American Conflicts Of The 20th Century (there are a lot of them)

from Adbusters May/June 2004 issue

World War I

When President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany and the other Central Powers in April 1917, he officially yanked America into the modern era. In his appeal to Congress, Wilson declared that the US was entering two-and-a-half-year-old world war alongside Britain and France because "The world must be made safe for democracy." Government and industry joined forces to mobilize a disjunct nation of 100 million; ending the policy of isolationism once espoused by leaders like Wilson himself, a Democrat who had just rode the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War" to reelection.
In reality, America was involved in the hostilities from their start in 1914, while publicly professing neutrality. US businesses supplied cash, munitions and other goods to both the Central and the Allied powers; by early 1917, investment bank J.P. Morgan had loaned the latter about $30 billion in today's dollars. The Great War, as this hitherto unimaginably destructive imperial conflict was known, lifted noncombatant America out of recession.
Despite a public appetite for battlefield heroics - Americans were beginning to forget the bloody lessons of the Civic War 50 years earlier - Washington entered the fighting reluctantly. After more than 100 US citizens died in the 1915 sinking of the British ship Lusitania, Wilson briefly convinced Germany to sc ale back its submarine warfare in the Atlantic. He tried to broker a peace, but in late 1916 the Germans launched fresh attacks on Allied shipping that all but crippled American trade. Some anti-US German subterfuge in Mexico also followed. An exasperated Wilson issued the call for total war.
Thanks to the draft and a sophisticated propaganda campaign that demonized "the Hun," American armed forces rapidly grew from 125,000 to five million. Many of these so-called Doughboys set sail for Europe, enduring the horrors of trench warfare on a continent their ancestors had fled in search of a better life. In 1918, they met the last great german offensives on the Eastern Front. (About 120,000 US soldiers perished in World War I, compared to 1.3 million French dead.)
At home, working Americans of all backgrounds and ethnic groups got behind the war effort, under the proto-fascist eye of the government. The shift to combat readiness put an enormous strain on the country, but Wilson saw a way to harness its unrivalled industrial might. He set up a series of federal agencies - dominated by business leaders - to tightly control the production of food, fuel, and material, Corporate America soon learned just how profitable a war economy could be.
Meanwhile, military America supplemented its European offensives with entanglements on an impressive number of other fronts: Siberia (where US soldiers challenged the Bolsheviks until 1922), Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic. For those doing the killing and dying, hope and glory gave way to disillusionment and shell shock.
In January 1918, 10 months before World War I ended in defeat for Germany, Wilson unveiled his Fourteen Points to Congress. In them, the idealistic president outlined America's war aims, promised fair treatment for the losers, and envisioned a peaceful world of mutual respect held together by "a general association of nations." At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the Allies agreed to form the League of Nations. But sadly, America - now the world's greatest power - never joined: the US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. Worse, it let Britain and France impose outrageous peace terms on Germany, setting the stage for World War II.

Once America pulled the trigger, President Wilson realized how badly Britain and France needed his help to defeat Germany. To get the less-than-enthusiastic US public onside, in April 1917 he launched the first-ever large-scale propaganda campaign, overseen by a new government agency with an Orwellian title: the Committee on Public Information. The head of the CPI was George Creel, a social activist, investigative journalist and PR flack for progressive causes. Creel saw himself as Wilson's lieutenant in the fight for democracy abroad; he also cannily described the CPI as "the world's greatest adventure in advertising."
Like any good ad exec, Creel recognized that emotional appeals are the best way to influence public opinion. If safeguarding freedom meant manipulating and scaring the masses while pretending to give them the straight goods, then so be it. The CPI had to convince the US - still a patchwork, polyglot nation of immigrants - to unite in holy war against a loathsome enemy.
Through print, film, billboards and carefully crafted gatherings, Creel delivered that patriotic message to Americans of all races and classes, in all their languages and vernaculars. Posters portrayed the German soldier as a merciless half-beast, often caught mid-atrocity. To back up these powerful overtures, Washington persecuted unbelievers with the Sedition and Espionage acts.
The results were stunning. Pretty soon ordinary Americans were spying on their neighbors, lynching trade unionists and tarring and feathering fellow citizens of German extraction. Frankfurters became "liberty sausages," dachshunds "liberty dogs." German music and books were banned, and visiting German artists were detained.

WOODROW WILSON, NEOCON?

Through the fuzzy lens of popular history, Woodrow Wilson comes across as a starry-eyed fellow who entered World War I as a matter of principle. That may be partly true, but often overlooked is the fact that he authored seven military interventions, more thna any other Us leader before or since. Besides attacking Germany, he sent troops into Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. Wilson the idealist believed that American-style capitalism and democracy were superior; Wilson the realist knew the world wouldn't roll over and start drinking Coke. So he assembled a big, scary army to chasten any rogue state or faltering empire that dared oppose his country's economic expansion. From there, it was a short trip to regime change, the cynical coalition of the willing, and the neoconservative notion that you can bash the Middle East into embracing US values, whatever they are. At least Wilson could boast that he had real friends.

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JANE ADDAMS, CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR

Even before America took up arms, its government had no time for peaceniks, let alone feminist ones. So it was with great courage that sociologist, author and activist Jane Addams (1860-1935) spoke against the Great War. In 1915, Addams became chair of the International Congress of Women, but back home she faced scathing criticism and got expelled from the Daughters of the American Revolution. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover allegedly called her "the most dangerous woman in America." After helping found the ACLU and the NAACP, Addams continued to fight for social reforms, many of which found their way into President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal during the Great Depression. In 1931, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.

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BETWEEN THE WARS

1917 US forces landed in Cuba to protect American interested and uphold order during a prolonged period of struggle and insurrection. They also secured delivery of Cuban sugar to the US during World War I, and kept its price low. Most of the US armed forces left Cuba by 1919.

1918-1919 US tropps entered Mexico in pursuit of bandits at least three times in 1918 and several times in 1919. In August 1918, US and Mexican troops fought in Nogales.

1918 Following the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917, civil war broke out in Russia as the counter-revolutionary White army attacked the communists. In the summer of 1918, 7,000 US Marines landed near Vladivostok to protect the American Consulate. Later that year, 5,000 American troops joined an international contingent at Archangel. All the US forces had left by January 1920.

1920 US forces landed at Guatemala to protect the American legation and other US interests during a two-week period of fighting between unionists and the government.

1920 A marine guard was sent to protect a US radio station and property on Russian Island in the Bay of Vladivostok, remaining for more than two years.

1922 President Calvin Coolidge incited Guatemalan rebels to overthrow Presidentt Carlos Herrera for the good of the United Fruit Company. Herrera had refused to extend the company concessions.

1926 US Marines arrived in Nicaragua after a coup d'etat stirred up revolutionary activities that threatened American lives and property. By 1933, 133 Marines had been killed in action and 66 injured. The US Secretary of State, Frank Billings Kellogg, justified intervention in the country on the grounds of a "Nicaraguan-Mexican-Soviet" conspiracy to establish a "Mexican-Bolshevist hegemony" within striking range of the Panama Canal.

1927 US Marines engaged in their first ever aerial dive-bombing attack, sending seven planes against Nicaraguan peasants who had surrounded American troops at Ocatal. More than 300 civilians were killed.

1927 Fighting at Shanghai, China led to US forces being increased to 5,670 troops on land and 44 naval vessels at sea. In March, a naval guard was stationed at the American Consulate at Nanking after nationalist forces captured the city. US destroyers later fired shells to protect Americans and other foreigners.

1928 US forces took control over Nicaragua's military. They started a hunt for outlaw leader Sandino, who was preaching to mine workers about social inequalities and the need for change.

1933 During a revolution against President Gerardo Machado, naval forces demonstrated off Cuba. Unable to crush the popular resistance to his regime, Machado resigned. President Franklin Roosevelt wouldn't recognize the liberal provisional government; it lasted only 17 days. FDR refused to send in troops as he was trying to break the US habit of armed intervention in Latin America. But with his blessing, Fulgencio Batista eventually emerged as dictator, after successfully crushing a pro-Machado coup attempt.

1937 "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." So said President Roosevelt about Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. With US approval and tacit support, Somoza controlled Nicaragua after overthrowing the legitimate government of Juana Sacasa. Once in power, he committed numerous human-rights violations and amassed land holdings the size of El Salvador. Two generations of his family ruled Nicaragua for the next 40 years.

1941 President Roosevelt ordered the navy to patrol the shipping lanes to Europe in the spring. By July, US warships were convoying ships carrying Lend-Lease material to Europe, and by September they were attacking German submarines. In November, the Neutrality Act was partially repealed to protect US military aid to Britain.

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There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger-men" to point out enemies, its "muscle-men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. I helped make Mexico, 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 benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could 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.
-speech by Major General Smedley Butler, 1933

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AMERICA IN WORLD WAR II

World War II (1939-1945) was the mother of all freedom fights. Unlike its predecessor, this wasn't some imperial grudge match where the loser eats the cost: German dictator Adolf Hitler's plans for humanity ran much darker, to genocide and perpetual aggression.
Things were going his way before the US got involved in December 1941. Nazi armies had subjugated Europe and North Africa in a mechanized assault known as Blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Japan, Germany's foremost ally, was systematically crushing its Asian neighbors. While people on three continents prepared for a fascist future under the Axis Powers, America took comfort in its geographic fortress of solitude. Most people opposed waging yet another war to bail out fractious old Europe.
Then on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed the US Pacific Fleet moored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Tokyo wrongly belived a preemptive strike would end Washington's interference in Asia. About 2,4000 Americans died in this disasted, the first and last large-scale attack on US soil until 9-11.
The American public reacted with disbelief and outrage. Calling Pearl Harbor "a date which will live in infamy," President Frankling D. Roosevelt immediately asked Congress to authorize war with Japan. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the US, and the conflict Hitler started two years earlier engulfed the planet.
Pearl Harbor gave Roosevelt his excuse to help the British, who had fought Germany virtually alone until the Nazis invaded Russia in mid-1941. Roosevelt knew what a threat the Axis Powers were to his country's security. In September 1940 he had signed the first US peacetime conscription bill; that December, the newly reelected president told the American people that they must become 'the arsenal of democracy." His subsequent State of the Union speech envisioned a world governed by four fundamental freedoms: freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
The Lend-Lease Act of March 1941 ended US neutrality, supplying Britain, Russia and China with weapons, food and other aid. But it was Pearl Harbor that transformed America from an inward-looking nation into a dominant power. Its 130 million citizens shook off the lingering effects of the Great Depression: industrial output tripled, and by war's end the US was producing more military hardware than the rest of the world combined. Enlistment in the armed forces swelled to 16 million.
On the Eastern Front in Europe, with the Russians buying them time by dying in the tens of millions, US and other Allied forces routed the Germans in North Africa and invaded Italy. America had never fought in a war that so cruelly targeted civilians. After a failed policy of daylight "strategic bombing," the US Air Force adopted Hitler's methods, eventually participating in the fire-bombings of Dresden and other German cities.
Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill named US general and future president Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of the 160,000-strong Allied Expeditionary Force, which invaded Normandy on June 6, 1944. Fortunately for the Allies, Hitler was now personally commanding the German army; he made the fatal decision to focus on the Western Front, abandoning Germany to the advancing Russians. During the winter of 1944, American GIs broke the Nazis in the Battle of the Bulge. The Allies crossed the Rhine in March 1945; Germany surrendered on V-E Day, May 8. Roosevelt died before the armistice, and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman.
In the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur had swiftly engaged the Japanese Navy, winning the 1942 battles of Midway and the Coral Sea. America then began a long and bloody push toward Japan itself. In early 1945, with its air force leveling Japanese cities, the US got ready for an invasion. But President Truman chose to avoid further losses by deploying a devastating new weapon. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; another fell on Nagasaki three days later. Japan surrendered unconditionally. The war was over.
Without America's heroic efforts in World War II - which left an estimated 60 million dead, including more than 400,000 US troops - the Nazis would almost certainly have triumphed. Yes, the US emerged the strongest and richest nation on earth, and wasted little time before engaging the Soviet Union in a "cold" war. But it's no great exaggeration to say that people everywhere still owe their basic freedoms to the bravery of America's citizen soldiers at Normandy, Guadalcanal and the Ardennes.

THE US WAR EFFORT

"I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant," Japanese vice-admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is reported to have said of the attack on Pearl Harbor. America may have been a military also-ran in 1941, but even in the aftermath of the Depression it was an industrial powerhouse, with an abundance of unemployed workers ready to jump onto the assembly line. To mobilize the public, President Roosevelt set unreachable goals for weapons production. Although the government kept large corporations like General Motors happy by awarding them most of the contracts, the average wage rose almost 70 percent, and millions of women joined the workforce for the first time. Two years after Pearl Harbor, more than half of all Allied munitions came from America.
With this unprecedented economic boom on the home front came huge social upheaval. While one in nine Americans served inthe Military, the rest moved wherever the best wages were, especially to the West Coast. Citizens helped bankroll the $300-billion cost of the war by patriotically paying their taxes, a new experience for many of them after the Revenue Act of 1942 lowered the personal exemption. Otherwise, it was difficult to spend money: Washington issued ration cards for products like gasoline, sugar and meat, and textiles and metals got diverted to the war effort. Travel restrictions and censorship were other everyday hardships.
By any standard, America's domestic mobilization for World War II was a remarkable achievement. US workers became two and five times more productive than their German and Japanese counterparts, respectively, finishing the war with an output that included 300,000 planes, 7,300 ships, 2.4 million trucks and 40 billion bullets. This fearsome array of weaponry saved thousands of American lives by dramatically reducing the number of troops needed on the battlefield.

THE SPOILS OF WAR

As fighting wound down in Europe, US intelligence teams scoured Germany and Austria for advanced military technology - and, more importantly, for the bright people who created it. In the short term, the Americans wanted these weapons experts to help them accelerate the defeat of Japan. But they also had peacetime uses for great minds like Wernher von Braun, father of the V-2 rocket, a guided missile that terrorized London during the Blitz.
Between 1945 and 1955, according to investigative reporter Linda Hunt, the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency ran a secret operation codenamed Paperclip. It brought the V-2 inventor and some 1,5000 of his colleagues to the home of the brave, skirting State Department rules banning Nazis and war criminals. Von Braun - a former SS officer who had been complicit in Nazi slave labor - set to work beefing up America's Cold War arsenal. He later joined NASA, becoming a key figure in the US space program.

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JEANETTE RANKIN

In 1916, Jeanette Rankin was elected to the US House of Representatives - the first woman elected to the US Congress - four years before women had the right to vote nationwide. In 1917 she voted against US entry in the Great War and consequently lost her bid for election to the Senate in 1918. She did not run for Congress again until 1940, when she was again faced with the decision to vote against entry into a world war. After voting no, she once again lost her seat, and nearly her life. JFK later said of her that "Few members of Congress have ever stood more alone while being true to a higher honor and loyalty." In 1968, 51 years after going to Washington, the 88-year-old led more than 5,000 women in protest, demanding the US withdraw from Vietnam. The group called itself the Jeanette Rankin Brigade.

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AFTER WORLD WAR II

By 1945, mighty America had become leader of the free world. Germany and Japan were transformed post-war into docile commercial states, and billions of Marshall Plan dollars helped rebuild the shattered European economies. A Soviet threat emerged, however, and the Cold War defined the next 45 years. Proxy wars, the space race, spy games, diplomatic standoffs, Olympic boycotts, nuclear proliferation and Mutually Assured Destruction defined the times. Halting communism was the goal - and never mind how: covert operations, coups, support for terrorists and interference in national self-determination movements were all justified as means to the only end that counted.

1945 Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula ended with the conclusion of World War II. The peninsula was subsequently divided between Soviet and US control. South of the 38th parallel, the US established directly military rule which lasted until 1948.

1946 The US Army opened the School of the Americas (SOA) in Panama to "modernize" and "professionalize" Latin American armies. Since then, more than 60,000 SOA students have learned about counter-insurgency, weapons training, psychological warfare and interrogation techniques. With many dictators, assassins and general hatchet men among its graduates, the SOA is held in contempt throughout Latin America. Famous grads include Panama's Manuel Noriega, Bolivia's Hugo Suarez and the murderers of El Salvador's maverick Archbishop Oscar Romero. The SOA was moved to Fort Benning, Georgia in 1984 and rechristened the 'Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation' (WHISC) in 2001.
Defenders of the institution argue that no school should be held liable for the actions of some of its graduates. They also point out that every class includes at least eight hours of instruction in human rights and democracy. Critics, however, find it unlikely that the WHISC is any better than its predecessor. They point to manuals such as the one disclosed by the Pentagon in 1996 that referred to "eliminating potential rivals," "obtaining information involuntarily," and the "neutralization" of people.

1948 Marines were dispatched to Nanking, China to protect the American embassy when the city fell to Communist troops, and to Shanghai to aid in the protection and evacuation of Americans.

1950-1953 At least 2.5 million people died in the fighting that followed the invasion of the south by Communist North Korea on June 25, 1950. Soviet-supplied troops swept across the 38th parallel that divided the country, capturing Seoul in two days. The United Nations demanded their withdrawal to no avail, authorizing force for the first time in its short history. Korea had been a strategic afterthought for the Americans to that point, but President Truman could not afford to be seen as soft on communism. The UN places its forces under US control, and a counterattack began from the country's southest tip. The North Koreans were pushed back to the Chinese border, at which point the Chinese Army joined the fighting. A stalemate at the 38th parallel eventually ensued, and President Eisenhower ended the war after issuing nuclear threats. American military casualties ran at 36,940 dead and 92,134 injured.

1950-1963 The seeds of the Vietnam War were sown when the Americans rejected nationalist resistance leader Ho Chi Minh's pleas for relief from French colonial occupation, siding with Emperor Boa Dai's regime instead. Ho then turned to the Chinese for help. In 1950, a US Special Forces Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) arrived in Saigon and began supervising the French use of US-provided military equipment. By the end of 1950, the US was paying for half of France's war expenditure in Vietnam. In April 1953, the CIA's Civil Air Transport (also known as "Air America") began flying tanks and other heavy equipment to the French. These airdrops were soon expanded to Laos. By 1955, the first US military training detachments arrived in South Vietnam and began fighting alongside South Vietnamese forces. In addition, the US gave $40 million in arms to the South Vietnamese Army. On November 1, 1963, the South Vietnamese military led by General Doung Van Minh, overthrew prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem. President John F. Kennedy had protected Diem in the past but this time instructed the US State Department and Ambassador Lodge in Saigon to support the coup. By then the war had become an American conflict, rather than a South Vietnamese struggle with US aid.

1953-1979 Not long after he threatened to nationalize British Petroleum holdings, Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh was overthrown in a military coup back by the CIA and approved by President Eisenhower. He was replaced by the dictatorship of the Pahlevi Shah. In 1957, the CIA and British intelligence created the SAVAK secret police for the Shah. Soon after, SAVAK began infiltrating Iranian society as well as spying on Iranian students overseas. Its 15,000 employees had full authority to arrest and detain anyone indefinitely. Virtually independent from the start, the Shah himself created the Special Intelligence Bureau, based in one of his palaces, just to keep tabs on SAVAK. The SAVAK organization became notorious for its brutality and use of torture against any opponents of the Shah's regime. In 1978, SAVAK responded to civil unrest with a massive crackdown, killing as many as 15,000 Iranian and wounding or maiming another 50,000. It was finally outlawed and dismantled afte the Islamic Revolution and much of its leadership that remained in Iran was promptly executed.

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You know you've pissed people off when they call you "the Great Satan." Granted, Iran's venomous nickname for the US is a little hyperbolic, but anti-American Iranians do have some legitimate grievances beyond blind prejudice. Those who lived under the rule of the Shah from 1953 to 1979 often associate the US with the worst offenses of that period. After all, the CIA helped bring the Shah to power in 1953 and trained his brutal secret service SAVAK. Still, it's one thing to critique the US, and quite anothe to demonize it. Can any country really be that bad?
The fundamentalist clerics who helped unseat the Shah in 1979 thought so. As did the fanatics who took 52 Americans hostage in the US embassy that year. They were motivated in part by fears the US was drawing up plans for another pro-US coup, but were also simply resentful of American meddling in their country for three decades. So they didn't mind driving a massive wedge between the US and Iran that would persist for 20 years. Today, many older Iranians still perceive the US as the Great Satan but the under-30 crowd sees things differently. They don't know much about the 1953 coup or the training of SAVAK and weren't involved in the revolution. They like American pop culture and watch Iranian variety shows beamed in from Los Angeles. Many see the US as a model for democracy and a beacon of freedom. George Bush's kind of people, in other words. Even some of the older generation are losing their anti-US vitriol as they realize that their own government is responsible for most of their present grief.
Iranians got so wrapped up in America-bashing that they were unable to recognize that US interventions in their country haven't been all bad. Iran specialist Mark Gasiorowski thinks that too many Iranians fail to properly credit the US for preventing the Soviet Union from annexing northwestern Iran - and 25 percent of the country's population - during the Azerbaijan Crisis of 1946. What's more, American efforts to modernize Iran's armed forces throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s protected it from further incursions by the Soviet Union or any other neighboring country. And that firmed-up military capacity came in especially handy in the post-revolution era, when Iran had to defend itself against uber-villain Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Gasiorowski is no apologist for the nefarious schemes the US has hatched in Iran, but he argues that the history of the relationship between the two countries is too ambiguous to be characterized simply as good or bad.
It's hard to imagine the hostage crisis today, though it's safe to bet George W Bush would have tackled the situation with greater bravado than Jimmy Carter. More than that, Iran and the US have recently made important, albeit halting, efforts at rapprochement. In neighboring Iraq, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) - which was created by Iran and serves as a proxy in many ways - has been downright helpful to the US. As one of the country's most important Shi'ite parties, the SCIRI's support for the US-led war and subsequent cooperation with Uncle Sam has been invaluable. And this past fall, Iran put smiles on Bush administration faces when it agreed to open up its nuclear weapons development program to international inspections. For its part, the US has toned down its anti-Iran rhetoric since the "Axis of Evil" jibe in 2002 and recognizes the value of warm relations with a country that has considerable influence in both Iraq and Afghanistan, two of the US's biggest headaches. According to Gasiorowski, while the US-Iran relationship still has plenty of warts, the thrust of the past year's rapprochement is cause for optimism.
But can Iranians really be ready to make a deal with the devil?

-Nicholas Klassen

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1954 President Eisenhower funded a Right wing military coup against the popular, Indian-dominated government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. Arbenz had expropriated 234,000 acres of land owned by Rockefeller's United Fruit Company, although the company was offered compensation (based on its fradulent tax records). CIA-trained insurgents led by Carlos Castillo took power and proceeded to return all the land seized from United Fruit, abolished the tax on interest and dividends to foreign investors, eliminated the secret ballot for elections and jailed thousands of political critics. Both Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother CIA Director Allen Dulles were investors in United Fruit.

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For Guatemalans, the 1944 coup looked to be, finally, a step in the right direction. The new popular government established freedom of the press, legalized labor unions, gave equal rights to women and Mayan Indians, and set a one-term limit for elected president. In 1951 a man named Jacobo Arbenz was elected president, and things started to really heat up.
Arbenz's ideas put him on a collision course with the thousand-pound gorilla in the country: the United Fruit Company. With 550,000 acres on the Atlantic coast reserved for its banana operations, the company was one of Guatemala's largest landowners. It also had a transportation monopoly with its International Railways of Central America (IRCA), and ran the country's primary port.
The new president picked his first fight when he built a highway to the Atlantic in an attempt to compete with the IRCA. But Arbenz's most important goal was agrarian reform. He passed a law that allowed the government to expropriate uncultivated portions of large plantations; that land would then be distributed to landless peasants in small plots and the plantation owners would be compensated in government bonds. Since 85 percent of United Fruit's holdings weren't cultivated, the company became Arbenz's main target.
United Fruit executives started a media campaign in the US calling Arbenz a communist threat, and evidence of the Soviet Union's expansion in the western hemisphere. Among other devises, the company published a book called "Report on Guatemala," which claimed that the agrarian reforms were planned in Moscow, and distributed the book to Congressmen. United Fruit had strong ties to the Eisenhower administration, and in 1954 the administration gave the CIA the thumbs up to make a move in Guatemala. A Guatemalan colonel and rival of Arbenz, Carlos Castillo, was picked as the coup leader, and his troops were trained by the CIA in Nicaragua. It's thought that United Fruit provided a large chunk of money to finance the rebels and buy them weapons.
In June 1954 the rebels swept in, and quickly defeated Arbenz. In Arbenz's last radio speec, he stated: "They have used the pretext of anti-communism. The truth is very different. The truth is to be found in the financial interests of the fruit company and the other US monopolies which have invested great amounts of money in Latin America and fear that the example of Guatemala would be followed by other Latin countries."
Castillo was named president, and the Eisenhower government immediately recognized him as the legitimate Guatemalan government. Two of Castillo's first acts were reversing the Agrarian Reform Law and criminalizing union activities. In a move that delighted the American government, he also created a National Committee of Defense Against Communism.
Castillo didn't last long as president. He was assassinated in July 1957, and a civil war was ushered in that would last for 36 years. Over the course of that time, the Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification estimates that over 42,000 people were killed, with 93 percent of the killings done by governement intelligence agencies and paramilitary groups. Many more were subjected to torture and rape. The Commission also says that the wholesale slaughter of the Mayan people classifies as genocide.

-Eliza Strickland

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1957 After years of financing Indonesia's political opposition, the CIA launched operations against Indonesian President Sukarno in 1957. It set up headquarters in Singapore and training facilities throughout South East Asia for anti-Sukarno political insurgents. US Navy submarines transported the rebels into Sumatra, and US Air Force planes dropped weapons for them. After the fighting began, Indonesia's military attache to Washington, Colonel Alex Kawilarung defected and became the CIA's frontman. CIA pilots engaged in bombing missions, and in one instance, hit a public marketplace on a Sunday, killing hundreds of Christians on their way to church. Three days after the attack, Indonesians successfully downed a CIA plane and captured its pilot, Allen Lawrence Pope. He was held prisoner for four years. This incident was an embarrassing confirmation of US involvement, and led the US to withdraw support. By July 1958, the revolt had been crushed. A US Senate select committee later found there was "some evidence of CIA involvement in plans to assassinate President Sukarno."

1957-1974 The CIA's Civil Air Transport ("Air America") began a prolonged offensive against Loas in 1957, with 16 helicopters stationed 40 miles south of Vientiane, Laos. The forces supplied the Hmong rebels in their battle against the Pathet Lao. This conflict gradually became entangled in America's Vietnam conflict. By 1965, US Green berets and South Vietnamese troops were engaged in covert, cross-border operatoins into Laos, and US air sorties over the country numbered 10 to 20 per day. Still, this conflict was known as the Secret War. The last CAT flight over Laos was on June 3 , 1974, by which time 100 CAT personnel had died.

1958 Lebanon's pro-American government invited 8,000 US Marines to help protect against the threat of insurrection. Lebanese President Chamouri insisted on implementation of the Eisenhower Doctrine, which stated the US "would use armed force to assist any [Middle East] nation... requesting assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism." Chamoun wanted a largely symbolic US presence in the country following the July 14 coup in Iraq, and threats from Syria. By November, after a UN-negotiated settlement, the troops were withdrawn.

1959 Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier became president of Haiti in 1957. He later declared himself president-for-life. Duvalier's regime was particularly brutal, as told by a Haitian: "Duvalier has performed an economic miracle. He has taught us to live without money... to eat without food... to live without life." His police force was called the Tonton Macoutes (Creole for 'Bogeyman') and armed with machetes. In 1959, US Marines arrived in Haiti to serve as military advisors and bolster Duvalier's regime; later that year they helped put down an insurrection. The commander in charge of the US operation, Colonel Robert Debs Heinl Jr., claimed that a State Department Undersecretary told him: "Colonel, the most important way you can support our objectives in Haiti is to help keep Duvalier in power so he can serve out his full term in office, and maybe a little longer than that if everything works out." By the time Papa Doc died in 1971, his Tonton Macoutes had killed tens of thousands of Haitians and tortured countess thousands more.

1960 After Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra was elected president of Ecuador, he refused American demands that he break relations with Cuba and crack down on communists. The US proceeded to infiltrate Ecuadorian political groups, both Left and Right, and create bogus organizations to agitate political disturbances. A CIA officer established a group called the Ecuadorian Anti-Communist Front. Since that name was already taken by a legitimate groups, however, he had to change the title to Ecuadorian Anti-Communist Action. The CIA also penetrated the postal service and the immigration department to collect intelligence. All this interference culminated with the overthrow of Velasco, who was replaced by Carlos Julio Arosemana, a paid CIA employee. Arosemana proved to be as difficult as Velasco and was replaced with a military junta. It immediately outlawed communism, suspended civil liberties, cancelled the 1964 election and used the CIA's Subversive Control Watch List to round up leftists.

1962 The CIA began an operation in Brazil to prevent Joao Goulart from taking control of Congress, giving millions of dollars to anti-Goulart candidates. The US feared a "drift to the Left" under his leadership even though Goulart was a millionaire landowner who had offered a toast "to the Yankee victory!" after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Next, a CIA-backed military coup overthrew Goulart's elected government and installed General Castelo Branco as leader. Branco, with help from the CIA, created Latin America's first death squads.

1964 Despite presiding over one of the poorest countries in the world, Mobutu Sese Seko once spent $65,000 to fly his daughter's four-meter-high wedding cake from Paris to his private estate. Seko's wealth was made possible by a CIA-backed military coup that installed him as dictator of Zaire in 1964. Mobutu went on to exploit his desperately poor country for billions, with an IMF official estimating his wealth at $4 billion in the mid-1980s. Zaire received massive US economic and military assistance during his rule, in return for unfettered access to its fabulous mineral wealth. Since his country was a bastion of anti-communism during the Cold War, President Bush feted Mobuto in 1989 as"one of our most valued friends."

1960 President Eisenhow authorized the CIA to begin operations against Fidel Castro in Cuba. This included a campaign to destabilize Cuba by burning crops, blowing up ships and sabotagin industry. On April 17, 1961, around 1,400 anti-Castro Cubans landed at the Bay of Pigs, armed and transported by the CIA. The population failed to rise up, however, and promised US air support was held back. Within three days, most of the invaders had been either killed or captured. It was the first time the CIA had been humbled in such a way. The next year, President Kennedy instituted a "quarantine" on the shipment of offensive missiles to Cuba by the Soviet Union. He also warned the Soviet Union that the launching of any missiles from Cuba against the West would bring about US nuclear retaliation, taking the world to the brink of nuclear war.

******

Operation Mongoose was the CIA's name for its project to kill Fidel Castro. In the 1960s so many assassination attempts were made on "the bearded one" that he told a reporter, "If surviving assassination were an Olympic attempt, I would win the gold medal."
The list of failed schemes and the harebrained plans concocted to pull them off reads like a James Bond screenplay. Exploding cigars? The CIA thought of that. LSD-infected air in a radio station during a live radio broadcast to make Castro trip-out and lose the respect of Cubans? Check. How about infecting Castro's wetsuit with a fungus to induce Madura Foot, a disabling skin disease? They almost did that, too.
Most infamous of the botched machinations is the exploding Cohiba, Castro's favorite brand of cigar. It didn't work, but fittingly for Castro, cigars occupy their own genre for the CIA's attempts on his life. First, an entire box of cigars was laced with botulinum toxin, a poison that causes death within house of ingestion. "The cigars were so heavily contaminated that merely putting one in the mouth would do the job," a report released by the CIA later revealed. Another plot was to spike cigars with powerful intoxicants so as to undermine Castro's reputation. In the end, the cigar ideas were abandoned due to the complicity the CIA would instantly have been seen to have played in them.
Tired of the party tricks, the CIA looked to get nasty and use organized crime to whack Castro. Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana backed out of a CIA plan to gun him down. Giancana favored a lethal pill (botulinum toxin again) to be slipped into Castro's drink. The pills were hidden inside a pencil, then transported through gangster-channels to Juan Orta, who was tasked with poisoning the president. The plot failed several times, and Orta later sought refuge in Florida.
The goofiest strategy was also the most benign. During a trip the president was taking outside Cuba, his shoes, which would be put outside for shining at night, were to be filled with thallium powder. Thallium causes hair to fall out; Castro's trademark bearded face would be left barren. Instantly, the CIA hoped, Castro would be discredited and overthrown. But they didn't go through with it.
Though the CIA's plots against el Commondante were odd, the absolute strangest had nothing to do with Cuba, but was indeed a product of the Cold War. Looking for easy ways to spy on Soviets, the CIA divined that a cat would be able to walk around and arouse little suspicion. If trained and properly equipped, it could be the perfect spy.
Enter Acoustic Kitty. A common house-cat was surgically implanted with batteries and microphones; its tail would serve as the antenna. When designers from the CIA's Department of Science and Technology found Acoustic Kitty "would walk off the job when he got hungry... they put another wire in to override that." In testing, say former CIA official Victor Marchetti, "they took the cat to a park bench and said 'Listen to those two guys. Don't listen to anything else - not the birds, no cat or dog - just those two guys!'
"They put him out of the van, and a taxi comes and runs him over. There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead!"
So too was the plot.

-Timothy Querengesser

******

1964-1975 By 1964, US military advisers had been in South Vietnam for a decade and numbered 16,500. That year, two US Navy destroyers mistakenly reported they had been attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. North Vietnam and the US were already on a collision course, and President Lyndom Johnson used the supposed attack to pass the "Tonkin Gulf Resolution," which he later described as "like grandma's nightshirt - it covered everything." The resolution allowed him to take "all measures necessary," and by 1965, 200,000 American troops were in Vietnam; in 1968, there were 540,000. Despite their numbers, American soldiers had difficulty contending with the guerilla tactics of the Viet Cong. As the war dragged on, the Americans became less convinced it was winnable. Images of massacres on the nightly news created furor in public opinion, and by the late 1960s, Americans argued about when, not if, US troops should pull out. In 1975 the last US soldier left, and Vietnam's 30 year struggle for independence was complete. In the end, more than 57,000 American soldiers and 3,000,000 Vietnamese had died.

******

UNSELLING THE WAR

Ira Nerken was your typical activist and political science in 1971. Against the war but also tired of ineffective protesting, he'd watched the Pentagon market the Vietnam "conflict" and had an interesting thought: why not flip the spin on its head and oppose the war by 'unselling' it?
His idea spread like shrapnel. Nerken met with David McCall, president of the LaRoch, McCaffrey & McCall ad agency. McCall was impressed: he immediately challenged the advertising community to create ads to help "unsell the war." Soon 50 prominent ad executives had volunteered to give the project name power.
Unsell's cause went public and was immediately inundated with material; artists and producers contributed more PR ads than could be used. Unsell distributed these TV, radio and print ads by offering them for free to media outlets, but the initial response was lukewarm. National broadcasters were cool to the idea of airing unpaid spots. But the public's interest had been piqued. Advertising Age magazine blasted the ad industry, saying the war was a hot topic for 10 years, "yet it took a college student to come along with the 'unsell the war' idea and sell it to the agency people."
Unsell soon went broke. Arriving with deeper pockets was the Clergy and Laymen Concerned, who blanketed thousands of media outlets through activist church members. Ultimately, 113 TV and 450 radio stations ran Unsell ads. Emboldened by their success, in 1972 CALC pushed to do the unthinkable with Unsell and go for the Pentagon's jugular: they wanted an Unsell ad to air to the biggest possible TV audience - during the Superbowl. CALC took a fat cheque to ABC. What happened next? ABC flatly refused to take their money. Does this sounds familiar?
Unsell folded later that year. Though it failed to make a huge impact, Unsell demonstrated a popular will among college students, church mothers, and even ad executives, to turn advertising against spin itself.

-Timothy Querengesser

******

EARLY VIETNAM OBJECTORS

In August 1967, Gene Stoltzfus was visiting Pakse, Laos. From the rooftop of his hotel he could see US planes going on bombing runs to Vietnam: "I could hear the bombs explode in the distance, a jolting contrast to the peaceful marketplace of Pakse. Then I would see them return. On and on it went all day long." At that time, Stoltzfus was a senior volunteer with the US government-affiliated International Voluntary Services based inVietnam. He and his colleagues had all been struggling with their country's role in Vietnam's civil war, and the rooftop vantage point cemented Stoltzfus' conviction that US involvement could not continue. When he returned to Vietnam, Stoltzfus, along with Don Luce, Willi Meyers and Don Ronk outlined these concerns in a letter of resignation to President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 19, 1967. Johnson quickly dismissed the letter, but since the New York Times gave it front page treatment, the subsequent media coverage generated considerable controversy in Washington. As the first protest from within the American community in Vietnam, the letter played a key role in raising American awareness of the dirty side of American aggression in South East Asia. This was a pivotal moment as 1967 saw disillusioned veterans publicly throwing away medals they had won, conscripts burning draft cards, and Johnson's popularity plummeting. The anti-war movement, marginalized for so many years, had caught fire.

******

1965 The US intervened in the Dominican Republic for the fourth time in 58 years, to protect American lives and property during a revolt, and to "prevent another Cuba." They sent more troops as fears grew that the revolutionary forces were under communist control. An estimated 20,000 US troops invaded on April 28. Most of the whites in the country were evacuated by US forces and the poopular revolt was smashed, at a cost of 59 Americans killed in action and 174 wounded.

1965 After having a plan to settle the Cyprus issue rejected by the Greek ambassador on the grounds it was unacceptable to his country, President Lyndon Johnson warned him: "Fuck your parliament and your constitution. We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about democracy, parliament and constitutions, he, his parliament and his constitution may not last very long." The CIA helped King Constantine buy deputies to end the government a year later. Then in 1967, a CIA-backed military coup overthrew the Papandreou government over its refusal to back US interests two days before electrons it was likely to win, ushering in the "Reign of the Colonels." Over the next six years of military control, the use of torture and murder against political opponents became the norm. Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos, a paid CIA employee since 1952, had been a leader of the Nazi Security Battalion, which hunted and killed Greek resistance fighters during the Nazi occupation. Papadopoulos immediately declared martial law and abolished political parties. The first month of his regime saw 8,000 "leftists" imprisoned and tortured. The US finally admitted supporting Greek fascists in 1999.

1966 Three years after JFK installed Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia as Guatemalan leader over an elected politician, the US intervened again. (Peralta's first act after coming to power was to order eight political and trade union leaders killed by having rock-laden trucks drive over them.) The country's new leader, Julio Cesar Mendez Montenegro, allowed the US free reign. Consequently, shipments of American military equipment, helicopters and weaponry increased. US Colonel John D Webber Jr took Command of the American military mission in Guatemala and hinted at his brutal tactics when he told Time magazine "The communists are using everything they have including terror. And it must be met." His forces joined Guatemalan military attacks on peasant villages. The CIA was flying bombing and strafing missions against the peasantry using aircraft modified for slaughter with .50 cal machine guns, small rockets and napalm. USAID and the US Office of Public Safety (OPS) began a major operation to radically expand and militarize the Guatemalan police forces. By 1970 more than 30,000 Guatemalan police had received OPS training in the likes of torture techniques and "disappearances." One State Department official noted, with irony: "Murder, torture and mutilation are alright if our side is doing it and the victims are communists."

1973 Chile's president Salvador Allende was killed in a coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. This action followed three years of covert operations and economic sabotage carried out by the CIA. Pinochet received American support throughout his presidency despite his role in the torture, killing and disappearance of thousands of Chileans.

***

POINT

There is no doubt that the United States did all that it could to create the conditions for the failure of Allende and his government. But, as in most such cases, it was the locals who made the coup itself. What is truly remarkable is the effort - the resources committed, the risks taken, and the skullduggery employed - to bring a Latin American democracy down.
Using 25,000 closely held Government records on US-Chilean relations Peter Kornbluh has confirmed the deep involvement of the US intelligence services in Chile prior to and after the coup. The extent of the involvement was originally hinted at during the Senate hearing conducted by Frank Church in the mid-1970s. Since then, documents released in 1999 and 2000 include transcripts of top-secret discussions among President Nixon, Kissinger, and other cabinet members on how "to bring Allende down" and minutes of secret mettings chaired by Kissinger to plan covert operations in Chile.
What is very clear in all of this is that the coup in Chile is exactly what Kissinger's boss wanted. As Nixon put it in his ineffable style, "It's that son of a bitch Allende. We're going to smash him." As early as October of 1970, the CIA had warned of possible consequences: you have asked us to provoke chaos in Chile. ...We provide you with a formula for chaos which is unlikely to be bloodless. To dissimulate the US involvement will be clearly impossible." The Pinochet dictatorship lasted 17 long and brutal years. According to the Chilean Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, its victims numbered 3,197. Thirty years after its initiation, the coup of 1973 remains deeply etched in collective memory.

By Kenneth Maxwell, Director of Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Excerpted from Foreign Affairs, November/December 2003.

COUNTERPOINT

The myth that the United States toppled President Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973 lives. In 1975, a Senate subcommittee headed by Frank Church - a stalwart Democrat and no friend of the Nixon administration - determined that there was "no real evidence" of US support for the military coup. A more recent CIA study confirmed these conclusions. No evidence to the contrary emerged from the 24,000 Chile-related documents declassified by the Clinton administration.
Washington funneled $6 million in secret subsidies to the opposition press and parties (which Allende was trying to shut down). If $6 million in support for the opposition and a reduction of bilateral aid brought Allende down, while other, far more robust attempts at regime change have failed, one might conclude that Allende's was a remarkably fragile regime. And indeed it was: Allende made it so.
According to a document of undoubted authenticity appended to his memoirs, Kissinger made clear to the American ambassador in Chile days before the 1973 coup that "we are not to involve ourselves in any way. ...Our biggest problem is to keep from getting caught in the middle." The mythmakers' case for US responsibility for the 1973 coup is circumstantial at best so they buttress it with references to events both before and after Allende's presidency. Kenneth Maxwell points to the 1970 murder of Army Chief of Staff Rene Schneider, as if to show US responsibility for the coup three years later. Schneider was killed by a band of rabid Chilean nationalists but Maxwell claims that the United States "approved" and "planned" their effort. The facts are otherwise. In 1970, CIA operatives in Santiago began to canvass a move by the Chilean military to block Allende. But the CIA quickly backed off and Kissinger ended US involvement in the anti-Allende plotting. He later told the president, "This thing looked hopeless. I turned it off. Nothing could be worse than an abortive coup."

By William D. Rogers, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs from 1974 to 1976. Excerpted from Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004.

***

1966 A CIA-organized military action captured the legendary guerilla Che Guevara. The US wanted Che kept alive for interrogation, but the Bolivian government executed him to prevent worldwide calls for clemency. He was 39 years old. Millions mouned after hearing news of his death.

1966 The CIA financed and assisted General Jose Alberto Medrano in organizing the Order paramilitary force, the first of El Salvador's infamous death squads.

1970 US troops entered Cambodia to eliminate communist sanctuaries from which the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese had launched attacks against US and South Vietnamese forces in Vietnam. That same year the CIA helped overthrow Prince Sahounek, replaced by CIA-favorite Lon Nol, who, unlike Sahounek, sent Cambodian troops into battle on America's behalf.

1971 With US Air Force support, the CIA backed a violent military coup in Bolivia in which 500 died. The coup toppled leftist President Juan Torres who had nationalized many of the country's industries, including oil. His replacement, General Hugo Banzer, was trained at the School of the Americas. Banzer's regime became known for using brutality to eradicate leftist elements in the country. He survived 13 coup attempts in seven years as a dictator; in the same period, 200 of his political opponents were killed and 15,000 people arrested.

1972 A US-armed and trained military in Uruguay eliminated the Tupamoros (the National Liberation Movement) and instituted a military government. The US worried that a popular Left wing goverment would be elected - as it had been in Chile the previous year - and that other Latin American countries would follow Uruguay's lead. The military dictatorship lasted 11 years and amassed more than 1,000 political prisoners. Per capita, it was the largest number in the world.

1974 After the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) rejected a new Autonomy Law by Iraq regarding the Kurds, the KDP launched an open revolt against Iraq supported by Iran and the US. It continued until the Algiers Accord of March 1975 that fixed disputed boundaries and closed Iran's borders to Kurdish guerillas. Soon after, the US and Iran withdrew support for the KDP. The Kurds, refused asylum by the US, were then massacred by Iraqi forces. Kissinger later stated in closed testimony: "covert action should not be confused with missionary work."

1974 US naval forces evacuated American civilians during hostilities between Turkish and Greek Cypriot forces. Hostilities began after the CIA supported a failed coup against Cyprus President Archbishop Makarios, which allowed the Turks to invade and occupy northern Cyprus.

1975-1978 During a civil war in Angola, the US supplied arms to the FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola) to fight the Soviet-backed MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola); it also trained FNLA troops and conducted aerial operations from Zaire, dropping supplies to the FNLA. CIA officers and US military advisors entered the area, and the CIA set up a covert arms network to circumvent the US State Department's ban on importing weapons to South Africa. This was part of an exchange system in which South Africa helped move US-supplied equipment from Zaire to the FNLA. Congress cancelled all financing for operations in Angola in 1976, but funding was maintained through Zaire's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. More than 300,000 people died and much of Angola was destroyed.

1977 Under President Carter, US troops were withdrawn from Guatemala and most US money was cut off - though arms and cash continued to flow, via Israel. US-trained death squads and the military had killed an estimated 20,000 people in the previous 10 years.

1979 The US-backed dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasios Somoza II, fell from power and was replaced by the Marxist Sandinistas. The new regime received popular support for their calls for land reform and solutions to poverty. The surviving members of the National Guard, Samoza's brutal secret police force became the Contra rebels that fought a CIA-backed guerilla war against the Sandanistas throughout the 1980s.

1979 After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA armed all factions willing to fight against the Soviets including the Islamic fundamentalist mujahedeen groups. This money influenced the later organization of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

***

LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, December 24, 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

A: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afthanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

A: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic funamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

A: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

-Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Le Nouvel Observateur. January 15-21, 1998.

***

1980 On April 26, 1980, President Carter approved the use of six US transport planes and eight helicopters in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue American hostages being held in Iran. Eight US Marines died when two of the choppers collided at night near the desert staging area for the operation.

1980 Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador appealed to President Carter, "Christian to Christian," to stop financing the brutal Right-wing government Salvadoran military dictator Robreto D'Aubuisson. But D'Aubuisson had Romero shot while celebrating Mass. Soon after El Salvador fell into civil war. The CIA and the US military gave the government military and intelligence superiority over the rebels who were mostly poor peasants. They then began training the Salvadoran death squads. By 1992 some 63,000 Salvadorans had been killed in the fighting.

1980 The US began basing Nicaraguan Contra terrorists in Honduras, as well as using Honduran territory to support El Salvadoran death squads. In exchange, US military aid to Honduras was radically increased and death squads established to eliminate Honduran dissidents. Aid rose from $16 million in 1978 to $231 million million by the early 1980s.

1981 After a guerilla offensive against the government of El Salvador, the US sent additional military advisers, bringing the total assisting in training government forces in counter-insurgency to 55.

1981 US F-14 planes from the carrier Nimitz shot down two Libyan fighter jets over the Gulf of Sidra on August 19 after one of the Libyan jets fired a heat-seeking missile. The US periodically held freedom of navigation exercises in waters that it considered international territory despite Libya's territorial claim.

1981 As part of its continuing support for the Contra terrorists, the CIA began selling weapons to Iran, via Israel, and using the profits to finance the Contras. This later became known as the "Iran-Contra Affair." This year also saw the Freedom Fighter's Manual issued by the CIA to the Contras, which included instructions on economic sabotage, propaganda and general insurgency. The US applied pressure to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to limit and reduce loans to Nicaragua, as well as imposing an economic embargo.

1982 In August, 80 US Marines were dispatched to serve in the multinational force to assist in the withdrawal of the PLO from Beirut. In September, 1,200 more Marines were deployed. Eventually the number grew to 1,800, all serving in a temporary multinational force working to restore the Lebanese government's sovereignty. Congress passed the Multinational Force in Lebanon Resolution authorizing continued participation for 18 months.

1982 In order to help rehabilitate the Khmer Rouge - allied with Washington against the Vietnam-backed government of Cambodia - the US government announced the creation of a new coalition of Cambodian rebel forces, called the Coalition of the Democratic Government of Kampuchea. It was dominated by the Khmer Rouge, who under Pol Pot had killed one in four Cambodians in four years of genocide - though its notional head was Prince Sihanouk. After the formation of this "coalition," Chinese aid to the rebels increased. So did US aid, which by the late 1980s ran at a $5 million officially and $20- to 24-million unofficially per year.

1983 In October the US invaded the island of Grenada following the overthrow and murder of popular socialist leader Maurice Bishop. The official rationale for Operation Urgent Fury was an "urgent" request for aid from the Organization of East Caribbean States (OECS) who said they "feared an aggressive act" from the new ultra-left regime; there were also concerns for the safety of American students on the island. But the Barbadian PM later said the OECS plea had been triggered by US requests and that regime change had been planned for some time. The initial invasion force of 1,2000 troops was met by stiff resistance from the Grenadan army and Cuban military units. heavy fighting continued for several days, but as the US force grew to more than 7,000, the defenders began surrendering or fleeing into the mountains. The forced regime change in a Commonwealth country saw the usually cosy relationship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher plummet to freezing point. Scattered fighting continued as US troops hunted down stragglers, but for the most part the island quickly fell under American control to widespread local support. The conservatives were happy htat socialism had been put to rest, and the majority was happy htat Bishop's murder had been avenged. By mid-December, US combat forces went home and a pro-American government took power. One of its first acts was to seize books and institute a system of censorship. It also made the US troops "heroes of the republic." By the end of fighting 19 Americans, 49 Granadans and 29 Cuban nationals had died.

***

"If the president goes to the American people and wraps himself in the American flag and lets Congress wrap itself in the white flag of surrender, the president will win... The American people had never heard of Grenada. There was no reason why they should have. The reason we gave for the intervention - the risk to American medical students there - was phony but the reaction of the American people was absolutely and overwhelmingly favorable. They had no idea what was going on, but they backed the president. They always will."

-Irving Kristol, "The Fettered Presidency"
(American Enterprise Institute, 1989)

***

1982 US Senators were so outraged by covert CIA support for Nicaraguan Contras that in 1982 they passed a bill cutting off all money aimed at "overthrowing the Government of Nicaragua." Despite this directive, the CIA continued operating in Nicaragua, mining three of its harbors in 1984. Years later, these actions where the basis for a $17 billion judgment against the US in a case Nicaragua brought before the World Court. The American government did not recognize the decision and never paid the damages. Also in 1984, President Reagan set up a front organization directed by Oliver North to solicit donations for Contras from wealthy American anti-communists. The program expanded to the point where North's office was providing the Contras with weapons paid for by illegal arms sales to Iran, then considered a "terrorist" state. The US government was forced to admit to the scheme in 1986 when a transport plane carrying military supplies to the Contras was shot down. Survivor Eugene Hasenfus, and two dead pilots all turned out to be CIA employees. North and his secretary quickly shredded documents implicating them and their friends - including Vice President George Bush - but it was too late. Years of hearings and special investigations led to many resignations and a few minor convictions. But the mud did not stick. On Christmas Eve 1992, President Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Weinberger, former national security adviser Robert McFarlane and four other officials linked to the Iran-Contra affair, including Elliot Abrams. Today, Abrams serves as a special advisor to the current President Bush, running the National Security Council's Middle East desk. Bush also tried to redeem John Poindexter, who had also been convicted of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. In 2002, Bush asked Poindexter to head Total Information Awareness (TIA), a government snooping program that was scaled back after public furor. Even Oliver North landed on his feet, drawing on his Iran-Contra fame to make millions as a high-priced speaker, best-selling author and syndicated columnist. Republicans didn't lose faith in Norht either, giving him the nod as the Party's candidate for the 1994 Senate race in Virginia, which he lost.

1982 General Efrain Rios Montt, a former student of the School of the Americas, seized control of Guatemala with US support. After the coup, US arms shipments to Guatemala increased. Rios Montt declared a state of emergency and suspended the rule of law. Within the first six months of his rule 2,600 Indians had been massacred. During his 17 months in power he oversaw the complete destruction of 400 Indian villages. President Reagan paid a state visit and publicly stated his belief that Rios Montt was "totally dedicated to democracy."

1983 Although the US-backed revolt against the government of Angola largely came to an end in 1976, a new US-South African plan to destabilize the counrty was drawn up. It was another example of President Reagan reversing Carter's policy of limiting American imperialism and intervention. Elements of the plan involved unifying the anti-government forces, sabotaging Angola's factories, pressuring Cuba to remove its troops and stopping foreign investment. When knowledge of the project became known, the US denied it, though UNITA (the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) - the only pro-US body still fighting - simply refused to comment. A month later the UN censured South Africa for its involvement in Angola, with the US the sole abstainer.

1983 Following a Hizbollah suicide bombing on US Marines that killed 241, warplanes from the USS John F. Kennedy and USS Independence launched vengeance strikes at suspected Syrian positions. Two US planes were shot down and one pilot captured.

1985 Trade unions in Honduras demonstrated against the biggest-ever peacetime exercise in Central America, in which 39 US warships and 7,000 US troops helped the country's army repel a mock Nicaraguan invasion. They feard the Honduran people could be pushed into a war against he Sandanista government.

1985 President Reagon won permission from Congress to resume full military support to UNITA in Angola; by 1987 this aid included Stinger missiles. The CIA began training and helping UNITA through South Africa as well as via front organizations previously used to support the Contras in Nicaragua. In 1991, UNITA and the government agreed a ceasfire, but in 1992, once it became clear that the MPLA would win the UN certified free elections, UNITA resumed the war, again with US and South African support. In 1993, the US finally recognized the Angolan government and the Clinton administration ended aid to UNITA.

1985 President Reagan ordered the CIA to launch a strike against Hizbollah's Sheikh Fadlallah in Lebanon. A car bomb planted by a Lebanese intelligence unit, trained and supported by the CIA, exploded close to a mosque during Friday night prayers in a densely-populated Shia Muslim suburb. It flattened two seven-story blocks of flats, a mosque and a cinema, killing 80 people, most of them passers-by. The sheikh survived. This lboody failure is said to have led President Reagan to cancel the CIA's "license to assassinate."

1986 Libyan leader Colonel Gadhaffi called for worldwide Arab attacks on the US after 35 seamen on a Libyan patrol boat were killed by US attacks in international waters. The bombing of a West Berlin disco two weeks later killed two American soldiers and woulded more than 230 others. It was widely believed to be the work of Libyan agents and led to retaliatory US air strikes on Tripoli ten days after the bombing. Forty were killed, including Gadhaffi's adopted daughter.

1986 US Army personally and aircraft assisted Bolivia in Operation Blast Furnace, closing down 21 refineries used to make cocaine. Within six months production had fully resumed to pre-operation levels.

1986 After a popular revolt, Haitian dictator 'Baby Doc' Duvalier was evacuated on a US Air Force jet to France, where he retired with millions of dollars. He left behind him the poorest country in the world: morethan half the people were unemployed, and four in five were illiterate. A Haitian child had a one in three chance of dying before its fifth birthday. The CIA began working to install another dictator, but popular unrest against more US meddling kept the political situation unstable for the next four years. In an attempt to strengthen the military against the people, the CIA created, trained and supplied the National Intelligence Service. The NSI was "created" to fight the cocaine trade, but it suppressed popular revolt and free expression by means of torture and assassination. In the 21 months after Duvalier's ousting, there were more people killed by the government than in the previous 15 years of his regime.

1988 On July 3 the USS Vincennes invaded Iranian Territorial waters and shot down Air flight #655 to Dubai over the Straits of Hormuz, killing 290 civilians and crew. Two surface-to-air missiles were fired after the ship's operators thought they were being attacked by a fighter jet. A Newsweek investigation found that the Vincennes was pursuing Iranian gunboats and testing the Aegis computer system - the most advanced in the world - for the first time. In the chatter and confusion, a chain of mistakes led to the plane being missed from the ship's civilian flight schedules, warned on the wrong frequency and misidentified as a fighter jet after a US sailor forgot to reset the device used to scan transponders. Captain Rezaian on #655 heard none of the warnings, reporting that all was well 30 seconds before the US missiles blew his plane apart. To cover up their appalling mistake the Americans began lying immediately, claiming #655 was flying outside the civilian air corridor (it wasn't), that it hadn't responded to warnings (it couldn't, as they were broadcast on a military frequency), that the Vincennes was protecting a ship under fire from Libyans (it wasn't), that the Vincennes had been in international waters (it wasn't) and that #655 was descending (it wasn't). For their "heroism," the ship's crew was awarded combat action ribbons and Commander Lustig, the air warfare coordinator, received the Navy's Commendation Medal for his "heroic achievement" in "his ability to maintain his poise and confidence under fire." Still, the Navy did later claim the attack was a "mistake."

1987 After the Iran-Iraq War resulted in several military incidents in the Persian Gulf, the US increased its naval presence there, and adopted a policy of reflagging and escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers. President Reagan reported that Us ships had been fired upon, struck mines or taken other military action three times that year and three times the next. The US gradually reduced its forces after a cease-fire between Iran and Iraq on August 20, 1988.

1988 In the spring, amid growing calls for the resignation of Panamanian leader General Manuel Noriega and general instability, the US sent 1,000 troops to Panama to "further safeguard the canal, US lives, property and interests in the area." The forces supplemented 10,000 US military personnel already there. The DEA also indicted Noriega on federal drug charges connected to his involvement with the Medellin cocaine cartel in the early 1980. It marked the beginning of the end for Noriega, whose criminal acts had long been overlooked in exchange for allowing the US to set up listening posts, aiding pro-US forces in El Salvador and Nicaragua, letting Contras train in Panama, and acting as a conduit for US arms and money in the region.

1989 Two US fighter jets shot down two Libyan jet fighters in January over the Mediterranean Sea, about 70 miles north of Libya. The US pilots said the Libyan planes had demonstrated "hostile intentions."

1989 In early September, President Bush announced that military and law enforcement assistance along with $82 million in aid would be sent to help the Andean nations of Colombia, Bolivia and Peru combat illicit drug producers. By mid-September there were as many as 100 US military advisers in Colombia and 500 personnel in the three countries engaged in counter- drug and intelligence services. The end of the Cold War saw the military grow much more eager to work in drug operations, for which funding was rising considerably.

1989 General Noriega's disregard for results of the Panamanian election received a quick US response from President Bush. He ordered approximately 1,900 troops to Panama on March 11, 1989, to augment the estimated 11,000 US forces already in the area, charged with protecting American citizens and bringing General Noriega to justice. Noriega was captured, given a show trial, and then imprisoned for life in isolation inside the US. Official American casualties were 23 troops killed in action, but this number is contested because of a media blackout instituted during the invasion. General Manuel Noriega had been supported by the CIA since 1966 and his drug smuggling was known to the CIA from 1972. However, his growing independence and intransigence resulted in Washington turning against him.

1990 The National Edowment for Democracy (NED) is a US government program that provides funds to promote favored politicians and political parties abroad. In 1990, during Bulgaria's first democratic elections in 45 years, NED spent more than $2 million to prevent the Bulgarian Socialist Party from gaining power. After the Socialists won the election in a free ballot, the US promoted a six-month destabilization campaign of street demonstrations, strikes, sit-ins and sieges of parliament. It openly endorsed the pro-US, anti-communist Union of Democratic Forces, also funding equipment and staff for the UDF. Eventually Socialist President Mladenov was forced to resign.

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COMMUNISM IMPLODES

In the 1980s, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbaches began a process of economic and political reform that led to the disintegration of the USSR. By the end of the decade, eastern Europeans empowered by Gorbachev's Sinatra Doctrine - which allowed Soviet satellites to do things "their way" - began to topple the puppet governments that ruled over them. When the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991, America becamse the world's lone superpower nation.

1991 On January 16, the US began aerial bombardment and cruise missile attacks on Iraqi positions. Operation Desert Storm was part of a UN-authorized coalition of 18 countries that attacked Iraq after it invaded Kuwait. A ground offensive began on February 27, and within three days, the Iraq army surrendered. The ceasefire conditions included long term inspections to ensure the elimination of all Iraq weapons of mass destruction. In the following months, the US, France and Britain declared "no fly" zones over Northern and Southern Iraq to protect Kurd and Shia minorities. Most of the 166 Allied dead were killed in friendly fire incidents. More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers died. The New Yorker later documented that many Iraqi deaths were the product of US war crimes under General Barry McCaffrey.

1992, In December, President Bush deployed US forces to Somalia in response to a humanitarian crisis that the UN Security Council believed threatened international peace. It was thought troops would be deployed for a few months, but Operation Restore Hope lasted until 1994 and involved 30,000 soldiers. While the forces were initially greeted with open arms by starving Somalies, they left under the dark shadow of the events of October 3-4, 1993. In an operation against a stronghold of warlord General Aidid, whom the UN had ordered arrested, more than 300 Somali soldiers were killed. Two American "Blackhawk" helicopters were shot down, 18 soldiers killed in street fighting, and the dead body of a US ranger dragged through the streets of Mogadishu for the world's media to see. Osama bin Laden was later indicted by the US for his role in issuing fatwas calling for al Qaeda members in Somalia to attack Americans.

1992 US aircraft shot down an Iraqi aircraft in the "no fly" zone for the first time on Decemeber 27. In the following weeks, planes from the US and coalition partners attacked missile bases in southern Iraq. After Bill Clinton became president in January 1993, he asserted that the US would continue with the Bush policy on Iraq.

1993 The US participated in a NATO air action to enforce a UN ban on unauthorized military flights over Bosnia-Herzegovina, called Operation Deny Flight. Four warplanes violating the zone were shot down by NATO aircraft in February 1994.

1993 The almost continual bombing of Iraq continued: in January more than 100 US, British and French planes launched a punitive raid on targets in the southern "no fly" zone; 46 cruise missiles were fired at Iraq's alleged nuclear program in Baghdad and US forces attacked 32 Iraqi positions. Twice during April, US warplanes bombed Iraqi anti-aircraft sites that had tracked US aircraft. That same month, the Iraq government was implicated in an alleged plot to assassinate former President George Bush in Kuwait. In response, US naval forces launched 23 cruise missile at the Iraqi intelligence Service's headquarters in Baghdad; a handful landed in residential areas. US aircraft also attacked an anti-aircraft site in June and an Iraqi missile battery in August.

1993 On July 9, 1993, President Clinton deployed 350 troops to Macedonia to participate in the UN Protection Force helping maintain stability in the former Yugoslavia.

1994 After Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted from power in a military coup, the US decided to intervene and restore the rightfully-elected president to power. Operation Uphold Democracy was launched on September 19 with UN Security Council approval. As 3,900 US paratroopers were preparing to invade, the Haitian military voluntarily consented to allow the US forces to land peacefully. The airborned troops were returned but 15,000 US soldiers remained in Haiti in order to ensure Aristide's return to power. On March 31, 1995, the US transferred full responsibility for Haiti to the UN.

1996 Following the entry of Iraqi forces into the northern Kurdish autonomous zone, Operation Desert Strike began on September 3. The US launched at least 44 cruise missiles into Iraq over the next two days. The "no fly" zone was expanded from the 32nd parallel north to the 33rd parallel.

1996 Two years after the genocide that killed 800,000 Hutus, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) invaded eastern Zaire along with a Zairean revolutionary force led by Laurent Kabila. As a result, Hutu refugees who had fled Rwanda after the civil war of 1990-1994 were either driven away or killed. Local witnesses claimed that US soldiers fought with RPA soldiers in Congolese territory, but State Department officials denied any US involvement. Nevertheless, the Department of Defense did admit to providing combat training to RPA soldiers before the invasion of Zaire. Rwandan president Paul Kagame, who had been a general with the RPA during the civil war, was trained at the US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth.

1998 In response to al Qaeda bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 and wounded more than 5,000, President Clinton launched a cruise missile attack against a chemical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. Clinton claimed the factory was involved in the production of nerve gas but it was later confirmed that not only was the civilian pharmaceutical facility not used for making chemical weapons, it was even contracted to the UN. The attack took place on the eve of Monica Lewinsky's testimony to the grand jury investigating Clinton's lying under oath. As part of the same operation the US launched 75 cruise missiles at terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, killing 20 civilians.

1998 As part of "Operation Infinite Reach" Clinton launched some 75 cruise missile at small villages in Afghanistan, killing a number of civilians.

1998 Operation Desert Fox was launched because of Iraqi non-compliance with international weapons inspections. Airstrikes hit airfields, military command centres, oil refineries and Republican Guard bases. Secretary of Defense William Cohen noted: "We wanted to strike quickly with no more warning, no more carrots for Saddam and no chance to prepare for the attacks." Strikes continued almost daily after weapons inspectors were finally ejected from the country.

1999 The Clinton administration initiated Plan Colombia. Although partially earmarked for "social development," the bulk of the $1.3 billion program to this day continues to assist the military and drug crop eradication. At least 400 US military trainers are active in Colombia. In addition, hundres of contractors are employed in aerial fumigation to kill coca crops throughout the country using the level III toxin glyphosate at levels far exceeding recommended dosage. The chemical causes environmental damage, as well as human and animal health problems. In 2001, President Bush expanded the program to Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.

1999 With fighting between the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Yugoslav government showing no signs of abating, Western governments brought the two camps together in 1999 to work out a peace plan. On March 24, after Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic refused to accept the deal, the US and its NATO allies made good on a long-standing threat, bombing Yugoslavia with air- and sea-launched cruise missiles. The strikes were meant to destabilize Milosevic's government, but they also hit civilian targets such as hospitals, churches, utilities and perhaps most famously, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. After the bombing, more than 2000 Yugoslavs were dead. In addition to the military campaign, American money went to opposition groups who eventually forced Milosevic out of office nonviolenty through strikes and massive street protests in 2000.

***

Emmanuel Todd's "After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order (Columbia University Press, 2003) is the best new book on the reasons behind American "theatrical micromilitarism." This is the sublime antidote to David Frum and Richard Perle's poisonous "An End to Evil," and other propagandistic screeds that presume absolute American dominance. Todd, who in 1976 predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, performs the neatest surgery yet on the insecurities besetting the alleged American hyperpower. He convinced us that the days of aggressive American unilateralism are numbered. American behavior after the Cold War has not been rational or well-planned. The neoconservatives do not posses superhuman powers of foresight and analysis. Rather, American response since 1990 has been ad hoc and haphazard, and ill-suited to America's diminished economic power in the world.
America's actual function in the world economy is as the leading consumer, the Keynesian demand state lending stability during global slowdowns. Europe is now the leading industrial powerhouse. America runs huge trade deficits, and relies on the perception of stability to attract investment capital. But if Enron-Arthur Andersen accounting is any indication, America's GNP, consisting mostly of services, may be grossly inflated. The euro poses a real threat to the supremacy of the dollar. American military cominance is built on a mirage of economic performance, which may be true in dollar amounts but not enough to back a new American empire.
Meanwhile, demographics work against American militarism. The rise of literacy (along with the decline in fertility) across the third world is a good foundation for democracy. In a more benign period, 1950-1965, America used to want the spread of democracy. It now fears global democracy, since its militaristic and predatory role, fueling a consuming economy, is based on constant instability. So America keeps going out into the world to vanquish tiny threats like Iraq, when it's not fighting terrorism. Sooner or later, perhaps with a closer alliance of Russia with Europe and Japan, the emptiness of American power will be exposed. Todd gives us more hope than any other recent writer that the day of reckoning is soon to come.

-Anis Shivani

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BOMBS NOT BREAD

Mid-way through the sixth week of the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Czech President Vaclav Havel stood before the Canadian Parliament and said, "This is probably the first war that has not been waged in the name of 'national interests,' but rather in the name of principles and values. If one can say of any war that it is ethical... then it is true of this war."
To date, the battle for Kosovo stands as the high-water mark of that paradoxical endeavor known as the humanitarian intervention. Never have so many bombs fallen in the name of human rights.
The bombers flew in the face of considerable opposition - not from the Yugoslav National Army (YNA), but from critics at home. The old Left said that the war was an excuse for North Atlantic Treaty Organization to flex its muscles, or a spectacle created to make us forget Monica's soiled dress and Clinton's tarnished presidency. Over on the realpolitik Right, conservatives complained that there were no communists to fight, no hordes of wealthy consumers to tap, and no oil wells to liberate.
But opponents of the war were matched against CNN and the BBC. They begged us not to fall for the images of rail-thin children and dead-eyed adults, the hundred of thousands of Kosovar refugees set adrift by Serbian security forces. They counseled us not to overvalue the deaths of hundres or thousands of Albanian Kosovar civilians, such as the 45 massacred in the village of Racak by Serbian forces on January 15, 1999. They pleaded that we not look at Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's pasty, bloated mug and see the man whose quest for Greater Serbia contributed to 200,000 deaths in Bosnia, a man who the international community had come to associate with ethnic cleansing and deceit.
In sum, we were warned against becoming emotional involved with Kosovo, because if we did our impulse to fight injustice would kick in. Which is exactly that happened.
When the bombs started to fall on March 24, Milosevic had his army disguise military targets and instigate a mass expulsion of Albanian Kosovars. Week after week, NATO bombers lined up targets on video screens and hit fake bridges, logs painted to look like missiles, power grids and hospitals, the Chinese embassy (a target put forward by the CIA, who believed it hid an important Yugoslav state department), and occasionally the Yugoslav National Army. At least 500 civilians were killed (according to Human Rights Watch) and an estimated 850,000 Albanian Kosovars fled their homes. Then, after 78 days, Slobo blinked. The army withdrew from Kosovo and the refugees returned.
Of course, errors of execution were legion. NATO commanders should have chosen targets better. Diplomats should have given Milosevic clearer messages and a better exit strategy. Maybe a ground force should have been used. But at its essence, the Kosovo war was a success because it showed a tyrant that the West was willing to stand up for something besides security and profit. Of course, it is obscene that hundreds of civilians were killed in order to change one man's mind. But as long as there are ruthless dictatorships, oppressed people will be willing to take that risk. That is why civilians pleaded for humanitarian intervention in Sierra Leone and the SOlomon Islands, where British and Australian troops helped dampen bloody civil wars. And that is why many Haitians were glad to see American troops return to their country in March, and why others - like Zimbabwe - hope that their nation will be in the crosshairs next.
Several years ago I visited a small village in northern Burma. it was a searing afternoon, and a circle of men gathered in the shae to smoke fragrant cheroots and discuss their predicament. Their people had no electricity or medicine. The Burmese army terrorized their ethnic group, the Shan, and at any time soldiers might arrive to take food, money, forced laborers, or women. The villagers lived under the boot of the military dictators.
We have one great hope, a grizzled elder told me. If NATO treats all people equally, then they will bring our freedom with bombs, just as they did for Kosovo. In his eyes, it would be the ethical thing to do.

-Chris Tenove

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BLOWBACK

Since the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953, the CIA has engaged in disguised assaults on the governments of Guatemale (1954); the Congo (1960); Cuba (1961); Brazil (1964); Afghanistan (1979 to the present); El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua (1980s); and Iraq (1991 to the present) - to name only the most obvious cases. These operations have generated numerous terrorist attacks and other forms of retaliation - what the CIA calls "blowback" - against the United States by peoples on the receiving end. Because covert operations are secret from the people of the United States, when retaliation hits, as it did spectacularly on Sept. 11, 2001, Americans do not have the information to put it into context or understand it.

-Chalmers Johnson

***

and I'll end with Mark Twain because he is so uberrific:

Mark Twain had returned to the United States from a trek to South Asia and South Africa just as the twentieth century broke. His capacious worldview led him to attack the increasingly global outlook that US foreign policy was taking. Writing that "an inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war," Twain called for America to immediately withdraw from its war with Spain, even if it meant a "loss." He believed US foreign policy, sold at home as "benevolent," was in fact coated with blood - highlighting why America should not aspire to become a world power. Elected vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League, a group virulently opposed to US as pirations to empire, Twain later wrote: "All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it."