U.S. State Department Policy Planning Study #23, 1948:
Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of
relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of
disparity [U.S. military-economic supremacy]... To do so, we
will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-
dreaming... We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal
objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living
standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we
are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less
we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
George Kennan
Director of Policy Planning
U.S. State Department
1948
The following collection of relatively brief entries is divided
into three pages. Each page has the full list near the top so
you can jump around from entry to entry between pages.
This list of nations represents literally millions of human
beings all over the world who have been brutally murdered
directly by the United States military/government or by its
obedient proxies. Huge though the list is, there is yet more to
add. But it does at least contain most of the known campaigns of
American state terrorism, genocide and subversion all of which
are in the historical record for the whole world to see. God
only knows what evil the U.S. government and military have
committed that remains hidden.
And as long as the United States remains a military power, the
list of state terror victims will keep growing.
Page One:
Palestine
1948-Present
Iraq
1991-Present
Afghanistan
2001-2002
Colombia
1960s-Present
Yugoslavia
1992-2000
Congo/Zaire
1961-Present
Cuba
1959-Present
Guatemala
1953-Present
El Salvador
1980-Present
East Timor
1975-1999
Haiti
1987-1994
Somalia
1993
Afghanistan
1979-1992
Nicaragua
1981-1990
Panama
1989
Page Two:
Libya
1981-1989
Iran
1988
Grenada
1979-1984
Greece
1964-1974
Chile
1964-1973
Costa Rica
Mid-1950s, 1970-71
Dominican Republic
1963-1966
Vietnam
1945-1974
Cambodia
1955-1973
Laos
1957-1973
Thailand
1965-1973
Italy
1947-1970s
Indonesia
1965
Brazil
1961-1964
British Guiana/Guyana
1953-1964
Iraq
1963
Page Three:
Soviet Union
1940s-1960s
Western Europe
1950s-1960s
Haiti
1959
Indonesia
1957-1958
Middle East
1956-1958
Iran
1953
Germany, Italy, Europe
1950s
Eastern Europe
1948-1956
Albania
1949-1953
Korea
1945-1953
Philippines
1945-1953
Greece
1947-1949
Marshall Islands
1946-1958
Italy
1947-1948
France
1947
China
1945-1951
Hiroshima & Nagasaki
August 1945
Japan, Germany, France
1942-1945
Around the world
1800s-1930s
Philippines
1899-1902
America and Africa
1607-1890
1948 Present
American/Israeli State Terrorism of the Palestinian People
Estimated civilian deaths: 100,000 Palestinian people
From the very beginning of the Zionist State of Israel in 1948,
the racist Israelis have mass-murdered and terrorized the
Palestinian people.
One of the earliest and most notorious incidents of Israeli
terrorism was the Deir Yassin massacre in April, 1948. 250
Palestinian men, women and children were murdered in cold blood
by Menachem Begin s Zionist Irgun group as it went from house
to house seeking to drive all Palestinians out of their ancient
homeland. It hasn t gotten any better since then.
Besides murdering women and children, Israelis routinely torture
Palestinian prisoners in jail. And almost all of it has been
kept hidden by the mainstream American mass-media for 54 years.
Just to give you another example of who the Israelis really are:
in 1946, Menachem Begin s terrorist organization blew up the
King David Hotel in Jerusalem, murdering British nurses, in
order to drive the British out of Palestine. Israeli society
later rewarded Menachem Begin by electing him Prime Minister.
And another example: on June 8, 1967 the armed forces of Israel
killed 34 U.S. Navy sailors during a sustained air and sea
attack on the USS Liberty.
In 1982 the Israelis invaded Lebanon and murdered 17,500 people.
During the Israeli occupation, Ariel Sharon was the primary
authority behind the massacres at the Shatilla and Sabra refugee
camps in which over 1000 helpless Palestinian children, women
and civilian men were murdered in cold blood by Lebanese
Christians. Now that Ariel Sharon is the Israeli Prime Minister,
it should come as no surprise that the viciously racist Israeli
Army was encouraged to commit the Jenin massacre. Israelis like
having bloodthirsty war criminals as Prime Ministers.
The United States government gives billions of your tax dollars
to the Israelis every year. And the U.S. government never pays
people to do things it doesn t want done. Israeli state
terrorism is essentially American state terrorism.
See also:
American/Israeli Terrorism of the Palestinian People
Zionism is Jewish Naziism: A Photo Essay on Israeli State
Terrorism
The Jenin Massacre
Racist Zionism: Israeli Apartheid (Bibliography)
The Israeli Connection To 9-11
Ariel Sharon: The Jewish Hitler
Return of the Terrorist: The Crimes of Ariel Sharon
[Back to list]
2001 2002
American State Terrorism of the Afghan Peoples
Estimated civilian deaths: 4000 5000 people
With total hypocrisy the United States military terrorized and
mass-murdered thousands of innocent Afghan civilian people,
supposedly in reprisal for the terror attacks of September 11.
As they did in Yugoslavia and Iraq, heroic U.S. Air Force pilots
murdered thousands of women and children by bombing hospitals
and schools and private homes. They even bombed an Afghan
wedding party. None of these innocent, civilian victims had
anything whatsoever to do with the September 11 attacks.
Obviously the so-called war on terrorism is a total sham. The
real reason the U.S. is in Afghanistan is to get control of
Caspian Sea oil. To get the oil out of the Caspian basin they
have to run pipelines through Afghanistan. Most unfortunate for
the hapless Afghan people.
See also:
Imperial Hypocrisy: American State Terrorism of the Afghan
Peoples, 2001-2002
The Truth About American Terrorism of the Afghan Peoples
The United States Government Perpetrated the September 11
Attacks
[Back to list]
1991 Present
American/British State Terrorism of the Iraqi People
Estimated total civilian deaths: at least 200,000 people
directly from the 1991 terror campaign;
1,000,000 2,000,000 people since then from the combined
effects of depleted uranium poisoning, polluted water and
sanctions
Like the terrorization of the entire civilian population of
Yugoslavia, the so-called Gulf War was in fact a cowardly,
high-tech slaughter, a total mismatch of military power. 177
million pounds of bombs were dropped on the people of Iraq in
the most concentrated aerial bombardment in the history of the
world. Sadistic American forces even slaughtered retreating
Iraqi soldiers as they tried to flee along a highway back to
Iraq.
And as with Yugoslavia, the Desert Storm terror campaign was
directed primarily against the civilian population, a genocidal
six-week assault on all the civilian people and infrastructure
of Iraq. Particularly targeted were every grain silo and public
water-treatment plant in the country. The assault included the
most extensive use in history of depleted uranium missiles, and
the most intensive use of cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, napalm,
cruise missiles and so-called smart bombs .
The Dutch Laka Foundation estimates that this particular U.S.
terror campaign left behind 300-800 tons of radioactive waste
from the depleted uranium ammunition all over Kuwait and Iraq
poisoning the air, the land, the water and the people
everywhere.
Afterwards, wherever the depleted uranium firing had been
concentrated, there were cancer epidemics among Iraqi civilians
living nearby. In the ten years since, sanctions, bacteria-laden
water and depleted uranium together have killed somewhere
between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 Iraqi civilians. Most of the
victims were, and are, children.
Since the American terror campaign, thousands of Iraqi babies
have been born with horrible birth defects. This is something
that has never before been seen in Iraq.
More than 120,000 American Gulf War veterans are chronically
ill suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. A U.S. Department of
Veterans study of 251 veteran s families found that 67% had
children with severe illnesses or birth defects.
Even the United Nations estimates that over one million Iraqi
civilians, including 600,000 children below the age of five have
died as a result of diseases from polluted water and the
American sanctions which deny them the needed medicines.
See also:
American-British Terrorism of the Iraqi Peoples
The 3 BIG LIES About Iraq
The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf
The Highway of Death
Iraq s Poisoned Water
Bibliography:
American Sanctions Against the Iraqi Peoples
[Back to list]
1960s Present
American Support for Colombian State Terrorism of the Colombian
People
Estimated civilian deaths: over 67,000 people
Under the guise of aid for counternarcotics operations, the
U.S. Corporate Mafia Government is supplying weapons, training,
troops and $1.3 billion of American taxpayers money to its
murderous apprentices in the Colombian military. The real
purpose of all this aid is to support the government s massive
political oppression of the Colombian people. It s Vietnam all
over again.
Colombia is the most violent country in the world. The vast
majority of the terror is committed by the U.S.-supported
military and right-wing paramilitary forces who are heavily
involved in cocaine production and smuggling. They have tortured
and murdered tens of thousands of people in trade unions and
left-wing movements, including many human rights activists and
grassroots organizers.
See also:
Colombia: the Genodidal Democracy
Chronology of U.S. Terrorism and Genocide of the Central
American, South American & Caribbean peoples
[Back to list]
1992 Present
American/NATO State Terrorism and Subversion of the Yugoslavian
Peoples
Estimated civilian deaths: over 3000 people from the 1999 terror-
bombing
Weapons of mass-destruction used by U.S.-dominated NATO forces
included cluster bombs, depleted uranium missiles, fuel-air
bombs, napalm, cruise missiles and other so-called smart
bombs .
250,000 people were killed during the U.S./German-sponsored
civil war in Bosnia of 1992-1995, and in Krajina, 1995.
Estimated civilian injuries: 9000+ people from the 1999 American
terror campaign alone. Many people, including children,
dismembered and crippled for life by cluster bombs.
In addition, over 1 million people who now live in Serbia-
Yugoslavia are refugees from Krajina, Bosnia and Kosovo
victims of the U.S./German-sponsored terror campaigns of the
1990s.
For 78 days and nights in the Spring of 1999, United States Air
Force and Navy pilots rained death indiscriminately upon women
and children, old men and women shopping in marketplaces,
passengers in trains, people in cars and buses, people in
schools, patients in hospitals anyone and everyone
everywhere in Yugoslavia.
The American terror campaign actually began in 1992 with the
American/German sponsored subversion and breakup of Yugoslavia
and subsequent civil war in Bosnia. It continued with
the ethnic cleansing of approximately 300,000 to 500,000
Serbians from the Krajina region in 1995. Thousands of Serbian
refugees were murdered as they tried to flee the sadistic,
gratuitous bombing by the American-backed Croatian forces.
American terrorism peaked with the bombing of the entire
civilian population and infrastructure of Yugoslavia in 1999. It
has continued to this day with the brutal occupation of Kosovo.
NATO/KFOR occupation troops have stood idly by, watching
sympathetically as Albanian extremists kidnapped, publicly beat,
murdered and tortured Serbs, Roma and Jews, burning down their
houses and dynamiting centuries-old Christian churches. Over
200,000 non-Albanians were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo
with America s total blessing.
As if this weren t appalling enough, a massive sex-slave trade
of Eastern European women and girls has flourished in Kosovo
since the American/NATO occupation began. The women and girls
are often beaten, they are forced to live in poverty and filth,
they are raped many times every day, and many are murdered. The
pimps are all Albanian KLA/mafia with a reputation for brutal
violence. The customers are American/NATO occupation troops
(ludicrously called peacekeepers by the corporate-owned mass-
media) and so-called international peace workers .
Ah yes, humanitarianism and democracy . Isn t that what
America is all about?
See also:
Hidden Agenda: U.S./NATO Takeover of Yugoslavia
American State Terrorism of the Yugoslavian Peoples
To Kill A Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
The U.S./NATO Terror Campaign: Nine Myths and Realities
At a Serb Funeral: Tears for Victims of a Regrettable Mistake
NATO in the Balkans: Voices in Opposition
NATO Targets: The Civilian People of Yugoslavia
[Back to list]
1960 Present
American Assassination of Patrice Lumumba and Support of State
Terrorism of the People of The Congo/Zaire
From Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since
WWII
by William Blum:
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 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 [President] 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.
[Back to list]
1959 Present
American Subversion and State Terrorism of the Cuban People
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
Fidel Castro came to power at the beginning of 1959. A U.S.
National Security Council meeting of March 10, 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, embargoes,
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 were all there. But we ll never know. And that of course
was the idea.
See also:
U.S. Terrorism of the Central American, South American and
Caribbean Peoples
Bibliography:
Cuban Liberation: Fidel Castro, Che Guevara & Jose Marti
[Back to list]
1953 Present
American-backed Genocide of the Guatemalan People
Estimated civilian deaths: over 200,000 people
From Rogue State: A Guide to the World s Only Superpower
by William Blum:
A CIA-organized coup overthrew the democratically-elected and
progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating 40 years of
military-government death squads, torture, disappearances, mass
executions and unimaginable cruelty, totaling more than 200,000
victims indisputably one of the most inhumane chapters of the
20th century.
The justification for the coup that has been put forth over the
years is that Guatemala had been on the verge of the proverbial
Soviet takeover. In actuality, the Russians had so little
interest in the country that it didn t even maintain diplomatic
relations. The real problem was that Arbenz had taken over some
of the uncultivated land of the US firm, United Fruit Company
[Chiquita bananas], which had extremely close ties to the
American power elite.
Moreover, in the eyes of Washington, there was the danger of
Guatemala s social-democracy model spreading to other countries
in Latin America.
Despite a 1996 peace accord between the government and rebels,
respect for human rights remains as only a concept in Guatemala;
death squads continue to operate with a significant measure of
impunity against union activists and other dissidents; torture
still rears its ugly head; the lower classes are as wretched as
ever; the military endures as a formidable institution; the US
continues to arm and train the Guatemalan military and carry out
exercises with it; and key provisions of the peace accord
concerning military reform have not been carried out.
See also:
Making Guatemala a Killing Field
From What Uncle Sam Really Wants
by Noam Chomsky
[Back to list]
1980 Present
American Terrorism of the El Salvadoran People
Estimated civilian deaths: over 75,000 people
From Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don t Want You
to See
by Dave McGowan:
Massive amounts of arms, training and funding were poured into
El Salvador to prop up the puppet government against a popular
uprising. Featured the covert use of U.S. air power and ground
forces, as well as the training, at the School of the Americas
[in Ft. Benning, Georgia], of the leaders of the right-wing
death squads which executed thousands of Salvadorans.
Some of the highlights of the death squad activities included
the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the execution of
six Jesuit priests along with their housekeeper and her
daughter, the rape and execution of four American church women,
and the mass execution of some 800 civilians at the village of
El Mozote.
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
El 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 protesters
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.
See also:
The Crucifixion of El Salvador
From What Uncle Sam Really Wants
by Noam Chomsky
[Back to list]
1975 1999
American-backed Genocide of the People of East Timor
Estimated civilian deaths: over 200,000 people
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
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.
From Derailing Democracy
by Dave McGowan:
The U.S.-backed government of Indonesia invaded East Timor just
one day after a visit by President Gerald Ford and Henry
Kissinger. As many as a third of the tiny island s population
were exterminated using American supplied weaponry.
The Indonesian government, kept propped up with U.S. taxpayers
money, continues to this day to be one of the worst human rights
abusers on the planet.
[Back to list]
1987 1994
American-supported State Terrorism of the Haitian People
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
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, but only after obliging the priest to guarantee that he
would not help the poor at the expense of the rich, and that he
would stick closely to free-market economics. This meant that
Haiti would continue to be the assembly plant of the Western
Hemisphere, with its workers receiving literally starvation
wages.
See also:
U.S. Terrorism of the Central American, South American and
Caribbean Peoples
[Back to list]
1993
American Slaughter of People in Somalia
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
It was supposed to be a mission to help feed the starving
masses. Before long, the U.S. was trying to rearrange the
country s political map by eliminating the dominant warlord,
Mohamed Aidid, and his power base. On many occasions, beginning
in June, U.S. helicopters strafed groups of Aidid s supporters
and fired missiles at them. Scores were killed. Then, in
October, a daring attempt by some 120 elite American forces to
kidnap two leaders of Aidid s clan resulted in a horrendous
bloody battle. The final tally was five U.S. helicopters shot
down, 18 Americans dead, 73 wounded, 500 to 1000 Somalians
killed, many more injured.
It s questionable that getting food to hungry people was as
important as the fact that four American oil giants were holding
exploratory rights to large areas of land and were hoping that
U.S. troops would put an end to the chaos which threatened their
highly expensive investments. There was also the Pentagon s
ongoing need to sell itself to those in Congress who were trying
to cut the military budget in the post-Cold War
world. Humanitarian actions and (unnecessary) amphibious
landings by U.S. Marines on the beach in the glare of T.V.
cameras were thought to be good selling points. Washington
designed the operation in such a way that the show would be run
by the U.S. military and not the United Nations, under whose
aegis it supposedly fell.
In any event, by the time the Marines landed, the worst of the
famine was over. It had peaked months before.
[Back to list]
1979 1992
American Subversion in Afghanistan
Estimated civilian deaths: over 1,000,000 people
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
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.
See also:
Imperial Hypocrisy: American/British state terrorism of the
Afghan Peoples, 2001-2002
The Truth About American Terrorism of the Afghan Peoples
[Back to list]
1981 1990
American Terrorism of the Nicaraguan People
Estimated civilian deaths: over 13,000 people
From Derailing Democracy
by Dave McGowan:
Following the fall of the Somoza regime, which had been backed
for decades by the U.S., the CIA formed and armed the covert
army known as the Contras from the remains of Somoza s
National Guard. Assisted by covert U.S. air power, this proxy
army inflicted considerable death and destruction across the
Nicaraguan countryside.
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
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 Guard 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.
From a talk by John Stockwell, 13-year veteran of the CIA and
former U.S. Marine Corps major:
Systematically, the Contras have been assassinating religious
workers, teachers, health workers, elected officials, government
administrators. Remember the Assassination Manual that
surfaced in 1984? It caused such a stir that President Reagan
had to address it himself in the presidential debates with
Walter Mondale. They use terror to traumatize society so that it
cannot function.
I don t mean to abuse you with verbal violence, but you have to
understand what your Government and its agents are doing.
They go into villages. They haul out families. With the
children forced to watch, they castrate the father. They peel
the skin off his face. They put a grenade in his mouth, and pull
the pin. With the children forced to watch, they gang-rape the
mother, and slash her breasts off. And sometimes, for variety,
they make the parents watch while they do these things to the
children.
This is nobody s propaganda!
There have been over a hundred thousand American Witnesses for
Peace who ve gone down there, and they have filmed and
photographed and witnessed these atrocities immediately after
they ve happened, and documented thirteen thousand people killed
this way mostly women and children.
These are the activities done by the Contras. The Contras are
the people President Reagan called freedom fighters. He
said: they are the moral equivalent of our founding fathers.
See also:
Teaching Nicaragua a lesson
From What Uncle Sam Really Wants
by Noam Chomsky
[Back to list]
1989
American Invasion of Panama
Estimated civilian deaths: several thousand people
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
Less than two weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the
United States showed its joy that a new era of world peace was
now possible by invading Panama, as Washington s mad bombers
struck again. On December 20, 1989, a large tenement barrio in
Panama City was wiped out; 15,000 people were left homeless.
Counting several days of ground fighting between U.S. and
Panamanian forces, 500-something natives dead was the official
body count i.e., what the United States and the new U.S.-
installed Panamanian government admitted to. Other sources,
examining more evidence, concluded that thousands had died.
Additionally, some 3,000 Panamanians were wounded, 23 Americans
died, 324 were 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 hardly a
major 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. And they could easily have
gotten their hands on the man without wreaking such terrible
devastation upon the Panamanian people.
See also:
The Panama Deception
The Invasion of Panama
From What Uncle Sam Really Wants
by Noam Chomsky
