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If think about it for more than a second, you can only come to the inescapable conclusion that the “war” on terror is 99% hogwash.
If you use the US government’s definition of terrorism you will quickly understand that the US government is by far the biggest and most effective terrorist organization on earth.
If someone wanted to terrorize people, how difficult would it be to sit there half a mile away from an international airport anywhere in Europe, Central or Latin America with an anti-aircraft SAM type weapon and pick off the next American Airlines flight?
How difficult would it be to take a submachine gun and attack and slaughter all the occupants of an American school bus that’s taking kids to and from school in practically any major city anywhere in the world?
Real easy! But it hasn’t been done because the ‘war on terror’ is bullshit.
People need to understand that the ‘war’ is partially directed at their own citizens because our whole way of life is about to come crashing down before our eyes. The government will need to have much more control over the US people and they have only just begun.
People need to understand that without oil, the US military machine screeches to a halt, military supremacy will then boil down to the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons that the USA has and guaranteed annihilation.
Without oil, the whole capitalist, economic system will crumble like the immune system of a US soldier after his exposure to the depleted uranium weapons given to him by his own government.
And people need to understand that creating a new world war is actually something that is on the agenda of the depopulationists and the ‘rapture’ lunatics who are looking forward to Armageddon and this is a large and increasingly influential group of people.
Educate yourself and your loved ones! Prepare yourself and make sure you have a sanctuary (maybe in Costa Rica) because the next 25 years will bring more horrors, death and destruction than any of us could imagine.
“…they want to dominate the world” ????? “..world wide war?”
1. Which country has armed forces stationed in over 100 countries?
2. Which country has repeatedly “intervened” and “invaded” and attacked other countries to affect a “regime change” even in cases where those countries have had democratically elected those leaders?
3. Which country is the only country in the history of the world to have attacked another using nuclear weapons?
4. Which country has already threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iran which is allowed to enrich uranium (and is a signed member of the NPT) for peaceful purposes and where all inspectors have so far failed completely to prove that Iran has a weapons program? Yet…
5. Which country openly supports Pakistan which is a Muslim military dictatorship which nuclear weapons and who’s principal weapons designer sold his nuclear technology to North Korea?
6. Which country massively support the one country in the Middle East with hundreds of nuclear weapons – Israel – which is NOT a member of the NPT and who has nearly 10,000 Palestinians held without trial and who recently dropped nearly a million cluster bombs in Palestine AFTER a ceasfire was agreed upon?
7. Which country failed to live up to it’s signed “Agreed Framework” agreement where North Korea which was a member of the NPT was willing to halt and eventually scrap its nuclear weapons program. In return, it would get international aid to build two nuclear generating stations.Answer?
The United States of America which is now reaping what it sowed.
If you want to speak about world domination, there is only one country that comes to mind – The United States of America which is now so close to being a fascist dictatorship it is terrifying.
Please do not use the word “ignorance” too much scottbenson – You spell ever fifth word incorrectly!
It is not “rose colard’ which sounds like a dyslexic vegetable, it is “rose colored.”
Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11! Iraq was never a threat to the US. Iraq never chemically attacked a mall in America or a school. We have homegrown American murderes who are more than capable of murdering our own children on regular basis in their schools. Don’t see much of that in the Middle East.
The massacre at Beslan has nothing to do with Iraq or the US decision to attack Iraq but it’s obviously a little nuggest that you want to appear knowledgable about.
And you might know that there plenty of armed services personnel that do NOT agree with your views including the head of the entire British Army – Gen Sir Richard Dannatt recently who recently demanded an early exit from Iraq as he warned that the presence of troops was making the situation worse. He also stated that: ‘Our presence exacerbates the security problem’ and hit out at what he said might have been “naïve” attempts to impose a “liberal democracy” on a post-Saddam Iraq.
He probably understands the Middle East a little better that you do.
Tell me! Since you understand the Middle East so well, we can safely assume that you speak Arabic or Farsi fluently do you?
Your comments are really obscene.
Because you don’t want to pay 20% more for a car we should slaughter 500,000+ innocent Iraqis? Great logic! You are just the kind of “patriotic” neighbor we all want.
How many more innocent lives are you willing to scarifice for $1 a gallon?
“The cause of freedom!”
“Died in battle” Are you kidding?
“Serving” your country does not need to involved BLINDLY believing what you are told.
“Protect your freedoms?” What has Iraq got to do with your “freedom(s)”
“98% of us voted the way we did”???? You might want to check on how many people voted … It ain’t anywhere near 98% and please let us know *** what exactly has 9/11 got to do with Iraq?***
Please don’t forget to remind us exactly what did Iraq have to do with 9/11?
Yours from planet earth.
There is a website at where you can see the interventions and exploitations by the US and UK Governments since 1945. You can see similar information at
Is it any wonder our actions abroad are now coming back to haunt the USA? And no! I believe a biological weapon will be used next time in the US, the US authorities that caused the twin towers to collapse will probably not allow that much phyiscal damage to be caused again… It is too expensive, we’ll have some kind of massive biological attack caused and released by the US authorities and inflicted on their own people which is why they have been over publicizing this avian flu shit… More people die of bee stings every year than the entire total of people who have allegedly died of avian flu
My new next door neighbors use their air conditioning about 18 hours per day. In comparison, I have used mine for about 18 hours in total during the past two years and that was when a guest of mine had a high fever – they are the only people in this building that use their AC because the climate here in Escazu is just about perfect.
But, if you think about this total lack of concern for the environment, this complete selfishness and wonder how many hundreds of millions of Americans & Europeans are just like them?
Is it any wonder that although the United States represents less than 5 % of the world’s population, it consumes approximately 30% of global resources?And the U.S. Department of Energy says that “the United States is the world’s largest single emitter of carbon dioxide, accounting for 23 percent of energy-related carbon emissions worldwide.”
Our present path of “interventions”, ridiculous consumption, fascination with ‘celebrities’ (most of whom have no real talent) and their sex lives, endless wars and destruction – it’s simply unsustainable! The whole capitalism “on steroids” system based on ever increasing growth must be dramatically modified for no other reason that we will not have enough “fuel” for that growth never mind the damage that this growth entails/
But we just keep racing faster and faster towards those steep cliffs of Armageddon as if we didn’t know that they were there.
And William Blums sums it up nicely at Many people call him a left wing liberal but ‘facts are facts’:
A Brief History of United States Interventions, 1945 to the Present. By William Blum
The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives, which can be summarized as follows:
1) making the world safe for American corporations;
2) enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of congress;
3) preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;
4) extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a “great power.”This in the name of fighting a supposed moral crusade against what cold warriors convinced themselves, and the American people, was the existence of an evil International Communist Conspiracy, which in fact never existed, evil or not.
The United States carried out extremely serious interventions into more than 70 nations in this period. Among these were the following:
China 1945-49: Intervened in a civil war, taking the side of Chiang Kai-shek against the communists, even though the latter had been a much closer ally of the United States in the world war. The U.S. used defeated Japanese soldiers to fight for its side. The communists forced Chiang to flee to Taiwan in 1949.Italy 1947-48: Using every trick in the book, the U.S. interfered in the elections to prevent the Communist Party from coming to power legally and fairly. This perversion of democracy was done in the name of “saving democracy” in Italy. The Communists lost. For the next few decades, the CIA, along with American corporations, continued to intervene in Italian elections, pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars and much psychological warfare to block the specter that was haunting Europe.
Greece 1947-49: Intervened in a civil war, taking the side of the neo-fascists against the Greek left which had fought the Nazis courageously. The neo-fascists won and instituted a highly brutal regime, for which the CIA created a new internal security agency, KYP. Before long, KYP was carrying out all the endearing practices of secret police everywhere, including systematic torture.
Philippines 1945-53: U.S. military fought against leftist forces (Huks) even while the Huks were still fighting against the Japanese invaders. After the war, the U.S. continued its fight against the Huks, defeating them, and then installing a series of puppets as president, culminating in the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
South Korea 1945-53: After World War II, the United States suppressed the popular progressive forces in favor of the conservatives who had collaborated with the Japanese. This led to a long era of corrupt, reactionary, and brutal governments.Albania 1949-53: U.S. and Britain tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the communist government and install a new one that would have been pro-Western and composed largely of monarchists and collaborators with Italian fascists and Nazis.
Germany 1950s: The CIA orchestrated a wide-ranging campaign of sabotage, terrorism, dirty tricks, and psychological warfare against East Germany. This was one of the factors which led to the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
Iran 1953: Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown in a joint U.S. and British operation. Mossadegh had been elected to his position by a large majority of parliament, but he had made the fateful mistake of spearheading the movement to nationalize a British-owned oil company, the sole oil company operating in Iran. The coup restored the Shah to absolute power and began a period of 25 years of repression and torture, with the oil industry being restored to foreign ownership, as follows: Britain and the U.S., each 40 percent, other nations 20 percent.
Guatemala 1953-1990s: A CIA-organized coup overthrew the democratically-elected and progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating 40 years of death-squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions, and unimaginable cruelty, totaling well over 100,000 victims — indisputably one of the most inhuman chapters of the 20th century. Arbenz had nationalized the U.S. firm, United Fruit Company, which had extremely close ties to the American power elite. As justification for the coup, Washington declared that Guatemala had been on the verge of a Soviet takeover, when in fact the Russians had so little interest in the country that it didn’t even maintain diplomatic relations. The real problem in the eyes of Washington, in addition to United Fruit, was the danger of Guatemala’s social democracy spreading to other countries in Latin America.
Middle East 1956-58: The Eisenhower Doctrine stated that the United States “is prepared to use armed forces to assist” any Middle East country “requesting assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism.” The English translation of this was that no one would be allowed to dominate, or have excessive influence over, the middle east and its oil fields except the United States, and that anyone who tried would be, by definition, “communist.” In keeping with this policy, the United States twice attempted to overthrow the Syrian government, staged several shows-of-force in the Mediterranean to intimidate movements opposed to U.S.-sported governments in Jordan and Lebanon, landed 14,000 troops in Lebanon, and conspired to overthrow or assassinate Nasser of Egypt and his troublesome middle-east nationalism.
Indonesia 1957-58: Sukarno, like Nasser, was the kind of Third World leader the United States could not abide by. He took neutralism in the cold war seriously, making trips to the Soviet Union and China (though to the White House as well). He nationalized many private holdings of the Dutch, the former colonial power. And he refused to crack down on the Indonesian Communist Party, which was walking the legal, peaceful road and making impressive gains electorally. Such policies could easily give other Third World leaders “wrong ideas.” Thus it was that the CIA began throwing money into the elections, plotted Sukarno’s assassination, tried to blackmail him with a phoney sex film, and joined forces with dissident military officers to wage a full-scale war against the government. Sukarno survived it all.
British Guiana/Guyana, 1953-64: For 11 years, two of the oldest democracies in the world, Great Britain and the United States, went to great lengths to prevent a democratically elected leader from occupying his office. Cheddi Jagan was another Third World leader who tried to remain neutral and independent. He was elected three times. Although a leftist — more so than Sukarno or Arbenz — his policies in office were not revolutionary. But he was still a marked man, for he represented Washington’s greatest fear: building a society that might be a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model. Using a wide variety of tactics — from general strikes and disinformation to terrorism and British legalisms, the U.S. and Britain finally forced Jagan out in 1964. John F. Kennedy had given a direct order for his ouster, as, presumably, had Eisenhower.
One of the better-off countries in the region under Jagan, Guyana, by the 1980s, was one of the poorest. Its principal export became people.
Vietnam, 1950-73: The slippery slope began with siding with the French, the former colonizers and collaborators with the Japanese, against Ho Chi Minh and his followers who had worked closely with the Allied war effort and admired all things American. Ho Chi Minh was, after all, some kind of communist. He had written numerous letters to President Truman and the State Department asking for America’s help in winning Vietnamese independence from the French and finding a peaceful solution for his country. All his entreaties were ignored. For he was some kind of communist. Ho Chi Minh modeled the new Vietnamese declaration of independence on the American, beginning it with “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with … ” But this would count for nothing in Washington. Ho Chi Minh was some kind of communist.Twenty-three years, and more than a million dead, later, the United States withdrew its military forces from Vietnam. Most people say that the U.S. lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core, and poisoning the earth and the gene pool for generations, Washington had in fact achieved its main purpose: preventing what might have been the rise of a good development option for Asia. Ho Chi Minh was, after all, some kind of communist.
Cambodia 1955-73: Prince Sihanouk, yet another leader who did not fancy being an American client. After many years of hostility towards his regime, including assassination plots and the infamous Nixon/Kissinger secret “carpet bombings” of 1969-70, Washington finally overthrew Sihanouk in a coup in 1970. This was all that was needed to impel Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge forces to enter the fray. Five years later, they took power. But five years of American bombing had caused Cambodia’s traditional economy to vanish. The old Cambodia had been destroyed forever.
Incredibly, the Khmer Rouge were to inflict even greater misery upon this unhappy land. To add to the irony, the United States supported Pol Pot, militarily and diplomatically, after their subsequent defeat by the Vietnamese.
The Congo/Zaire 1960-65: In June 1960, Patrice Lumumba became the Congo’s first prime minister after independence from Belgium. But Belgium retained its vast mineral wealth in Katanga province, prominent Eisenhower administration officials had financial ties to the same wealth, and Lumumba, at Independence Day ceremonies before a host of foreign dignitaries, called for the nation’s economic as well as its political liberation, and recounted a list of injustices against the natives by the white owners of the country. The poor man was obviously a “communist.” The poor man was obviously doomed.
Eleven days later, Katanga province seceded, in September Lumumba was dismissed by the president at the instigation of the United States, and in January 1961 he was assassinated at the express request of Dwight Eisenhower. There followed several years of civil conflict and chaos and the rise to power of Mobutu Sese Seko, a man not a stranger to the CIA. Mobutu went on to rule the country for more than 30 years, with a level of corruption and cruelty that shocked even his CIA handlers. The Zairian people lived in abject poverty despite the plentiful natural wealth, while Mobutu became a multibillionaire.Brazil 1961-64: President Joao Goulart was guilty of the usual crimes: He took an independent stand in foreign policy, resuming relations with socialist countries and opposing sanctions against Cuba; his administration passed a law limiting the amount of profits multinationals could transmit outside the country; a subsidiary of ITT was nationalized; he promoted economic and social reforms. And Attorney-General Robert Kennedy was uneasy about Goulart allowing “communists” to hold positions in government agencies. Yet the man was no radical. He was a millionaire land-owner and a Catholic who wore a medal of the Virgin around his neck. That, however, was not enough to save him. In 1964, he was overthrown in a military coup which had deep, covert American involvement. The official Washington line was … yes, it’s unfortunate that democracy has been overthrown in Brazil … but, still, the country has been saved from communism.
For the next 15 years, all the features of military dictatorship which Latin America has come to know and love were instituted: Congress was shut down, political opposition was reduced to virtual extinction, habeas corpus for “political crimes” was suspended, criticism of the president was forbidden by law, labor unions were taken over by government interveners, mounting protests were met by police and military firing into crowds, peasants’ homes were burned down, priests were brutalized … disappearances, death squads, a remarkable degree and depravity of torture … the government had a name for its program: the “moral rehabilitation” of Brazil.
Washington was very pleased. Brazil broke relations with Cuba and became one of the United States’ most reliable allies in Latin America.Dominican Republic, 1963-66: In February 1963, Juan Bosch took office as the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic since 1924. Here at last was John F. Kennedy’s liberal anti-communist, to counter the charge that the U.S. supported only military dictatorships. Bosch’s government was to be the long sought “showcase of democracy” that would put the lie to Fidel Castro. He was given the grand treatment in Washington shortly before he took office.
Bosch was true to his beliefs. He called for land reform; low-rent housing; modest nationalization of business; and foreign investment provided it was not excessively exploitative of the country; and other policies making up the program of any liberal Third World leader serious about social change. He was likewise serious about the thing called civil liberties: Communists, or those labeled as such, were not to be persecuted unless they actually violated the law.
A number of American officials and congressmen expressed their discomfort with Bosch’s plans, as well as his stance of independence from the United States. Land reform and nationalization are always touchy issues in Washington, the stuff that “creeping socialism” is made of. In several quarters of the U.S. press Bosch was red-baited.
In September, the military boots marched. Bosch was out. The United States, which could discourage a military coup in Latin America with a frown, did nothing.Nineteen months later, a revolt broke out which promised to put the exiled Bosch back into power. The United States sent 23,000 troops to help crush it.
Cuba 1959 to present: Fidel Castro came to power at the beginning of 1959. A U.S. National Security Council meeting of 10 March 1959 included on its agenda the feasibility of bringing “another government to power in Cuba.” There followed 40 years of terrorist attacks, bombings, full-scale military invasion, sanctions, embargos, isolation, assassinations … Cuba had carried out The Unforgivable Revolution, a very serious threat of setting a “good example” in Latin America.The saddest part of this is that the world will never know what kind of society Cuba could have produced if left alone, if not constantly under the gun and the threat of invasion, if allowed to relax its control at home. The idealism, the vision, the talent, the internationalism were all there. But we’ll never know. And that of course was the idea.
Indonesia 1965: A complex series of events, involving a supposed coup attempt, a counter-coup, and perhaps a counter-counter-coup, with American fingerprints apparent at various points, resulted in the ouster from power of Sukarno and his replacement by a military coup led by General Suharto. The massacre that began immediately — of communists, communists sympathizers, suspected communists, suspected communist sympathizers, and none of the above — was called by the New York Times “one of the most savage mass slayings of modern political history.” The estimates of the number killed in the course of a few years begin at half a million and go above a million.
It was later learned that the U.S. embassy had compiled lists of “communist” operatives, from top echelons down to village cadres, as many as 5,000 names, and turned them over to the army, which then hunted those persons down and killed them. The Americans would then check off the names of those who had been killed or captured. “It really was a big help to the army. They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands,” said one U.S. diplomat. “But that’s not all bad. There’s a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.”
Chile, 1964-73: Salvador Allende was the worst possible scenario for a Washington imperialist. He could imagine only one thing worse than a Marxist in power — an elected Marxist in power, who honored the constitution, and became increasingly popular. This shook the very foundation stones upon which the anti-communist tower was built: the doctrine, painstakingly cultivated for decades, that “communists” can take power only through force and deception, that they can retain that power only through terrorizing and brainwashing the population.
After sabotaging Allende’s electoral endeavor in 1964, and failing to do so in 1970, despite their best efforts, the CIA and the rest of the American foreign policy machine left no stone unturned in their attempt to destabilize the Allende government over the next three years, paying particular attention to building up military hostility. Finally, in September 1973, the military overthrew the government, Allende dying in the process.Thus it was that they closed the country to the outside world for a week, while the tanks rolled and the soldiers broke down doors; the stadiums rang with the sounds of execution and the bodies piled up along the streets and floated in the river; the torture centers opened for business; the subversive books were thrown to the bonfires; soldiers slit the trouser legs of women, shouting that “In Chile women wear dresses!”; the poor returned to their natural state; and the men of the world in Washington and in the halls of international finance opened up their check-books. In the end, more than 3,000 had been executed, thousands more tortured or disappeared.
Greece 1964-74: The military coup took place in April 1967, just two days before the campaign for national elections was to begin, elections which appeared certain to bring the veteran liberal leader George Papandreou back as prime minister. Papandreou had been elected in February 1964 with the only outright majority in the history of modern Greek elections. The successful machinations to unseat him had begun immediately, a joint effort of the Royal Court, the Greek military, and the American military and CIA stationed in Greece. The 1967 coup was followed immediately by the traditional martial law, censorship, arrests, beatings, torture, and killings, the victims totaling some 8,000 in the first month. This was accompanied by the equally traditional declaration that this was all being done to save the nation from a “communist takeover.” Corrupting and subversive influences in Greek life were to be removed. Among these were miniskirts, long hair, and foreign newspapers; church attendance for the young would be compulsory.It was torture, however, which most indelibly marked the seven-year Greek nightmare. James Becket, an American attorney sent to Greece by Amnesty International, wrote in December 1969 that “a conservative estimate would place at not less than two thousand” the number of people tortured, usually in the most gruesome of ways, often with equipment supplied by the United States.
Becket reported the following:
Hundreds of prisoners have listened to the little speech given by Inspector Basil Lambrou, who sits behind his desk which displays the red, white, and blue clasped-hand symbol of American aid. He tries to show the prisoner the absolute futility of resistance: “You make yourself ridiculous by thinking you can do anything. The world is divided in two. There are the communists on that side and on this side the free world. The Russians and the Americans, no one else. What are we? Americans. Behind me there is the government, behind the government is NATO, behind NATO is the U.S. You can’t fight us, we are Americans.”
George Papandreou was not any kind of radical. He was a liberal anti-communist type. But his son Andreas, the heir-apparent, while only a little to the left of his father had not disguised his wish to take Greece out of the cold war, and had questioned remaining in NATO, or at least as a satellite of the United States.
East Timor, 1975 to present: In December 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor, which lies at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, and which had proclaimed its independence after Portugal had relinquished control of it. The invasion was launched the day after U.S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had left Indonesia after giving Suharto permission to use American arms, which, under U.S. law, could not be used for aggression. Indonesia was Washington’s most valuable tool in Southeast Asia.
Amnesty International estimated that by 1989, Indonesian troops, with the aim of forcibly annexing East Timor, had killed 200,000 people out of a population of between 600,000 and 700,000. The United States consistently supported Indonesia’s claim to East Timor (unlike the UN and the EU), and downplayed the slaughter to a remarkable degree, at the same time supplying Indonesia with all the military hardware and training it needed to carry out the job.
Nicaragua 1978-89: When the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1978, it was clear to Washington that they might well be that long-dreaded beast — “another Cuba.” Under President Carter, attempts to sabotage the revolution took diplomatic and economic forms. Under Reagan, violence was the method of choice. For eight terribly long years, the people of Nicaragua were under attack by Washington’s proxy army, the Contras, formed from Somoza’s vicious National Guardsmen and other supporters of the dictator. It was all-out war, aiming to destroy the progressive social and economic programs of the government, burning down schools and medical clinics, raping, torturing, mining harbors, bombing and strafing. These were Ronald Reagan’s “freedom fighters.” There would be no revolution in Nicaragua.
Grenada 1979-84: What would drive the most powerful nation in the world to invade a country of 110 thousand? Maurice Bishop and his followers had taken power in a 1979 coup, and though their actual policies were not as revolutionary as Castro’s, Washington was again driven by its fear of “another Cuba,” particularly when public appearances by the Grenadian leaders in other countries of the region met with great enthusiasm.
U.S. destabilization tactics against the Bishop government began soon after the coup and continued until 1983, featuring numerous acts of disinformation and dirty tricks. The American invasion in October 1983 met minimal resistance, although the U.S. suffered 135 killed or wounded; there were also some 400 Grenadian casualties, and 84 Cubans, mainly construction workers. What conceivable human purpose these people died for has not been revealed.
At the end of 1984, a questionable election was held which was won by a man supported by the Reagan administration. One year later, the human rights organization, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, reported that Grenada’s new U.S.-trained police force and counter-insurgency forces had acquired a reputation for brutality, arbitrary arrest, and abuse of authority, and were eroding civil rights.In April 1989, the government issued a list of more than 80 books which were prohibited from being imported. Four months later, the prime minister suspended parliament to forestall a threatened no-confidence vote resulting from what his critics called “an increasingly authoritarian style.”
Libya 1981-89: Libya refused to be a proper Middle East client state of Washington. Its leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, was uppity. He would have to be punished. U.S. planes shot down two Libyan planes in what Libya regarded as its air space. The U.S. also dropped bombs on the country, killing at least 40 people, including Qaddafi’s daughter. There were other attempts to assassinate the man, operations to overthrow him, a major disinformation campaign, economic sanctions, and blaming Libya for being behind the Pan Am 103 bombing without any good evidence.
Panama, 1989: Washington’s mad bombers strike again. December 1989, a large tenement barrio in Panama City wiped out, 15,000 people left homeless. Counting several days of ground fighting against Panamanian forces, 500-something dead was the official body count, what the U.S. and the new U.S.-installed Panamanian government admitted to; other sources, with no less evidence, insisted that thousands had died; 3,000-something wounded. Twenty-three Americans dead, 324 wounded.
Question from reporter: “Was it really worth it to send people to their death for this? To get Noriega?”George Bush: “Every human life is precious, and yet I have to answer, yes, it has been worth it.”
Manuel Noriega had been an American ally and informant for years until he outlived his usefulness. But getting him was not the only motive for the attack. Bush wanted to send a clear message to the people of Nicaragua, who had an election scheduled in two months, that this might be their fate if they reelected the Sandinistas. Bush also wanted to flex some military muscle to illustrate to Congress the need for a large combat-ready force even after the very recent dissolution of the “Soviet threat.” The official explanation for the American ouster was Noriega’s drug trafficking, which Washington had known about for years and had not been at all bothered by.
Iraq 1990s: Relentless bombing for more than 40 days and nights, against one of the most advanced nations in the Middle East, devastating its ancient and modern capital city; 177 million pounds of bombs falling on the people of Iraq, the most concentrated aerial onslaught in the history of the world; depleted uranium weapons incinerating people, causing cancer; blasting chemical and biological weapon storages and oil facilities; poisoning the atmosphere to a degree perhaps never matched anywhere; burying soldiers alive, deliberately; the infrastructure destroyed, with a terrible effect on health; sanctions continued to this day multiplying the health problems; perhaps a million children dead by now from all of these things, even more adults.
Iraq was the strongest military power amongst the Arab states. This may have been their crime. Noam Chomsky has written: It’s been a leading, driving doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the 1940s that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region will be effectively dominated by the United States and its clients, and, crucially, that no independent, indigenous force will be permitted to have a substantial influence on the administration of oil production and price.
Afghanistan 1979-92: Everyone knows of the unbelievable repression of women in Afghanistan, carried out by Islamic fundamentalists, even before the Taliban. But how many people know that during the late 1970s and most of the 1980s, Afghanistan had a government committed to bringing the incredibly backward nation into the 20th century, including giving women equal rights? What happened, however, is that the United States poured billions of dollars into waging a terrible war against this government, simply because it was supported by the Soviet Union. Prior to this, CIA operations had knowingly increased the probability of a Soviet intervention, which is what occurred. In the end, the United States won, and the women, and the rest of Afghanistan, lost. More than a million dead, three million disabled, five million refugees, in total about half the population.
El Salvador, 1980-92: Salvador’s dissidents tried to work within the system. But with U.S. support, the government made that impossible, using repeated electoral fraud and murdering hundreds of protestors and strikers. In 1980, the dissidents took to the gun, and civil war.
Officially, the U.S. military presence in El Salvador was limited to an advisory capacity. In actuality, military and CIA personnel played a more active role on a continuous basis. About 20 Americans were killed or wounded in helicopter and plane crashes while flying reconnaissance or other missions over combat areas, and considerable evidence surfaced of a U.S. role in the ground fighting as well. The war came to an official end in 1992; 75,000 civilian deaths and the U.S. Treasury depleted by six billion dollars. Meaningful social change has been largely thwarted. A handful of the wealthy still own the country, the poor remain as ever, and dissidents still have to fear right-wing death squads.Haiti, 1987-94: The U.S. supported the Duvalier family dictatorship for 30 years, then opposed the reformist priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Meanwhile, the CIA was working intimately with death squads, torturers and drug traffickers. With this as background, the Clinton White House found itself in the awkward position of having to pretend — because of all their rhetoric about “democracy” — that they supported Aristide’s return to power in Haiti after he had been ousted in a 1991 military coup. After delaying his return for more than two years, Washington finally had its military restore Aristide to office
Yup! I spent time in the Middle East too and what I find funny is that while we are best friends with Saudi Arabia which is NOT a democracy, where all that s*** goes on and Pakistan which is a Muslim military dicatorship and NOT part of the NPT (neither is the other majopr nuclear power in the area – India) that A: Pakistan developed nuclear weapons and B: Sold much of their nuclear technology to North Korea so why didn’t we bring Pakistan “freedom and democracy” like we are so good at doing in Iran?
We do nothing except talk about dropping nuclear bnombs on Iran who has never done anything to us (like Iraq) although we have screwed with Iran on more than a few occasions.
Is it any wonder North Korea wanted their own nuclear weapons? Is anyone really surprised that with the US shouting about using nuclear weapons that we have just started what may be the very last arms race this tiny planet will see?
Incidentally North Korea has said all along that they would not develop nuclear weapons if the US promsied not to attack them and live up to the treaty that they signed years ago but no, the US has literally forced them into a corner.
And Iran is enriching uranium which they are fully entitled to do as part of the NPT which they are a member of and we want to bomb the crap out of them?
Meantime little ole Izrael has HUNDREDS of nuclear weapons, they are not members of the NPT and nobody says nothing about their threats to bomb.
All I can see is thast if we attack Iran, my friends with their boots on the ground in Iraq who are already more exhausted than you could possible imagine and Israel will suffer the most, the retaliation against Israel will be brutal.
And who in their right mind is going to go into Iran after a nuclear attack to get the oil in Iran if it’s one big radiation filled wasteland?
One screwed up world we live in
The advice in the article seemed very practical to me
1. You fence off the property
2. You post large signs clearly identifying who the legal owner is and where someone can contact you or maybe your attorney
3. You hire someone locally – legally with written contracts – to watch over and masintain the property.
4. Maybe you even ask someone else to watch over the person that’s supposed to be watching the property.I am assuming that if you buy title insurance that this would help protect you as well no?
And couldn’t you set up a simple legal agreement with your attorney to make sure that no problems crop up?
Or, just don’t buy the property!
Brad
Dunno how unique his project is, my wife told me that he’s just copying the “Gardens” project of another Canadian that he knows in Santa Ana which is also on this site https://www.welovecostarica.com/public/589.cfm
If this is the style that you are looking for, maybe you should look into those Ram Jack homes that we’ve read about in Costa Rica.
I can not find the website but met the guy at the recent home exposition thing in San Jose. Amazing concept where you build your home on a massive pillar that can be installed/inserted on practically an terrain.
Have you looked into those?
Las Palmas & CostaRicaLandSales… Is this another one of the Paragon’s websites and projects? Or a Paragon wannabe? It smells the same no?
Their site says “We, without a doubt, are the Rolls Royce of real estate companies in Costa Rica”
Which is kind of strange since I’ve been in real esatte sales and deevelopment in Costa Rica for over fifteen years and have NEVER heard of them.
Their site says “We are a team of professionals” but they do not include the name of one person that works for their company? Why is that?
They are happy to mention the name of a luxurious automobile but fail to mention anybody’s name that works for the company?
Their site says “we list only the finest in commercial, residential, beachfront and islands of Costa Rica.” Except there’s not a single property listed on their site
Rolls Royce? Methinks not? More like a stolen, trashed and burnt out Hyundai Excel
