America’s enduring craze for destruction

Asif Haroon Raja

The US past and present gives credence to the fact that there is no other country matching its destructive game play. The US used incendiary bombs against German cities in 1942 and adopted it as a strategy. Both the US and British air forces carried out massive night bombing of Dresden in 1945 resulting in 55000-250,000 casualties. Florence city was reduced to rubble within hours. It is the only country which forced Japan to surrender by dropping atom bombs on the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and causing deaths to millions. Living beings of these unfortunate countries suffer from nuclear after affects even today. Atomic bomb option was used at the fag end of 2^nd world war in 1945 as means of pre-empting its invasion of Japanese heartland, which was sure to cause very heavy American casualties. In Hiroshima instant deaths were 100,000; the toll later rose to 200,000. In Nagasaki, 40,000 died instantly while 150,000 died eventually. 330,000 people perished in conventional aerial incendiary bomb attacks.

In 1953, the US and allied forces tried hard to annex whole of Korean Peninsula so as to establish US military bases right along China and Russia borders. In Cambodia, the US Boing B-52 bombers carried out high-altitude carpet bombing from March 1969 till August 15, 1973. Purpose was to disrupt supply routes of North Vietnamese Peoples Liberation Army. Holocaust of 2756941 tons of bombs over 113000 Cambodian sites killed 150,000 rural Cambodians which provoked insurgency that had enjoyed little support until the bombing began.   

The US forces bombed Iraqis fleeing from Kuwait Highway on night of February 26/27, 1991. Defenceless Iraqi forces along with Kuwaiti captives and civilians were retreating. The entire line of convoy of 2000 vehicles was strafed for hours killing tens of thousands of helpless soldiers and civilians. Idea was to cripple Iraqi defence equipment and soldiers before the eventual ground assault on Baghdad. The international community saw the carnage which was gross violation of Geneva Convention 1949. During Bush rule, Ethiopia was instigated to invade Somalia in 1991 and bring down Union of Islamic courts. Since then, Somalia has never seen stability. Harsh economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the first Gulf War in 1991 resulted in death of 500,000 Iraqi children.    

CIA has a despicable history of toppling governments, meddling into internal affairs of other countries, assassinating key figures, masterminding and executing coups and supporting dictators. The CIA was behind major coups done in the world after 2^nd World War. Most coups brought dictators in power.

CIA toppled Mosadek regime in Iran in 1953. Manuel Noriega, the strong man of Panama remained on payroll of CIA for many years but was eventually abandoned in December 1989 since he was becoming too powerful. Jean Bertrand Aristide in exile was given the power in 1991 but was toppled in 2004. In 2009, a coup was engineered in Honduras and its elected president Manuel Zaleya was dragged out of his bed and flown out of country in his night suit. Gen Vasquez led the coup at the prompting of CIA. However, it failed in Venezuela to oust Hugo Chavez in 2002 and in Ecuador against Rafael Correa in September 2010.

In Latin America, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have joined hands to fight back US military and economic hegemony and China is aligning itself with progressive regimes. US-NATO forces wrought massive destruction in Afghanistan in end 2001 and later in Iraq in March 2003 causing well over 1.6 million fatalities. CIA played its part in engineering 9/11 and demonizing Al-Qaeda and later cooking up story of WMDs to justify invasions. The US used white phosphorous in Fallujah and massacred the civilians as well as combatants ruthlessly. Fallujah massacre was admitted by US.

CIA was behind Rose, Orange, Tulip and Twitter revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. CIA has intensified efforts to forge and expand military alliances and deployment in Asia-Pacific region. Russia, China, North Korea, Myanmar and Iran are not in its loop. CIA is now actively involved in Iran, Pakistan and Tibet. However, its color revolutions in Iran and Myanmar failed.  

CIA has always aspired for safe and secure playing fields wherefrom it could conduct its covert operations against target countries. Tehran, Lebanon, Hanoi, Cairo have remained its major bases. Each base got disrupted due to indigenous upheaval because of which it had to depart hastily and shift elsewhere. At present, Kabul has been turned into the major base of CIA where five other intelligence agencies are its partners. Of late, this base too has become vulnerable and even Kabul is getting encircled and with each passing day liberty of action is getting restricted.

The CIA uses anti-drug fight as a tool to gain political control over countries. Bolivian President EW Morales said the US uses fight against drug trafficking to ‘politically subdue’ Latin American regimes and establish its hegemony in the region. Ironically CIA uses drug trade as a means to fund secret wars as it is presently doing in Afghanistan which provides 80% of world’s opium and business is worth $3 billion annually.

The US military is occupying foreign lands, training death squads, torturing, abducting, killing innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Philippines, Colombia, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere. Leaked video footage dated 6 April 2010 shows American Army Apache helicopters open fire on civilians in Baghdad, repeatedly shooting and gunning them down as they try to flee. It was released on website WikiLeaks.org. Firers are heard laughing and discussing as if playing video games. One said, ‘ha, ha, I hit him’. Other said, ‘look at those dead bastards’.

The US has military bases all over the globe and its naval fleets are operating in all the oceans. In Middle East, it has bases in Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Yemen. Despite being the most powerful nation on earth and having military apparatus on a scale greater than the sum of every other country, the US has patently failed to impose its solution on Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Far from intimidating Iran to abandon its nuclear program, Iran is gaining strategic strength with each passing day. Minuscule North Korea refuses to be browbeaten. Neither the US has been able to encircle China nor block its economic upsurge. All its military ventures have so far failed. It is now justifying its invasion of Libya on the pretext of saving innocent people from the wrath of Qaddafi’s forces but US-UK jets and warships are causing more civilian deaths and destruction.

It is seeking China’s monetary assistance as well as that of oil rich Arab states to absorb the shocks of global recession. At the same time China-US economic rivalry is sharpening despite the fact that both are economically inter-dependent. While the US has become debt ridden, economy of its major foe China has up surged. Both are trying to outrival other’s economic influence in the vital regions of East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The two powers are desperate to gain monopoly over economic resources in Eurasia.  

In 2009, China froze substantive military relations with USA in protest of US arms sale to Taiwan which China claims to be its part. In mid 2010, relations hit rock bottom when China objected to US plans to deploy its super carrier George Washington off Korean Peninsula under the garb of joint naval exercise with South Korea. China plans to launch its own aircraft carrier this year to signal its resolve to rise as a super power. It is also working on a ‘carrier-killing’ ballistic missile ‘Dong Feng21 to sink US carrier from a distance. In next five years, China’s economic power will grow much faster and in turn will boost military power.

China poses greatest threat to US imperialism but the US neither has the will nor the heart to confront it militarily. It however suffers from enduring craze to assert its global monopoly by terrorizing and pulverizing militarily weak and economically impoverished Muslim states.