A SHORT HISTORY OF U.S. IMPERIALISM

[Orwellian_Ghost]

"Empire is a relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another political society. It can be achieved by force, by political collaboration, by economic, social, or cultural dependence. Imperialism is simply the process or policy of establishing or maintaining an empire."
--Michael Doyle, Empires

As a point of reference formal American imperialism begins (or not - one would have to completely ignore the genocide of the native population, African and Native-American slavery, rapid and continuous expansion of the national borders through war, rapid and continuous expansion of mercantilism through war and the threat of war, the ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples, the mid 1800s mercantilist state established in Nicaragua, etc.) with the aquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Phillipines after the Spanish-American War of 1898. It's a good point to remember how that war started: part hoax, part sensationalized, war mongering "journalism", and of course much talk about the brutality of the enemy and the necessity of our intervention on behalf of the suffering - in this case on behalf of the Cubans and their savage treatment at the hands of the tyrannical Spaniards: much better for them to suffer at our hands.

Old habits die hard.

"Lest this seem to be the bellicose pipedream of some dyspeptic desk soldier, let us remember that the military deal of our country has never been defensive warfare. Since the Revolution, only the United Kingdom has beaten our record for square miles of territory acquired by military conquest. Our exploits against the American Indian, against the Filipinos, the Mexicans, and against Spain are on a par with the campaigns of Genghis Khan, the Japanese in Manchuria and the African attack of Mussolini. No country has ever declared war on us before we first obliged them with that gesture. Our whole history shows we have never fought a defensive war. And at the rate our armed forces are being implemented at present, the odds are against our fighting one in the near future."
--Major General Smedley D. Butler, America's Armed Forces: 'In Time of Peace', 1935.



1898-1914: The Phillipines

U.S. Brig. Gen. Jacob H. Smith: "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better you will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States."

Major Littleton W. T. Waller: How young?

Smith: Ten years and up.

--Exchange on October 1901, quote from the testimony at Smith's court martial by the New York Evening Journal (May 5, 1902). General Smith, a veteran of the Wounded Knee massacre, was popularly known as "Hell Roaring Jake" or "Howling Wilderness".

____________________________________________________________________________________________

THE PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WAR (1899-1902)
(Excerpted from The Filipino Americans (From 1763 to the Present) Their History, Culture, and Traditions by Veltisezar Bautista.)

On July 1, 1898, American forces engaged in a fierce battle with the Spaniards at El Caney and San Juan Hill in Cuba. After the skirmishes, they occupied the high ground overlooking Santiago. On July 3, Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete ordered his squadron to leave the harbor. The Spaniards attempted to escape toward the west along the coast. Then a running battle took place. All the Spanish ships either burned or sank. >From there, American troops invaded and captured Puerto Rico, another Spanish possession.

As a result of these defeats, Spain sued for peace. On August 12, 1898, the day before the fall of Manila, Spain and the United States signed a peace agreement. Spain agreed to evacuate all her troops from and give up control over Cuba, cede Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States, which was also allowed to occupy Manila. The last condition was temporary while what was to be done with the Philippines was being determined.

...

http://www.filipino-americans.com/cgi-bin/redirect.cgi?url=filamwar.html

[truedelphi]

1. I was a very good student in US History, yet never heard of any of the atrocities that

We committed against the people of the Phillipines until long after my college days.

We get such a sanitized version of history in our schools

[Orwellian_Ghost]

2. McKinley's Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation

In a savage conflict America repressed the Filipino independence movement. As in most cases of massacre on the part of the US the number of casualties remains a matter of debate; in this instance 5,000 (of some 120,000 involved) Americans killed with additional casualties later due to disease contracted in the Phillipines, but anywhere between 16,000-20,000 Filipino soldiers and 200,000-600,000 civilian Filipino deaths resulted due to the war, war induced famine, disease, and multiple atrocities, but one would be mistaken to describe the conflict as characterized by brutality. The US continued occupying the Phillipines for another 48 years.

US military involvement in the Phillipines continues to this day, much to the advantage of foreign investors, who continue to maintain economic hegemony.

____________________

McKinley's Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
December 21, 1898.

The destruction of the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Manila by the United States naval squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Dewey, followed by the reduction of the city and the surrender of the Spanish forces, practically effected the conquest of the Philippine Islands and the suspension of the Spanish sovereignity therein. With the signature of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain by their respective plenipotentiaries at Paris on the 10th instant, and as a result of the victories of American arms, the future control, disposition, and government of the Philippine Islands are ceded to the United States. In the fulfillment of the rights of sovereignity thus acquired and the responsible obligations of government thus assumed, the actual occupation and administration of the entire group of the Philippine Islands becomes immediately necessary, and the military government heretofore maintained by the united states in the city, harbor, and bay of Manila is to be extended with all possible despatch to the whole of the ceded territory.

In performing this duty the military commander of the United States is enjoined to make known to the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands that in succeeding to the sovereignity of Spain, in severing the former political relations, and in establishing a new political power, the authority of the United States is to be exerted for the securing of the persons and property of the people of the islands and for the confirmation of all their private rights and relations. It will be the duty of the commander of the forces of occupation to announce and proclaim in the most public manner that we come, not as invaders or conquerors, but as friends, to protect the natives in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and religious rights. All persons who, either by active aid or by honest submission, co-operate with the Government of the United States to give effect to these beneficent purposes will receive the reward of its support and protection. All others will be brought within the lawful rule we have assumed, with firmness if need be, but without severity, so far as possible. Within the absolute domain of military authority, which necessarily is and must remain supreme in the ceded territory until the legislation of the United States shall otherwise provide, the municipal laws of the territory in respect to private rights and property and the repression of crime are to be considered as continuing in force, and to be administered by the ordinary tribunals, so far as practicable. The operations of civil and municipal government are to be performed by such officers as may accept the supremacy of the United States by taking the oath of allegiance, or by officers chosen, as far as practicable, from the inhabitants of the islands. While the control of all the public property and the revenues of the state passes with the cession, and while the use and management of all public means of transportation are necessarily reserved to the authority of the United States, private property, whether belonging to individuals or corporations, is to be respected except for cause duly established. The taxes and duties heretofore payable by the inhabitants to the late government become payable to the authorities of the United States unless it be seen fit to substitute for them other reasonable rates or modes of contribution to the expenses of government, whether general or local. If private property be taken for military use, it shall be paid for when possible in cash, at a fair valuation, and when payment in cash is not practicable, receipts are to be given. All ports and places in the Philippine Islands in the actual possession of the land and naval forces of the United States will be opened to the commerce of all friendly nations. All goods and wares not prohibited for military reasons by due announcement of the military authority will be admitted upon payment of such duties and other charges as shall be in force at the time of their importation. Finally, it should be the earnest wish and paramount aim of the military administration to win the confidence, respect, and affection of the inhabitants of the Philippines by assuring them in every possible way that full measure of individual rights and liberties which is the heritage of free peoples, and by proving to them that the mission of the United States is one of

BENEVOLENT ASSIMILATION

substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule. In the fulfillment of this high mission, supporting the temperate administration of affairs for the greatest good of the governed, there must be sedulously maintained the strong arm of authority, to repress disturbance and to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings of good and stable government upon the people of the Philippine Islands under the free flag of the United States.

WILLIAM McKINLEY.

http://www.msc.edu.ph/centennial/benevolent.html

[liberal N proud]

6. And this regime has done more sanitizing than what we were taught

[leftchick]

18. hell I only realized this in the last twenty years!

Thanks to Chamers Johnson, Howard Zinn and William Blum. They are all required authors for my sons when they are in High school.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

3. 1903-1936: Panama

US indirectly runs Panama through a surrogate after managing its seccession from Columbia.

The Panama Canal is one of the earliest symbols of U.S. interventionism in Latin America in the 20th century. After failed attempts by the French to build the canal, President Theodore Roosevelt bought the construction rights and pressured Colombia to accept a $10 million offer for the land strip across the isthmus. When Colombia refused, a local revolt backed by a U.S. battleship and a detachment of U.S. Marines forced Panama to break away from Colombia. Roosevelt immediately guaranteed Panama’s independence and leased the canal zone in perpetuity for $10 million and an annuity of $250,000. He also secured other sites for defense and seized sanitary control of Panama and Colon City. Throughout most of the 20th century, the Panama Canal remained a focal point of U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America. Most of the Panama’s politics came to be defined in terms of support or opposition to foreign interference and control, a factor that contributed to strengthening authoritarian tendencies on both sides of the divide. It would take almost a century for the canal to revert to Panamanian control.

Buckley, Kevin. Panama: The Whole Story. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.

[Junkdrawer]

4. "I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities"...

aka "Pacification"...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1503947

[Orwellian_Ghost]

5. Yeah man

When people don't know their history they will see current events out of context, as an aberration.

You have given this present day application. Please add more as it relates.

Solidarity.

[Junkdrawer]

8. Actually, I'm thinking of a book...

Here's the pitch:

There's many separate books on the history of Imperialism, The CIA and Big Oil. But all three together are needed to understand where we are and where we're going.

I'm particularly interested in the 1973 to 1979 timeframe. Starting with the selling of ARAMCO to the Saudis, through the Church Committee, and ending with the loss of Iran and the rise of the Safari Club. I think that's where are current trajectory was created.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

9. Are you familiar

with Larry Everest and his writings?

http://www.larryeverest.com/book-ope.htm

http://revcom.us/a/090/iran-pt2-en.html

[Junkdrawer]

10. Thanks. I'll look into it...BTW: Have you seen Robert Newmans History of Oil?

Very entertaining and illuminating...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159

[Orwellian_Ghost]

11. No

I've heard of it frequently but have not taken the time. Seems I need to.

[Junkdrawer]

12. You'll love it...trust me...n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

7. 1904-1978: Dominican Republic

In 1904 the USG takes control of Dominican customs houses by force to collect on international debts, shortly thereafter signing a treaty, with the DR essentially at gun point, ratifying the debt relationship.

Between 1916 and 1924 the US occupies and rules the Dominican Republic. Shortly thereafter General Rafael Trujillo takes control of the country with the National Guard that was created and put under his control by the USG before its exit. During the 30s Trujillo wiped out some 30,000 Dominicans and Haitians in an effort to make his side of the island 'more white'. Trujillo recieved US backing until the mid 1950s, when he was finally placed under economic sanctions for attempting to assassinate the president of Venezuela. A few years later the USG began supporting the conservative opposition to overthrow him, successfully assassinating him in 1961, out of fear that the liberal Constitutionalist opposition would get to it first. Trujillo's son Ramfi was escorted out of the country by the US military.

http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/uniform/usdominican1917.htm

In 1963 USG-backed militants remove the recently elected president of the Dominican Republic, Juan Bosch - a centrist liberal - to "prevent another Cuba". Two years later Lyndon Johnson sent 22,000 US Marines to land on the island and take control of the country for 17 months after falling sugar prices and political conflict stirred an uprising against the new regime of Donald Reid Cabral. The Marines assist in supressing the rebellion, killing over 4,000 Dominicans and solidifying conservative control over the country, leading to the reinstatement of Trujillo-frontman turned Washington-frontman Joaquin Balaguer, who dragged the country into a nightmare of political violence, electoral fraud, and death squad activity that, by and large, eliminated any possible political opposition to the regime - minus one or two times when Balaguer's masters in Washington yanked his leash for the cameras. The USG continued lavishing military support onto the regime throughout the waves of terror.

_____________________________________________

The US Invasion of the Dominican Republic: 1965

Salvador E. Gomez, University of Pittsburgh

On 28 April 1965, U.S. military forces found themselves in the Dominican Republic protecting U.S. interests for the fourth time in 58 years. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy and the actions of three U.S. administrations (Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson respectively) resulted in the eruption of hostilities in the Dominican Republic in April 1965.

The Johnson Administration's unilateral decision to invade the Dominican Republic was based on erroneous information and the President's own concerns over the possibility of "another Cuba" in the hemisphere and the residual effect that it would have on U.S. efforts in Vietnam.

U.S. military forces deployed to the Dominican Republic under the false pretense of "protecting American lives." Eventually the true reason for this invasion, fear of Communism was uncovered. The consequences of this deceit were a rift between the Administration, the American media as well as the American people. Furthermore, the Johnson Administration managed to agitate Latin American leaders and reinforce the notion of U.S. imperialism by disregarding the Good Neighbor Policy and reverting to the Roosevelt Corollary.

Despite the costs, the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic did produce some benefits. The Organization of American States (OAS) illustrated its ability to function as a multi-national body and democratic rule was eventually attained.

AN AMERICAN LAKE

Since the end of the Spanish - American War at the turn of the century, the U.S. has expressed interest in the Caribbean and its islands.

...

http://fuentes.csh.udg.mx/CUCSH/Sincronia/dominican.html

[ConsAreLiars]

14. Phil Ochs: "The Marines Have Landed on the Shores of Santo Domingo"

The Marines Have Landed on the Shores of Santo Domingo
By Phil Ochs

Intro:

And the crabs are crazy, they scuttle back and forth,
The sand is burning
And the fish take flight and scatter from the sight,
their courses turning

As the seagulls rest on the cold cannon nest
the sea is churning.
The marines have landed on the shores of Santo Domingo.

The fishermen sweat, they're pausing at their nets, the day's a-burning
As the warships sway and thunder in the bay, loud the morning.
But the boy on the shore is throwing pebbles no more, he runs a-warning
That the the marines have landed on the shores of Santo Domingo.

The streets are still, there's silence in the hills, the town is sleeping
And the farmers yawn in the grey silver dawn, the fields they're keeping
As the first troops land and step into the sand, the flags are weeping.
The marines have landed on the shores of Santo Domingo.

The unsmiling sun is shining down upon the singing soldiers
In the cloud dust whirl they whistle at the girls, they're getting bolder
The old women sigh, think of memories gone by, they shrug their shoulders.
The marines have landed on the shores of Santo Domingo.

Ready for the tricks, their bayonets are fixed, now they are rolling
And the tanks make tracks past the trembling shacks where fear is unfolding
All the young wives afraid, turn their backs to the parade
with babes they're holding
The marines have landed on the shores of Santo Domingo

A bullet cracks the sound, the soldiers hit the ground, the sniper is callin'
So they open their guns, a thousand to one, no sense in stalling
He clutches at his head and totters on the edge, look how he's falling
The marines have landed on the shores of Santo Domingo

In the red plaza square, The crowds come to stare, the heat is leaning
And the eyes of the dead are turning every head to the widows screaming
The soldiers make a bid, giving candy to the kids, their teeth are gleaming
The marines have landed on the shores of Santo Domingo

Up and down the coast, the generals drink a toast, the wheel is spinning
And the cowards and the whores are peeking through the doors
to see who's winning
But the traitors will pretend that it's getting near the end,
when it's beginning
The marines have landed on the shores of Santo Domingo

The crabs are crazy, they scuttle back and forth, the sand is burning
And the fish take flight and scatter from the sight, their courses turning
As the seagulls rest on the cold cannon nest, the sea is churning
The marines have landed on the shores of Santo Domingo

[watrwefitinfor]

15. Phil Ochs - Thank you. n/t

[The River]

20. One Of My Favorite Tunes

to play on the guitar.
I must say too, there are a lot of posters here that remind me
of his song: "Love Me I'm A Liberal"

[Orwellian_Ghost]

13. 1912-1979: Nicaragua

A sort of defacto American colonial holding during the mid 19th century - per the East India Company model of a private corporation taking control of a foreign nation with state assistance - US Marines occupy Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933, afterwhich the USG arms, trains, and otherwise props up the barbarous Somoza dictatorship, which remains in power until the revolution of 1979.

______________________________________________________________________

Nicaragua

Foreign Intervention, 1850-68

British and United States interests in Nicaragua grew during the mid-1800s because of the country's strategic importance as a transit route across the isthmus. British settlers seized the port of San Juan del Norte--at the mouth of the Río San Juan on the southern Caribbean coast--and expelled all Nicaraguan officials on January 1, 1848. The following year, Britain forced Nicaragua to sign a treaty recognizing British rights over the Miskito on the Caribbean coast. Britain's control over much of the Caribbean lowlands, which the British called the Mosquito Coast (present-day Costa de Mosquitos), from 1678 until 1894 was a constant irritant to Nicaraguan nationalists. The start of the gold rush in California in 1849 increased United States interests in Central America as a transoceanic route, and Nicaragua at first encouraged a United States presence to counterbalance the British.

The possibility of economic riches in Nicaragua attracted international business development. Afraid of Britain's colonial intentions, Nicaragua held discussions with the United States in 1849, leading to a treaty that gave the United States exclusive rights to a transit route across Nicaragua. In return, the United States promised protection of Nicaragua from other foreign intervention. On June 22, 1849, the first official United States representative, Ephraim George Squier, arrived in Nicaragua. Both liberals and conservatives welcomed the United States diplomat. A contract between Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, a United States businessman, and the Nicaraguan government was signed on August 26, 1849, granting Vanderbilt's company--the Accessory Transit Company--exclusive rights to build a transisthmian canal within twelve years. The contract also gave Vanderbilt exclusive rights, while the canal was being completed, to use a land-and-water transit route across Nicaragua, part of a larger scheme to move passengers from the eastern United States to California. The westbound journey across Nicaragua began by small boat from San Juan del Norte on the Caribbean coast, traveled up the Río San Juan to San Carlos on Lago de Nicaragua, crossed Lago de Nicaragua to La Virgen on the west shore, and then continued by railroad or stagecoach to San Juan del Sur on the Pacific coast. In September 1849, the United States-Nicaragua treaty, along with Vanderbilt's contract, was approved by the Nicaraguan Congress.

British economic interests were threatened by the United States enterprise led by Vanderbilt, and violence erupted in 1850 when the British tried to block the operations of the Accessory Transit Company. As a result, United States and British government officials held diplomatic talks and on April 19, 1850, without consulting the Nicaraguan government, signed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, in which both countries agreed that neither would claim exclusive power over a future canal in Central America nor gain exclusive control over any part of the region. Although the Nicaraguan government originally accepted the idea of a transit route because of the economic benefit it would bring Nicaragua, the operation remained under United States and British control. Britain retained control of the Caribbean port of San Juan del Norte, and the United States owned the vessels, hotels, restaurants, and land transportation along the entire transit route.

Continued unrest in the 1850s set the stage for two additional elements in Nicaragua history: frequent United States military interventions in Nicaragua and a propensity for Nicaragua politicians to call on the United States to settle domestic disputes. In 1855 a group of armed United States filibusters headed by William Walker, a soldier of fortune from Tennessee who had previously invaded Mexico, sailed to Nicaragua intent on taking over. Internal conflict facilitated Walker's entry into Nicaragua. In 1853 conservative General Fruto Chamorro had taken over the government and exiled his leading liberal opponents. Aided by the liberal government in neighboring Honduras, an exile army entered Nicaragua on May 5, 1854. The subsequent conflict proved prolonged and bloody; Chamorro declared that his forces would execute all armed rebels who fell into their hands, and the liberal leader, General Máximo Jérez, proclaimed that all government supporters were traitors to the nation.

The liberals enjoyed initial success in the fighting, but the tide turned in 1854 when Guatemala's conservative government invaded Honduras, forcing that nation to end its support of the liberals in Nicaragua. Chamorro's death from natural causes in March 1855 brought little respite to the beleaguered liberals, who began to look abroad for support. Through an agent, they offered Walker funds and generous land grants if he would bring a force of United States adventurers to their aid. Walker leaped at the chance--he quickly recruited a force of fifty-six followers and landed with them in Nicaragua on May 4, 1855.

.....

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ni0017)

[countryjake]

16. Excellent lesson...K&R

[countryjake]

24. another kick

[flashl]

17. K&R n/t

[leftchick]

19. Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II.

http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm

by William Blum


"Far and away the best book on the topic."
Noam Chomsky

"I enjoyed it immensely."
Gore Vidal

"I bought several more copies to circulate to
friends with the hope of shedding new light
and understanding on their political outlooks."
Oliver Stone

"A very valuable book. The research and organization
are extremely impressive."
A. J. Langguth, author, former New York Times Bureau Chief

"A very useful piece of work, daunting in scope,
important."
Thomas Powers, author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

"Each chapter I read made me more and more angry."
Dr. Helen Caldicott, international leader of
the anti-nuclear and environmental movements

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid?
2. Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style
3. Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state
4. The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America's oldest colony
5. Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?
6. Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy
7. Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor
8. Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism
9. Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings
10. Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched
11. Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1
12. Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government
13. Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America
14. Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography
15. Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts
16. British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA's international labor mafia
17. Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing
18. Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal's orphans and techno-fascism
19. Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus
20. Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism
21. Laos - 1957-1973: L'Armée Clandestine
22. Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again
23. Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another
24. France/Algeria - 1960s: L'état, c'est la CIA
25. Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks
26. The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba
27. Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads
28. Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle
29. Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy
30. Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution
31. Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno ... and 500,000 others
East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more
32. Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line
33. Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture -- as American as apple pie
34. Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead
35. Greece - 1964-1974: "Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution," said
the President of the United States
36. Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d'etat
37. Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized "final solution"
38. Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally -- Part 2
39. Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work
40. Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust
41. Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game
42. Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven
43. Jamaica - 1976-1980: Kissinger's ultimatum
44. Seychelles - 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance
45. Grenada - 1979-1984: Lying -- one of the few growth industries in Washington
46. Morocco - 1983: A video nasty
47. Suriname - 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman
48. Libya - 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match
49. Nicaragua - 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion
50. Panama - 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier
51. Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about
52. Iraq - 1990-1991: Desert holocaust
53. Afghanistan - 1979-1992: America's Jihad
54. El Salvador - 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style
55. Haiti - 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?
56. The American Empire - 1992 to present
Notes
Appendix I: This is How the Money Goes Round
Appendix II: Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-1945
Appendix III: U. S. Government Assassination Plots
Index
_______________________________________________________________

Essays by William Blum
Feel free to disseminate any essays without permission,
but please mention <www.killinghope.org>

[Orwellian_Ghost]

21. 1915-1934: Haiti

http://haitiforever.com/windowsonhaiti/haiti_occupation_series_00.shtml

US occupies and administers Haiti for 19 years.

Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940

__________________________

The Conquest of Haiti

By Herbert J. Seligmann

The Nation 111 (July 10, 1920).

To Belgium's Congo, to Germany's Belgium, to England's India and Egypt, the United States has added a perfect miniature in Haiti. Five years of violence in that Negro republic of the Caribbean, without sanction of international law or any law other than force, is now succeeded by an era in which the military authorities are attempting to hush up what has been done. The history of the American invasion of Haiti is only additional evidence that the United States is among those Powers in whose international dealings democracy and freedom are mere words, and human lives negligible in face of racial snobbery, political chicane, and money. The five years of American occupation, from 1915 to 1920, have served as a commentary upon the white civilization which still burns black men and women at the stake. For Haitian men, women, and children, to a number estimated at 3,000, innocent for the most part of any offense, have been shot down by American machine gun and rifle bullets; black men and women have been put to torture to make them give information; theft, arson, and murder have been committed almost with impunity upon the persons and property of Haitians by white men wearing the uniform of the United States. Black men have been driven to retreat to the hills from actual slavery imposed upon them by white Americans, and to resist the armed invader with fantastic arsenals of ancient horse pistols, Spanish cutlasses, Napoleonic sabres, French carbines, and even flintlocks. In this five years' massacre of Haitians less than twenty Americans have been killed or wounded in action.

Of all this Americans at home have been kept in the profoundest ignorance. The correspondent of the Associated Press in Cape Haitien informed me in April, 1920, that he had found it impossible in the preceding three years, owing to military censorship, to send a single cable dispatch concerning military operations in Haiti, to the United States. Newspapers have been suppressed in Port au Prince and their editors placed in jail on purely political grounds. Even United States citizens in Haiti told me of their fear that if they too frankly criticised "the Occupation," existence in Haiti would be made unpleasant for them. During my stay of something over a month in Haiti several engagements occurred between Haitian revolutionists and United States Marines. Early in April, Lieutenant Muth, of the Haitian gendarmery, was killed, his body mutilated, and a marine wounded. In that engagement, as in others which occurred within a few weeks of it, Haitian revolutionists or cacos suffered casualties of from five to twenty killed and wounded. No report of these clashes and casualties, so far as I know, has been published in any newspaper of the United States. The United States Government and the American military Occupation which has placed Haiti under martial law do not want the people of the United States to know what has happened in Haiti.

For this desire for secrecy there are the best of reasons. Americans have conceived the application of the Monroe Doctrine to be protection extended by the United States to weaker States in the western hemisphere, against foreign aggression. Under cover of that doctrine the United States has practiced the very aggressions and tyrannies it was pretending to fight to safeguard weaker states against. In 1915, during a riot in the capital of Haiti, in which President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was killed, the mob removed a man from the sanctuary he had claimed in the French legation. It is said the French threatened to intervene, also that the German Government had, before the European war, demanded control of Haitian affairs. In justifying its invasion of Haiti in 1915, the United States makes use of the pretext with which the Imperial German Government justified its invasion of Belgium in 1914. The invasion was one of defense against any Power which, taking control of Haiti, a weaker state, might use its territory as a base for naval action against the Panama Canal or the United States.

Instead of maintaining a force of marines at Port au Prince sufficient to safeguard foreign legations and consulates against violence, the United States proceeded to assume control of the island. The American hold was fortified by a convention empowering the United States to administer Haitian customs and finance for twenty years, or as much longer as the United States sees fit; and by a revised constitution of Haiti removing the prohibition against alien ownership of land, thus enabling Americans to purchase the most fertile areas in the country. Thenceforward Haiti has been regarded and has been treated as conquered territory. Military camps have been built throughout the island. The property of natives has been taken for military use. Haitians carrying a gun were for a time shot at sight. Many Haitians not carrying guns were also shot at sight. Machine guns have been turned into crowds of unarmed natives, and United States marines have, by accounts which several of them gave me in casual conversation, not troubled to investigate how many were killed or wounded. In some cases Haitians peaceably inclined have been afraid to come to American camps to give up their weapons for fear they would be shot for carrying them.

...

http://haitiforever.com/windowsonhaiti/haiti_occupation_series_01.shtml

[Junkdrawer]

22. John McCain, the IRI and Haiti...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2842656&mesg_id=2842656

[Orwellian_Ghost]

23. So many components to the project

"Empire is a relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another political society. It can be achieved by force, by political collaboration, by economic, social, or cultural dependence. Imperialism is simply the process or policy of establishing or maintaining an empire."
--Michael Doyle, Empires

1945-1974: Greece

"Fuck your parliament and your constitution."
--President Johnson to Greek Ambassador, Alexander Matsas, June 1964.

The USG creates the Greek secret police (the KYP) and backs military coups in 1949, 1967 and 1973. Dictatorships ruled during the periods of 1949-1952 and 1967-1974.

One can cite the essential brutality of the first US-backed dicatorship in Greece as beyond excessive considering the US's ostensible goals of simple containment of Communist expansion (and I am not in a position to deny that there were Communists seeking power, rather the opposite), but since then USG involvement in Greece has demonstrated, if anything, that no element of democratic rule not in strict alliance with US interests was permissible. As far as Greece is concerned the values of democracy, self-rule, and human rights in US foreign policy don't hold much water.

One explanation is that the creation and continued support for Greek dictatorship was in response to the 1948 Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, fueling fears in the US government of Soviet plots. I defer to the US government as to the reality of such fears:

____________________________________

"The Soviet crackdown on Czechoslovakia in 1948 therefore flowed logically from the inauguration of the Marshall Plan program, and was confidently predicted by United States government observers six months in advance of the event.

It is clear from the above that the sudden consolidation of Communist power in Czechoslovakia in 1948 was not a sign of any "new Soviet aggressiveness" and had nothing to do with any Soviet decision to launch its military forces against the West."

--George Kennan; Report to the US Dept of State from American Embassy in Moscow, September 8, 1952
______________________________

Civil War, 1947-1949

In 1946, Britain looked to the U.S. to fight the leftists in Greece. In 1947, U.S. arms shipments arrived. They built up the rightist Greek war machine with fighters, napalm, small arms and patrol boats. They helped construct air fields, bridges, docks, railways and communication networks. The civil war lasted three years. Finally, in 1949, the leftists announced a cease fire. The neo-fascists won and created a brutal regime. The CIA established the Greek secret police (KYP) whose officers had been trained by the OSS and CIA in the U.S.

U.S. Control, 1950s

In the early 1950s, the U.S. directly influenced the various prime ministers. If the Greek government refused to comply with American demands, the U.S. pressured the prime minister to abdicate by threatening to sever financial aid to the country.

Before George Papandreou was elected prime minister, he acknowledged that the Greek government was compelled to carry out U.S. demands. They "exercised almost dictatorial control during the early 1950s requiring the signature of the chief of the U.S. Economic Mission to appear alongside that of the Greek Minister of Coordination on any important documents."

Papandreou elected, 1964

In February 1964, Papandreou was elected prime minister. Even though he had close ties with the U.S., he refused to accept President Johnson's requests to compromise with Turkey over Cyprus. He even accepted an invitation to visit Moscow and when he was promised foreign aid, the U.S. ambassador demanded an explanation.

Andreas Papandreou, a member of his father's cabinet since 1964, learned that the KYP regularly bugged ministerial meetings and gave the records to the CIA. He replaced KYP members with reliable officers. Andreas leaned to the USSR for support and said that the U.S. had prevented democracy from materializing in Greece. In 1965, John Maury - CIA station chief in Athens - plotted with King Constantine to collapse the Greek government.

CIA-Backed Coup, 1967

The next elections were scheduled for April 1967, but just two days before, George Papadopoulos seized power in a military coup. Papadopoulos had been on the CIA payroll since 1952. He was trained in the U.S. by the OSS and CIA. During World War II, he was a captain in the Nazis' Security Battalion that hunted down Greek resistance fighters. Of the five junta officers, four were connected to either the CIA or the U.S. military in Greece. The military junta decreed martial law followed by censorship, arrests and beatings. In the first month, 8,000 civilians were victims of the oppressive policies. In 1968, Papadopoulos became prime minister.

...

http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue43/articles/1947_1970s_greece.htm

[Orwellian_Ghost]

25. 1945-1952: South Korean Occupation, Cheju Island, the Korean War

1945-1952: South Korean Occupation, Cheju Island, the Korean War

"If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot"
--Ambassador John J. Muccio to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

The USG, with Japanese and South Korean collaborators (under Syngman Rhee - a Korean-American chosen by Chiang Kai Shek to preside over South Korea - curtesy Washington DC), slaughtered one third of the population of Cheju Island in anti-communist purges during the occupation of South Korea from 1945 to 1949. The repression of the population by US, ROK, and Japanese forces purged anywhere between 100,000 and 800,000 'suspected leftists' in the civillian population.

Among other things the anti-communist policy of the USG and the cooperation against the formation of an independent, unified Korea by both Soviets and Americans lead to the North Korean invasion on June 25th, 1950. During the war the USG deliberately targetted civillians caught in the war path, and with some 4 million casualties between all players in the war well over half were civillian casualties.

After the war the anti-Communist doctrine of the USG and Taiwanese governments lead to forced "voluntary" repatriation, where Chinese POWs were terrorized and tortured if they volunteered for repatriation to mainland China.

"Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction. ...

In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to 'be liked' or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague, and for the Far East, unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."

--George Kennan, A Review of Current Trends in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1948.

The historical record suggests that Kennan - for all his somewhat more sound advice on East Asia: the warning of overextension and admittal of US political failure (meaning the simple inability to offer an alternative to Communism that had any popular appeal, despite the existence of numerous alternatives that would undermine Soviet influence but not, per the stated goal, maintain economic disparities) - was largely ignored except on this particular point, as "our unsound commitments" to China continued in Taiwan for many decades. At least until 1979 when the Chinese government was finally formally recognized and given - in what I suppose would be considered sound commitment - backing in the Chinese invasion of Vietnam. The USG has continued "interfering in the internal affairs" of the Phillipines up to the present by propping up one cooperative despot after another, and directly assisting in the repression of internal rebellions. Nevermind that the US more than overstretched itself in Vietnam. The USG did, however, manage dealing in "straight power concepts" to a surreal and terrible degree, and has had little discernable trouble maintaining its "position of disparity".

[L. Coyote]

26. Isn't the title oxymoranic?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

27. Yeah, too true

1945-1994: Vietnam: "Remember! Only you can prevent forests."
"nobody ever told us they were human"

--Lt. Calley, My Lai hearings. 'Calley Pleads for Understanding', New York Times, March 31, p. 1

We might begin with the CIA's orchestration in 1952 of a dramatic terrorist bombing in the center of Saigon that was blamed on communist forces to stir American rage against Agent 19, creating political support for the US to become the primary financer of the French war in Indochina until the US takes the entire project over in 1961, when Kennedy sends in the first US ground advisers, who almost immediately begin taking over the fighting for a corrupt Diem regime. Similar incidents, such as the Gulf of Tonkin, are repeated to generate support for ramping up the scale of American intervention.

In a campaign that is probably best described as institutionalized genocide some 1 million Vietnamese combatants and 2-4,000,000 South East Asian civilians (DRV statistics, including Laos and Cambodia) were killed during this US stage of the war (estimated anywhere between 10-20% of the population), with over half the Vietnamese casualties inflicted in South Vietnam, the ostensible protectorate of the United States. Likewise the US managed to kill some 17,000 US troops - one third of all US casualties were reportedly caused by American-deployed landmines and unexploded cluster ordinace.

The CIA's Phoenix program lead to the extra-judicial assassinations of some 20-40,000 civillians alone - or "suspected Communists", nevermind the hundreds of thousands that were subjected to brutal interrogations and internment in American re-education camps. Military intelligence programs differed little in their essential brutality, including torture by field telephone. In violation of international law, among other things, the US utilized chemical warfare (sarin per operation Tailwind is largely discredited, VX perhaps remains a possibility, and massive amounts of toxins - the carcinogen Agent Orange comes to mind - were dumped into the Vietnamese ecosystem, defoliating vast swathes of the country) and scorched earth policies which afflicted not only US and Vietnamese soliders, the former of whom were awarded damages for the exposure, but caused massive civilian casualties and harm that continue to this day, as unexploded ordance and damage to the gene pool caused by chemical agents take their slow toll.

"The Vietnamese government estimates 500,000 children have been born with birth defects caused by contamination with Agent Orange and two million suffered cancers and other ill effects - innocent victims of a chemical intended to harm plant life, not humans. But unlike the American soldiers who sprayed the defoliant, they have never received compensation."

--The Independent, "Agent Orange: the legacy of a weapon of mass destruction", 4/3/2006.

The main thrust of this violence was directed towards South Vietnam, who we were purportedly there to protect, or whatever it is we were purpotedly doing; protecting America from Vietnam, I suppose, against their plan to sail over in rafts and crush us with sheer numbers. To have Michael Lind tell it I'm supposed to believe that the NLF's refusal to surrender makes them responsible for the victims of US invasion. So far as Soviet involvement is concerned Ilya Gaiduk argues that Russia was partly responsible for the war due to their lack of actual involvement, however that works. US involvement in Vietnam increased neighboring alliances with the Soviets and forced the Vietnamese into a position of dependency on China and the USSR (they had, after WWII, sought alliances and support from the US to preserve their independence from the French and the Chinese - the latter position eventually lead to their alliances with the Soviets). The Sino-Soviet split in 1960 resulted in China becoming a US ally after the end of the war in 1975, at which point Vietnam turned even further to the Soviets for support against the traditional Chinese hegemony over the region.

The US paid for the French campaign between 1945 to 1954 before taking it over directly, beginning a US phase in the Vietnam wars that lasted until 1975. After the end of direct US involvement in Vietnam the US continued waging the conflict for almost two decades afterward. In 1979 China invaded Vietnam with US backing when the USG deployed the carrier Constellation to the Gulf of Tonkin to deter a Soviet response, and gave diplomatic and political backing for the Chinese action - to "teach the ex-colony a lesson" for deposing the pro-Chinese, genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. During the invasion the Chinese destroyed the dikes and canals that formed key components to agrarian production and with them much of the country's rice reserves, inducing food shortages exacerbated at the same time by the US-led blockade on the country that, incidentally, lasted until 1994.

In 1986 Nguyen Van Linh, former leader of the NLF, took control of the CP and persued market policies and attempted to re-integrated Vietnam into the world economic system. The latter was prevented by successive administrations, which continued the embargo and blocked Western access to - to quote Eisenhower - "the specific value of a locality in its production of materials that the world needs": tin, tungsten, rubber plantations, "and so on".

This curious justification for the war was self-fulfilling: when a population elected a communist (Ho Chi Mihn) with 90% of the vote (an early result that was never called into question) who was extremely friendly towards - and a former operative of - the US, the response was to wage an invasion until, against impossible odds, the population expelled the invader. After the war, which was - by Eisenhower's own lame admission - in part to secure access to raw materials, the response of the invaders was to turn around and block access to those materials with no discernable, rational goal (to "teach Vietnam a lesson"?) for 25 years. The pathology of blind anti-Communism prevented a Western response that quite easily could have curbed a Communist regime's worst excesses and defects by working with a country and its elected leaders that were considerably pro-American, and surprisingly still are.

To prevent Communist atrocities - as the justification for the war was argued even as it was waged - was clearly no long term committment. During the normalization process of the early 1990s the subject of human rights was conspiciously absent, as before and as after. The familiar justifications of spreading humane values such as liberty, justice, and life with military force were entirely absent from post-war relations, when they might have been persued in a nonviolent manner.

Thusly there is the generally acknowledged fact that "In the years since we lost the war, we have won it." In consideration that the French had already bailed on the war as a hopeless enterprise in the mid 50s, that the British told Washington in 1954 that "None of us in London believe that intervention in Indonchina can do anything" (Eden to Dulles, April 25th, refusing Eisenhower's request for British support of the US-French war) and made further efforts to end the war in 1967. Our allies were by and large opposed to the war. The only realistic conclusion is that the war, the deaths of millions upon millions of innocents and the ensuing rise of repressive security states throughout the region due to meaningless destructive games amongst imperial powers, was never in any way justified.

Whoever can sort out the logic behind this insanity wins a cookie.

The US never paid reparations to Vietnam - let alone Cambodia or Laos - although the Paris Agreement Nixon signed in 1973 specified in Article 21 $3.3 billion in reconstruction aid for the DRV. As Gabriel Kolko described the post-war relationship in 1982:

"To state ... that Vietnam wishes to be dependent on Soviet aid ignores entirely its intensive efforts during 1976-1978 to establish economic ties with the West via loans, aid, and investments - efforts it has not abandoned. Its present dependence on the USSR is the consequence of a conscious US and Chinese policy which Assistant Secretary of State John H. Holdridge summed up last June 8: "It is important to keep the Vietnamese isolated politically and economically, and there is agreement on that score."

Agent 19 has yet to receive commendations from the US for his resistance against the Japanese during World War II.


"About the war in Vietnam, all I have to say is <...inaudible...> and that's all I have to say about the war in Vietnam."
--Forrest Gump

Further information here:

- Betrand Russell's International Warcrimes Tribunal on Vietnam, 1967.

- Tiger Force: Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths

- Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai.

- Dellums House Committee Hearings on War Crimes in Vietnam, 1971.

- Winter Soldier Investigation, 1971, or "When We Were Psychos"

- THE COLLAPSE OF THE ARMED FORCES, Col. Robert D. Heinl, Jr. 1971. Armed Forces Journal.

- The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition

- Vietnam declassification project

[L. Coyote]

29. Found a timeline with the Venezuela Overthrow film website, with a chronology of US interventions

in Latin America. Bush's bungled overthrow!!

http://www.chavezthefilm.com/html/home.htm has a link "Background" that leads to

"US in Latin America" http://www.chavezthefilm.com/html/backgrd/usa.htm that has a JS mouseOver on a series of dates.
To capture all that text, view the page source. Read what Taft said in 1912! Attitudes from 1780 Ohio were still intact.

On April 12th 2002 the world awoke to the news that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had been removed from office and had been replaced by a new interim government. What had in fact taken place was the first Latin American coup of the 21st century, and the world's first media coup.. .....

Remember to RATE THIS UP!
the revolution will not be televised
Watch video - 75 min -
Rated 4.7 out of 5.0
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
www.chavezthefilm.com/index_ex.htm

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

28. K&R