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U.S. Murder

This list of nations represents literally millions of human beings all over the world who have been brutally murdered directly by the United States government/military or by its obediant proxies. Huge though the list is, there is yet more to add. It does, however, contain the most well-known campaigns of American state terrorism, genocide and subversion — all of which are in the historical record for the whole world to see. But God only knows what evil the U.S. government and military have committed that remains hidden.
And as long as the United States remains a military power the list of state terror victims will keep growing.



1948 — Present
American/Israeli State Terrorism of the Palestinian People
Estimated civilian deaths: 100,000 Palestinian people
From the very beginning of the State of Israel in 1948 the Israelis have committed mass-murder and terrorization of the Palestinian people. In addition, Israelis torture Palestinian prisoners in jail on a routine basis. And almost all of it has been kept hidden by the mainstream American mass-media for 53 years.
In 1982 after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Israeli racist Ariel Sharon was the primary authority behind the massacres at the Shatilla and Sabra refugee camps in which over 1000 helpless Palestinian women, children and civilian men were murdered in cold blood.
The United States government pours billions of your tax dollars into Israel 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.



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 to its 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.
See also:
U.S. Terrorism of the Central American, South American and Caribbean Peoples



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 veteran's families found that 67% had children with severe illnesses or birth defects.
Even the United Nations estimates that over one million Iraqi civilians, including 600,000 children below the age of five have died as a result of diseases from polluted water — and the American sanctions which deny them the needed medicines.



1992 — Present
American/NATO State Terrorism of the Yugoslavian People
Estimated civilian deaths: over 3000 people from the 1999 terror-bombing
Weapons of mass-destruction used by U.S.-dominated NATO forces included cluster bombs, depleted uranium missiles, fuel-air bombs, napalm, cruise missiles and other so-called "smart bombs."
250,000 people were killed during the U.S./German-sponsored civil war in Bosnia, 1992-1995 and 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?



1960 — Present
American Assassination of Patrice Lumumba and Backing 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.



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.


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.


1980 — Present
American Terrorism of the El Salvadoran People
Estimated civilian deaths: over 75,000 people
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.

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.

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.

1993
American Slaughter of People in Somalia
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.

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 — 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.'"

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.


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 F111 pilots bombed the private house of Muammar Qadhafi and murdered his little two-year-old daughter.
At least 100 other people — including civilian men, women and children — were slaughtered as the heroic 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 Libya as "a tough lesson for Qadhafi" which had given him a "nosebleed." The brainwashed morons of the crew cheered.
Eleven days later, over 100 people lay dead in Tripoli and Benghazi — including a little two-year-old girl. Murdered by these American heros.

 1988
U.S. Navy Mass-Murder of Civilian Iranian Airline Passengers
Known civilian deaths: 290 people
From the WSWS article:
"Pan Am Flight 103: Trial opens of Libyans accused of Lockerbie bombing"
By Steve James
6 May 2000

On July 3, 1988 the U.S. Navy warship the Vincennes was operating within Iranian waters, providing military support for Iraq in the ongoing Iran/Iraq war. During a one-sided battle against a small number of lightly armed Iranian gunboats, the Vincennes fired two missiles at (an Iranian) Airbus, which was on a routine civilian flight. All 290 civilians onboard were killed.
This act of mass murder by the U.S. has never resulted in any court case. The captain and crew of the Vincennes were militarily decorated. Attempts by relatives of the victims to bring legal action against the American government were rejected by the US Supreme Court in 1993. Despite the fact that the vast majority of victims were Iranian, the US paid $2.9 million in compensation only to non-Iranian victims of the shooting.

"I will never apologize for the United States of America — I don't care what the facts are."
— President George Bush, Sr.
referring to the mass-murder
of Iranian civilian people
by the U.S.S. Vincennes

1979 — 1984
American Subversion and Invasion of tiny Grenada
Estimated civilian deaths: several hundred people
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 attented, 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.)
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."

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
[Marxist President] Salvador Allende was the worst possible scenario for a Washington imperialist, [who] could imagine only one thing worse than a Marxist in power — an elected Marxist in power, who honored the constitution, and became increasingly popular. This shook the very foundation stones on which the anti-Communist tower was built: the doctrine, painstakingly cultivated for decades, that "communists" can take power only through force and deception, that they can retain that power only through terrorizing and brainwashing the population.
After sabotaging Allende's electoral endeavor in 1964, and failing to do so in 1970, despite their best efforts, the CIA and the rest of the American foreign policy machine left no stone unturned in their attempt to destabilize the Allende government over the next three years, paying particular attention to building up military hostility. Finally, in September 1973, the military overthrew the government, Allende dying in the process.
They closed the country to the outside world for a week, while the tanks rolled and the soldiers broke down doors; the stadiums rang with the sounds of execution and the bodies piled up along the streets and floated in the river; the torture centers opened for business; the subversive books were thrown into bonfires; soldiers slit the trouser legs of women, shouting that "In Chile women wear dresses!"; the poor returned to their natural state; and the men of the world in Washington and in the halls of international finance opened up their check-books. In the end, more than 3,000 had been executed, thousands more tortured or disappeared.

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

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.

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.

1945 — 1974
American Genocide of the Vietnamese People
Estimated total civilian deaths: 2,500,000 — 3,500,000 people
The slippery slope began with the US siding with the French, the former colonizers, and with 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" (one of those bad-for-you label warnings).
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. For he was some kind of communist.
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.
More than twenty years and more than a million dead later, the United States withdrew its military forces from Vietnam. Most people believe that the US lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core, by poisoning the earth, the water and the gene pool for generations, Washington had in fact achieved its primary 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.

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.

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.'"

1947 — 1970s
American Perversion of Democracy in Italy
In 1947, the US forced the Italian government to dismiss its Communist and Socialist cabinet members in order to receive American economic aid. The following year and for decades thereafter, each time a combined front of the Communists and Socialists, or the Communists alone, threatened to defeat the US-supported Christian Democrats in national elections, the CIA used every (dirty) trick in the book and trained its big economic, political and psychological-warfare guns on the Italian people, while covertly funding the CD candidates.
And it worked. Again and again. This perversion of democracy was done in the name of "saving democracy" in Italy.
American corporations also contributed many millions of dollars to help keep the left from a share of power.

1965
American-backed Genocide of the Indonesian People
Estimated civilian deaths: 500,000 — 1,000,000 people
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. "
Added note: To this day, Indonesia's military and police forces continue to be one of America's best customers for weapons, training, and torture devices.

1961 — 1964
American-backed State Terrorism and Overthrow of Democracy in Brazil
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.



1953 — 1964
American/British Overthrow of the Democratically-Elected President of Guyana
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.

1963
American/British Assassination of the Leader of Iraq
In July 1958, Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem overthrew the monarchy and established a republic. Though somewhat of a reformist, he was by no means any kind of radical. His action, however, awakened revolutionary fervor in the masses and increased the influence of the Iraqi Communist Party.
By April of the following year, CIA Director Allen Dulles, with his customary hyperbole, was telling Congress that the Iraqi Communists were close to a "complete takeover" and the situation in that country was "the most dangerous in the world today". In actuality, Kassem aimed at being a neutralist in the Cold War and pursued rather inconsistent policies toward the Iraqi Communists, never allowing them formal representation in his cabinet, nor even full legality, though they strongly desired both. He tried to maintain power by playing the Communists off against other ideological groups.
A secret plan for a joint US-Turkish invasion of the country was drafted by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the 1958 coup. Reportedly, only Soviet threats to intercede on Iraq's side forced Washington to hold back. But in 1960, the United States began to fund the Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq who were fighting for a measure of autonomy and the CIA undertook an assassination attempt against Kassem, which was unsuccessful.
The Iraqi leader made himself even more of a marked man when, in that same year, he began to help create the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which challenged the stranglehold Western oil companies had on the marketing of Arab oil; and in 1962 he created a national oil company to exploit the nation's oil.
In February 1963, Kassem told the French daily, Le Monde, that he had received a note from Washington — "in terms scarcely veiled, calling upon me to change my attitude, under threat of sanctions against Iraq... All our trouble with the imperialists [the US and the UK] began the day we claimed our legitimate rights to Kuwait." (Kuwait was a key element in US and UK hegemonic designs over mid-east oil.)
A few days after Kassem's remarks were published, he was overthrown in a coup and summarily executed; thousands of communists were killed.
The State Department soon informed the press that it was pleased that the new regime would respect international agreements and was not interested in nationalizing the giant Iraq Petroleum Co., of which the US was a major owner. The new government, at least for the time being, also cooled its claim to Kuwait.
Papers of the British cabinet of 1963, later declassified, disclose that the coup had been backed by the British and the CIA.
Added note: For the coup of 1963 the British MI6 and the CIA hired a young Iraqi man in Cairo to do their dirty work and help them destroy the Iraqi Communist Party. That man's name: Saddam Hussein.
For the next 27 years, the CIA's boy in Baghdad murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi leftists. Countless people were jailed and tortured. Saddam Hussein started the bloody war with Iran with the blessing of President Jimmy "Human Rights" Carter. The U.S. government wanted to punish Iranians for taking American hostages at the embassy in Tehran and overthrowing the brutal Shah, a long-time CIA puppet. The U.S. also supplied Hussein with the chemical and biological weapons he used on the Iranians and on Kurdish villagers.


1940s — 1960s
American Assassination, Sabotage and Subversion Within the Soviet Union
The US infiltrated many hundreds of Russian emigres into the Soviet Union to gather intelligence about military and technological installations; commit assassinations; obtain current samples of identification documents; assist Western agents to escape; engage in sabotage, such as derailing trains, wrecking bridges, actions against arms factories and power plants; or instigate armed political struggle against Communist rule by linking up with resistance movements.
There was also a mammoth CIA anti-Soviet propaganda campaign, highlighted by the covert publishing of well over a thousand books in English, a number by well-known authors, which were distributed all over the world, as well as hundreds in foreign languages.

1950s — 1960s
American Intrigue & Subversion in Western Europe
For two decades, the CIA used dozens of American foundations, charitable trusts and the like, including a few of its own creation, as conduits for payments to all manner of organizations in Western Europe.
The beneficiaries of this largesse were political parties, magazines, news agencies, journalists' and other unions, labor organizations, student and youth groups, lawyers' associations and other enterprises, all ostensibly independent, but nonetheless serving Washington's Cold-War, anti-communist, anti-socialist agenda — an agenda which also included a militarized and united Western Europe, allied to (and dominated by) the United States, and support for the Common Market and NATO, all part of the bulwark against the supposed Soviet threat.


1959
American Support of Dictatorship in Haiti
The US military mission, in Haiti to train the troops of noted dictator Francois Duvalier, used its air, sea and ground power to smash an attempt to overthrow Duvalier by a small group of Haitians, aided by some Cubans and other Latin Americans.

1957 — 1958
American Subversion in Indonesia
Indonesia's Sukarno, like Egypt's Gamel Abdul Nasser, was the kind of Third World leader the United States could not abide by: a nationalist who was serving the wrong national interest. He took neutralism in the Cold War seriously, making trips to the Soviet Union and China as well as to the White House. He nationalized many private holdings of the Dutch, the former colonial power.
And he refused to crack down on the Indonesian Communist Party, which was walking the legal, peaceful road and making impressive gains electorally. Such policies could easily give other Third World leaders "wrong ideas".
Thus it was that the CIA began throwing money into the elections, plotted Sukarno's assassination, tried to blackmail him with a phoney sex film, and joined forces with dissident military officers to wage a full-scale war against the government, including bombing runs by American pilots.
Sukarno survived it all.

1956 — 1958
American Tyranny in the Middle East
The Eisenhower Doctrine stated that the United States "is prepared to use armed forces to assist" any Middle Eastern country "requesting assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism".
The English translation of this was that no one would be allowed to dominate, or have excessive influence over, the Middle East and its oil fields except the United States, and that anyone who tried would be, by definition, "communist".
In keeping with this policy, the United States twice attempted to overthrow the Syrian government, staged several shows-of-force in the Mediterranean to intimidate movements opposed to US-supported governments in Jordan and Lebanon, landed 14,000 troops in Lebanon, and conspired to overthrow or assassinate Nasser of Egypt and his troublesome Middle-East nationalism.

1953
American/British Overthrow of Democracy in Iran
Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown in a joint US-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, initiating a period of 25 years of repression and torture, while the oil industry was restored to foreign ownership, with the US and Britain each getting 40 percent.

1950s
American/NATO Terrorism in Germany, Italy and All of Europe
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.
The United States also created a secret civilian army in Germany, which drew up a list of 200 leading Social Democrats, 15 Communists and various others who were to be "put out of the way" if the Soviet Union invaded. This secret army had its counterparts all over Western Europe as part of "Operation Gladio", developed by the CIA and other intelligence services, and not answerable for its actions under the laws of any state.
After NATO was formed in 1949, Gladio came under its discreet aegis. "Gladiators" were responsible for numerous acts of terrorism in Europe, foremost of which was the bombing of the Bologna railway station in 1980, claiming 86 lives.
The purpose of the terrorism was to place the blame for these atrocities on the left and thus heighten public concern about a Soviet invasion and at the same time discredit leftist electoral candidates. NATO feared that if the left came to power in the government of any of its members, they might pass legislation that would be a threat to the NATO installations or operations in that country.

1948 — 1956
American Subversion in Eastern Europe
Allen Dulles, Director of the CIA, in a remarkable chess game, instigated a high Polish security official, Jozef Swiatlo, to use a controversial American, Noel Field, to spread paranoia amongst the security establishments of Eastern Europe, leading to countless purge trials, hundreds of thousands of imprisonments and at least hundreds of deaths.

1949 — 1953
American/British Subversion in Albania
By infiltrating emigre guerrillas into the country, the US and Britain tried to overthrow the communist government and install a new one that would have been pro-Western, albeit composed largely of monarchists and (former) collaborators with Italian fascists and Nazis. Hundreds of the emigres lost their lives or were imprisoned.

1945 — 1953
American Terrorism and Genocide of the Korean People
Estimated civilian deaths: over 1,000,000
After World War II, the United States suppressed popular progressive organizations, who had been allies in the war — at times with brutal force — in favor of the conservatives who had collaborated with the Japanese.
As a result, the best opportunities to unify North and South were derailed. This led to a long era of corrupt, reactionary and ruthless governments in the South and the huge, war-crime filled American military intervention of 1950-53 in the "Korean War", which was far from the simple affair of North Korea invading South Korea on a particular day, which the world has been led to believe.
In 1999, we learned that shortly after the war began, American soldiers machine-gunned hundreds of helpless civilians; amongst many other such incidents, hundreds were killed when the US purposely blew up bridges they were crossing.


1945 — 1953
American Subversion in the Philippines
The US military fought against the leftist Huk forces even while the Huks were still fighting against the Japanese invaders in the world war.
After the war, the US organized Philippine armed forces to continue the fight against the Huks, finally defeating them and their reform movement. The CIA interfered grossly in elections, installing a series of puppets as president, culminating in the long dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, for whom torture was "la specialite de la maison" .

1947 — 1949
American Tyranny and Subversion in Greece
The United States intervened in a civil war, taking the side of the neo-fascists against the Greek left, who had fought the Nazis courageously.
The neo-fascists won and instituted a highly brutal regime, for which the CIA created a suitably repressive internal security agency [called KYP]. For the next 15 years, Greece was looked upon much as a piece of real estate to be developed according to Washington's needs.
... KYP [carried] out all the endearing practices of secret police everywhere, including systematic torture. It was most active during the military junta, 1967-74, a period of routine horrific torture.

1946 — 1958
American Nuclear Poisoning of the Homeland of the Marshall Islands People
Driven by perceived Cold War exigencies, the United States conducted dozens of ICBM, nuclear bomb and other nuclear tests on this trust territory in the Pacific, after forcing the residents of certain islands, notably Bikini Atoll, to relocate to other, uninhabited islands.
In 1968, the former residents of Bikini were told by the Johnson administration that their island had been cleaned and was safe for habitation. Many went back, only to be told later that they had been subjected to massive doses of radiation and would have to leave again.
In 1983, the US Interior Department declared that the islanders could return to their homes immediately — provided they ate no home-grown food until the late 21st century.
They have never returned.

1947 — 1948
American Subversion of Democracy in Italy
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.

1947
American Subversion of Democracy in France
Communist Party members had fought in the wartime resistance, unlike many other French who had collaborated with the Germans. After the war the Communists followed the legal path to form strong labor unions and vie for political office.
But the United States was determined to deny them their place at the table, particularly since some unions were taking steps to impede the flow of arms to French forces seeking to reconquer their former colony of Vietnam with US aid.
The US funneled very large amounts of money to the Socialist Party, the Communists' chief rival; sent in American Federation of Labor (AFL) experts to subvert the CP's union dominance and import scabs from Italy; supplied arms and money to Corsican gangs to break up Communist strikes, burn down party offices and beat up and murder party members and strikers; sent in a psychological warfare team to complement all of these actions and used the threat of a cutoff of food aid and other aid... all to seriously undermine Communist Party support and prestige. It worked.
A portion of the financing for these covert operations came from the funds of the Marshall Plan, which also helped finance the corruption of the Italian elections of 1948 (see above), and set up a special covert operations agency which later melded into the CIA.
These are a few of the hidden sides of the Marshall Plan, which has long been held up to the world as a shining example of America's "unselfish benevolence."
At the same time, Washington was forcing the French government to dismiss its Communist ministers in order to receive American economic aid. Said Premier Paul Ramadier: "A little of our independence is departing from us with each loan we obtain."

1945 — 1951
American Betrayal and Subversion in China
At the close of World War II, the US intervened in a civil war, taking the side of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists against Mao Tse-tung's Communists, even though the latter had been a much closer ally of the United States in the war. To compound the irony, the US used defeated Japanese soldiers to fight for its side.
After their defeat in 1949, many Nationalist soldiers took refuge in northern Burma, where the CIA regrouped them, brought in other recruits from elsewhere in Asia, and provided a large supply of heavy arms and planes. During the early 1950s, this army proceeded to carry out a number of incursions into China, involving at times thousands of troops, accompanied by CIA advisers (some of whom were killed), and supplied by air drops from American planes.


August 1945
American Nuclear Genocide of the People of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Estimated civilian deaths: 150,000 people instantly; hundreds of thousands more by the slow, horrible death of radiation poisoning.
The ruthless annihilation of hundreds of thousands of civilian men, women and children in Nagasaki and Hiroshima is the most infamous example of American state terrorism.
The two cities were not military targets, as President Truman and others claimed. Those 150,000 people murdered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were almost all civilians. And the United States terrorist government knew it.
The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey said in its official report:
"Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population."
Contrary also to the persistent lies of politicians to this day, the bombing was militarily unnecessary. Japan was in fact ready to surrender. Even if they hadn't surrendered an invasion would definitely not have cost anywhere near the "1 million American lives" claimed by politicians. That figure was a total lie, simply invented by politicians because they needed a dramatic excuse for their nuclear terrorism. People all over the world were growing increasingly horrified as they discovered the evil that Americans had done to hundreds of thousands of helpless civilian people.
An invasion would never have been needed. The fire-bombing of cities like Tokyo, in which 80,000 civilian people were burned alive in one night, had already reduced Japan to almost total ruin. It was not possible for them to carry on with the war under any circumstances. The U.S. government and military knew this perfectly well.
This appallingly inhuman act of genocide set the stage for American postwar foreign policy:
Total ruthlessness
Total deception
Total hypocrisy


1942 — 1945
American Terror-Bombing of Civilian People in Japanese, German and French Cities
Estimated civilian deaths: 672,000 Japanese people; hundreds of thousands of German people; thousands of French people
Quotes from A People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn:
"The bombing of Japanese cities continued the strategy of saturation bombing to destroy civilian morale; one nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo took 80,000 lives."
Zinn points out in the book that "nighttime bombing" was by its very nature indiscriminate, not aimed primarily at military targets.
The American fire-bombing of the civilians of Dresden, Germany also condemned tens of thousands of men, women and children to horrible deaths.
Howard Zinn himself was a bombardier during WWII. He remembers bombing places like Pilsen, Germany and Royan, France. Royan was a little town on the Atlantic coast near Bordeaux. In an interview, Zinn recounts:
"There were a few thousand German soldiers holed up near this town, waiting for the war to end, not doing anything, not bothering anybody. But we were going to destroy them. ....So we destroyed the town, the German soldiers, the French also who were there."
Twelve-hundred heavy bombers of the U.S. Army Air Force dropped napalm on all the people of Royan.
Men, women and children.
Many years after the war, during a visit to Europe, Zinn ran into a man and woman from Pilsen. He says:
"Hesitantly, I told them that I had been in one of the crews that bombed Pilsen. They said, 'When you finished, the streets were full of corpses, hundreds and hundreds of people killed in that raid.'"


1900 — 1930s
American Terrorism and Tyranny Around the World
For the United States to step forward [in WWII] as a defender of helpless countries matched its image in American high school history textbooks, but not its record in world affairs.
It had instigated a war with Mexico and taken half of that country. It had pretended to help Cuba win freedom from Spain, and then planted itself in Cuba with a military base, investments, and rights of intervention. It had seized Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and fought a brutal war to subjugate the Filipinos.
It had 'opened' Japan to its trade with gunboats and threats. It had declared an Open Door Policy in China as a means of assuring that the United States would have opportunities equal to other imperial powers in exploiting China. It had sent troops to Peking with other nations, to assert Western supremacy in China, and kept them there for over thirty years.
While demanding an Open Door in China, it had insisted (with the Monroe Doctrine and many military interventions) on a Closed Door in Latin America — that is, closed to everyone but the United States. It had engineered a revolution against Colombia and created the 'independent' state of Panama in order to build and control the Canal.
It sent five thousand marines to Nicaragua in 1926 to counter a revolution, and kept a force there for seven years. It intervened in the Dominican Republic for the fourth time in 1916 and kept troops there for eight years. It intervened for the second time in Haiti in 1915 and kept troops there for nineteen years.
Between 1900 and 1933, the United States intervened in Cuba four times, in Nicaragua twice, in Panama six times, in Guatemala once, in Honduras seven times. By 1924 the finances of half of the twenty Latin American states were being directed to some extent by the United States. By 1935, over half of U.S. steel and cotton exports were being sold in Latin America.

And in every single case, these interventions were for the purpose of crushing popular revolts against the tyranny of the puppet governments the United States had installed in hapless countries around the world. Perhaps we'll never know how many innocent men, women and children were murdered during all these "interventions."

1899 — 1902
American Genocide of the Philippine People
Estimated civilian deaths: 200,000 people
In 1898 the United States went to war with Spain, taking over the Philippines. America defeated Spain with the help of our allies, the brave Filipino nationalist guerrillas.
The U.S. government had promised independence to them. The U.S. government lied.
From A People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn:
In February 1899, the Filipinos rose in revolt against American rule. It took 70,000 American soldiers, marines and sailors three years to brutally crush the rebellion. The death toll of Filipinos was enormous, both from battle casualties and disease.
In Manila, a United States Marine named Littletown Waller, a major, was accused of shooting eleven defenseless Filipinos, without trial, on the island of Samar. Other marine officers described his testimony:
"The major said that General Smith instructed him to kill and burn, and said that the more he killed and burned the better pleased he would be; that it was no time to take prisoners, and that he was to make Samar a howling wilderness.
"Major Waller asked General Smith to define the age limit for killing, and he replied 'Everything over ten.'"
In the province of Batangas, the secretary of the province estimated that of the population of 300,000, one third had been killed by combat, famine, or disease.
American firepower was overwhelmingly superior to anything the Filipino rebels could put together. In the very first battle, Admiral Dewey steamed up the Pasig River and fired 500-pound shells into the Filipino trenches. Dead Filipinos were piled so high that the Americans used their bodies for breastworks.
A British witness said:
"This is not war; it is simply massacre and murderous butchery."
Hearing of this American genocide, Mark Twain suggested we replace the stars and stripes in our flag with the skull and crossbones.
That remains a very good idea. At least it would be "truth in advertising."
Twain said further:
"We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our protecting flag over that swag.
"And so, by these Providences of God — and the phrase is the government's, not mine — we are a World Power."
Thus began "The American Century," consecrated in the blood of civilian men, women, and children. With much more to follow.