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ADDICTED TO WAR -- WHY THE U.S. CAN'T KICK MILITARISM -- TRANSCRIPT |
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an illustrated expose by Joel Andreas
Addicted to War -- Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism, (2002-2003 Version) -- Illustrated Expose Winter Soldier Investigation, by Vietnam Veterans Against the War Over
70,000 in print Table of Contents:
"As we're
goose-stepping our way into the new millennium, Addicted to War provides
us with an opportunity to see ourselves as others see us." "Addicted
to War is a rare gift to the American people. It should be read by every
person who cares about the human condition. This book reveals truths that
all Americans need to understand if we are ever to experience peace and
justice for all the people of the earth." "This book
analyzes why men are addicted to fighting and killing-an addiction that
could, in this the nuclear age, destroy all life on earth, creating the
final epidemic of the human race." " Addicted
to War is a tremendous tool that could change the course of our nation. It
must be published in the millions and taught in every school in America." "Political
comics at its best. Bitterly amusing, lively, and richly informative. For
people of all ages who want to understand the link between U.S.
militarism, foreign policy, and corporate greed at home and abroad." "Addicted
to War should be required reading for every student in America. I
encourage educators to use it to help students understand the consequences
of U.S. militarism for people here and around the world." "Our young
people will learn more about the cult of militarism in this short and
accurate book by Joel Andreas than they might learn in their first twelve
years of schooling." "Addicted
to War could not be more timely. It shows that the current war dance by
the Bush administration is just the latest in a long series of foreign
adventures that cause more damage than reward for us as a country. This
book is one of the best tools we could hope for in making a transition
from the U.S. being an empire to being just one nation in a community of
nations. Use it, and change the world!" "The
idiocy of war is apparent. What is amazing is that no matter the tracts,
essays and books telling us this through the ages, we resist that truth.
Hopefully this political comic by Joel Andreas can pierce the tough hide
of man's mind and heart." "The U.S.,
with 4.5% of the world's population, arrogantly plunders resources and
cultures to support its American way of life. Addicted to War illustrates
why the U.S. is necessarily dependent upon war to feed its shameful
consumption patterns." " Addicted
to War makes one point perfectly clear: We can bomb the world to pieces,
but we can't bomb it into peace!" * Served in the U.S. military Copyright 2002 and 2003 by Joel Andreas. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. ISBN: 1 90259357 X Requests to reprint all or part of Addicted to War should be addressed to: Frank
Dorrel AK Press
(US) AK Press
(UK) To order more copies: For information about ordering more copies of Addicted to War, contact either Frank Dorrel or AK Press. Please ask about bulk rates! Addicted to War is also available through your local bookstore and online book dealers. To receive an AK Press catalog, please write or visit the AK Press website. To order Addicted to War in other languages: Addicted to War is now available in Japanese and will soon be available in Korean, Spanish, and other languages. If you live in the United States, you can order copies of Addicted to War in other languages from Frank Dorrel. If you live in Japan, you can buy the Japanese edition from your local bookstore or you can order it from the Global Peace Campaign (www.peace2001.org). Teaching guide available: To get a guide for teachers, including sample questions for each chapter, send $2 to Frank Dorrel. Sources are listed on page 66 and are referenced throughout the book with circled numbers. All quotes in "quotation marks" are actual quotes. Author's Preface to the 2003 Edition I wrote and illustrated the first edition of Addicted to War following the first u.s. war against Iraq in 1992. The people of this country had been largely shielded from the truth about that and previous wars waged by the United States. My aim was to present information difficult to find in the mainstream news media (which had been largely reduced to wartime cheerleaders). I also wanted to explain this country's extraordinary predilection to go to war. As this edition goes to press, this chronic U.S. addiction to war has reached a new level of intensity. The Bush/Cheney administration is now gearing up for a new war against Iraq. A thin rhetorical veneer about combating terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction hardly conceals the main aims of the war: to impose a U.S. client regime in the heart of the Middle East and assure control over a country that has the second largest known oil reserves in the world. It is also clear that Washington intends to inflict terrible death and destruction on the Iraqi people as an example to back up aggressive threats against other countries. The domestic costs of this addiction are being felt more acutely. As military spending skyrockets, huge government budget deficits have reappeared, threatening a new round of sharp cuts in domestic programs, including education, medical care, housing, public transportation, and environmental protection. The "war on terrorism" is also being used as an excuse to step up police surveillance of people in the U.S. In this edition I have only updated military spending statistics and made a few small corrections. Many readers suggested that the book close with ideas about what we can do to end America's addiction to war. In response, we have added a list of organizations conducting anti-war education and activities. Many people helped create and distribute this book. It is impossible to thank them all here. Instead, I will mention only three: My mother, Carol Andreas, who introduced me to anti-war activities; my father, Carl Andreas, who originally encouraged me to write the book; and Frank Dorrel, whose tireless promotion made a new edition both possible and irresistible. Joel Andreas, February 2003 I first read the original 1992 edition of Addicted to War two years ago. My immediate response was to buy 100 copies. That's how good I thought it was. Then I learned it was out of print. I located the author, Joel Andreas, and convinced him to update the book. In April 2002, I published a new edition with the help of AK Press. The response has been tremendous. In nine months, over 45,000 copies have been distributed. Addicted to War is being used as a textbook by many high school and college teachers. Peace organizations are selling the book at anti-war rallies, teach-ins, and smaller events. It is showing up in schools, churches, and public libraries. More and more bookstores are carrying it, including progressive independents, national chains, and comic book stores. Individuals are ordering multiple copies to give to friends, co-workers, and relatives. I have received thousands of calls, email messages, and letters from people telling me haw much they love this book! Addicted to War has become a best seller in Japan and it will soon be available in Spanish and Korean. Editions in other languages are in the works. We are producing a CD- ROM version and a production studio has started making an animated documentary video. Others are working on a radio play and a stage production has been proposed. All these versions are helping get the book's anti-war message out to greater numbers of people around the world. I want to thank, Joel Andreas for giving us a powerful educational tool that reveals the sad and painful truth about U.S. militarism. Thanks to Yumi Kikuchi for her support and for making the Japanese edition of Addicted to War possible. We are honored that some of America's most courageous peace educators and activists have endorsed the book. Special thanks to my friends, to my family, and to S. Brian Willson, for supporting this project from the beginning. Finally, I want to thank you, the reader, for your concern about the issues addressed in this book. I encourage you to use it to help bring about a change of consciousness in this country. Please consider taking a copy to a teacher who might use it in class. Take a copy to your church, synagogue, or mosque. Send one to your congressperson, city council member, or someone in the media. Show it to friends and family. Education is the key. It's up to each of us to do our part. People around the world are counting on us to end our country's addiction to war. Frank Dorrel, February 2003 Our story begins on a Friday afternoon. Yeow! Look at all the money the government took out of my paycheck! Later that evening: Mom--they want you to help at a bake sale so my school can buy toilet paper. First no books and now no toilet paper! Do they have anything at your school? At the next school board meeting: I'm sorry, the local tax base is declining and we get very little help from the federal government. There's just no money! What do they do with all the taxes I pay? A huge part of the money the IRS takes out of our paychecks goes to support the military. Military spending adds up to more than half of the Federal Government's annual discretionary spending. Federal Discretionary Budget 2003 fiscal year: Military spending 51.6%; Everything else 48.4%, including education spending, 6.7%. [1] No wonder there's no toilet paper! The United States maintains the largest and most powerful military in history. U.S. warships dominate the oceans, its missiles and bombers can strike targets on every continent, and hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops are stationed overseas. Every few years the U.S. sends soldiers, warships and warplanes to fight in distant countries. Many countries go to war, but the U.S. is unique in both the size and power of its military and its propensity to use it. The costs of being a military superpower and waging wars around the world are high. Because hundreds of billions of dollars are funneled to the Pentagon every year, the government skimps on providing for basic needs of people here at home. Cutbacks in social programs have caused far more devastation in this country than any foreign army ever has. But the costs of U.S. foreign wars are more than simply economic. They include the lives of the soldiers who never come home. Foreign wars also bring bloody retaliation against the U.S.--such as the terrorist attacks that took the lives of thousands of people at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Despite the high costs in money and lives, the government seems determined to keep going to war, putting us all in harm's way! But why is the United States always getting into wars? To answer that, you have to understand the history of this country. Two centuries ago, the United States was a collection of thirteen small colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Today it dominates the globe in a way that even the most powerful of past empires could not have imagined. The path to world power has not been peaceful. The American revolutionaries who rose up against King George in 1776 spoke eloquently about the right of every nation to determine its own destiny. "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them.." (Thomas Jefferson, from the Declaration of Independence, 1776) Unfortunately, after they won the right to determine their own destiny they thought they should determine everyone else's too! The leaders of the newly independent colonies believed that they were preordained to rule all of North America. This was so obvious to them that they called it "Manifest Destiny." [2] "We must march from ocean to ocean .... It is the destiny of the white race." (Representative Giles of Maryland) This "manifest destiny" soon led to genocidal wars against the Native American peoples. The U.S. army ruthlessly seized their land, driving them west and slaughtering those who resisted. During the century that followed the American Revolution, the Native American peoples were defeated one by one, their lands were taken, and they were confined to reservations. The number of dead has never been counted. But the tragedy did not end with the dead. The Native peoples' way of life was devastated. [3] [4] "I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream ... the nation's hoop is broken and scattered." (Black Elk, spiritual leader of the Lakota people and survivor of the Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota.) By 1848 the United States had seized nearly half of Mexico's territory (California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas). In Congress the war against Mexico was justified with speeches about the glory of expanding "Anglo-Saxon democracy," but in truth it was the Southern slave owners' thirst for land and the lure of Western gold that inspired these speeches. [5] General Zachary Taylor ordered scores of U.S. soldiers executed for refusing to fight in Mexico. With their domain now stretching from coast to coast the "Manifest Destiny" crowd began to dream of an overseas empire. Economic factors drove these ambitions. Col. Charles Denby, a railroad magnate and an ardent expansionist, argued: "Our condition at home is forcing us to commercial expansion ... Day by day, production is exceeding home consumption ... We are after markets, the greatest markets in the world." [6] Calls for empire were echoing through the halls of Washington. "I firmly believe that when any territory outside the present territorial limits of the United States becomes necessary for our defense or essential for our commercial development, we ought to lose no time in acquiring it." (Senator Orville Platt of Connecticut, 1894) [7] To become a world power the U.S. built a world-class navy. A gung-ho Theodore Roosevelt was put in charge of it. [8] "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one." (T. Roosevelt, 1897) He didn't have long to wait. The next year, taking a fancy to several Spanish colonies, including Cuba and the Phillipines, the U.S. declared war on Spain. Rebel armies were already fighting for independence in both countries and Spain was on the verge of defeat. Washington declared that it was on the rebels' side and Spain quickly capitulated. But the U.S. soon make it clear that it had no intention of leaving. [9] "The Phillipines are ours forever ... and just beyond the Phillipines are China's illimitable markets ... the Pacific is our ocean." (Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana, 1900) And for the Senator, the Pacific was only the beginning: "The power that rules the Pacific is the power that rules the world ...That power is and will forever be the American Republic." [10] Elaborate racist theories were invented to justify colonialism and these theories were adopted enthusiastically in Washington. "We are the ruling race of the world .... We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God of the civilization of the world ... He has marked us as his chosen people ... He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples." (Senator Albert Beveridge, again) [11] But the Filipinos didn't share the views of Senator Beveridge and his buddies. They fought the new invaders just as they had fought the Spanish. The U.S. subjugated the Phillippines with brute force. U.S. soldiers were ordered to "Burn all and kill all, and they did. By the time the Filipinos were defeated, 600,000 had died. [12] U.S. soldiers stand on the bones of Filipinos who died in the war. The Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam were made into U.S. colonies in 1898. Cuba was formally given its independence, but along with it the Cubans were given the Platt Amendment, which stipulated that the U.S. Navy would operate a base in Cuba forever, that the U.S. Marines would intervene at will, and that Washington would determine Cuba's foreign and financial policies. [Uncle Sam says to a Cuban:] Now, don't say I never gave you anything. Independence~Platt Amendment. [13] During the same period, the U.S. overthrew Hawaii's Queen Lilivokalani and transformed these unspoiled Pacific islands into a U.S. Navy base surrounded by Dole and Del Monte plantations. In 1903, after Theodore Roosevelt became president, he sent gunboats to secure Panama's separation from Columbia. The Columbian government had refused Roosevelt's terms for building a canal. [14] [Uncle Sam:] If they won't sell, I'll just take it! Then Uncle Sam began sending his Marines everywhere. The Marines went to China, Russia, North Africa, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. [15] From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli... Troops march in Siberia during the U.S. invasion of Russia, 1918. Between 1898 and 1934, the Marines invaded Cuba 4 times, Nicaragua 5 times, Honduras 7 times, the Dominican Republic 4 times, Haiti twice, Guatemala once, Panama twice, Mexico 3 times, and Columbia 4 times! [16] In many countries, the Marines stayed on as an occupying army, sometimes for decades. When the Marines finally went home, they typically left the countries they had occupied in the hands of a friendly dictator, armed to the teeth to suppress his own people. Behind the Marines came legions of U.S. business executives ready not only to sell their goods but also to set up plantations, drill oil wells, and stake out mining claims. The Marines returned when called upon to enforce slave-like working conditions and put down strikes, protests, and rebellions. [17] Standard Oil. United Fruit. Domino Sugar. Anaconda Copper. "[I accept responsibility for] active intervention to secure for our capitalists opportunity for profitable investments." (President William Howard Taft, 1910) [18] A reporter described what took place after U.S. troops landed in Haiti in 1915 to put down a peasant rebellion: "American marines opened fire with machine guns from airplanes on defenseless Haitian villages, killing men, women and children in the open market places for sport." [19] 50,000 Haitians were killed. [20] General Smedley Butler was one of the most celebrated leaders of these Marine expeditions. After he retired, he reconsidered his career, describing it as follows: "I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service ... And during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism." "Thus, I helped make Mexico and 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 benefit of Wall Street." "I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested." [21] U.S. Marine officer with the head of Silvino Herrera, one of the leaders of Augusto Sandino's rebel army, Nicaragua, 1930. World War I was a horrific battle among the European colonial powers over how to divide up the world. When President Woodrow Wilson decided to enter the fray, he told the American people that he was sending troops to Europe to "make the world safe for democracy." But what Wilson was really after was what he considered to be the United States' fair share of of the spoils. Wilson's ambassador to England said rather forthrightly that the U.S. would declare war on Germany because it was... "... the only way of maintaining our present pre-eminent trade status." (Ambassador W.H. page, 1917) [22] For this, 130,274 U.S. soldiers were sent to their deaths. [23] "Our boys were sent off to die with beautiful ideals painted in front of them. No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason they were marching off to kill and die." (General Smedley Butler, 1934) [24] World War I was supposed to be the "war to end all wars." It wasn't. During World War II, millions of young Americans signed up to fight German fascism and Japanese imperialism. But the goals of the strategic planners in Washington were far less admirable. They had imperial ambitions of their own. In October 1940, as German and Japanese troops were marching in Europe and Asia, a group of prominent government officials, business executives, and bankers was convened by the U.S. State Department and the Council on Foreign Relations to discuss U.S. strategy. They were concerned with maintaining an Anglo-American "sphere of influence" that included the British Empire, the Far East, and the Western hemisphere. They concluded that the country had to prepare for war and come up with ... "... an integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for the United States." [Fatcat businessmen say:] Yes! yes! Yes! [25] Of course, they didn't say this publicly. "If war aims are stated which seem to be concerned solely with Anglo-American imperialism, they will offer little to people in the rest of the world ... The interests of other peoples should be stressed ... This would have a better propaganda effect." (From a private memorandum between the Council on Foreign Relations and the State Department, 1941) [26] A horrendous war was concluded with a horrendous event: 200,000 people were killed instantaneously when the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs first on Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki. Tens of thousands more died later from radiation poisoning. [27] "We pray that God might guide us to use [the Bomb] in his ways and for His purposes." (President Harry Truman, 1945) [28] The defeat of Japan had already been assured before the bombs were dropped. Their main purpose was to demonstrate to the world the deadly power of America's new weapon of mass destruction." [29] World War II left the U.S. in a position of political, economic and military superiority. "We must set the pace and assume the responsibility of the majority stockholder in this corporation known as the world." (Leo Welch, former Chairman of the Board, Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon) 1946) [30] The U.S. eagerly assumed responsibility for determining the economic policies and selecting the management of what it considered to be the subsidiary companies that made up the "corporation known as the world." But this didn't go over too well in many nations that considered themselves to be sovereign countries. FUERA YANKIS! Boy, I never read about any of that stuff in here! (AMERICA, Land of Freedom) Chapter 2: The "Cold War" and the Exploits of the Self-Proclaimed "World Policeman" Go ahead--make my day! The United States, however, had to contend with the Soviet Union, which had also emerged from the Second World War as a world power. For the next 45 years, the world was caught up in a global turf battle between the "two superpowers." The U.S. was always much stronger than its Soviet adversary, but both countries maintained huge military forces to defend and expand their own "spheres of influence." The contention between the two powers was called the "Cold War" because they never directly engaged each other in battle. But the "Cold War" was marked by plenty of violence in other countries. Typically, the two superpowers lined up on opposite sides of every conflict. For its part, the U.S. moved to expand its own "sphere of influence" beyond the Americas and the Pacific to include much of the old British, French and Japanese colonial empires in Asia and Africa. In doing so, it had to deal with local aspirations that did not always accord with American plans. To put down insubordination, disorder and disloyalty in its sphere, the new "majority stockholder" also appointed itself the "world policeman." During the Cold War, Washington intervened militarily in foreign countries more than 200 times. [31] Don't mess with the U.S.A., buster! Korea, 1950-1953. After World War II, the ambitious plans of the U.S. State Department for Asia and the Pacific were upset completely by revolutions and anti-colonial wars from China to Malaysia. A major confrontation developed in Korea. Washington decided to intervene directly to show that Western military technology could defeat any Asian army. We'll show these #@%$! U.S. warships, bombers, and artillery reduced much of Korea to rubble. Over 4,500,000 Koreans died; three out of four were civilians. 54,000 U.S. soldiers returned home in coffins. But the U.S. military, for all of its technological superiority, did not prevail. After 3 years of intense warfare, a cease-fire was negotiated. Korea is still divided and some 40,000 U.S. troops remain in Southern Korea to this day. Waiting for another war. [32] Dominican Republic, 1965. After a U.S. backed military coup, Dominicans rose up to demand the reinstatement of the overthrown president (who they had elected in a popular vote). Washington, however, was determined to keep its men in power, no matter who the Dominicans voted for. 22,000 U.S. troops were sent to suppress the uprising. 3,000 people were gunned down in the streets of Santo Domingo. [33] YANKEES GO HOME Vietnam, 1964-1973 For ten years the U.S. assaulted Vietnam with all the deadly force the Pentagon could muster, trying to preserve a corrupt South Vietnamese regime, which had been inherited from the French colonial empire. The U.S. may have used more firepower in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) than had been used by all sides in all previous wars in human history. Sometimes you have to destroy a country to save it. U.S. warplanes dropped seven million tons of bombs on Vietnam. That's the equivalent of one 350-pound bomb per person! Despite the ferocity of the assault on Vietnam, the U.S. was ultimately defeated by a lightly armed but determined peasant army. [34] 400,000 tons of napalm were rained down on the tiny country. Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides were used to destroy millions of acres of farmland and forests. Villages were burned to the ground and their residents massacred. Altogether, two million people died in the Indochina War, most of them civilians killed by U.S. bombs and bullets. Almost 60,000 U.S. soldiers were killed and 300,000 wounded. Lebanon, 1982-1983 After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the U.S. Marines intervened directly in the Lebanese Civil War, taking the side of Israel and the right-wing Falange militia. Which had just massacred 2000 Palestinian civilians. U.S. Marines marching into Beirut, 1983. 241 Marines paid for this intervention with their lives when their barracks were blown up by a truck bomb. [35] Grenada, 1983 About 110,000 people live on the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada. About the same number that live in Peoria, Illinois. But, according to Ronald Reagan, Grenada represented a threat to U.S. security. So he ordered the Pentagon to seize the island and install a new government more to his liking. [36] "A lovely piece of real estate." (Secretary of State George Schultz, 1983) [37] [George Schultz says:] I'm a Bechtel man and a Pentagon fan. Libya, 1986 Washington loved King Idris, the Libyan monarch who happily turned over his country's oil reserves to Standard Oil for next to nothing. It hates Col. Qadhafi, who threw the King out. In 1986, Reagan ordered U.S. warplanes to bomb the Libyan capital, Tripoli, claiming that Qadhafi was responsible for a bomb attack at a German disco that killed two U.S. soldiers. It's unlikely that very many of the hundreds of Libyans killed or injured on the U.S. bombing raid knew anything about the German bombing. The nerve of those terrorists--bombing those poor people! [38] 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. [39] 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. [40] 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. [41] 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. [42] 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. [43] 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. [44] USA: Democracy! South African apartheid Regime: Freedom! 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! [45] 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. [46] 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. [47] [Osama bin Laden:] We will drive all infidel troops from Muslim lands! [Ronald Reagan:] That's right! Let's whip the Evil Empire! 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) [48] 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. [49] [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. Gotta get a piece of the action! [50] And drug trafficking and money laundering have increased sharply in Panama since "Operation Just Cause." [51] Advana/Customs--Cocaine--Money. 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 [52] 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. Like always, the government's PR department was called upon to convince us that the war against Iraq was about freedom and justice. But almost everyone knows what it was really about. "Even a dolt understands the principle--we need the oil." (Advisor to G.H.W. Bush, Time magazine, 1990) [53] Long ago, the U.S. State Department declared the Middle East oil was: "A stupendous source of strategic power ... one of the greatest prizes in world history." [54] 65% of the world's known oil reserves lie in the Middle East. Control over the flow of this oil by U.S. oil companies has given the U.S. strategic power over Europe, Japan and the developing world. Washington thinks of the Middle East oil fields as its own private reserves, proclaiming them to be among its "vital interests." [55] "Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs." (Henry Kissinger) [56] [Arab says:] What are you up to? [Mobil Oil exec says]: Exploring to see if there are any vital American interests under your soil. The U.S. government had been planning for the Persian Gulf War since 1979, when President Carter set up the "Rapid Deployment Force" and declared that any threat to Persian Gulf oil ... "... will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." (Jimmy Carter, 1979) [57] In the early 1980s Iran was seen as the main threat to U.S. "interests" in the Gulf, so Washington and its allies supported the Iraqi invasion of Iran and provided the Iraqi military with lots of high-tech weapons to pound their neighbor. U.S. companies even sold Iraq materials to make chemical and biological weapons, including anthrax. The Pentagon supplied satellite photos of Iranian troop deployments and then looked the other way when Iraq bombarded them with poison gas. Don't do anything I wouldn't do! [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! [59] Sure, what were they going to do, flush their toilets on you? After the Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988, Washington was worried that the large army it had helped build in Iraq threatened U.S. domination of the region. Now, it was decided, something had to be done to disarm Iraq. The sabers were sharpened. In fact, there's evidence that the U.S. may have provoked and then lured Iraq into invading Kuwait, to have a pretext for U.S. intervention. The U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait combined to put severe economic pressure on Iraq, which is the reason Iraq began thinking about an invasion in the first place. Then, when Saddam Hussein informed the U.S. about his plans, Washington virtually gave him the green light. U.S. Embassy: "We have no opinion on ... your border dispute with Kuwait." Saddam Hussein: "I was hoping you'd say that." [60] (U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie, to Saddam Hussein, July 1990. To make sure there was no confusion, she added, "James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction.") Then, after the invasion, Bush immediately began to prepare for a massive war and blocked all possibilities for a negotiated solution. He rejected Iraq's offer to withdraw from Kuwait in exchange for convening a Middle East peace conference (which was mainly a face-saving request). [61] "He's going to get his ass kicked!" (George Bush, December 1990) Bush knew the conflict could be settled through negotiations. But no negotiated settlement would ever have been acceptable. He needed a "decisive and rapid" victory. Iraq had to be bombed back to a pre-industrial age. Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers had to be incinerated. The war had a message for the world: [Bush says:] "What we say goes!" AMERICA IS NO 1 -- AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT! [Bush says:] Boy, we've got some impressive weapons! Have a nice day! - George Bush launched the most intensive bombing campaign in history using conventional bombs, cluster bombs (which rip bodies apart), napalm and phosphorous bombs (which cling to and burn skin) and fuel air explosives (which are like 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 birth defects among their children. [62] Baghdad and Basra were bombed relentlessly, killing thousands of civilians. [63] 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." [64] "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) [65] It is estimated that 150,000 Iraqis died during the Gulf War. But for the people of Iraq, the tragedy continues even after the war has ended. Even more people died from water-borne diseases that spread because the U.S. systematically destroyed Iraq's electrical, sewage treatment and water treatment systems. And the U.S. has insisted on maintaining for over a decade the most severe economic sanctions regime in history, continuing to strangle the devastated Iraqi economy, with dire consequences for the Iraqi people. [66] In 1999, UNICEF estimated that infant and child mortality had more than doubled since the war. It largely attributed this sharp reversal in mortality trends to malnutrition and deteriorating health conditions caused by the war and ongoing sanctions. It estimated that half a million more children died as a result. That's 5,200 children a month. [67] [Bush says:] That ought to teach Saddam a lesson he won't soon forget! -- Have a Nice War. And the U.S. keeps on bombing Iraq year after year. [General says:] Just for good measure! Of course, there were those who celebrated the war as a great victory. And indeed it was for some. Operation Desert Storm--American Flag. Who were the winners? First, there are the oil companies... ... which reaped windfall profits through speculation and price gouging that drove up gasoline prices. [68] Earnings Soar 75% at Exxon. Profits Rise 68.6% at Amoco. Mobil's Profit Jumps 45.6% in Quarter. War Fears Lifted 4th-Quarter prices: Net at $538 Million. Texaco Net Up 26.5%; Chevron Climbs 17.8%. But more importantly, the oil companies strengthened their grip on the Middle Eastern oil supply. The war, at least for the time being, preserved the cozy relationship between the oil companies and the royal families of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the other gulf emirates (which were all put in place by the British Empire). This cozy relationship has brought fabulous wealth to the owners of the oil companies and to the princes and emirs while the majority of Arab people remain poor. As a result of the Gulf War, U.S. troops are now permanently stationed in Saudi Arabia, despite strong opposition among many Arabs. [69] Then there are the bankers ... ... who are also part of the partnership between the Gulf monarchies and the oil companies. Instead of developing the Middle East, the Gulf monarchies have put the bulk of their money in the hands of the Western bankers. Some $900 billion in Middle Eastern oil profits fill the vaults of Citibank, JP Morgan Chase and other banks in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Therefore, these bankers were also extremely concerned about the fate of the Emir of Kuwait and his buddies. [70] [Banker says:] May God save the Emir! Then there are the contractors... All the big construction contractors, oil service companies, and other major contractors and suppliers all raced to get their piece of the $100 billion worth of contracts to rebuild Kuwait. Giant U.S. corporations, such as Bechtel, Halliburton, AT&T, Motorola and Caterpillar, got the great majority of the contracts. BIG BUCKS CONSTRUCTION INC.: Earthquakes, hurricanes, and industrial accidents are OK, but there's nothing like a good war for our bottom line! [71] Last but not least, there are the owners of General Dynamics, GE, Boeing, and all of their associates in the war business itself ... As they watched the missiles flying and the bombs dropping in the Persian Gulf, the top executives of the big weapons manufacturers were adding up their profits, their brains working like cash registers gone haywire. [Weapon Manufacturer with money in his eyes:] ch-ching $$$$ ch-ching After the Gulf War demonstrated that their weapons can truly kill on a massive scale, the arms merchants are busy selling more of them, not only in the halls of Congress and the Pentagon, but to generals, bureaucrats, and politicians around the world. [Three weapons manufacturers are dancing and singing:] There's no business like war business... U.S. arms sales abroad skyrocketed -- from $8 billion in 1989 to more than $40 billion in 1991. The U.S. is now selling far more weapons abroad than any country ever has before. "Uncle Sam" provides military aid and loan guarantees so that Lockheed-Martin can sell fighter jets even to governments that can't assure their people have enough to eat. [72] [U.S. Aid, Just say "uncle" man, says:] A food shortage? I'm sorry --we're fresh out of food financing. [U.S. Aid, Just say "uncle" man, says:] A bomb shortage? Now that's different. I'm sure we can be of assistance. Of course, there's no shortage of public statements about curbing the international arms race and the militarization of the Middle East. "The time has come to try to change the destructive pattern of military competition in the [Middle East] and reduce the arms flow to the region." (Sec. of State James Baker, February, 1991) [73] But while pious pronouncements are uttered in Washington, Pentagon representatives have been busier than ever selling fighter jets, tanks, helicopters, and cluster bombs to their favorite customers in the Middle East, including Israel, the Gulf monarchies, Egypt, and Turkey. We've got a real deal on F-16's this week--buy 100 and we'll throw in 1,000 cases of napalm free! FREE NAPALM OFFER! We overstocked! Gulf tested! Gulf proven! Kill like you never have before! Our weapons kill: more, better, faster. [74] With all of the wonderful tidings the Persian Gulf War brought them, it's no wonder that many of these major corporations were prime sponsors of the "victory parades" that were organized in cities across the country. [Corporate Fatcat shaking a man in a wheelchair's hand:] On behalf of General Dynamics, Exxon, Chase Manhattan Bank, AT&T, McDonnell Douglas, and General Electric, I want to thank you for a job well done! Kosovo, 1999 In the late 1990s, after enduring years of abuse at the hands of a Serbian-dominated Yugoslav government, Albanian rebels in Kosovo started a war for secession. The U.S. usually does not support minority groups demanding separation. But it all depends on whether the U.S. supports the government of the country facing dismemberment. For instance, the U.S. supports Kurdish separatists in Iraq and Iran, but across the border in Turkey, a close ally, Washington has provided tons of arms to crush the Kurds. With U.S. help, tens of thousands have been killed. [U.S. General says:] Our policy is clear--We support people fighting for their freedom and oppose terrorist separatists. [75] Because the Yogoslav strongman, Slobodan Milosevic, was being less than cooperative with U.S. efforts to extend its influence in Eastern Europe, breaking up Yugoslavia was a cause the U.S. could warm up to. The Clinton Administration embraced the Kosovo Liberation Army, despite their drug dealing, ethnic extremism and brutality. Following established practice, the Administration issued an ultimatum the Yugoslavs could not possibly accept. Here's the deal. First, NATO takes over Kosovo. Second NATO has free access to all of Yugoslavia. Third, you help pay for the NATO-run government. Sign here or we bomb you. [76] The NATO bombing turned an ugly but small-scale Yugoslav counter-insurgency operation into a massive ethnic cleansing drive. After the bombing began, Serbian soldiers and militia members began driving hundreds of thousands of Albanians out of the country and killed thousands of others. When the Albanians returned under NATO protection, Serbian and Gypsy residents were driven out and killed. Ultimately, the war served U.S. political objectives, while causing tremendous death and suffering on all sides and greatly aggravating ethnic antagonisms. [77] Chapter 4: The "War on Terrorism" After the horrific September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, one question was so sensitive it was seldom seriously addressed by the U.S. news media. [Little boy asks mom:] Mom, why did they do it? To find out, it makes sense to ask the prime suspect himself. As U.S. warplanes began bombing Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden released a videotaped message. He praised the September 11 attacks and called for more attacks on the United States. Then he spelled out his motivations quite clearly. "What America is tasting now is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted for scores of years. Our nation (the Islamic world) has been tasting this humiliation and degradation for more than 80 years. Its sons are killed, its blood is shed, its sanctuaries are attacked and no one hears and no one heeds. Millions of innocent children are being killed as I speak. They are being killed in Iraq without committing any sins ... To America, I say only a few words to it and its people. I swear to God, who has elevated the skies without pillars, neither America nor the people who live in it will dream of security before we live it here in Palestine and not before all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him." (Osama bin Laden, Oct. 7, 2001) [78] Few people anywhere in the world, including the Middle East, support bin Laden's terrorist methods. But most people in the Middle East share his anger at the United States. They are angry at the U.S. for supporting corrupt and dictatorial regimes in the region, for supporting Israel at the expense of the Palestinians and for imposing U.S. dictates on the Middle East through military might and brutal economic sanctions. The Bush Administration immediately instructed U.S. television networks to "exercise caution" in airing bin Laden's tape messages. The official reason? The tapes may contain secret coded messages for terrorist operatives. But were covert messages the Administration's main concern? Perhaps it was more worried about the impact of bin Laden's overt message -- that the September 11 attacks were carried out in retaliation for U.S. foreign policy and particularly U.S. military intervention in the Middle East. If Americans realized that U.S. military intervention abroad brought retaliation --causing death and destruction at home -- we might think twice about whether the U.S. should be so eager to go to war overseas. The Pentagon has demonstrated time and again that its advanced weaponry can devastate countries targeted for attack, leveling basic infrastructure and killing thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people. It would be naive to think there would be no retaliation. Over the last several decades thee true costs of the wars the U.S. has waged overseas have been largely hidden. We have had to pay the military bills but few Americans have died. The death and destruction was all overseas. That changed on September 11. The violence reached the United States. The September 11 attacks, however, were not simply acts of retribution. They were also provocation. Bin Laden expected the U.S. to respond with massive violence, knowing this would bring him new recruits. Ultimately, he hoped to win the majority of the Muslim world to support his holy war on the U.S. [Osama bin Laden says:] More martyrs, more recruits. The Bush Administration responded according to bin Laden's script. George W. Bush declared a War on Terrorism," using "good vs. evil" rhetoric that mirrored bin Laden's. Bush and his advisors were ready, even eager, for the war bin Laden wanted. They saw the September 11 attacks as a grand opportunity to boost military spending and demonstrate U.S. military power. "This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil ... This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while." (G.W. Bush, Sept. 12 and 16, 2001) [79] Bush's "War on Terrorism" began with U.S. warplanes bombing Afghanistan. The Bush Administration refused to negotiate or consider any alternatives to war. When the Afghan government asked for evidence against bin Laden, a reasonable request that might have made it possible to cooperate with the U.S., Bush replied: I said -- no negotiations! Cough up bin Laden now or die along with him! Relatives prepare the bodies of four small children for burial after a U.S. airstrike. Kabul, October 2001. [80] The people of Afghanistan suffered the consequences. U.S. bombing killed many civilians and the war cut off relief supplies to millions already facing starvation. The total number of deaths will never be known, but it's likely there will be many times more civilian deaths in Afghanistan than in the World Trade Center. As warplanes of the world's richest and most powerful country bombed people in one of the poorest and most miserable countries on earth, the streets of cities throughout the Muslim world filled with angry demonstrations. Not only religious radicals were angry. Almost everybody in the Muslim world opposed the war. [Arab demonstrators says:] USA. THE REAL TERRORIST. The war added fuel to simmering anti-American sentiments in the Middle East. Bombing Muslim countries and sending U.S. troops into this volatile region will only inspire more hatred for the United States and more terrorist attacks on Americans. Bush surely knows this, yet he decided to go ahead and place us in greater danger anyway. [U.S. General says:] We never said this war was not going to have costs! The War on Terrorism cannot possibly end terrorism. Even if bin Laden is killed, new converts will rally to join his war to drive the U.S. out of the Middle East. The spiral of violence is escalating dangerously. And the warmakers on both sides are itching to escalate! The self-righteous "good vs. evil" rhetoric of the War on Terrorism sharpens ironies that have long shadowed U.S. pronouncements against state-sponsored terrorism. President Bush, for instance, promises to scour the globe in search of states that harbor terrorists. [Girl says:] He could start in the State of Florida. [Boy says:] What do you mean? For over forty years, Miami has served as the base of operations for well-financed groups of Cuban exiles that have carried out violent terrorist attacks on Cuba. Most recently, they bombed a number of Havana tourist spots in 1997, killing an Italian tourist, and they tried to assassinate Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000. It would not be difficult for the government to find evidence involving these terrorist organizations because the CIA and the Pentagon trained many of their members. Take, for instance, Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, suspected masterminds of the bombing of a Cuban passenger airliner that claimed the lives of 73 people. "All of Castro's planes are warplanes." (Orlando Bosch, 1987, defending the bombing of the civilian Cuban plane.) [81] Before Posada Carriles could be tried for the airline bombing, he escaped from a prison in Venezuela and found a job supplying arms to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras. My experience in the CIA gave me the right credentials for the job. [82] Posada's accomplice, Orlando Bosch, has long been protected from extradition by the U.S. government. Although Bosch was convicted of carrying out a bazooka attack on a ship in Miami harbor, President Bush's father, George H., at the urging of his brother, Jeb, prevented his expulsion from the country. He signed an executive pardon providing Bosch with safe haven in Florida. Bosch promised he would ... [83] "Rejoin the struggle!" [84] {George Bush:] Hold on! Let me set the record straight. I pardon only freedom fighters, not terrorists! If the younger Bush were serious about going after all states that harbor terrorists, he might issue his next ultimatum to his brother, the governor of Florida.
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