Post by Steven LitvintchoukPost by John Wesley AsquithA United Nations report due out Tuesday will say Iraq had no
significant weapons of mass destruction after 1994, USA Today
reports.
Then why did Clinton bomb Iraq in 1998 in Operation Desert Fox?
Gee, why did the U$$A do any of the following?:
1948 - PRESENT
AMERICAN/ISRAELI STATE TERRORISM OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
Estimated civilian deaths: 100,000 Palestinian people
From the very beginning of the Zionist State of Israel in 1948, One of the
earliest and most notorious incidents of Israeli terrorism was the Deir
Yassin massacre in April, 1948. 250 Palestinian men, women and children were
murdered in cold blood by Menachem Begin's Zionist "Irgun" group as it went
from house to house seeking to drive all Palestinians out of their ancient
homeland. It hasn't gotten any better since then.
Besides murdering women and children, Israelis routinely torture Palestinian
prisoners in jail. And almost all of it has been kept hidden by the
mainstream American mass-media for 55 years.
Just to give you another example of who the Israelis really are: in 1946,
Menachem Begin's terrorist organization blew up the King David Hotel in
Jerusalem, murdering British nurses, in order to drive the British out of
Palestine. Israeli society later rewarded Menachem Begin by electing him
Prime Minister.
The United States government gives billions of your tax dollars to the
Israelis every year. And the U.S. government never pays people to do things
it doesn't want done. Israeli state terrorism is essentially American state
terrorism.
1953 - PRESENT
AMERICAN-BACKED GENOCIDE OF THE GUATEMALAN PEOPLE
Estimated civilian deaths: over 200,000 people
From Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
by William Blum:
A CIA-organized coup overthrew the democratically-elected and progressive
government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating 40 years of military-government
death squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions and unimaginable
cruelty, totaling more than 200,000 victims - indisputably one of the most
inhumane chapters of the 20th century.
The justification for the coup that has been put forth over the years is
that Guatemala had been on the verge of the proverbial Soviet takeover. In
actuality, the Russians had so little interest in the country that it didn't
even maintain diplomatic relations. The real problem was that Arbenz had
taken over some of the uncultivated land of the US firm, United Fruit
Company [Chiquita bananas], which had extremely close ties to the American
power elite.
Moreover, in the eyes of Washington, there was the danger of Guatemala's
social-democracy model spreading to other countries in Latin America.
Despite a 1996 "peace" accord between the government and rebels, respect for
human rights remains as only a concept in Guatemala; death squads continue
to operate with a significant measure of impunity against union activists
and other dissidents; torture still rears its ugly head; the lower classes
are as wretched as ever; the military endures as a formidable institution;
the US continues to arm and train the Guatemalan military and carry out
exercises with it; and key provisions of the peace accord concerning
military reform have not been carried out.
1955 - 1973
AMERICAN GENOCIDE OF THE CAMBODIAN PEOPLE
Estimated total civilian deaths: 1,000,000 - 2,000,000 people
Prince Sihanouk was yet another leader who did not fancy being an American
client. After many years of hostility toward 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 the 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. And to multiply the irony, the United States supported Pol Pot
and the Khmer Rouge after their subsequent defeat by the Vietnamese.
1957 - 1973
AMERICAN GENOCIDE OF THE LAOTIAN PEOPLE
Estimated total civilian deaths: over 500,000 people
The Laotian left, led by the Pathet Lao, tried to effect social change
peacefully, making significant electoral gains and taking part in coalition
governments. But the United States would have none of that.
The CIA and the State Department, through force, bribery and other
pressures, engineered coups in 1958, 1959 and 1960. Eventually, the only
option left for the Pathet Lao was armed force.
The CIA created its famous "Arme Clandestine" - totaling 30,000, from every
corner of Asia - to do battle, while the US Air Force, between 1965 and
1973, rained down more than two million tons of bombs upon the people of
Laos, many of whom were forced to live in caves for years in a desperate
attempt to escape the monsters falling from the sky.
After hundreds of thousands had been killed, many more maimed, and countless
bombed villages with hardly stone standing upon stone, the Pathet Lao took
control of the country, following on the heels of events in Vietnam.
MID-1950S, 1970-71
AMERICAN ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS ON THE ELECTED LEADER OF COSTA RICA
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
To liberal American political leaders, President Jose Figueres was the
quintessential "liberal democrat", the kind of statesman they liked to
think, and liked the world to think, was the natural partner of US foreign
policy rather than the military dictators who somehow kept popping up as
allies.
Yet the United States tried to overthrow Figueres (in the 1950s, and perhaps
also in the 1970s, when he was again president), and tried to assassinate
him twice. The reasons? Figueres was not tough enough on the left, led Costa
Rica to become the first country in Central America to establish diplomatic
relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and on occasion
questioned American foreign policy, like the Bay of Pigs invasion.
1959 - PRESENT
AMERICAN SUBVERSION AND STATE TERRORISM OF THE CUBAN PEOPLE
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
Fidel Castro came to power at the beginning of 1959. A U.S. 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.
The saddest part of this is that the world will never know what kind of
society Cuba could have produced if left alone, if not constantly under the
gun and the threat of invasion, if allowed to relax its control at home. The
idealism, the vision, the talent were all there. But we'll never know. And
that of course was the idea.
1960 - PRESENT
AMERICAN ASSASSINATION OF PATRICE LUMUMBA AND SUPPORT OF STATE TERRORISM OF
THE PEOPLE OF THE CONGO/ZAIRE
From Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since WWII
by William Blum:
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, prominent Eisenhower administration officials had
financial ties to the same wealth, and 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 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 [President]
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 plentiful natural wealth, while
Mobutu became a multibillionaire.
1960S - PRESENT
AMERICAN SUPPORT FOR COLOMBIAN STATE TERRORISM OF THE COLOMBIAN PEOPLE
Estimated civilian deaths: over 67,000 people
Under the guise of aid for "counternarcotics" operations, the U.S. Corporate
Mafia Government is supplying weapons, training, troops and $1.3 billion of
American taxpayers' money to its murderous apprentices in the Colombian
military. The real purpose of all this aid is to support the government's
massive political oppression of the Colombian people. It's Vietnam all over
again.
Colombia is the most violent country in the world. The vast majority of the
terror is committed by the U.S.-supported military and right-wing
paramilitary forces - who are heavily involved in cocaine production and
smuggling. They have tortured and murdered tens of thousands of people in
trade unions and left-wing movements, including many human rights activists
and grassroots organizers.
1963
AMERICAN/BRITISH ASSASSINATION OF THE LEADER OF IRAQ
In July 1958, Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem overthrew the monarchy and established
a republic. Though somewhat of a reformist, he was by no means any kind of
radical. His action, however, awakened revolutionary fervor in the masses
and increased the influence of the Iraqi Communist Party.
By April of the following year, CIA Director Allen Dulles, with his
customary hyperbole, was telling Congress that the Iraqi Communists were
close to a "complete takeover" and the situation in that country was "the
most dangerous in the world today." In actuality, Kassem aimed at being a
neutralist in the Cold War and pursued rather inconsistent policies toward
the Iraqi Communists, never allowing them formal representation in his
cabinet, nor even full legality, though they strongly desired both. He tried
to maintain power by playing the Communists off against other ideological
groups.
A secret plan for a joint US-Turkish invasion of the country was drafted by
the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the 1958 coup.
Reportedly, only Soviet threats to intercede on Iraq's side forced
Washington to hold back. But in 1960, the United States began to fund the
Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq who were fighting for a measure of autonomy and
the CIA undertook an assassination attempt against Kassem, which was
unsuccessful.
The Iraqi leader made himself even more of a marked man when, in that same
year, he began to help create the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), which challenged the stranglehold Western oil companies
had on the marketing of Arab oil; and in 1962 he created a national oil
company to exploit the nation's oil.
In February 1963, Kassem told the French daily, Le Monde, that he had
received a note from Washington - "in terms scarcely veiled, calling upon me
to change my attitude, under threat of sanctions against Iraq... All our
trouble with the imperialists [the US and the UK] began the day we claimed
our legitimate rights to Kuwait." (Kuwait was a key element in US and UK
hegemonic designs over mid-east oil.)
A few days after Kassem's remarks were published, he was overthrown in a
coup and summarily executed; thousands of communists were killed.
The State Department soon informed the press that it was pleased that the
new regime would respect international agreements and was not interested in
nationalizing the giant Iraq Petroleum Co., of which the US was a major
owner. The new government, at least for the time being, also cooled its
claim to Kuwait.
Papers of the British cabinet of 1963, later declassified, disclose that the
coup had been backed by the British and the CIA.
1963 - 1966
AMERICAN SUBVERSION AND TYRANNY IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
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 U.S.
supported only military dictatorships. Bosch's government was to be the long
sought "showcase of democracy" that would put the lie to Fidel Castro. He
was given the grand treatment in Washington shortly before he took office.
Bosch was true to his beliefs. He called for land reform, low-rent housing,
modest nationalization of business, and foreign investment provided it was
not excessively exploitative of the country and other policies making up the
program of any liberal Third World leader serious about social change. He
was likewise serious about civil liberties: Communists, or those labeled as
such, were not to be persecuted unless they actually violated the law.
A number of American officials and congresspeople expressed their discomfort
with Bosch's plans, as well as his stance of independence from the United
States. Land reform and nationalization are always touchy issues in
Washington, the stuff that "creeping socialism" is made of. In several
quarters of the U.S. 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.
1964 - 1974
AMERICAN-BACKED SUBVERSION, MASS-MURDER, TORTURE AND OVERTHROW OF DEMOCRACY
IN GREECE
Estimated civilian deaths: over 10,000 people
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
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.
It was torture, however, which most indelibly marked the seven-year Greek
nightmare. James Becket, an American attorney sent to Greece by Amnesty
International, wrote in December 1969 that "a conservative estimate would
place at not less than two thousand" the number of people tortured, usually
in the most gruesome of ways, often with equipment supplied by the United
States.
Becket reported the following: 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 U.S. You can't fight us, we are Americans."
George Papandreou was not any kind of radical. He was a liberal
anti-Communist type. But his son Andreas, the heir-apparent, while only a
little to the left of his father had not disguised his wish to take Greece
out of the Cold War, and had questioned remaining in NATO, or at least as a
satellite of the United States.
1964 - 1973
AMERICAN-BACKED OVERTHROW OF THE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT OF CHILE
Estimated civilian deaths: over 5000 people from the subsequent Pinochet
terror campaign; at least 1000 people missing and presumed dead
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
[Democratic Marxist President] Salvador Allende was the worst possible
scenario for a Washington imperialist, [who] could imagine only one thing
worse than a Marxist in power - an elected Marxist in power, who honored the
constitution, and became increasingly popular. This shook the very
foundation stones on 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
terrorizing and brainwashing the population.
After sabotaging Allende's electoral endeavor in 1964, and failing to do so
in 1970, despite their best efforts, the CIA and the rest of the American
foreign policy machine left no stone unturned in their attempt to
destabilize the Allende government over the next three years, paying
particular attention to building up military hostility. Finally, in
September 1973, the military overthrew the government, Allende dying in the
process.
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 centers opened for business; the subversive books were
thrown into 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 check-books. In the end, more than 3,000 had been
executed, thousands more tortured or disappeared.
(End of Killing Hope excerpt)
In the bloody coup of September 11, 1973, Henry Kissinger and the CIA helped
General Augusto Pinochet overthrow the democratically-elected leftist
government of President Salvador Allende. The Fascist puppet-regime of
Augusto Pinochet then embarked on a 17-year terror campaign against the
people of Chile, which included mass arrests and executions, death squads,
torture and disappearances. Many of the victims were fingered as "radicals"
by lists provided by the CIA.
Santiago's national stadium was used as a mass execution site. Robert
Saldias, the first army officer to come forward publicly without concealing
his identity, said prisoners entering the stadium were identified by yellow,
black, and red discs. "Whoever received a red disc had no chance," Saldias
said.
Many of the professional torturers and assassins in the Chilean military
(and in every other Fascist country of Central and South America) were
trained at the School of the Americas, in Fort Benning, Georgia.
Under Pinochet, Chile also participated in "Operation Condor," a joint
collaboration between the U.S.-backed dictatorships of Chile, Argentina,
Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil to hunt down and murder exiled opponents of
those regimes. Successful hits included the 1976 car-bomb explosion in
Washington D.C., which killed Allende's exiled foreign minister Orlando
Letelier, and his aide, American Ronnie Moffitt.
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist
because of the irresponsibility of its own people."
- Henry Kissinger, 1970
referring to Chilean voters
1965 - 1973
AMERICAN TYRANNY AND TERRORIZATION OF THE PEOPLE OF THAILAND
While using the country to facilitate its daily bombings of Vietnam and
Laos, the US military took the time to try to suppress insurgents who were
fighting for economic reform, an end to police repression and in opposition
to the mammoth US military presence, with its huge airbases, piers,
barracks, road building and other major projects, which appeared to be
taking the country apart and taking it over.
Eventually, the American military personnel count in Thailand reached
40,000, with those engaged in the civil conflict - including 365 Green Beret
forces - officially designated as "advisers", as they were in Vietnam.
To fight the guerillas, the US financed, armed, equipped and trained police
and military units in counter-insurgency, significantly increasing their
numbers; transported government forces by helicopter to combat areas; were
present in the field as well, as battalion advisers and sometimes
accompanied Thai soldiers on anti-guerrilla sweeps.
In addition, the Americans instituted considerable propaganda and
psychological warfare activities, and actually encouraged the Thai
government to adopt a more forceful response. However, the conflict in
Thailand, and the US role, never approached the dimensions of Vietnam.
In 1966, the Washington Post reported that "In the view of some observers,
continued dictatorship in Thailand suits the United States, since it assures
a continuation of American bases in the country and that, as a US official
put it bluntly, 'is our real interest in this place.'"
1975 - 1999
AMERICAN-BACKED GENOCIDE OF THE PEOPLE OF EAST TIMOR
Estimated civilian deaths: over 200,000 people
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
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 U.S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
had left Indonesia after giving Suharto permission to use American arms,
which, under U.S. 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 supplying
Indonesia with all the military hardware and training it needed to carry out
the job.
From Derailing Democracy
by Dave McGowan:
The U.S.-backed government of Indonesia invaded East Timor just one day
after a visit by President Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger. As many as a
third of the tiny island's population were exterminated using American
supplied weaponry.
The Indonesian government, kept propped up with U.S. taxpayers' money,
continues to this day to be one of the worst human rights abusers on the
planet.
1979 - 1992
AMERICAN SUBVERSION IN AFGHANISTAN
Estimated civilian deaths: over 1,000,000 people
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
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.
See also:
Imperial Hypocrisy: American/British state terrorism of the Afghan Peoples,
2001-2002
The Truth About American Terrorism of the Afghan Peoples
1981 - 1989
AMERICAN TERROR-CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE LIBYAN PEOPLE;
NUMEROUS CIA ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS ON MUAMMAR QADHAFI
Estimated civilian deaths from the April 1986 attack: over 100 people,
including Qadhafi's two-year-old daughter
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
The official reason for the Reagan administration's intense antipathy toward
Moammar Qaddafi was that he supported terrorism. In actuality, the Libyan
leader's crime was not his support for terrorist groups per se, but that he
was supporting the wrong terrorist groups; i.e., Qaddafi was not supporting
the same terrorists that Reagan was, such as the Nicaraguan Contras, UNITA
in Angola, Cuban exiles in Miami, the governments of El Salvador and
Guatemala and the U.S. military in Grenada. The one band of terrorists the
two men supported in common was the Moujahedeen in Afghanistan.
On top of this, Washington has a deep-seated antipathy toward Middle east
oil-producing countries that it can't exert proper control over. Qaddafi was
uppity, and he had overthrown a rich ruling clique and instituted a welfare
state. He and his country would have to be put in their place. Five years
later, the United States bombed one of Qaddafi's residences, killing scores
of people. There were other attempts to assassinate the man, operations to
overthrow him, economic sanctions, and a major disinformation campaign
reporting one piece of nonsense after another, including conspicuous
exaggerations of his support for terrorism, and shifting the blame for the
1988 bombing of PanAm 103 to Libya and away from Iran and Syria when the
Gulf War campaign required the support of the latter two countries.
To Washington, Libya was like magnetic north: the finger always pointed
there.
(End of Rogue State excerpt)
On April 15, 1986, 19 warplanes of the U.S. Air Force took off from their
bases in Great Britain and flew to Libya, whereupon the heroic F111 pilots
bombed the private house of Muammar Qadhafi and violently murdered his
little two-year-old daughter.
At least 100 other people - including civilian men, women and children -
were slaughtered as the U.S. Air Force pilots bombed private homes and
mosques all over Tripoli and Benghazi.
They actually managed to hit a military target too, the Al-Azizia barracks,
which was Qadhafi's headquarters. On April 16 the American pilots who
perpetrated these war crimes openly admitted that the purpose of the attack
had been to assassinate Qadhafi.
For years prior to this outrage the U.S. Corporate Mafia Government had been
trying to murder the popular Libyan leader. Navy jets from the U.S. Sixth
Fleet had repeatedly violated Libyan airspace while Navy ships violated
Libyan territorial waters in bullying attempts to provoke a reaction.
The U.S. Navy shot down Libyan planes over Libyan territory, and sank Libyan
Coast Guard boats in Libyan territorial waters. Here are some of the
highlights of this American terror campaign:
· In the summer of 1980 the CIA attempted to shoot down the plane of
Qadhafi as he was on a flight to Eastern Europe. An Italian plane flying
over Ostika was mistakenly shot down instead.
· July 27, 1981 - Newsweek published an article reporting that CIA
Director William Casey had authorized extensive plans to assassinate Qadhafi
and overthrow the popular democratic government of Libya. This classic
American M.O. included a media propaganda campaign and numerous "psy-ops",
or psychological warfare operations, aimed at creating turmoil within Libya.
· August 19, 1981 - Eight American jet fighters attacked two Libyan
air force reconnaissance planes over Libyan territory in the Gulf of Sirte,
shooting them down.
· 1985 - The CIA recruited mercenaries to be trained for several
attempts to assassinate Qadhafi. One of the plans called for sprinkling a
special poison into his food that would weaken his immune system, causing a
gradual death with symptoms that would not be immediately recognized.
· March 25, 1986 - U.S. Navy warplanes from the Sixth Fleet bombed
Libyan civilian targets in the Gulf of Sirte. They attacked a Libyan Coast
Guard boat, murdering the crew of 10 men. The Navy jets also attacked a
larger Libyan Coast Guard ship. 42 men of the crew escaped into the water
and attempted to swim to shore. The U.S. Navy pilots slaughtered them all in
the water.
· April 4, 1986 - While on a victory tour of the aircraft carrier
"Enterprise", stationed off the coast of Oman, Vice President George Bush
characterized the U.S. Sixth Fleet's terror campaign against innocent Libyan
people as "a tough lesson for Qadhafi" which had given him a "nosebleed".
The brainwashed morons of the crew cheered.
Eleven days later, over 100 innocent people lay dead in the cities of
Tripoli and Benghazi - including a little two-year-old girl. Murdered by
these American heros.
1981 - 1990
AMERICAN TERRORISM OF THE NICARAGUAN PEOPLE
Estimated civilian deaths: over 13,000 people
From Derailing Democracy
by Dave McGowan:
Following the fall of the Somoza regime, which had been backed for decades
by the U.S., the CIA formed and armed the covert army known as the "Contras"
from the remains of Somoza's National Guard. Assisted by covert U.S. air
power, this proxy army inflicted considerable death and destruction across
the Nicaraguan countryside.
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
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 Guard 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 harbors, bombing and strafing. These were Ronald
Reagan's "freedom fighters." There would be no revolution in Nicaragua.
From a talk by John Stockwell, 13-year veteran of the CIA and former U.S.
Marine Corps major:
"Systematically, the Contras have been assassinating religious workers,
teachers, health workers, elected officials, government administrators.
Remember the 'Assassination Manual' that surfaced in 1984? It caused such a
stir that President Reagan had to address it himself in the presidential
debates with Walter Mondale. They use terror to traumatize society so that
it cannot function.
"I don't mean to abuse you with verbal violence, but you have to understand
what your Government and its agents are doing.
"They go into villages. They haul out families. With the children forced to
watch, they castrate the father. They peel the skin off his face. They put a
grenade in his mouth, and pull the pin. With the children forced to watch,
they gang-rape the mother, and slash her breasts off. And sometimes, for
variety, they make the parents watch while they do these things to the
children.
"This is nobody's propaganda!
"There have been over a hundred thousand American 'Witnesses for Peace' who'
ve gone down there, and they have filmed and photographed and witnessed
these atrocities immediately after they've happened, and documented thirteen
thousand people killed this way - mostly women and children.
"These are the activities done by the Contras. The Contras are the people
President Reagan called 'freedom fighters.' He said: 'they are the moral
equivalent of our founding fathers.'"
1980 - PRESENT
AMERICAN TERRORISM OF THE EL SALVADORAN PEOPLE
Estimated civilian deaths: over 75,000 people
From Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don't Want You to See
by Dave McGowan:
Massive amounts of arms, training and funding were poured into El Salvador
to prop up the puppet government against a popular uprising. Featured the
covert use of U.S. air power and ground forces, as well as the training, at
the "School of the Americas" [in Ft. Benning, Georgia], of the leaders of
the right-wing death squads which executed thousands of Salvadorans.
Some of the highlights of the death squad activities included the
assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the execution of six Jesuit
priests along with their housekeeper and her daughter, the rape and
execution of four American church women, and the mass execution of some 800
civilians at the village of El Mozote.
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
El Salvador's dissidents tried to work within the system. But with U.S.
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 U.S. 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 U.S.
role in the ground fighting as well. The war came to an official end in
1992; 75,000 civilian deaths and the U.S. Treasury depleted by six billion
dollars.
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.
1987 - 1994
AMERICAN-SUPPORTED STATE TERRORISM OF THE HAITIAN PEOPLE
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
The U.S. 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.
1988
U.S. NAVY MASS-MURDER OF CIVILIAN IRANIAN AIRLINE PASSENGERS
Known civilian deaths: 290 people
From the WSWS article:
"Pan Am Flight 103: Trial opens of Libyans accused of Lockerbie bombing"
By Steve James
6 May 2000
www.wsws.org/articles/200...-m06.shtml
On July 3, 1988 the U.S. Navy warship the Vincennes was operating within
Iranian waters, providing military support for Iraq in the ongoing Iran/Iraq
war. During a one-sided battle against a small number of lightly armed
Iranian gunboats, the Vincennes fired two missiles at an [Iranian] Airbus,
which was on a routine civilian flight. All 290 civilians onboard were
killed.
This act of mass murder by the U.S. has never resulted in any court case.
The captain and crew of the Vincennes were militarily decorated. Attempts by
relatives of the victims to bring legal action against the American
government were rejected by the US Supreme Court in 1993. Despite the fact
that the vast majority of victims were Iranian, the US paid $2.9 million in
compensation only to non-Iranian victims of the shooting.
"I will never apologize for the United States of America - I don't care what
the facts are."
- President George Bush, Sr.
referring to the mass-murder
of Iranian civilian people
by the U.S.S. Vincennes
1979 - 1984
AMERICAN SUBVERSION AND INVASION OF TINY GRENADA
Estimated civilian deaths: several hundred people
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
How impoverished, small, weak or far away must a country be before it is not
a threat to the U.S. government? In a 1979 coup, Maurice Bishop and his
followers had taken power in this island country of 110 thousand, and though
their actual policies were not as revolutionary as Castro's, Washington was
again driven by its fear of "another Cuba," particularly when public
appearances by the Grenadian leaders in other countries of the region met
with great enthusiasm.
Reagan administration destabilization tactics against the Bishop government
began soon after the coup, featuring outrageous disinformation and
deception. Finally came the invasion in October 1983, which put into power
individuals more beholden to U.S. foreign policy objectives. The U.S.
suffered 135 killed or wounded; there were also some 400 Grenadian
casualties, and 84 Cubans, mainly construction workers. The invasion was
attended by yet more transparent lies, created by Washington to justify its
gross violations of international law.
(Added note: This invasion was not attended, however, by newsreporters. The
1983 invasion of Grenada was the first major American military assault in
which newsreporters were barred from being present. The U.S. government didn
't want the world to witness the great superpower beating up on a tiny
island and murdering its civilian inhabitants.)
From What Uncle Sam Really Wants
by Noam Chomsky:
No country is exempt from this treatment [i.e. American state terrorism], no
matter how unimportant. In fact, it's the weakest, poorest countries that
often arouse the greatest hysteria.
Grenada has a hundred thousand people who produce a little nutmeg, and you
could hardly find it on a map. But when Grenada began to undergo a mild
social revolution, Washington quickly moved to destroy the threat.
There's a reason for that. The weaker and poorer a country is, the more
dangerous it is as an example. If a tiny, poor country like Grenada can
succeed in bringing about a better life for its people, some other place
that has more resources will ask, "why not us?"
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
At the end of 1984, a questionable election was held which was won by a man
supported by the Reagan administration. One year later, the human rights
organization, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, reported that Grenada's new
U.S.-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."
1989
AMERICAN INVASION OF PANAMA
Estimated civilian deaths: several thousand people
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
Less than two weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States
showed its joy that a new era of world peace was now possible by invading
Panama, as Washington's mad bombers struck again. On December 20, 1989, a
large tenement barrio in Panama City was wiped out; 15,000 people were left
homeless. Counting several days of ground fighting between U.S. and
Panamanian forces, 500-something natives dead was the official body count -
i.e., what the United States and the new U.S.-installed Panamanian
government admitted to. Other sources, examining more evidence, concluded
that thousands had died. Additionally, some 3,000 Panamanians were wounded,
23 Americans died, 324 were 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 hardly a major 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 reelected 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.
And they could easily have gotten their hands on the man without wreaking
such terrible devastation upon the Panamanian people.
1991 - PRESENT
AMERICAN/BRITISH STATE TERRORISM OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE
Estimated total civilian deaths: at least 200,000 people directly from the
1991 terror campaign;
1,000,000 - 2,000,000 people since then from the combined effects of
depleted uranium poisoning, polluted water and sanctions
Like the terrorization of the entire civilian population of Yugoslavia, the
so-called Gulf "War" was in fact a cowardly, high-tech slaughter, a total
mismatch of military power. 177 million pounds of bombs were dropped on the
people of Iraq in the most concentrated aerial bombardment in the history of
the world. Sadistic American forces even slaughtered retreating Iraqi
soldiers as they tried to flee along a highway back to Iraq.
And as with Yugoslavia, the "Desert Storm" terror campaign was directed
primarily against the civilian population, a genocidal six-week assault on
all the civilian people and infrastructure of Iraq. Particularly targeted
were every grain silo and public water-treatment plant in the country. The
assault included the most extensive use in history of depleted uranium
missiles, and the most intensive use of cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs,
napalm, cruise missiles and so-called "smart bombs".
The Dutch Laka Foundation estimates that this particular U.S. terror
campaign left behind 300-800 tons of radioactive waste from the depleted
uranium ammunition all over Kuwait and Iraq - poisoning the air, the land,
the water and the people everywhere.
Afterwards, wherever the depleted uranium firing had been concentrated,
there were cancer epidemics among Iraqi civilians living nearby. In the ten
years since, sanctions, bacteria-laden water and depleted uranium together
have killed somewhere between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 Iraqi civilians. Most
of the victims were, and are, children.
Since the American terror campaign, thousands of Iraqi babies have been born
with horrible birth defects. This is something that has never before been
seen in Iraq.
More than 120,000 American Gulf War veterans are chronically ill - suffering
from Gulf War Syndrome. A U.S. Department of Veterans study of 251 veterans'
families found that 67% had children with severe illnesses or birth defects.
Even the United Nations estimates that over one million Iraqi civilians,
including 600,000 children below the age of five have died as a result of
diseases from polluted water - and the American sanctions which deny them
the needed medicines.
1992 - PRESENT
AMERICAN/NATO STATE TERRORISM AND SUBVERSION OF THE YUGOSLAVIAN PEOPLES
Estimated civilian deaths: over 3000 people from the 1999 terror-bombing
Weapons of mass-destruction used by U.S.-dominated NATO forces included
cluster bombs, depleted uranium missiles, fuel-air bombs, napalm, cruise
missiles and other so-called "smart bombs".
250,000 people were killed during the U.S./German-sponsored civil war in
Bosnia of 1992-1995, and in Krajina, 1995.
Estimated civilian injuries: 9000+ people from the 1999 American terror
campaign alone. Many people, including children, dismembered and crippled
for life by cluster bombs.
In addition, over 1 million people who now live in Serbia-Yugoslavia are
refugees from Krajina, Bosnia and Kosovo - victims of the
U.S./German-sponsored terror campaigns of the 1990s.
For 78 days and nights in the Spring of 1999, United States Air Force and
Navy pilots rained death indiscriminately upon women and children, old men
and women shopping in marketplaces, passengers in trains, people in cars and
buses, people in schools, patients in hospitals - anyone and everyone -
everywhere in Yugoslavia.
The American terror campaign actually began in 1992 with the American/German
sponsored subversion and breakup of Yugoslavia and subsequent civil war in
Bosnia. It continued with the "ethnic cleansing" of approximately 300,000 to
500,000 Serbians from the Krajina region in 1995. Thousands of Serbian
refugees were murdered as they tried to flee the sadistic, gratuitous
bombing by the American-backed Croatian forces. American terrorism peaked
with the bombing of the entire civilian population and infrastructure of
Yugoslavia in 1999. It has continued to this day with the brutal occupation
of Kosovo.
NATO/KFOR occupation troops have stood idly by, watching sympathetically as
Albanian extremists kidnapped, publicly beat, murdered and tortured Serbs,
Roma and Jews, burning down their houses and dynamiting centuries-old
Christian churches. Over 200,000 non-Albanians were "ethnically cleansed"
from Kosovo with America's total blessing.
As if this weren't appalling enough, a massive sex-slave trade of Eastern
European women and girls has flourished in Kosovo since the American/NATO
occupation began. The women and girls are often beaten, they are forced to
live in poverty and filth, they are raped many times every day, and many are
murdered. The pimps are all Albanian KLA/mafia with a reputation for brutal
violence. The customers are American/NATO occupation troops (ludicrously
called "peacekeepers" by the corporate-owned mass-media) and so-called
"international peace workers".
Ah yes, "humanitarianism" and "democracy". Isn't that what America is all
about?
1993
AMERICAN SLAUGHTER OF PEOPLE IN SOMALIA
Estimated civilian deaths: 10,000 people
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
It was supposed to be a mission to help feed the starving masses. Before
long, the U.S. was trying to rearrange the country's political map by
eliminating the dominant warlord, Mohamed Aidid, and his power base. On many
occasions, beginning in June, U.S. helicopters strafed groups of Aidid's
supporters and fired missiles at them. Scores were killed. Then, in October,
a daring attempt by some 120 elite American forces to kidnap two leaders of
Aidid's clan resulted in a horrendous bloody battle. The final tally was
five U.S. helicopters shot down, 18 Americans dead, 73 wounded, 500 to 1000
Somalians killed, many more injured.
It's questionable that getting food to hungry people was as important as the
fact that four American oil giants were holding exploratory rights to large
areas of land and were hoping that U.S. troops would put an end to the chaos
which threatened their highly expensive investments. There was also the
Pentagon's ongoing need to sell itself to those in Congress who were trying
to cut the military budget in the post-Cold War world. "Humanitarian"
actions and (unnecessary) amphibious landings by U.S. Marines on the beach
in the glare of T.V. cameras were thought to be good selling points.
Washington designed the operation in such a way that the show would be run
by the U.S. military and not the United Nations, under whose aegis it
supposedly fell.
In any event, by the time the Marines landed, the worst of the famine was
over. It had peaked months before.
From the International Action Center:
On December 12, 1992, the U.S. sent 28,000 soldiers into Somalia under the
cover of the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) in what they said
was a "humanitarian mission" to bring food to starving people. The invasion
came when a several-year drought that had taken tens of thousands of lives
was actually abating. At the time, the evening news showed images of
thousands of starving Somalis. What people didn't see was U.S. troops - not
delivering food - but instead engaged in daily gun battles and bombing raids
in heavily populated neighborhoods. In ten months, more than 10,000 Somalis
died as the U.S. engaged in aggressive military action against those who
resisted.
Resistance among Somali women, men and even children to the foreign troops
became widespread. The Somali people have a long and proud history of
resistance. They fought for the freedom of their country from Italian,
French and British colonialism - and they resisted the U.S. attempts to
recolonize their country.
In the beginning of the military intervention in 1992, Colin Powell, at the
time the chairman of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the
invasion a "paid political advertisement" for the Pentagon at a time (less
than a year after the end of the so-called Cold War) when Congress was under
growing pressure to cut the war budget. Powell opposed calls that money be
used instead for jobs, education, health care, housing and other social
needs, and instead sought to maintain the $300-billion-plus military budget.
In reporting on the U.S./UN Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM), the human rights
organization Africa Rights stated that troops "have engaged in abuses of
human rights, including killing of civilians, physical abuse, theft... Many
UNOSOM soldiers have also displayed unacceptable levels of racism toward
Somalis." These abuses included opening fire with machine guns against
unarmed protesters, firing missiles into residential areas and outright
murder civilians, including many youth. The report states "UNOSOM has become
an army of occupation."
2001 - PRESENT
AMERICAN STATE TERRORISM OF THE AFGHAN PEOPLES
Estimated civilian deaths: 4000-5000 people
With total hypocrisy the United States military terrorized and mass-murdered
thousands of innocent Afghan civilian people, supposedly in reprisal for the
terror attacks of September 11. As they did in Yugoslavia and Iraq, heroic
U.S. Air Force pilots murdered thousands of women and children by bombing
hospitals and schools and private homes. They even bombed an Afghan wedding
party. None of these innocent, civilian victims had anything whatsoever to
do with the September 11 attacks.
Obviously the so-called "war on terrorism" is a total sham. The real reason
the U.S. is in Afghanistan is to get control of Caspian Sea oil. To get the
oil out of the Caspian basin they have to run pipelines through Afghanistan.
Most unfortunate for the hapless Afghan people.
2003
AMERICAN/BRITISH INVASION AND STATE TERRORISM OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE
Estimated civilian deaths: tens of thousands of people
In March 2003 the literally satanic U.S. military/government launched a
murderous invasion of Iraq. Disregarding America's widely scorned state
propaganda, there are three true reasons for the invasion and occupation: 1)
taking control of Iraq's oil; 2) forcing Iraq to return to using the dollar
instead of the euro for oil payments; 3) eliminating the largest,
independent Arab power on behalf of the terrorist, racist State of Israel.
Along with its British puppets, the American military destroyed the
hopelessly outgunned Iraqi military, once again slaughtering thousands of
Iraqi civilian men, women and children in the process. The racist invaders
now occupy the country and are continuing the mass murder and terrorization
of its people.