KAMALIKA PIERIS

United States of America became the sole superpower in the world, when the Cold War between USA and Russia ended in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Unable to conquer the world militarily, US hit on the notion of setting up US controlled governments in the   countries in which it had a strategic interest and assassinating any leaders they did not like.

USA has assassinated several heads of state.   Lumumba   was one (Congo, 1961) .    Saddam Hussein was another (Iraq, 2006). In 2011 US   killed Osama Bin Laden at Abbottabad, Pakistan, with Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton watching In Washington. A photograph of this group seated in the White House, watching the killing was circulated worldwide.

 In 2020 USA killed   Iran’s most powerful general, Soleimani   in a drone strike near Baghdad airport. This was a violation of international law, said a UN expert. In 2022, US killed al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a drone strike in Afghanistan.

 US sponsored dictatorships were set up in the countries US was interested in. The two best remembered dictatorships today, are those of Iran and Chile. In 1953, the democratically elected Iranian PM Mossadegh was replaced by the Shah of Iran, in a coup d ‘etat. CIA organized and executed this coup, with support from Britain, and Reza Pahlavi took over as Shah. He used secret police and his rule was a cruel one. Eventually, the public rose against him and US had to take him out of Iran and keep him in the US.

In 1973, US engineered the removal of the highly popular President of Chile, Salvador Allende. He had refused to give US control of Chile’s copper mines. US replaced him with Pinochet. This ushered in a 17 year dictatorship, with 3000 murdered and many more tortured.  US had told him to make the economy scream”, which he did. Chile was one of most notorious interventions by US in Latin America, said analysts.

USA set up dictators in other countries as well. Rafael Trujillo, President of Dominican Republic was supported by USA. Trujillo’s army was given formable weapons by US. Trujillo was cruel and unscrupulous. His rule of 31 years is considered one of the bloodiest political regimes ever in the Americas. His regime was responsible for many deaths.

Washington has been associated with every one of the military conspiracies and coup d’états in Central and South America, for many decades, said analysts.  USA has instigated rebellions against the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Brazil and Ecuador  CIA trained and funded Nicaragua contras. 

US had continuously interfered with Venezuela’. US has been trying, for a long time, to oust its President, Nicolas Maduro, who was elected with a large majority at a democratically held election.  USA asked the neighboring governments to help overthrow of Venezuela’s President Maduro, and replace him with Guaido. USA also hinted at military intervention. But when Guaido called for street protests against Maduro, in 2020 only a few hundred turned out, reported analysts.  ‘The rest went to holiday on the beach.’

USA has been anti-Cuba for decades. Cuba has suffered heavily from US infiltration and subversive activities said analysts. CIA had planned to stage terrorists attack in the 1960s in USA to look as though they were done by Cuba. They were planned carefully, in great detail. Cuban media revealed that USA’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID allocated nearly 250 million US dollars to programs targeting Cuba   over the past 20 years. Numerous unsuccessful attempts were made on Fidel Castro’s life.  

US also interfered in Africa. In March 2012, President Mutharika of Malawi accused USA of plotting to bring down his government. He refused to give in to USA demands. Mutharika died of cardiac arrest just two weeks later. He was replaced by Joyce Banda and USA provided a USD 350 million grant. Banda was heavily defeated in the next presidential election by Peter Mutharika, brother of the former President. Banda went to the US and was given a position as fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre International Centre for Scholars.

USA had a hand in the Rwandan Civil War (1990-1994). The Rwandan Patriotic Front was armed and trained in Uganda with support from US. The U.S. and UK trained the RPF and helped turn a refugee army into a strong fighting one. RPF leader Kagane was trained in psychological warfare methods at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. Museveni, President of Uganda was a CIA puppet who had everything to gain by helping French-held Rwanda fall into the hands of the Americans, observed analysts.

The US has infiltrated, invaded, bombed, and destroyed many countries, said commentators. US sent troops to Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo without Congress approval.  US President does not have the power to authorize military attacks without Congress approval, but US Congress usually approves the action retrospectively and provides funding for such interventions, observed analysts.

There were unlawful US interventions in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1961), Vietnam (1964),  Dominican Republic (1965), Chile (1973), Nicaragua (1981–1984), Grenada (1983)  Panama (1989), Balkans (2000) , Iraq (2003) and Libya (2012). US invaded Panama to topple Noriega, a former American intelligence asset. US launched an illegal war against Iraq,  on the spurious ground that it had weapons of mass destruction.

The US is not concerned about the loss of innocent lives when it attacks countries which have nothing to do with the US. In Iraq, over 300,000 people have lost their lives, in Syria, some 266,000, in Afghanistan, 176,000, in Yemen, 112,000, in Pakistan, 67,000 said analysts. These are conservative estimates. In Yemen, the UN figure is more than twice as high. In Afghanistan, the real figure may be 50,000 higher, according to the Uppsala Data Conflict Data Programme. And there is still no international consensus on the Iraq War casualties.

The US did not win all its wars. It had some spectacular failures such as Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The US won some of the little ones, but lost all the bigger ones, observed Gwynne Dyer. US military fiascos like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, were due said George Friedman, founder of Stratfor, to USA’s addiction to ‘non-strategic wars’.

US was very aggressive In Vietnam. US dropped Agent Orange and napalm on Vietnam. US killed thousands in the Vietnam War without caring. BBC reporter, John Sergeant was at an American airbase in Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam War. He found that US pilots who were bombing North Vietnam did not care that they were killing innocent persons. They are just targets, one pilot told Sergeant. They could be trucks, they could also be soldiers but we have to see them simply as targets.

US soldiers also died in large numbers and the American public started to oppose the war. USA lost the Vietnam War in 1975. This was a great blow to its prestige and US has never recovered from this defeat. The Vietnam defeat is still remembered.

US army has been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001. For nearly two decades hundreds and thousands of American troops have rotated through Afghanistan.  Afghanistan is a strategic hub in Central Asia bordering    Russia, China and Iran, said analysts.

US invaded Afghanistan two decades ago, promising to wipe out the Taliban, instead Taliban won and USA had to withdraw in 2021. The Americans have left behind another unfinished war, said critics.

The world was shown the chaos at Kabul airport in August 2021, when USA made its final departure. They saw a giant USAF transport taking off from Kabul airport with desperate Afghans clinging to its fuselage, and then dropping off.

 But the USA retreat was not as disorganized as it appeared on television, said analysts.  There was a formal withdrawal agreement   between US Ambassador Khalilzad and Taliban chief Baradar signed in February 2020. The Kabul incident was simply the last stage of a planned evacuation. No American assets were attacked by the Taliban after US left.

Taliban takeover will not affect the rest of the world, observed analysts. Taliban is only interested in turning Afghanistan into a theocratic Islamic state.  Russia, China and Pakistan have recognized the Taliban government.