American Imperialism

Then conquer we must, when our cause is just
And this be our moto: ‘In God is our trust’
American National Anthem
Verse 4, lines 5-6

In Part Two of Armageddon I explained how the US, mainly via the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, has manipulated the global economy to shift wealth from low and middle-income countries to the rich. In this article I look at direct US interventions in the governance of developing countries, and the effects of these interventions.

The US has a long and nefarious history of interfering in the governance of independent countries. This started with the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii in 1893. Other coup d’états of note include Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, and Chile in 1973.1

In his 2006 book Overthrow, Stephen Kinzer describes the three stage process corporations and the US government follows when overthrowing a foreign government.

In stage one a US corporation faces a threat to its revenue due to government intervention, such as an increase in taxes, the passing of labour or environmental laws, or the nationalization of assets.2

In stage two the US government deems the country in question to be anti-American, repressive and dictatorial, and possibly the tool of some foreign power that wants to undermine the US. The villain was usually Russia during the cold war, when the US attempted regime change on 70 occasions. After the cold war ended countries were labelled a breeding ground for terrorism.1

In stage three the American public are told that intervention is a moral obligation to protect the American way of life and liberate the people from an oppressive regime.

The Iranian coup, the first orchestrated by the CIA, was particularly noteworthy since Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1951, and the man who organized the coup was Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt.

The event that led to the coup was the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry in 1951, which was controlled by Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Mossadegh was not happy with the money Iran was getting from the sale of its oil, which was only 16% of the profits. Not convinced Iran was even getting this he tried to audit the company. The company refused to allow an audit, so Mossadegh nationalized it.3

The UK government tried to pressure Iran into reversing the nationalization by placing an embargo on Iranian oil, but Mossadegh did not relent, so they asked the US to organize a coup. Mossadegh was ousted and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi installed as Shah. During the coup the CIA enlisted the help of some of Iran’s most notorious criminals to orchestrate civil unrest against the government, and several hundred people were killed in the rioting.4

The coup was successful but the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company did not regain control of Iran’s oil. British Petroleum (the new company formed from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) was allocated 40% of the National Iranian Oil Company that was formed after the coup. US companies were also allocated 40% and European companies 20%. The profits were shared equally between the consortium and Iran, so Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Oil Company would have been better off if they had renegotiated their contract with Mossadegh.3

After the Iran coup came Guatemala, a classic case of US government and corporate collusion, with a bit of nepotism thrown in to the mix. Guatemala’s history had been dominated by violent repression from the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century until the Guatemalan revolution in 1944. This brought an end to the military dictatorship of Jorge Ubico, and Juan Jose Arevalo was elected president in 1945.

Arevalo tried to address the endemic poverty in Guatemala by enacting land reforms. At the time 2.2% of Guatemalans owned more than 70% of the land, most of which was not being used, and only 10% of the land was available for the use of the poorest 90% of the population. When Jacobo Arbenz succeeded Arevalo as president in 1950 he continued with the land reforms, passing the Agrarian Reform Law. This allowed the government to seize and redistribute any uncultivated land on estates over 672 acres.5

The US company United Fruit owned 550,000 acres in Guatemala, including 20% of the country’s arable land, of which they cultivated just 15%. In 1953 the Guatemalan government seized 234,000 acres from United Fruit and offered them $1.185 million in compensation, the value of the land the company had declared for taxation purposes. United Fruit rejected this as inadequate and demanded $19 million, which they claimed to be the true value of the land.6

United Fruit had many powerful friends in the US, including Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother Allan, who had both previously worked at Sullivan and Cromwell, the law firm that represented United Fruit. Allen Dulles, who had also served on United Fruit’s board of trustees, was now head of the CIA, and Ed Whitman, United Fruit’s public relations officer, was married to Ann Whitman, President Eisenhower’s private secretary. 

In order to protect United Fruit’s holdings President Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles colluded to bring down the government of Jacobo Arbenz, claiming that Guatemala had turned communist.

Code-named Operation PBSuccess, the first stage of the campaign was to demonize the Guatemalan government, and portray United Fruit as a staunch supporter of America. Ed Whitman was commissioned to produce a film titled ‘Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas’ that pictured United Fruit fighting in the trenches of the Cold War.7

The second step was to manufacture a coup. A clandestine radio station was set up in Florida to broadcast false reports, and all other radio stations in the country were jammed. Attacks were orchestrated to make it appear that an uprising was underway, including hiring American pilots to bomb Guatemala City. A rebel militia of Guatemalan exiles, American soldiers of fortune, and Central American mercenaries, was then sent in to oust Arbenz. From a military perspective the coup was poorly organized, but the propaganda was so effective that the Guatemalan army did not put up much of a fight, and the operation was successful.7

Carlos Castillo Armas was appointed interim President on July 7, 1954, and elections were held in October. Political parties were barred from participation, leaving Armas as the only candidate; he won the election with 99% of the vote. Armas reversed Arbenz’s social reforms and ruled Guatemala until July 26, 1957, when he was assassinated by a member of his personal guard. Armas was the first of a series of military dictators that pushed Guatemala into a 36 year civil war in which an estimated 200,000 people were killed.7

After a hiatus while the US was preoccupied with the wars in Korea and Vietnam, Chile was the next country to succumb to US corporate imperialism. According to a Senate report by the Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, the CIA first tried to subvert Chile’s 1970 Presidential election, and then tried to block Salvador Allende’s inauguration after he won the election despite their interference. Allende was leader of the Socialist Party of Chile, and the first Marxist to be elected President in Latin America.8

This was not the first time the US had interfered in Chile’s elections. They spent $2.6 million supporting Eduardo Frei’s campaign in the 1964 Presidential election, and another $3 million on anti-Allende propaganda. Frei was leader of Chile’s Christian Democratic Party, which combined socialism with free-market capitalism. Frei’s six year term brought about extensive changes that improved the lives of the Chilean people, but he could not run in the 1970 election because serving consecutive terms as President are prohibited under Chile’s constitution.9

During the first year of Allende’s presidency Chile achieved remarkable economic results. Industry grew by 12%, and GDP by 8.6%. Unemployment fell to 3.8%, while inflation fell from 35% to 22%. The second year of Allende’s presidency was not so good though. In 1972 inflation hit 140%, GDP contracted by 5.6%, and the government’s fiscal deficit soared while foreign reserves declined.10

When Allende took office he nationalized much of Chile’s industry, a process that started under Frei. This included copper mining companies and ITT (the International Telephone and Telegraph Company, which owned 70% of Chile’s telephone industry). The companies responded by forming the ad-hoc Committee on Chile. According to a memorandum from its first meeting its objective was to work with the US officials in Washington who were ‘handling the Chile problem.’8-10

How much of Chile’s economic collapse was due to Allende’s fiscal policies, and how much due to the USA’s economic assault, is debatable. Although Allende’s government was under assault from the US, he also received significant financial and material support from the USSR. The support from the USSR was really just a Band-Aid though, since they could not provide the parts needed for American made machinery.10

The US had stopped buying Chilean copper, and blocked the supply of parts for essential equipment, at the start of Allende’s administration. The effect of this was that at one stage 20% of taxis and 30% of buses in Chile were out of commission. US officials also directed the Inter-American Development Bank to block loans to Chile, and downgraded Chile’s credit rating from B to D, meaning that if the Chilean government did get a loan the interest payments would be higher. Loans for developing Chile’s national airline and livestock industry were cancelled, and the US blocked Chile’s attempts at securing a World Bank loan.11

Meanwhile, the CIA funnelled millions of dollars to political parties opposed to the Allende government, while millions more were given to business, labour, civic, and paramilitary organizations to fund protests and strikes. The US also tried to promote discontent with Allende among the military to incite a coup. Their efforts were initially in vain, because General Rene Schneider, commander of the Chilean army, was philosophically opposed to military interference in politics, and refused to lead a coup.11, 12

General Schneider was killed in a kidnapping attempt orchestrated by the CIA, but his replacement, General Carlos Prats, also refused to lead a coup. General Prats was forced to resign and his replacement, General Augusto Pinochet, proved to be the man for the job.13

On September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet seized power in a coup. Allende made his last stand at the Presidential Palace, where he committed suicide rather than be arrested.14

After Pinochet came to power he abolished Chile’s largest labour union; banned the political parties that had supported Allende; declared congress in indefinite recess; dismissed hundreds of university professors; removed all mayors and city councillors from office; and passed a new legal code prohibiting the appeal of military court decisions.14, 15

Pinochet then implemented an economic plan devised by Milton Friedman, making Chile the first country to adopt neoliberalism. When the promised economic miracle failed to manifest Friedman paid a visit to Pinochet in person, but he could not stop the rot.15

During the first year of Pinochet’s rule inflation in Chile reached 375%, the highest in the world at the time, and from September 1973 to October 1975 the cost of living in Chile rose by over 3,000%. This coincided with a 15% contraction in the economy, a phenomenon known as stagflation, which is far more damaging than inflation with economic growth. This occurred despite Pinochet receiving foreign loans of $322.8 million in the year following the coup.15

Chile’s GDP fell by 13.7% during the first year of the 1982-85 global economic downturn, with unemployment averaging 26%. The effects of the slump were pervasive, and by 1989 wages had fallen by 8%, family allowances by 28%, and spending on education, health care and housing by an average of 20%. Military spending, however, increased by 120%.15

Despite this Chile’s free market reforms were hailed as a miracle in 1988, based on the claim that the economy was booming (although it was just rebounding from the slump) and that the richest 10% of the population were earning nearly double what they were before Pinochet’s coup.15

This claim ignored the fact that 45% of the population were living below the poverty line at the time and Chile was 116 out of 123 in the UN’s ranking of wealth inequality. It also ignored the fact that foreign debt had grown substantially under Pinochet, rising by 300% from 1974 to 1988. Pinochet’s response to the economic woes was to reverse many of the free market reforms, and by 1982 his government controlled more of the economy than had Allende’s.15

Pinochet’s rule was ended by a plebiscite in 1989, and by 2006 Chile’s poverty rate had dropped below 30%, but it was still far higher than before the coup. Unemployment had fallen to 7%, which was good, but not as good as the 3.5% low it reached in 1972 under Allende’s government.14, 15

Although Chile eventually experienced economic growth it mainly benefited the rich, with the top 20% of earners receiving 85% of the increase in income. Today Chile has one of the strongest economies in Latin America, but for many Chileans the economic ‘miracle’ was a nightmare, with more than 3,000 people killed or ‘disappeared’, 30,000 imprisoned, and 200,000 forced into exile under Pinochet’s rule.15, 16

If there was an economic miracle it was US companies that received it.

An investigation by the US Senate into the intervention found that the US government had spent $8 million on campaigns aimed at overthrowing Allende. This was a good deal for the US companies that lost out when they were nationalized. Anaconda Copper and Kennecott Copper had not been granted compensation due to their history of excessive profit margins since Allende had decreed profits above 12% to be ‘unwarranted’, and this was deducted from the value of the company when compensation was calculated.8

Under Pinochet’s government Anaconda Copper received $253 million, and Kennecott Copper $66.9 million. The International Telephone and Telegraph Company, which had received nothing because of its role in attempting to subvert the government of Chile, received $125.2 million. This is a $445.1 million return on an $8 million investment, made all the sweeter because the $8 million was paid by American taxpayers, not the companies that reaped the rewards.8, 15

Chile’s experience was typical of the region, where the US has routinely opposed socialist governments and installed and supported repressive right-wing dictators. And when I say repressive, I mean murderous.

On September 21, 1976, US born DINA agent Michael Townley (DINA is Chile’s national security service) assassinated Allende’s former defence and foreign minister Orlando Letelier and his American assistant, Ronni Moffitt, by blowing up their car while they were driving in Washington DC (Townley previously killed General Prats and he and his wife with a car bomb in Buenos Aires in 1974). Pinochet, who’d had Letelier imprisoned and tortured after the coup, ordered the killings as part of Operation Condor.16, 17

Operation Condor was a campaign of repression initiated in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. The US participated in a supervisory capacity, and Peru and Ecuador joined later. The program used assassination and torture to control active or potential opposition movements, and to eradicate socialist elements. The targets were officially armed groups but included political opponents, trade-unionists, activists, their families, and many others (as reported by the Valech Commission).17

On December 22, 1992, Jose Fernandez, a Paraguayan judge, found files on Operation Condor in a police station in a suburb of Paraguay’s capital, Asuncion. Known as the ‘terror archives’, the files detailed the fates of some of the people targeted in Operation Condor. The archives consisted of 60,000 documents weighing four tonnes that listed 50,000 persons killed, 30,000 ‘disappeared’ and 400,000 incarcerated.17

The Latin American nations whose sovereignty the US has interfered with includes Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The question we should ask is why do they do it? And who stands to gain from these interventions? The people the US government is supposed to represent or the companies that financed their election campaigns?1

These interventions may have made a few rich Americans richer, but they have also made America a lot of enemies. Because the interventions in these countries has impoverished many people it has inflamed the drug importation and refugee problems in the US. It is hard, therefore, to claim that they have been in the best interest of the majority of Americans.

While regime change has caused a multitude of problems for the USA’s southern neighbours, the effect of regime change on Islamic nations has arguably been even worse. The overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran and the instillation of a puppet regime amenable to the West led to a hard-line Islamic state that has controlled Iran for nearly 50 years. And US support of the Taliban in Afghanistan against Russia, which was followed by a decade of near constant civil war, and then a 20 year war between the US and the Taliban, has meant most Afghanis have lived the majority of their life subjected to a state of war.

The 2003 Iraq war showed a disturbing development in US warfare. When I watched the invasion on the news, I was surprised to see them bombing Iraq’s essential infrastructure, including power stations. The scale of the destruction was shocking, as demonstrated by the number of bombs they used.

During the first war against Iraq around 300 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched over the course of five weeks, and the war was effectively over. The second gulf war saw more than this used in a single day, and from March 20 to May 2 the US launched 20,000 cruise missiles and dropped 30,000 regular bombs in Iraq.18

I thought the purpose of the invasion was to liberate the Iraqi people from a despotic dictator who had been stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. If so, why did the US target essential facilities rather than confine their attacks to military targets? Could it be that they destroyed these buildings in the expectation that US companies would profit by rebuilding them during the post-war reconstruction?

During the 2007 World Economic Forum in Switzerland, economists noted that a change in global spending had manifest during the second war in Iraq. Prior to this conflict the general rule was that, during a war, markets not directly benefiting from the war were depressed (known as the guns to caviar index). A typical example of this is that during a war the sales of fighter jets go up and the sales of luxury jets go down, and vice versa during a time of relative peace. This trend changed during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when sales of both fighter and luxury jets boomed, indicating that war was good for business in general, not just for the industrial-military complex.19

George W. Bush compared the reconstruction plan for Iraq with the Marshal Plan, the reconstruction plan for Europe after World War II. They do have a few similarities, such as the scope of the project ($73 billion was allocated to rebuild Iraq) but there is a key difference between the two.20

While the Marshal Plan’s aim was to develop the industries of the war-torn countries by ensuring they undertook as much of the reconstruction as possible, Bush’s plan excluded Iraqi industry from participation. This was done despite the fact that Stuart Bowen, the US Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction, found that in the few cases where contracts were awarded to Iraqi firms ‘it was more efficient and cheaper. And it has energized the economy because it puts the Iraqis to work.’21

The reason for developing the industrial base of Europe, and particularly that of Germany, after World War II, was to prevent a repeat of what happened after World War I. The economic conditions imposed on Germany after the war crippled the country, and created the conditions that led to the rise of fascism, which in turn led to World War II.

The US would have known about this aspect of the Marshal Plan, and their failure to apply this principle in Iraq is a damning indictment on their motivation for the invasion. It was clearly more about gaining access to Iraq’s oil than freeing an oppressed people from a despotic dictator.

It took four years for American corporations to get their hands on Iraq’s oil, but it was worth the wait. When the oil law was finally passed it placed no limits on a company’s profit margin; made no requirements for foreign companies to affiliate with Iraqi companies; and excluded the Iraqi government from contract negotiations.22

The policy of excluding Iraqis in the recovery work was, in some cases, mind-bogglingly stupid. 500,000 state employees were sacked, including doctors and nurses who were needed to treat Iraq’s casualties, and military personnel who could have helped keep the peace.23

The idiocy of this was summed up by Marine Colonel Thomas Hammes, who said, ‘now you have a couple of hundred thousand people who are armed—because they took their weapons home with them—who know how to use their weapons, who have no future, and who have a reason to be angry at you.’23

The man tasked with implementing free market policies in Iraq was Paul Bremer. One of the first things Bremer did in Iraq was to cancel the elections already scheduled and annul those that had already taken place. He defended this by saying ‘I’m not opposed to [democracy], but I want to do it in a way that takes care of our concerns.’ Taking care of US concerns meant ensuring those who were elected to government positions would impose neoliberal economic policies on a population that had shown it did not want them in the elections that had already taken place.24

The cancellation and annulment of democratic elections, the exclusion of Iraqis from the recovery process, and the privatization of hundreds of public companies, left the Iraqis jobless, facing ever-increasing prices for food and basic goods, and royally pissed off. They then had to watch while foreign workers moved in and took their jobs, and foreign companies imported materials such as concrete and pre-fabricated buildings that could have been made in Iraq at a fraction of the cost.

Already desperate and angry, it then emerged that the Iraqis could not legally challenge foreign corporations even if they committed fraud, since the Bush Administration had given foreign companies indemnity against Iraqi laws.25

The only way the Iraqis could stop their reconstruction money from being stolen or squandered was to try and stop the reconstruction from going ahead. Unfortunately the attacks on the construction sites only led to increased security, adding to the cost of the already over-priced construction, and destroyed much of the work that did take place, so the money has still been spent but the Iraqis have little to show for it.

In an attempt to kerb the attacks coalition forces imprisoned 61,500 Iraqis during the first three and a half years of the occupation. Many of the detainees were subjected to torture, and US military officials have since admitted that between 70 and 90 percent were wrongfully arrested.26

The question we must ask now is was the invasion a success? Saddam Hussein was overthrown, and US corporations have made billions of dollars, but Iraq is in a desperate state, and Iraqis have more reason to hate the West than they did before the invasion. The answer, then, is yes if the purpose was for US corporations to make a lot of money, but if the goal was to reduce the threat of terrorism stemming from Iraq it was an abject failure. The reality is that terrorist attacks worldwide increased sevenfold after four years of the war.27

It was not just US corporations that made huge profits from the invasion of Iraq—many US politicians also profiteered from the war. US public officials are normally required to divest themselves of any holdings they could benefit from by the decisions they might make while in office. Despite pressure from the media, Dick Cheney refused to sell all his shares in Halliburton, and kept 189,000 shares in the company where he was CEO from 1995 until he left (with a $20 million severance package) to become Vice President in 2001.28

Halliburton, a major oil services company that traded with Iraq before the war, reaped immense profits from the war in Iraq, which was the most profitable event in the company’s history. During the first three years of the war Halliburton’s shares rose from $10 to $41, increasing the value of Cheney’s shares by $5.8 million. Halliburton was the main source of Cheney’s gross annual income of nearly $9 million, and his net worth, estimated to have been between $30 million and $100 million.28

Dick Cheney was not the only one to profit from the Iraq war. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld kept between $8 million and $39 million of Gilead stocks, the company that produces the anthrax vaccine. Gilead also makes the influenza treatment Tamiflu, which the Pentagon bought $58 million of in July 2005. In January 2001 Gilead stocks were worth $7.45; by April 2007 they were $84.29

Nor is it necessary to hold public office to make a profit from the work you do for the government. George Shultz was the head of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a pressure group formed at the request of the Bush Administration to fuel public opinion against Saddam Hussein and elicit support for the invasion. His tactics are typified by a September 6, 2002, article published in The Washington Post titled ‘Act Now: The danger is imminent. Saddam Hussein must be removed’, where he stated that: ‘If there is a rattlesnake in the yard, you don’t wait for it to strike before you take action in self-defence’. At the time Shultz was on the board of the engineering company Bechtel which was awarded billions of dollars in government contracts to reconstruct Iraq.

Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Shultz were instrumental in convincing the American public to invade Iraq, alleging Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that there were links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. This is despite US intelligence informing the White House ten days after 9/11 that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks, and that there was ‘scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with al Qaeda.’30

The fact is that the Bush administration deliberately deceived the US public to justify the invasion of Iraq, which increased the threat of terrorist attacks against the American people, and cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars. So again, was the war a success? For the American people, absolutely not. But for Cheney, Rumsfeld, and many others, the war was a financial bonanza.

With many senior politicians closely tied to the oil and arms industries it is hardly surprising that US government officials were determined to invade Iraq despite worldwide opposition. And if the American public continue to elect people who stand to gain financially by going to war, then they are going to continue to find themselves dragged into wars for spurious reasons.

This war for profit premise may seem overly simplistic, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t true. If large enough sums of money are involved there really isn’t anything people won’t do, and when it comes to war there are billions of dollars to be made. This problem of war for profit is made worse by the fact that most of the people directly involved think that they are doing the right thing.

In the documentary ‘The War on Democracy’ John Pilger interviewed an ex-CIA agent who truly believed that when he helped to depose a democratically elected Central American government it was necessary for the national security of America. How, pray tell, could a Central American nation pose a credible threat to the national security of a country with the military might of the USA?

Endnote

The US likes to promote itself as the world’s unofficial police force, but if they are the police then they are one of the most corrupt police forces in the world. A better designation might be the world’s premier organised crime syndicate. You have got to admit, they are pretty good at extortion and racketeering.

Considering the way the US has interfered with the sovereignty of so many countries—funding election campaigns, blocking loans, imposing trade embargoes, the invasion and insertion of puppet regimes etc—you have to wonder why they made such a fuss about the Russians making a few posts on Facebook before the 2016 US Presidential election.

References

  1. O’Rourke, L. A. ‘The Strategic Logic of Covert Regime Change: US-Backed Regime Change Campaigns during the Cold War.’ Security Studies, November 29, 2019, vol. 29, p. 92–127.
  2. Kinzer, S. ‘Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq’, Times Books, Ney York, 2006.
  3. Kinzer, S. ‘All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror’ Wiley, 2008. – Iran nationalized its oil assets in 1951, Mossadegh not happy that Iran received only 16% of the revenue; Kermit to oust Mossadegh and install Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as Shah; BP allocated just 40%.
  4. Gölz, O. ‘The Dangerous Classes and the 1953 Coup in Iran: On the Decline of lutigari Masculinities.’ In Stephanie Cronin (ed.). Crime, Poverty and Survival in the Middle East and North Africa: The ‘Dangerous Classes’ since 1800, I.B. Tauris, 2019, pp. 177–190; Ward, S. R. ‘Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces’ Georgetown University Press, 2009, p. 189. – The CIA enlisted the help of some of Iran’s most notorious organised criminals to orchestrate civil unrest; several hundred people were killed in the rioting.
  5. Gleijeses, P. ‘Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954’ New Jersey: Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991, p. 149-164. – Arevalo and the Agrarian Reform Law; Guatemalan government seized 234,000 acres from United Fruit and offered them $1.185 million in compensation.
  6. Immerman, R. H. ‘The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention’ University of Texas Press, Austin, 1982, p. 75-82. – 550,000 acres in Guatemala, including 20% of the country’s arable land, of which they cultivated just 15%.
  7. Babington, C. ‘Clinton: Support for Guatemala was Wrong’ Washington Post, March 11, 1999, p. A1. – Operation PBSuccess; ‘Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas’ Attacks were orchestrated to make it appear that an uprising was underway; Carlos Castillo Armas was appointed Guatemalan President on July 7, 1954; 36-year civil war in which an estimated 200,000 people died.
  8. Report to the US Senate by the Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, June 21, 1973. – Senate report by the Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations.
  9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Frei_Montalva#Political_career Stern, L. ‘US Helped Beat Allende in 1964’ Washington Post, April 6, 1973.
  10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende
  11. Kim, J. ‘Democratic Peace and Covert War: A Case Study of the US Covert War in Chile’ Journal of International and Area Studies, vol. 12, No. 1, 2005, p.25-47. – Chile’s credit rating from B to D.
  12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Schneider#
  13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Schneider#Assassination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Prats#Death
  14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet#1973_coup_d’%C3%A9tat
  15. Stiglitz, J. ‘Globalization and its Discontents’ Allan Lane, London, 2002, p. 114; Chomsky, N. ‘Hopes and Prospects’ Penguin Group, New York, 2010, p. 92. – Chile economic slump continued; ranked 116 out of 123.
  16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Townley
  17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor – According to the 1991 Rettig Commission Pinochet’s government killed around 3,200 people and arrested 30,000, many of whom were tortured. These figures were confirmed by the 2004 Valech Report but are still disputed, with other estimates ranging from 1,500 to 10,800 deaths.
  18. Freidman, N. ‘Desert Victory; The War for Kuwait’ Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1991, p. 185; Gordon, M. R. and Trainor, B. E. ‘Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq’ Pantheon Books, New York, 2006, p. 551. – 300 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired over the course of five weeks; March 20 to May 2 the US military dropped more than 30,000 bombs on Iraq, as well as 20,000 precision guided cruise missiles.
  19. Aboulafia, R. Teal Group ‘Guns-to-Caviar Index’ 2007. – Guns to caviar index.
  20. Congressional Budget Office ‘Paying for Iraq’s reconstruction: An Update’ December 2006, p. 15. – Marshal Plan.
  21. Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction ’Review of Administrative Task Orders for Iraq reconstruction Contracts’ October 23, 2006. – Puts Iraqis to work.
  22. Wong, E. ‘Iraqi Cabinet Approves Draft of Oil Law’ New York Times, February 26, 2007. – Iraq’s oil law.
  23. ‘The Lost Years in Iraq’ PBS Frontline, October 17, 2006. – Dismiss 500,000 state employees. This included doctors and nurses who were needed to treat Iraq’s casualties, and military personnel.
  24. Booth, W. Chandrasekaran, R. ‘Occupation Forces Halting Elections Throughout Iraq’ Washington Post, June 28, 2003; Cha, A. E. ‘Hope and Confusion Mark Iraq’s Democracy Lessons’ Washington Post, November 24, 2003. – I’m not opposed to [democracy].
  25. Eckholm, E. ‘On Technical Grounds, Judge Sets Aside Verdict of Billing Fraud in Iraq Rebuilding’ New York Times, August 19, 2006. – Bush Administration had given foreign firms indemnity against Iraqi laws.
  26. Moss, M. ‘Iraq’s Legal System Staggers Beneath the Weight of War’ New York Times, December 17, 2006; ‘Haj Ali’s Story’ PBS Now, www.pbs.org – Coalition forces captured and imprisoned 61,500 Iraqis during the first three and a half years.
  27. Bergen, P. Cruickshank, P. ‘The Iraq Effect: War Has Increased Terrorism Sevenfold Worldwide’ Mother Jones, March-April 2007. – terrorist attacks worldwide increased sevenfold after four years of the war.
  28. ‘Cheney’s Halliburton Ties Remain’ CBS News, September 26, 2003; Henriques, D. B. Bergman, L. Norris, F. ‘The 2000 Campaign: The Republican Running Mate—Cheney Is Said To Be Receiving $20 Million Retirement Package’ The New York Times, August 12, 2000. – Dick Cheney refused to sell all his shares in Halliburton, and kept 189,000 shares.
  29. Stanton, J. ‘Big Stakes in Tamiflu Debate’ Roll Call, December 15, 2005; Schwartz, N. D. ‘Rumsfeld’s Growing Stake in Tamiflu’ Fortune, October 31, 2005; Gilead Sciences, ‘Stock Information: Historical Price Lookup’ www.gilead.com – Donald Rumsfeld kept between $8 million and $39 million of Gilead stocks.
  30. Waas, M. ‘Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel’ National Journal Group Inc., November 22, 2005. – US intelligence informing the White House ten days after 9/11 that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks, and that there was ‘scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with al Qaeda’
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