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There can be a differences of opinion as to what constitutes a fact or wheather or not a a statement is in fact a fact.
The first article below offers examples of presentations of facts which appear to the author to be nothing more than verbal claptrap.
On the other hand, the second article "A Brief History of U.S. Interventions - 1945 to 1999" IMHO seems to be full of facts. Not everyone would agree which is why it was removed from Kenneth Wheeler's forum "What Do You Believe?" from within the thread "Some Facts to Pondor" for the reason given that it is not supported by facts.
I've found the second article below by William Blaum to be such a concise historical review that I felt it worth reposting. Is it factual? Let's hear from you.
The 1st article:
Liar
By Mike Whitney
05/10/06 "ICH" -- -- Rumsfeld is a pathological liar.
Nothing he says can be trusted. In 6 years, he’s never uttered a completely reliable statement, just convoluted pronouncements that have to be parsed by experts. That’s why it was so satisfying to see him skewered by Ray McGovern’s questions. McGovern had Rumsfeld backpedaling like he’d just been harpooned. Honesty has that kind of effect on people like Rumsfeld; that’s why they surround themselves with goons like a Mafia kingpin. They need a human-shield to protect them from the truth.
The American people have been ripped off big-time by Rummy. From the onset, it’s been one wretched excuse after another. Nothing is ever his fault; not the occupation; not the lack of soldiers; not the looting in Baghdad, not the faulty-armor, not the resistance, nothing. Ever!
Every errant bomb, every wayward missile, every downed helicopter, every dead soldier, is someone else’s fault.
Teflon Don; the biggest buck-passing narcissist the country has ever produced.
When the photos showed up from Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld feigned surprise. “A few bad apples”, he moaned. Now we know he did everything except fit the prisoners with women’s underwear.
Nice touch, eh?
Now he’s deployed troops in the United States and has a regional headquarters in Colorado (NorthCom) to spy on American citizens; all part of a sick plan to militarize the country and show everyone what a smart guy he is.
That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? An egomaniac trying to show everyone how brilliant he is? The only problem is he’s failed at everything he’s tried. Every part of the occupation has been so badly botched it’s totally beyond repair. Now, the London-based Senlis-Council is reporting that Afghanistan is unraveling, too.
Should we be surprised?
Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti; flop, flop, flop, one failure after another.
“We know where the weapons are…they’re in the area around Tikrit”.
What a joke; it’s like a carnival huckster pitching snake-oil to farm boys; nothing but smoke and mirrors; nothing but intellectual flatulence.
Or this:
“As we know, there are known knowns. And there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know, but there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.”
What type of flim-flam is that? Just more smart-ass, circuitous bullshit meant to impress and confuse; the clever blabbering of confidence man.
Is that what passes for honesty at the Pentagon?
This is what the truth sounds like:
“The decision to invade Iraq, was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results." Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold
That’s right; “or bury the results”.
Here’s another Rumsfeld gem describing the war on terror:
“Things will not be necessarily continuous. The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous ought not to be characterized as a pause. There will be some things that people will see. There will be some things that people won't see. And life goes on” (Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing)
More tortured language; more oblique banter; more meaningless gibberish.
Now, compare that to the candor of one of his strongest critics:
(Rumsfeld is) “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically” he has “put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his Cold-Warrior’s view of the world, and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower.” Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton.
Bull’s-eye!
So what’s Rumsfeld’s reward for 6 years of bungling?
Now, he’s trying to suck the CIA into the War Department so he’ll have control over the entire intelligence budget. That way he can carry out his criminal renditions and deploy his global paramilitaries in complete secrecy. It’s another giant step towards a military dictatorship.
Here’s a short-list of Rumsfeld’s more memorable lies.
A month before the invasion of Iraq Rumsfeld boasted on PBS’ News Hour that Americans would “be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq…There’s no question but that they will be welcomed”.
Lie. No candy, no flowers, no cakewalk.
Here’s the Pollyanna-way he characterized the “success” in Afghanistan, where the countryside is still 100% controlled by warlords and drug-dealers and where Bush’s Marshall Plan has never materialized:
“Go back to Afghanistan. The people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and Al Qaida would not let them do.”
“Flying kites”? What baloney.
Here’s Rumsfeld on Saddam’s weapons programs:
6 months before the invasion, he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2002, and said, “His regime has amassed large clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons” as well as “large clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons”.
Wrong again.
He insisted that Saddam had stockpiles “of VX nerve agent, sarin, mustard gas, anthrax, botulism and possibly smallpox”. Later he would claim that Saddam produced, “38,000 liters of botulism toxin, 500 tons of sarin, and upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons” as well as mobile biological-weapons labs.
What utter nonsense. These numbers were picked out of mid-air with no factual basis whatsoever. The intelligence community had no part in this charade; it was all cooked up by Rumsfeld’s stooges in the OSP (Office of Special Plans) so they could drag the country to war.
In 2002 Rumsfeld addressed the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and told them he had “bulletproof” evidence linking Saddam to Al Qaida; another lie designed to connect Saddam to 9-11.
When Rumsfeld was challenged about his claim, he protested,
“Never said that…never did. You may remember it well, but you’re thinking of someone else. You can’t find anywhere me saying anything like either of those two things you just said. I may look like someone else.”
No, Rumsfeld does not “look like someone else”; he’s the same unctuous, medicine man whose been pedaling his claptrap from the Pentagon-platform for 6 years. He piggy-backed the nation to war on a pack of lies and now he’s leading the charge to attack Iran.
It’s all been lies; Iraq, Iran, 9-11, Katrina, the war on terror; “a vast tapestry of lies” as Harold Pinter noted. Not a speck of truth to any of it.
The American people are being set up for the next big performance; another terrorist attack on the “homeland”. Rumsfeld will undoubtedly spearhead the crackdown on Muslims, leftists, intellectuals, political enemies, union leaders and anyone else who might pose a threat to his crackpot master-plan. His scheme is bound to fail just like everything else, but not before thousands are either “disappeared”, brutalized or dumped in a land-fill somewhere. Destruction is the only thing for which Rumsfeld has shown any particular aptitude. I expect he will continue to perfect this one, solitary talent.
The 2nd article:
A Brief History of U.S. Interventions - 1945 to 1999
By William Blum
1999 - "ZMag" -- -The engine of American foreign policy has been
fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the
necessity to serve other imperatives, which can be summarized as
follows:
* making the world safe for American corporations;
* enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home
who have contributed generously to members of congress;
* preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a
successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;
* extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as
possible, as befits a "great power."
This in the name of fighting a supposed moral crusade against what
cold warriors convinced themselves, and the American people, was the
existence of an evil International Communist Conspiracy, which in
fact never existed, evil or not.
The United States carried out extremely serious interventions into
more than 70 nations in this period.
China, 1945-49:
Intervened in a civil war, taking the side of Chiang Kai-shek
against the Communists, even though the latter had been a much
closer ally of the United States in the world war. The U.S. used
defeated Japanese soldiers to fight for its side. The Communists
forced Chiang to flee to Taiwan in 1949.
Italy, 1947-48:
Using every trick in the book, the U.S. interfered in the elections
to prevent the Communist Party from coming to power legally and
fairly. This perversion of democracy was done in the name of "saving
democracy" in Italy. The Communists lost. For the next few decades,
the CIA, along with American corporations, continued to intervene in
Italian elections, pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars and
much psychological warfare to block the specter that was haunting
Europe.
Greece, 1947-49:
Intervened in a civil war, taking the side of the neo-fascists
against the Greek left which had fought the Nazis courageously. The
neo-fascists won and instituted a highly brutal regime, for which
the CIA created a new internal security agency, KYP. Before long,
KYP was carrying out all the endearing practices of secret police
everywhere, including systematic torture.
Philippines, 1945-53:
U.S. military fought against leftist forces (Huks) even while the
Huks were still fighting against the Japanese invaders. After the
war, the U. S. continued its fight against the Huks, defeating them,
and then installing a series of puppets as president, culminating in
the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
South Korea, 1945-53:
After World War II, the United States suppressed the popular
progressive forces in favor of the conservatives who had
collaborated with the Japanese. This led to a long era of corrupt,
reactionary, and brutal governments.
Albania, 1949-53:
The U.S. and Britain tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the communist
government and install a new one that would have been pro-Western
and composed largely of monarchists and collaborators with Italian
fascists and Nazis.
Germany, 1950s:
The CIA orchestrated a wide-ranging campaign of sabotage, terrorism,
dirty tricks, and psychological warfare against East Germany. This
was one of the factors which led to the building of the Berlin Wall
in 1961.
Iran, 1953:
Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown in a joint U.S./British
operation. Mossadegh had been elected to his position by a large
majority of parliament, but he had made the fateful mistake of
spearheading the movement to nationalize a British-owned oil
company, the sole oil company operating in Iran. The coup restored
the Shah to absolute power and began a period of 25 years of
repression and torture, with the oil industry being restored to
foreign ownership, as follows: Britain and the U.S., each 40
percent, other nations 20 percent.
Guatemala, 1953-1990s:
A CIA-organized coup overthrew the democratically-elected and
progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating 40 years of
death-squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions, and
unimaginable cruelty, totaling well over 100,000 victims -
indisputably one of the most inhuman chapters of the 20th century.
Arbenz had nationalized the U.S. firm, United Fruit Company, which
had extremely close ties to the American power elite. As
justification for the coup, Washington declared that Guatemala had
been on the verge of a Soviet takeover, when in fact the Russians
had so little interest in the country that it didn't even maintain
diplomatic relations. The real problem in the eyes of Washington, in
addition to United Fruit, was the danger of Guatemala's social
democracy spreading to other countries in Latin America.
Middle East, 1956-58:
The Eisenhower Doctrine stated that the United States "is prepared
to use armed forces to assist" any Middle East country "requesting
assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by
international communism." The English translation of this was that
no one would be allowed to dominate, or have excessive influence
over, the middle east and its oil fields except the United States,
and that anyone who tried would be, by definition, "Communist." In
keeping with this policy, the United States twice attempted to
overthrow the Syrian government, staged several shows-of-force in
the Mediterranean to intimidate movements opposed to U.S.-supported
governments in Jordan and Lebanon, landed 14,000 troops in Lebanon,
and conspired to overthrow or assassinate Nasser of Egypt and his
troublesome middle-east nationalism.
Indonesia, 1957-58:
Sukarno, like Nasser, was the kind of Third World leader the United
States could not abide. He took neutralism in the cold war
seriously, making trips to the Soviet Union and China (though to the
White House as well). He nationalized many private holdings of the
Dutch, the former colonial power. He refused to crack down on the
Indonesian Communist Party, which was walking the legal, peaceful
road and making impressive gains electorally. Such policies could
easily give other Third World leaders "wrong ideas." The CIA began
throwing money into the elections, plotted Sukarno's assassination,
tried to blackmail him with a phony sex film, and joined forces with
dissident military officers to wage a full-scale war against the
government. Sukarno survived it all.
British Guiana/Guyana, 1953-64:
For 11 years, two of the oldest democracies in the world, Great
Britain and the United States, went to great lengths to prevent a
democratically elected leader from occupying his office. Cheddi
Jagan was another Third World leader who tried to remain neutral and
independent. He was elected three times. Although a leftist-more so
than Sukarno or Arbenz-his policies in office were not
revolutionary. But he was still a marked man, for he represented
Washington's greatest fear: building a society that might be a
successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model. Using
a wide variety of tactics-from general strikes and disinformation to
terrorism and British legalisms, the U. S. and Britain finally
forced Jagan out in 1964. John F. Kennedy had given a direct order
for his ouster, as, presumably, had Eisenhower.
One of the better-off countries in the region under Jagan, Guyana,
by the 1980s, was one of the poorest. Its principal export became
people.
Vietnam, 1950-73:
The slippery slope began with siding with ~ French, the former
colonizers and collaborators with the Japanese, against Ho Chi Minh
and his followers who had worked closely with the Allied war effort
and admired all things American. Ho Chi Minh was, after all, some
kind of Communist. He had written numerous letters to President
Truman and the State Department asking for America's help in winning
Vietnamese independence from the French and finding a peaceful
solution for his country. All his entreaties were ignored. Ho Chi
Minh modeled the new Vietnamese declaration of independence on the
American, beginning it with "All men are created equal. They are
endowed by their Creator with ..." But this would count for nothing
in Washington. Ho Chi Minh was some kind of Communist.
Twenty-three years and more than a million dead, later, the United
States withdrew its military forces from Vietnam. Most people say
that the U.S. lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core,
and poisoning the earth and the gene pool for generations,
Washington had achieved its main purpose: preventing what might have
been the rise of a good development option for Asia. Ho Chi Minh
was, after all, some kind of communist.
Cambodia, 1955-73:
Prince Sihanouk was yet another leader who did not fancy being an
American client. After many years of hostility towards his regime,
including assassination plots and the infamous Nixon/Kissinger
secret "carpet bombings" of 1969-70, Washington finally overthrew
Sihanouk in a coup in 1970. This was all that was needed to impel
Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge forces to enter the fray. Five years
later, they took power. But five years of American bombing had
caused Cambodia's traditional economy to vanish. The old Cambodia
had been destroyed forever.
Incredibly, the Khmer Rouge were to inflict even greater misery on
this unhappy land. To add to the irony, the United States supported
Pol Pot, militarily and diplomatically, after their subsequent
defeat by the Vietnamese.
The Congo/Zaire, 1960-65:
In June 1960, Patrice Lumumba became the Congo's first prime
minister after independence from Belgium. But Belgium retained its
vast mineral wealth in Katanga province, 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 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.
Brazil, 1961-64:
President Joao Goulart was guilty of the usual crimes: He took an
independent stand in foreign policy, resuming relations with
socialist countries and opposing sanctions against Cuba; his
administration passed a law limiting the amount of profits
multinationals could transmit outside the country; a subsidiary of
ITT was nationalized; he promoted economic and social reforms. And
Attorney-General Robert Kennedy was uneasy about Goulart
allowing "communists" to hold positions in government agencies. Yet
the man was no radical. He was a millionaire land-owner and a
Catholic who wore a medal of the Virgin around his neck. That,
however, was not enough to save him. In 1964, he was overthrown in a
military coup which had deep, covert American involvement. The
official Washington line was...yes, it's unfortunate that democracy
has been overthrown in Brazil...but, still, the country has been
saved from communism.
For the next 15 years, all the features of military dictatorship
that Latin America has come to know were instituted: Congress was
shut down, political opposition was reduced to virtual extinction,
habeas corpus for "political crimes" was suspended, criticism of the
president was forbidden by law, labor unions were taken over by
government interveners, mounting protests were met by police and
military firing into crowds, peasants' homes were burned down,
priests were brutalized...disappearances, death squads, a remarkable
degree and depravity of torture...the government had a name for its
program: the "moral rehabilitation" of Brazil.
Washington was very pleased. Brazil broke relations with Cuba and
became one of the United States' most reliable allies in Latin
America.
Dominican Republic, 1963-66:
In February 1963, Juan Bosch took office as the first democratically
elected president of the Dominican Republic since 1924. Here at last
was John F. Kennedy's liberal anti-Communist, to counter the charge
that the 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.
Cuba, 1959 to present:
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.
Indonesia, 1965:
A complex series of events, involving a supposed coup attempt, a
counter-coup, and perhaps a counter-counter-coup, with American
fingerprints apparent at various points, resulted in the ouster from
power of Sukarno and his replacement by a military coup led by
General Suharto. The massacre that began immediately-of Communists,
Communist sympathizers, suspected Communists, suspected Communist
sympathizers, and none of the above-was called by the New York
Times "one of the most savage mass slayings of modern political
history." The estimates of the number killed in the course of a few
years begin at half a million and go above a million.
It was later learned that the U.S. embassy had compiled lists
of "Communist" operatives, from top echelons down to village cadres,
as many as 5,000 names, and turned them over to the army, which then
hunted those persons down and killed them. The Americans would then
check off the names of those who had been killed or captured. "It
really was a big help to the army. They probably killed a lot of
people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands," said one
U.S. diplomat. "But that's not all bad. There's a time when you have
to strike hard at a decisive moment. "
Chile, 1964-73:
Salvador Allende was the worst possible scenario for a Washington
imperialist. He could imagine only one thing worse than a Marxist in
power-an elected Marxist in power, who 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.
Greece, 1964-74:
The military coup took place in April 1967, just two days before the
campaign for j 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.
East Timor, 1975 to present:
In December 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor, which lies at the
eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, and which had proclaimed
its independence after Portugal had relinquished control of it. The
invasion was launched the day after 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. Iaw,
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.
Nicaragua, 1978-89:
When the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1978, it
was clear to Washington that they might well be that long-dreaded
beast-"another Cuba." Under President Carter, attempts to sabotage
the revolution took diplomatic and economic forms. Under Reagan,
violence was the method of choice. For eight terribly long years,
the people of Nicaragua were under attack by Washington's proxy
army, the Contras, formed from Somoza's vicious National 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.
Grenada, 1979-84:
What would drive the most powerful nation in the world to invade a
country of 110,000? Maurice Bishop and his followers had taken power
in a 1979 coup, 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.
U. S. destabilization tactics against the Bishop government began
soon after the coup and continued until 1983, featuring numerous
acts of disinformation and dirty tricks. The American invasion in
October 1983 met minimal resistance, although the U.S. suffered 135
killed or wounded; there were also some 400 Grenadian casualties,
and 84 Cubans, mainly construction workers.
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."
Libya, 1981-89:
Libya refused to be a proper Middle East client state of Washington.
Its leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, was uppity. He would have to be
punished. U.S. planes shot down two Libyan planes in what Libya
regarded as its air space. The U. S . also dropped bombs on the
country, killing at least 40 people, including Qaddafi's daughter.
There were other attempts to assassinate the man, operations to
overthrow him, a major disinformation campaign, economic sanctions,
and blaming Libya for being behind the Pan Am 103 bombing without
any good evidence.
Panama, 1989:
Washington's bombers strike again. December 1989, a large tenement
barrio in Panama City wiped out, 15,000 people left homeless.
Counting several days of ground fighting against Panamanian forces,
500-something dead was the official body count, what the U.S. and
the new U.S.-installed Panamanian government admitted to; other
sources, with no less evidence, insisted that thousands had died;
3,000-something wounded. Twenty-three Americans dead, 324 wounded.
Question from reporter: "Was it really worth it to send people to
their death for this? To get Noriega?"
George Bush: "Every human life is precious, and yet I have to
answer, yes, it has been worth it."
Manuel Noriega had been an American ally and informant for years
until he outlived his usefulness. But getting him was not the only
motive for the attack. Bush wanted to send a clear message to the
people of Nicaragua, who had an election scheduled in two months,
that this might be their fate if they 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.
Iraq, 1990s:
Relentless bombing for more than 40 days and nights, against one of
the most advanced nations in the Middle East, devastating its
ancient and modern capital city; 177 million pounds of bombs falling
on the people of Iraq, the most concentrated aerial onslaught in the
history of the world; depleted uranium weapons incinerating people,
causing cancer; blasting chemical and biological weapon storage and
oil facilities; poisoning the atmosphere to a degree perhaps never
matched anywhere; burying soldiers alive, deliberately; the
infrastructure destroyed, with a terrible effect on health;
sanctions continued to this day multiplying the health problems;
perhaps a million children dead by now from all of these things,
even more adults.
Iraq was the strongest military power among the Arab states. This
may have been their crime. Noam Chomsky has written: "It's been a
leading, driving doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the 1940s
that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region
will be effectively dominated by the United States and its clients,
and, crucially, that no independent, indigenous force will be
permitted to have a substantial influence on the administration of
oil production and price. "
Afghanistan, 1979-92:
Everyone knows of the unbelievable repression of women in
Afghanistan, carried out by Islamic fundamentalists, even before the
Taliban. But how many people know that during the late 1970s and
most of the 1980s, Afghanistan had a government committed to
bringing the incredibly backward nation into the 20th century,
including giving women equal rights? What happened, however, is that
the United States poured billions of dollars into waging a terrible
war against this government, simply because it was supported by the
Soviet Union. Prior to this, CIA operations had knowingly increased
the probability of a Soviet intervention, which is what occurred. In
the end, the United States won, and the women, and the rest of
Afghanistan, lost. More than a million dead, three million disabled,
five million refugees, in total about half the population.
El Salvador, 1980-92:
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.
Haiti, 1987-94:
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.
Yugoslavia, 1999:
The United States is bombing the country back to a pre-industrial
era. It would like the world to believe that its intervention is
motivated only by "humanitarian" impulses. Perhaps the above history
of U.S. interventions can help one decide how much weight to place
on this claim.
William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II. P
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The situation brings up a futher issue of editorial control when used in mainstream media is tantamount to propaganda which is addressed at length in the video "Manufacturing Consent" by Noam Chomsky. A link to this video is available in the message section of the Yahoo group A1 Links, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/A1Links
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Not suported by FACTS..................
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