[A-List] The Crimes of US Empire (20th century only)

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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The Crimes of US Empire (20th century only)

	http://www.efn.org/~dredmond/Empire.html


The chronology of 20th Century US foreign interventions is long, bloody and
tragic. The only intervention not listed below is World War II, arguably the
only good war the US fought this century. Note that for the sake of
comparison, WW II lasted from 1941-45, cost the lives of 500,000 US soldiers
and $3.1 trillion in 2005 dollars.* 


Intervention	 Cost	
1898 Spanish-American War. US takes over Spanish colonies Cuba, Puerto Rico,
Guam and the Philippines, wages brutal counter-insurgency war against
Filipino nationalists. 	An estimated 500,000 Filipino citizens are killed by
war (out of a prewar population of 9 million), 2200 US casualties.
Philippines remains a US colony until 1945, and is dominated by a pro-US,
thievish oligarchy thereafter. 	
1901 Platt Amendment turns Cuba into a protectorate of the United States,
remains a de facto colony until 1934. US troops leave but return from
1917-1933. 	US ensures survival of vicious oligarchy in Cuba. Eventual
result is the anti-US Cuban Revolution of 1959. 	
1903 Teddy Roosevelt sends US Marines to Panama canal in late 1903. They
stay there until 1914. US troops land in Panama again in 1908, 1912,
1918-21, 1925. 	Panama becomes a permanent US protectorate, remains an
impoverished neocolony. 	
1915-34 US forces land in Haiti, allegedly to safeguard political stability.
US crushes a popular uprising against Haitian dictator Jean Vilbrun
Guillaume Sam, crushing the hopes of Haitian democracy for a generation.
Later in the 20th century, the US would support the dictatorial rule of
Francois Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude Duvalier. 	
1916-24 US forces intervene in Dominican Republic. 	Dominican Republic
remains dominated by oligarchy for decades. 	
1917-18 US enters WW I on the side of Britain and France. 	250,000 US
casualties, $205 billion expenditure in 2005 dollars.* 	
1918-19 US forces briefly occupy a few outlying regions Russia during its
civil war, but leave before serious clashes occur with the Red Army. 	124
US soldiers killed and wounded, enmity of future Soviet government. 	
1926-33 US forces intervene in Nicaragua, stick around until 1933. 	US
ends up solidifying Nicaragua?s oligarchy. 	
1950-53 US enters Korean War. North Korean dictatorship attacks South Korean
dictatorship, US forces drive North Koreans back. But when US forces
approach the Yalu River, the border between Korea and China, threatening
China itself, China sends millions of soldiers to repel the US. After
massive casualties on both sides, a truce is established near the old
North-South Korean border. 	3 million Korean and Chinese dead and
wounded, 140,000 US dead and wounded, North Korea is saturation-bombed
during the war, South Korea will be ruled by brutal US-backed military
dictatorships for 35 years. The total cost is $361 billion in 2005 dollars.*

1953 US organizes coup which destroys Iran?s democracy, after Prime Minister
Mohammad Mosaddeq tries to nationalize Iran?s oilfields. 	US installs
the Shah, a monarch who murders and tortures dissidents during 25 years of
misrule. Eventually, a deeply anti-American theocracy overthrows the Shah in
1979. 	
1954 US organizes coup against President Arbenz, destroying Guatemala?s
democracy for forty years. 	Guatemala enters four decades of bloodshed
and horror, as one repressive military regime after another fights a
low-level insurgency in the interior. Between 100,000-250,000 Guatemalans
die. 	
1960-64 US gives South Vietnam?s deeply corrupt regime military aid and
support. 	US needlessly prolongs Vietnam?s civil war. 	
1961 US organizes Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by CIA-trained exiles to
overthrow Fidel Castro. Exiles are crushed. (US will continue blockade of
Cuba to this day.) 	The invasion causes a huge loss of US prestige among
newly independent Third World nations. Castro becomes a hero and aligns
himself with Soviet Union. The conflict eventually triggers Cuban missile
crisis two years later, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.

1963 CIA operatives give aid and succor to the Baathist party, and helps a
youthful Saddam Hussein and early Baathists to stage a coup attempt in Iraq.
Coup fails, but years later Saddam will take power.** 	CIA gives the
Baathists lists of at least 5,000 alleged Iraqi Communists, who are
butchered wholesale. Saddam and Baathists are viewed as anti-Communist
allies of US for decades, until the invasion of Kuwait. 	
1964-73 US formally intervenes in Vietnam. 	3 million die in Vietnam,
Laos and Cambodia, US casualties are 210,000 killed and wounded. Cost of war
is $532 billion in 2005 dollars.* Conflict rips apart US society for a
generation. 	
1964 US gives official diplomatic and economic support to the military
overthrow of Brazilian President João Goulart (a contingency plan to support
the generals, called Operation Uncle Sam, was never carried out).
Brazil?s democracy is destroyed for 21 years, does not return until 1985.
Thousands of Brazilians murdered, disappeared and tortured by Brazilian
military death squads. 	
1965 US supports Indonesian military coup against nationalist leader
Sukarno. 	Military dictator Suharto slaughters at least 500,000
Indonesians in brutal anti-Communist campaign in the countryside. Suharto
regime continues to violate human rights wholesale until fall of regime 33
years later in 1998. 	
1965 US intervenes in Dominican Republic. 	Invasion does nothing to
help country. Eventually, the Organization of American States helps the
Republic hold democratic elections. 	
1973 US organizes coup which destroys Chile?s democracy. 	Military
dictator Pinochet rules with iron fist for 17 years. His regime murders,
tortures and disappears thousands of dissidents. Chilean economy is
subjected to the wrecking ball of neoliberal policies, and does not return
to its 1973 level of GDP until 1990. 	
1975-83 US helps oversee Operation Condor, an agreement between various
Latin American right-wing military juntas in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay to hunt down and murder dissidents.***
These juntas murdered roughly 50,000 people, jailed perhaps 400,000 and
institute neoliberal economic policies which enrich the few and impoverish
everyone else. A whole generation of Latin Americans is sacrificed on behalf
of political tyranny and economic misery. 	
1979-89 US organizes Islamic mujahideen to fight Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan. 	The Soviets are defeated and eventually withdraw, but
Afghanistan is leveled in the process. CIA pours $3 billion into the war
(roughly $30 billion in 2005 dollars). One of the young Islamic militants
who cuts his teeth in Afghanistan is named Osama bin Laden. The mujahideen
later turn into the Taliban. 	
1979-90 US organizes the contras, a rebel group which tries to destroy
Nicaragua?s 1979 revolution and the democratically elected government of the
Sandinistas. 	50,000 Nicaraguans killed and wounded, Nicaragua?s tiny
economy wrecked. Amazingly, Nicaragua somehow preserves its democracy.
Reagan Administration operatives caught in Iran-Contra scandal, illegally
selling arms to Iran to finance the contras. 	
1980-90 US gives extensive military support and training to brutal military
governments in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. 	Military programs
cost $3 billion, or $30 billion in 2005 dollars. At least 150,000 killed and
wounded in counterinsurgency campaigns, mostly by government death squads.
Central America turned into a landscape of fear and repression. 	
1980-88 US gives Iraq equipment, arms and strategic intelligence during
Iran-Iraq War. 	At least 1 million Iranians and 500,000 Iraqis die in a
pointless eight-year slaughter, fought between two regimes which were both
installed (one inadvertently) by US meddling in the region. 	
1990 US invades Panama to depose dictator Manuel Noriega, a former CIA agent
who went embarrassingly bad. 	700 Panamanians killed and wounded, 100 US
casualties, massive damage to Panama City. 	
1991 After Iraq invades Kuwait, US drives Iraq out of Kuwait. 	Kuwaiti
monarchy restored, Iraq?s civilian infrastructure wrecked. 150,000 Iraqis
killed and wounded, 650 US casualties, war costs $82 billion in 2005
dollars.* 	
1991-2003 In 1991, Saddam?s regime obeys UN mandate and ends quest to
produce nuclear weapons. UN inspectors confirm this. However, US continues
to strangle Iraq with economic sanctions for twelve years, periodically
bombs country. 	Sanctions incite hatred throughout Islamic world and the
particular anger of Osama Bin Laden, who creates al-Qaeda to fight the US.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis die due to sanctions. 	
2002 US invades Afghanistan to topple the Taliban, who they armed and
trained back in 1979. 	20,000 Afghans killed and wounded, 750 US
casualties. Cost of war $60 billion, no end in sight. 	
2003 US invades Iraq. Iraqis refuse to fight for Saddam?s regime, but turn
to massive guerilla war to kick Americans out of their homeland.
Invasion incites hatred and repudiation of US by the entire world. 600,000
Iraqis die during next 3 years, US casualties are 25,000 and counting, cost
of war at the end of 2006 was $354 billion and counting. 	


* Estimate by Linda Bilmes, professor at the Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University. Accessed November 10, 2006:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0829/p15s01-cogn.html 

** Richard Sales. ?Saddam Was Key in Early CIA Plot.? April 11, 2003. UPI.
Accessed November 10, 2006:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2849.htm 

*** Accessed November 10, 2006:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor 


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