In 2002 the US was openly exposed in its unsuccessfully coup against democratically elected President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. In 2009 the US supported the military coup in Honduras that overthrew a democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. Afterward Honduras became the murder capital of the world for journalists. Indigenous native people are still being terrorized, and driven off their traditional land in favor of large corporate landowners.
The history of US terrorism is too long to even summarize in this short essay. Afghanistan was already mentioned above. The CIA backed and Saudi financed mujahideen have become a plague that has spread throughout South and South-west Asia, as well as Russia and China. The Saudis have provided much of the financing for US sponsored terrorists.
The US is openly backing the terrorist group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq ( MEK) to infiltrate and terrorize Iran. The MEK was on the US State Department's list of designated terrorist organization until 2012, when Hillary Clinton had them removed. The MEK has killed Americans, "bombing the facilities of numerous U.S. companies and are killing innocent Iranians", according to an article in Politico. The MEK has committed acts of terrorism in Europe too.
Trump has openly bragged that the US is sponsoring MEK terrorists in Albania to infiltrate Iran. John McCain, who has never seen a US regime change project he did not like, has praised the MEK. John Bolton, Newt Gingrich, and Mitch McConnell among many others regularly show up as highly paid speakers at MEK events. The MEK is a weird and dangerous cult of personalities run by husband and wife Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. They are "responsible for bombings, attempted plane hijackings, political assassinations, and indiscriminate killings of men, women and children", according to an article in Politico.
Thirdly, as for human rights in Iran, the US has no moral authority left to judge anyone else on human rights. The US backs Saudi Arabia which is the most repressive regime in the world. The US is fully supporting from the rear the Saudi bombing of Yemen and the blockading of food, medicine and even water, putting 22 million people at dire risk. It is the worst humanitarian crisis in history.
It was Saudi Arabia that financed 9/11 and most of the hijackers were Saudis. Retired Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) who was the Co-Chair of the Joint Congressional Committee investigating 9/11 has called Saudi Arabia a coconspirator of the attacks of 9/11.
Israel is the US's "cat's paw" in the Middle East. The US supports Israel 100%. Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and the building of illegal settlements deprive millions of Palestinians their civil, legal and human rights. Israel has turned Gaza into an unlivable concentration death camp for 2 million people. They have been deprived of basic services such as clean drinking water, electricity and medicine. When Gazans have peacefully protested, Israeli snippers have gunned them down by the hundreds during the " Great March of Return".
Israel has now launched a massive attack on Gaza. Israeli Defense Minister Lieberman has said that Palestinian civilians will "pay the price", and that the price will be "more painful than Operation Protective Edge". The US taxpayers will be supplying the bombs, ammunitions, and money as they always do. The US is not hypocritical about human rights, it just doesn't care and lies that it does when it serves US foreign policy purposes. US foreign policy serves US corporate interests, not the interests of people.
The US has killed millions of human beings, just in the 21st century, in its wars of aggression. Its drones vaporize wedding parties and funerals. The US abducts people arbitrarily and tortures them in black sites. The US backs 73% of the world's fascistic dictators. With 5% of the world's population the US holds 25% of the world's prisoners in conditions that are for-profit and inhumane. The US is continuing its long history on the Southern border of locking non-white children in cages. The disgraceful Guantanamo Bay is still open despite Obama's 2008 promise to close it.
In conclusion, when somebody on the inside of the establishment like General Wesley Clark says, as he did in 2007, that the US had planned in 2001 to take out 7 countries in 5 years, then we should take them seriously. The US has invaded and attempted to take out most of the 7 countries on Clark's list. Stop believing the US lies every time the US decides to take out a regime based on nebulous humanitarian reasons, or because they are a so-called axis of evil.
The US is militarily the most powerful country the world has ever seen. It is ridiculous when the US claims that its national security and the safety of the American people are being threatened by tiny countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea. Iran poses no national security threat to the US or to its proxy Israel. Iran's aging air force is not a challenge to the US or the region, which is the reason that Iran has an interest in developing missile defense. Missiles are a less costly alternative for defense than maintaining a modern air force. The US objects to Iran's missiles, because it wants to keep Iran defenseless against US and Israeli aggression. Not because the US fears Iranian aggression.
The US military-industrial-banking-media monopolies want to keep the American people afraid. Iran has been made into a boogeyman, because it is an oil-rich nation that has closed its doors to neoliberal US corporate exploitation. The American people are being robbed of their economic security, universal healthcare, inexpensive higher education and badly needed infrastructure, because of constant warmongering.
*
[This article was first published by The Real News Network.]
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
14
9
6
