Out of some 200 countries on earth, Freedom House deems 50 countries to be "not free." Of these 50 oppressive governments, the U.S. government allows, arranges for, or in some cases even provides the funding for U.S. weapons sales to 41 of them. That's 82 percent. To produce this figure, I have looked at U.S. weapons sales between 2010 and 2019 as documented by either the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Arms Trade Database, or by the U.S. military.
Remember, this is a list of nations that an organization funded by the U.S. government designates "not free" but to which the United States is shipping deadly weapons. And this is 82% of the "not free" nations, which hardly looks like a case of a few exceptions or "bad apples."
Beyond selling and giving weapons to oppressive governments, the U.S. government also shares with them advanced weapons technology. This includes such extreme examples as the CIA giving nuclear bomb plans to Iran, the Trump Administration seeking to share nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. military basing nuclear weapons in Turkey even as Turkey fights against U.S.-backed fighters in Syria and threatens to close NATO bases.
Now, let's take the list of 50 oppressive governments and check which ones the United States government provides military training to. There are varying levels of such support, ranging from teaching a single course for four students to providing numerous courses for thousands of trainees. The United States provides military training of one sort or another to 44 out of 50, or 88 percent. I base this on finding such trainings listed in either 2017 or 2018 by the State Department and/or the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Once again, this list does not seem like a few statistical oddities, but more like an established policy.
I suspect that many in the United States did not know that in 2019, these many years after September 11, 2001, the U.S. military was training Saudi fighters to fly airplanes in Florida until one of them made the news by shooting up a classroom.
In addition, the history of U.S.-provided military training to foreign soldiers, through facilities like the School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) provides an established pattern of not just supporting oppressive governments, but helping to bring them into being through coups.
In addition to selling (or giving) oppressive governments weapons and training them, the U.S. government also provides funding directly to foreign militaries. Of the 50 oppressive governments, as listed by Freedom House, 32 receiv e so-called "foreign military financing" or other funding for military activities from the U.S. government, with it's extremely safe to say less outrage in the U.S. media or from U.S. tax payers than we hear over providing food to people in the United States who are hungry.
Of the 50 oppressive governments, the United States militarily supports, in at least one of the three ways discussed above, 48 of them or 96 percent, all but the tiny designated enemies of Cuba and North Korea. With some of them, the U.S. military also bases a significant number of its own troops (meaning over 100): Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates. Technically Cuba is in this list, but it is a very different case from all the others. The United States keeps troops in Cuba but in defiance of Cuban opposition and decidedly not in support of the Cuban government. Of course, the Iraqi government has now told U.S. troops to get out.
In some cases, the military engagement goes further. The U.S. military is fighting a war in partnership with Saudi Arabia against the people of Yemen, and fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in support of oppressive governments (by the U.S. government's own definition) that were created by U.S.-led wars.
Another source for a list of dictatorships is the CIA-funded Political Instability Task Force. As of 2018, this group identified 21 nations as autocracies.
Taking dictatorships as a subcategory of horribly oppressive governments, and consulting various sources, I come up with the following list of dictatorships supported by the U.S. military: Bahrain, Brunei, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Gabon, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan. These are places whose leaders would have war propagandists drooling in excitement if the United States were to target them. These leaders make Noriega, Gadaffi, Hussein, Assad, and others the United States has supported and then turned against look good. We could add Yemen which the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have spent years destroying to restore a dictator.
Take just the first one alphabetically, Bahrain, and Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. This guy has been the King of Bahrain since 2002, when he made himself King, prior to which he was called Emir. He had become Emir in 1999 due to his accomplishments in, first, existing, and second, his father dying. The King has four wives, only one of whom is his cousin.
Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has dealt with nonviolent protesters by shooting, kidnapping, torturing, and imprisoning them. He has punished people for speaking up for human rights, and even for "insulting" the king or his flag offenses that carry a sentence of 7 years in prison and a hefty fine. I'm sparing you pages on how awful this guy is.
Bahrain is only one of many. On Thursday, the New York Times published a 9,000-word love letter to the royal dictator of the United Arab Emirates, claiming that such anti-Islamist dictators must be supported which is somewhat reminiscent of all the justifications for supporting anti-Communist Islamists.
When the U.S. government wants a war, it will point to human rights abuses (which it may or may not have helped facilitate) as reasons for the war. They are no such thing. Wars are horrible for human rights, and the U.S. government is not in the business of spreading human rights. Where wars begin in the world does not correlate with higher levels of human rights abuses. Wars are not started to rid the world of human rights abuses. Wars do just the opposite of that. They are also the opposite of spreaders of democracy and could not be launched by a functioning democracy.
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