Post by Julian D.Post by s***@columbia.eduSince you haven't denied his premise that the US is a fascist state
we can assume that you're really pissed off because he had the
courage to say so in a public forum, which is why you attack the
man instead of the idea.
You agree with Churchill that the terrorists had legitimate reasons
for killing 3,000 people on 9-11?
Absolutely. It is incontrovertibly undeniable.
Noticed that not one of the rabid foaming at the mouth
rightwing neo-cons has even attempted to refute that fact?
They just spend all their time with ad hominem attacks
on the messenger, ignoring the uncomfortible facts
of the message itself.
Post by Julian D.That they had logical, rational
reasons for 'pushing back'?
What sane person can deny it?
Post by Julian D.You must be one of those liberal self-hating Americans.
You must be one of those ignorant neo-cons in denial:
A sampling of US attacks, invasions, aggression, terrorism and atrocities
worldwide
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
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
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
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
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 AND THE RISE OF SADDAM
HUSSEIN
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
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
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
Democratically elected 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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
The America the Media Don't Want You to See 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.
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
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
"Pan Am Flight 103: Trial opens of Libyans accused of Lockerbie bombing"
By Steve James
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 HW Bush, 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
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
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
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
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.
US Secretary of State Madeline Albright was asked whether the over half a
million children killed by the Iraqi sanctions were "worth it." Her response
was: "It's a hard choice, but I think, we, think, it's worth it." [60 Minutes,
May 11, 1996]
1992 -PRESENT
AMERICAN/NATO STATE TERRORISM AND SUBVERSION OF THE YUGOSLAVIAN PEOPLES
Estimated civilian deaths: over 3000 people from the 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
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 PEOPLE
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 - Present
ILLEGAL AMERICAN / BRITISH INVASION AND STATE TERRORISM OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE
Civilian Deaths / Murders at hands of US Invaders: 100,000+ !
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.
War critics astonished as US hawk admits Iraq invasion was illegal
Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday November 20, 2003
Guardian U.K.
International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment
yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the
invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr
Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood
in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either
because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British
government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by
international law.
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US
defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have
required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally
unacceptable.
French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism
consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".
Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of
Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi
dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.
"They're just not interested in international law, are they?" said Linda Hugl, a
spokeswoman for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which launched a high
court challenge to the war's legality last year. "It's only when the law suits
them that they want to use it."
Mr Perle's remarks bear little resemblance to official justifications for war,
according to Rabinder Singh QC, who represented CND and also participated in
Tuesday's event.
Certainly the British government, he said, "has never advanced the suggestion
that it is entitled to act, or right to act, contrary to international law in
relation to Iraq".
The Pentagon adviser's views, he added, underlined "a divergence of view between
the British govern ment and some senior voices in American public life [who]
have expressed the view that, well, if it's the case that international law
doesn't permit unilateral pre-emptive action without the authority of the UN,
then the defect is in international law".
Mr Perle's view is not the official one put forward by the White House. Its main
argument has been that the invasion was justified under the UN charter, which
guarantees the right of each state to self-defence, including pre-emptive
self-defence. On the night bombing began, in March, Mr Bush reiterated America's
"sovereign authority to use force" to defeat the threat from Baghdad.
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has questioned that justification, arguing
that the security council would have to rule on whether the US and its allies
were under imminent threat.
Coalition officials countered that the security council had already approved the
use of force in resolution 1441, passed a year ago, warning of "serious
consequences" if Iraq failed to give a complete ac counting of its weapons
programmes.
Other council members disagreed, but American and British lawyers argued that
the threat of force had been implicit since the first Gulf war, which was ended
only by a ceasefire.
"I think Perle's statement has the virtue of honesty," said Michael Dorf, a law
professor at Columbia University who opposed the war, arguing that it was
illegal.
"And, interestingly, I suspect a majority of the American public would have
supported the invasion almost exactly to the same degree that they in fact did,
had the administration said that all along."
The controversy-prone Mr Perle resigned his chairmanship of the defence policy
board earlier this year but remained a member of the advisory board.
Meanwhile, there was a hint that the US was trying to find a way to release the
Britons held at Guantanamo Bay.
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said Mr Bush was "very sensitive" to
British sentiment. "We also expect to be resolving this in the near future," he
told the BBC.