Professor of politics at University of San Francisco, California., Robert Elias 07 augustus 2009 – 23:00

US Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction

The indiscriminate use of bombs by the US, usually outside a declared war situation, for wanton destruction, for no military objectives, whose targets and victims are civilian populations, or what we now call “collateral damage.”

Japan (1945) China (1945–46) Korea & China (1950–53)
Guatemala (1954, 1960, 1967–69) Indonesia (1958) Cuba (1959–61)
Congo (1964) Peru (1965) Laos (1964–70)
Vietnam (1961–1973) Cambodia (1969–70) Grenada (1983)
Lebanon (1983–84) Libya (1986) El Salvador (1980s)
Nicaragua (1980s) Iran (1987) Panama (1989)
Iraq (1991–2000) Kuwait (1991) Somalia (1993)
Bosnia (1994–95) Sudan (1998) Afghanistan (1998)
Pakistan (1998) Yugoslavia (1999) Bulgaria (1999)
Macedonia (1999)

US Use of Chemical & Biological Weapons
The US has refused to sign Conventions against the development and use of chemical and biological weapons, and has either used or tested (without informing the civilian populations) these weapons in the following locations abroad:

Bahamas (late 1940s–mid-1950s)
Canada (1953)
China and Korea (1950–53)
Korea (1967–69)
Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (1961–1970)
Panama (1940s–1990s)
Cuba (1962, 69, 70, 71, 81, 96)

And the US has tested such weapons on US civilian populations, without their knowledge, in the following locations:

Watertown, NY and US Virgin Islands (1950)
SF Bay Area (1950, 1957–67)
Minneapolis (1953)
St. Louis (1953)
Washington, DC Area (1953, 1967)
Florida (1955)
Savannah GA/Avon Park, FL (1956–58)
New York City (1956, 1966)
Chicago (1960)

And the US has encouraged the use of such weapons, and provided the technology to develop such weapons in various nations abroad, including:

Egypt
South Africa
Iraq

US Political and Military Interventions since 1945
The US has launched a series of military and political interventions since 1945, often to install puppet regimes, or alternatively to engage in political actions such as smear campaigns, sponsoring or targeting opposition political groups (depending on how they served US interests), undermining political parties, sabotage and terror campaigns, and so forth. It has done so in nations such as

China (1945–51) South Africa (1960s–1980s)
France (1947) Bolivia (1964–75)
Marshall Islands (1946–58) Australia (1972–75)
Italy (1947–1975) Iraq (1972–75)
Greece (1947–49) Portugal (1974–76)
Philippines (1945–53) East Timor (1975–99)
Korea (1945–53) Ecuador (1975)
Albania (1949–53) Argentina (1976)
Eastern Europe (1948–56) Pakistan (1977)
Germany (1950s) Angola (1975–1980s)
Iran (1953) Jamaica (1976)
Guatemala (1953–1990s) Honduras (1980s)
Costa Rica (mid-1950s, 1970–71) Nicaragua (1980s)
Middle East (1956–58) Philippines (1970s–90s)
Indonesia (1957–58) Seychelles (1979–81)
Haiti (1959) South Yemen (1979–84)
Western Europe (1950s–1960s) South Korea (1980)
Guyana (1953–64) Chad (1981–82)
Iraq (1958–63) Grenada (1979–83)
Vietnam (1945–53) Suriname (1982–84)
Cambodia (1955–73) Libya (1981–89)
Laos (1957–73) Fiji (1987)
Thailand (1965–73) Panama (1989)
Ecuador (1960–63) Afghanistan (1979–92)
Congo (1960–65, 1977–78) El Salvador (1980–92)
Algeria (1960s) Haiti (1987–94)
Brazil (1961–64) Bulgaria (1990–91)
Peru (1965) Albania (1991–92)
Dominican Republic (1963–65) Somalia (1993)
Cuba (1959–present) Iraq (1990s)
Indonesia (1965) Peru (1990–present)
Ghana (1966) Mexico (1990–present)
Uruguay (1969–72) Colombia (1990–present)
Chile (1964–73) Yugoslavia (1995–99)
Greece (1967–74)

US Perversions of Foreign Elections
The US has specifically intervened to rig or distort the outcome of foreign elections, and sometimes engineered sham “demonstration” elections to ward off accusations of government repression in allied nations in the US sphere of influence. These sham elections have often installed or maintained in power repressive dictators who have victimized their populations. Such practices have occurred in nations such as:

Philippines (1950s)
Italy (1948–1970s)
Lebanon (1950s)
Indonesia (1955)
Vietnam (1955)
Guyana (1953–64)
Japan (1958–1970s)
Nepal (1959)
Laos (1960)
Brazil (1962)
Dominican Republic (1962)
Guatemala (1963)
Bolivia (1966)
Chile (1964–70)
Portugal (1974–75)
Australia (1974–75)
Jamaica (1976)
El Salvador (1984)
Panama (1984, 89)
Nicaragua (1984, 90)
Haiti (1987, 88)
Bulgaria (1990–91)
Albania (1991–92)
Russia (1996)
Mongolia (1996)
Bosnia (1998)

US Versus World at the United Nations
The US has repeatedly acted to undermine peace and human rights initiatives at the United Nations, routinely voting against hundreds of UN resolutions and treaties. The US easily has the worst record of any nation on not supporting UN treaties. In almost all of its hundreds of “no” votes, the US was the “sole” nation to vote no (among the 100–130 nations that usually vote), and among only 1 or 2 other nations voting no the rest of the time. Here’s a representative sample of US votes from 1978–1987:

US Is the Sole “No” Vote on Resolutions or Treaties
For aid to underdeveloped nations
For the promotion of developing nation exports
For UN promotion of human rights
For protecting developing nations in trade agreements
For New International Economic Order for underdeveloped nations
For development as a human right
Versus multinational corporate operations in South Africa
For cooperative models in developing nations
For right of nations to economic system of their choice
Versus chemical and biological weapons (at least 3 times)
Versus Namibian apartheid
For economic/standard of living rights as human rights
Versus apartheid South African aggression vs. neighboring states (2 times)
Versus foreign investments in apartheid South Africa
For world charter to protect ecology
For anti-apartheid convention
For anti-apartheid convention in international sports
For nuclear test ban treaty (at least 2 times)
For prevention of arms race in outer space
For UNESCO-sponsored new world information order (at least 2 times)
For international law to protect economic rights
For Transport & Communications Decade in Africa
Versus manufacture of new types of weapons of mass destruction
Versus naval arms race
For Independent Commission on Disarmament & Security Issues
For UN response mechanism for natural disasters
For the Right to Food
For Report of Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination
For UN study on military development
For Commemoration of 25th anniversary of Independence for Colonial Countries
For Industrial Development Decade in Africa
For interdependence of economic and political rights
For improved UN response to human rights abuses
For protection of rights of migrant workers
For protection against products harmful to health and the environment
For a Convention on the Rights of the Child
For training journalists in the developing world
For international cooperation on third world debt
For a UN Conference on Trade & Development

US Is 1 of Only 2 “No” Votes on Resolutions or Treaties
For Palestinian living conditions/rights (at least 8 times)
Versus foreign intervention into other nations
For a UN Conference on Women
Versus nuclear test explosions (at least 2 times)
For the non-use of nuclear weapons vs. non-nuclear states
For a Middle East nuclear free zone
Versus Israeli nuclear weapons (at least 2 times)
For a new world international economic order
For a trade union conference on sanctions vs. South Africa
For the Law of the Sea Treaty
For economic assistance to Palestinians
For UN measures against fascist activities and groups
For international cooperation on money/finance/debt/trade/development
For a Zone of Peace in the South Atlantic
For compliance with Intl Court of Justice decision for Nicaragua vs. US.
**For a conference and measures to prevent international terrorism (including its underlying causes)
For ending the trade embargo vs. Nicaragua

US Is 1 of Only 3 “No” Votes on Resolutions and Treaties
Versus Israeli human rights abuses (at least 6 times)
Versus South African apartheid (at least 4 times)
Versus return of refugees to Israel
For ending nuclear arms race (at least 2 times)
For an embargo on apartheid South Africa
For South African liberation from apartheid (at least 3 times)
For the independence of colonial nations
For the UN Decade for Women
Versus harmful foreign economic practices in colonial territories
For a Middle East Peace Conference
For ending the embargo of Cuba (at least 10 times)

In addition, the US has:
Repeatedly withheld its dues from the UN
Twice left UNESCO because of its human rights initiatives
Twice left the International Labor Organization for its workers rights initiatives
Refused to renew the Antiballistic Missile Treaty
Refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty on global warming
Refused to back the World Health Organization’s ban on infant formula abuses
Refused to sign the Anti-Biological Weapons Convention
Refused to sign the Convention against the use of land mines
Refused to participate in the UN Conference Against Racism in Durban
Been one of the last nations in the world to sign the UN Covenant on Political &
Civil Rights (30 years after its creation)
Refused to sign the UN Covenant on Economic & Social Rights
Opposed the emerging new UN Covenant on the Rights to Peace, Development & Environmental Protection

Sampling of Deaths From US Military Interventions & Propping Up Corrupt Dictators (using the most conservative estimates)
Nicaragua 30,000 dead
Brazil 100,000 dead
Korea 4 million dead
Guatemala 200,000 dead
Honduras 20,000 dead
El Salvador 63,000 dead
Argentina 40,000 dead
Bolivia 10,000 dead
Uruguay 10,000 dead
Ecuador 10,000 dead
Peru 10,000 dead
Iraq 1.3 million dead
Iran 30,000 dead
Sudan 8–10,000 dead
Colombia 50,000 dead
Panama 5,000 dead
Japan 140,000 dead
Afghanistan 10,000 dead
Somalia 5000 dead
Philippines 150,000 dead
Haiti 100,000 dead
Dominican Republic 10,000 dead
Libya 500 dead
Macedonia 1000 dead
South Africa 10,000 dead
Pakistan 10,000 dead
Palestine 40,000 dead
Indonesia 1 million dead
East Timor 1/3–1/2 of total population
Greece 10,000 dead
Laos 600,000 dead
Cambodia 1 million dead
Angola 300,000 dead
Grenada 500 dead
Congo 2 million dead
Egypt 10,000 dead
Vietnam 1.5 million dead
Chile 50,000 dead

Other Lethal US Interventions
CIA Terror Training Manuals
Development and distribution of training manuals for foreign military personnel or foreign nationals, including instructions on assassination, subversion, sabotage, population control, torture, repression, psychological torture, death squads, etc.

Specific Torture Campaigns
Creation and launching of direct US campaigns to support torture as an instrument of terror and social control for governments in Greece, Iran, Vietnam, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama

Supporting and Harboring Terrorists
The promotion, protection, arming or equiping of terrorists such as:

• Klaus Barbie and other German Nazis, and Italian and Japanese fascists, after WW II

• Manual Noriega (Panama), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Osama bin Laden (Afghanistan), and others whose terrorism has come back to haunt us

• Running the Higher War College (Brazil) and first School of the Americas (Panama), which gave US training to repressors, death squad members, and torturers (the second School of the Americas is still running at Ft. Benning GA)

• Providing asylum for Cuban, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Haitian, Chilean, Argentinian, Iranian, South Vietnamese and other terrorists, dictators, and torturers

Assassinating World Leaders
Using assassination as a tool of foreign policy, wherein the CIA has initiated assassination attempts against at least 40 foreign heads of state (some several times) in the last 50 years, a number of which have been successful, such as: Patrice Lumumba (Congo), Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Ngo Dihn Diem (Vietnam) Salvador Allende (Chile)

Arms Trade & US Military Presence
• The US is the world’s largest seller of weapons abroad, arming dictators, militaries, and terrorists that repress or victimize their populations, and fueling scores of violent conflicts around the globe

• The US is the world’s largest provider of live land mines which, even in peacetime, kill or injure at least several people around the world each day

• The US has military bases in at least 50 nations around the world, which have led to frequent victimization of local populations.

• The US military has been bombing one Middle Eastern or Muslim nation or another almost continuously since 1983, including Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iran, the Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq (almost daily bombings since 1991)

2009

Implications of the Honduran Coup
by Stephen Lendman

There's no debate about the Honduran coup despite media efforts to distort it. It was made-in-the-USA like most others in the region over many decades. Since the late 19th century, America has directly meddled in Latin and Central American states well over 50 times, a record unmatched by any other nation, and abuses keep mounting. They involved invasions, bombings, occupations, assassinations, and coups as well as countless destabilization and election rigging interventions.

Against Honduras alone:

-- in 1903, American Marines invaded to protect US business interests;

-- in 1907, they intervened during a war with Nicaragua;

-- in 1911 - 1912, they came to support a coup against the liberal Davila regime, aided by two US mercenaries, one of whom became Honduras' army commander-in-chief; US forces remained for months to protect American interests;

-- in 1919, they intervened in Honduras' election campaign;

-- in 1924 - 1925, they came again for the same reason;

-- in 1980, US aid began supporting the Nicaraguan contras, given sanctuary in Honduras to launch cross-border attacks; and

From 1982 - 1990, America used Honduras as a land-based aircraft carrier to support the Contra insurgency against the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. Mass killings and atrocities were committed. Over $1.6 billion in military aid was provided. A US military presence was established at Soto Cano Air Force Base. American forces remain there today in close liaison with Honduran commanders who wouldn't blow their noses without first asking permission. Through close Pentagon - Honduran military ties, the June 28 coup was coordinated along with the US State Department.

All Honduran officers from captains on up are trained at the School of the Americas where they're taught how to torture, repress, exterminate poor and indigenous people, overthrow democratically elected governments, assassinate targeted leaders, and suppress popular resistance when it erupts.

The June 28 coup against President Manuel Zelaya was a coordinated State Department - Pentagon project working with Honduran commanders and top opposition political figures to establish a de facto dictatorship. The scheme followed similar tactics against earlier Latin American governments, including:

-- Jacobo Arbenz in Guatamala (1954);

-- the failed Bay of Pigs invasion against Cuba (1961) and hundreds of subsequent unsuccessful assassination attempts against Fidel Castro;

-- Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic (1963) followed by a 1965 US invasion to crush popular support to return him to power;

-- Joao Goulart in Brazil (1964);

-- Salvador Allende in Chile (9/11/73);

-- Uruguay's military junta takeover from a civilian democracy (1973);

-- Isabel Peron in Argentina (1976),

-- Carlos Humberto Romero in El Salvador (ousted by a right-wing El Salvador junta - 1979);

-- the assassination of Panama's Omar Torrijos (1981);

-- Maurice Bishop in Grenada (1983);

-- Manuel Noriega in Panama (1989);

-- Jean-Bertrand Aristide twice (1991 and 2004); and

-- Manuel Zelaya in Honduras (2009) who was blamed for the action to legitimize the coup d'etat government long enough, destroy his image, weaken his authority if a negotiated return is arranged, and effectively render him impotent until the November 29 presidential and parliamentary elections after which a new president will take office since Zelaya can't succeed himself.

Will Chavez in Venezuela Now Be Targeted?

Throughout his tenure, numerous attempts were made to destabilize his government, discredit his leadership and policies, oust him in the aborted April 2002 coup, and again in the failed August 2004 recall referendum. In addition, Chavez and others claim assassination schemes were hatched, the latest one forcing him to cancel his June 1 El Salvador trip to attend President Mauricio Funes' inauguration.

In his place, Foreign Affairs Minister Nicolas Maduro said it was learned that "ultra (Venezuelan) right wing groups....linked to ultra conservative coup sectors, together with the international ultra right," hinting Washington primarily, were behind an assassination plot.

Chavez said he got reliable information about a scheme "to launch one or several rockets at the Cubana airline plane that was already to leave from (Caracas') Maiquetia" airport. His regular plane was being repaired, so Cuba provided a substitute. He and Bolivia's Evo Morales planned to travel together, so perhaps there was a plot to kill them both.

Chavez also accused former Venezuelan military personnel of involvement, some of whom entered San Salvador earlier. "I know them," he said, "they have sworn to me that they were going to kill me because they say it's my fault that they lost their jobs and didn't reach the highest military ranks. The government of the United States is behind all this," specifically suggesting the CIA, not Obama himself.

Earlier suspected plots were also uncovered. As a result, Chavez is very watchful for future ones, given his troubled relations with America, not at all eased since the accession of Obama. On numerous occasions, US-Venezuelan lawyer and Chavez confidante, Eva Golinger, has said that schemes are always underway to destabilize the government, vilify Chavez, and look for ways to oust him, thus far without success.

As recently as August 3, she said:

After CONATEL's suspension of media licenses, "opposition groups in Venezuela (are again) trying to provoke a coup against Chavez....They are calling for destabilization activities throughout the nation....and using this situation as an excuse to call for protests (and on) the international community to support their destabilization actions."

For the past ten and a half years, Washington and Venezuelan oligarchs have targeted Chavez relentlessly and won't let up while he's in office. Whether the Honduran coup signals stepped up efforts ahead remains to be seen. Perhaps so given Washington's regional history of intolerance of democracies that place national interests above America's. Chavez explained it well saying Obama "risk(s) being killed if he challenges the American empire." So far, there's not a hint of it in sight.

bronnen:
7 aug 2009 Stephen Lendman Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization Chicago.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14681

Lecture Prof Dr. Robert Elias, September 25, 2001, San Francisco:
"Terrorism and American Foreign Policy" via google.