US CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY & GLOBAL TERRORISM
US Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction
The indiscriminate use of bombs by the US, usually outside a declared war situation, for wanton destruction, for no military objectives, whose targets and victims are civilian populations, or what we now call “collateral damage.”
Guatemala (1954, 1960, 1967-69)
US Use of Chemical & Biological Weapons
The US has refused to sign Conventions against the development and use of
chemical and biological weapons, and has either used or tested (without
informing the civilian populations) these weapons in the following
locations abroad:
Bahamas (late 1940s-mid-1950s)
China and Korea (1950-53)
Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (1961-1970)
Cuba (1962, 69, 70, 71, 81, 96)
And the US has tested such weapons on US civilian populations, without
their knowledge, in the following locations:
Watertown, NY and US Virgin Islands (1950)
SF Bay Area (1950, 1957-67)
Washington, DC Area (1953, 1967)
Savannah GA/Avon Park, FL (1956-58)
New York City (1956, 1966)
And the US has encouraged the use of such weapons, and provided the
technology to develop such weapons in various nations abroad, including:
US Political and Military Interventions since 1945
The US has launched a series of military and political interventions since
1945, often to install puppet regimes, or alternatively to engage in political actions such as smear campaigns, sponsoring or targeting opposition political groups (depending on how they served US interests), undermining political parties, sabotage and terror campaigns, and so forth. It has done so in nations such as
South Africa (1960s-1980s)
Marshall Islands (1946-58)
Costa Rica (mid-1950s, 1970-71)
Western Europe (1950s-1960s)
Dominican Republic (1963-65)
US Perversions of Foreign Elections
The US has specifically intervened to rig or distort the outcome of foreign elections, and sometimes engineered sham “demonstration” elections to ward off accusations of government repression in allied nations in the US sphere of influence. These sham elections have often installed or maintained in power repressive dictators who have victimized their populations. Such practices have occurred in nations such as:
Dominican Republic (1962)
US Versus World at the United Nations
The US has repeatedly acted to undermine peace and human rights initiatives at the United Nations, routinely voting against hundreds of UN resolutions and treaties. The US easily has the worst record of any nation on not supporting UN treaties. In almost all of its hundreds of “no” votes, the US was the “sole” nation to vote no (among the 100-130 nations that usually vote), and among only 1 or 2 other nations voting no the rest of the time. Here’s a representative sample of US votes from 1978-1987:
US Is the Sole “No” Vote on Resolutions or Treaties
For aid to underdeveloped nations
For the promotion of developing nation exports
For UN promotion of human rights
For protecting developing nations in trade agreements
For New International Economic Order for underdeveloped nations
For development as a human right
Versus multinational corporate operations in South Africa
For cooperative models in developing nations
For right of nations to economic system of their choice
Versus chemical and biological weapons (at least 3 times)
Versus Namibian apartheid
For economic/standard of living rights as human rights
Versus apartheid South African aggression vs. neighboring states (2 times)
Versus foreign investments in apartheid South Africa
For world charter to protect ecology
For anti-apartheid convention
For anti-apartheid convention in international sports
For nuclear test ban treaty (at least 2 times)
For prevention of arms race in outer space
For UNESCO-sponsored new world information order (at least 2 times)
For international law to protect economic rights
For Transport & Communications Decade in Africa
Versus manufacture of new types of weapons of mass destruction
For Independent Commission on Disarmament & Security Issues
For UN response mechanism for natural disasters
For Report of Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination
For UN study on military development
For Commemoration of 25th anniversary of Independence for Colonial Countries
For Industrial Development Decade in Africa
For interdependence of economic and political rights
For improved UN response to human rights abuses
For protection of rights of migrant workers
For protection against products harmful to health and the environment
For a Convention on the Rights of the Child
For training journalists in the developing world
For international cooperation on third world debt
For a UN Conference on Trade & Development
US Is 1 of Only 2 “No” Votes on Resolutions or Treaties
For Palestinian living conditions/rights (at least 8 times)
Versus foreign intervention into other nations
For a UN Conference on Women
Versus nuclear test explosions (at least 2 times)
For the non-use of nuclear weapons vs. non-nuclear states
For a Middle East nuclear free zone
Versus Israeli nuclear weapons (at least 2 times)
For a new world international economic order
For a trade union conference on sanctions vs. South Africa
For the Law of the Sea Treaty
For economic assistance to Palestinians
For UN measures against fascist activities and groups
For international cooperation on money/finance/debt/trade/development
For a Zone of Peace in the South Atlantic
For compliance with Intl Court of Justice decision for Nicaragua vs. US.
**For a conference and measures to prevent international terrorism (including its underlying causes)
For ending the trade embargo vs. Nicaragua
US Is 1 of Only 3 “No” Votes on Resolutions and Treaties
Versus Israeli human rights abuses (at least 6 times)
Versus South African apartheid (at least 4 times)
Versus return of refugees to Israel
For ending nuclear arms race (at least 2 times)
For an embargo on apartheid South Africa
For South African liberation from apartheid (at least 3 times)
For the independence of colonial nations
For the UN Decade for Women
Versus harmful foreign economic practices in colonial territories
For a Middle East Peace Conference
For ending the embargo of Cuba (at least 10 times)
Repeatedly withheld its dues from the UN
Twice left UNESCO because of its human rights initiatives
Twice left the International Labor Organization for its workers rights initiatives
Refused to renew the Antiballistic Missile Treaty
Refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty on global warming
Refused to back the World Health Organization’s ban on infant formula abuses
Refused to sign the Anti-Biological Weapons Convention
Refused to sign the Convention against the use of land mines
Refused to participate in the UN Conference Against Racism in Durban
Been one of the last nations in the world to sign the UN Covenant on
Political & Civil Rights (30 years after its creation)
Refused to sign the UN Covenant on Economic & Social Rights
Opposed the emerging new UN Covenant on the Rights to Peace, Development & Environmental Protection
Sampling of Deaths >From US Military Interventions & Propping Up Corrupt
Dictators (using the most conservative estimates)
El Salvador – 63,000 dead
Afghanistan – 10,000 dead
Philippines – 150,000 dead
Dominican Republic – 10,000 dead
South Africa – 10,000 dead
Indonesia – 1 million dead
East Timor – 1/3-½ of total population
Cambodia – 1 million dead
Vietnam – 1.5 million dead
Other Lethal US Interventions
CIA Terror Training Manuals
Development and distribution of training manuals for foreign military
personnel or foreign nationals, including instructions on assassination,
subversion, sabotage, population control, torture, repression,
psychological torture, death squads, etc.
Specific Torture Campaigns
Creation and launching of direct US campaigns to support torture as an
instrument of terror and social control for governments in Greece, Iran,
Vietnam, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama
Supporting and Harboring Terrorists
The promotion, protection, arming or equipping of terrorists such as:
Klaus Barbie and other German Nazis, and Italian and Japanese fascists, after WW II
Manual Noriega (Panama), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Osama bin Laden (Afghanistan), and others whose terrorism has come back to haunt us
Running the Higher War College (Brazil) and first School of the Americas (Panama), which gave US training to repressors, death squad members, and torturers (the second School of the Americas is still running at Ft. Benning GA)
Providing asylum for Cuban, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Haitian, Chilean, Argentinian, Iranian, South Vietnamese and other terrorists, dictators, and torturers
Assassinating World Leaders
Using assassination as a tool of foreign policy, wherein the CIA has
initiated assassination attempts against at least 40 foreign heads of state
(some several times) in the last 50 years, a number of which have been
successful, such as: Patrice Lumumba (Congo), Rafael Trujillo (Dominican
Republic), Ngo Dihn Diem (Vietnam) Salvador Allende (Chile)
Arms Trade & US Military Presence
The US is the world’s largest seller of weapons abroad, arming dictators, militaries, and terrorists that repress or victimize their populations, and fueling scores of violent conflicts around the globe
The US is the world’s largest provider of live land mines which, even in peacetime, kill or injure at least several people around the world each day
The US has military bases in at least 50 nations around the world, which have led to frequent victimization of local populations.
The US military has been bombing one Middle Eastern or Muslim nation or another almost continuously since 1983, including Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iran, the Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq (almost daily bombings since 1991)
This, then, is a sampling of American foreign policies over the last 50
years. The FBI uses the following definition for Terrorism: “The unlawful
use of force or violence committed by a group or individual, who has some
connection to a foreign power or whose activities transcend national
boundaries, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a
government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in furtherance
of political or social objectives.” This sounds like the terrorism we just
experienced. It also sounds a lot like the US policies and actions since
1945 that I’ve just described.
via http://www.the-philosopher.co.uk/whocares/popups/warcrimes.htm
