War Pigs

“Washington Bullets – A History of CIA, Coups and Assassinations,” by Vijay Prashad, 2020

This is a short book that details the many instances of bloodshed pursued by the U.S. around the world since 1945 and the development of the CIA, the IMF, the WTO, the U.N. and NATO.  Prashad shows how the long, bloody history of European and U.S. colonialism was a prelude.  It is a great primer that delves into multiple instances of taxpayer-funded murder and repression.  Prashad points out that the ‘cold war’ against the USSR turned into ‘hot wars’ against national liberation movements and socialist / progressive governments backed by the USSR.  After the USSR collapsed, it was directed at any government that the U.S. could not control. 

In nearly every instance the U.S. uses reactionary force – military, economic, religious, political, cultural – to crush popular movements and governments, all in the interest of corporate imperialism.  No international law prohibited violence against colonial subjects until 1977.  All this was done through Bretton Woods, the Marshal Plan, the ‘Washington Consensus,” SAPs and regime change.  Until it collapsed in 1991, the USSR provided a ‘shield’ against the U.S.  The U.S. was aided by locals:  “The factory owner, the baron, the landlord, the mafia and the priest…”  This is the story of one of the greatest hypocrisies on earth – U.S. ‘democratic freedom.’  Its international side is imperialism, which means war and bullets.

I’m going to ‘bullet point’ a list of actions since 1945 from the book.  The list is not exhaustive, nor cover more granular actions:

Year	Country	Involved	Method	Ind. Target
1898	Guam-Samoa	U.S.	Occupation
1898	Hawaii	U.S.	Occupation
1898	Puerto Rico	U.S.	Occupation
1945	Senegal	France	Massacre
1945	South Korea	U.S.	Occupation	Kim Il Sung
1946	Greece	U.S.- U.K.	Civil War
1946	Italy	U.S.	Election Interference
1946	Palestine	Israel	Occupation
1946	Vietnam	France	Occupation	Ho Chi Minh
1947	France	U.S.	Election Interference
1947	France	U.S.	Murders	CP
1947	Japan	U.S.	Election Interference
1948	Columbia	U.S.	Assassination	George Gaitan
1952	Kenya	U.K.	Occupation	Kenyatta
1953	British Guiana	U.K.	Invasion	Jagan
1954	Algeria	France	Occupation
1954	Guatemala	U.S.	Coup	Arbenz
1954	Iran	U.S.	Coup	Mosseddegh
1954	Malaysia	?	Occupation
1954	Vietnam	U.S.	Occupation	Ho Chi Minh
1956	Egypt	U.K.	War	Nasser
1956	Guinea Bissau-Cape Verde	Portugal	Massacre
1960	Guatemala	U.S.	Massacres
1961	Congo	U.S.	Assassination	Lumumba
1961	Cuba	U.S.	Invasion	Castro
1962	Dominican Republic	U.S.	Coup	Bosch
1962	Mozambique	Portugal	Civil War
1962	South Africa	U.S.	Covert Activities	Mandela
1962	Thailand	U.S.	Invasion
1963	Cuba	U.S.	Assassination	Castro
1963	Cuba	U.S.	Sanctions	Castro
1963	Guinea Bissau-Cape Verde	Portugal	Civil War
1963	Iraq	U.S.	Coup	Qasim
1963	U.S.	U.S.	Assassinations
1964	Brazil	U.S.	Coup	Goulart
1964	Guyana	U.S.	Coup	Jagan
1965	Columbia	U.S.	Assassinations
1965	Dominican Republic	U.S.	Invasion
1965	Indonesia	U.S.	Massacres
1965	Morocco	U.S.	Assassination	Mehdi Ben Barka
1965	Paraquay	U.S.	Assassinations
1965	Uruguay	U.S.	Assassinations
1966	Angola	U.S.- South Africa	Civil War
1966	Ghana	U.S.	Coup	Nkrumah
1966	Southwest Africa (Namibia)	U.S.- South Africa	Civil War
1966	Zambia	U.S. - South Africa	Civil War
1967	Bolivia	U.S.	Assassination	Che Guevara
1969	Laos	U.S.	Bombing
1969	South Yemen	U.S.	Covert Activities
1970	Cambodia	U.S.	Bombing
1970	Eritrea	U.S.	Covert Activities
1971	Bolivia	U.S.	Coup	Torres
1971	Sudan	U.S.	Coup	Mahjub
1972	Mozambique	Portugal	Massacre
1973	Chile	U.S.	Coup	Allende
1973	Guinea Bissau-Cape Verde	U.S.	Assassination	Amilcar Cabral
1975	Bangladesh	U.S.	Coup
1975	Chad	U.S.	Coup
1976	Argentina	U.S.	Assassinations
1976	Zaire (Congo)	U.S.	Financial Coup
1977	Pakistan	U.S.	Coup
1977	Peru	U.S.	Financial Coup	Garcia
1977	South Africa	U.S. - South Africa	Assassination	Steven Biko
1978	Iraq	U.S.	Coup
1979	Nicaragua	U.S.	Civil War
1979	South Korea	U.S.	Coup
1980	Afghanistan	U.S.	Civil War
1980	El Salvador	U.S.	Massacres
1980	Turkey	U.S.	Coup
1982	South Africa	U.S. - South Africa	Assassination	Ruth First
1983	Grenada	U.S.	Invasion	Bishop
1986	Libya	U.S.	Bombing	Gaddafi
1987	Burkina Faso	U.S.- French	Assassination	Sankara
1989	Panama	U.S.	Invasion	Noriega
1990	Iraq	U.S.	Invasion
1990	Iraq	U.S.	Sanctions
1991	Haiti	U.S.	Coup	Aristide
1993	Somalia	U.S.	Intervention
1996	Russia	U.S.	Election Interference
1999	Yugoslavia	U.S.-Germany-U.K.	Bombing
2002	Venezuela	U.S.	Attempted Coup	Chavez
2002	Venezuela	U.S.	Sanctions
2003	Afghanistan	U.S.	Invasion-Occupation
2003	Iraq	U.S.	Invasion	Hussein
2006	Lebanon	Israel	Invasion
2011	Libya	U.S. - NATO	Bombing	Gaddafi
2011	Syria	U.S.- U.K.	Civil War	Assad
2013	Tunisia	U.S.	Assassination	Chokri Belaid
2016	Brazil	U.S.	Coup	Rousseff
2016	Honduras	U.S.	Assassination	Berta Caceres
2016	Honduras	U.S.	Coup
2018	Iran	U.S.	More Sanctions
2019	Bolivia	U.S.	Coup	Morales
2019	Venezuela	U.S.	Attempted Coup	Maduro

Loose facts:  As part of the imperialist project, a former Nazi was put in charge of West German intelligence.  Saudi Arabia was encouraged to create the Muslim World League; Catholics were encouraged to extirpate liberation theology from the church; fundamentalist Protestants were encouraged to spread throughout Latin America.  Many NGO’s serve as an arm of imperial policy.  They virtually run Haiti now.  ‘Full spectrum dominance’ doesn't just involve 100s of bases and the biggest military and arms industry in the world, it involves support for wars against the Maoists in India; the FARC in Columbia; the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka; the Kurds in Turkey. 

A great introduction to this issue, which paints a picture that no one can miss.

Some prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left: “The Long Revolution of the Global South” (Amin);  “The Open Veins of Latin America” (Galeano); “The Lie of Global Prosperity,” “Value Chains – the New Economic Imperialism,” “The Secret History of the American Empire” (Perkins): “American Exceptionalism and American Innocence,” “The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution” (Prashad); “Tropic of Chaos” (Parenti); “Bad Money” (Phillips); “The Law of Worldwide Value” (Amin); “An Anthology of the Writings of Jose Carlos Mariategui,” “Blood Lake,” “Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire,” etc.

And I bought it at May Day Books!
Red Frog

October 3, 2020