FEAR AND LOATHING OF THE US GOVERNMENT

*PLEASE NOTE: This page was primarily written before September 11th 2001 and has since been updated*

Whilst it could be construed as fashionable to 'beat up' America, there are many good reasons to give condemnation of their governments very serious consideration. The plain fact of the matter is that America is perhaps the country LEAST able to lead any kind of 'New World Order.'

Here are some illustrations as to why America's administrations should be feared and loathed, taking in everything from nuclear weapons, Saddam Hussein and religious fanaticism. I'd be grateful to anyone who can supply additonal information of this kind for inclusion on this page. Not to be outdone, I have also included some reasons why Britain's governments  should similarly feared and loathed.

Whilst they reflect my personal opinions, the information contained here, unless specifically sourced, is from the historical record and true and correct to the best of my knowledge. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can confirm, refute or provide further information. Speculative and unconfirmed information is duly noted.

See also 'Rogue State' by Richard DuBoff, the first in the ARTICLES FROM THE AFTERMATH OF 9-11 in the WORLD AFTER 9-11 section.

1.
Within 100 years of the arrival of the 'founding fathers' on the continent of America, most of the indiginous population was slaughtered. Their murder took many forms, but among the most insidious were Christian missionaries spreading smallpox among the natives by providing infected blankets, given as acts of generosity and compassion.

As of 1992, of the 298 treaties signed by the US with the native peoples, not one had ever been honoured.
[Source: 'WE WERE THE IRAQIS 100 YEARS AGO' - Opato Matama, Menominee Nation spokeswoman, in testimony to the INDEPENDENT COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO THE GULF WAR, February 1992]

(Note that 'Apache' attack helicopters, used in the bombing of Iraq, Kosovo and elsewhere, are named after a race of people the Americans ethnically cleansed.)

2.
Not content with just killing the people, they exterminated almost all the buffalo herds, bringing the species to the very edge of extinction. Estimates vary, but the slaughter numbered in the tens of millions. In the early 1900's the amount of buffalo left in the US was reduced to just two dozen.
[Source: 'YELLOWSTONE - AMERICA'S SACRED WILDERNESS' - WILDLIFE ON ONE, BBC TV UK, October 2001]

3.
Then they went to war against each other. 558,000 Americans lost their lives in the Civil War, more than in any other American wars, including World War One and Two combined - 117,000 and 407,000 deaths respectively. The Civil War claimed the lives of 2 percent of the nation's population. Almost twice as many died from disease and other causes as died in battle.
[Source: THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR RESEARCH PROJECT]

4.
Since the end of the Second World war, US troops have been deployed over 200 times. This is the greatest number of troops movements of any country in the world in the same time frame. (Britain comes in second, with 75 deployments.)
[Britain figure UNCONFIRMED]

5.
America smuggled over 600 hundred Nazi scientists and war criminals out of Germany after the end of WW2 in a Pentagon organised operation code-named 'Paperclip'. Many of them were put to work in the American weapons programme. Chief amongst them was Werner Von Braun who was later entrusted by President John Kennedy to build the Saturn rockets required for the lunar landings. Von Braun was a member of the SS and originally described by the US State department as an '...ardent Nazi'. During the development of the German V-2 rocket, Von Braun and his team used slave labour to build a huge underground facility at Nordhausen in Bavaria. At least 20,000 of these slaves died during its' construction. Pentagon team leader Robert Staver was tasked with finding the finest of the Nazi scientists before the Russians did. When asked in mid 1980 whether the Pentagon deliberately overlooked the morality of this operation, he responded:
"Oh 100%. We didn't think there was a moral problem really."
[Source: 'THE PAPERCLIP CONSPIRACY' - PANORAMA investigation, BBC TV, UK - air date unconfirmed, estimated mid 1980]

US National Security Council Memorandum 68 (1950) called for a 'roll back' strategy that would "...foster the seeds of destruction within the Soviet system....". Chief among these was an espionage network in Eastern Europe that was run by Reinhard Gehlen, established by the US in 1949. Gehlen was a former Nazi General who ran the intelligence apparatus on the Eastern front during World War 2.
[SOURCE: 'WHAT UNCLE SAM REALLY WANTS' by Noam Chomsky, ODONIAN PRESS, 1986]

Not common knowledge either is that before it became illegal under US law, American car manufacturer Henry T. Ford, and texas oil man William Prescott Bush, were reputedly involved in major financial dealings with the Nazi regime.
[Claimed as such in 'GEORGE BUSH - THE UNATHORISED BIOGRAPHY' by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, and additionally mentioned in 'STUPID WHITE MEN' by Michael Moore]

William Prescott Bush was George Bush's father, George W. Bush's grandfather. Hitler was so enamoured of his American friends that he once remarked: 
"I have always regarded Henry T. Ford as my inspiration."

In a savage irony, Jewish refugees escaping Nazi persecution, many of whom later moved to the Israeli 'homeland', are now firmly allied to the US - the same country that may have partially contributed to their terrible fate in the first place. The American IBM corporation was instrumental in providing a prototype 'punch card' system  the Nazi party to collate information on the Jews. This early computer alllowed high speed information processing of the 'Final Solution'.

In an even more horrendous irony, Israel treats the displaced Palestinians with a savagery that bears a striking resemblance to the initial treatment of the Jews by the Nazis. Israel is the only 'democratic' Western country to have essentially legalised torture, citing in the statute books that 'reasonable force' when dealing with Palestinians is acceptable. This 'reasonable' force includes widespread torture and incarceration without trial.
[Source: 'FIVE STEPS TO TYRANNY' - BBC documentary, 2001]

6.
America posesses the largest stockpile of biological weapons of any country on earth. The members of the notorious Japanese bio-warfare 'Unit  731' were protected by the US from war crimes trials, and their data later incorporated into the American bio-warfare programme. 'Unit 731' carried out possibly the most repulsive biological warfare experiments ever undertaken in human history. Using captured Chinese POWs, whom they nick-named 'logs', they included the deliberate infection of Bubonic Plague and 'autopsies' carried out on live subjects to chart the progress of the disease through the body. The Pentagon described their scoop in 1947:
"Such information could not be obtained in our own laboratories because of the scruples attached to human experimentation. This data was acquired with an outlay of $250,000 to date; a mere pittance."
[Source: 'SCIENCE AT WAR' BBC documentary series, 1999]

7.
In the period 1950 to 1975, America carpet bombing in South East Asia killed an estimated 5 - 10 MILLION people, over 90% of whom were non-combatants. Cambodia was bombed in secret for four years between 1969 and 1973, and the B52 bomber logs falsified to cover up the crime. The CIA estimated 600,000 Cambodian dead, and also reported that US bombing was a principle recruitment tool used by the then marginal Khmer Rouge party. When the truth came to light the American people protested in their hundreds of thousands. On May 12th 1970, Governer Rhodes of Ohio called out the National Guard to Kent State University where unarmed, protesting students were fired upon. Four were killed, dozens injured.

8.
The Vietnam war began after the American State Department declared that the Vietcong had opened fire on US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. This accusation was later proved to be totally fictitious. Between 3 and 5 million people died in the war, including an estimated 60,000 US troops. The attacks on Hanoi and Haiphong on Christmas day, 1972, permanently deafened 30,000 people, mostly children. US economic sanctions are still in force against Vietnam. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently described the Vietnam war as "...a mistake..." in his book 'DOES AMERICA NEED A FOREIGN POLICY?"

9.
America is a signatory to the Geneva Accords of 1925 which declares chemical weapons as a crime against humanity and forbids their proliferation. America has since gathered the largest stockpile of chemical weapons of any country on earth. During 'Operation Ranch Hand' the use of 'Agent Orange' in Vietnam defoliated an area the size of Israel, causing widespread starvation of the civilian population. Thousands of Vietnamese and US troops were poisoned by the dioxin compound contained in Agent Orange, and severe genetic defects in humans, animals and plants continue to affect Vietnam. Approx. 110 KILOGRAMS of dioxin was dropped on Vietnam. 85 GRAMS added to the water supply of Washington DC is sufficent to kill the entire population of the city.
[Sources: 'DISTANT VOICES' by John Pilger, VINTAGE BOOKS 1992, 'ROGUE STATE' by William Blum, ZED BOOKS, 2001]

10.
America posesses the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. It is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons.

Many writers have alleged that the atomic attacks on Japan could have been avoided if America had not refused to accept reasonable terms secretly put to them by the Japanese leadership six months prior.
[UNCONFIRMED]

The US is currently engaged in a 'nuclear stewardship' programme that is upgrading the technology and increasing the TNT yield of its' nuclear arsenal, citing that this is not in violation of the 1968 Non-proliferation Treaty.
[Source: 'SCIENCE AT WAR' BBC documentary series, 1999]

In 2000, right wing Senator Jesse Helms pushed legislation through Congress that rescinded the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. He stated:
"We have to make sure that these things work."
[Source: BBC news, 2000]

According to Professor Paul Rogers of the Bradford Peace Study Team, American nuclear policy includes the targetting of 15% of its' arsenal against NON NUCLEAR CAPABLE COUNTRIES. This policy is designed to ensure that these countries do not become a dominant power in the global politic AFTER A NUCLEAR WAR.
[Source: 'AS LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER' by Paul Rogers, Dr. Malcolm Dando and Dr. Peter Van Den Dungen, ARROW BOOKS, 1981]

During his failed presidential campaign in 1980, George Bush Sr. explained to Los Angeles Times reporter Robert Scheer how it was possible to win a nuclear war:
"You have a survivability of command in control, survivability of industrial potential, protection of a percentage of your citizens, and you have a capability that inflicts more damge on the opposition than it can inflict on you. That's the way you can have a winner."

11.
America's annual 'defence' budget stands at an average of $300 BILLION. This budget represents four times the military spending of China and Russia combined.
[Source: CENTER FOR DEFENCE INFORMATION, 1997]

Prior to Septtember 11th, the word 'defence' was a misnomer, as America had never been attacked by forces, military or otherwise, of any country. Only the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour can be construed as an attack on American soil. This was not even the continental land mass, but Hawaii, itself a country that had been brutally occupied by the US. After the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Congress voted a $50 BILLION increase in the 'defence' budget.

12.
Successive American administrations have carried out secret chemical and biological warfare experiments on their own troops and citizens. From the 1950's onwards, the US Army conducted field tests of Whooping Cough bacteria around Tampa Bay in Florida, and strains of Yellow Fever against civilians in Savannah, Georgia and Avon Park in Florida, resulting in some deaths. In 1966 mock 'attacks' on New York and Chicago were undertaken. Agents of the 'Chemical Corps Special Operations' division sprayed the 'Bacillus subtilis variant niger' bacteria on to the subway turnstiles. Air turbulence caused by trains successfully distributed the bacteria and resulted in the infection of over a million people in New York alone. Bewteen September 20th and 27th 1950, six experimental bio-warfare attacks were conducted in the San Francisco bay area using 'Bacillus globiggii' and 'Serratia marcescens'. In the same year, cereal rust spores, designed to evaluate the possibility of attackling ceral crops as a bio-weapon, were released over the Virgin Islands, and the Watertown, New York area. In 1953 releases of Zinc Cadmium Sulphide were conducted over Minneapolis, St. Louis and the Washington DC area.
[Source: 'ROGUE STATE' by William Blum, ZED BOOKS, 2001]

In the 1960's coloured men in the Southern states of the US were deliberately infected with Syphillis and denied medical care for over 30 years. President Bill Clinton was forced to make a public apology.
[Source: BBC news, 1999]

America is a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1977, which declares biological weapons as "...repugnant to the conscience of mankind..." and prohibits further research and proliferation. Yet the US Defence Department has admitted to continued research at 127 facilities throughout the country.
[Source: X-FACTOR Magazine]

13.
America is halfway through a 15 year long military upgrade programme called 'Fulll Spectrum Dominance.' The purpose of this programme is to develop a new generation of weapons that will secure dominance over land, sea, air and space. They are currently 3D Virtual Reality mapping every single city in the world. 'Global Hawk' and the stealth capable 'Dark Star' are two pilot-less reconaissance planes that have the ability to fly to any point on the earth and circle for 24 hours, relaying back such high resolution video detail that it is possible to see whether the 'enemy' is wearing a hat from an altitude of above 20,000 feet. They are developing 'baby' cruise missiles with a range of 700 kilometeres, armed with 'Multi-mode' warheads which sense the type of target prior to detonation. Mass production of cheap, stealth capable cruise missiles is also in progress.
[Source: 'SCIENCE AT WAR' BBC documentary series, 1999]

America remains the world's biggest arms dealer. In the years 1991 to 1993, the US sold between 50 and 150 BILLION dollars worth of arms to Gulf States, in practical violation of UN Security Council Resolution 687 which called for the disarmament of the entire region as a 'goal'. This very same resolution empowered UNSCOM to disarm Iraq.
[Source: BBC news]

14.
Both the US and Britain were well aware of the toxic and radioactive dangers of Depleted Uranium ammunition prior to its' use in Bosnia in 1993, Kosovo in 1999, and its' widespread use in Iraq, 1991.

As far back as 1943 US intelligence intercepted a communique from German High Command that proposed the use of Uranium to "....make large areas of land inhospitable...[....]...to to fight concentrations of troops by using radioactive poison gas..."
[Source: Professor Siegwart-Horst Gunther, President INTERNATIONAL YELLOW CROSS]

The facts about DU have been known for over fifty years. For the full and terrible story, please click on the link DEPLETED URANIUM

15.
Religious Christian fundamentalism of US power brokers is endemic. Both Ronald Reagan and George Bush were fundamentalists who believed that the bible is the exact word of God. This includes, to quote comic Bill Hicks: "...that wacky, fire and brimstone 'Revelations' ending..."  According to some observers George W. Bush was referring to the 'Rapture' when he twice stated in his inauguration Speech, January 22nd 2001:"We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?"

Some of the most staggering examples of this belief system are as follows:

James Watt, Interior Secretary in the Reagan administration, 1991 to 1993, spoke on national American television, advising them that they shouldn't worry about dwindling natural resources or pollution:
"We don't have to protect the environment. The Second Coming is at hand."
  
Senator Dana Rohrabacher (Republican - Huntington Beach) called global warming a myth in 1998 on Bill Maher's 'Politically Incorrect' television show:
"God made this world right. It's going to stay right."

In 1985, during the period of strained relations between the US and the Soviet Union, the American co-founder of the peace activist group INTERNATIONAL PHYSICIANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR WAR, Professor Bernard Lown, was told by a highly placed US State Department official not to worry about a potential holocaust because:
"If there is a war, we'll all be going to meet Jesus in the sky."
[Source: 'NO DAY AFTER' - article by Felicity Arbuthnott, IRISH TIMES and others, 1995.]
INTERNATIONAL PHYSICIANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR WAR were later awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, the first time in history that an entire organisation rather than an individual had been honoured.

During the American 'support' (occupation) of Honduras, a senior American military official is reported to have said:
"You can't have democracy without Christianity, and so we're imposing it."  
[UNCONFIRMED - seen in a letter to a BBC right-to-reply page on their website]

16.
Iraq acquired all the techology for it's chemical, biological and nuclear programmes from the US, Britain, France and Germany. The US in particular supplied Iraq with weapons grade biological material originating from Fort Detrick, and from the American Type Culture Collection Company, in Maryland. These shipments were approved by the Pentagon, the US Department of Commerce and the US Treasury. It additonally supplied them with hundreds of tons of unrefined Sarin, the agent used in chemical warfare, and did so AFTER the Iraqi gas attack on Halabja, March 16th 1988.
[Source: 'THE FATHER OF ALL DESPOTS' - article by Said K. Arburish, THE GUARDIAN supplement, January 2000]

In 1994 a US Senate Committee reported that from 1985 onwards, and probably much earlier, through to 1989, US companies supplied Iraq with biological materials capable of weapons grade use, including 'Bacillus anthracis' and 'Clostridium botulinum', causing Anthrax and Botulism respectively. The US additionally supplied at least 5 other weapons capable bacteria strains, none of which were weakened or had their capacity for reproduction affected. The committee reported: "These micro-organisms exported by the United Satets were identical to those the United Nations [weapons] inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program." The report also noted that US exports to Iraq also included pre-cursors for chemicals warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare production facilities, even chemical warhead filling equipment.
[Source: 'ROGUE STATE' by William Blum, ZED BOOKS, 2001]

Britain also continued to sell weapons to Iraq after the Halabja attack. Exiled Kurds staged a hunger strike outside the UN building in New York to draw attention to the massacre, but the US took no action whatsoever. Kurdish leaders made a direct appeal to then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pleading for her support. Instead the Export Credit Guarantee Department used £340 MILLION of British taxpayers money to underwrite further arms sales. (By the outbreak of the Gulf war, British taxpayers had underwritten £670 MILLION of export credit to Iraq which Saddam Hussein defaulted on.)
[Source: 'DISTANT VOICES' + 'HIDDEN AGENDAS' both by John Pilger, Vintage Books 1992 and 1998 respectively]

All these countries flagrantly defied the international ban on weapons sales to Iraq, and no UN Security Council resolution was ever tabled to condemn Iraq's invasion of Iran, nor their use of chemical weapons. America helped Saddam Hussein acquire weapons of mass destruction and develop his nuclear programme in violation of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, whilst simultaneously protecting Israel’s nuclear programme, which was illegal under the US' own Foreign Aid Act which bars financial aid to any country involved in clandestine nuclear weapons development.

In 1989 Iraqi scientists were invited to attend a conference entitled 'The Physics of Detonation', sponsored by 'US Nuclear Weapons Laboratories', and held in Portland, Oregon. Britain also allowed Iraqi scientists to train at 'Hadland Photosonics', a Hertfordshire based company that specialised in flash x-ray photography used during the analysis of nuclear explosions.
[Source: 'THE SCOURGING OF IRAQ' by Geoff Simons, MacMillan Press, 1996]

The same year saw Britain co-sponsor the 'Baghdad Arms Fair'.
[Source: David Steele, former British MP, BBC 'QUESTION TIME' January 1991

During Lord Chief Justice Scott’s inquiry into British arms deals to Iraq, it emerged that former British Prime Minister John Major was the Treasury Minister at the Export Credit Guarantee Department who authorised the sale of ‘dual-use’ machine tools to Iraq that the British government knew were to be used in chemical weapons manufacture. These actions were in breach of the British governments’ signing of the 1925 Geneva Accord which prohibits the use and propagation of chemical weapons. Former Labour Party Trade Spokesman Robin Cook summed up the prevailing attitude:
"What is the point of the Conservative officials denouncing the Iraqi’s use of chemical weapons if down the road in Whitehall, another department was helping equip the factories that produced them?"
[Source: THE GUARDIAN, 1993]

The Scott Report’s findings were published in 1996 and astonishingly concluded: "Ministers deliberately misled Parliament, but did not intend to mislead Parliament."

One Conservative Party minister, I believe it was Michael Heseltine, was asked during the inquiry why Britain was exporting ‘dual-use’ items to Iraq in breach of the government’s own ban on military sales. In regard to the wording of the ban, he responded that he was enforcing:
"The rigorous implementation of a flexible interpretation."
[Source: BBC dramatisation of The Scott Report, 1996 - from direct transcripts]

Over 400 US companies were investigated by the US Customs Department after the Gulf war for their involvement in exporting high technology, weapons and 'dual-use' items to Iraq. To my knowledge not a single indictment was ever made, and not a single company ever prosecuted.

17.
America and Britain insist that only full Iraqi compliance with weapons inspections will ever lead to the lifting of sanctions. These are designed to deprive the regime of the very same material that the US, UK and others sold to them in the first place. Yet high officials, including Presidents Clinton and Bush Sr., have repeatedly stated that sanctions will never be lifted whilst Saddam Hussein is in power. UNSCOM weapons inspector chairman Rolf Ekeus stated in September 1994:
"We do want Iraq to see light at the end of the tunnel…without progress Iraq can conclude it is not worth co-operating."

Not worth co-operating indeed, as the following statements indicate:

"All possible sanctions will be maintained until Saddam Hussein is gone."
- Marlin Fitzwater, former White House Press Spokesman, May 1991

"Iraqis will be made to pay the price while Saddam Hussein is in power. Any easing of sanctions will be considered only when there is a new government."
- Robert Gates, former US National Security Advisor, Los Angeles Times, 9th May 1991
(Note that Gates said 'Iraqis', not the Iraqi regime.)

"[There will be no end to the embargo] ...as long as Saddam Hussein is in power."
- George Bush, former US President, 20th May 1991

"[Britain will veto any UN attempt to weaken sanctions] ...for so long as Saddam Hussein remains in power."
- John Major, former British Prime Minister, 10th May 1991

"It is inconceivable that Saddam Hussein could remain in power if he complied with all UN resolutions."
- Dee Dee Myers, former Whitehouse spokeswoman, March 1993

"Any modification of the sanctions regime that ameliorates the pressure that Saddam Hussein must feel is not at this time warranted."
- Mike McCurry, former Whitehouse Spokesman, March 1995

"It would be hard to imagine sanctions being lifted whilst Saddam Hussein is still in power."
- Malcolm Rifkind, former British Foreign Secretary, quoted in The Guardian, 21st May 1996

"We do not agree with those nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its’ obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted."
-  Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State, addressing a symposium on Iraq at Georgetown University, USA, 26th March 1997

"Sanctions will be there until the end of time, or as long as he [Hussein] lasts."
- Former US President Bill Clinton, quoted in The New York Times, 23rd November 1997

"An impasse over [weapons] inspections is actually the best realistic outcome for the United States. [....] [The] most dangerous scenario is the possibility that Hussein will co-operate [....which could...] spell the end of sanctions."
- Daniel Byman, RAND Corporation analyst, as quoted in Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb issue, 2000

And these three simply take the biscuit:

"Our policy is to get rid of Saddam, not his regime."
- Richard Haas, former Director of Middle East Affairs on the National Security Council, as quoted in 'Out of The Ashes : The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein' by Andrew and Patrick Cockburn, 1999. Haas originally made the statement in 1991, and it was quoted in Cockburn's documentary 'The War We Left behind' made for the 'Frontline' series and shown in in the US in November 1991.

"The United States did want Saddam Hussein to go, they just didn't want the Iraqi people to take over."
- Peter Jennings, ABC News, 7th February 1998

18.
America aided Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party into power in Iraq. Describing them as "...the political force of the future..." the CIA met with Ba'ath activists in the early 1960's. In the coup of 1963, thousands of Iraqi opposition political figures were murdered in three days, many them on a list which, according to journalist John Pilger, was supplied by the CIA. James Critchfield was the head of the CIA's Middle East Desk at the time. He later described the coup to authors Andrew and Patrick Cockburn for their book 'Out of the Ashes.'
"It was a great victory. [....] It was an operation where all the 't's were really crossed."

Another CIA agent testified to Congress: "He [Saddam] was a son of a bitch, but he was OUR son of a bitch."
[Source: 'PAYING THE PRICE' - documentary by John Pilger, CARLTON TV, UK, 1999]

The CIA was directly involved in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Chile in 1973. General Pinochet's rule in Chile saw the murder of up to 10,000 people and a devastated economy, leaving 40% of the population living in abject poverty. It was the fist time in 300 years that Chile had not had a democratically elected government.
[Source: 'THE TRIAL OF HENRY KISSINGER' by Christopher Hitchens / The Independent]

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is currently being sued by the widow and three sons of the Chilean commander Genral Rene Schneider for his part in a CIA backed kidnapping that went wrong, leaving Schneider dead.
[Source: THE INDEPENDENT, 12th September 2001]

The Iran / Contra scandal revealed that US arms sales to Iran during the Iran/Iraq war were funding the Contra 'death squads' in Nicaragua, who murdered thousands of civilians. The US additionally mined Nicaragua's harbours. These practices was primarily planned and excecuted by Colonel Oliver North and General Richard Secord, during the Reagan administration. Operating out of the basement of the National Security Council adjacent to the Whitehouse, it was code-named 'Operation Democracy.' The US sponsored Contras were provided with arms, food, military training and CIA surveillance and intelligence overflights to wage a 'low intensity conflict' (a euphemism for state sponsored terrorism) whose targets included health clinics, farms and peasant cooperatives.
[Source: 'THE PRIVATE WARS OF COLONEL OLIVER NORTH' - PANORAMA investigation,  BBC TV, UK, 1987]

In 1986 the Nicaraguan government gathered evidence of Contra attrocities and their US support, and took their case to the World Court. They won. The World Court ordered the United States to cease any and all activity in support of the Contras and additionally ordered the US to pay huge reparations to Nicaragua. The US refused to accept the court's ruling, stated that it would not accept any future rulings, and in fact increased its' aid to the Contras. The following year Nicaragua sponsored a resolution in the United Nations, calling upon member states to uphold international law, among which are the sanctity of borders and illegality of proxy armies. The US voted against it, and stands in history as the only UN member state to have ever voted against a resolution calling for adherence to international law.
[SOURCE: 'ROGUE STATE' article by Noam Chomsky, ZED magazine, and others]

Indeed the US has, since 1950, conspired in the overthrow of democratically governments, supported brutal dictatorships, and trained and sponsored terrorists all over the world. Among them are Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega and Osama Bin laden. Many were trained at the 'School of the Americas' (SOA) at Fort Benning in Georgia. In December 1981 in the village of El Mozote, El Salvador, between 700 and 100 people, all civilians, were killed by Salvadoran military forces. In November 1989 six Jesuit priests and two civilians were murdered. Respectively: 10 of the 12 soldiers cited for the massacre at El Mozote, and 19 of the 26 Salvadoran officers involved in the murder of the priests, were former SOA graduates. Training manuals used by the school in 1991 were released under public pressure by the Pentagon in 1996. They revealed detailed teaching methods of torture, execution, blackmail and coercion of relatives.

From the early 1960's to 1975 the US Office of Public Safety (OPS) operated 'The International Police Academy', first in Panama, then in Washington DC, providing training for 10,000 foreign police officers. A further estimated 1,000,000 officers were trained abroad under the OPS programme, even with classes on assassination weapons, and supplied with weapons, ammunition, radios, patrol cars, tear gas, gas masks, batons and other crowd control devices. Bomb making classes were taught at Los Fresnos in Texas. In 1975, amid public outcry, the US Congress abolished the OPS, but the Drug Enforcement Agency, FBI and the Defense Department quietly resumed the programme under different names.
[Source: 'ROGUE STATE' by William Blum, ZED BOOKS, 2001]

The CIA helped overthrow the Mossadegh government of Iran in 1963, after they stated they would like to nationalise their oil fields. The Shah was installed, and the brutal state police force, 'SAVAK' was trained by Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. and in torture methods by the CIA. After the regime was overthrown in 1979, the Iranians found a CIA film that detailed methods of torturing women.
[Sources: 'THE FIRE THIS TIME' by RAMSEY CLARK, article in THE INDEPENDENT by Robert Fisk, 9th August 1998]

The US has militarily intervened in the affairs of at least 20 countries. In not a single case has a government arisen that was fully democratic or respectful of human rights.

China (1945-46)
Korea (1950-53)
China (1950-53)
Guatemala (1954)
Indonesia (1958)
Cuba (1959-60)
Guatemala (1960)
Congo (1964)
Peru (1965)
Laos (1964-73)
Vietnam (1961-73)
Cambodia (1969-70)
Guatemala (1967-69)
Grenada (1983),
Libya (1986)
El Salvador (1980s)
Nicaragua (1980s)
Panama (1989)
Iraq
(1991-present)
Sudan (1998)
Afghanistan (1998)
and
Yugoslavia (1999) 

The US, whilst constantly declaring its' support for 'democracy' and 'civilised values' continues to be an ally and supports the dictatorships of dozens of countries including Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia, where widespread human rights abuses occur, documented in detail by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, amongst others. Turkey, despite repeated invasions of Iraqi Kurdistan and the displacing, repressing and killing tens of thousands of Kurds within Turkey, continues to receive the greatest amount of US military aid of any European country.

The US and UK were the primary arms suppliers to Indonesia during its' invasion and occupation of East Timor, beginning in 1975. 200,000 East Timroese, one third of the entire population, died under Indonesian rule.
[Source: 'THE TIMOR CONSPIRACY' - documentary by JOHN PILGER, CARLTON TV, UK, 1999, 'A NEW GENERATION DRAWS THE LINE' by Noam Chomsky, VERSO BOOKS, 2000]

The US and UK also supported the internal purge of Indonesia led by dictator General Suharto in the early 1960s. As many as one million Indonesians died. Indonesia's economy was then essential re-designed by US corporations, sowing the seeds of the globalisation movement. The UK royal family continued to host state visits by Suharto and his staff.
[Source: 'THE NEW RULERS OF THE WORLD' - documentary by John Pilger, CARLTON TV, UK, 2001]

The US has planned, or been directly involved in, at least 32 direct assassination attempts on political leaders throughout the world. CIA agents have jokingly referred to them as 'suicide involuntarily administered' by the agency's 'health alteration committee.'
[Source: 'ROGUE STATE' by William Blum, ZED BOOKS, 2001]

19.
America has the worst environmental record of any country on earth. Its' population, just 4% of the world, consumes 40% of all resources and produces 25% of all greenhouse gases. In April 2001 President George W. Bush rescinded America's obligations to climate protection as set forth in the 'Kyoto Climate Protocol' to which the US was a signatory. Vice President Dick Cheney is reported to have said:
"...conservation can't help, it'll just be too expensive to implement those technologies..."

Environmental campaigners pointed out that the US has no such lack of funds when it comes to the technology to develop and deploy weapons to destroy incoming ICBMs, the so-called 'Son-Of-Star-Wars' anti-ballistic missile defence scheme.

20.
*Important - please note: this portion was written before September 11th 2001*
American administrations constantly refer to 'terrorism' and its' prevention but never ask what causes it, or concedes that terrorism is in fact in sharp decline. Rates of terrorist acts including bombing and hijacking has fallen dramatically since the early 1970s. Prior to the events of September 11th 2001, the greatest terrorist act ever carried out on American soil was by an American citizen - Timothy McVeigh and the bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma, 1996. There are now grave doubts that McVeigh acted alone or that the ATF and FBI had no foreknowledge. 3000 documents were withheld by the FBI from McVeigh's defence lawyers, causing a stay of execution.
[Source: BBC news]

EXCOMM and the US National Security Agency discussed plans in 1962 to attack American buildings and civilians, and to place the blame on Cuban terrorists as a rationale to invade Cuba.
[Source: ZNET, and 'US TERROR PLAN CALLED FOR CUBA INVASION PRETEXT' - article by Scott Shane and Tom Bowman, THE BALTIMORE SUN, April 24th 2001]

During the Vietnam war the CIA's 'Operation Phoenix' utlised a terror network of murder squads and assassins, drawn from US units like the Navy Seals and Army Special Forces as well as those of friendly countries - the South Vietnamese Rangers and Australian SAS. An estimated 40,000 people, mostly innocent bystanders, were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by Phoenix hit teams.
[Sources: 'THE COINTELPRO PAPERS - A LITTLE MATTER OF GENOCIDE', by Ward Churchill, 'DETERRING DEMOCRACY' by Noam Chomsky, HILL AND WANG BOOKS, 1991]

There are dozens of terrorists and terrorist organisations living freely in the US. The Cuban exile community in Florida have undertaken numerous hotel bombings, air and boat hijackings, and at least one murder, and not a single prosecution has ever been brought by the US. Many former Latin American and other military leaders are primarily resident in Florida, including:
- From Guatemala -  Defence Minister Hector Morales (implicated in the torture and murder of American nun Sister Dianna Ortiz and eight Guatemalemans and their families.)
- From El Salvador - General Jose Garcia, and his successor General Carlos Casanova, who respectively have murdered thousands of Salvadorans, and covered up and protected those responsible for the rape and murder of three American nuns in 1980.)
- From Haiti - Lt. Colonel Paul Jeremie (convicted of torturing political opposition), General Prosper Avril (who tortured political opposition and then displayed them on television - was actually flown to Florida by the US government in 1990), Colonel Carl Dorelien (who oversaw the murder of an estimated 5000 Haitian civilians) and Emmanuel Constant (death squad leader on the CIA payroll and former head of the para-military group FRAPH) now lives in New York. The US State Department refused a Haitian extradition request to hand him over for trial.
- From Chile - Armando Larios (military squad member who tortured and executed at least 72 people aftert the CIA aided coup overthrew the democratically elected Allende government in 1973)
- From Argentina - Admiral Jorge Enrico (associated with the 'Escuela Mecanica' torture centre in Buenos Aires during the so-called 'Dirty War' period of 1976-1983) is now living in Hawaii.
- From Cambodia - Thiounn Prasith (Cambodian envoy to the UN for the Khmer Rouge 1979 to 1983, even though the Khmer Rouge had lost power in 1979. Prasith was a major apologist for Pol Pot, and played a major role in the attrocity cover up) Now living in Mount Vernon, New York.

On 21st September 1998 former US President Bill Clinton addressed the United Nations:
"What are our global obligations? To give terrorists no support, no sanctuary."
[Sources: 'ROGUE STATE' by William Blum, ZED BOOKS, 2001 and 'THE NEW RULERS OF THE WORLD' by John Pilger, VERSO BOOKS, 2002]

21.
America's crime rate is at a 33 year low, but previously had one of the highest murder rates in the world. The current murder rate is 5.7 per 100,000 people. However, Washington DC, the so-called 'capital of the free world' has a murder rate 8 times that of the national average. In 1995 it was 65 per 100,000 people, ranking second only to New Orleans.
[Source: FBI, 'CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES,1995']

The chance of being murdered in Washington, DC in 1990 was 3 times greater than the chance of an American soldier being killed in the Gulf War.
[Source: WALL STREET JOURNAL 22nd June 2000]

The murder rate in Iraq during the 1970s was 12 per 100,000, thus a person living in Washington was 5 times more likely to be killed by 'free' Americans than Iraqis were to be killed by their fellows. (This figure does not take into account state violence by the Iraqi government against its' own people.)
[Source: INTERPOL - International Crime Statistics for the mid 1970s]

(Incidentally: The FBI estimates that there are currently 500 serial killers at large in the US. Other estimates are much lower, around 35 - 100 serial killers currently committing crimes. In 1983, they estimated that 5000 Americans, or 15 people a day were killed by strangers. Every year, between 3500 - 5000 people in America are the victims of serial killers. In the past 20 years, 160 serial killers have been identified or captured, and 120 of them were in the United States.)

Since 1970 over 70 people have been released from death row because of evidence of their innocence. Between 1900 and 1985, 350 people were wrongfully executed. A black person who killed a white person is 40 times more likely than a white person who killed a black person to be sentenced to the death penalty. The US is one of only five nations who have executed children or anyone who was under 18 at the time of the crime. The other countries are: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
[Source: GOLDEN ESSAYS.com]

22.
Senator McCarthy's 'Un-American Activities' commission generated a witch hunt of astounding proportions in the 1950's. Tens of thousands of Communist sympathisers were systematically spied on by the FBI, rounded up and imprisoned. Thousands more in the entertainment industry had their lives ruined, despite the fact that political freedom is supposed to be protected by the US Constitution.

In 1949 the US State Department included the following definition in its' official classification of a 'Communist' :
"...anyone who belives that the government has a direct responsibility for the welfare of its' people."
[Source: 'A CHOMSKY READER' by Noam Chomsky, M.I.T.]

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover directly oversaw the persecution of American homosexuals, many of whom were jailed. It was revealed after his death that Hoover was himself a homosexual and a tranvestite.

The FBI even kept a large file on Beatles member John Lennon.

23.
A prominent organisation in America consisted of 535 members. Of these 14 had been arrested on drugs related charges, 84 were arrested for drunk driving in 1989 alone, 29 had been arrested for abusing their spouses, 71 could not get a credit card due to bad credit, 19 were accused of writing bad cheques, 117  bankrupted at least two businesses, 8 were arrested for shop lifting, 3 arrested for assault, and 7 arrested for fraud.

This organisation was the United States Congress during the Clinton administration.

Senator Burke (Democrat - Wisconsin) is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.
[Source: 'THE AWFULTRUTH' - Show 1, Series 1 by Michael Moore]

24.
America oposes the imposition of the proposed 'International Criminal Court' and refuses to accept its' legitimacy unless all US citizens, military and governmental personnel, are exempt from its' powers.

Successive American administrations opposition to binding international laws is summed up perfectly by Professor Noam Chomsky:
"America has always regarded international law as an annoying encumbrance unless it can be used to advantage against an enemy."

25.
America holds the record for the most number of 'vetos' served on UN Security Council Resolutions. This serves to quash any proposals tabled by the world community which are at odds with US 'interests' as unanimous agreement between all five permanent members is required for a resolution to become binding. Britain ranks second with its' number of 'vetos'.
[Source: Noam Chomsky - Interview in NEWSNIGHT - BBC TV, UK, January 1991]

26.
Aside from Somalia, America was the only other country in the UN General Assembly to refuse to ratify the 'Convention on the Rights of the Child', the most widely adhered to United Nations human rights resolution in history.
[Source: 'THE SCOURGING OF IRAQ' by Geoff Simons, MacMillan Press, 1996]

27.
America was the only one out of a total of 142 countries in the UN General Assembly to vote AGAINST the proposal to ban attacks on civilian nuclear power stations during times of conflict. During the Gulf war, America attacked and destroyed every single one of Iraq's nuclear power stations.
[Source: 'THE SCOURGING OF IRAQ' by Geoff Simons, MacMillan Press, 1996]

28.
America is consistently the most indebted country to the UN. It consistently fails or refuses to pay its' UN dues if in opposition to UN resolutions. In September 1995 its' debt to the UN stood at $1.6 BILLION.
[Source: 'THE SCOURGING OF IRAQ' by Geoff Simons, MacMillan Press, 1996]

Simultaneously the US insists that Iraq, and other countries, must comply with the UN, but has told the UN that it has no jurisdiction in the affairs of the US. Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the UN Security Council in October 1994 that the US would act:
"....multilaterally when we can, and unilaterally when we must."

29.
America has the highest prison population per head of any country on Earth. As at 2001, over 2 million Americans are in jail.

Prisoners are now being employed at miniscule rates to work for corporations during their terms. Companies employing prison labour include Microsoft and AT+T. The so-called prison-industrial complex, with its' privately run facilities, is one of the fastest developing areas of business in the US.
[Source: 'THE BIG ONE' US documentary + 'DOWNSIZE THIS' - both by Michael Moore]

30.
Economic sanctions imposed by the US on other countries violate the US' own legal code, specifically TITLE 18, 2331, which defines 'International Terrorism' as:
"...acts dangerous to human life [....] that appear intended to coerce a civilian population or to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."
[As cited in THE SCOURGING OF IRAQ' by Geoff Simons, MacMillan Press, 1996]

31.
The 'No-Fly zones' imposed by the US over the North and South of Iraq are neither supported nor enabled by any United Nations Resolution whatsoever. Despite their illegitimacy, the US has flown over 280,000 aerial sorties over Iraq since the end of the Gulf war. Iraq has been bombed on average three times a week by British or American planes since the end of 'Operation Desert Fox' in December 1998. This operation was itself also not authorised by any UN resolution whatsoever. Iraq claims that 300 civilians have been killed in these ongoing raids, and over 800 injured.

In return for the use of Incirlik airforce base in Turkey, the US and UK permit the Turkish airforce to periodically bomb Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq. These people are the very same that the US and UK claim their patrols protect. Patrols are either re-directed or even stood down to allow the 'TSMs' (Turkish Special Missions) to bomb the Kurds.
[Source: 'BRITAIN AND AMERICA'S PILTOTS ARE BLOWING THE COVER ON OUR SO-CALLED 'HUMANITARIAN MISSION' '- Article by John Pilger in THE NEW STATESMAN, 19th March 2001, and article in WASHINGTON POST October 25th 2000]

Turkish land forces are also permitted to periodically invade Northern Iraq to root out 'Kurdish Separatists'. In May 1997, 50,000 Turkish troops crossed the border and engaged Kurdish forces, an action that received no UN, US or UK condemnation whatsoever.
[Source: 'THE SCOURGING OF IRAQ' by Geoff Simons, MacMillan Press, 1996 - 1998 REPRINT]

32.
Despite enforcing sanctions against Iraq that include foodstuffs and medicines, America signed UN Security Council Resolution 787, 16th November 1992, on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Paragraph 7 stated:
"Condemns all violations of international law, including [...] the deliberate impeding of the delivery of food and medical supplies to the civilian population."
[As cited in THE SCOURGING OF IRAQ' by Geoff Simons, MacMillan Press, 1996]

33.
The US has one of the highest infant mortality rates of the developed world, ranking 20th. Cuba, despite being under US sanctions for over 40 years has a lower infant mortality rate.
[Source: 'MANUFACTURING CONSENT - NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA' - film by Mark Achbar / Peter Wintonik / NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA, 1992]

34.
Since it's founding in 1948 the WORLD BANK has never been chaired by anyone other than an American. In 1997, Lawrence Summers, Treasury Secretary Designate, wrote the following internal memo:

"Shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the less developed countries? A given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable, and we should face up to that. I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted."
[Source: 'ROGUE STATE' by William Blum, ZED BOOKS, 2001, citing THE ECONOMIST magazine, 8th February 1992. Summers was appointed to the post of US Secretary of the Treasury in 1999 by President Clinton.]

35.
US enforced Sanctions on Iraq violate international laws and treaties to which US is a signatory:

ADDITIONAL PROTOCOLS TO THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS, 1977 (Specifically PROTOCOL 1, PART IV, SECTION 1, CHAPTER III, ARTICLE 54)
THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, 1948
INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS, 19th December 1966
CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN, 18th December 1979
CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE, 12th January 1951
INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS (Specifically Article 1)

They additionally violate the following:

CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, 20th November 1989
International Conference on Nutrition / World Declaration on Nutrition, Food and Agricultural Organization/World Health Organization, 1992
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 44/215 [22nd December 1989] - 'Economic measures as a means of political and economic coercion against developing countries'
The Constitution of the World Health Organization, 1946

On a personal note, I think it is high time that the people of the world, as amply demonstrated by the voting record of the UN General Assembly which consistently calls for arms reduction, development, aid and peace measures, to simply stop listening to the US government. If the US abandons any adherence to international law, continually backs out of treaties on everything from small weapons trade reduction measures to climate change, and overtly proclaims a unilaterilist approach, then I think we should give them what they want. Expel them from the United Nations, to whom they are constantly indebted anyway by failure to pay their dues. Let them go it alone. Let's stop listening to them. Let's stop talking to them. And, most importantly of all, let's stop believing them.

INDEX