By William Blum, Ana Esther Cecena
translation
The machine of U.S. foreign policy has been lubricated by imperatives that can be summarized as follows:
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Building a world safe for U.S. corporations;
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promote financial resources for domestic defense contractors who have contributed generously to members of Congress;
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prevent the emergence of any society capable of representing a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;
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extend political and economic hegemony over the widest area possible, as befits the "great power."
All this in the name of a supposed moral crusade against international communist conspiracy were convinced that the supporters of the Cold War and that convinced the American people, and in fact, evil or not never existed. U.S.
really serious interventions conducted in over seventy countries in this period, most notably including:China, 1945-1949 : The civil war intervened on the side of Chiang Kai-Shek against the communists, even though they had been close U.S. allies during the war. The U.S. used defeated Japanese soldiers to fight on their side but the Communists forced Chiang to flee to Taiwan in 1949.
Philippines, 1945-1953 : U.S. military forces fighting against leftist forces Huks, while they still faced the Japanese invaders. After the war, the U.S. continues to fight against the Huks, the track and install a number of allied leaders in office, culminating with the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
South Korea, 1945-1953 : After WWII, the United States suppressed popular progressive forces favoring the conservatives who had collaborated with the Japanese. This leads to a long era of corruption and brutal dictatorships.
Italy, 1947-1948 : United States interferes in the elections to prevent the Communist Party comes to power legally with the stated purpose of "saving democracy" in Italy. The communists lost. In the following decades, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), along with corporate America continues to intervene in the Italian elections to block the "specter haunting Europe."
Greece, 1947-1949 : The civil war involved in taking the side of the neo-fascists against the Greek left which had fought the Nazis courageously. The neo-fascists won and established a highly brutal regime, for which the CIA created a new internal security agency, which for a long time, worked on putting into practice all the shares of secret police around the world, including torture systematic.
Albania, 1949-1953 USA and England trying unsuccessfully to topple the communist government and install a new pro-Western made up of monarchists and collaborators with the Nazis and Italian Fascists.
Germany, 1950's : The CIA began a broad campaign against eastern Germany. This was one of the factors that influenced the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
Viet Nam, 1950-1973 : After twenty-three and more than a million dead U.S. withdrew its military forces from Viet Nam Most people think that America lost the war, but destroying the heart of Viet Nam and poisoning the land and gene pools for generations, Washington actually achieved its main goal, preventing what could have been a good development option for Asia.
Iran, 1953 : Prime Minister Mossadegh was defeated in a joint operation between the U.S. and England. Mossadegh had been elected by a large majority in parliament but made the big mistake of heading a movement to nationalize a British oil company, the only oil company operating in Iran. The coup restored the Shah to absolute power, ushering in a period of repression and torture that lasts for twenty years in the property is restored foreign oil industry and issued to Britons and Americans 40 percent, respectively, and other nations the remaining 20 percent.
British Guiana / Guyana, 1953-1964 : For eleven years, two of the oldest democracies in the world, Britain and the United States go far to prevent a democratically elected leader take his place. Cheddi Jagan tried to remain neutral and independent. He was elected three times, though they have left their government policies were not revolutionary. It was however a marked man to represent the greatest threat to Washington: the construction of a society that could serve as an alternative to the capitalist model. Using various tactics the United States and England Jagan finally expelled in 1964. John F. Kennedy gave the order directly.
Guatemala, 1953-1990's : A coup organized by the CIA overthrew the democratic and progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz giving way to forty years of death squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions and unimaginable cruelty with a balance of over one hundred thousand victims. Arguably, one of the most inhuman chapters in the history of the twentieth century. Arbenz nationalized the United Fruit Company which had close ties with the elite of American power. In support of the coup, Washington declared that Guatemala was on the verge of falling under the sway of the Soviets, when in fact the Russians had so little interest in the country that even diplomatic relations with it. The real problem from the perspective of Washington, as well as with the United Fruit, was the danger of an extension of Guatemala's social democracy to other countries in the region.
Cambodia, 1955-1973 : After many years of hostility toward his regime, which included assassination plots and the infamous "letter bombs" Secret Nixon / Kissinger in 1969-1970, Washington finally overthrew Sihanouk in a coup in 1970. This was just what was needed to bring to Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge forces to take over the scene. Five years of missing U.S. bombing of Cambodia's traditional economy.
U.S. military said the Pol Pot and diplomatically over its subsequent defeats with Viet Nam
Middle East, 1956-1958 : United States twice attempted to overthrow the Syrian government, made a show of force in the Mediterranean to intimidate movements opposed to governments that held in Lebanon and Jordan, installing fourteen thousand troops in Lebanon, and conspired to overthrow or assassinate Nasser in Egypt for his disturbing nationalism.
Indonesia, 1957-1958 : Sukarno, like Nasser, was the third-class leader in the United States could not be understood. He took seriously the neutrality of the Cold War, traveling to the Soviet Union and China (although the White House.) He nationalized many private holdings of the Netherlands, former colonial power, and refused to deal harshly with the Indonesian Communist Party to move into a legal and peaceful means and recorded impressive electoral gains. The CIA began to join forces with officials military dissidents waging a comprehensive war against the government.
Cuba, 1959 to date : Fidel Castro coming to power in early 1959. A meeting of the National Security Council of the United States on March 10 included in its agenda the possibility of "another government in power in Cuba." Followed forty years of attacks, bombings, military invasions and embargoes open.
Congo / Zaire, 1960-1965 : In June 1960, with independence from Belgium, Patrice Lumumba became prime minister of Congo. However, as Belgium maintained its huge mining in the province of Katanga, and prominent Eisenhower administration officials had financial ties to the business, the day of the celebration of independence Lumumba, compared with foreign dignitaries who accompanied him, he called for economic and political liberation of the nation and gave an account of the injustices committed by the white owners of the country against the native population.
Eleven days later, Katanga province seceded, in September, Lumumba was dismissed by the president instigated by the United States in January 1961 and was killed by an express request of Dwight Eisenhower. Several years of civil conflict and chaos and the rise to power Mobutu Sese Seko, a man who was not unknown to the CIA. Mobutu has ruled the country for over thirty years, with levels of corruption and cruelty that hit even his own advisers to the CIA. Zaire's population lived in abject poverty despite the immense natural wealth, while Mobutu is a billionaire.
Brazil, 1961-1964 : President Joao Goulart adopted an independent stance in foreign policy by establishing relations with socialist countries and opposing sanctions against Cuba. His administration passed a law limiting the amount of profits repatriated by multinationals; nationalized a subsidiary of ITT, promoted economic and social reforms. In 1964 he was overthrown by a military coup in the United States had deep coverage and involvement.
During the next fifteen years all the characteristics of military dictatorships in Latin America met were instituted: Congress was dissolved, the political opposition was reduced to its virtual extinction, habeas corpus was suspended for "political crimes" is legally prohibited criticism of the President, the unions were intervened by the government, the growing protests were submitted by police and military forces fired at crowds, peasants' homes were burned, priests were brutalized ... disappearances, death squads, an impressive degree of depravity in the practice of torture.
Dominican Republic, 1963-1966 : In February 1963, Juan Bosch became the first democratically elected president in the Dominican Republic since 1924. Bosch
proposed land reform, low-rent housing, modest nationalization of business and foreign investment to the country did not explode too, and other policies that were part of a program of social change. Quantity
Congressional and U.S. officials expressed dissatisfaction with Bosch's plans, as well as its position of independence from the United States. Land reform and nationalization were very sensitive issues in Washington.
In September the military boots marched and Bosch is expelled. Nineteen months later, an attempted uprising to restore Bosch to power bringing him into exile. Twenty-three thousand U.S. troops sent to crush it.
Chile, 1964-1973 : Salvador Allende was the worst possible scenario for the imperialism of Washington. The only thing worse than a Marxist in power was a elected Marxist in power democratically, honoring the Constitution and became increasingly popular.
After sabotaging Allende's electoral endeavor in 1964, and failing in the same attempt in 1970, the CIA and the rest of American foreign policy machine left no stone unturned in their effort to destabilize the government of Allende in the next three years, with particular emphasis on promoting military hostility. Finally in September 1973 the military overthrew the Allende government killing in the process.
closed the country to the outside for a week when tanks rolled through the streets and soldiers knocked down the doors, the stadium rang with the sounds of the performances and bodies piled up along the streets and floated in the river, the torture centers were booming, the subversive books were burning in the fires, the soldiers tore the Pants women shouting "In Chile women wear dresses!" the poor returned to their natural state. In the end, more than three thousand people were executed, thousands more tortured and disappeared.
Greece 1964-1974: The military coup took place in April 1967, just two days before the national election campaign since it seemed clear that lead to George Papandreou back to the post of prime minister. Papandreou was elected in February 1964 for no overall majority of modern electoral history in Greece. The successful machinations to knock it down immediately initiated a joint effort of the Royal Court, the Greek military and the U.S. military and CIA operatives stationed in Greece. The 1967 coup was followed immediately by the traditional martial law, censorship, arrests, beatings, torture and murder, with a total of eight thousand victims in the first month.
torture was no doubt which indelibly marked the seven-year nightmare in Greece. James Becket, an American attorney sent to Greece by Amnesty International, wrote in December 1969 that "a conservative estimate at least two thousand" the number of people tortured, usually of the most gruesome and often using equipment provided by the United States.
Indonesia, 1965 : A complex series of events, including an alleged coup attempt, a counter and maybe a backlash against, with the U.S. hand printed at various points, resulted in the departure power of Sukarno and his replacement by a military junta headed by General Suharto. The slaughter that began immediately was hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most brutal mass killings of modern political history. "The estimated number of dead for a few years went from half a million to more than one million.
after it was learned that the U.S. embassy had prepared lists of" communist agents "from the highest level to the operators of neighborhood, reaching the five thousand names, and handed them to the army that was dedicated to hunt and kill.
East Timor, 1975 to present : In December 1975 Indonesia invaded East Timor , located at the eastern end of the archipelago, and whose independence from Portugal him out of his control. The invasion was made a day after President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger came out of Indonesia, not without giving Suharto permission to use American weapons, according to U.S. law, can not be used for aggression. Indonesia was the most valuable tool for the U.S. in Southeast Asia.
Amnesty International estimated that in 1989, with the aim of forcibly annexing East Timor, Indonesian troops killed two hundred thousand people in a population of between six hundred and seven hundred thousand. United States strongly supported the claims of Indonesia to East Timor (unlike the United Nations and the European Union European), minimizing a scandalous massacre of dimensions and providing at the same time for Indonesia to all equipment and training required to perform the operation.
Nicaragua, 1978-1979 : The Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1978. Under President Carter, attempts to sabotage took diplomatic and economic forms. Under Reagan, the violence was the method chosen. For eight terrible years the people of Nicaragua were under attack from the contras, an armed group near Washington, formed from Somoza's vicious National Guard and some of its advocates. It was a total war intended to destroy gradually all economic and social programs of government schools and hospitals burning, kidnapping, torturing, laying mines and bombing violently. These were "freedom fighters" by Ronald Reagan. There would be no revolution in Nicaragua.
Granada, 1979-1984 : What would the most powerful nation in the world to invade a country of one hundred and ten thousand inhabitants? Maurice Bishop and his followers had taken power in 1979 coup, and though his policies were not as revolutionary as those of Castro, Washington kept his fear of "another Cuba," particularly when public appearances by the Grenadian leaders were received enthusiasm in other countries in the region.
The U.S. destabilization tactics against the Bishop government began after the coup and continued until 1983. The U.S. invasion in October 1983 met minimal resistance if the United States suffered one hundred thirty-five casualties dead and wounded. Granada was also victimized four and eighty-four Cubans, mainly construction workers.
In late 1984, in a highly questionable election was won by a man supported by the Reagan administration. A year later, the human rights organization Council Hemispheric Affairs reported that the new police force trained by U.S. and Granada counterinsurgency forces had been marked by their brutality, arbitrary arrests and abuse of authority and the erosion of civil rights.
In April 1989 the government published a list of over eighty books that prohibit the import. Four months later, the prime minister dissolved Parliament.
Afghanistan, 1979-1992 : Everyone knows about the unbelievable repression of women in Afghanistan, carried out by Islamic fundamentalists, even before the Taliban. But how many know that during the seventies and eighties most of Afghanistan had a government in charge of putting this incredibly backward nation in the twentieth century, including the establishment of equal rights for women? What happened, however, is that the U.S. injected billions of dollars in a terrible war against this government, simply because he had supported the Soviet Union. Before this, the operations of the CIA deliberately encouraged the probability of a Soviet intervention, which was what happened. In the end the U.S. won and women, and the rest of the people of Afghanistan, lost. More than a million dead, three million the disabled, five million refugees, in total, about half of the population.
El Salvador, 1980-1992 : In 1980 the opposition took up arms and began the civil war.
Officially, the presence of U.S. military forces was limited to training, but in reality the military and CIA personnel played a more important role. About twenty Americans died or were injured in airplane or helicopter crashes while flying over combat areas on reconnaissance missions and there are many evidences on the involvement of U.S. forces directly in the field of battle. The war officially ended in 1992: seventy-five thousand civilians dead and the U.S. treasury emptied six billion dollars. Significant social changes were largely frustrated. A handful of the country still possessed rich, the poor continued as usual and had to keep dissidents harassed by death squads of the extreme right.
Libya, 1981-1989 : Libya refused to be an ally of Washington state in the Middle East. U.S. planes shot down two Libyan planes in what Libya considered airspace. They also bombarded the country killing at least forty people including was Qaddafi's daughter. There were several assassination attempts against him, to bring him down operations, a massive disinformation campaign, economic sanctions and Libya's guilt, without any clear evidence, by the bomb planted on Pan Am flight 103.
Haiti, 1987-1994 : United States held the Duvalier family dictatorship for thirty years, when he opposed the reformist priest Jean Bertrand Aristide. Meanwhile, the CIA worked closely with death squads, torturers and traffickers in drugs. Having delayed his return for more than two years, Washington finally had its military restore Aristide to Of course, but only after forcing the priest to ensure that no benefit on the poor at the expense of the rich and not oppose the free market economy. This meant that Haiti would continue to assembly plant for the Western Hemisphere and workers continue receiving literally starvation wages.
Panama, 1989 : In December 1989, a large residential neighborhood in Panama City was destroyed and fifteen thousand people were left homeless. After several days of confrontation with Panamanian forces the official toll was about five hundred dead, supported by United States and the new Panamanian government US-installed. Other sources, with no less evidence, insisted that thousands had died and had about three thousand wounded Americans twenty-three dead three hundred twenty-four injured.
Manuel Noriega was a U.S. ally and informant for years while it was useful. But turn it on was not the only motive for the attack. Bush wanted to send a clear message to the Nicaraguans, who had scheduled their elections two months later, that would be his ruin if reelected the Sandinistas. Bush also wanted to turn some military muscle to illustrate to Congress on the need to list a large combat force (For broad war scenario), even after the very recent dissolution of the "Soviet threat." The official explanation of the plunder perpetrated by the Americans was that Noriega was a drug trafficker, which Washington had known for years and never bothered.
Iraq, 1990's : Relentless bombing for more than forty days and nights to one of the most advanced nations of the Middle East, devastating its ancient and modern capital city, one hundred seventy-seven million pounds of bombs falling on the people of Iraq, the most concentrated aerial onslaught in the history of world uranium weapons incinerating discharging the people, causing cancer; explosion stores chemical-biological weapons and oil fields, poisoning the atmosphere to a degree perhaps never matched anywhere else, deliberately burying soldiers alive, infrastructure destroyed, with terrible repercussions on health ; permanent sanctions until today multiplying the health problems around one million children and more adults died from these causes today.
Iraq was the strongest military power in the Arab world. Noam Chomsky wrote: "The dominant line in the doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the forties was that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region were effectively dominated by the United States and its allies and, crucially, that no independent indigenous force could have a substantial influence on the management of production and the price of oil. "
Yugoslavia, 1999 USA is bombing the country back to a preindustrial era. I would like to convince the world that its intervention is motivated only "humanitarian." Perhaps the history of U.S. interventions counted up to help us decide on the credibility of this statement.
