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ADDICTED TO WAR -- WHY THE U.S. CAN'T KICK MILITARISM (UPDATED TO INCLUDE THE WAR IN IRAQ) -- 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 (Transcribed from the book by Tara Carreon, American-Buddha Online Librarian) Over
200,000 in print Table of Contents:
Sources are listed starting on page 73 and are referenced throughout the book with circled numbers. All quotes in "quotation marks" are actual quotes. "Addicted
to War is must reading for all Americans who are concerned with
understanding the true nature of U.S. foreign policy and how it affects
us here at home." "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." "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." "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." "For those
who have created a wall in their mind to resist questioning what the
powers-that-be have taught them, this book may be the right battering
ram." "Addicted
to War makes one point perfectly clear: We can bomb the world to
pieces, but we can't bomb it into peace!" "The
enormous criminal impact of U.S. militarism on the people of the world
and the U.S. is hard to grasp. This book makes it easier to
understand. Now we must act." "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." "How can
we wean ourselves from our dismal addiction to war? This book is a
fine starting point. Reading it will help people get on the road
to recovery." "Many
years ago in Korea, I believed I was serving a righteous cause.
When reality jarred my assumptions, I first reacted angrily. My
honor was offended. Then I met other ex-military who helped me
understand that while my motives were good, the policies I was asked to
support were not. We banded together to use our experience to help
head off future wars through education. One of our most effective
tools is Addicted to War." "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." "I've come
to the conclusion that if we don't change from a value system based on
love of money and power to one based on love of compassion and
generosity we will be extinct this century. We need a brief
earthquake to wake up humanity. Addicted to War is such an
earthquake." "This is
the most important comic book ever written. To be a true patriot
(in the American revolutionary sense) is to understand the cruelty of
U.S. foreign policy. Read this book and pass it on to as many
people as you can." * Served in the U.S. military Third edition copyright 2004 by Joel Andreas. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. ISBN: 1 904859-01-1 Requests to reprint all or part of Addicted to War should be addressed to: Frank
Dorrel AK Press
(US) 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: A Spanish edition of Addicted to War will soon be published in the United States by Frank Dorrel and AK Press (please write to the addresses above). The book has also been translated into Japanese, Korean, Thai, Danish, and German, and soon will be available in other languages. To find out how to obtain copies of these translated editions, see: www.addictedtowar.com. JOEL ANDREAS began following his parents to demonstrations against the Vietnam War while in elementary school in Detroit. He has been a political activist ever since, working to promote racial equality and workers' rights inside the United States and to stop U.S. military intervention abroad. After working as an automobile assembler, a printer, and a civil engineering drafter, he completed a doctoral degree in sociology at the University of California in Los Angeles, studying the aftermath of the 1949 Chinese Revolution. He now teaches at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Addicted to War is Joel's third illustrated expose. He wrote and drew The Incredible Rocky, an unauthorized biography of the Rockefeller family (which sold nearly 100,000 copies) while a student at Berkeley High School in California. He also wrote another comic book, Made with Pure Rocky Mountain Scab Labor, to support a strike by Coors brewery workers. Author's Preface to the 2004 Edition I wrote the first edition of Addicted to War after the U.S. war against Iraq in 1991. The major news media had been reduced to wartime cheerleaders, and people in this country had largely been shielded from the ugly realities of the war. My aim was to present information difficult to find in the mainstream media, and to explain America's extraordinary predilection to go to war. Ten years later, events compelled me to update the book. The September 11 attacks provided an opportunity for George W. Bush to declare a "War on Terrorism," which in practice turned out to be an endless binge of war-making. The second edition was published in early 2002, following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The Bush Administration then turned to preparing for a new war against Iraq. A thin rhetorical veneer about combating terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction hardly concealed its underlying aim: to impose a new U.S. client regime in the Middle East and assure control over a country that has the world's second largest known oil reserves. As the present edition goes to press, the U.S. is occupying Afghanistan and Iraq. In an effort to quell armed resistance, the U.S. military is taking the harsh punitive measures against the civilian populations of both countries, feeding a spiral of violence that has repercussions around the world and is placing us all in greater danger. This book chronicles over two centuries of U.S. foreign wars, beginning with the Indian wars. During this time, America's machinery of war has grown into a behemoth that dominates our economy and society and extends around the globe. Although the Bush Administration has been particularly bellicose, this country's addiction to war began long before Bush came to power and will undoubtedly survive his departure. The costs of this growing addiction are now being felt more acutely at home. Soldiers and their families are paying the heaviest price, but everyone is affected. Skyrocketing military spending is contributing to huge government deficits, causing sharp cuts in domestic programs, including education, health care, housing, public transport, and environmental protection. At the same time, the "War on Terrorism" is being used as an excuse to step up police surveillance and erode our civil liberties. I hope this book will spur reflection and debate about militarism, and encourage creative action to change our direction. It's impossible to thank all of the people who have contributed to the creation of this book here. Instead, I will mention only three: My mother, Carol Andreas, who introduced me to anti-war activities; my father, Carl Andreas, who first encouraged me to write the book; and Frank Dorrel, whose tireless promotion made a new edition both possible and irresistible. Joel Andreas, May 2004 I first read the original 1992 edition of Addicted to War three years ago. I located the author, Joel Andreas, and convinced him to update the book. In 2002, I published a new edition with the help of AK Press. The response has been tremendous. Since then, over 100,000 copies have been distributed in the United States. 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 how much they love this book! A Japanese translation of Addicted to War has sold over 70,000 copies and editions in Korean, German, Spanish,. Danish, Thai and other languages have been published or are in the works. There are also plans to make an animated documentary film based on the book. All these versions will help 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 addition to war. Frank Dorrel, May 2004 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%; Everything else 49%, including education spending, 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? Good question! 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] "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." [4] (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." 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. [11] "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) 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. [13] [Uncle Sam says to a Cuban:] Now, don't say I never gave you anything. Independence~Platt Amendment. 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." [21] "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." 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... [22] "... the only way of maintaining our present pre-eminent trade status." (Ambassador W.H. page, 1917) 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) 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 ... [24] "... an integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for the United States." [Fatcat businessmen say:] Yes! yes! Yes! 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) [25] 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. [26] [27] "We pray that God might guide us to use [the Bomb] in his ways and for His purposes." (President Harry Truman, 1945) 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." [28] World War II left the U.S. in a position of political, economic and military superiority. [29] "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) 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. [30] 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. [31] Waiting for another war. 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. [32] 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. [33] 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. [34] 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. [35] "A lovely piece of real estate." (Secretary of State George Schultz, 1983) [36] [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! [37] 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] 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! 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! 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] 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. 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." 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. 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? 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] Baghdad and Basra were bombed relentlessly, killing
thousands of civilians. [64] Bush's successor, Bill Clinton, not only kept up the sanctions, but also continued to bomb Iraq regularly for 8 years. And the U.S. war on Iraq was far from over. 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. [69] [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. [70] 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. 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. [71] 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) [72] 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 taped
messages. The official reason? 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. He could have started in the State of Florida. 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. Mostly 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 U.S. 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 Orland Bosch, suspected masterminds of the bombing of a Cuban passenger airliner that claimed the lives of 73 people. [74] "All of Castro's planes are warplanes." -- Orlando Bosch, 1987, defending the bombing of the civilian Cuban plane. 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. [75] 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 George H.W. Bush -- at the urging of his son Jeb -- prevented his expulsion from the country. Bush signed an executive pardon providing Bosch with safe haven in Florida. Bosch promised to "Rejoin the struggle!" [76] [77] George H. W. Bush: Hold on! Let me set the record straight. I pardon only freedom fighters, not terrorists! If George W. Bush had been serious about going after all states that harbor terrorists, he would have issued an ultimatum to his brother, the governor of Florida. George W. Bush: Listen Jeb, you're going to have to cough up the terrorists or we start bombing Miami tomorrow! Posada, Bosch and their friends are only a few of the violent characters whose activities have been sponsored by the CIA. Many of the CIA's "covert operations" -- bombings, assassinations, sabotage, and paramilitary massacres -- are terrorism by any definition. Many of the shadowy figures involved in these activities are still working with the CIA around the world. But others -- including Osama bin Laden -- have turned on their former American partners. [78] It's too bad. They made such a good team. Bush's "War on Terrorism" began with U.S. warplanes bombing Afghanistan, the unfortunate country where bin Laden chose to locate his headquarters. At that time, Afghanistan was ruled by fundamentalist Muslim clerics of the Taliban movement, whom both bin Laden and the CIA had supported during the anti-Soviet war. Now, Washington decided to destroy its former allies. The people of Afghanistan suffered the consequences. U.S. bombs killed hundreds -- and perhaps thousands -- of 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 certain that many more civilians died in the U.S. assault on Afghanistan that in the attack on the World Trade Center. [79] Relatives prepare four children for burial after a U.S. air strike in Kabul, October 2001. The U.S. made common cause with a new set of Afghan allies -- brutal regional warlords. Under U.S. auspices, Islamic fundamentalism has been replaced by brazen corruption as warlords fight for power and prey on the people under their jurisdiction. The opium trade, which the zealous Taliban clerics had briefly suppressed, once again flourishes under the warlords [80] And Afghanistan regained its place as the world's top opium producer. From the day they took office, Bush and his key lieutenants set their sights on Iraq. After 9-11, they packaged an invasion as part of the "War on Terrorism." To win U.N. backing, they claimed Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. The threat was so imminent, they said, that an immediate invasion was imperative. "We can't wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." -- George W. Bush, October 2002 [81] We now know that Iraq had no "weapons of mass destruction" and that the Bush Administration manipulated evidence to justify its war plans. Even then, it was clear that the specter of such weapons was just a pretext. The U.S. made no secret of its underlying war aims -- to install a pro-U.S. regime in Iraq and increase U.S. military and political power in the Middle East. Bush, therefore, had little use for U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq. George W. Bush: Get those *%&# inspectors out of the way -- I'm getting ready to bomb the place! [82] The U.N. refused to endorse the invasion, but the U.S. and Britain went ahead anyway. The Iraqi army was decimated and thousands of civilians who were unlucky enough to get in the way were also killed. [83] As soon as U.S. troops captured Baghdad, elated American officials began issuing threats to Iraq's neighbors, Syria and Iran. The message was: Go along with the American program or else ... "This doesn't mean, necessarily, that other governments have to fall. They can moderate their behavior." -- Senior U.S. official, April 2003. [84] The Bush Administration had big plans. Based on Iraq's tremendous oil wealth and U.s. military might, American officials hoped to create a client regime in Iraq and use it as a base of U.S. power in the heart of the Arab Middle East. They brought in a group of emigre politicians, intending to install them as leaders of a new government. Their favorite was Ahmed Chalabi, a wealthy businessman who was convicted of bank fraud in Jordan. George W. Bush: Don't sweat it buddy -- we all get accused of financial malfeasance now and then. [85] Chalabi won the hearts of White House officials in part by declaring that he favored pulling Iraq out of OPEC, and then privatizing Iraqi oil and selling it off to foreign companies. "American companies have a big shot at Iraqi oil." -- Ahmed Chalabi, Sept. 2002 [86] But Bush and his friends overlooked one detail -- that the people of Iraq might not go along with their plans! Bush declared that he had "liberated" the people of Iraq and that he would bring them democracy. The Iraqis, quite naturally, were suspicious. We know what happened after the British "liberated" our grandparents. And we know what happened the last time the U.S. brought us "regime change" -- we ended up with Saddam Hussein! If the past is any indication, the prospects for democracy in Iraq under U.S. tutelage are not good. The U.S. has overthrown many governments around the world, but the result has rarely been any kind of democracy. Instead, the result has almost always been a brutal dictatorship. It soon became clear that American "liberation" of Iraq came with strings attached. "We didn't take on this huge burden not to have significant, dominating control." -- U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, April 2003 [87] Bush appointed Paul Bremer III, a "counterterrorism" expert trained by Henry Kissinger, to head up the U.S. occupation of Iraq. U.S. oil company executives and bankers were assigned to look after the Iraqi oil industry and central bank. U.S. military officers were placed in charge of Iraqi cities. We call it the corporate-military model of government. [88] Bush promised to give "sovereignty" back to Iraqis, but he also made it clear that only a pro-American government would be acceptable. George W. Bush: Of course! If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists! Because the U.S. is extremely unpopular among Arabs throughout the Middle East, if Iraqis actually were allowed to vote freely, they could hardly be expected to elect pro-U.S. candidates. That's why the U.S. adamantly resisted holding popular elections in occupied Iraq, instead proposing that members of a new governing assembly be selected by handpicked "caucuses." "In a post-war situation like this, if you start holding elections, the people who are rejectionists tend to win." -- Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, June 2003. [89] By "rejectionists" Bremer meant those who oppose U.S. occupation. 100,000 Iraqis march to demand popular elections, Baghdad, January 19, 2004. The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq was hardly a model of democratic government. Newspapers and radio and television stations that criticized the authority were shut down. They displayed a blatant lack of appreciation for their liberators!
Tens of thousands of Iraqis disappeared into prisons run by the U.S. military. Prisoners were held without charge and were subjected to humiliation, sexual abuse, and torture [90] "Now all Iraqis can taste liberty in their native land!" -- U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft after he sent a team to rebuilt Iraq's system of courts and prisons in 2003 [91] Facing a hostile population, the U.S. military policed Iraqi cities and villages with a heavy hand. Scores of Iraqis were killed as they protested against the occupation. Journalists were gunned down as they covered U.S. military operations. Others -- who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time -- were shot at military checkpoints or when soldiers raided their neighborhoods. The U.S. occupation of Iraq followed the familiar path of previous colonial adventures. Iraqis organized armed resistance and the U.S. military took increasingly harsh punitive measures against the population, inspiring fear and indignation. [92] As U.S. soldiers and Iraqis died in daily battles, Bush's response was swaggering cowboy rhetoric. "There are some who feel like ... they can attack us there. My answer is -- bring them on!" -- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., July 2003. I wonder if he'd like to do guard duty here in Baghdad. As resistance grew, American commanders became increasingly frustrated and aggressive. After four U.S. military contractors were brutally killed in Falluja, the U.S. took revenge. Hundreds of residents were killed as densely-packed neighborhoods were shelled by tanks and bombed and strafed by warplanes and helicopters. The siege of Falluja only incited wider opposition throughout Iraq to U.S. occupation [94] By spring 2004, it was clear that Bush's grandiose plans had collapsed. The vast majority of Iraqis wanted the U.S. out, and they wanted nothing to do with any politicians associated with Washington. "They don't want us here and we don't want to be here." -- Unidentified American soldier in Baghdad. [95] Resistance drove up the costs of occupation. Keeping over 135,000 troops in Iraq cost over one billion dollars a week. Every day U.S. soldiers returned home in coffins or disabled for life. But politicians and generals in Washington continued to insist that they would never back down, no matter what the cost. [96] Our credibility as a military superpower is on the line now! The U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, together with continued U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine, have added fuel to simmering anti-American sentiments across the Middle East. USA -- THE REAL TERRORIST
By invading and occupying Muslim countries, the U.S. is only inviting more attacks on U.S. soldiers and other American targets. The Pentagon has promised to respond with more violence. "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation!" -- U.S. Special Forces officer, Afghanistan, February 2002. The spiral of bloodshed is escalating dangerously. America's long-time addiction to war has reached a new level, creating greater dangers for people in this country and around the world. Unfortunately, there are some people who profit handsomely from this addiction ...
[Three weapons manufacturers are dancing and singing:] There's no business like war business... In the front lines of the pro-war crowd you'll find an assortment of politicians, generals, and corporate executives. If you ask them why they are so eager to go to war they'll give you noble and selfless reasons. Democracy. Freedom. Justice. Peace. But what really motivates them to go to war are somewhat less lofty aims: Contracts! Markets! Natural resources! Power! For most people, the huge Pentagon budget means less money in their pockets. IRS PENTAGON But for some people, just the opposite is true. War Profits. Over 100,000 companies feed at the Pentagon trough. But the big money goes to a handful of huge corporations. Outa the way! I was here first! 1999 Pentagon Contracts United Technology: $2.4 billion TEXTRON: $1.4 billion NORTHROP GRUMMAN: $3.2 billion BOEING: $11.6 billion Raytheon: $6.4 billion GE: $1.7 billion GENERAL DYNAMICS: $4.6 billion LOCKHEED MARTIN: $12.7 billion TRW: $1.4 billion
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