- 1953: U.S. overthrows Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran. U.S. install Shah as dictator.
- 1954: U.S. overthrows democratically elected President Arbenz of Guatemala. 200,000 civilians killed.
- 1963: U.S. backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.
- 1963-1975: American military kills 4 million people in Southeast Asia.
- September 11, 1973: U.S. stages coup in Chili. Democratically elected President Salvador Allende assassinated. Dictator Augusto Pinochet installed. 5,000 Chileans murdered.
- 1977: U.S. backs military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans and four American nuns killed.
- 1980's: U.S. trains Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets. CIA gives them $3 billion.
- 1981: Reagan administration trains and funds "Contras." 30,000 Nicaraguans die.
- 1982: U.S. provides billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians.
- 1983: White House secretly gives Iran weapons to kill Iraqis.
- 1989: CIA agent Manuel Noreiga (also serving as President of Panama) disobeys orders from Washington. U.S. invades Panama and removes Noreiga. 3,000 Panamanian civilian casualties.
- 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from U.S.
- 1991: U.S enters Iraq. Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait
- 1998: Clinton bombs "weapons factory" in Sudan. Factory turns out to be making aspirin.
- 1991 to present (as of March 2003): American planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis. U.N. estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions.
- 2000-01: U.S. gives Taliban-ruled Afghanistan $245 million in "aid."
- September 11, 2001: Osama bin Laden uses his expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people.
Our leaders, including Bush senior, created the Mujahideen as a force to make Afghanistan a Vietnam-style quagmire for the Russians, spending over $3 billion and working with Osama bin Laden in the process. They backed Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party as a counterweight to Iran, whose Ayatollah came to power as leader of the only force capable of overthrowing the brutal Shah. The United States had supported the Shah since our CIA installed him in 1953, after overthrowing an elected prime minister who'd dared to talk of nationalizing oil. Coincidentally, September 11 was the anniversary of the CIA-backed coup overthrowing Chile's elected Allende government, launching nearly twenty years of Pinochet's brutal dictatorship.
The ordinary Americans whose inexcusable deaths rend our hearts may have died in part because of our own government's past actions. As always, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the innocents. Unless we create a more just world, desperate men from voiceless communities will continue to destroy more innocent lives, here and abroad.
Source: "Breaking the cycle of vengeance September 11th revisited" by Paul Loeb -- workingforchange.com -- 9/11/03
We have cuddled up to Osama to get his help in Afghanistan. We cuddled up to Saddam to get his help against Iran. Now we cuddled up to Musharraf to buy his temporary affections against the Taliban, who, don't forget, he put into power in Afghanistan.
[T]he Bush administration has made decisions that ultimately are potentially to the detriment of America’s security, for reasons having more to do with the interests of the Bush family than with the safety of America…[T]hese decisions benefited and protected the Bush family from political embarrassment, and, of course, helped them maintain their continuing pipeline of cash into their businesses and financial coffers. What we can't say is: Was there a quid pro quo absolute connection? Did money from Sheik Abdullah Bakhsh to Harken Oil block or create a problem for intelligence agencies trying to investigate?
Source: BuzzFlash.com -- "BuzzFlash interview: Greg Palast" - 08.29.03
During their press conference Thursday [July 17, 2003 featuring Tony Blair and George Bush], Blair hiked up his eyebrows then fetched up this stunner: "People don't generally know… in the 1980s that Iraq purchased 270 tons of uranium from Niger." Indeed, people don't know that, Tony, because your government and the US government did its damned best to cover it up. In the 1980s, Saddam was OUR butcher in Baghdad, a buddy of Ronald Reagan and Bush Senior. During my investigations for BBC television, I discovered during the Reagan-Bush years, Saudi Arabians gave Saddam, with a wink and nod from the US and UK, $7 billion to build a nuclear weapon so he could incinerate his enemy, Iran. However, that was back before there was an 'Axis of Evil' and Iran was the Unicycle of Evil.
Source: Greg Palast - " BLAIR PART II: THE UNICYCLE OF EVIL AND POPPY'S BOMB" -- July 18, 2003
As a special envoy for the Reagan administration in 1984, Donal Rumsfeld traveled to Iraq to persuade officials there that the United States was eager to improve ties with President Saddam Hussein despite his use of chemical weapons, newly declassified documents show.
During [the Iran-Iraq] war, the United States secretly provided Iraq with combat planning assistance, even after Mr. Hussein's use of chemical weapons was widely known. The highly classified program involved more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who shared intelligence on Iranian deployments, bomb-damage assessments and other crucial information with Iraq.
The disclosures…[suggest] a nonchalance toward Mr. Hussein's chemical warfare. Mr. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, and other Bush administration officials have cited Iraq's use of poisonous gas as a main reason for ousting Mr. Hussein.
[T]he Reagan administration, ... had already verified Iraq's "almost daily" use of the weapons against Iran and against Kurdish rebels, documents show.
Source: Dallas Morning News - "Documents reveal Rumsfeld reached out to Hussein in '84" - Dec 23, 2003
Since September 11, the Bushites have constantly hailed Karminov’s government as a staunch ally in their war against terrorism. But what they’ve not wanted us to know is that their buddy is a repressive, brutal, autocratic, terroristic thug who rules Uzbekistan with an iron fist.
Karminov’s oppression and corruption drove the people to boiling point in May [2005], and protestors poured into the streets. Karminov responded with a bloody crackdown, unleashing his troops to open fire with rifles and machine guns. Independent sources say several hundred protestors and bystanders were gunned down
Amazingly, the Bushites are still standing behind their buddy, characterizing these democracy-fighters who rose up against Karminov as militants and terrorists. Bush’s secretary of state, Condi Rice, sympathized with the oppressor, saying that no government should have to “deal with terrorists.”
Guess who has armed and trained Karminov’s troops? The Bushites! Using the Foreign Military Financing program they have entangled our country with a thoroughly repressive regime, creating new enemies for America among the people who should be our friends.
Source: "CREATING ENEMIES FOR AMERICA" by Jim Hightower - 6/15/05
Rumsfield meets Hussein in the 1980s
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