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TechnoratiLeftist Victory in El Salvador Closes an Historic Cycle
The apparent victory of leftist candidate Maurico Funes in Sunday's presidential election in El Salvador finally closes out the Cold War in Central America and raises some serious questions about the long term goals of U.S. foreign policy.
With Funes' election, history has come full cycle. Both El Salvador and neighboring Nicaragua will now be governed by two former guerrilla fronts against which the Reagan administration spared no efforts in trying to defeat during the entire course of the 1980's. We will now coexist with those we once branded as the greatest of threats to our national security. Those we branded as "international terrorists" now democratically govern much of Central America.
Funes, once a commentator for CNN's Spanish-language service, comes to power representing the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a Marxist guerrilla group-turned-political -party, an organization that the U.S. government once described in terms now reserved for Al Qaeda and Hizbollah.
From the late 1970's until a negotiated peace settlement in 1992, the FMLN fought a bloody civil war against a series of U.S.-backed right-wing regimes. Those Salvadoran regimes engaged in horrific massacres and deployed savage death squads, taking a massive human toll. While the FMLN also perpetrated atrocities, all independent analysts agree that the overwhelming majority of the 75,000 who were killed in the war in El Salvador were victims of government-sponsored violence.
This same FMLN which now comes to power in El Salvador was once declared as the primary perpetrator of "international terrorism" by the Reagan administration who deployed hundreds of U.S. military advisors to the tiny Central American country and who quadrupled the size of the Salvadoran Army. In this all-out quest to crush the FLMN, U.S. authorities, at best, turned a blind eye to the bloody excesses of the Salvadoran regime. At worst, it encouraged them.
At the same time in history, the U.S. spent billions creating a "contra" army to destabilize and dislodge the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) which had taken power in Nicaragua in 1979, overthrowing the dynastic and dictatorial rule of the Somoza family - another U.S.-backed ally.
During the entire eight years of the Reagan era, defeating both the FMLN and the FSLN were the absolute top priorities of U.S. foreign policy as the administration argued that the Texas border was a short hop from the fields of Central America and that all must be done to stop the northward march of hemispheric revolution. The sort of inflammatory rhetoric used to describe the Central American guerrilla movements was an eerie precedent for the overheated war of words against "The Axis of Evil" that would emerge earlier this decade.
The Nicaraguan Sandinistas were eventually defeated by an American-backed opposition in elections in 1990 and democratically and peacefully transferred power (something the Reaganites claimed could never happen). But the Sandinistas returned to power last year re-electing its historic leader Daniel Ortega as president. Almost twenty years of rule from the pro-U.S. coalitions that had succeeded the Sandinistas had failed to implement any meaningful social change.
The Salvadoran FMLN, meanwhile, which has acted as a parliamentary opposition party since the 1992 Salvadoran peace accords, now comes to power ending twenty years of uninterrupted rule by the country's ultra-conservative ARENA party - a political organization born directly from the death squads of the 1980's and, yes, a close ally of the U.S.
All of this raises the question of why so many lives were spent and so many billions in U.S. dollars were burned in an attempt to expunge these leftist forces twenty years ago? Wouldn't it have been possible in 1989 to find some sort of accommodation with these radical forces and not postpone the inevitable for twenty years?
In the case of Nicaragua, the year-old reborn and duly elected Sandinista administration--while far from a model of democratic ethics-- hardly poses any threat to U.S. interests. Though President Ortega, saddled with governing one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, still clothes his actions in revolutionary rhetoric, he has headed up what many think is essentially a conservative regime which recently outlawed all abortion (a move that could warm the deceased Ronald Reagan's heart). Ortega campaigned successfully for the presidency last year by quoting from scripture and has not flinched from pacting with the most conservative of political elements.
In the case of El Salvador, President-elect Funes has pledged to maintain close and cordial relations with the U.S. And while the FMLN--like the Sandinistas - clings to some of its Cold War revolutionary rhetoric, no one expects any radical moves by the incoming government. Fighting widespread poverty aggravated by the global slump and a chilling crime wave, the FMLN will have its hands full just keeping the government on keel. President-elect Funes holds distinctly moderate views and in an American context would be little more than a liberal Democrat. In any case, the FMLN can point to its recent governance of several Salvadoran cities (including until recently the capital of San Salvador) as its democratic bona fides.
The resurrection of the FMLN and the FSLN at this time in history raises a troubling irony regarding U.S. foreign policy. Yesterday we were told they were our greatest enemies. Today, now in power, they hardly garner any U.S. press coverage, let alone much attention from Washington. Likewise, the right-wing forces we bankrolled with blood and treasure and who we were told were a bulwark of Western Civilization, utterly failed in solving the basic existential questions that bedeviled their respective countries. Twenty years from now, we have to ask, what will Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria look like? Might we find ourselves peacefully co-existing with the same undefeated forces who today we proclaim our mortal enemies? Might we be better off using our soft power, our economic and diplomatic clout to force negotiation and moderation with those we perceive as irrational and radical enemies? Or do we only reach that conclusion after the dissipation of prolonged, bloody and ultimately unsuccessful armed intervention and war?
51 Comments so far
Show AllRight Wing Facism, whether it be US backed South American strongmen, or the US Republican Party, is and alway has been a bankrupt philosophy of greed and malfeasance.
Their day is long passed.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Thank God California rejected the imperialistic capitalist junta and embraced real democracy! Within a few years we'll taste the freedom they have in Central America.
What a coincidence that for two decades El Salvador's far right Arena Party government and Nicaragua's similary rightist U.S. sponsored government have done nothing to "solve the existential questions that bedevil their respective countries." Could this have anything to do with the failure of our own government for most of this same period to solve America's existential questions, such as war or peace, homelessness, universal health care? Put another way, what is it that the government of Empire-USA is afraid of? The one good example, that's what.
Most Americans have no idea that these incredible lifestyles that we all lead are because we’re part of a very vicious empire that literally enslaves people around the world, misuses people.
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John Perkins ...Former CIA ECONOMIC HITMAN
Time to remind the American people of what we did there and how the cycle continues with the same cast of bad actors. Krugman was one of the few voices talking about this and he's an economist.
more from interview of John Perkins....former CIA Economic Hitman -- on how the "USA is an Empire -- and we have gotten away with building this empire through manipulation..torture, assassinations, murders, cover and overt wars, blackmail and plain Robbery of other nations' resources"......
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MY GOODMAN: What were your conversations like?
JOHN PERKINS: Well, especially with Torrijos, I spent a lot of time with him in some formal meetings and also at cocktail parties and barbecues—he was big on things like that—and was constantly trying to get him to come around to our side and letting him know that if he did, he and his family would get some very lucrative contracts, would become very wealthy, and, you know, warning him. And he didn’t really need much warning, because he knew what would be likely to happen if he didn’t. And his attitude was, “I want to get done what I can in my lifetime, and then so be it.”
And it’s been interesting, Amy, that since I wrote the book Confessions, Marta Roldos, who’s Jaime’s daughter, has come to the United States to meet with me, and I just spent time with her in Ecuador. She is now a member of parliament in Ecuador, just elected, and she married Omar Torrijos’s nephew. And it’s really interesting to hear their stories about what was going on—she was seventeen at the time her parents—her mother was also in the plane that her father died in; the two of them died in that plane—and then to hear her talk about how her husband, Omar’s nephew, was in that meeting when the family was called together and Omar said, “I’m probably next, but I’m ready to go. I’ve done my job. I’ve done what I could do for my people. So I’m ready to go, if that’s what has to happen.”
AMY GOODMAN: So what were your conversations at the time with other so-called economic hit men? I mean, you became the chief consultant at Charles Main.
JOHN PERKINS: Chief economist.
AMY GOODMAN: Chief economist.
JOHN PERKINS: Right. Well, you know, when I was with other people that—we could be sitting at a table, say, in the Hotel Panama, knowing that we’re both here to win these guys over, but we also had our official jobs, which were to do studies on the economy, to show how if the country accepted the loan, it was going to improve its gross national product. We would talk about those kinds of things. It’s, I suspect, a little bit like if two CIA agents, spies, get together or have a beer together, they don’t really talk about what they’re really doing beneath the surface, but they’ve got an official job, too, and that’s what you focus on. And, in fact, the two, in my case, are very closely linked.
So we were producing these economic reports that would prove to the World Bank and would prove to Omar Torrijos that if he accepted these huge loans, then his country’s gross national product would just mushroom and pull his people out of poverty. And we produced these reports, which made sense from a mathematical econometric standpoint. And, in fact, it often happened that with these loans, the GNP, the gross national product, did increase.
But what also was true, and what Omar knew and Jaime Roldos knew and I was coming to know very strongly, was that even if the general economy increased, the poor people with these loans would get poorer. The rich would make all the money, because most of the poor people weren’t even tied into the gross national product. A lot of them didn’t even make income. They were living off subsistence farming. They benefited nothing, but they were left holding the debt, and because of these huge debts, their country in the long term would not be able to provide them with healthcare, education and other social services.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Congo.
JOHN PERKINS: Oh, boy. The whole story of Africa and the Congo is such a devastating and sad one. And it’s the hidden story, really. We in the United States don’t even talk about Africa. We don’t think about Africa. You know, Congo has something called coltan, which probably most of your listeners may not have even heard of, but every cell phone and laptop computer has coltan in it. And several million people in the last few years in the Congo have been killed over coltan, because you and I and all of us in the G8 countries demand low—or at least we want to see our computers inexpensive and our cell phones inexpensive. And, of course, the companies that make these sell them on that basis, that “Oh, here, mine’s $200 less than the other company.” But in order to do that, these people in the Congo are being enslaved. The miners, the people mining coltan, they’re being killed. There’s these vast wars going on to provide us with cheap coltan.
And I have to say, you know, if we want to live in a safe world, we need to be—we must be willing, and, in fact, we must demand that we pay higher prices for things like laptop computers and cell phones and that a good share of that money go back to the people who are mining the coltan. And that’s true of oil. It’s true of so many resources that we are not paying the true cost, and there’s millions of people around the world suffering from that. Roughly 50,000 people die every single day from hunger or hunger-related diseases and curable diseases that they don’t get the medicines for, simply because they’re part of a system that demands that they put in long hours, and they get very, very low pay, so we can have things cheaper in this country. And the Congo is an incredibly potent example of that.
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about the so-called defeats in Vietnam and Iraq and what they mean for corporations.
JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, well, that’s—yeah, we, you and I, look at them as defeats, perhaps, and certainly anybody who lost a child or a sibling or a spouse in these countries look at them as disasters, as defeats, but the corporations made a huge amount of money off Vietnam, the military industry, huge corporations, the construction companies. And, of course, they’re doing it in a very, very big way in Iraq. So the corporatocracy, the people that are in fact insisting that our young men and women continue to go to Iraq and fight, they’re making a tremendous amount of money. These are not failures for them; they’re successes from a very strong economic standpoint. And I know that sounds cynical. I am cynical about these things. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. And, you know, we must learn not to put up with that anymore. All of us.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to John Perkins. His book is The Secret History of the American Empire. It’s the fortieth anniversary of the 1967 Israeli-Arab war. You talk about Israel being a Fortress America in the Middle East.
JOHN PERKINS: I think it’s very sad and very telling, once again, that the Israeli people, for the most part, are led to believe that they’ve been given this land as a payoff, basically, for the Holocaust, because they deserve to be recompensed. And, of course, the Holocaust was terrible, and they do deserve to be taken care of and recompensed and have stability.
But why would we locate that place in the middle of the Arab world, their traditional enemies? Why would we locate that place in such an unstable area? It’s because it is serving as a huge fortress for us in the biggest oil fields known in the world today, and we knew this when Israel was located there. And I think the Israeli people have been terribly exploited in this process.
So, in fact, we built this vast military base, armed camp, in the middle of the Middle Eastern oil fields that are surrounded by the Arab communities, and in the process, we’ve obviously created a tremendous amount of resentment and anger and a situation that it’s very difficult to see any positive outcome there. But the fact of the matter is, our having this military base in Israel has been a huge defense for us. It’s been a place where we could really launch attacks, rely on. It’s been our equivalent of the Crusaders’ castles in the Middle East. And it’s very, very sad. I think it’s extremely sad for the Israeli people that they’re caught up in all of this. I think it’s extremely sad for the American people. It’s extremely sad for the world that this is going on.
JOHN PERKINS: Well, you know, I was just in Tibet a couple of years ago, and it was an interesting thing, because I took a group of about thirty people into Tibet with me as part of a non-profit organization. I was leading the trip. And some of these people had been in the Amazon with me, been to other places. And, of course, Tibet right now is—it’s very depressing, because the Chinese presence is extremely strong, and you see how the Tibetan culture has been put down. And you’re always aware that there’s Chinese soldiers and spies all around you. And many of the people on the trip came to the realization, yeah, this terrible here. “Free Tibet,” we all know about that, but the ones who had been with me on a trip to the Amazon, where the oil companies and our own military are doing the same things, said, “But doesn’t this remind us of what we’re doing in so much of the world?” And it’s something we tend to forget.
We can all wave banners about “Free Tibet,” which we should, but how about freeing the countries that are under our thumb, too? And certainly Tibet is not nearly—well, I hate to say it this way, because some people might disagree with me, but I think Iraq is in worse shape than Tibet is these days, although both of them are in pretty bad shape. But so, what we saw in Tibet is that same kind of model that we’re implementing around the world. And yet, most Americans are not aware that we’re doing it. They’re aware that the Chinese are doing it, but not aware that we’re doing it on actually a much bigger level than the Chinese are.
AMY GOODMAN: John Perkins, talk about your transformation. You were making a lot of money. You were traveling the world. You were in a position where you were meeting presidents and prime ministers of countries, bringing them to their knees. What made you change, and then, ultimately, the decision to write about it?
JOHN PERKINS: You know, Amy, when I first got started—I grew up—three, four hundred years of Yankee Calvinism—in New Hampshire and Vermont, with very strong moral principles, came from a pretty conservative Republican family. And all during the ten years that I was an economic hit man, from ‘71 to ’81, I was pretty young, but it bothered my conscience. And yet, everybody was telling me I was doing the right thing. Like you said, presidents of countries, the president of the World Bank, Robert McNamara, patted me on the back. And I was asked to lecture at Harvard and many other places about what I was doing. And what I was doing was not illegal—should be, but it isn’t. And yet, in my heart, it always tore at my conscience. I’d been a Peace Corps volunteer. I saw. And as time went by and I began to understand more and more, it got to be more and more difficult for me to continue doing this. I had a staff of about four dozen people working for me. Things were building up.
And then, one day I was on vacation, sailing in the Virgin Islands, and I anchored my little boat off the St. John Island, and I took the dinghy in, and I climbed this mountain on St. John Island in the Virgin Islands up to this old sugar cane plantation in ruins. And it was beautiful. Bougainville. The sun was setting. I sat there and felt very peaceful. And then suddenly, I realized that this plantation had been built on the bones of thousands of slaves. And then I realized that the whole hemisphere had been built on the bones of millions of the slaves. And I got very angry and sad. And then, it suddenly struck me that I was continuing that same process and that I was a slaver, that I was making the same thing happen in a slightly—in a different way, more subtle way, but just as bad in terms of its outcome. And at that point, I made the decision I would never do it again. And I went back to Boston a couple of days later and quit.
JOHN PERKINS -- former "CIA ECONOMIC HITMAN" -- interview: o his book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"...how the US Empire is built "through Manipulation, Torture, Blackmail, Assassinations, covert and overt wars and plain Theft of Nations' resources"......
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AMY GOODMAN: Well, before we go further, “economic hit men”—for those who haven’t heard you describe this, let alone describe yourself as this, what do you mean?
JOHN PERKINS: Well, really, I think it’s fair to say that since World War II, we economic hit men have managed to create the world’s first truly global empire, and we’ve done it primarily without the military, unlike other empires in history. We’ve done it through economics very subtly.
We work many different ways, but perhaps the most common one is that we will identify a third world country that has resources our corporations covet, such as oil, and then we arrange a huge loan to that country from the World Bank or one of its sister organizations. The money never actually goes to the country. It goes instead to US corporations, who build big infrastructure projects—power grids, industrial parks, harbors, highways—things that benefit a few very rich people but do not reach the poor at all. The poor aren’t connected to the power grids. They don’t have the skills to get jobs in industrial parks. But they and the whole country are left holding this huge debt, and it’s such a big bet that the country can’t possibly repay it. So at some point in time, we economic hit men go back to the country and say, “Look, you know, you owe us a lot of money. You can’t pay your debt, so you’ve got to give us a pound of flesh.”
AMY GOODMAN: And explain your history. What made you an economic hit man?
JOHN PERKINS: Well, when I graduated from business school at Boston University, I was recruited by the National Security Agency, the nation’s largest and perhaps most secretive spy organization.
AMY GOODMAN: People sometimes think the CIA is that, but the NSA, many times larger.
JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, it is larger. It’s much larger. At least it was in those days. And it’s very, very secretive. We all—there’s a lot of rumors. We know quite a lot about the CIA, I think, but we know very, very little about the NSA. It claims to only work in a cryptography, you know, encoding and decoding messages, but in fact we all know that they’re the people who have been listening in on our telephone conversations. That’s come out recently. And they’re a very, very secretive organization.
They put me through a series of tests, very extensive tests, lie detector tests, psychological tests, during my last year in college. And I think it’s fair to say that they identified me as a good potential economic hit man. They also identified a number of weaknesses in my character that would make it relatively easy for them to hook me, to bring me in. And I think those weaknesses, I [inaudible] might call, the three big drugs of our culture: money, power and sex. Who amongst us doesn’t have one of them? I had all three at the time.
And then I joined the Peace Corps. I was encouraged to do that by the National Security Agency. I spent three years in Ecuador living with indigenous people in the Amazon and the Andes, people who today and at that time were beginning to fight the oil companies. In fact, the largest environmental lawsuit in the history of the world has just been brought by these people against Texaco, Chevron. And that was incredibly good training for what I was to do.
And then, while I was still in the Peace Corps, I was brought in and recruited into a US private corporation called Charles T. Main, a consulting firm out of Boston of about 2,000 employees, very low-profile firm that did a tremendous amount of work of what I came to understand was the work of economic hit men, as I described it earlier, and that’s the role I began to fulfill and eventually kind of rose to the top of that organization as its chief economist.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did that tie to the NSA? Was there a connection?
JOHN PERKINS: You know, that’s what’s very interesting about this whole system, Amy, is that there’s no direct connection. The NSA had interviewed me, identified me and then essentially turned me over to this private corporation. It’s a very subtle and very smart system, whereby it’s the private industry that goes out and does this work. So if we’re caught doing something, if we’re caught bribing or corrupting local officials in some country, it’s blamed on private industry, not on the US government.
And it’s interesting that in the few instances when economic hit men fail, what we call “the jackals,” who are people who come in to overthrow governments or assassinate their leaders, also come out of private industry. These are not CIA employees. We all have this image of the 007, the government agent hired to kill, you know, with license to kill, but these days the government agents, in my experience, don’t do that. It’s done by private consultants that are brought in to do this work. And I’ve known a number of these individuals personally and still do.
AMY GOODMAN: In your book, The Secret History of the American Empire, you talk about taking on global power at every level. Right now, we’re seeing these mass protests taking place in Germany ahead of the G8 meeting. Talk about the significance of these.
JOHN PERKINS: Well, I think it’s extremely significant. Something is happening in the world today, which is very, very important. Yeah, as we watched the headlines this morning, you know, what we can absolutely say is we live in a very dangerous world. It’s also a very small world, where we’re able to immediately know what’s going on in Germany or in the middle of the Amazon or anywhere else. And we’re beginning to finally understand around the world, I think, that the only way my children or grandchildren or any child or grandchild anywhere on this planet is going to be able to have a peaceful, stable and sustainable world is if every child has that. The G8 hasn’t got that yet.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what the Group of Eight are.
JOHN PERKINS: Well, the Group of Eight are the wealthiest countries in the world, and basically they run the world. And the leader is the United States, and it’s actually the corporations within these companies—countries, excuse me—that run it. It’s not the governments, because, after all, the governments serve at the pleasure of the corporations. In our own country, we know that the next two final presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat alike, are going to each have to raise something like half a billion dollars. And that’s not going to come from me and you. Primarily that’s going to come from the people who own and run our big corporations. They’re totally beholden to the government. So the G8 really is this group of countries that represent the biggest multinational corporations in the world and really serve at their behest.
And what we’re seeing now in Europe—and we’re seeing it very strongly in Latin America, we’re seeing it in the Middle East—we’re seeing this huge undercurrent of resistance, of protest, against this empire that’s been built out of this. And it’s been such a subtle empire that people haven’t been aware of it, because it wasn’t built by the military. It was built by economic hit men. Most of us aren’t aware of it. Most Americans have no idea that these incredible lifestyles that we all lead are because we’re part of a very vicious empire that literally enslaves people around the world, misuses people. But we’re beginning to understand this. And the Europeans and the Latin Americans are at the forefront of this understanding.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about Latin America and its leaders, like Jaime Roldos. Talk about him and his significance. You wrote about him in your first book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, Jaime Roldos was an amazing man. After many years of military dictators in Ecuador, US puppet dictators, there was a democratic election, and one man, Jaime Roldos, ran on a platform that said Ecuadorian resources ought to be used to help the Ecuadorian people, and specifically oil, which at that time was just coming in. This was in the late ’70s. And I was sent to Ecuador, and I was also sent at the same time to Panama to work with Omar Torrijos, to bring these men around, to corrupt them, basically, to change their minds.
You know, in the case of Jaime Roldos, he won the election by a landslide, and now he started to put into action his policy, his promises, and was going to tax the oil companies. If they weren’t willing to give much more of their profits back to the Ecuadorian people, then he threatened to nationalize them. So I was sent down, along with other economic hit men—I played a fairly minor role in that case and a major one in Panama with Torrijos—but we were sent into these countries to get these men to change their policies, to go against their own campaign promises. And basically what you do is you tell them, “Look, you know, if you play our game, I can make you and your family very healthy. I can make sure that you get very rich. If you don’t play our game, if you follow your campaign promises, you may go the way of Allende in Chile or Arbenz in Guatemala or Lumumba in the Congo.” On and on, we can list all these presidents that we’ve either overthrown or assassinated because they didn’t play our game. But Jaime would not come around, Jaime Roldos. He stayed uncorruptible, as did Omar Torrijos.
And both of these—and from an economic hit man perspective, this was very disturbing, because not only did I know I was likely to fail at my job, but I knew that if I failed, something dire was going to happen: the jackals would come in, and they would either overthrow these men or assassinate them. And in both cases, these men were assassinated, I have no doubt. They died in airplane crashes two months apart from each other in 1981—single plane; their own private planes crashed.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain more what happened with Omar Torrijos.
JOHN PERKINS: Well, Omar, again, was very stalwartly standing up to the United States, demanding that the Panama Canal should be owned by Panamanians. And I spent a lot of time with Torrijos, and I liked him very, very much as an individual. He was extremely charismatic, extremely courageous and very nationalistic about wanting to get the best for his people. And I couldn’t corrupt him. I tried everything I could possibly do to bring him around. And as I was failing, I was also very concerned that something would happen to him. And sure enough—it was interesting that Jaime Roldos’s plane crashed in May, and Torrijos said—got his family together and said, “I’m probably next, but I’m ready to go. We’ve now got the Canal turned over.” He had signed a treaty with Jimmy Carter to get the Canal in Panamanian hands. He said, “I’ve accomplished my job, and I’m ready to go now.” And he had a dream about being in a plane that hit a mountain. And within two months after it happened to Roldos, it happened to Torrijos also.
AMY GOODMAN: And you met with both these men?
JOHN PERKINS: Yes, I’d met with both of them.
"WE DIDN'T like it when the Soviet Union was in our neighborhood (cuba) ....so.........what are WE doing in Russia's neighborhood?
WE should leave this business of Empire and get out of those lands -- before they kick us out".
----Patrick Buchanan
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to talk to you about Congo, about Lebanon, about the Middle East, about Latin America, much of what you cover in The Secret History of the American Empire, when we come back.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is John Perkins. From 1971 to ‘81, he worked for the international consulting firm of Charles T. Main, where he was a self-described “economic hit man.” His new book is called The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals and the Truth about Global Corruption. Let’s talk back, going to Latin America, about this ChevronTexaco lawsuit.
JOHN PERKINS: Well, that’s extremely significant. When I was sent to Ecuador as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1968, Texaco had just gone into Ecuador, and the promise to the Ecuadorian people at that time from Texaco and their own politicians and the World Bank was oil is going to pull this country out of poverty. And people believed it. I believed it at the time. The exact opposite has happened. Oil has made the country much more impoverished, while Texaco has made fortunes off this. It’s also destroyed vast areas of the Amazon rainforest.
So the lawsuit today that’s being brought by a New York lawyer and some Ecuadorian lawyers—Steve Donziger here in New York—is for $6 billion, the largest environmental lawsuit in the history of the world, in the name of 30,000 Ecuadorian people against Texaco, which is now owned by Chevron, for dumping over eighteen billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian rainforest. That’s thirty times more than the Exxon Valdez. And dozens and dozens of people have died and are continuing to die of cancer and other pollution-related diseases in this area of the Amazon. So all this oil has come out of this area, and it’s the poorest area of one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. And the irony of that is just so amazing.
But what I think—one of the really significant things about this, Amy, is that this law firm has taken this on, not pro bono, but they expect if they win the case, which they expect to do, to make a lot of money off of it, which is a philosophical decision. It isn’t because they wanted to get rich off this. It’s because they want to encourage other law firms to do similar things in Nigeria and in Indonesia and in Bolivia, in Venezuela and many other places. So they want to see a business grow out of this, of law firms going in and defending poor people, knowing that they can get a payoff from the big companies who have acted so terribly, terribly, terribly irresponsibly in the past.
And Steve Donziger, the attorney—I was in Ecuador with him just two weeks ago—and one of the very touching things he said is—he’s an American attorney with, you know, very good credentials, and he says, “You know, I’ve seen a lot of companies make mistakes and then try to defend themselves in law courts.” And he said, “That’s one thing. But in this case, Texaco didn’t make mistakes. This was done with intent. They knew what they were doing. To save a few bucks, they killed a lot of people.” And now they’re going to be forced to pay for that, to take responsibility for that, and hopefully open the door to make many companies take responsibility for the wanton destruction that’s occurred.
A BRIEFING ON THE HISTORY
OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS
By Zoltán Grossman, October 2001
Published in Z magazine. Translations in Italian Polish
Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, most people in the world agree that the perpetrators need to be brought to justice, without killing many thousands of civilians in the process. But unfortunately, the U.S. military has always accepted massive civilian deaths as part of the cost of war. The military is now poised to kill thousands of foreign civilians, in order to prove that killing U.S. civilians is wrong.
The media has told us repeatedly that some Middle Easterners hate the U.S. only because of our "freedom" and "prosperity." Missing from this explanation is the historical context of the U.S. role in the Middle East, and for that matter in the rest of the world. This basic primer is an attempt to brief readers who have not closely followed the history of U.S. foreign or military affairs, and are perhaps unaware of the background of U.S. military interventions abroad, but are concerned about the direction of our country toward a new war in the name of "freedom" and "protecting civilians."
The United States military has been intervening in other countries for a long time. In 1898, it seized the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico from Spain, and in 1917-18 became embroiled in World War I in Europe. In the first half of the 20th century it repeatedly sent Marines to "protectorates" such as Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. All these interventions directly served corporate interests, and many resulted in massive losses of civilians, rebels, and soldiers. Many of the uses of U.S. combat forces are documented in A History of U.S. Military Interventions since 1890: http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
U.S. involvement in World War II (1941-45) was sparked by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and fear of an Axis invasion of North America. Allied bombers attacked fascist military targets, but also fire-bombed German and Japanese cities such as Dresden and Tokyo, party under the assumption that destroying civilian neighborhoods would weaken the resolve of the survivors and turn them against their regimes. Many historians agree that fire- bombing's effect was precisely the opposite--increasing Axis civilian support for homeland defense, and discouraging potential coup attempts. The atomic bombing of Japan at the end of the war was carried out without any kind of advance demonstration or warning that may have prevented the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
The war in Korea (1950-53) was marked by widespread atrocities, both by North Korean/Chinese forces, and South Korean/U.S. forces. U.S. troops fired on civilian refugees headed into South Korea, apparently fearing they were northern infiltrators. Bombers attacked North Korean cities, and the U.S. twice threatened to use nuclear weapons. North Korea is under the same Communist government today as when the war began.
During the Middle East crisis of 1958, Marines were deployed to quell a rebellion in Lebanon, and Iraq was threatened with nuclear attack if it invaded Kuwait. This little-known crisis helped set U.S. foreign policy on a collision course with Arab nationalists, often in support of the region's monarchies.
In the early 1960s, the U.S. returned to its pre-World War II interventionary role in the Caribbean, directing the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs exile invasion of Cuba, and the 1965 bombing and Marine invasion of the Dominican Republic during an election campaign. The CIA trained and harbored Cuban exile groups in Miami, which launched terrorist attacks on Cuba, including the 1976 downing of a Cuban civilian jetliner near Barbados. During the Cold War, the CIA would also help to support or install pro-U.S. dictatorships in Iran, Chile, Guatemala, Indonesia, and many other countries around the world.
The U.S. war in Indochina (1960-75) pit U.S. forces against North Vietnam, and Communist rebels fighting to overthrow pro-U.S. dictatorships in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. U.S. war planners made little or no distinction between attacking civilians and guerrillas in rebel-held zones, and U.S. "carpet-bombing" of the countryside and cities swelled the ranks of the ultimately victorious revolutionaries. Over two million people were killed in the war, including 55,000 U.S. troops. Less than a dozen U.S. citizens were killed on U.S. soil, in National Guard shootings or antiwar bombings. In Cambodia, the bombings drove the Khmer Rouge rebels toward fanatical leaders, who launched a murderous rampage when they took power in 1975.
Echoes of Vietnam reverberated in Central America during the 1980s, when the Reagan administration strongly backed the pro-U.S. regime in El Salvador, and right-wing exile forces fighting the new leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Rightist death squads slaughtered Salvadoran civilians who questioned the concentration of power and wealth in a few hands. CIA-trained Nicaraguan Contra rebels launched terrorist attacks against civilian clinics and schools run by the Sandinista government, and mined Nicaraguan harbors. U.S. troops also invaded the island nation of Grenada in 1983, to oust a new military regime, attacking Cuban civilian workers (even though Cuba had backed the leftist government deposed in the coup), and accidentally bombing a hospital.
The U.S. returned in force to the Middle East in 1980, after the Shi'ite Muslim revolution in Iran against Shah Pahlevi's pro-U.S. dictatorship. A troop and bombing raid to free U.S. Embassy hostages held in downtown Tehran had to be aborted in the Iranian desert. After the 1982 Israeli occupation of Lebanon, U.S. Marines were deployed in a neutral "peacekeeping" operation. They instead took the side of Lebanon's pro-Israel Christian government against Muslim rebels, and U.S. Navy ships rained enormous shells on Muslim civilian villages. Embittered Shi'ite Muslim rebels responded with a suicide bomb attack on Marine barracks, and for years seized U.S. hostages in the country. In retaliation, the CIA set off car bombs to assassinate Shi'ite Muslim leaders. Syria and the Muslim rebels emerged victorious in Lebanon.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, the U.S. launched a 1986 bombing raid on Libya, which it accused of sponsoring a terrorist bombing later tied to Syria. The bombing raid killed civilians, and may have led to the later revenge bombing of a U.S. jet over Scotland. Libya's Arab nationalist leader Muammar Qaddafi remained in power. The U.S. Navy also intervened against Iran during its war against Iraq in 1987-88, sinking Iranian ships and "accidentally" shooting down an Iranian civilian jetliner.
U.S. forces invaded Panama in 1989 to oust the nationalist regime of Manuel Noriega. The U.S. accused its former ally of allowing drug-running in the country, though the drug trade actually increased after his capture. U.S. bombing raids on Panama City ignited a conflagration in a civilian neighborhood, fed by stove gas tanks. Over 2,000 Panamanians were killed in the invasion to capture one leader.
The following year, the U.S. deployed forces in the Persian Gulf after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which turned Washington against its former Iraqi ally Saddam Hussein. U.S. supported the Kuwaiti monarchy and the Muslim fundamentalist monarchy in neighboring Saudi Arabia against the secular nationalist Iraq regime. In January 1991, the U.S..and its allies unleashed a massive bombing assault against Iraqi government and military targets, in an intensity beyond the raids of World War II and Vietnam. Up to 200,000 Iraqis were killed in the war and its imemdiate aftermath of rebellion and disease, including many civilians who died in their villages, neighborhoods, and bomb shelters. The U.S. continued economic sanctions that denied health and energy to Iraqi civilians, who died by the hundreds of thousands, according to United Nations agencies. The U.S. also instituted "no-fly zones" and virtually continuous bombing raids, yet Saddam was politically bolstered as he was militarily weakened.
In the 1990s, the U.S. military led a series of what it termed "humanitarian interventions" it claimed would safeguard civilians. Foremost among them was the 1992 deployment in the African nation of Somalia, torn by famine and a civil war between clan warlords. Instead of remaining neutral, U.S. forces took the side of one faction against another faction, and bombed a Mogadishu neighborhood. Enraged crowds, backed by foreign Arab mercenaries, killed 18 U.S. soldiers, forcing a withdrawal from the country.
Other so-called "humanitarian interventions" were centered in the Balkan region of Europe, after the 1992 breakup of the multiethnic federation of Yugoslavia. The U.S. watched for three years as Serb forces killed Muslim civilians in Bosnia, before its launched decisive bombing raids in 1995. Even then, it never intervened to stop atrocities by Croatian forces against Muslim and Serb civilians, because those forces were aided by the U.S. In 1999, the U.S. bombed Serbia to force President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw forces from the ethnic Albanian province of Kosovo, which was torn a brutal ethnic war. The bombing intensified Serbian expulsions and killings of Albanian civilians from Kosovo, and caused the deaths of thousands of Serbian civilians, even in cities that had voted strongly against Milosevic. When a NATO occupation force enabled Albanians to move back, U.S. forces did little or nothing to prevent similar atrocities against Serb and other non-Albanian civilians. The U.S. was viewed as a biased player, even by the Serbian democratic opposition that overthrew Milosevic the following year.
Even when the U.S. military had apparently defensive motives, it ended up attacking the wrong targets. After the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, the U.S. "retaliated" not only against Osama Bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan, but a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that was mistakenly said to be a chemical warfare installation. Bin Laden retaliated by attacking a U.S. Navy ship docked in Yemen in 2000. After the 2001 terror attacks on the United States, the U.S. military is poised to again bomb Afghanistan, and possibly move against other states it accuses of promoting anti-U.S. "terrorism," such as Iraq and Sudan. Such a campaign will certainly ratchet up the cycle of violence, in an escalating series of retaliations that is the hallmark of Middle East conflicts. Afghanistan, like Yugoslavia, is a multiethnic state that could easily break apart in a new catastrophic regional war. Almost certainly more civilians would lose their lives in this tit-for-tat war on "terrorism" than the 3,000 civilians who died on September 11.
COMMON THEMES
Some common themes can be seen in many of these U.S. military interventions.
First, they were explained to the U.S. public as defending the lives and rights of civilian populations. Yet the military tactics employed often left behind massive civilian "collateral damage." War planners made little distinction between rebels and the civilians who lived in rebel zones of control, or between military assets and civilian infrastructure, such as train lines, water plants, agricultural factories, medicine supplies, etc. The U.S. public always believe that in the next war, new military technologies will avoid civilian casualties on the other side. Yet when the inevitable civilian deaths occur, they are always explained away as "accidental" or "unavoidable."
Second, although nearly all the post-World War II interventions were carried out in the name of "freedom" and "democracy," nearly all of them in fact defended dictatorships controlled by pro-U.S. elites. Whether in Vietnam, Central America, or the Persian Gulf, the U.S. was not defending "freedom" but an ideological agenda (such as defending capitalism) or an economic agenda (such as protecting oil company investments). In the few cases when U.S. military forces toppled a dictatorship--such as in Grenada or Panama--they did so in a way that prevented the country's people from overthrowing their own dictator first, and installing a new democratic government more to their liking.
Third, the U.S. always attacked violence by its opponents as "terrorism," "atrocities against civilians," or "ethnic cleansing," but minimized or defended the same actions by the U.S. or its allies. If a country has the right to "end" a state that trains or harbors terrorists, would Cuba or Nicaragua have had the right to launch defensive bombing raids on U.S. targets to take out exile terrorists? Washington's double standard maintains that an U.S. ally's action by definition "defensive," but that an enemy's retaliation is by definition "offensive."
Fourth, the U.S. often portrays itself as a neutral peacekeeper, with nothing but the purest humanitarian motives. After deploying forces in a country, however, it quickly divides the country or region into "friends" and "foes," and takes one side against another. This strategy tends to enflame rather than dampen a war or civil conflict, as shown in the cases of Somalia and Bosnia, and deepens resentment of the U.S. role.
Fifth, U.S. military intervention is often counterproductive even if one accepts U.S. goals and rationales. Rather than solving the root political or economic roots of the conflict, it tends to polarize factions and further destabilize the country. The same countries tend to reappear again and again on the list of 20th century interventions.
Sixth, U.S. demonization of an enemy leader, or military action against him, tends to strengthen rather than weaken his hold on power. Take the list of current regimes most singled out for U.S. attack, and put it alongside of the list of regimes that have had the longest hold on power, and you will find they have the same names. Qaddafi, Castro, Saddam, Kim, and others may have faced greater internal criticism if they could not portray themselves as Davids standing up to the American Goliath, and (accurately) blaming many of their countries' internal problems on U.S. economic sanctions.
One of the most dangerous ideas of the 20th century was that "people like us" could not commit atrocities against civilians.
Archbishop Romero was assassinated in March,
This March victory is partly for him,
Who loved El Salvador,
Who did no harm
Who did Good
Who Loved God.
An European friend was surprised to find out that it is taboo to have civil discussions about communism, socialism, anarchy, Islam and other such controversial subjects in mixed company in the US. Maybe our obligatory ignorance will change too.
thinking about iraq, afghanistan, nicauraugua, venezuela, pakistan, el salvador, chile, etc and so on
israel and palestine.........
could the united sates be more juxtaposed against human rights and freedoms
american corporations are killing, poisoning and undermining populations in every corner of the world and still the sheeple are deluded with this whole freedom and democracy crap
not to mention the never ending attack against both russia and china
all this while we dispossess peasants by the billions and under the very busy radar american corporations are trying to cram gmo foods down all of our throats while they presume to patent life itself
its apalling
it is the kind of sickness that has brought this world to the point of crisis
obama - i think its becoming clear - is a nwo shill (kissinger recently gave him his most hardy endorsement and offered the big o as the best man to put forward the nwo agenda)
obama has handed over 5 trillion and counting dollars to the very bastards who engineered this rip off
he is one lap dog who can deliver
the bitterness that is going to result over obama's unavoidable demise is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back
to me, seems like all hell is going to break loose
obama is a cruel hoax surrounded by wall street bankers in his inner circle and lauded by the vampire kissinger
the trilateral commission, cfr, nwo, rothschild bank debt cartel
talk about international terrorism
i don't think the united states could be more starkly contrasted against humanity if it tried
Hooray for El Salvadore! Another nail in Ronnie Raygun's coffin.
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
The U.S. doesn't give a rat's ass about the current governments of Nicaragua, El Salvador or Haiti because they know that after supporting the death squads set up here in the school of assasins (so-called school of the America's) and the support of the murderous regimes throughout the hemisphere as well as the neo-liberal policies of the IMF and globalization, that whatever government comes to power, they will only be able to preside over utter destruction and ruin. The U.S. has essentially succeeded in their ultimate goals. The U.S. has now entered its 50th yr. of covert terror and economic warfare being waged on Cuba.
davethered- "The U.S. has now entered its 50th yr. of covert terror and economic warfare being waged on Cuba."
Yeah but Cuba hasn't given back the Bush familie's little piggy bank sugar cane plantations yet.
The whole Central American conflict should have been known as the Coffee Wars, a very lucrative commodity apparently worth fighting over. Without mentioning coffee or the United Fruit Company, the article leaves out key components to the history of Central America.
Excerpt from Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast
In El Salvador, the people’s Revolutionary Army [ERP] challenged the repressive regime of General Carlos Humberto Romero. Right wing death squads roamed the countryside. The entire country descended into a bloodbath, with over fifty thousand people killed by one side or the other in the next few years. The coffee-growing oligarchy loathed the rebels but were split politically, with some supporting the death squads, others seeking moderate reforms. The chaotic violence inevitably reduced the coffee harvest, as many laborers were killed or joined the rebels. In November 1989, six Jesuit priests and two women workers were slain by death squads in El Salvador.
http://theformofmoney.blogharbor.com/blog?nc=1
05/05/04 Quotes From a Few Good Marines…
TMPress International Newswire
TMPress ™ – United News & Press Features ®
(TMPress International – New York – May 07, 2004) – Quotes From a Few Good Marines … Gen. Smedley Butler’s confession, in 1935, a two-time Medal of Honor winner, retired former U.S. Marine Commandant, Gen. Smedley D. Butler accused major New York investment banks of using the U.S. Marines as racketeers and gangsters to exploit the peasants of Nicaragua. Later, Butler stated, `The trouble is that when American dollars earn only six percent over here, they get restless and go overseas to get 100 percent … the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.' `I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to defend some lousy investment of the bankers … we should fight only for the defense of our home and the Bill of Rights … war for any other reason is simply a racket.' `There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to.` `It had its ‘finger men’ to point out enemies, its ‘muscle men’ to destroy enemies, its ‘brain men’ to plan war preparations and a ‘Big Boss’ – supernationalistic capitalism.’
Separately from Butler … sound familiar … history has a funny way of repeating itself and this is the 1930s, when comments like this came from our top brass!
Now continuing with Butler … `I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. `I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. `War is a racket.' – General Smedley Butler, former U.S. Marine Commandant, `Common Sense' in November 1935.
And another more recent Marine Commandant … `I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these (Third World) nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the `haves' refuse to share with the `have-nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don’t want and above all don’t want crammed down their throats by Americans.' – General David Sharp, former United States Marine Commandant, 1966.
Finally let us examine a newer conversation with an ex-Marine who served with Reagan's so-called `Contras’ all during the 1980s – 1990 … 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 who former President Reagan called ‘freedom fighters.’ He said … `They are the moral equivalent of our founding fathers.' – Major, John Stockwell, 13-year veteran of the CIA and former U.S. Marine Corps major.
Well the point is mostly mute, if you know your third-world history and US involvement there … and you can pick-a-country … `Pre-emptive War’ and clandestine operations are not new, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Guatemala, Chile or Vietnam … the result is the same … death and war crimes perpetrated by US military and allied forces – how many have ever faced International justice? – By John Osborne, Sr. Political Editor – TMPress International Newswire
© 2004 TMPress International Newswire. Reprint granted without fee or license, please feel free to query for reprint confirmation.
Article Sources/Citations: TMPress International and the historical site on Free Speech issues and quotes attributed to those at http://free.freespeech.org/
TMPress International Newswire and TMPress/United News & Press Features, editorial syndicate newspaper units of TeleMedia Press Syndicate, LLC, Glens Falls, NY – USA (27/7 – Phone/Fax) 760-462-2751 tmpress_unitednews@earthlink.net, unpress_features@hotmail.com or tmpress_syndicate@yahoo.com
--- TMPress International Newswire
That darn US....if they would only stay home the world would be a lovely place. The rest of the world are enlightened.
"AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY has always been geared towards gathering as much of the world's resources unto ourselves....at the expense of other nations...the TRUE purpose of our US military is to make the world safe for Capitalism and OUR economic and cultural assault....and to do the bidding of our Big Money, Big Business, Big Finance...they have their "brains men" -- people who define and identify the threats to our designs in order to destroy them...you wanted to pacify nicaragua for Brown Bank? for our multinationals ? I'd do it for you...pacify Domininca republic for our banks and corporations?..i'd pacify them....ensure that our Big Oil dominates unmolested in China? I'd do it for you....Our Foreign Wars have nothing to do with Democracy or freedom...it is all about RACKETEERING . we are a Racketeer Nation and I was its chief Racketeer for the Big Muscle..our US Military...
all in Service of our BIG BOSS...our Supernationalistic Capitalism". General Smedley Butler US marine general....1933.
Sioux Rose
Hi, TEDDY, athough today is designated as "tax" day for me, I was roped into all your posts. I bought the John Perkins book but haven't yet gotten to read it, but you certainly provided evocative excerpts. All of his allegations parallel the same plan defined by Naomi Klein in "The Shock Doctrine." Seems the private money interests have been just sex'ing up their "way of doing business" for some time. Or as Thomas Friedman put it, "There could be no (overseas) McDonalds without MacDonnell Douglas." Indeed, and what a garment soaked in blood karma the U.S. wears by still allowing these morally bankrupt corporations to run it all!
No, but people would have a more level playing field to make it so.
Joe
I don't know that it would be lovely, but definitely BETTER!
No one is enlightened. Which is why our species is doomed to oblivion.
Yeah! Just ask Smedley Butler how much they love us.
The Iran-Contra scandal sure taught us how to deal with 9/11
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
The History Of US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS...from Wounded Knee to Iraq and Afghanistan...
sample below...
ZOLTÁN GROSSMAN
Faculty member in Geography and Native American Studies, The Evergreen State College
Lab 1, Room 3012, 2700 Evergreen Pkwy. NW,
Olympia, WA 98505 USA
grossmaz@evergreen.edu
Tel. (360) 867-6153
Faculty home page
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FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO IRAQ:
A CENTURY OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS
by Dr. Zoltan Grossman
The following is a partial list of U.S. military interventions from 1890 to 2009.
Below the list is a Briefing on the History of U.S. Military Interventions.
The list and briefing are also available as a powerpoint presentation.
This guide does not include:
* mobilizations of the National Guard
* offshore shows of naval strength
* reinforcements of embassy personnel
* the use of non-Defense Department personnel (such as the Drug Enforcement Administration)
* military exercises
* non-combat mobilizations (such as replacing postal strikers)
* the permanent stationing of armed forces
* covert actions where the U.S. did not play a command and control role
* the use of small hostage rescue units
* most uses of proxy troops
* U.S. piloting of foreign warplanes
* foreign or domestic disaster assistance
* military training and advisory programs not involving direct combat
* civic action programs
* and many other military activities.
Among sources used, beside news reports, are the Congressional Record (23 June 1969), 180 Landings by the U.S. Marine Corp History Division, Ege & Makhijani in Counterspy (July-Aug, 1982), "Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad, 1798-1993" by Ellen C. Collier of the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service, and Ellsberg in Protest & Survive.
Versions of this list have been published on Zmag.org, Neravt.com, and numerous other websites.
Translations of list: Spanish French Turkish Italian Chinese Greek Russian Czech Tamil Portuguese
Quotes in Christian Science Monitor and The Independent
Turkish newspaper urges that the United States be listed in Guinness Book of World Records as the Country with the Most Foreign Interventions.
COUNTRY OR STATE Dates of intervention Forces Comments
SOUTH DAKOTA 1890 (-?) Troops 300 Lakota Indians massacred at Wounded Knee.
ARGENTINA 1890 Troops Buenos Aires interests protected.
CHILE 1891 Troops Marines clash with nationalist rebels.
HAITI 1891 Troops Black revolt on Navassa defeated.
IDAHO 1892 Troops Army suppresses silver miners' strike.
HAWAII 1893 (-?) Naval, troops Independent kingdom overthrown, annexed.
CHICAGO 1894 Troops Breaking of rail strike, 34 killed.
NICARAGUA 1894 Troops Month-long occupation of Bluefields.
CHINA 1894-95 Naval, troops Marines land in Sino-Japanese War
KOREA 1894-96 Troops Marines kept in Seoul during war.
PANAMA 1895 Troops, naval Marines land in Colombian province.
NICARAGUA 1896 Troops Marines land in port of Corinto.
CHINA 1898-1900 Troops Boxer Rebellion fought by foreign armies.
PHILIPPINES 1898-1910 (-?) Naval, troops Seized from Spain, killed 600,000 Filipinos
CUBA 1898-1902 (-?) Naval, troops Seized from Spain, still hold Navy base.
PUERTO RICO 1898 (-?) Naval, troops Seized from Spain, occupation continues.
GUAM 1898 (-?) Naval, troops Seized from Spain, still use as base.
MINNESOTA 1898 (-?) Troops Army battles Chippewa at Leech Lake.
NICARAGUA 1898 Troops Marines land at port of San Juan del Sur.
SAMOA 1899 (-?) Troops Battle over succession to throne.
NICARAGUA 1899 Troops Marines land at port of Bluefields.
IDAHO 1899-1901 Troops Army occupies Coeur d'Alene mining region.
OKLAHOMA 1901 Troops Army battles Creek Indian revolt.
PANAMA 1901-14 Naval, troops Broke off from Colombia 1903, annexed Canal Zone 1914.
HONDURAS 1903 Troops Marines intervene in revolution.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1903-04 Troops U.S. interests protected in Revolution.
KOREA 1904-05 Troops Marines land in Russo-Japanese War.
CUBA 1906-09 Troops Marines land in democratic election.
NICARAGUA 1907 Troops "Dollar Diplomacy" protectorate set up.
HONDURAS 1907 Troops Marines land during war with Nicaragua
PANAMA 1908 Troops Marines intervene in election contest.
NICARAGUA 1910 Troops Marines land in Bluefields and Corinto.
HONDURAS 1911 Troops U.S. interests protected in civil war.
CHINA 1911-41 Naval, troops Continuous occupation with flare-ups.
CUBA 1912 Troops U.S. interests protected in civil war.
PANAMA 1912 Troops Marines land during heated election.
HONDURAS 1912 Troops Marines protect U.S. economic interests.
NICARAGUA 1912-33 Troops, bombing 10-year occupation, fought guerillas
MEXICO 1913 Naval Americans evacuated during revolution.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1914 Naval Fight with rebels over Santo Domingo.
COLORADO 1914 Troops Breaking of miners' strike by Army.
MEXICO 1914-18 Naval, troops Series of interventions against nationalists.
HAITI 1914-34 Troops, bombing 19-year occupation after revolts.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1916-24 Troops 8-year Marine occupation.
CUBA 1917-33 Troops Military occupation, economic protectorate.
WORLD WAR I 1917-18 Naval, troops Ships sunk, fought Germany for 1 1/2 years.
RUSSIA 1918-22 Naval, troops Five landings to fight Bolsheviks
PANAMA 1918-20 Troops "Police duty" during unrest after elections.
HONDURAS 1919 Troops Marines land during election campaign.
YUGOSLAVIA 1919 Troops/Marines intervene for Italy against Serbs in Dalmatia.
GUATEMALA 1920 Troops 2-week intervention against unionists.
WEST VIRGINIA 1920-21 Troops, bombing Army intervenes against mineworkers.
TURKEY 1922 Troops Fought nationalists in Smyrna.
CHINA 1922-27 Naval, troops Deployment during nationalist revolt.
HONDURAS 1924-25 Troops Landed twice during election strife.
PANAMA 1925 Troops Marines suppress general strike.
CHINA 1927-34 Troops Marines stationed throughout the country.
EL SALVADOR 1932 Naval Warships send during Marti revolt.
Yeah, remember when the Gipper strapped on his six-guns and "stood tall" at the city limits of Harlingen, Texas, waiting for the first wave of sombrero-wearing, mule-riding Sandinistas to appear down the dusty road? Why do our Presidents always pick the poorest ragged downtrodden countries in the world as our most dangerous ememies?
Why do our Presidents always pick the poorest ragged downtrodden countries in the world as our most dangerous enemies?
because the next to useless american military couldn't handle a real fight against an enemy able to defend itself
most bullies are like that
same goes for mini-me israel after hezbollah kicked the shit out of them in lebanon - these days they have to make do with murdering the defensless palestinians
didn't take long for putin to straighten us out in georgia either - which is another us backed clown show that has since descended into fascism
maybe we should sail on down to grenada and kick them in the crotch with our steel toed army boots
that should make us feel better
Hizbullah won the war? Riiiight. Cuz, I see how the Hiz is all continuing its fight against Israel and all. lol!
They pick those countries because they think they can beat them.
Vietnam and Afghanistan may have proved them wrong, but US presidents are not elected for their ability to learn from experience.
Thye only reason they were called "radical forces" is because they were democratic and muy popular for their social justice policies, which would and did redistribute income. These sorts of actions are anethema to both the Dems and Reps, who both seek to destroy or greatly fetter democracy globally, just as they do in the Empire. Only two undemocratic countries left south of the border--Mexico and Colombia. And when Depravity Central ends its 50-yearlong war against Cuba, it, too, will become a democracy, likely along the lines of Venezuela.
Not so fast Marc Cooper, because the stain of US imperialism still taints the countries of Guatamala (where the CIA overthrew a democraticaly elected government for the sake of United Fruit company--think about that the next time you buy Chiquita bananas), in '54. To this day the country is still dominated by US business interests.
Then there was Panama (where President Torrijos' plane conveniently blew him to kingdom come after he refused IMF development money because the strings attached to it wouldn't benefit the poor of his country. Then, when CIA stooge Manuel Noriega got uppity, "Papa Doc" Bush invaded the country to make sure a more compliant stooge and political party would run the place.
Finally Honduras, which was used as the staging base for Contra death squads to make US sponsered raids into Nicauragua. Coordinated by the detestable John Negroponte out of the US embassy, with the striking lack of curiosity on the part of the compliant Honduran government in the mid 80's.
El Salvador is good news for people who believe in letting the electorate of a country decide who will rule them free of foreign interference, but more needs to be done before Central America will be free of US meddling.
Poet
poet - tell it like it is bro
Poet
That's the fucking truth! The U.S. needs to be smacked down for all of its meddling in C.A.
Marc Cooper, what's with the we we we? USans are NOT united in support of imperial policy. USans are united in IGNORANCE of imperial policy. Regarding the cavendish banana, it's a very powerful metaphor depicting the soul-restricting monoculture pushed on the USan young by the elites. Can we we we teach the young to fully appreciate the miracle of life on this amazing planet?
Let's envision the replacement banana. The cavendish is poor in nutrition, makes both consumers and producers (workers) dependent on elite monsters, is expensive to ship, and is soul-destroying for both consumers and producers (workers).
So first, teach the kids to avoid exchange with elites, i.e. dole, chiquita, and instead demand production by and for the people. This opens almost infinite possibilities, including: 1.) small quantities of a large variety of indigenous species of tropical produce may be shipped out of the tropics for special treats, 2.) small farmer coops own the ships thus control the exchange prices, 3.) tropical species may be adapted to temperate climates e.g. pawpaw, 4.) most tropical produce may be dried which means food of far greater nutrition and variety may be shipped to temperate climates very cheaply.
The elites like to claim that consumers reject such alternatives to business as usual but only those IGNORANT of the destruction of imperial and laissez-faire policies embrace the cavendish. United Fruit Company's gig is now up.
With the elites out of the loop, huge opportunities open up for large numbers of people. It's time to ostracize the elites from the society and let the people build their own economy. Teach the kids to ostracize the elites.
lol...USans. You should be the spokesman of the DNP.
I don't see what difference it makes if El Salvador has a leftist government or not. Its the same as Nigaragua or Venezulea. Their country, their business.
We don't have to deal with them, they have to deal with us, or not, at their pleasure. They make little difference to our country. I'm sure of one thing, their economy will do as well as the rest of the leftist regimes.
Best of luck to you El Salvador, we'll stay out of your business this time as we should have last time.
Yeah Thomas, who would want to have the largest social gains in the region, like Venezuela has according to the UN (and Venezuela is not the only country, mind you, who has large amounts of natural resources with high value on the international market). Or constitutions that give people democratic and participaroty rights, like Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. Lula, the "good leftist", is financially supporting the MST in Brazil. Is the MST not just as radical, and democratic, as the Bolivarian movement? The investors and banks, who are kind of screwing us here with no lube with OUR money, don't have anything to do with many of the economic difficulties the leftist or social democratic governments in the region, now do they? They haven't for centuries now, have they? Institutions like the IMF (ie the US Treasury) or World Bank are unpopular just because they're Yankee organizations, right? There's obviously is no reason why trying to make the IMF stick to candidates in the region is enough alone to end a person's candidacy.
It's amazing how many times I've heard people like you talk about the "economy" (like healthcare, schools, food and the like isn't part of the ,social, economy) and how great it is in non-leftis countries in the region, while the majority of people starve and have no say or power, and investors and not democratic government determine what small amounts of social programs the populace will receive. I just read an article that cited the Brazilian "miracle" in the early 1970's, the "economy" was humming, Latin American business journals were talking about how wonderful it was for investors in Brazil...with the largest differences in wealth anywhere in the world outside of the underdeveloped areas of Africa, with mass repression, starvation, etc.
Beating the drum for isolationism again, Woodrow?
Reagan's administration got away with the murder of many thousands of innocent men, women and children in El Salvador but Cheney, Kissinger and the rest of the thugs of his administration were never tried for war crimes and the Iran-Contra investigation of Oliver North was a joke. Like I have said many times: How can you expect justice from investigations and commissions made up of the corrupt, unjust!
Hey, Uncle Sam . . . here's another commie MoFo for you to deal with! Getting out of hand, isn't it?
Yeah, looks like those "dominoes" are starting to fall once again, eh?