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List of military interventions of the United States

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Clockwise, from top left: U.S. Marines battle in Hamo village during the Tet Offensive, extraction of troops after an airmobile assault, a burning Viet Cong base camp in Mỹ Tho, Vietnamese civilians killed by U.S. troops during the My Lai Massacre
United States' military actions and war crimes of violence against living persons that are unlawful under international law, from the First World War onwards.

Invasions, coups, wars and other sustained military actions against states after 1945 without international mandate for exception are illegal under the spirit of international law according to the precedent set by the Nuremberg trials Nuremberg Principles Principle VI (a) (i) : "War of aggression".

The International Criminal Court's Crime of aggression covers single isolated instances of attacks, bombardments, armed violations of territory, the giving of permission to other states to use one's own territory to perpetrate acts of aggression and the employment of armed irregulars or mercenaries to carry out acts of aggression. Blockades are acts of aggression although they are sustained.

These are also Acts of Agression, crimes under the precedent set by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314

War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including but not limited to "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, and any devastation not justified by military, or civilian necessity".

Incidents in WWII involving desecration of Japanese remains, and other such non-military actions are not listed in the Timeline, but are linked in the See Also section.

The numbers dead are rarely large for regime change; comparisons between the importance of the dead and the loss of democratic and socialist governments are unlikely to be uncontroversial, but quite likely to be thought-provoking.

The USA engaged in more than 20 covert military actions designed to cause instability in governments in half century between the formation of the early incarnations of the CIA the end of the Cold War, the great majority involving the Special Activities Division (SAD) and Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Central Intelligence Agency. During that period it mounted two full-scale invasions: the Korean and Viet Nam wars. The pace of its actions has increased, and the amount of overt actions increased since then; the US has engaged in closer to 30 military actions in the two decades since the end of the Cold War, and six full-scale invasions: the Gulf War, the invasion of Panama, the bombing of Yugoslavia, the Somali Civil War, the Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan.

After the Cold War, the CIA's role changed significantly, and SAD and SOG forces were increasingly used in overt warfare, while covert regime change was more often carried out by the covert non-military divisions of the CIA, using destabilization techniques (propaganda, paid protestors, bribes, blackmail and threats of government officials, black propaganda and control of the press, etc).

One exception is the use of CIA drones in attacks on military leaders in Iraq, which was alluded to by Bob Woodward in a CBS interview[1] Another is the ongoing, as of Feb 2011, covert assaults on Iraq by CIA squads begun by GW Bush (junior) and first reported in 2007.[2][3] http://peoplesworld.org/u-s-military-takes-on-honduras/ 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924, and 1925

Timeline[edit]

Years Country Estimated Casualties Notes
1846 Mexico Mexican-American War. The US acquires approximately half of Mexico's territory: Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming
1854 - 1941 China Yangtze Patrol to protect economic inequality
1898 Cuba During a successful revolution by the Cubans, the US intervened, unnecessarily, sending ships to Manila. A (probable false flag) attack against the USS Maine gave them the pretext for starting the Spanish-American War, whereupon they claimed the territory
1899 Philippines Despite the overtly stated confines of the Monroe Doctrine being the Americas, Admiral George Dewey agreed verbally with Emilio Aguinaldo to help liberate the Philippines, then reneged. On December 21, 1898, President McKinley issued a Proclamation of Benevolent assimilation
1902 Venezuela - Venezuelan naval blockade Blockade to make the victorious leftist government pay for European losses in the civil war; sort of a "pay for your own interrogation" as the war was fought to equalize ownership of land, and so Venezuela was paying thieves back for the loot they had previously stolen
1903 Honduras Invasion to protect economic inequality - "like banana plantations, banks, and railroads"[4]
1907 Honduras Invasion to protect economic inequality [4]
1909 Nicaragua Thousands. 1,112 in the third period of 1926-1933. Also from 1902-1912 and 1912-1925. United States occupation of Nicaragua. See Smedley Butler, the general who famously criticized the leaders who ordered his involvement. Brown Brothers banking (Skull and Bones, Prescott Bush) benefited from, among other things, ownership in the railroad and the national bank, the country's securities, and the debt they gave to Nicaragua
1911 Honduras Invasion to protect economic inequality [4]
1912 Honduras Invasion to protect economic inequality [4]
1914 Mexico United States invasion of Tampico to ensure that oil would continue to flow from its fields during the Mexican Revolution (WP); [[Wikipedia:Tampico Affair|Tampico Affair
1914 Haiti January: British, German and U.S. military forces enter Haiti
1915 - 1934 Haiti U.S. military forces occupy Haiti from 1915-1934
1916 Dominican Republic United States occupation of the Dominican Republic
1918-1923 USSR AKA 'the first Second World War', closely related to the Russian Civil War: Wikipedia:Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War
1919 Honduras Invasion to protect economic inequality - "like banana plantations, banks, and railroads"[4]
1923 Honduras Invasion to protect economic inequality [4]
1924 Honduras Invasion to protect economic inequality [4]
1927 China Nanking Incident Beautiful Wikipedia BS: "Foreign warships bombarded the city defending the foreign residents against rioting and looting". Refutation: any real threat to residents would have to be too close to attack with offshore bombardment. Hankou Incident : evacuation of Standard Oil operatives by US navy
1945-1989 Communist states Revolts against the USSR instigated, with no material support
1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan 200,000 Nuclear Attacks
1941-1945 Pacific Ocean Breach of Wikipedia:London Naval Treaty (1930): Wikipedia:Unrestricted submarine warfare against merchant shipping.[5][6]
July 1943 Sicily Unknown (est. 8) Wikipedia:Canicattì massacre: Crimes against humanity (Murder of civilians)[7][8]
between July and August 1943 Sicily 76 War crimes:Murder of POWs[9]
December 1943 Bari, Italy 83 SS John Harvey; deployment of mustard gas to war zone approved by Roosevelt, gas released by enemy fire
April 29, 1945 Dachau, southern Germany Death's Head SS War crimes: Murder of POWs.[10]
Night of July 7–July 8, 1945 Salina, Utah, United States of America 9 deaths, 20 injured War crimes: Murder of POWs[11]
Spring-late summer 1945 Rhine Valley region in Germany 3,000-10,000
(high estimate 71,000)
Rheinwiesenlager[12] War crimes: Deaths of POWs from starvation and exposure. In general, the US was as much better than other countries at caring for PoWs as they are worse at overthrowing democratically elected governments, with a lower rate of PoW deaths (at most, less than 2%) than any other country but Britain
1946 Greek Civil War begins; US backing of the Greek government against the Democratic Army of Greece is a continuation of the second half of its U-turn away from backing, in Greece, communist forces against fascist ones, toward backing fascist and right wing forces against communist ones. In a move that ostensibly threatens no one particular nation but in many senses threatens (and continues to threaten) the whole world, Nuclear testing commences with the Operation Crossroads series of tests
1947 Voice of America begins operations; US Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council formed. GATT, United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (creating Israel), Truman Doctrine. Side note: Communist Information Bureau formed
1948-present Europe, in particular NATO countries Operation Gladio (Wikipedia:Operation Gladio) US sleeper cells in NATO countries and throughout Europe, still continuing
1948 Greece US President Harry S. Truman authorizes the pre-CIA Office of Policy Coordination to support aid to Greek anti-communists in cooperation with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service
1949 March 1949 Syrian coup d'état with US embassy backing, marks the middle of a period of instability between 1946 and 1956 in which elements of the (largely pro-western) ruling class struggled for power against a background of support for (largely communist) popular movements; Syria had 20 different cabinets and drafted four separate constitutions during this time; NATO created. Operation Dropshot envisions a nuclear/conventional war in response to a Europe overrun by communism by 1957
1950s Tibet Fruitless decades of funding Tibetan resistance organizations, mostly Buddhists and including the Dalai Lama, against China[13]
1951 Operation Greenhouse: The first atomic weapons (A-Bomb) boosted with thermonuclear (H-Bomb) ingredients are exploded, in the third and fourth of four tests on Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands
1952 Korea 2000000? Napalm
1953 Iran CIA coup Iranian coup d'état of 1953
1954 Guatemala CIA coup Guatemalan coup d'état of 1954. The US refuses to sign the agreements at the Geneva Conference of 1954 mandating nationwide elections for and prohibiting the introduction of armed forces into Viet Nam
1955 U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends the first U.S. 'military advisors' to South Vietnam, in violation of the previous year's Geneva Convention. Gladio: Secret agreement between the CIA and Greek security services (Mountain Raiding Companies or LOK) as part of integrating the LOK into Gladio's stay-behind network
1956 Germany Gladio: Bundesnachrichtendienst BND, German intelligence services fully integrated into Gladio, and responsible for the exfiltration of Nazi war criminals including Klaus Barbie, created
1957 United States Congress approves the Eisenhower Doctrine, promising "aid against overt armed aggression" by communist governments, despite 1957 being the year, projected by US military strategists' Operation Dropshot in 1949, that the USSR would have invaded the whole of Europe. The fifth and a good part of the sixth decade of the twentieth century had come and gone with no armed invasions by the USSR, but this did not stop the US justifying their own invasion with this still-imaginary threat the following year
1958 Lebanon The application of the Eisenhower Doctrine in Lebanon is a prime example of the more-than-inverted universe that the minds of anti-communists inhabit. Communism enjoyed a good deal of popular support in the region, and it was only the threat of communism gaining ground in the region by democratic means that threatened the US and the pro-western factions in the region. So when Operation Blue Bat invaded with 14,000 troops, the US was not only practicing the very "overt armed aggression" that their operations were ostensibly preventing, but doing so preemptively rather than in retaliation.
1959- Cuba Destabilizing actions including the Bay of Pigs
1959 Tibet Special Activities Division operation to transport the Dalai Lama XIV to India
1960 Democratic Republic of the Congo Uncountable The CIA backed the forces of the military dictator Tshombe over the democratically elected Lumumba. There was little conflict in the region before, and there has not been peace in the region since. This destruction of sovereignty even had effects on the Rwanda massacres
1961 Angola A small proportion of the 2 million lives lost in the entire 40yr. conflict 1961-2002[14] John F. Kennedy agrees with anti-communist MPLA splinter faction leaders to back the formation of the NFLA. Nuclear missiles deployed in Turkey
1962 Vietnam President John F. Kennedy authorizes the use of Chemical weapons, and the US Air Force to begin bombing campaigns against the rebels that were threatening the regime, illegal under international law,[15] of Diem in the South[16]
1962 Cuba United States embargo against Cuba, Cuban missile crisis, the year after US missiles had been placed in Turkey, and three years after the Bay of Pigs
1963 Iraq CIA coup
1963 Dominican Republic Dictator Rafael Trujillo assassinated 30 May, 1961. February 1963, democratically elected government under leftist Juan Bosch takes office and is overthrown in September
1964 Brazil CIA coup
1964 Laos 70000 Napalm
1965 Dominican Republic Overthrow of pro-Bosch rebellion-Operation Powerpack ""We don't propose to sit here in a rocking chair with our hands folded and let the Communist set up any government in the western hemisphere" - Lyndon Johnson. "The Peace Corps was briefly evacuated"[17]
1965 Viet Nam First overt US combat troops in Viet Nam; like the 'military advisors' before them,
their presence was a breach of the 1954 Geneva Agreements
1966, February 24 Republic of Ghana CIA coup of the democratically elected government of Convention Peoples' Party led by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.[18][19] See link, or below, for government names and dates
1966 Indonesia 500,000 anti-Communist purges[20] Wikipedia:Indonesian killings of 1965–1966
1967 Guatemala Napalm
1968 Iraq CIA coup
1969 Cambodia 40,000 to 150,000[21][22][23][24] Operation Breakfast and Operation Menu (WP) secret bombing
1970 Vietnam 10000[25] Chemical weapons, Operation Ranch Hand (WP)
1971 Laos Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invade Laos
1972 Viet Nam Although by no means the first heavy bombing campaign, even in 1972, the Christmas bombing of N. Viet Nam drew criticism in part because the public for once did not fail to notice its disparity with the widespread reporting that the US was getting out of the war
1973 Chile CIA coup that removed Salvador Allende
1973-1974 Afghanistan CIA coup
1973-1975 Iraq Kurdish rebels The CIA colludes with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to finance and arm Kurdish rebels in an attempt to overthrow Iraq's Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.[26][27]
1975 East Timor 100,000 Wikipedia:Indonesian occupation of East Timor (see ETAN)
1975 Southern South America[28] 60,000,[29] possibly more[30][31][32] Operation Condor (Wikipedia:Operation Condor)
1976 Argentina CIA coup
1977 Pakistan CIA coup that removed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
1978-1980s Afghanistan CIA
1980- Angola A small proportion of the 2 million lives lost in the entire 40yr. conflict 1961-2002[14] The Reagan adminstration arms the anti-communist NFLA with Stinger missiles, removing the same air superiority that the US had enjoyed in Viet Nam. In the end, the US and allies in the region (at the time, forces backed by apartheid South Africa) have sole strategic control over Angola's oil and Namibia's uranium resources that continues to this day
1980-1988 Cambodia 1.2 million[33] Ronald Reagan authorizes support for vestiges of the Khmer Rouge to destabilize Cambodia's government and oust the Viet Namese occupation forces supporting them.[34] The US would return to finish the next half of the plan in 1991
1980 Iran CIA
1980 Libya 15 Bombing[35]
1980 Turkey CIA
June, 1981 Iran Plot by People's Mujahedin of Iran[36] to assassinate Ayatollah Ali Khamenei thwarted but his right hand paralyzed;[37][38] PMOI is aided by the US[39]
1981-1990 Nicaragua CIA support for the Contras
1980-1992 El Salvador Anti-Sandinista activities, CIA and School of the Americas graduates operation and coordination
1983 Grenada 23 Ground invasion, Operation Urgent Fury including bombing of Richmond Hill, St Georges in October 1983
1987 Iran 290+ The US began extensive aid to Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. Operations Nimble Archer, Earnest Will and Operation Praying Mantis destroyed four Iranian oil platforms and four speedboats, and a missile ship shot down Flight 655. A Kuwaiti oil freighter that had changed its flag to US was struck by an Iranian Silkworm missile, and the US attempted to use this as a pretext for the attacks, claiming an attack on the freighter was equivalent to an attack on the US[40]
1989 Panama 200 Bombing, Operation Just Cause including bombing of El Chorillo neighbourhood, Panama City in December[41]
1990 Iraq 20000? Bombing including bombing of Amiriyah, Baghdad in February 1991
1991-1997 Cambodia The US returns to Cambodia. Overtly, with UN support even, they overthrow the very Khmer Rouge government they had backed in 1980-1988.[42][43]
1991 Somalia 300,000[44] - 400,000[45] dead Somali Civil War
1992-1995 Iraq Bombing attacks & sabotage orchestrated by the CIA via insurgent organization Iraqi National Accord[46]
1993 Guatemala Civil war casualties
At least 2,
US citizens
killed by the
CIA itself[47]
After 39 years of civil war, with the US training and aiding one side or the other, Jorge Serrano Elías' self-coup (more accurately, a coup by dictat, dissolving the legislature and granting special powers to the coup leader) is cut short by foreign intervention, including the US supporting his and other regimes against Guatemala's more left-leaning factions
1994 Haiti 1 The UN determined to return Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti, the US involved itself in his return, extracting promises from Aristide to change Haiti's policies to be favorable to the US and in the same form as those of his 1990 opponent, therein nullifying the elections
30 Aug-20 Sept 1995 Bosnia 193 Reprisal: Operation Deliberate Force NATO bombing campaign during the Bosnian War. The US claimed the bombing campaign was in response to the two Markale massacres (in which 105 died) of the Siege of Sarejevo. Almost twice as many died in the 3515 sorties of the 22 days of the bombing campaign as died from the one and five mortar shells fired of the first and second bombardments respectively, and it ended the siege.
1998 Sudan 15 Cruise missile bombing on North Khartoum in August
1998 Afghanistan 34 Cruise missile bombing
1999 Yugoslavia 2076 Yugoslavians
including 1500 civilians[27][48][49][50]
489 by DU
Bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. Novi Sad aerial bombardment by NATO; use of Depleted Uranium rounds[51][52][53][54]
2000 Serbia The US is involved in the 5 October Revolution; a pro-western government takes power[55]
2001 Afghanistan 10960 Bombing on Chowkar-Karez
2001 - Iran Iran is one of 7 Muslim countries targeted for 'regime change' in a US government policy memo; see Seven countries in five years.[56] The Bush administration expanded aid to opposition and 'pro-democracy' groups[57] US claims it has ceased funding to Wikipedia:Baloch people fighting against Iran[2]
2002-present Philippines 315 Assassinations (WP) with unmanned drones[58] are the OVERT stated mission of Operation Enduring Freedom in the Philippines forces; permanent occupation is unstated but likely
2002 Venezuela Attempted coup by US to install Pedro Carmona as president. (WP) Special Envoy to Latin America Otto Reich[59] and convicted Iran-contra figure and George W. Bush "democracy 'czar'" Elliott Abrams, were allegedly part of the plot,[60] using funds given by the US Congress to the National Endowment for Democracy (WP)[61][62]
2003 Georgia There are allegations from Russia that the United States supported the Rose Revolution, which installed a pro-US government.[63][64]
2003 Iraq 1000000 Bombing, sanctions including bombing of Fallujah in April, November 2004 and Mukaradeeb in May 2004
2004 Haiti Coup backed by US removing Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and literally removing him from the country; the US was motivated by, among other things, Aristide's refusal to privatize government-operated infrastructure.[65][66][67][68]
2004 Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe Mercenaries are arrested in Zimbabwe in 2004 and accused of attempting to overthrow Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, dictator of Equatorial Guinea; USA is accused of involvement.[69] Equatorial Guinea is a rich nation in the hands of a few conservatives, Zimbabwe has been the target for international conservative propaganda since its revolution, and the mercenaries were caught in Zimbabwe; Zimbabwe itself was more likely the target
2006 Iran Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK) is given “a list of targets inside Iran of interest to the U.S.”.[70]Iran Freedom and Support Act directs $10 million towards groups opposed to the Iranian Government
2006 Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe accused the United States of trying to remove him in an illegal regime change.[71][72][73]
2006 Somalia US declares program of funding warlords;[74] its reason for intervention in the Somali Civil War (WP) in 1991 had been to curtail and ameliorate the effects of warlords. CIA money was given to the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism. Once again, the CIA had backed a bad enough faction that it also became the least popular, and the militias of the Islamic Court Union (ICU) gained control of the country and credit for having restored peace[75]
(late 2006) 2007-2009 Somalia 28,403 by 2008 War in Somalia The USA now backed Somalis, (Somalia was communist during much of its history), to undo the damage they had done to their own plans in 2006. In late December 2006 a United States-trained[76][74] Ethiopian invading force declared control of Somalia, calling its new puppet the Transitional Federal Government
2007 Myanmar (Burma) Saffron Revolution (WP) Myanmar's junta has stated that nationwide monk protests, which took place in August and September, were the results of timely collaborated plots of "a Western power" and antigovernment groups aiming to install a puppet government in the country. The Myanmar junta used to refer to the United States as "a Western power".[77] This is not as implausible as it sounds; the CIA continues to back the Tibetan Buddhists that were the first group (in 1950) they ever fully backed against another country, see 14th Dalai Lama, section 'CIA backing'
2007 Iran many more than the 11 citable[78] U.S. military commando units were operating inside Iran as of 2007.[2] George W. Bush authorizes a $400 million CIA covert operation to destabilize Iran.[79] Evidence of US funding for the Balochi.[80] The Balochi group is named as Jundullah; evidence of kidnapping, executions, and ties to drugs and Al Qaida is shown[81][78][82]
2009 Somalia over 5000 War in Somalia (2009–) The continuation of the 1990 war in which the USA backed warlords in Somalia against other warlords, ostensibly to curtail and ameliorate the effects of warlords. This unpopular choice of allies ended in Muslim factions gaining power, so the US backed Ethiopian forces to fight the Muslims.[74]
2009 Honduras Military coup, suspected to be orchestrated by the same Chiquita / United Fruit company that got the US to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954, and backed by the CIA[83]
2011 Libya 2000 civilian deaths[84][85] Military coup, supported by mercenaries and NATO bombing, along with cruise missile attacks and air strikes by NATO member countries. Under the thinnest of cover from other Arab Spring activities (Gwen Ifil at PBS, for example, called the heavily armed anti-Gadaffi forces "demonstrators"), the US pushed to back a coup, against the explicit mandate of the United Nations
2009-present[86](Iraq, earlier) Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen[87][88] 400 in Pakistan in 2009[89] Bombing, drone strikes, army raids, alliance raids.[90] Strikes in Yemen are against non-Al Qaeda protestors against the oppressive Yemeni regime, which the US supports to surprise, surprise extract oil. Yemen is 36th in world oil production (Wikipedia:List of countries by oil production), but also refines oil; more than it produces, creating 40% of its total revenue.
2009-present Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen 2,600 Drone strikes [91]


Footnotes and non-military interventions[edit]

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for [[Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
The Algerian War of 1958. The CIA was involved in Algeria incidents in 1958, 1963, 1968, and 1969 (and it would follow that more current events may be influenced by them, if only by the Butterfly Effect)
  • Tibet, 1950-: It is this author's opinion that seeing the very positive reaction by what has normally been a thorn in the side of the US' neo-imperialism, the UN, to the Tibet issue,[13] was what made the CIA and later the FBI aware of the potential of working both sides of the political divide with astroturf seeding of (from the CIA's perspective) "useful idiots" in human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Nothing like a solid chunk of 'thinking globally and acting locally' for example, to keep the CIA and its operatives from being further outnumbered in the field by aid workers and reporters. And of course if the middle or left can be kept busy pressuring China to reinstate a religious oligarchy (workers schlepping rice up the mountain to the monks in their temples), then so much the better.
  • Ghana 1966. Bizarrely, after this date, for thirteen years, no one much seems to know or care who ruled Ghana or what party they represented or what countries might have backed them, only summarizing that it was a period of "civilian and military governments alternating with coups". The reason for the historical black out is unclear. But it is possible to find the governments. The CIA coup National Liberation Council gave power to a civilian government, the Progress Party. A military coup took over from them in 1972, and ruled for seven years with a strange mix of military and vaguely communist rule, until yet another military coup forced them out of power in 1979, whereupon the final military leader rose to power to take office in 1981[19]
  • Angola, 1975-1980. In a pattern that would be repeated nearly 20 years later, the CIA, armed forces, and Machiavellian foreign policymaker minders of a president newly pressed in the Neocon mold with aw-shucks and gusto to spare, would turn his pet peeves into a policy of crippling warfare and puppet government diplomacy. Reagan sent cheap and effective missile launching systems to take out the helicopters that had given the communist forces an advantage. Namibia's uranium mines were now safe for democracy.
Revolutionary war really is a messy business; left-wing historians ignore death tolls and killing civilians altogether or capitulate to the mainstream view of it being genetically linked to communism. The first step in reducing the bloodshed is understand how and why it occurs, but no. So one of the stories left to history of Angola is tales by a missionary of the godless communists strafing peasants with a helicopter gunship (no mention of how many times more than one that happened, of course). See Angola 1980s on Wikipedia. And of course it is the only story about Angola in the WP article.
  • Cambodia 1980. Ronald Reagan authorized support for vestiges of the Khmer Rouge to destabilize Cambodia's government, which was strengthened by Viet Namese occupation forces. The coalition called the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, (KPNLF, under Son Sann) was led against the government that had replaced it. Both were Communist, and the Khmer Rouge was universally considered the most bloody regime of the 20th C. After 1.2 million deaths (Admittedly deaths from famine were due in part to the war. But unlike other famines used as boogeymen by many a right wing charge of genocide by socialist governments, the war was a direct result of US warmaking), more than half as many as the notorious Khmer Rouge had killed, the Vietnamese withdrew, and Cambodia's Communist regime fell eight years after the US destabilization began.[34] The US would return to finish the next half of the plan in 1991
Rangers from Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, US Army, prepare to take La Comandancia in the El Chorrillo neighborhood of Panama City during the invasion of Panama of December 1989
  • Cambodia 1991. After three years, the US returned to Cambodia. Overtly, with UN support even, they overthrew the very Khmer Rouge government they had backed in 1980-1988.[42][43] In keeping with their new stance of overt regime change, the invasion was out in the open this time. And during this honeymoon period with the rest of the world, as the conquering heroes that had ousted communism, and in a country that was synonymous with the notorious Khmer Rouge, they even got UN support to oust the very Khmer Rouge they had given arms to in 1980-1988. It took a tortuous 6 years, but 'free' elections were held in 1995, and the country was 'stable' by 1997.[42][43]
Propaganda poster, Regime of the Colonels-era Greece. Similarities to the logo below are more than coincidence, see Wikipedia:Operation Gladio#Greece
  • Iraq 1973-1975. The CIA had in 1953 toppled a democratic government to install Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the last Shah of Iran. His father had been the largest supplier of goods to prewar Nazi Germany, and the US colluded with him to finance and arm Kurdish rebels in an attempt to overthrow Iraq's Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. This started a chain of circumstances that led to the death of hundreds of Iraqis and more Kurds, on top of the deaths in the Iraq and Iran hostilities.[97] Iran and Iraq signed a peace treaty in 1975; the CIA support was cut off.
The Shah denied his useful tools the Kurds refuge in Iran, even as many were slaughtered. The U.S. decided not to press the issue with the Shah.[26] "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work," declared Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. [27]
  • Venezuela 2002. The Department of State report is worded strangely, very much like someone avoiding the truth.
4.“Did opponents of the Chávez government, if any, who met with embassy or Department officials request or seek the support of the U.S. government for actions aimed at removing or undermining that government? If so, what was the response of embassy or Department officials to such requests? How were any such responses conveyed, orally or in writing?”
Logo of Operation Gladio, sponsor of the Regime of the Colonels government (propaganda poster shown above); the more derogatory word 'junta' is sometimes used
Taking the question to be whether, in any such meetings, Chávez opponents sought help from the embassy or the Department for removing or undermining the Chávez government through undemocratic or unconstitutional means, the answer is no.
Which leaves unsaid whether regime change was attempted through 'democratic or constitutional' means. One also may assume a degree of latitude in the interpretation of that phrase from a person using such evasion.[98][99]
U.S. intelligence sources told The Post that CIA and European intelligence services are quietly giving money and logistical support to organizers of the anti-Syrian protests to ramp up the pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to completely quit Lebanon[102][103][104] The Wikipedia:Cedar Revolution followed, and is thus claimed to have been influenced by the CIA.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-179-1552-13, Griechenland, erhängter Mann in Ortschaft.jpg
Greece, 1943: A member of the nationalist and pro-Nazi Security Battalions stands for the photograph; the hanged man was executed for aiding the Greek Resistance. During this period, the Resistance cause attracted communists in large numbers, reaching a peak of 50,000; the anti-communists were attracted to the collaborationist Security Battalions, and never comprised more than 12,000 of Resistance members.[105] The US began backing all resistance groups in order to oppose the threat of Nazism, but their fear of communism was too strong, and soon the US ceased funding any resistance groups other than anti-communist ones. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman authorized the pre-CIA Office of Policy Coordination to support aid to Greek anti-communists in cooperation with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. The US Army Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) also provided personnel
In May 2007, US officials promised to continue funding a $84 million aid package aimed at improving the fighting ability of the Abbas Presidential Guard loyal to Fatah.[108][109][110][111]
In the April 2008 the journalist David Rose suggested that the United States collaborated with the Palestinian Authority and Israel to attempt a coup on Hamas, and Hamas pre-empted the coup.[112] Hamas Foreign Minister Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar has echoed this view, and called the arming of Fatah by the United States an "American coup d'état".[113]
Venezuela claims that a confidential memorandum (concerning Operation Pliers) from the US embassy to the CIA revealed and circulated by the Venezuelan government on November 26, 2007 provides details on the activity of a CIA unit engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming national referendum and to coordinate the civil and military overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Venezuela.[114][115][116][117] The memo shows the US Embassy spending $8 million dollars in propaganda alone.[114]


See Also[edit]


External links[edit]


Citations[edit]

  1. Bob Woodward interview on 60 Minutes, discussing his book Enemy Within. "There are secret operational capabilities developed by the military to locate, target, and kill leaders of Al-Qaida in Iraq, insurgent leaders, renegade militia leaders; that is one of the true breakthroughs" (quite a few of the related YouTube videos (example) have an "inexplicable" :) bug that prevents ads from playing, which prevents the vid from playing, so in order to do (almost) all I can to ensure some of them continue to work, I am not going to link to the working ones; just use a combination of the YouTube search terms: Bob Woodward, 60 Minutes, CBS, Enemy Within, and some version of Secrets of the Surge)
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 M K Bhadrakumar (24 Feb 2007). "Foreign devils in the Iranian mountains". Asia Times Online. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IB24Ak01.html. </li>
  3. More Bad Intelligence on Iran and Iraq Robert Baer 24 May 2007
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