US Military Intervention.. Killing Hope- Part Two

After WWII, many Europeans realized that the war that devastated Europe entirely, was nothing but a capitalist ambitions in expanding markets. This knowledge frustrated people to the point of checking socialist doctrines, especially considering the heroism witnessed by communist organizations in many countries involved in the useless war. The Predecessor of CIA fearing expansion of socialism in Europe became very active in every Western European country. Many of the fascists, or fascist sympathizers became agents of CIA: “Then there was the case of Cardinal Battista Montini, another beneficiary of CIA largesse. The payments made to him reveal something of the Agency’s mechanistic thinking about why people become radicals. It seems that the good Cardinal was promoting orphanages in Italy during the 1950s and 1960s and, says Victor Marchetti, ‘The thinking was that if such institutions were adequately supported, many young people would be able to live well there and so would not one day fall into Communist hands.’ The Cardinal, as a Monsignor, had been involved with the Vatican’s operation to smuggle Nazis to freedom after World War II. He had a long history of association with Western governments and their intelligence agencies. In 1963, he became Pope Paul VI, (P. 121).”

There used to be two reasons for American government attacking foreign soils; expanding market for large conglomerates, and preventing or combating a nationalist or socialist government. One more reason has been added since the collapse of Soviet Union; subduing the world and becoming the only global power. Those who wish for America to get more involved with the war in Syria, or attack Iran, Lebanon, and any other country that has not bowed before the master, should look at the history of US wars to learn that for the US military machine, there is no difference between the combatant and non-combatant, and after the war, nothing is left of the country being attacked. War in Vietnam was one example; especially that it became a very long and expensive war for the US. There is also a double standard at work when China is supplying US with steel, much needed for military: “while Washington maintained a boycott on all Chinese products; even wigs imported into the US from Hong Kong had to be accompanied by a certificate of origin stating that they contained no Chinese hair, (P. 131)!” After disclosure of torture and discussion of waterboarding, which ignored other means of torture, some thought American military and CIA conducted torture only in Iraq and Afghanistan: “In 1975, a Senate investigating committee began looking into allegations that the CIA had counterfeited American money during the Vietnam war to finance secret operations. ‘Two Vietcong prisoners were interrogated on an airplane flying toward Saigon. The first refused to answer questions and was thrown out of the airplane at 3,000 feet. The second immediately answered all the questions. But he, too, was thrown out.’ Variations of the water torture were also used to loosen tongues or simply to torment. ‘Other techniques, usually designed to force onlooking prisoners to talk, involve cutting off the fingers, ears, fingernails or sexual organs of another prisoner… Safety demanded that, unless proved otherwise, everyone was to be regarded as the enemy, part of what the CIA called the Vietcong infrastructure (VCI)… By [CIA Officer] Colby’s records, during the period between early 1968 and May 1971, 20,587 alleged Vietcong cadres met their death as a result of Phoenix program… The South Vietnam government credited Phoenix with 40,994 VCI deaths, (P. 131). It is anecdotal when American officials speak about international laws. American government sees itself above all laws, as any law in the US should be the law of all lands. Even if some rulings of the past were introduced by American judges in international scene, those rulings should be abandoned if they don’t serve the present actions of American officials. ”After the Second World War, the International Military Tribunal convened at Nuremberg, Germany. Created by the victorious Allies, the Tribunal sentenced to prison or execution numerous Nazis who pleaded that they had been ‘only following orders’. In an opinion handed down by the Tribunal, it declared that ‘the very essence of the [Tribunal’s] Charter is that individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience imposed by the individual state.’… In 1971, Telford Taylor, the chief United States prosecutor at Nuremberg, suggested rather strongly that General William Westmoreland and high officials of Johnson administration such as Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk could be found guilty of war crimes under criteria established at Nuremberg. Yet every American court and judge, when confronted by the Nuremberg defense, dismissed it without according in any serious consideration whatsoever. The West has never been allowed to forget the Nazi holocaust. For 55 years there has been a continuous outpouring of histories, memoirs, novels, feature films, documentaries, television series … played and replayed in every Western language; there have been museums, memorial sculptures, photo exhibition, remembrance ceremonies … Never Again! But who hears the voice of the Vietnamese peasant? Who has access to the writings of the Vietnamese intellectual? What was the fate of Vietnamese Anne Frank? Where, asks the young American, is Vietnam, (P. 133)?” The anarchist philosopher and humanist, Noam Chomsky, announced in an interview that all American presidents after WWII should be subjected to trial in such a tribunal as Nuremberg. Rebecca Gordon’s book titled “American Nuremberg” discusses the same subject with regards to the US attack on Afghanistan and Iraq.

We know about “military industrial complex” that was warned by President Eisenhower, himself a military man, before he left the office. We also know about FBI and Hoover, and the assassination of Kennedy brothers who were inclined to limit the power of the shadowy government. However, the secretive nature of CIA forbids us to learn about their clandestine work, especially internationally. It is apparent that when Trump opposes the Agency, suddenly Russia-Gate becomes a household soap opera event, to the point that Trump himself begins doubting whether Russia was behind his presidential victory or not, although the whole tale has no basis! With undisclosed wealth and power that the CIA has, in order to protect and promote capitalism and American multi-national conglomerates, its first task is exploiting disadvantaged people of south of the borders. American countries south of the US borders have experienced, to their dismay, a long period of CIA involvements in their political affairs. In a section of the book about Ecuador, and ouster of the nationalist and popularly elected President Velasco, we learn more about CIA’s role in those countries: “In Ecuador, as throughout most of Latin America, the Agency planted phony anti-communist news items in co-operating newspapers. These items would then be picked up by other CIA stations in Latin America and disseminated through a CIA-owned news agency, a CIA-owned radio station, or through countless journalists being paid on a news-work basis, in addition to the item being picked up unwittingly by other media, including those in the United States… In virtually every department of the Ecuadorean government could be found men occupying positions, high and low, who collaborated with the CIA for money and/or their own particular motivation… The Postmaster-General, along with other post office employees, all members in good standing of the CIA payroll club, regularly sent mail arriving from Cuba and the Soviet bloc to the agency… Agency financing of conservative groups in a quasi-religious campaign against Cuba and ‘atheistic communism’ helped to seriously weaken President Velasco’s power among the poor, primarily Indians, who had voted overwhelmingly for him, but who were even more deeply committed to their religion… CIA agents could bomb churches or right-wing organizations and make it appear to be the work of leftists. They would march in left-wing parades displaying signs and shouting slogans of a very provocative anti-military nature, designed to antagonize the armed forces and hasten a coup, (P.154).”

In many cases, especially in South and Central America, the CIA has strengthened and trained the police, and in some countries arm forces, in order to find and torture and jail leftists and nationalists, and to take control of the government in the advent of an elected official not supporting policies of the US, dictated to him or her. There have been many instances of direct involvement of the CIA in internal affairs of Brazil, and the book mentions some cases: “In the chapter on Guatemala and Uruguay, we shall see how the US Office of Public Safety (OPS), the CIA and AID [Agency for International Development] combined to provide the technical training, the equipment, and the indoctrination which supported the horrors in those countries. It was no less the case in Brazil. Dan Mitrione of the OPS, whom we shall encounter in his full beauty as a torturer in Uruguay, began his career in Brazil in the 1960s. By 1969, OPS had established a national police force for Brazil and had trained over 100,000 policemen in the country, in addition to 523 receiving more advanced instruction in the United States. About one-third of the students’ time at the police academies was devoted to lectures on the ‘communist menace’ and the need to battle against it. The ‘bomb school’ and techniques of riot control were other important aspects of their education, (P. 171).”

Dominican Republic has seen American soldiers’ boots on their grounds many times. After the US occupation of 1916 of the island, it became a US colony until 1924. In 1965, United States stepped in to protect the failing government which was about to be toppled by a group who called themselves Constitutionalists: “A bloody civil war had broken out in the streets of Santo Domingo. During the first few days, the momentum of battle swung to one side, then the other. By the night of 28 April, however, the military and the police inside Santo Domingo had collapsed, and the constitutionalists were preparing to attack the military’s last bastion, San Isidro, their main base about 10 miles away… Within hours, the first 500 US Marines were brought in by helicopter from ships stationed a few miles off the coast. Two days later, American forces ashore numbered over 4,000. At the peak, some 23,000 troops, Marine and Army, were to take up positions in the beleaguered country, with thousands more standing by on a 35-ship task force offshore. The American action was in clear violation of several international agreements, including the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS) which prohibited intervention ‘directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state’, (P. 181).”

Cuban missile crisis is told and over-told by many, and there is no need to repeat it, as the book mentions it briefly for historical references. However, how this crisis was dealt with is discussed in detail, when US Navy instituted a quarantine of the island of Cuba, searching any shipment going to the island. Soviet Premier responded by saying that American missiles were pointing at his nation in all countries surrounding it, specifically in Turkey. However, US government called its missile installation for peaceful means and those of the Soviets ‘threatened to upset the peace’. The book expands on this comparison: “Equally obvious was the right of the United States to maintain a military base on Cuban soil- Guantanamo Naval Base by name, a vestige of colonialism staring down the throats of the Cuban people, which the US, to this day, refuses to vacate despite the vehement protest of the Castro government. In the American lexicon, in addition to good and bad bases and missiles, there are good and bad revolutions. The American and French Revolutions were good. The Cuban Revolution is bad. It must be bad because so many people have left Cuba as a result of it. But at least 100,000 people left the British colonies in America during and after the American Revolution. These Tories could not abide by the political and social changes, both actual and feared, particularly that change which attends all revolutions worthy of the name: Those looked down upon as inferiors no longer know their place. (or as the US Secretary of State put it after the Russian Revolution: the Bolsheviks sought ‘to make the ignorant and incapable mass of humanity dominant in the earth.’), (P. 185).”

Killing Hope is an interesting fact finding book, some quotations from which are mentioned here. Only a small portion of this 470 pages book has been reviewed so far. This passage will continue by discussing more chapters of the book, as time allows. Therefore, other parts to this “Part Two” will be published momentarily.