Our Empire Documents; Part 1

1. RICH COUNTRY SUPPORT FOR OPPRESSION AND TERROR.

Following is a selection of more forceful exposures and condemnations of the actions rich countries undertake to maintain their empire. (Some of these occur again in later sections on specific countries.)

The US "…is the greatest source of terror on earth."

Pilger, http://www.theherald.co.ukl/news/archive/;13-9-19101-0-24-43.html

… the US state, as part of its foreign policy strategy, has long been using terrorist networks, and carrying out acts of terror itself.

Ed Deak, Economic Theories more destructive than terrorists, Gold River Record, 21 Sept, 2001.

"The US has rained death and destruction on more people in more regions of the globe than any other nation in the period since the second world war…it has employed its military forces in other countries over 70 times since 1945, not counting innumerable instances of counter insurgency operations by the CIA."

The Editors, "After the attacks…the war on terrorism", Monthly Review Nov. 53, 6, 2001, 1-9. P. 1.

Twenty years ago the United States launched a war against Nicaragua. That was a terrible war. Tens of thousands of people died. The country was practically destroyed. ... They went to the World Court with a case, the World Court ruled in their favour and ordered the United States to stop its "unlawful use of force" (that means international terrorism) and pay substantial reparations. Well, the United States responded by dismissing the court with contempt and immediately escalated the attack. At that point Nicaragua went to the UN Security council which voted a resolution calling on all states to obey international law. ... Well, the United States vetoed it. Nicaragua then went to the General Assembly which, two years in a row passed a similar resolution with only the United States and Israel opposed.

Wed, 10 Oct 2001 11:01:02 -0500

From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>

"There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism, and on a scale that puts its rivals to shame."

N. Chomsky, 1991, "International terrorism; Image and reality in A George, Ed., Western State Terrorism, Cambridge, Polity,, p. 15.

"The greatest source of terrorism is the US itself and some of the Laltin American countries."

E. Said, "What they want is my silence", Third World Resurgence, 131/132;, 2001, 68.)

"…the US is itself a leading terrorist state."

N. Chomsky, "The US is a leading terrorist state", Monthly Review, 53, 6, Nov, 2001, p. 16.

"We are the target of terrorists because in much of the world our government stands for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation…We are the target of terrorists because we are hated… And we are hated because our governments have done hateful things….Time after time we have outsted popular leaders who wanted the riches of the land to be shared by the people who worked it…We are hated because our government denies (democracy, freedom, human rights) to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations."

Bowman, "Who would hate a pious America?, http:..www.rmbowman.com

"Many of the world's most brutal dictatorships "…are in place precisely because they serve US interests in a joint venture with local torturers at the expense of their majorities."

E. S. Herman, 1982, p. 15.

After documenting supply of aid to 23 countries guilty of "human rights abuses", Trosan and Yates say, "Without US help they would be hard pressed to contain the fury of their oppressed citizens and US businesses would find it difficult to flourish.," Whenever their people have rebelled and tried to seize power, thereby threatening foreign investments, the US has on every occasion actively supported government repression and terror, or has promoted coups to overthrow popular governments."

Trosan and M. Yates, 1980, "Brainwashing under freedom", Monthly Review, Jan. p. 44.

There has been a blackout on the subject of the role of the United States as arguably the leading terrorist force in the world. In 1998, for example, Amnesty International released a report which made it clear that the United States was as responsible for extreme violations of human rights around the globe–including the promotion of torture and terrorism and the use of state violence–as any government or organization in the world.

Amnesty International, The United States of America: Rights for AII (London: Amnesty International, 1998), see especially chapters 7 and 8. Available online at: <http://web.amnesty.org>.

American foreign policy since World War II has been conducted in an aggressive indeed, at times, terroristic fashion.

From CIA assassinations of key political figures in the Third World, to the carpet bombing of Indochina; from the My Lai massacre (not, we now know, an isolated event) to the bombing of a pharmaceutical company in Sudan in 1998; from the invasion of Grenada to the support given to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan (known in the west at the time as "freedom fighters"); from the backing of Israeli policy against the Palestinians to the bombings of Lebanon and Libya; from the 200,000 Iraqi civilians killed during the Gulf War, to the 500,000 who have died as a result of America's economic blockade - the legacy of American foreign policy is littered with blood and bodies.

In 1937 George Orwell said "…the high standard of life we enjoy in England depends upon keeping a tight hold on the Empire - in order that England may live in comparative comfort, a hundred million Indians must live on the verge of starvation an evil state of affairs, but you acquiesce in it every time you step into a taxi or eat a plate of strawberries and cream."

G. Monbiot, How the rule the world, ERA Newsletter, 2.21.2001.

 "Perhaps the most important taboo is the longevity of the US as both a terrorist state and a haven for terrorists. That the US is the only state on record to have been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism (in Nicaragua) and has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on government to observe international law, is unmentionable.

In the war against terrorism" said Bush" we’re going to hunt down these evil doers wherever they are, no matter how long it takes." Strictly speaking, it should not take long, as more terrorists are given training and sanctuary in the US than anywhere in the world. They include mass murderers, torturers, former and future tyrants and assorted international criminals. There is no terrorist sanctuary to compare with Florida, currently governed by the President’s brother, Jeb.

 J. Pilger, The Great Game Resumed, Sydney Morning Herald, 3.7.02..

The dominant power gets others to do what it wants… Britain’s acceptance of the US proposals at the Bretton Woods conference.

Britain was forced to accept the US plan for the global financial system at the Breton Woods conference.

In Britain there was a great deal of informal dissent about the agreement, but Parliament had been informed that a condition of the latest US war loan to Britain was acceptance of the conference proposal, and this was duly carried.

Editorial, "An era of error ends in terror", ERA Newsletter, 2, 21, Nov-Dec, 2001.

During the Vietnam war the United States used its enormous military power to try to install in South Vietnam a minority government of U.S. choice, with its military operations based on the knowledge that the people there were the enemy. This country killed millions and left Vietnam (and the rest of Indochina) devastated. A Wall Street Journal report in 1997 estimated that perhaps 500,000 children in Vietnam suffer from serious birth defects resulting from the U.S. use of chemical weapons there.

… The same is true of millions in southern Africa, where the United States supported Savimbi in Angola and carried out a policy of "constructive engagement" with apartheid South Africa as it carried out a huge cross-border terroristic operation against the frontline states in the 1970s and 1980s, with enormous casualties. U.S. support of "our kind of guy" Suharto as he killed and stole at home and in East Timor, and its long warm relation with Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos…

Iranians may remember that the United States installed the Shah as an amenable dictator in1953…

Extracts from "Folks out there have a "distaste of Western civilization and cultural values", Edward Herman, 2001. http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/HER109A.html

Pilger refers to UK Prime Minister "… Blair, whose government sells lethal weapons to Israel and has sprayed Iraq and Yugoslavia with cluster bombs and depleted uranium and was the greatest arms supplier to the genocidists in Indonesia…

John Pilger, "Inevitable ring to the unimaginable", Sept, 2001, Full article at:http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/13-9-19101-0-24-43.html

An elite group of less than a billion people now take more than 80 per cent of the world's wealth.

In defence of this power and privilege, known by the euphemisms "free market" and "free trade", the injustices are legion: from the illegal blockade of Cuba, to the murderous arms trade, dominated by the US, to its trashing of basic environmental decencies, to the assault on fragile economies by institutions such as the World Trade Organisation that are little more than agents of the US Treasury and the European central banks, and the demands of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in forcing the poorest nations to repay unrepayable debts; to a new US "Vietnam" in Colombia and the sabotage of peace talks between North going Bold South Korea (in order to shore up North Korea's "rogue nation" status).

Western terror is part of the recent history of imperialism,…

John Pilger, "Inevitable ring to the unimaginable", Sept, 2001, Full article at:http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/13-9-19101-0-24-43.html

'In September 1974 President Ford confirmed the fact that the Nixon administration had authorised the CIA to spend 9 million between 1970 and 1973 to weaken Allende and strengthen his opposition.'

S. Baily, The U.S. and the Development of South America 1945-1975, 1976, p. 206.

"All national economies in the North are engaged in international forms of accumulation which are in essence predatory."

R. Biel, The New Imperialism, Zed., 2000, p. 72.

'The impoverished and long abused masses of Latin America ... will not stay quietly on the farms or in the slums unless they are terribly afraid. As in Stroessner's Paraguay, the rich get richer only because they have the guns. The rich include a great many U.S. companies and individuals, which is why the United States has provided the guns, and much more.' 'The economic model of Third World development favoured by the West does not say "use terror", but the policies that are favoured, which would encourage foreign investment and keep wages and welfare outlays under close control, could often not be put into place without it. Privilege cannot be maintained and enlarged from already high levels if "the people" are allowed to organize, vote, and exercise any substantial power.'

E.S. Herman, Real Terror Network, 1982., c. p. 126.

In 1998 Amnesty International released a report which made it clear that the US was at least as responsible for extreme violation of human rights around the globe as -- including the promotion of torture and terrorism and state violence -- as any government or organisation in the world."

E. C Collier, Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad 1798 - 1993, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Oct. 7., 1993. See Amnesty International, 1998, The United States of America; Rights for All, http://web.amnesty.org

"From any objective standpoint, Israel and the United States more frequently rely on terrorism, and in forms that inflict far greater quantums of suffering on their victims than do their opponents."

R. Falk, 1991, "The terrorist foundations of recent US foreign policy", in A. George, Ed., Western State Terrorism, Cambridge, Polity, 1991.p.108.

That the existence and functioning of our empire has been clearly understood for decades by critical students of American Foreign Policy is evident in the following quotes from the late 1970s and early 1980s. "..the US and its allies have armed the elites of the Third World to the teeth and saturated them with counterinsurgency weaponry and training… Hideous torture has become standard practice in US client fascist states … Much of the electronic and other torture gear, is US supplied and great numbers of …interrogators are US trained…"

N. Chomsky and E. S. Herman, (1979), The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger., pp. ix, 9, 10.

The Editors, Monthly Review, op cit, p. 3.

George refers to the many events which "…give a good, if depressing, indication of the substantial involvement of the West in the most serious instances of terrorism today. P. 3.

 The United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism, and on a scale that puts its rivals to shame.

  George, Introduction to In A. George, Ed., Western State Terrorism, 1991, p 15.

 …under the Reagan Doctrine, the US had forged new paths in international terrorism. Some states employ individual terrorists and criminals to carry out violent acts abroad. But in the Reagan years, the US went further, not only constructing a semi-private international terrorist network but also an array of client and mercenary states - Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and others - to finance and implement its terrorist operations.

A. George, Introduction to In A. George, Ed., Western State Terrorism, 1991, p. 15

The US commitment to international terrorism reaches to fine detail. Thus the proxy forces attacking Nicaragua were directed by their CIA and Pentagon commanders to attack "soft targets," that is, barely defended civilian targets. The State Department specifically authorized attacks on agricultural cooperatives - exactly what we denounce with horror when the agent is Abu Nidal.

A. George, Introduction to In A. George, Ed., Western State Terrorism, 1991,

The crucial role of oppression within the empire is made clear in the following quotes.

"To maintain its levels of production and consumption…the US must be assured of getting increasing amounts of the resources of poor countries. …This in turn requires strong support of unpopular and dictatorial regimes which maintain political and police oppression while serving American interests, to the detriment of their own poor majorities. If on the other hand Third World people controlled their own political economies,…they could then use more of their resources themselves…much of the land now used to grow export cash crops…would be used to feed their own hungry people for example."

W. Moyer, "De-developing the United States", Alternatives, Freedom From Hunger Campaign,1973.

"It is in the economic interests of the American corporations who have investments in these countries to maintain this social structure ( whereby poor masses are oppressed and exploited by local elites) It is to keep these elites in power that the United States has …provided them with the necessary military equipment, the finance and training."

F. Greene, 1980, The Enemy; Notes on Imperialism and Revolution, New York, Vintage, p. 125.

"The impoverished and long abused masses of Latin America…will not stay quietly on the farms or in the slums unless they are terribly afraid…the rich get richer only because they have the guns. The rich include a great many US companies and individuals, which is why the United States has provided the guns…."

N. Chomsky and E. S. Herman, (1979), The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger., p.3.

"Western countries have almost always opposed the efforts of Third World people to throw off repressive regimes in order to redirect the country’s resources to local needs. Such movements would hinder the freedom for rich world corporations to access wealth. They have usually been branded communist.""…Western countries do not tolerate such developments (struggles for liberation from the western empire), and in fact, consider any nation that supports liberation struggles…as an enemy to be destroyed…" 593"

With its extensive and valuable investments in the Third World accruing large profits, and its dependence on foreign sources of raw materials, the US clelarly stands to lose heavily from these revolutions. Its response has been to step up a global military machine, enter into alliances with repressive and reactionary regimes, and intervene against revolutionary movements." 599

E. Hutchful, The Peace Movement and the Third World, Alternatives, Spring, 1984, 593-603.

"…the US government has…been involved in a large number of well-documented clandestine attempts to overthrow regimes not to its liking…" 115"…US foreign aid and military assistance…has long been used to support regimes characterized by brutal repression and a total lack of commitment to the most elementary democratic freedoms.’ P. 116. "That torture is now a key technique in the counter insurgency strategy which is the cornerstone of US foreign policy in the Third World is beyond doubt." P. 135.

A. Mack, Imperialism, Intervention and Development, 1981.

Following is a list of prominent foreign individuals whose assassination (or planning for same) the United States has been involved in since the end of the Second World War. (CIA humorists have at times referred to this type of operation as "suicide involuntarily administered", to be carried out by the Agency's Health Alteration Committee.)

 1949 Kim Koo, Korean opposition leader 1950s ClA/Neo'Nazi hit list of more than 200 political figures in West Germany to be "put out of the way" in the event of a Soviet invasion 1950s Zhou Enlai, Prime Minister of China, several attempts on his life  1950s, 1962 Sukamo, President of Indonesia  1951 Kim II Sung, Premier of North Korea  1953 Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran 1950s (mid) Claro M. Recto, Philippined opposition leader 1955 Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Mihister of India 1957 Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt  1959, 1960s Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia  1960 Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, leader of Iraq 1950s-70s Jose Figueres, President of Costa Rica, two attempts on his life 1961 Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, leader of Haiti 1961 Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo 1961 Gen. Rafael Trujillo, leader of Dominican Republic 1963 Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam 1960s Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, many attempts and plots on his life 1960s Raul Castro, high official in govemment of Cuba 1965 Francisco Caamano, Dominican Republic opposition leader 1965-6 Charles de Gaulle, President of France 1967 Che Guevara, Cuban leader 1970 Salvador Allende, President of Chile 1970 Gen. Rene Schneider, C-in-C of Army, Chile 1970s, 1981 General Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama 1972 General Manuel Noriega, Chief of Panama Intelligence 1975 Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire 1976 Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica 198~1986 Moammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya, several plots and attempts upon his life 1982 Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran 1983 Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, Moroccan Army commander 1983 Miguel d'Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua 1984 The nine comandantes of the Sandinista National Directorate 1985 Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese Shiite leader (see note below) 1991 Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq  1998 Osama bin Laden, leading Islamic militant 1999 Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia W. Blum, Rogue State; A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, Monroe, Me., Common Courage Press, 2000, 38-41

In 1998 President Clinton went before the United Nations to speak about terrorism. "What are our global obligations?" he asked. "To give terrorists no support, no sanctuary." 84

W. Blum, Rogue State; A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, Monroe, Me., Common Courage Press, 2000.

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