Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism (Updated

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So far we've recounted wars that have involved U.S. troops.

But there are many other wars in which Washington is involved behind the scenes.

After World War II, Britain was compelled to dispose of its colonial empire in the Middle East. It decided to give a big chunk of the land known as Palestine to European Jews displaced by the Holocaust. The problem was that there were already people living there. The result has been five decades of violence and war. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven from their homes in what became Israel. The center of the conflict has been the West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinians have lived for decades under Israeli occupation.

The U.S. provides crucial political support and billions of dollars a year in aid to Israel, including the most advanced weaponry. More than three decades of occupation of the West Bank and Gaza have produced bitter anger not only at Israel but also at the United States. As Palestinian teenagers continue to die in confrontations with the Israeli Army this anger only grows. [38]

The U.S. government stands behind its friends--including dictatorial regimes suppressing their own people. In the 1970s and '80s popular insurgencies challenged corrupt dictatorships in Central America. The Pentagon and the CIA armed and trained security forces and death squads that killed hundreds of thousands of people, mostly unarmed peasants, in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. [39]

Don't believe them--they were terrorists disguised as peasants!

Many of the military officers responsible for the worst atrocities in Central America were trained at the Pentagon's "School of the Americas" in Georgia. The School trains officers from all over Latin America. Its training manuals recommend torture and summary execution. Its graduates have returned to establish military regimes and terrorize their own people.

CLOSE the School of Assassins.

NO MORE TORTURE TRAINING.

Fort Benning is a Terrorist Training Camp. [40]

Today bloody U.S.-backed counter-insurgency wars continue in Columbia, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines and other countries. In Colombia, a corrupt U.S.-backed army fights alongside paramilitary forces that have slaughtered whole villages and hundreds of opposition union leaders and politicians. The U.S. has been getting more deeply involved, under the cover of the "War on Drugs," providing billions of dollars of arms used to continue the killing. [41]

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The CIA and the Pentagon have also organized proxy armies to overthrow governments that are not well liked in Washington. In 1961, for instance, U.S. warships ferried a small army of mercenaries to Cuba, hoping to reverse the Cuban Revolution. They landed at the Bay of Pigs.

[Uncle Sam, lighting a Cuban cigar, says:] We'll show 'em!

It was the fifth U.S. invasion of Cuba this century. But this time the U.S. was defeated. [42]

BOOM

In the 1970s and '80s, the CIA was particularly busy financing, training and arming guerilla armies around the world.

For years the U.S. backed Portugal's efforts to hang on to its colonies in southern Africa, helping it stave off independence wars in Angola and Mozambique.

In 1975, after a democratic revolution in Portugal, the Portuguese called it quits.

But Washington didn't!

Instead, it teamed up with the apartheid regime in South Africa to supply a mercenary army to fight the new government in independent Angola. And in Mozambique, top U.S. and South African politicians and ex-military officers sponsored a particularly brutal bunch of mercenaries who massacred tens of thousands of peasants. [43]

USA: Democracy!

South African apartheid Regime: Freedom!

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And then, of course, there are the "contras."

After the Nicaraguan people overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of the Somoza family in 1979, the CIA gathered together the remnants of Somoza's hated National Guard and sent them back to Nicaragua with all the weapons they could carry--to loot, burn, and kill.

"[The contras are] the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." (Ronald Reagan, 1985) I'm a contra too! [44]

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up a friendly regime. Soviet occupation met fierce popular resistance. The CIA stepped in to arm, finance and train the Afghan mujahedin guerrillas, working closely with the Pakistani and Saudi governments. With generous support from Washington and its allies, the Mujahedin defeated the Soviets after a brutal decade-long war. [45]

Among the CIA's collaborators in this war was a Saudi named Osama bin Laden. Together with the CIA, bin Laden supplied the Afghan mujahedin with money, and guns to fight the Soviets. The Afghan war helped militarize an international Islamic movement to rid the Muslim world of foreign domination. Ultimately, this movement didn't like the United States any more than the Soviets. At that time, however, the U.S. backers of bin Laden and the mujahedin were not overly concerned about their wider goals. [46]

[Osama bin Laden:] We will drive all infidel troops from Muslim lands!

[Ronald Reagan:] That's right! Let's whip the Evil Empire!

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In the 1980s, Reagan stepped up the arms race, increasing military spending to unprecedented levels. The Soviets, with a much smaller economy, struggled to keep up.

[USSR:] Two can play this game!

But they couldn't. Massive military spending put tremendous strain on Soviet society, contributing to its collapse. The U.S. won the arms race and the Cold War.

As the Cold War came to an end, some people began talking about an "era of world peace" and a "peace dividend." But behind closed doors at the White House and the Pentagon the talk was quite different.

They were busy planning a new era of wars.

Chapter 3: The New World Order

George H. Bush: We won! NEW WORLD ORDER

In 1989, as the "Eastern Bloc" began to crumble, George H. Bush gathered together his national security advisers to discuss the world situation. The Soviet Union, they happily agreed, was no longer able or inclined to counter U.S. military intervention abroad. It was time, they decided to demonstrate U.S. military power to the world. The White House wanted some decisive victories.

Much weaker enemy--Yes! Much weaker enemy. Yes! Yes!

"In some cases where the U.S. confronts much weaker enemies, our challenge will be not simply to defeat them, but to defeat them decisively and rapidly." (From a National Security Council policy review document, 1989) [47]

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Panama, 1989

Panama was the first country selected to be the "much weaker enemy."

Ever since U.S. warships brought Panama into existence, U.S. troops have intervened in the small country whenever Washington deemed it necessary. George Bush continued this tradition in 1989, sending in 25,000 troops.

Supposedly to arrest a drug dealer.

The drug charges were only a pretext. The real motive was assuring U.S. control over the Panama Canal and the extensive U.S. military bases in that country. A new Panamanian president was sworn in at a U.S. air base moments before the invasion. Hardly "Mr. Clean," the man the U.S. State Department picked for the job, Guillermo Endara, ran a bank that is notorious for money laundering. [48]

[Guillermo Endara:] We believe in free enterprise!

Of course, not only Panamanian banks are involved in this business. Most big U.S. banks have set up branches in Panama City. [49]

Gotta get a piece of the action!

And drug trafficking and money laundering have increased sharply in Panama since "Operation Just Cause." [50]

Advana/Customs--Cocaine--Money.

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According to Panamanian human rights groups, several thousand people were killed in the U.S. invasion. 26 were U.S. soldiers, 50 were Panamanian soldiers. The rest were civilians, cut down by the overwhelming U.S. firepower poured into crowded neighborhoods in poor sections of Panama City and Colon. [51]

Many of the dead were put in garbage bags and secretly buried in mass graves.

Iraq, 1991

Only 13 months after the U.S. invaded Panama, it went to war again -- this time on a much larger scale. The h1991 U.S.-Iraq War continued an epic battle for control over the immensely rich oil fields of the Persian Gulf that began over 75 years earlier.

During World War I, the British conquered the region that is now Iraq and Kuwait, seizing it from the declining Ottoman Empire.

We didn't conquer the Arabs -- we liberated them!

In 1920 hundreds of British soldiers and many more Iraqis died when the British Army suppressed a revolt against British rule. Britain ended up installing a hand-picked "King of Iraq." The new monarch promptly signed a deal with British and America oil companies giving them the right to exploit all of Iraq's oil for 75 years in exchange for a pittance in royalties. [52]

God save the King!

As the British Empire declined, the U.S. became the senior partner in an enduring Anglo-American alliance. The Middle East became a key part of their global "sphere of influence."

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The Middle East possesses almost two-thirds of the world's known oil reserves. Control over the flow of oil by U.S. and British companies gave Washington strategic power over Europe, Japan and the developing world. The U.S. State Department declared that Middle Eastern oil was ...

"... a stupendous source of strategic power ... one of the greatest prizes in world history." [53]

Washington came to think of the oil fields in the Middle East as its own private reserves. [54]

What are you up to?

Exploring to see if there are any vital American interests under your soil

Mobil

In 1958, U.S. and British oil companies were startled when the King of Iraq was overthrown. The new leader, a nationalist military officer named Abdel Karim Qasim, demanded changes in the sweetheart deals the monarchy had made with the oil companies. He also helped form OPEC, the cartel of oil producing countries.

CIA: Besides, the guy was consorting with communists!

In 1963, the CIA collaborated with the Baath Party to murder Qasim and overthrow his government. The Ba'ath Party was also nationalist but at least it was anti-communist. It systematically kkilled its Leftist opponents and the CIA was happy to help.

CIA: These Ba'ath guys are efficient. We give them lists of suspected communists and they get the job done! [55]

Among the CIA's collaborators ijn the 1963 coup was a young military officer named Saddam Hussein, who later emerged as the top leader in Iraq.

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But Hussein soon disappointed his accomplices in the U.S. by nationalizing the Iraqi oil industry. Other Arab leaders followed suit, greatly alarming U.S. officials [56]

"Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of Arabs" -- Henry Kissinger

Then, in 1980, Hussein did something that made him much more popular in Washington.

Saddam Hussein: I decided to invade Iran!

U.S. officials were delighted. After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, American strategists considered Iran the main threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East. The U.S. and its allies, therefore, were happy to provide Hussein with advanced weaponry. U.S. companies even sold Iraq materials to make chemical and biological weapons, including highly lethal strains of anthrax. [57]

George Bush: Don't do anything I wouldn't do!

Iraq used chemical weapons against both Iranian troops and insurgent Kurdish villagers inside Iraq. The Reagan Administration knew this, but the U.S. continued to supply Hussein not only with the necessary chemicals, but also with satellite photos of the positions of Iranian troops. Over 100,000 Iranian soldiers were killed or injured by poison gas. [58]

In 1987, the Reagan administration intervened directly in the Iran-Iraq War (on Iraq's side), sending a naval armada to the Persian Gulf to protect the oil tankers of a country that was then Iraq's ally -- Kuwait. Using state-of-the-art weaponry,. the U.S. Navy blew up an Iranian oil platform, destroyed several small speedboats, and recklessly shot down an Iranian passenger airliner, killing all 290 passengers.

We had to defend our ship!

Sure, what were they going to do, flush their toilets on you?

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Despite U.S. support, Saddam Hussein failed to seize any of Iran's oilfields, so he then turned his attention to the oilfields of his southern neighbor.

Saddam Hussein: I decided to invade Kuwait!

Hussein apparently expected that the U.S. would also tacitly go along with his invasion of Kuwait. For the U.S., however, Kuwait was very different from Iran. The Kuwaiti emir was a loyal friend of the U.S. and British oil companies and a close political ally of the United States. George H. W. Bush worried that the huge Iraqi army had become a threat to U.S. domination of the Middle East.

George H.W. Bush: "Our jobs, our way of life, our own freedom, and the freedom of friendly countries around the world would all suffer if control of the world's great oil reserves fell into the hands of Saddam Hussein" -- George H. W. Bush, August 1990

Bush decided Hussein had to be punished for trespassing on an oil-rich U.S. protectorate.

"He's going to get his ass kicked!" -- The Honorable George H. W. Bush, December 1990 [61]

The Pentagon launched the most intensive bombing campaign in history using conventional bombs, cluster bombs (designed to rip bodies apart), napalm and phosphorous (which cling to and burn skin), and fuel-air explosives (which have the impact of small nuclear bombs). Later, the U.S. used munitions tipped with depleted uranium, which is now suspected as a cause of cancer among both Iraqis and U.S. soldiers and their children. Iraq was bombed back to a pre-industrial age and tens of thousands were killed.

Nuke Baghdad! [62]

The war had a message for the world:

"What we say goes!"

AMERICAN IS NO. 1 -- AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT! -- George H. W. Bush, February 1991 [63]

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Baghdad and Basra were bombed relentlessly, killing thousands of civilians. [64]

Iraq had already begun to withdraw from Kuwait when Bush launched the ground war. The main aim of the ground offensive was, in fact, not to drive the Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, but to keep them from leaving. The "gate was closed" and tens of thousands of soldiers, who were trying to go home, were systematically slaughtered. Elsewhere, U.S. tanks and bulldozers intentionally buried thousands of soldiers alive in their trenches in a tactic designed mainly to "destroy Iraqi defenders." [65]

"In the life of a nation there comes a moment when we are called upon to define who we are and what we believe." (George H. Bush, January 1991) [66]

Tens of thousands of Iraqis died during the war. And the tragedy continued after the war ended. Even people died from water-borne diseases that spread because the U.S. systematically destroyed Iraq's electrical, sewage treatment and water treatment systems. For over a decade, the U. S. insited on maintaining the most severe economic sanctions regime in history, continuing to strangle the devastated Iraqi economy, with dire consequences for the Iraqi people. [67]