly violate international law, have caused Iran to run out of dollars, which means Iran cannot pay for imports or stabilize its currency, leading to significant inflation.
“Their economy collapsed”, Bessent gloated. The top US official then took credit for the violent protests and riots in Iran.
These were Bessent’s full remarks (all emphasis added):
MARIA BARTIROMO: What do you want to say about sanctions? Something else you’ve been working on, of course. What are you planning there in terms of Iran, and the impact there? Do sanctions actually work?
And the same question with regard to 500% secondary sanctions or tariffs on countries who purchase energy products from Russia.
SCOTT BESSENT: OK, so two things here. There are Treasury sanctions. And if you look at a speech that I gave at the Economic Club of New York last March [2025], I said that I believe the Iranian currency was on the verge of collapse, that if I were an Iranian citizen, I would take my money out.
President Trump ordered Treasury and OFAC division, Office of Foreign Asset Control, to put “maximum pressure” on Iran.
And it’s worked. Because, in December, their economy collapsed.
We saw a major bank go under. The central bank has started to print money. There is a dollar shortage. They are not able to get imports.
And this is why the people took to the street.
So this is economic statecraft. No shots fired.
In the Fox News interview, Bessent cited a speech that he delivered at the Economic Club of New York in March 2025.
In those remarks, the US Treasury secretary admitted that the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran was “designed to collapse its already buckling economy”.
This is what Bessent said:
Last month, the White House announced its “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, designed to collapse its already buckling the economy.
The Iranian economy is in disarray: 35% official inflation — official inflation — a currency that has depreciated 60% in the last 12 months, and an ongoing energy crisis.
I know a few things about currency devaluations. And if I were an Iranian, I would get all of my money out of the rial, now.
In the same address at the Economic Club of New York, Bessent vowed: “We will close off Iran’s access to the international financial system, by targeting regional parties that facilitate the transfer of its revenues”.
“Our maximum pressure campaign [is] designed to collapse Iranian oil exports”, he said.
“We are going to shut down Iran’s oil sector”, he declared.
Bessent then quipped, “Making Iran broke again will mark the beginning of our updated sanctions policy”.
“If economic security is national security, the regime in Tehran will have neither”, he added.
When Bessent gave this speech at the Economic Club of New York, he was surrounded by Wall Street executives. They applauded with glee as he vowed to “collapse” Iran’s economy.
Sitting directly behind Bessent on stage was the billionaire oligarch Stephen Schwarzman, who is CEO of Blackstone, the largest alternative asset manager on earth, which is known for its massive private-equity arm.
Blackstone is the largest landlord in the United States. The Wall Street firm owns more than 300,000 rental housing units in the US.
Schwarzman also happened to be one of the main funders of Trump’s presidential campaign.
After Trump won the 2024 election, Bloomberg noted that the billionaire oligarch’s “bet pays off”, and that the Wall Street executive would be “well-positioned to influence business, tax policies”.
Billion oligarch Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, sitting behind US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during his speech on “collapsing” Iran’s economy
Close correlation between US sanctions and inflation
The US Treasury secretary’s admission that Washington is intentionally trying to cause hyperinflation in Iran is extremely revealing.
Western media outlets and pundits often blame the high rates of inflation in sanctioned countries like Iran on corruption and mismanagement.
However, it is not a coincidence that many of the countries with the highest rates of inflation on Earth have been sanctioned by the United States and the West more broadly, including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Iran.
The US government has waged brutal economic warfare against these countries, seeking to deny them access to the dollar-dominated international financial system and collapse their local currencies.
Corruption and mismanagement are not irrelevant (and they exist in every country), but they distract from the most important factor: sanctions.
In the case of Iran, a look at World Bank data shows that there is a very close correlation between US sanctions and inflation.
It should be emphasized that the US economic war against Iran is bipartisan, and it did not start under Donald Trump.
When the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations imposed illegal unilateral coercive measures on Iran, they also contributed to high levels of inflation.
In the 2000s, before the US massively escalated its sanctions on Iran, the country’s inflation rate was relatively low, bottoming at 10% in 2006.
That year, in October, the Bush administration imposed heavy sanctions on Iran and threatened to sanction non-US oil and gas companies that invested in the country.
This scared off foreign investors and trading partners, while significantly increasing transaction and insurance costs for Iranian firms. Inflation promptly shot up to 17.3% in 2007 and 25.4% in 2008.
The US Keeps Openly Admitting It Deliberately Caused The Iran Protests
Iran managed to get inflation under control by 2010, when it fell to 10.1%.
However, in July of that year, the Obama administration hit Iran with heavy sanctions, while also threatening sanctions on foreign financial institutions and companies that worked with the country.
Unsurprisingly, inflation skyrocketed over the next three years, rising to 26.3% in 2011 and 27.3% in 2012, before peaking at 36.6% in 2013.
In 2012, the Obama White House published a sadistic press release boasting of how its illegal sanctions were “grinding the Iranian economy to a halt” and “crippling” it.
Obama stated:
Because of our efforts, Iran is under greater pressure than ever before… Few thought that sanctions could have an immediate bite on the Iranian regime. They have, slowing the Iranian nuclear program and virtually grinding the Iranian economy to a halt in 2011. Many questioned whether we could hold our coalition together as we moved against Iran’s Central Bank and oil exports. But our friends in Europe and Asia and elsewhere are joining us. And in 2012, the Iranian government faces the prospect of even more crippling sanctions.
However, in 2014, inflation in Iran cooled off significantly. This was likely due in large part to the interim agreement that Iran signed with Western countries in November 2013, as part of the negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal.
Then, in 2015, Iran and the P5+1 countries (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany and the European Union) signed the final version of the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The JCPOA was written into international law with UN Security Council resolution 2231.
This agreement lifted sanctions on Iran — and, immediately after, inflation fell, reaching the lowest point in decades in 2016, at just 7.2%.
The signatories of the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) in 2015
However, Trump came into office for his first term as US president in 2017, and in May 2018, he unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA, sabotaging the agreement, and reimposed sanctions on Iran, in clear violation of international law.
Inflation in Iran then shot up to 39.9% in 2019.
The Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, and Iran has struggled with high rates of inflation (around 40%) ever since, as US sanctions have ripped through the economy.
The correlation is very clear. And US officials have not even tried to hide the fact that their unlawful sanctions have caused inflation in Iran. Treasury Secretary Bessent is proud of it.
US Under Secretary of State Jacob S. Helberg, a hardline neoconservative hawk, bragged on Twitter that “President Trump’s strategy of MAXIMUM PRESSURE has brought the regime to its knees [sic]”.
Helberg did not mention the tens of millions of Iranian civilians who are suffering from this brutal US economic warfare, which has intentionally wrecked their currency and has thus eliminated their purchasing power, while causing shortages of crucial goods.
UN experts: US sanctions are illegal and violate human rights
Independent experts on international law have said for many years that US sanctions on Iran are illegal, and violate human rights.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has published many reports denouncing US sanctions.
A 2019 press release stated that the “imposition of unilateral coercive measures on Cuba, Venezuela and Iran by the United States” and “the use of economic sanctions for political purposes violates human rights and the norms of international behaviour”.
“Such action may precipitate man-made humanitarian catastrophes of unprecedented proportions”, the OHCHR warned.
Prominent American economists calculated that illegal US sanctions on Venezuela caused at least 40,000 deaths from 2017 to 2018, in a conservative estimate.
The top UN expert on unilateral coercive measures, Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy, stressed, “Regime change through economic measures likely to lead to the denial of basic human rights and indeed possibly to starvation has never been an accepted practice of international relations”.
In another publication in 2022, a group of UN experts said that US sanctions were violating the human rights of all Iranians.
“It is time for sanctions that impede Iran’s ability to improve the environment and reduce the ill effects on health and life, to be eased or lifted completely so that Iranians can access their right to a clean environment, the right to health and to life, and other rights”, the UN experts wrote.
Western politicians, such as Andrew Yang, insist that “the US should help the people of Iran”.
If they truly wanted to help the Iranian people, the most effective — and easiest — thing they could do would be to lift the illegal sanctions that they have imposed on Iran, which have intentionally devastated the economy and caused extreme suffering to tens of millions of civilians.
From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.
21
22
23
24
25
view more: next ›