Title: US wars of aggression and intervention Post by: Oshun_Auset on June 10, 2004, 10:41:13 AM http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve2/1008wars.html
US wars of aggression and intervention by William Blum The engine of American foreign policy has been fuelled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but by the necessity to serve other imperatives: 1) to make the world safe for American corporations; 2) to enhance the financial statements of defence contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of Congress; 3) to prevent the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model; 4) to extend political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a "great power". All of this in the name of fighting a supposed moral crusade against what cold warriors convinced themselves and the American people, was the existence of an evil International Communist Conspiracy, which in fact never existed, evil or not. The United States carried out extremely serious interventions into more than 70 nations in this period. Among these were the following: China 1945-49: The US intervened in a civil war, taking the side of Chiang Kai-shek against the communists, even though the latter had been a much closer ally of the United States in the world war. The US used defeated Japanese soldiers to fight for its side. The communists forced Chiang to flee to Taiwan in 1949. Italy 1947-48: Using every trick in the book, the US interfered in the elections to prevent the Communist Party from coming to power legally and fairly. This perversion of democracy was done in the name of "saving democracy" in Italy. The Communists lost. For the next few decades, the CIA, along with US corporations, continued to intervene in Italian elections, pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars and much psychological warfare to block the spectre that was haunting Europe. Greece 1947-49: Intervened in a civil war, taking the side of the neo-fascists against the Greek left which had fought the Nazis courageously. The neo-fascists won and instituted a highly brutal regime, for which the CIA created a new internal security agency, KYP. Before long, KYP was carrying out all the endearing practices of secret police everywhere, including systematic torture. Philippines 1945-53: US military fought against leftist forces (Huks) even while the Huks were still fighting against the Japanese invaders. After the war, the US continued its fight against the Huks, defeating them, and then installing a series of puppets as President, culminating in the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. South Korea 1945-53: After World War II, the United States suppressed the popular progressive forces in favour of the conservatives who had collaborated with the Japanese. This led to a long era of corrupt, reactionary, and brutal governments. Albania 1949-53: US and Britain tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the communist government and install a new one that would have been pro- Western and composed largely of monarchists and collaborators with Italian fascists and Nazis. Germany 1950s: The CIA orchestrated a wide-ranging campaign of sabotage, terrorism, dirty tricks, and psychological warfare against East Germany. This was one of the factors which led to the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Iran 1953: Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown in a joint US and British operation. Mossadegh had been elected to his position by a large majority of parliament, but he had made the fateful mistake of spearheading the movement to nationalise a British-owned oil company, the sole oil company operating in Iran. The coup restored the Shah to absolute power and began a period of 25 years of repression and torture, with the oil industry being restored to foreign ownership, as follows: Britain and the US, each 40 per cent, other nations 20 per cent. Guatemala 1953-1990s: A CIA-organised coup overthrew the democratically-elected and progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating 40 years of death-squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions, and unimaginable cruelty, totaling well over 100,000 victims — indisputably one of the most inhuman chapters of the 20th century. Arbenz had nationalised the US firm, United Fruit Company, which had extremely close ties to the American power elite. As justification for the coup, Washington declared that Guatemala had been on the verge of a Soviet takeover, when in fact the USSR had so little interest in the country that it didn't even maintain diplomatic relations with it. The real problem in the eyes of Washington, in addition to United Fruit, was the danger of Guatemala's social democracy spreading to other countries in Latin America. Middle East 1956-58: The Eisenhower Doctrine stated that the United States "is prepared to use armed forces to assist" any Middle East country "requesting assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism". The English translation of this was that no one would be allowed to dominate, or have excessive influence over, the Middle East and its oil fields except the United States, and that anyone who tried would be, by definition, "communist". In keeping with this policy, the United States twice attempted to overthrow the Syrian Government, staged several shows-of-force in the Mediterranean to intimidate movements opposed to US-supported governments in Jordan and Lebanon, landed 14,000 troops in Lebanon, and conspired to overthrow or assassinate Nasser of Egypt and his troublesome Middle-East nationalism. Indonesia 1957-58: Sukarno, like Nasser, was the kind of Third World leader the United States could not abide. He took neutralism in the Cold War seriously, making trips to the Soviet Union and China (though to the White House as well). He nationalised many private holdings of the Dutch, the former colonial power. And he refused to crack down on the Indonesian Communist Party, which was walking the legal, peaceful road and making impressive gains electorally. Such policies could easily give other Third World leaders "wrong ideas". Thus it was that the CIA began throwing money into the elections, plotted Sukarno's assassination, tried to blackmail him with a phoney sex film, and joined forces with dissident military officers to wage a full-scale war against the Government. Sukarno survived it all. British Guyana, 1953-64: For 11 years, two of the oldest democracies in the world, Great Britain and the United States, went to great lengths to prevent a democratically elected leader from occupying his office. Cheddi Jagan was another Third World leader who tried to remain neutral and independent. He was elected three times. Although a leftist — more so than Sukarno or Arbenz — his policies in office were not revolutionary. But he was still a marked man, for he represented Washington's greatest fear: building a society that might be a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model. Using a wide variety of tactics — from general strikes and disinformation to terrorism and British legalisms, the US and Britain finally forced Jagan out in 1964. John F Kennedy had given a direct order for him to be outed as, presumably, had Eisenhower. One of the better-off countries in the region under Jagan, Guyana, by the 1980s, became one of the poorest. Its principal export became people. Vietnam, 1950-73: The slippery slope began by siding with the French, the former colonisers and collaborators with the Japanese, and against Ho Chi Minh and his followers who had worked closely with the Allied war effort and admired all things American. Ho Chi Minh had written numerous letters to President Truman and the State Department asking for America's help in winning Vietnamese independence from the French and finding a peaceful solution for his country. All his entreaties were ignored. For he was some kind of communist. Twenty-three years, and more than a million dead, later, the United States withdrew its military forces from Vietnam. Most people say that the US lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core, and poisoning the earth and the gene pool for generations, Washington had in fact achieved its main purpose: preventing what might have been the rise of a good development option for Asia. Ho Chi Minh was, after all, some kind of communist. Cambodia 1955-73: Prince Sihanouk was yet another leader who did not fancy being an American client. After many years of hostility towards his regime, including assassination plots and the infamous Nixon/Kissinger secret "carpet bombings" of 1969-70, Washington finally overthrew Sihanouk in a coup in 1970. This was all that was needed to impel Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge forces to enter the fray. Five years later, they took power. But five years of American bombing had caused Cambodia's traditional economy to vanish. The old Cambodia had been destroyed forever. Incredibly, the Khmer Rouge were to inflict even greater misery upon this unhappy land. To add to the irony, the United States supported Pol Pot, militarily and diplomatically, after the subsequent defeat of the Khmer Rouge by the Vietnamese. **** United States Interventions (Part II) by William Blum Since 1945 the United States has carried out extremely serious interventions into more than 70 nations. Part I of this series, published last week, looked at wars and other interventions commenced during the 1940s and '50s. This week the series continues from the Congo to Greece. The Congo/Zaire 1960-65: In June 1960, Patrice Lumumba became the Congo's first Prime Minister after independence from Belgium. But Belgium retained its vast mineral wealth in Katanga province and prominent Eisenhower administration officials had financial ties to the same wealth. Lumumba, at Independence Day ceremonies before a host of foreign dignitaries, called for the nation's economic as well as its political liberation, and recounted a list of injustices against the natives by the white owners of the country. The poor man was obviously a "communist". The poor man was obviously doomed. Eleven days later, Katanga province seceded. In September, Lumumba was dismissed by the President at the instigation of the United States and in January 1961 he was assassinated at the express request of Dwight Eisenhower. There followed several years of civil conflict and chaos and the rise to power of Mobutu Sese Seko, a man not a stranger to the CIA. Mobutu went on to rule the country for more than 30 years, with a level of corruption and cruelty that shocked even his CIA handlers. The Zairian people lived in abject poverty despite the country's plentiful natural wealth, while Mobutu became a multi-billionaire. Brazil 1961-64: President Joao Goulart was guilty of the usual crimes. He took an independent stand in foreign policy, resuming relations with socialist countries and opposing sanctions against Cuba. His administration passed a law limiting the amount of profits multinationals could transmit outside the country; a subsidiary of ITT was nationalised; he promoted economic and social reforms. US Attorney-General Robert Kennedy was uneasy about Goulart allowing "communists" to hold positions in government agencies. Yet the man was no radical. He was a millionaire land-owner and a Catholic. That, however, was not enough to save him. In 1964, he was overthrown in a military coup that had deep, covert American involvement. The official Washington line was ... yes, it's unfortunate that democracy has been overthrown in Brazil ... but, still, the country has been saved from communism. For the next 15 years, all the features of military dictatorship which Latin America has come to know were instituted: Congress was shut down, political opposition was reduced to virtual extinction, habeas corpus for "political crimes" was suspended, criticism of the President was forbidden by law. Trade unions were taken over by government, mounting protests were met by police and military firing into crowds, peasants' homes were burned down, priests were brutalised. Disappearances, death squads, a remarkable degree of depravity, torture ... the government had a name for its program: the "moral rehabilitation" of Brazil. Washington was very pleased. Brazil broke relations with Cuba and became one of the United States' most reliable allies in Latin America. Dominican Republic, 1963-66: In February 1963, Juan Bosch took office as the first democratically elected President of the Dominican Republic since 1924. Here at last was John F Kennedy's liberal anti- communist, to counter the charge that the US supported only military dictatorships. Bosch's government was to be the long sought "showcase of democracy" that would put the lie to Fidel Castro. Bosch was true to his beliefs. He called for land reform; low-rent housing; modest nationalisation of business; and foreign investment provided it was not excessively exploitative of the country. A number of American officials and Congressmen expressed their discomfort with Bosch's plans, as well as his stance of independence from the United States. Land reform and nationalisation are always touchy issues in Washington, the stuff that "creeping socialism" is made of. In several quarters of the US press Bosch was red-baited. In September, the military boots marched. Bosch was out. The United States, which could discourage a military coup in Latin America with a frown, did nothing. Nineteen months later, a revolt broke out which promised to put the exiled Bosch back into power. The United States sent 23,000 troops to help crush it. Cuba 1959 to present: Fidel Castro came to power at the beginning of 1959. A US National Security Council meeting of March 10, 1959 included on its agenda the feasibility of bringing "another government to power in Cuba". There followed 40 years of terrorist attacks, bombings, full-scale military invasion, sanctions, embargoes, isolation, assassinations ... Cuba had carried out The Unforgivable Revolution, a very serious threat of setting a "good example" in Latin America. Indonesia 1965: A complex series of events, involving a supposed coup attempt, a counter-coup, and perhaps a counter-counter-coup, with American fingerprints apparent at various points, resulted in the removal of President Sukarno from power and his replacement by General Suharto. The massacre that began immediately — of communists, communist sympathisers, suspected communists, suspected communist sympathisers, and none of the above — was called by the New York Times "one of the most savage mass slayings of modern political history". The estimates of the number killed in the course of a few years begin at half a million and go above a million. It was later learned that the US Embassy had compiled lists of "communist" operatives, from top echelons down to village cadres, as many as 5,000 names, and turned them over to the army, which then hunted those persons down and killed them. The Americans would then check off the names of those who had been killed or captured. "It really was a big help to the army. They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands", said one US diplomat. "But that's not all bad. There's a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment." Chile, 1964-73: Salvador Allende was the worst possible scenario for a Washington imperialist. He could imagine only one thing worse than a Marxist in power — an elected Marxist in power, who honoured the constitution, and became increasingly popular. This shook the very foundation stones upon which the anti-communist tower was built: the doctrine, painstakingly cultivated for decades, that "communists" can take power only through force and deception, that they can retain that power only through terrorising and brainwashing the population. After sabotaging Allende's electoral endeavour in 1964, the CIA and the rest of the American foreign policy machine failed to do so in 1970, despite their best efforts. Over the next three years they left no stone unturned in their attempt to destabilise the Allende Government, paying particular attention to building up military hostility. Finally, in September 1973, the military overthrew the Government. Allende died in the process. Thus it was that they closed the country to the outside world for a week, while the tanks rolled and the soldiers broke down doors; the stadiums rang with the sounds of execution and the bodies piled up along the streets and floated in the river. The torture centres opened for business; subversive books were thrown to the bonfires; soldiers slit the trouser legs of women, shouting that "In Chile women wear dresses!"; the poor returned to their natural state; and the men of the world in Washington and in the halls of international finance opened up their cheque-books. In the end, more than 3,000 had been executed, thousands more tortured or disappeared. Greece 1964-74: The military coup took place in April 1967, just two days before the campaign for national elections was to begin, elections which appeared certain to bring the veteran liberal leader George Papandreou back as Prime Minister. Papandreou had been elected in February 1964 with the only outright majority in the history of modern Greek elections. The successful machinations to unseat him had begun immediately, a joint effort of the Royal Court, the Greek military, and the American military and CIA stationed in Greece. The 1967 coup was followed immediately by the traditional martial law, censorship, arrests, beatings, torture, and killings, the victims totaling some 8,000 in the first month. This was accompanied by the equally traditional declaration that this was all being done to save the nation from a "communist takeover". Corrupting and subversive influences in Greek life were to be removed. Among these were miniskirts, long hair, and foreign newspapers; church attendance for the young would be compulsory. However, it was torture, usually in the most gruesome of ways, often with equipment supplied by the United States, which most indelibly marked the seven-year Greek nightmare. James Becket, an American attorney sent to Greece by Amnesty International, wrote in December 1969: "Hundreds of prisoners have listened to the little speech given by Inspector Basil Lambrou, who sits behind his desk which displays the red, white, and blue clasped-hand symbol of American aid. "He tries to show the prisoner the absolute futility of resistance: `You make yourself ridiculous by thinking you can do anything. The world is divided in two. There are the communists on that side and on this side the free world. The Russians and the Americans, no one else. What are we? Americans. Behind me there is the government, behind the government is NATO, behind NATO is the US. You can't fight us, we are Americans.'" **** United States Intervention (Part III) by William Blum Since 1945 the United States has carried out extremely serious wars of aggression and interventions in more than 70 nations. Parts I and II of this series, published in the last two issues of The Guardian, brought the series up to the 1960s. This week, the final in the series, covers actions commenced in the 1970s up to the present. East Timor, 1975 to present: In December 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor, which lies at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, and which had proclaimed its independence after Portugal had relinquished control of it. The invasion was launched the day after US President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had left Indonesia after giving President Suharto permission to use American arms which, under US law, could not be used for aggression. Indonesia was Washington's most valuable tool in Southeast Asia. Amnesty International estimated that by 1989, Indonesian troops, with the aim of forcibly annexing East Timor, had killed 200,000 people out of a population of between 600,000 and 700,000. The United States consistently supported Indonesia's claim to East Timor (unlike the UN and the EU), and downplayed the slaughter to a remarkable degree. At the same time the US supplied Indonesia with all the military hardware and training it needed to carry out the job. Nicaragua 1978-89: When the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1978, it was clear to Washington that they might well be that long-dreaded beast — "another Cuba". Under President Carter, attempts to sabotage the revolution took diplomatic and economic forms. Under Reagan, violence was the method of choice. For eight terribly long years, the people of Nicaragua were under attack by Washington's proxy army, the Contras, formed from Somoza's vicious National Guardsmen and other supporters of the dictator. It was all-out war, aiming to destroy the progressive social and economic programs of the government, burning down schools and medical clinics, raping, torturing, mining harbours, bombing and strafing. These were Ronald Reagan's "freedom fighters". There would be no revolution in Nicaragua. Grenada 1979-84: What would drive the most powerful nation in the world to invade a country of 110,000? Maurice Bishop and his followers had taken power in a 1979 coup. Although their actual policies were not as revolutionary as Castro's, public appearances by the Grenadian leaders in other countries of the region met with great enthusiasm. Washington was again driven by its fear of "another Cuba". US destabilisation tactics against the Bishop Government began soon after the coup and continued until 1983, featuring numerous acts of disinformation and dirty tricks. The US invasion in October 1983 met minimal resistance, although the US suffered 135 killed or wounded; there were also some 400 Grenadian casualties, and 84 Cubans, mainly construction workers. What conceivable human purpose these people died for has not been revealed. At the end of 1984, a questionable election was held. It was won by a man supported by the Reagan administration. One year later, the human rights organisation, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, reported that Grenada's new US-trained police force and counter- insurgency forces had acquired a reputation for brutality, arbitrary arrest, and abuse of authority, and were eroding civil rights. In April 1989, the government issued a list of more than 80 books which were prohibited from being imported. Four months later, the Prime Minister suspended parliament to forestall a threatened no-confidence vote resulting from what his critics called "an increasingly authoritarian style". Libya 1981-89: Libya refused to be a proper Middle East client state of Washington. Its leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, was uppity. He would have to be punished. US planes shot down two Libyan planes in what Libya regarded as its air space. The US also dropped bombs on the country, killing at least 40 people, including Qaddafi's daughter. There were other attempts to assassinate the man, operations to overthrow him, a major disinformation campaign, economic sanctions, and blaming Libya for being behind the Pan Am 103 bombing without any good evidence. Panama, 1989: Washington's mad bombers strike again. December 1989, a large tenement barrio in Panama City wiped out, 15,000 people left homeless. Counting several days of ground fighting against Panamanian forces, 500- something dead was the official body count (what the US and the new US- installed Panamanian Government admitted to). Other sources, with no less evidence, insisted that thousands had died; 3,000-something wounded. Twenty-three Americans dead, 324 wounded. Question from reporter: "Was it really worth it to send people to their death for this? To get Noriega?" George Bush: "Every human life is precious, and yet I have to answer, yes, it has been worth it." Manuel Noriega had been an American ally and informant for years until he outlived his usefulness. But getting him was not the only motive for the attack. Bush wanted to send a clear message to the people of Nicaragua, who had an election scheduled in two months, that this might be their fate if they re- elected the Sandinistas. Bush also wanted to flex some military muscle to illustrate to Congress the need for a large combat-ready force, even after the very recent dissolution of the "Soviet threat". The official explanation for the American ouster was Noriega's drug trafficking, which Washington had known about for years and had not been at all bothered by. Iraq 1990s: Relentless bombing for more than 40 days and nights, against one of the most advanced nations in the Middle East, devastating its ancient and modern capital city. 177 million pounds of bombs falling on the people of Iraq, the most concentrated aerial onslaught in the history of the world; using depleted uranium weapons and incinerating people, causing cancer. Chemical and biological weapon storages and oil facilities blasted, poisoning the atmosphere to a degree perhaps never matched anywhere; soldiers buried alive, deliberately. The infrastructure destroyed, with a terrible effect on health; sanctions continued to this day multiplying the health problems; perhaps a million children dead by now from all of these things, even more adults. Iraq was the strongest military power amongst the Arab states. This may have been their crime. Noam Chomsky has written: "It's been a leading, driving doctrine of US foreign policy since the 1940s that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region will be effectively dominated by the United States and its clients and, crucially, that no independent, indigenous force will be permitted to have a substantial influence on the administration of oil production and price." Afghanistan 1979-92: Everyone knows of the unbelievable repression of women in Afghanistan, carried out by Islamic fundamentalists, even before the Taliban. But how many people know that during the late 1970s and most of the 1980s, Afghanistan had a government committed to bringing the incredibly backward nation into the 20th century, including giving women equal rights? What happened, however, is that the United States poured billions of dollars into waging a terrible war against this government, simply because it was supported by the Soviet Union. Prior to this, CIA operations had knowingly increased the probability of a Soviet intervention, which is what occurred. In the end, the United States won, and the women, and the rest of Afghanistan, lost. More than a million dead, three million disabled, five million refugees, in total about half the population. El Salvador, 1980-92: Salvador's dissidents tried to work within the system. But with US support, the government made that impossible, using repeated electoral fraud and murdering hundreds of protesters and strikers. In 1980, the dissidents took to the gun, and civil war. Officially, the US military presence in El Salvador was limited to an advisory capacity. In actuality, military and CIA personnel played a more active role on a continuous basis. About 20 Americans were killed or wounded in helicopter and plane crashes while flying reconnaissance or other missions over combat areas, and considerable evidence surfaced of a US role in the ground fighting as well. The war came to an official end in 1992; 75,000 civilian deaths and the US Treasury depleted by US$6 billion. Meaningful social change has been largely thwarted. A handful of the wealthy still own the country, the poor remain as ever, and dissidents still have to fear right-wing death squads. Haiti, 1987-94: The US supported the Duvalier family dictatorship for 30 years, then opposed the reformist priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Meanwhile, the CIA was working intimately with death squads, torturers and drug traffickers. With this as background, the Clinton White House found itself in the awkward position of having to pretend — because of all their rhetoric about "democracy" — that they supported Aristide's return to power in Haiti after he had been ousted in a 1991 military coup. After delaying his return for more than two years, Washington finally had its military restore Aristide to office, but only after obliging the priest to guarantee that he would not help the poor at the expense of the rich, and that he would stick closely to free-market economics. This meant that Haiti would continue to be the assembly plant of the Western Hemisphere, with its workers receiving literally starvation wages. Yugoslavia, 1999: The United States set about bombing the country back to a pre-industrial era. It would like the world to believe that its intervention was motivated only by "humanitarian" impulses. Perhaps the above history of US interventions, can help one decide how much weight to place on this claim. Title: Re: US wars of aggression and intervention Post by: SELAM on June 10, 2004, 12:38:06 PM Greetings In The Name of The Most High,
All I can say is WOW! I always knew the US had a great hand in the destruction of many governments in attempt to ensure their businesses security & for the benefit of American interests, but it's nice to have so many examples. Oftentimes, I find myself searching endlessly for such examples & it is such a blessings to finally have found what I have for so long wanted to know. Thanks to Jah & you, I sister Oshun, for this enlightenment. Peace. Title: Re: US wars of aggression and intervention Post by: Oshun_Auset on June 10, 2004, 03:07:58 PM You are welcome. It took me a while to find this list...I've been on a search for it for. I wanted to be able to read off the atrocities committed by this governement in a clear and concise way the next time a brother or sister(or anyone for that matter) comes at me with some patriotic B.S.
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