Covert U.S. regime change actions
Encyclopedia
The United States government has been involved in and assisted in the overthrow of foreign governments (more recently termed regime change
) without the overt use of U.S. military force. Often, such operations are tasked to the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA). Many of the governments targeted by the U.S. have been democratically elected, rather than authoritarian governments
or military dictatorship
s. In many cases, the governments toppled were replaced by dictatorships, sometimes installed with assistance by the U.S.
Regime change has been attempted through direct involvement of U.S. operatives, the funding and training of insurgency groups within these countries, anti-regime propaganda campaigns, coup d'état
s, and other, often illegal, activities usually conducted as operations by the CIA. The U.S. has also accomplished regime change by direct military action, such as following the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and the U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Some argue that non-transparent United States government agencies working in secret sometimes mislead or do not fully implement the decisions of elected civilian leaders and that this has been an important component of many such operations. See Plausible deniability
. Some contend that the US has supported more coups against democracies that it perceived as communist, or becoming communist.
Notwithstanding a history of U.S. covert actions to topple democratic governments and of installing authoritarian regimes in their places (see, e.g. Iran 1953, below), U.S. officials routinely express support for democracy as best supporting U.S. interests and as protecting human life and health.
's administration. After withdrawing funding for Russia and opposing a British and French plan to include the Bolsheviks as allies against Germany in 1918, the United States extended its maritime blockade of Germany to include Soviet Russia and began covertly supporting
Russian opposition factions.
In 1918, the Allied powers including the United States began a military intervention
in the Russian Civil War
. At the request of the British and French, the U.S. sent troops to the Russian port cities of Vladivostok
and Archangelsk. President Wilson appointed General William S. Graves
to lead the thousands of American troops at Vladivostok.
s in the communist regimes of Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union during the Cold War
. One example is the counterespionage operations following the discovery of the Farewell dossier
which some argue contributed to the fall of The Soviet Regime. The National Endowment for Democracy
supported pro-capitalist movements in the communist state
s and has been accused of secretly supporting regime change, which it denies. Many of the Eastern European states later turned to capitalism
and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In addition to this the perceived threat of worldwide sometimes Soviet-sponsored revolutionary guerrilla movements—often involved in wars of national liberation
—defined much of U.S. foreign policy in the Third World
with regard to covert action and led to what could be considered as proxy war
s between the United States and Soviet Union.
led by Prime Minister
Mohammad Mossadegh who had attempted to nationalize Iran's petroleum industry, threatening the profits of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Declassified CIA documents show that Britain was fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry and pressed the U.S. to mount a joint operation to depose the prime minister and install a puppet regime. In 1951 the Iranian parliament
voted to nationalize the petroleum fields of the country.
The coup was led by CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.
(grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt
). With help from British intelligence, the CIA planned, funded and implemented Operation Ajax
. In the months before the coup, the UK and U.S. imposed a boycott of the country, exerted other political pressures, and conducted a massive covert propaganda campaign to create the environment necessary for the coup. The CIA hired Iranian agents provocateurs who posed as communists, harassed religious leaders and staged the bombing of one cleric's home to turn the Islamic religious community against the government. For the U.S. audience, the CIA hoped to plant articles in U.S. newspapers saying that Shah
Mohammed Reza Pahlevi's return to govern Iran resulted from a homegrown revolt against what was being represented to the U.S. public as a communist-leaning government. The CIA successfully used its contacts at the Associated Press
to put on the newswire in the U.S. a statement from Tehran
about royal decrees that the CIA itself had written.
The coup initially failed and the Shah fled the country. After four days of rioting, Shi'ite-sparked street protests backed by pro-Shah army units defeated Mossadeq's forces and the Shah returned to power. After the coup, his rule was more autocratic, with little concern for democracy.
Supporters of the coup have argued that Mossadegh had become the de facto dictator of Iran, citing his dissolution of the Parliament and the Supreme Court, and his abolishment of free elections with a secret ballot, after he declared victory in a referendum where he claimed 99.9% of the vote. Darioush Bayandor
has argued that the CIA botched their coup attempt and that a popular uprising, instigated by top Shi'ite clerics such as Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi and Abol-Ghasem Kashani (who were certain that Mosaddegh was taking the nation toward religious indifference, and worried that he had banished the Shah), instigated street riots to return the Shah to power four days after the failed coup.
The CIA subsequently used the apparent success of their Iranian coup project to bolster their image in American government circles. They expanded their reach into other countries, taking a greater portion of American intelligence assets based on their record in Iran.
led by Jacobo Arbenz. Arbenz was elected without a secret ballot. His land reform
was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which he then purged. The CIA intervened because it feared that a communist government would become "a Soviet beachhead in the Western Hemisphere", and because it was protecting, among others, four hundred thousand acres of land the United Fruit Company had acquired. Guatemala's official 1999 truth commission accused Arbenz of being involved in the deaths of several hundred political opponents.
operation. Under initiatives by the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations, CIA-trained Cuban anti-communist exiles and refugees to land in Cuba
and attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro
. Plans originally formed under Eisenhower were scaled back under Kennedy.
The CIA made a number of attempts to assassinate Castro, often with White House approval, as in Operation Mongoose.
. A leader of the successful anti-colonial struggle, Patrice Émery Lumumba
was elected to be the first prime minister of the country that following its independence from colonial rule had become known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo
.
Soon after the election, during the Congo Crisis
, the CIA and the Belgian government orchestrated a military coup to remove the Lumumba government from power. Lumumba was subsequently murdered in prison.
While Qasim was actually killed by a firing squad of the Ba'ath party that overthrew him, there had been a separate CIA plan to incapacitate him. In their request, they said the target's death would not be unacceptable to them, but was not the principal objective: "We do not consciously seek subject's permanent removal from the scene; we also do not object should this complication develop."
Washington immediately befriended the successor regime. "Almost certainly a gain for our side," Robert Komer
, a National Security Council aide, wrote to President
John F. Kennedy
on the day of the takeover.
That Komer wrote that memo to Kennedy, without spending any time on additional research, may suggest, but does not confirm, the National Security Council, a covert operations approval committee, or Kennedy knew of planning against Qasim.
Although U.S. opposition to the Qasim regime is beyond dispute, some scholars have challenged the idea that the CIA played any direct role in his removal.
A democratically-elected government headed by President João Goulart
was successfully overthrown by a CIA-supported coup in March 1964. On March 30, the American military attaché in Brazil, Colonel Vernon A. Walters
, telegraphed the State Department
. In that telegraph, he confirmed that Brazilian army generals, independently of the US, had committed themselves to acting against Goulart within a week of the meeting, but no date was set.
Declassified transcripts of communications between US ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon and the U.S. government show that, predicting an all-out civil war, President Johnson authorized logistical materials to be in place to support the coup-side of the rebellion as part of U.S. Operation Brother Sam.
In the telegraphs, Gordon also acknowledges U.S. involvement in "covert support for pro-democracy street rallies...and encouragement [of] democratic and anti-communist sentiment in Congress, armed forces, friendly labor and student groups, church, and business" and that he "may be requesting modest supplementary funds for other covert action programs in the near future."
In 2001, Gordon published a book,Brazil's Second Chance: En Route Toward the First World, on Brazilian history since the military coup. In it, he denied a role in the coup. However, James N. Green, an American historian of Brazil, argued: "[Gordon] changed Brazil's history, for he....made it clear that, if the coup was advanced, the United States was going to recognize it immediately, which was fundamental [to the plotters]."
, the President of Ghana
, was overthrown in a military coup backed by the CIA while on a state visit to North Vietnam and China.
A series of subsequent coups from 1966 to 1981 ended with the ascension to power of Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings
in 1981. These changes resulted in the suspension of the constitution in 1981 and the banning of political parties. The economy suffered a severe decline soon after, and many Ghanaians migrated to other countries. Although most migrating Ghanaians went to Nigeria, the Nigerian government deported about a million Ghanaians back to Ghana
in 1983.
, not a Ba'athist, assumed the presidency. Said K. Abuirsh alleges that in 1967, the government of Iraq was very close to giving concessions for the development of huge new oil fields in the country to France and the USSR. He suggested that Robert Anderson
, former secretary of the treasury under President Dwight D. Eisenhower
, secretly met with the Ba'ath Party and came to a negotiated agreement according to which both the oil field concessions and sulfur mined in the northern part of the country would go to United States companies if the Ba'ath again took power. In 1968, the CIA allegedly backed the coup by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of the Baath Party, bringing Saddam Hussein
to the threshold of power.
Former CIA Near East Division Chief James Chritchfield maintains that the CIA played no direct role in the 1963 coup, but that it viewed the Ba'ath Party favorably and offered support after they had taken over. He referred to the subsequent coups that brought Saddam to power as "counter-coups" that enabled the "radical" elements of the Party. "We did not identify a radical movement within the Ba'ath", he said. "That was our mistake—that surprised us." The U.S. broke all relations with Iraq in 1967. After al-Bakr seized power in 1968, relations remained completely severed for 16 years and the U.S. made arms sales to Iraq illegal in a law passed by Congress. In June 1972, the Iraqi government nationalized the oil assets of British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Compagnie Française des Petroles, Mobil Oil and Standard Oil of New Jersey.
Official CIA records do not indicate that the CIA supported the 1968 coup in Iraq.
David Wise, a Washington-based author who has written extensively about Cold War espionage, has disputed the notion that the CIA supported the 1968 coup, as has Middle East analyst James Phillips. According to a 2003 report by Common Dreams, "many experts, including foreign affairs scholars, say there is little to suggest U.S. involvement in Iraq in the 1960s", although it is widely acknowledged that the CIA worked to destabilize the Qasim regime in the early part of the decade. Robert Dreyfuss
, in his book Devil's Game, maintains that the Johnson administration actually opposed the 1968 coup and used the Shah's Iran as a counterpoint to the Ba'athist regime it established. A 2006 study concluded that the CIA's alleged role in the coup "cannot be considered historical" in the absence of more compelling evidence. The Church Committee
and Pike Committee investigations did not find any evidence of CIA involvement in Iraq outside of a handful of plots against Qasim in the early '60s.
; involving the CIA, which show that covert operatives were inserted in Chile, in order to prevent a Marxist government from arising and for the purpose of spreading anti-Allende propaganda. While U.S. government hostility to the democratically-elected Allende government is unquestioned, the U.S. role in the coup itself remains a highly controversial matter.
The CIA, as recounted in the Church Committee
report, was involved in various plots designed to remove Allende and then let the Chileans vote in a new election where he would not be a candidate: It tried to buy off the Chilean Congress to prevent his appointment, attempted to have him exiled, worked to sway public opinion against him to prevent his election, tried to foil his political aspirations during the Lyndon B. Johnson
administration, and financed protests designed to bring the country to a stand-still and make him resign. Convinced that a conventional military uprising was still not possible in Chile, the CIA, acting with the approval of the 40 Committee—the body charged with overseeing covert actions abroad—devised what in effect was a constitutional coup. The most expeditious way to prevent Allende from assuming office was somehow to convince the Chilean congress to confirm Jorge Alessandri
as the winner of the election. Once elected by the congress, Alessandri—a party to the plot through intermediaries—was prepared to resign his presidency within a matter of days so that new elections could be held.
The CIA also learned of a number of plots to establish a military dictatorship. Although it pointedly refused to materially assist any of them, and actually worked to prevent several of the more unlikely plots for fear they would fail and strengthen Allende; it also encouraged several of the plots and did nothing to prevent them. It assured the plotters that such an event would be welcomed in Washington and that the U.S. woud not cut off aid over potential human rights violations.
A Chilean Supreme Court investigation accused Allende of support of armed groups, torture, illegal arrests, muzzling the press, confiscating private property, and not allowing people to leave the country.
Another aspect of the American role in Chile was an alleged attempt on the life of Chilean general Rene Schneider
in 1970, due to his support for the appointment of Allende. The Church hearings found that the CIA did in fact give weapons to a group of men who it knew had attacked him twice before, ostensibly as a test of loyalty so that the CIA would remain privy to their information, but that the weapons provided and the group thereby armed were not the ones who actually killed him. The weapons were returned unused to the CIA and then discarded in the Pacific Ocean. On June 11, 1971, Kissinger and Nixon said the following in a private conversation:
There are two possible interpretations of these remarks: a) Kissinger was telling the President that a military coup could not succeed in Chile because there were no officers both willing and able to carry one out; or b) the two men were mocking the CIA's squeamishness about killing Schneider.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, in its investigation of the matter, concluded that since the machine guns supplied to Valenzuela had not actually been employed in the killing, and since General Viaux had been officially discouraged by the CIA a few days before the murder, there was therefore "no evidence of a plan to kill Schneider or that United States officials specifically anticipated that Schneider would be shot during the abduction." This view has been disputed by writer Christopher Hitchens
.
, writing in the Asia Times
, argued that as early as 1973-74, the CIA began offering covert backing to radical Islamist rebels in Afghanistan premised on the claim that the authoritarian government headed by Mohammed Daoud Khan
might prove a likely instrument of Soviet military aggression in South Asia. Morris argues that the Soviets had also shown no inclination to use the notoriously unruly Afghans and their army for any expansionist aim. Morris claims that during this period U.S. foreign policy leaders saw the Soviets as always being "on the march." U.S. secret backing of the Islamist rebels ceased following an abortive uprising in 1975.
In 1974, the Islamists plotted a military coup, but Daoud's regime discovered the plot and imprisoned the leaders—at least those who did not escape to Pakistan. The following year, the Islamists attempted a failing uprising in the Panjshir Valley.
Michael Rubin, of the Middle East Review of International Affairs, records only covert Pakistani support for the two failed coups against Daoud, without any apparent CIA role. Rubin claims that the ISI had reason to fear the Afghan regime, noting that Daud had twice mobilized for war with Pakistan in the early sixties and that the Afghans were covertly arming separatist Pashtun rebels in the country.
. Subsequently, Al-Bakr attempts in 1979 to demote the Vice-President, Saddam Hussein
, to a position of relative obscurity. Saddam responds with a counter-coup, forcing al-Bakr to resign, conducting a ruthless purge of hundreds of Ba'athists and naming himself President.
The American betrayal of the Kurds was investigated by the Pike Committee, which described it as cynical and self-serving. It has been argued that it tarnished America's image with one of the most pro-Western groups in the Middle East.
The democratically elected government of Argentina headed by Isabel Martínez de Perón
was successfully overthrown by a military putsch in March 1976. Eight days before the coup, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera
, Chief of the Argentine Navy
and a major coup plotter, turned to Ambassador Robert Hill, U.S. ambassador to Argentina, for help in getting a recommendation for an American public relations
firm that would manage the Argentine coup leaders' propaganda campaign for the coup and for the crackdown against democracy and human rights activists that was to follow. Ambassador Hill stated that the United States government cannot interfere in such affairs and provided Admiral Massera with a list of reputable public relations firms maintained by the Embassy. Also, more than two months before the coup, senior coup plotters consulted with American officials in Argentina about the coup, and Ambassador Hill reported to Washington that he was encouraged that the military coup plotters were "aware of the problem" that their killings might cause and "are already focusing on ways to avoid letting human rights issues become an irritant in US-Argentine relations" by being pro-active with the preparation of the public relations operation.
U.S. planners were aware that the coup would be unlikely to succeed without murderous repression. Two days after the coup, Assistant Secretary for Latin America, William Rogers
, advised Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
that "we ought not at this moment rush out and embrace this new regime" because he expected significant repression to follow the coup.
But Kissinger made his preferences clear: "Whatever chance they have, they will need a little encouragement... because I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States."
reacted with "open-mouthed shock" to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and began promptly arming the Afghan insurgents. Vice-President Walter Mondale famously declared: "I cannot understand – it just baffles me – why the Soviets these last few years have behaved as they have. Maybe we have made some mistakes with them. Why did they have to build up all these arms? Why did they have to go into Afghanistan? Why can't they relax just a little bit about Eastern Europe? Why do they try every door to see if it is locked?" The Soviets, several times shortly before the invasion, had staged conversations with the Afghan leadership suggesting that they had no desire to intervene, even as the Politburo was—with much hesitation—considering such an intervention. Though some have argued that US financial assistance to Afghan dissidents, including Islamists and other militants, prior to the invasion; along with a Soviet desire to protect the leftist Afghan government, helped convince the Soviets to intervene, the Soviets executed the Afghan President and his son, replacing him with a puppet regime, immediately after the invasion for fear that the US had secretly been collaborating with him.
A 2002 study found that, in the wake of the Iranian Revolution
, the United States had sought rapprochement with the Afghan government—a prospect that the USSR found unacceptable (especially as its own leverage over the regime was wearing thin). Thus, the Soviets intervened to preserve their influence in the country.
One of the CIA's longest and most expensive covert operations was the supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants. The CIA provided assistance to the fundamentalist insurgents through the Pakistani secret services, Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI), in a program called Operation Cyclone
. Somewhere between $2–$20 billion in U.S. funds were funneled into the country to train and equip troops with weapons.
According to the "Progressive South Asia Exchange Net", claiming to cite an article in Le Nouvel Observateur
, U.S. policy, unbeknownst even to the Mujahideen, was part of a larger strategy of aiming "to induce a Soviet military intervention." The article includes a brief interview with Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski
, in which he is quoted as saying that the US provided aid to the mujahideen prior to the Soviet invasion in order to delibrately provoke one. Brzezinski himself has denied the accuracy of the interview. According to Brzezinski, an NSC working group
on Afghanistan wrote several reports on the deteriorating situation in 1979, but President Carter ignored them until the Soviet intervention destroyed his illusions. Brzezinski has stated that the US provided communications equipment and limited financial aid to the mujahideen prior to the "formal" invasion, but only in response to the Soviet deployment of forces to Afghanistan and the 1978 coup, and with the intention of preventing further Soviet encroachment in the region. Two declassified documents signed by Carter shortly before the invasion do authorize the provision "unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to the Afghan insurgents either in the form of cash or non-military supplies" and the "worldwide" distribution of "non-attributable propaganda" to "expose" the leftist Afghan government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union" and to "publicize the efforts of the Afghan insurgents to regain their country's sovereignty", but the records also show that the provision of arms to the rebels did not begin until 1980.
The Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 significantly damaged the already tenuous relationship between Secretary of State Vance and Brzezinski. Vance felt that Brzezinski's linkage of SALT
to other Soviet activities and the MX, together with the growing domestic criticisms in the United States of the SALT II Accord, convinced Brezhnev to decide on military intervention in Afghanistan. Brzezinski, however, later recounted that he repeatedly advanced proposals on how to maintain Afghanistan's "independence" and deter a Soviet invasion but was frustrated by the Department of State's opposition.
According to Eric Alterman
of The Nation
, Cyrus Vance
's close aide Marshall Shulman "insists that the State Department worked hard to dissuade the Soviets from invading and would never have undertaken a program to encourage it" and President Carter has said it was definitely "not my intention" to inspire a Soviet invasion but to deter one. Bob Gates, in his book Out Of The Shadows, wrote that Pakistan had actually been "pressuring" the United States for arms to aid the rebels for years, but that the Carter administration refused in the hope of finding a diplomatic solution to avoid war. Brzezinski seemed to have been in favor of the provision of arms to the rebels, while Vance's State Department, seeking a peaceful settlement, publicly accused Brzezinski of seeking to "revive" the Cold War
. Gates, however, has questioned if the US financial aid did increase the chances of the Soviets intervening, writing that some CIA officers involved assumed that that was President Carter's intention.
The Soviet invasion and occupation killed up to 2 million Afghans. Brzezinski defended the arming of the rebels in response, saying that it "was quite important in hastening the end of the conflict", thereby saving the lives of thousands of Afghans, but "not in deciding the conflict, because actually the fact is that even though we helped the mujaheddin, they would have continued fighting without our help, because they were also getting a lot of money from the Persian Gulf and the Arab states, and they weren't going to quit. They didn't decide to fight because we urged them to. They're fighters, and they prefer to be independent. They just happen to have a curious complex: they don't like foreigners with guns in their country. And they were going to fight the Soviets. Giving them weapons was a very important forward step in defeating the Soviets, and that's all to the good as far as I'm concerned." When he was asked if he thought it was the right decision in retrospect (given the Taliban's subsequent rise to power), he said: "Which decision? For the Soviets to go in? The decision was the Soviets', and they went in. The Afghans would have resisted anyway, and they were resisting. I just told you: in my view, the Afghans would have prevailed in the end anyway, 'cause they had access to money, they had access to weapons, and they had the will to fight." The interviewer then asked: "So US support for the mujaheddin only begins after the Russians invade, not before?" Brzezinski replied: "With arms? Absolutely afterwards. No question about it. Show me some documents to the contrary." Likewise; Charlie Wilson said: "The U.S. had nothing whatsoever to do with these people's decision to fight ... but we'll be damned by history if we let them fight with stones." The 2007 movie Charlie Wilson's War
celebrated Charlie Wilson's and the CIA's involvement in the repulsion of the USSR troops from Afghanistan. Representative Wilson was awarded the Honored College Award by the CIA for his involvement.
With US and other funding, the ISI armed and trained over 100,000 insurgents. On July 20, 1987, the withdrawal of Soviet troops
from the country was announced pursuant to the negotiations that led to the Geneva Accords of 1988, with the last Soviets leaving on February 15, 1989.
The early foundations of al-Qaida were built in part on relationships and weaponry that came from the billions of dollars in U.S. support for the Afghan mujahadin during the war to expel Soviet forces from that country. The initial bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993
, the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
, the attack on the USS Cole
, and the attacks of September 11 were all allegedly linked to individuals and groups that at one time were armed and trained by the United States and/or its allies.
Diplomatic relations with Iraq had been severed shortly after the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six-Day War. A decade later, following a series of major political developments, particularly after the Iranian Revolution
and the seizure of embassy staff in the 1979–81 Iran hostage crisis
, President Jimmy Carter
ordered a review of American policy toward Iraq.
According to Kenneth R. Timmerman
, the "Islamic revolution in Iran upset the entire strategic equation in the region. America's principal ally in the Persian Gulf, the Shah, was swept aside overnight, and no one else on the horizon could replace him as the guarantor of U.S. interests in the region."
During the crisis, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein attempted to take advantage of the disorder of the Revolution, the weakness of the Iranian military and the revolution's antagonism with Western governments. The Iranian military had been disbanded during the revolt and with the Shah ousted, Hussein had ambitions to position himself as the new strong man of the Middle East. "He condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and signed an alliance with Saudi Arabia to block the Soviet-backed attempt to take over North Yemen. In 1979 he also allowed the CIA, which he had once so virulently attacked, to open an office in Baghdad." Zbigniew Brzezinski
, National Security Advisor to President Carter, "began to look more favorably toward Saddam Hussein as a potential counterweight to the Ayatollah Khomeini and as a force to contain Soviet expansionism in the region."
Biographer Said K. Aburish
, author of Saddam Hussein: The Politics Of Revenge, says the Iraqi dictator made a visit to Amman
in the year 1979, before the Iran–Iraq War, where he met with King Hussein
and, very possibly, three agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Aburish says there is "considerable evidence that he discussed his plans to invade Iran with the CIA agents." Timmerman records American officials meeting only with King Hussein on precisely the same date, noting this "top-secret negotiating session was Brzezinski's idea." He quotes National Security Council staff member and former aide Gary G. Sick
:
According to Zbigniew Brzezinski's memoir, the United States initially took a largely neutral position on the Iran–Iraq War, with some minor exceptions. First, the U.S. acted in an attempt to prevent the confrontation from widening, largely in order to prevent additional disruption to world oil supplies and to honor U.S. security assurances to Saudi Arabia. As a result, the U.S. reacted to Soviet troop movements on the border of Iran by informing the Soviet Union that they would defend Iran in the event of Soviet invasion. The U.S. also acted to defend Saudi Arabia, and lobbied the surrounding states not to become involved in the war. Brzezinski characterizes this recognition of the Middle East as a vital strategic region on a par with Western Europe and the Far East as a fundamental shift in U.S. strategic policy. Second, the United States explored whether the Iran–Iraq War would offer leverage with which to resolve the Iranian Hostage Crisis. In this regard, the Carter administration explored the use of both "carrots", by suggesting that they might offer military assistance to Iran upon release of the hostages, and "sticks", by discouraging Israeli military assistance to Iran and suggesting that they might offer military assistance to Iraq if the Iranians did not release the hostages. Third, as the war progressed, freedom of navigation, especially at the Strait of Hormuz
, was deemed a critical priority.
But by 1985, the US was working to contain the Iraqis. A May 1985 CIA memo to Director Casey said, "Our tilt to Iraq was timely when Iraq was against the ropes and the Islamic revolution was on a roll. The time may now have to come to tilt back...." In September 1986, Reagan official Oliver North
promised Iran that the US could "bring our influence to bear with certain friendly Arab nations" to oust the Hussein regime. Earlier, in February 1986, while these secret discussions were taking place, Iran scored a major victory by capturing Iraq's Fao Peninsula. The New York Times (1/19/87) reported that Iraqi officials believed that their defeat at Fao "was due to faulty U.S. intelligence." Iraq detected Iranian troop movements, the Iraqi official said, but the U.S. "kept on telling us that the Iranian attack was not aimed against Fao." When Iraq intentionally attacked the USS Stark, however, the US did not punish Iraq. From 24 July 1987 - 26 September 1988, the U.S. Navy
launched Operation Earnest Will
, in which the US escorted and protected Kuwaiti oil tankers from Iranian attacks, at Kuwait's request. Operation Earnest Will was the largest naval convoy operation undertaken by the US since World War II and constituted a policy of "neutral intervention", calculated to be delterious to Iran but officially maintaining the US policy of neutrality.
Between 1987 and 1988, the US engaged in a secret effort to spy on Iran with aircraft, in what was called Operation Eager Glacier
.Operation Prime Chance
was a U.S. naval operation from August 1987 until June 1989, said by the U.S. to be in response to the mining
of the U.S.-flagged Kuwait
i oil tanker Bridgeton
. Operation Nimble Archer
was the U.S. naval attack on October 19, 1987 on two Iran
ian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf
. The attack, claimed by the U.S. to be response to Iran's October 16, 1987 attack with a Silkworm missile
on the MV Sea Isle City
, a Kuwait
i oil tanker
reflagged as a U.S. vessel at anchor off Kuwait. On April 18, 1988, the US launched Operation Praying Mantis
, claimed by the U.S. to be in response to the mining of the . By the end of the operation the American fleet had damaged Iranian naval and intelligence facilities on two inoperable oil platforms in the Persian Gulf, and sunk at least three armed Iranian speedboats, one Iranian frigate and one fast attack gunboat. One other Iranian frigate was damaged in the operation. This American operation is credited with forcing Iran to agree to a ceasefire with Iraq. Also, the US-supported People's Mujahedin of Iran
invaded Iran from its base in Iraq shortly after the end of the Iraq-Iran war in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Iran.
guerrilla insurgency
to destabilize the Nicaraguan government.
The Contras, based in neighboring Honduras
, waged a guerrilla war
of insurgency in an effort to topple the government of Nicaragua and to seize power. The Contras' form of warfare was "one of consistent and bloody abuse of human rights, of murder, torture, mutilation, rape, arson, destruction and kidnapping." The "Contras systematically engage in violent abuses... so prevalent that these may be said to be their principal means of waging war." A Human Rights Watch
report found that the Contras were guilty of targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination; kidnapping civilians; torturing and executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat; raping women; indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian homes; seizing civilian property; and burning civilian houses in captured towns.
The Boland Amendment
made it illegal under U.S. law to provide arms to the Contra militants. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration continued to arm and fund the Contras by hatching the Iran-Contra plan, pursuant to which the U.S. secretly sold arms to Iran in violation of U.S. law in exchange for cash used by the U.S. to supply arms to the Contras in violation of the Boland Amendment, was planned and executed by a number of senior Reagan officials, including National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane
, Deputy National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter
, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams
, National Security Council staffer Col. Oliver North
and others. When the public somehow learned of this, it became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. The U.S. argued that:
The Sandinista government headed by Daniel Ortega won decisively in the 1984 Nicaraguan elections, which Western observers called free and fair. The national elections of 1984 were conducted during a state of emergency necessitated by the war fought against the Contras insurgents and the CIA-orchestrated bombings. Many political prisoners were still held as it took place, and none of the main opposition parties participated due to what they claimed were threats and persecution from the government. The 1984 election was for posts subordinate to the Sandinista Directorate, a body "no more subject to approval by vote than the Central Committee of the Communist Party is
in countries of the East Bloc." The U.S. continued to pressure the government by illegally arming the Contras insurgency. On October 5, 1985 the Sandinistas broadened the state of emergency begun in 1982 and suspended many more civil rights. A new regulation also forced any organization outside of the government to first submit any statement it wanted to make public to the censorsip bureau for prior censorship.
As the Contras' insurgency continued, funded by US aid, the Sandinistas struggled to maintain power. They were overthrown in 1990, when they ended the SOE and held an election that all the main opposition parties competed in. According to the satirist P.J. O'Rourke, the Sandinistas were forced to agree to the elections by the US and the Contras, and lost them despite "the unfair advantages of using state resources for party ends, the Sandinista control of the transit system that prevented UNO
supporters from attending rallies, the Sandinista domination of the army that forced soldiers to vote for Ortega and the Sandinista bureaucracy keeping $3.3 million of U.S. campaign aid from getting to UNO while Daniel Ortega
spent millions donated by overseas people and millions and millions more from the Nicaraguan treasury."
was legislated in 1993. El Salvador is today a prosperous and democratic nation. In 2002, a BBC article about President George W. Bush
's visit to El Salvador reported that "U.S. officials say that President George H.W. Bush's policies set the stage for peace, turning El Salvador into a democratic success story."
sought to apply the Reagan Doctrine
of aiding anti-Soviet resistance movements abroad to Cambodia, which was under Vietnamese occupation following the Cambodian genocide carried out by the Communist Khmer Rouge
. The Vietnamese had installed a Communist government led by a Khmer Rouge dissident. According to R. J. Rummel; the Vietnamese invasion, occupation, puppet regime, ongoing guerrilla warfare, and ensuing famine killed 1.2 million Cambodians in addition to the roughly 2 million who had been killed by the Khmer Rouge. The largest resistance movement fighting Cambodia's communist government was largely made up of members of the former Khmer Rouge regime, whose human rights record was among the worst of the 20th century. Therefore; Reagan authorized the provision of aid to a smaller Cambodian resistance movement, a coalition called the Khmer People's National Liberation Front
, known as the KPNLF and then run by Son Sann
; in an effort to force an end to the Vietnamese occupation. Eventually, the Vietnamese withdrew, and Cambodia's Communist regime fell. Then under UN supervision free elections were held.
led to decades of civil war that cost 1 million lives. The Reagan administration offered covert aid to a group of anti-Communist rebels led by Jonas Savimbi
, called UNITA
, whose insurgency was backed by South Africa. Dr, Peter Hammond, a Christian missionary who lived in Angola at the time, recalled: "There were over 50,000 Cuban troops in the country. The Communists had attacked and destroyed many churches. MiG-23s and Mi-24 Hind helicopter gun ships were terrorising villagers in Angola. I documented numerous atrocities, including the strafing of villages, schools and churches. In 1986, I remember hearing Ronald Reagan's speech – carried on the BBC Africa service – by short wave radio: "We are going to send stinger missiles to the UNITA Freedom Fighters in Angola!" Those who were listening to the SW radio with me looked at one another in stunned amazement. After a long silence as we wondered if our ears had actually heard what we thought we heard, one of us said: "That would be nice!" We scarcely dared believe that it would happen. But it did. Not long afterwards the stinger missiles began to arrive in UNITA controlled Free Angola. Soviet aircraft were shot down. The bombing and strafing of villagers, schools and churches came to an end. Without any doubt, Ronald Reagan's policies saved many tens of thousands of lives in Angola."
, even as his regime abused human rights and his wife Imelda Marcos
plundered their country of billions of dollars. The U.S. support was based on the U.S. military's desire of Philippine territory for its naval bases. But some American presidents, such a Ronald Reagan, were genuinely fond of Marcos, calling him a "freedom fighter."
Notwithstanding the history of U.S. support, when his grip on power was slipping, the US, for fear that the former ally had become a liability, played a significant role in pressuirng Marcos to step down and in the peaceful transition to democracy in the Philippines.
, the CIA orchestrated a bomb and sabotage campaign between 1992 and 1995 in Iraq via one of the insurgent organizations, the Iraqi National Accord
, led by Iyad Allawi
. The campaign had no apparent effect in toppling Saddam Hussein's rule.
According to the Iraqi government at the time, and former CIA officer Robert Baer
, the bombing campaign against Baghdad
included both government and civilian targets. According to this former CIA official, the civilian targets included a movie theater and a bombing of a school bus and schoolchildren were killed. No public records of the secret bombing campaign are known to exist, and the former U.S. officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. "But whether the bombings actually killed any civilians could not be confirmed because, as a former CIA official said, the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then." The Iraqi government at the time claimed that the bombs, including one it said exploded in a movie theater, resulted in many civilian casualties. In 1996, Amneh al-Khadami, who described himself as the chief bomb maker for the Iraqi National Accord, recorded a videotape in which he talked of the bombing campaign and complained that he was being shortchanged money and supplies. Two former intelligence officers confirmed the existence of the videotape. Mr. Khadami said that "we blew up a car, and we were supposed to get $2,000" but got only $1,000, as reported in 1997 by the British newspaper The Independent, which had obtained a copy of the videotape. The campaign was directed by CIA asset Dr. Iyad Allawi, later installed as interim prime minister by the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003.
. Jorge then attempted a self-coup
, suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court, and imposed censorship. He was replaced by Ramiro de León Carpio
.
in Serbia during and after the events of the Kosovo War
. The 5 October Revolution removed Milošević and installed a pro-western government which permitted the extradition of Milosevic and other war crime suspects.
and convicted Iran-contra figure and George W. Bush "democracy 'czar'" Elliott Abrams
, were allegedly part of the plot. Top coup plotters, including Pedro Carmona
, the man installed during the coup as the new president, began visits to the White House months before the coup and continued until weeks before the putsch. The plotters were received at the White House by the man President George W. Bush
tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Special Envoy Otto Reich. It has been claimed by Venezuelan news sources that Reich was the U.S. mastermind of the coup.
Former U.S. Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen
, told the British newspaper the Guardian
that American military attaches had been in touch with members of the Venezuelan military to explore the possibility of a coup. "I first heard of Lieutenant Colonel James Rogers [the assistant military attaché now based at the U.S. embassy in Caracas] going down there last June [2001] to set the ground", Mr. Madsen reported, adding: "Some of our counter-narcotics agents were also involved." He claims the U.S. Navy assisted with signals intelligence as the coup played out and helped by jamming
communications for the Venezuelan military, focusing on jamming communications to and from the diplomatic missions in Caracas
. The U.S. embassy dismissed the allegations as "ridiculous".
The U.S. also funded opposition groups in the year leading up to the coup, channeling hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to U.S. and Venezuelan groups opposed to President Hugo Chávez
, including the labor group whose protests sparked off the coup. The funds were provided by the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), a nonprofit organization whose roots, according to an article in Slate
trace back to the late 1960s when the public learned of CIA machinations to covertly fund parties and activists opposing the Soviets. Congress created the NED in 1983 which disburses money to pro-democracy groups around the globe and do so openly. The State Department is now examining whether one or more recipients of the NED money may have actively plotted against the Venezuelan government.
Bush Administration officials and anonymous sources acknowledged meeting with some of the planners of the coup in the several weeks prior to April 11, but have strongly denied encouraging the coup itself, saying that they insisted on constitutional means. Because of allegations, Sen. Christopher Dodd
requested a review of U.S. activities leading up to and during the coup attempt. A U.S. State Department Office of Inspector General report found no "wrongdoing" by U.S. officials either in the State Department or in the U.S. Embassy.
was allegedly supported by the United States, and Aristide claims he was physically removed from the country by U.S. personnel against his wishes.
in 2006, Hamas
and Fatah
formed the Palestinan authority national unity government in 2007, headed by Ismail Haniya
. In June 2007 Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and removed Fatah
officials. The ICRC
estimated that at least 118 people were killed and more than 550 wounded during the fighting in the week up to June 15.
In May 2007, US officials promised to continue funding a $84 million aid package aimed at improving the fighting ability of the Abbas Presidential Guard loyal to Fatah. The US insisted that all of its aid to the Presidential Guard is "nonlethal", consisting of training, uniforms, and supplies, as well as paying for better infrastructure at Gaza's borders. "The situation has gotten to be quite dire in Gaza, we have a situation of lawlessness and outright chaos", he said. "This chaotic situation is why the [US] is focused on [helping] the legal, legitimate security forces in our effort to reestablish law and order.", said Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, who was overseeing the US program.
In the April 2008 the journalist David Rose suggested that the United States collaborated with the Palestinian Authority and Israel to attempt a coup on Hamas, and Hamas pre-empted the coup. Hamas Foreign Minister Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar has echoed this view, and called the arming of Fatah by the United States an "American coup d'état". Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by many Western nations.
for decades, in early 2006 the CIA began a program of funding a coalition of anti-Islamic warlords. This involved the support of CIA case workers operating out of the Nairobi, Kenya office funneling payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism
. As the power balance shifted towards this alliance, the CIA program backfired and the militias of the Islamic Court Union (ICU) gained control of the country. Although the ICU was locally supported for having restored a relative level of peace to the volatile region after having defeated the CIA-funded Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism
in the Second Battle of Mogadishu
, concerns about the growth and popular support for an Islamic country during the United States' War on Terror
led to a new approach of the intervention of CIA, the United States military and Ethiopia's dominantly Christian government.
In late December 2006 a United States-trained and funded Ethiopia
n military force attacked militias of the ICU in a series of battles known as the War in Somalia.
The use of the Ethiopian Army was seen by the United States as awkward, but necessary way to prevent Somalia from being ruled by an Islamic government unsympathetic to American interests. In December 2006 State Department officials were issued internal guidelines and talking points such as "The press must not be allowed to make this about Ethiopia, or Ethiopia violating the territorial integrity of Somalia...." Because of Ethiopia's known human rights abuses such as the massacre of 193 protesters
after the 2005 presidential elections, there is conflict between the strategic interest Ethiopia's army and leadership provides in the War on Terror
and the human rights this war is allegedly addressing. This conflict has manifested itself in the United States Congress where the Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007, calls for the millions of foreign aid to Ethiopia only be delivered if there are significant improvements in the democracy and human rights in that country. The Bush Administration and Samuel Assefa, Ethiopia's ambassador to the US were strongly opposed to the bill.
s against Iran in an effort to topple the Iranian government. The Black Ops include a U.S. propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize the government, and disrupting the Iranian economy by manipulating the country's currency and its international financial transactions.
The United States began to target Iran and several other Muslim countries for regime change starting at least in 2001. The book War and Decision written by Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith
quotes a high level government policy memorandum written after September 11, 2001, stating that the United States should "[c]apitalize on our strong suit, which is not finding a few hundred terrorists in caves in Afghanistan, but in the vastness of our military and humanitarian resources, which can strengthen the opposition forces in terrorist-supporting states." The memorandum outlined a list of military actions to be undertaken against some of these states. Undersecretary Feith and Gen. Wesley Clark confirmed that Iran is on this list.
An article in the New York Times in 2005 said that the Bush administration was expanding efforts to influence Iran's internal politics with aid for opposition and pro-democracy groups abroad and longer broadcasts criticizing the Iranian government. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns said the administration was "taking a page from the playbook" on Ukraine and Georgia. Un-named administration officials were reported as saying the State Department was also studying dozens of proposals for spending $3 million in the coming year "for the benefit of Iranians living inside Iran" including broadcast activities, Internet programs and "working with people inside Iran" on advancing political activities there.
In 2006, the United States congress passed the Iran Freedom and Support Act
which directed $10 million towards groups opposed to the Iranian Government. In 2007, ABC news
reported that U.S. president George W. Bush
had authorized a $400 million CIA covert operation to destabilize Iran.
and The Daily Telegraph
reported, citing U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources, that U.S. officials have been secretly encouraging and advising a Pakistani Balochi militant group named Jundullah that is responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran. The Jundullah militants "stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera", This militant group is led by a youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, sometimes known as "Regi."
The U.S. provides no direct funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "presidential finding
" as well as congressional oversight. Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to Abd el Malik Regi through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Persian Gulf states. A CIA spokesperson said "the account of alleged CIA action is false", and reiterated that the U.S. provides no funding of the Jundullah group. Regi and Jundullah are also suspected of being associated with al Qaida, a charge that the group has denied. Jundullah "is a vicious Salafi
organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists," according to Professor Vali Nasr
, "They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture." Regi "used to fight with the Taliban. He's part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist", said Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Center and an ABC News consultant who recently met with Pakistani officials and tribal members.
"Regi is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera", Debat said. Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan.
(PEJAK). The New Yorker
reported in November 2006 that a U.S. government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon civilian leadership leaked the news of secret US support for PEJAK for operations inside Iran, stating that the group had been given "a list of targets inside Iran of interest to the U.S.".
, PMOI, known also as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq or MEK. PMOI is dedicated to the overthrow of the Iranian regime and is accused of orchestrating a series of bombings inside Iran, including one attack that left the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, partially paralyzed. Since 1997, the U.S. has listed the PMOI as a terrorist organization.
said Lawrence Wilkerson
, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell
.
Regime change
"Regime change" is the replacement of one regime with another. Use of the term dates to at least 1925.Regime change can occur through conquest by a foreign power, revolution, coup d'état or reconstruction following the failure of a state...
) without the overt use of U.S. military force. Often, such operations are tasked to the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(CIA). Many of the governments targeted by the U.S. have been democratically elected, rather than authoritarian governments
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
or military dictatorship
Military dictatorship
A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....
s. In many cases, the governments toppled were replaced by dictatorships, sometimes installed with assistance by the U.S.
Regime change has been attempted through direct involvement of U.S. operatives, the funding and training of insurgency groups within these countries, anti-regime propaganda campaigns, coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
s, and other, often illegal, activities usually conducted as operations by the CIA. The U.S. has also accomplished regime change by direct military action, such as following the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and the U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Some argue that non-transparent United States government agencies working in secret sometimes mislead or do not fully implement the decisions of elected civilian leaders and that this has been an important component of many such operations. See Plausible deniability
Plausible deniability
Plausible deniability is, at root, credible ability to deny a fact or allegation, or to deny previous knowledge of a fact. The term most often refers to the denial of blame in chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible,...
. Some contend that the US has supported more coups against democracies that it perceived as communist, or becoming communist.
Notwithstanding a history of U.S. covert actions to topple democratic governments and of installing authoritarian regimes in their places (see, e.g. Iran 1953, below), U.S. officials routinely express support for democracy as best supporting U.S. interests and as protecting human life and health.
Russia
The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 was met with overt hostility from President Woodrow WilsonWoodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
's administration. After withdrawing funding for Russia and opposing a British and French plan to include the Bolsheviks as allies against Germany in 1918, the United States extended its maritime blockade of Germany to include Soviet Russia and began covertly supporting
Covert operation
A covert operation is a military, intelligence or law enforcement operation that is carried clandestinely and, often, outside of official channels. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation...
Russian opposition factions.
In 1918, the Allied powers including the United States began a military intervention
Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
The Allied intervention was a multi-national military expedition launched in 1918 during World War I which continued into the Russian Civil War. Its operations included forces from 14 nations and were conducted over a vast territory...
in the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
. At the request of the British and French, the U.S. sent troops to the Russian port cities of Vladivostok
Vladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
and Archangelsk. President Wilson appointed General William S. Graves
William S. Graves
Major General William Sidney Graves . The commander of American forces in Siberia during the Allied Intervention in Russia.-Biography:...
to lead the thousands of American troops at Vladivostok.
Communist states 1945-1989
The United States supported resistance movements and dissidentDissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
s in the communist regimes of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and the Soviet Union during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. One example is the counterespionage operations following the discovery of the Farewell dossier
Farewell Dossier
The Farewell dossier was the collection of documents that Colonel Vladimir Vetrov, a KGB defector , gathered and gave to the French DST in 1981–82, during the Cold War....
which some argue contributed to the fall of The Soviet Regime. The National Endowment for Democracy
National Endowment for Democracy
The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...
supported pro-capitalist movements in the communist state
Communist state
A communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...
s and has been accused of secretly supporting regime change, which it denies. Many of the Eastern European states later turned to capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In addition to this the perceived threat of worldwide sometimes Soviet-sponsored revolutionary guerrilla movements—often involved in wars of national liberation
Wars of national liberation
In Marxist terminology, wars of national liberation or national liberation revolutions are conflicts fought by oppressed nationalities against imperial powers to establish separate sovereign states for the subjugated nationality. From a Western point of view, these same wars are called insurgencies...
—defined much of U.S. foreign policy in the Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
with regard to covert action and led to what could be considered as proxy war
Proxy war
A proxy war or proxy warfare is a war that results when opposing powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly. While powers have sometimes used governments as proxies, violent non-state actors, mercenaries, or other third parties are more often employed...
s between the United States and Soviet Union.
Iran 1953
In 1953, the CIA worked with the United Kingdom to overthrow the democratically elected government of IranIran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
led by Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Iran
Prime Minister of Iran was a political post in Iran that had existed during several different periods of time starting with the Qajar era until its most recent revival from 1979 to 1989 following the Iranian Revolution.-Prime Ministers of Qajar era:In the Qajar era, prime ministers were known by...
Mohammad Mossadegh who had attempted to nationalize Iran's petroleum industry, threatening the profits of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Declassified CIA documents show that Britain was fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry and pressed the U.S. to mount a joint operation to depose the prime minister and install a puppet regime. In 1951 the Iranian parliament
Majlis
' , is an Arabic term meaning "a place of sitting", used in the context of "council", to describe various types of special gatherings among common interest groups be it administrative, social or religious in countries with linguistic or cultural connections to Islamic countries...
voted to nationalize the petroleum fields of the country.
The coup was led by CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt, Jr. , was a political action officer of the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Plans who coordinated the Operation Ajax, which aimed to orchestrate a coup d’état against Iran's prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq, and return Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran,...
(grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
). With help from British intelligence, the CIA planned, funded and implemented Operation Ajax
Operation Ajax
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States under the name TPAJAX Project...
. In the months before the coup, the UK and U.S. imposed a boycott of the country, exerted other political pressures, and conducted a massive covert propaganda campaign to create the environment necessary for the coup. The CIA hired Iranian agents provocateurs who posed as communists, harassed religious leaders and staged the bombing of one cleric's home to turn the Islamic religious community against the government. For the U.S. audience, the CIA hoped to plant articles in U.S. newspapers saying that Shah
Shah
Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...
Mohammed Reza Pahlevi's return to govern Iran resulted from a homegrown revolt against what was being represented to the U.S. public as a communist-leaning government. The CIA successfully used its contacts at the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
to put on the newswire in the U.S. a statement from Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
about royal decrees that the CIA itself had written.
Supporters of the coup have argued that Mossadegh had become the de facto dictator of Iran, citing his dissolution of the Parliament and the Supreme Court, and his abolishment of free elections with a secret ballot, after he declared victory in a referendum where he claimed 99.9% of the vote. Darioush Bayandor
Darioush Bayandor
Darioush Bayandor is a former Iranian diplomat and official who worked for the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Following the Iranian Revolution, he left Iran to work for the United Nations in the 1980s and 1990s before retiring to Switzerland where he writes and consults.Born in Iran,...
has argued that the CIA botched their coup attempt and that a popular uprising, instigated by top Shi'ite clerics such as Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi and Abol-Ghasem Kashani (who were certain that Mosaddegh was taking the nation toward religious indifference, and worried that he had banished the Shah), instigated street riots to return the Shah to power four days after the failed coup.
The CIA subsequently used the apparent success of their Iranian coup project to bolster their image in American government circles. They expanded their reach into other countries, taking a greater portion of American intelligence assets based on their record in Iran.
Tibet 1950s
The CIA armed an anti-Communist insurgency for decades in order to oppose the invasion of Tibet by Chinese forces and the subsequent control of Tibet by China. The program had a record of almost unmitigated failure.Guatemala 1954
The CIA participated in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of GuatemalaGuatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
led by Jacobo Arbenz. Arbenz was elected without a secret ballot. His land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which he then purged. The CIA intervened because it feared that a communist government would become "a Soviet beachhead in the Western Hemisphere", and because it was protecting, among others, four hundred thousand acres of land the United Fruit Company had acquired. Guatemala's official 1999 truth commission accused Arbenz of being involved in the deaths of several hundred political opponents.
Cuba 1959
The largest and most complicated coup effort, approved at White House level, was the Bay of PigsBay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...
operation. Under initiatives by the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations, CIA-trained Cuban anti-communist exiles and refugees to land in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
and attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
. Plans originally formed under Eisenhower were scaled back under Kennedy.
The CIA made a number of attempts to assassinate Castro, often with White House approval, as in Operation Mongoose.
Democratic Republic of the Congo 1960
In 1960, Belgium granted independence to its most prized territory, the Belgian CongoBelgian Congo
The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...
. A leader of the successful anti-colonial struggle, Patrice Émery Lumumba
Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Émery Lumumba was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis...
was elected to be the first prime minister of the country that following its independence from colonial rule had become known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
.
Soon after the election, during the Congo Crisis
Congo Crisis
The Congo Crisis was a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belgium and ended with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu...
, the CIA and the Belgian government orchestrated a military coup to remove the Lumumba government from power. Lumumba was subsequently murdered in prison.
Iraq 1963
In February 1963, the United States backed a coup against the government of Iraq headed by General Abd al-Karim Qasim, who five years earlier had deposed the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. The US was concerned about the growing influence of Communist Iraqi government officials under his administration, as well as his threats to invade Kuwait, which almost caused a war between Iraq and England.While Qasim was actually killed by a firing squad of the Ba'ath party that overthrew him, there had been a separate CIA plan to incapacitate him. In their request, they said the target's death would not be unacceptable to them, but was not the principal objective: "We do not consciously seek subject's permanent removal from the scene; we also do not object should this complication develop."
Washington immediately befriended the successor regime. "Almost certainly a gain for our side," Robert Komer
Robert Komer
Robert William "Blowtorch Bob" Komer was a key figure in the pacification effort to win South Vietnamese "hearts and minds" during the Vietnam War, heading Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support....
, a National Security Council aide, wrote to President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
on the day of the takeover.
That Komer wrote that memo to Kennedy, without spending any time on additional research, may suggest, but does not confirm, the National Security Council, a covert operations approval committee, or Kennedy knew of planning against Qasim.
Although U.S. opposition to the Qasim regime is beyond dispute, some scholars have challenged the idea that the CIA played any direct role in his removal.
Brazil 1964
A democratically-elected government headed by President João Goulart
João Goulart
João Belchior Marques Goulart was a Brazilian politician and the 24th President of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed him on April 1, 1964. He is considered to have been the last left-wing President of the country until Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2003.-Name:João Goulart is...
was successfully overthrown by a CIA-supported coup in March 1964. On March 30, the American military attaché in Brazil, Colonel Vernon A. Walters
Vernon A. Walters
Vernon A. Walters was a United States Army officer and a diplomat. Most notably, he served from 1972 to 1976 as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, from 1985 to 1989 as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations and from 1989 to 1991 as Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany...
, telegraphed the State Department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
. In that telegraph, he confirmed that Brazilian army generals, independently of the US, had committed themselves to acting against Goulart within a week of the meeting, but no date was set.
Declassified transcripts of communications between US ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon and the U.S. government show that, predicting an all-out civil war, President Johnson authorized logistical materials to be in place to support the coup-side of the rebellion as part of U.S. Operation Brother Sam.
In the telegraphs, Gordon also acknowledges U.S. involvement in "covert support for pro-democracy street rallies...and encouragement [of] democratic and anti-communist sentiment in Congress, armed forces, friendly labor and student groups, church, and business" and that he "may be requesting modest supplementary funds for other covert action programs in the near future."
In 2001, Gordon published a book,Brazil's Second Chance: En Route Toward the First World, on Brazilian history since the military coup. In it, he denied a role in the coup. However, James N. Green, an American historian of Brazil, argued: "[Gordon] changed Brazil's history, for he....made it clear that, if the coup was advanced, the United States was going to recognize it immediately, which was fundamental [to the plotters]."
Republic of Ghana 1966
On 24 February 1966, Kwame NkrumahKwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...
, the President of Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, was overthrown in a military coup backed by the CIA while on a state visit to North Vietnam and China.
A series of subsequent coups from 1966 to 1981 ended with the ascension to power of Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings
Jerry Rawlings
Jerry John Rawlings is a former leader of the Republic of Ghana and now the African Union envoy to Somalia. Rawlings ruled Ghana as a military dictator in 1979 and from 1981 to 1992 and then as the first elected president of the Fourth Republic from 1993 to 2001...
in 1981. These changes resulted in the suspension of the constitution in 1981 and the banning of political parties. The economy suffered a severe decline soon after, and many Ghanaians migrated to other countries. Although most migrating Ghanaians went to Nigeria, the Nigerian government deported about a million Ghanaians back to Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
in 1983.
Iraq 1968
The leader of the new Baathist government, Salam Arif, died in 1966 and his brother, Abdul Rahman ArifAbdul Rahman Arif
Hajj Abdul Rahman Mohammed Arif Aljumaily was president of Iraq from April 16, 1966 to July 17, 1968.-Biography:...
, not a Ba'athist, assumed the presidency. Said K. Abuirsh alleges that in 1967, the government of Iraq was very close to giving concessions for the development of huge new oil fields in the country to France and the USSR. He suggested that Robert Anderson
Robert Bernard Anderson
Robert Bernard Anderson was an American administrator and businessman. He served as the Secretary of the Navy between February 1953 and March 1954. He also served as the Secretary of the Treasury from 1957 until 1961....
, former secretary of the treasury under President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
, secretly met with the Ba'ath Party and came to a negotiated agreement according to which both the oil field concessions and sulfur mined in the northern part of the country would go to United States companies if the Ba'ath again took power. In 1968, the CIA allegedly backed the coup by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of the Baath Party, bringing Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
to the threshold of power.
Former CIA Near East Division Chief James Chritchfield maintains that the CIA played no direct role in the 1963 coup, but that it viewed the Ba'ath Party favorably and offered support after they had taken over. He referred to the subsequent coups that brought Saddam to power as "counter-coups" that enabled the "radical" elements of the Party. "We did not identify a radical movement within the Ba'ath", he said. "That was our mistake—that surprised us." The U.S. broke all relations with Iraq in 1967. After al-Bakr seized power in 1968, relations remained completely severed for 16 years and the U.S. made arms sales to Iraq illegal in a law passed by Congress. In June 1972, the Iraqi government nationalized the oil assets of British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Compagnie Française des Petroles, Mobil Oil and Standard Oil of New Jersey.
Official CIA records do not indicate that the CIA supported the 1968 coup in Iraq.
David Wise, a Washington-based author who has written extensively about Cold War espionage, has disputed the notion that the CIA supported the 1968 coup, as has Middle East analyst James Phillips. According to a 2003 report by Common Dreams, "many experts, including foreign affairs scholars, say there is little to suggest U.S. involvement in Iraq in the 1960s", although it is widely acknowledged that the CIA worked to destabilize the Qasim regime in the early part of the decade. Robert Dreyfuss
Robert Dreyfuss
Robert Dreyfuss is a freelance investigative journalist whose work has appeared in The Nation, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, The American Prospect, and other progressive publications. His work also appears on line at TomPaine.com....
, in his book Devil's Game, maintains that the Johnson administration actually opposed the 1968 coup and used the Shah's Iran as a counterpoint to the Ba'athist regime it established. A 2006 study concluded that the CIA's alleged role in the coup "cannot be considered historical" in the absence of more compelling evidence. The Church Committee
Church Committee
The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
and Pike Committee investigations did not find any evidence of CIA involvement in Iraq outside of a handful of plots against Qasim in the early '60s.
Chile 1973
The U.S. Government's hostility to the election of Socialist President Salvador Allende government was substantiated in documents declassified during the Clinton administrationBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
; involving the CIA, which show that covert operatives were inserted in Chile, in order to prevent a Marxist government from arising and for the purpose of spreading anti-Allende propaganda. While U.S. government hostility to the democratically-elected Allende government is unquestioned, the U.S. role in the coup itself remains a highly controversial matter.
The CIA, as recounted in the Church Committee
Church Committee
The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
report, was involved in various plots designed to remove Allende and then let the Chileans vote in a new election where he would not be a candidate: It tried to buy off the Chilean Congress to prevent his appointment, attempted to have him exiled, worked to sway public opinion against him to prevent his election, tried to foil his political aspirations during the Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
administration, and financed protests designed to bring the country to a stand-still and make him resign. Convinced that a conventional military uprising was still not possible in Chile, the CIA, acting with the approval of the 40 Committee—the body charged with overseeing covert actions abroad—devised what in effect was a constitutional coup. The most expeditious way to prevent Allende from assuming office was somehow to convince the Chilean congress to confirm Jorge Alessandri
Jorge Alessandri
Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez was the 27th President of Chile from 1958 to 1964, and was the candidate of the Chilean right in the crucial presidential election of 1970...
as the winner of the election. Once elected by the congress, Alessandri—a party to the plot through intermediaries—was prepared to resign his presidency within a matter of days so that new elections could be held.
The CIA also learned of a number of plots to establish a military dictatorship. Although it pointedly refused to materially assist any of them, and actually worked to prevent several of the more unlikely plots for fear they would fail and strengthen Allende; it also encouraged several of the plots and did nothing to prevent them. It assured the plotters that such an event would be welcomed in Washington and that the U.S. woud not cut off aid over potential human rights violations.
A Chilean Supreme Court investigation accused Allende of support of armed groups, torture, illegal arrests, muzzling the press, confiscating private property, and not allowing people to leave the country.
Another aspect of the American role in Chile was an alleged attempt on the life of Chilean general Rene Schneider
René Schneider
General René Schneider Chereau was the commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army at the time of the 1970 Chilean presidential election, when he was assassinated during a botched kidnapping attempt. His murder virtually assured Salvador Allende's eventual overthrow and death in a coup three years later...
in 1970, due to his support for the appointment of Allende. The Church hearings found that the CIA did in fact give weapons to a group of men who it knew had attacked him twice before, ostensibly as a test of loyalty so that the CIA would remain privy to their information, but that the weapons provided and the group thereby armed were not the ones who actually killed him. The weapons were returned unused to the CIA and then discarded in the Pacific Ocean. On June 11, 1971, Kissinger and Nixon said the following in a private conversation:
- Kissinger: —when they did try to assassinate somebody, it took three attempts—
- Nixon: Yeah.
- Kissinger: —and he lived for three weeks afterwards.
There are two possible interpretations of these remarks: a) Kissinger was telling the President that a military coup could not succeed in Chile because there were no officers both willing and able to carry one out; or b) the two men were mocking the CIA's squeamishness about killing Schneider.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, in its investigation of the matter, concluded that since the machine guns supplied to Valenzuela had not actually been employed in the killing, and since General Viaux had been officially discouraged by the CIA a few days before the murder, there was therefore "no evidence of a plan to kill Schneider or that United States officials specifically anticipated that Schneider would be shot during the abduction." This view has been disputed by writer Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
.
Afghanistan 1973-74
Roger MorrisRoger Morris (American writer)
Roger Morris, born 1937, is an American public servant, historian, and political writer.-Biography:Roger Morris earned his doctorate in government from Harvard University. He entered government service in 1966 as an aide to former United States Secretary of State Dean Acheson. He first joined the...
, writing in the Asia Times
Asia Times
Asia Times was a newspaper launched in Thailand by Thai tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul in 1995. The newspaper hired talent from around the world to produce a regional English-language newspaper....
, argued that as early as 1973-74, the CIA began offering covert backing to radical Islamist rebels in Afghanistan premised on the claim that the authoritarian government headed by Mohammed Daoud Khan
Mohammed Daoud Khan
Sardar Mohammed Daoud Khan or Daud Khan was Prime Minister of Afghanistan from 1953 to 1963 and later becoming the President of Afghanistan...
might prove a likely instrument of Soviet military aggression in South Asia. Morris argues that the Soviets had also shown no inclination to use the notoriously unruly Afghans and their army for any expansionist aim. Morris claims that during this period U.S. foreign policy leaders saw the Soviets as always being "on the march." U.S. secret backing of the Islamist rebels ceased following an abortive uprising in 1975.
In 1974, the Islamists plotted a military coup, but Daoud's regime discovered the plot and imprisoned the leaders—at least those who did not escape to Pakistan. The following year, the Islamists attempted a failing uprising in the Panjshir Valley.
Michael Rubin, of the Middle East Review of International Affairs, records only covert Pakistani support for the two failed coups against Daoud, without any apparent CIA role. Rubin claims that the ISI had reason to fear the Afghan regime, noting that Daud had twice mobilized for war with Pakistan in the early sixties and that the Afghans were covertly arming separatist Pashtun rebels in the country.
Iraq 1973-75
The CIA colludes with the Shah of Iran to finance and arm Kurdish rebels in an attempt to overthrow al-Bakr. When Iran and Iraq sign a peace treaty in 1975, the support ceases. The Shah denies the Kurds refuge in Iran, even as many are slaughtered. The U.S. decides not to press the issue with the Shah. "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work", declares Sec. of State Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
. Subsequently, Al-Bakr attempts in 1979 to demote the Vice-President, Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
, to a position of relative obscurity. Saddam responds with a counter-coup, forcing al-Bakr to resign, conducting a ruthless purge of hundreds of Ba'athists and naming himself President.
The American betrayal of the Kurds was investigated by the Pike Committee, which described it as cynical and self-serving. It has been argued that it tarnished America's image with one of the most pro-Western groups in the Middle East.
Argentina 1976
Isabel Martínez de Perón
María Estela Martínez Cartas de Perón , better known as Isabel Martínez de Perón or Isabel Perón, is a former President of Argentina. She was also the third wife of another former President, Juan Perón...
was successfully overthrown by a military putsch in March 1976. Eight days before the coup, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera
Emilio Eduardo Massera
Emilio Eduardo Massera was an Argentine military officer, and a leading participant in the Argentine coup d'état of 1976. In 1981, he was found to be a member of P2...
, Chief of the Argentine Navy
Argentine Navy
The Navy of the Argentine Republic or Armada of the Argentine Republic is the navy of Argentina. It is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, together with the Army and the Air Force....
and a major coup plotter, turned to Ambassador Robert Hill, U.S. ambassador to Argentina, for help in getting a recommendation for an American public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
firm that would manage the Argentine coup leaders' propaganda campaign for the coup and for the crackdown against democracy and human rights activists that was to follow. Ambassador Hill stated that the United States government cannot interfere in such affairs and provided Admiral Massera with a list of reputable public relations firms maintained by the Embassy. Also, more than two months before the coup, senior coup plotters consulted with American officials in Argentina about the coup, and Ambassador Hill reported to Washington that he was encouraged that the military coup plotters were "aware of the problem" that their killings might cause and "are already focusing on ways to avoid letting human rights issues become an irritant in US-Argentine relations" by being pro-active with the preparation of the public relations operation.
U.S. planners were aware that the coup would be unlikely to succeed without murderous repression. Two days after the coup, Assistant Secretary for Latin America, William Rogers
William D. Rogers
William Dill Rogers was an American lawyer. He served as U.S...
, advised Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
that "we ought not at this moment rush out and embrace this new regime" because he expected significant repression to follow the coup.
"I think also we've got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long. I think they're going to have to come down very hard not only on the terrorists but on the dissidents of trade unions and their parties."
But Kissinger made his preferences clear: "Whatever chance they have, they will need a little encouragement... because I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States."
Afghanistan 1978-1980s
President CarterJimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
reacted with "open-mouthed shock" to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and began promptly arming the Afghan insurgents. Vice-President Walter Mondale famously declared: "I cannot understand – it just baffles me – why the Soviets these last few years have behaved as they have. Maybe we have made some mistakes with them. Why did they have to build up all these arms? Why did they have to go into Afghanistan? Why can't they relax just a little bit about Eastern Europe? Why do they try every door to see if it is locked?" The Soviets, several times shortly before the invasion, had staged conversations with the Afghan leadership suggesting that they had no desire to intervene, even as the Politburo was—with much hesitation—considering such an intervention. Though some have argued that US financial assistance to Afghan dissidents, including Islamists and other militants, prior to the invasion; along with a Soviet desire to protect the leftist Afghan government, helped convince the Soviets to intervene, the Soviets executed the Afghan President and his son, replacing him with a puppet regime, immediately after the invasion for fear that the US had secretly been collaborating with him.
A 2002 study found that, in the wake of the Iranian Revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
, the United States had sought rapprochement with the Afghan government—a prospect that the USSR found unacceptable (especially as its own leverage over the regime was wearing thin). Thus, the Soviets intervened to preserve their influence in the country.
One of the CIA's longest and most expensive covert operations was the supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants. The CIA provided assistance to the fundamentalist insurgents through the Pakistani secret services, Inter-Services Intelligence
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
(ISI), in a program called Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm, train, and finance the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989...
. Somewhere between $2–$20 billion in U.S. funds were funneled into the country to train and equip troops with weapons.
According to the "Progressive South Asia Exchange Net", claiming to cite an article in Le Nouvel Observateur
Le Nouvel Observateur
Le Nouvel Observateur is a weekly French newsmagazine. Based in Paris, it is the most prominent French general information magazine in terms of audience and circulation ....
, U.S. policy, unbeknownst even to the Mujahideen, was part of a larger strategy of aiming "to induce a Soviet military intervention." The article includes a brief interview with Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
, in which he is quoted as saying that the US provided aid to the mujahideen prior to the Soviet invasion in order to delibrately provoke one. Brzezinski himself has denied the accuracy of the interview. According to Brzezinski, an NSC working group
Working group
A working group is an interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers working on new research activities that would be difficult to develop under traditional funding mechanisms . The lifespan of the WG can last anywhere between a few months and several years...
on Afghanistan wrote several reports on the deteriorating situation in 1979, but President Carter ignored them until the Soviet intervention destroyed his illusions. Brzezinski has stated that the US provided communications equipment and limited financial aid to the mujahideen prior to the "formal" invasion, but only in response to the Soviet deployment of forces to Afghanistan and the 1978 coup, and with the intention of preventing further Soviet encroachment in the region. Two declassified documents signed by Carter shortly before the invasion do authorize the provision "unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to the Afghan insurgents either in the form of cash or non-military supplies" and the "worldwide" distribution of "non-attributable propaganda" to "expose" the leftist Afghan government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union" and to "publicize the efforts of the Afghan insurgents to regain their country's sovereignty", but the records also show that the provision of arms to the rebels did not begin until 1980.
The Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 significantly damaged the already tenuous relationship between Secretary of State Vance and Brzezinski. Vance felt that Brzezinski's linkage of SALT
Salt
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
to other Soviet activities and the MX, together with the growing domestic criticisms in the United States of the SALT II Accord, convinced Brezhnev to decide on military intervention in Afghanistan. Brzezinski, however, later recounted that he repeatedly advanced proposals on how to maintain Afghanistan's "independence" and deter a Soviet invasion but was frustrated by the Department of State's opposition.
According to Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman is an American English teacher, historian, journalist, author, media critic, blogger, and educator. His political weblog named Altercation was hosted by MSNBC.com from 2002 until 2006, moved to Media Matters for America until December 2008, and is now hosted by The...
of The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Roberts Vance was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980...
's close aide Marshall Shulman "insists that the State Department worked hard to dissuade the Soviets from invading and would never have undertaken a program to encourage it" and President Carter has said it was definitely "not my intention" to inspire a Soviet invasion but to deter one. Bob Gates, in his book Out Of The Shadows, wrote that Pakistan had actually been "pressuring" the United States for arms to aid the rebels for years, but that the Carter administration refused in the hope of finding a diplomatic solution to avoid war. Brzezinski seemed to have been in favor of the provision of arms to the rebels, while Vance's State Department, seeking a peaceful settlement, publicly accused Brzezinski of seeking to "revive" the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. Gates, however, has questioned if the US financial aid did increase the chances of the Soviets intervening, writing that some CIA officers involved assumed that that was President Carter's intention.
The Soviet invasion and occupation killed up to 2 million Afghans. Brzezinski defended the arming of the rebels in response, saying that it "was quite important in hastening the end of the conflict", thereby saving the lives of thousands of Afghans, but "not in deciding the conflict, because actually the fact is that even though we helped the mujaheddin, they would have continued fighting without our help, because they were also getting a lot of money from the Persian Gulf and the Arab states, and they weren't going to quit. They didn't decide to fight because we urged them to. They're fighters, and they prefer to be independent. They just happen to have a curious complex: they don't like foreigners with guns in their country. And they were going to fight the Soviets. Giving them weapons was a very important forward step in defeating the Soviets, and that's all to the good as far as I'm concerned." When he was asked if he thought it was the right decision in retrospect (given the Taliban's subsequent rise to power), he said: "Which decision? For the Soviets to go in? The decision was the Soviets', and they went in. The Afghans would have resisted anyway, and they were resisting. I just told you: in my view, the Afghans would have prevailed in the end anyway, 'cause they had access to money, they had access to weapons, and they had the will to fight." The interviewer then asked: "So US support for the mujaheddin only begins after the Russians invade, not before?" Brzezinski replied: "With arms? Absolutely afterwards. No question about it. Show me some documents to the contrary." Likewise; Charlie Wilson said: "The U.S. had nothing whatsoever to do with these people's decision to fight ... but we'll be damned by history if we let them fight with stones." The 2007 movie Charlie Wilson's War
Charlie Wilson's War
Charlie Wilson's War is a 2007 American biographical comedy drama film recounting the true story of U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson who partnered with "bare knuckle attitude" CIA operative Gust Avrakotos to launch Operation Cyclone, a program to organize and support the Afghan mujahideen in their...
celebrated Charlie Wilson's and the CIA's involvement in the repulsion of the USSR troops from Afghanistan. Representative Wilson was awarded the Honored College Award by the CIA for his involvement.
With US and other funding, the ISI armed and trained over 100,000 insurgents. On July 20, 1987, the withdrawal of Soviet troops
Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan
The Withdrawal of Soviet combatant forces from the Afghanistan began on May 15, 1988 and successfully executed on February 15, 1989 under the leadership of Colonel-General Boris Gromov who also was the last Soviet general officer to walk from the Asfghanistan back into Soviet territory through the...
from the country was announced pursuant to the negotiations that led to the Geneva Accords of 1988, with the last Soviets leaving on February 15, 1989.
The early foundations of al-Qaida were built in part on relationships and weaponry that came from the billions of dollars in U.S. support for the Afghan mujahadin during the war to expel Soviet forces from that country. The initial bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993
1993 World Trade Center bombing
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing occurred on February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb was detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336 lb urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to knock the North Tower into the South Tower , bringing...
, the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
1998 United States embassy bombings
The 1998 United States embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the East African capitals of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The date of the...
, the attack on the USS Cole
USS Cole bombing
The USS Cole Bombing, or the USS Cole Incident, was a suicide attack against the United States Navy destroyer on October 12, 2000 while it was harbored and refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen American sailors were killed, and 39 were injured...
, and the attacks of September 11 were all allegedly linked to individuals and groups that at one time were armed and trained by the United States and/or its allies.
Alleged U.S. green light for Saddam
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
and the seizure of embassy staff in the 1979–81 Iran hostage crisis
Iran hostage crisis
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian...
, President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
ordered a review of American policy toward Iraq.
According to Kenneth R. Timmerman
Kenneth R. Timmerman
Kenneth R. Timmerman is a journalist, political writer, and conservative Republican activist who in 2000 was a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator from Maryland. Timmerman is executive director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, an organization that works to support...
, the "Islamic revolution in Iran upset the entire strategic equation in the region. America's principal ally in the Persian Gulf, the Shah, was swept aside overnight, and no one else on the horizon could replace him as the guarantor of U.S. interests in the region."
During the crisis, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein attempted to take advantage of the disorder of the Revolution, the weakness of the Iranian military and the revolution's antagonism with Western governments. The Iranian military had been disbanded during the revolt and with the Shah ousted, Hussein had ambitions to position himself as the new strong man of the Middle East. "He condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and signed an alliance with Saudi Arabia to block the Soviet-backed attempt to take over North Yemen. In 1979 he also allowed the CIA, which he had once so virulently attacked, to open an office in Baghdad." Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
, National Security Advisor to President Carter, "began to look more favorably toward Saddam Hussein as a potential counterweight to the Ayatollah Khomeini and as a force to contain Soviet expansionism in the region."
The hint of change in the U.S. attitude toward Iraq was warmly welcomed in Baghdad... Saddam Hussein believed that recognition by the United States of Iraq's role as a counter to radical, fundamentalist Iran would boost his ambition of becoming the acknowledged head of the Arab world. ... Saddam had an old score to settle with the Iranians over his southern border. He had never liked the agreement signed with the Shah in 1975. He felt confident he could regain the lost territory and probably topple the anti-American regime in Tehran by taking swift military action. He had no illusions that the United States would openly support the war he proposed to start. But getting rid of the Ayatollah Khomeini was clearly in the American interest, and in many other ways the United States and Iraq could benefit each other, Saddam believed. It was time to renew diplomatic relations with Washington and to move on quickly to more elaborate forms of strategic cooperation. p. 75
Biographer Said K. Aburish
Said Aburish
Said K. Aburish is a Palestinian journalist, and writer.Born into a Palestinian family, Abu Rish attended school in Jerusalem and Beirut...
, author of Saddam Hussein: The Politics Of Revenge, says the Iraqi dictator made a visit to Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
in the year 1979, before the Iran–Iraq War, where he met with King Hussein
Hussein of Jordan
Hussein bin Talal was the third King of Jordan from the abdication of his father, King Talal, in 1952, until his death. Hussein's rule extended through the Cold War and four decades of Arab-Israeli conflict...
and, very possibly, three agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Aburish says there is "considerable evidence that he discussed his plans to invade Iran with the CIA agents." Timmerman records American officials meeting only with King Hussein on precisely the same date, noting this "top-secret negotiating session was Brzezinski's idea." He quotes National Security Council staff member and former aide Gary G. Sick
Gary Sick
Gary G. Sick is an American academic and analyst of Middle East affairs, with special expertise on Iran, who served on the U.S. National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter, and for a couple weeks under Reagan as well...
:
Brzezinski was letting Saddam assume there was a U.S. green light for his invasion of Iran, because there was no explicit red light. But to say the U.S. planned and plotted it all out in advance is simply not true. Saddam had his own reasons for invading Iran, and they were sufficient. p. 76
According to Zbigniew Brzezinski's memoir, the United States initially took a largely neutral position on the Iran–Iraq War, with some minor exceptions. First, the U.S. acted in an attempt to prevent the confrontation from widening, largely in order to prevent additional disruption to world oil supplies and to honor U.S. security assurances to Saudi Arabia. As a result, the U.S. reacted to Soviet troop movements on the border of Iran by informing the Soviet Union that they would defend Iran in the event of Soviet invasion. The U.S. also acted to defend Saudi Arabia, and lobbied the surrounding states not to become involved in the war. Brzezinski characterizes this recognition of the Middle East as a vital strategic region on a par with Western Europe and the Far East as a fundamental shift in U.S. strategic policy. Second, the United States explored whether the Iran–Iraq War would offer leverage with which to resolve the Iranian Hostage Crisis. In this regard, the Carter administration explored the use of both "carrots", by suggesting that they might offer military assistance to Iran upon release of the hostages, and "sticks", by discouraging Israeli military assistance to Iran and suggesting that they might offer military assistance to Iraq if the Iranians did not release the hostages. Third, as the war progressed, freedom of navigation, especially at the Strait of Hormuz
Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow, strategically important waterway between the Gulf of Oman in the southeast and the Persian Gulf. On the north coast is Iran and on the south coast is the United Arab Emirates and Musandam, an exclave of Oman....
, was deemed a critical priority.
Effort to destabilize through war
During the war, the US covertly worked to destabilize both Iran and Iraq. By 1982, the war's momentum had shifted to Iran, which was threatening Basra, Iraq's second largest city. According to a 1995 affidavit by Reagan National Security Council staffer Howard Teicher, "In the Spring of 1982, Iraq teetered on the brink of losing its war with Iran.... In June, 1982, President Reagan decided that the United States... would do whatever was necessary and legal to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran."But by 1985, the US was working to contain the Iraqis. A May 1985 CIA memo to Director Casey said, "Our tilt to Iraq was timely when Iraq was against the ropes and the Islamic revolution was on a roll. The time may now have to come to tilt back...." In September 1986, Reagan official Oliver North
Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, a military historian, and a New York Times best-selling author....
promised Iran that the US could "bring our influence to bear with certain friendly Arab nations" to oust the Hussein regime. Earlier, in February 1986, while these secret discussions were taking place, Iran scored a major victory by capturing Iraq's Fao Peninsula. The New York Times (1/19/87) reported that Iraqi officials believed that their defeat at Fao "was due to faulty U.S. intelligence." Iraq detected Iranian troop movements, the Iraqi official said, but the U.S. "kept on telling us that the Iranian attack was not aimed against Fao." When Iraq intentionally attacked the USS Stark, however, the US did not punish Iraq. From 24 July 1987 - 26 September 1988, the U.S. Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
launched Operation Earnest Will
Operation Earnest Will
Operation Earnest Will was the U.S. military protection of Kuwaiti owned tankers from Iranian attacks in 1987 and 1988, three years into the Tanker War phase of the Iran–Iraq War. It was the largest naval convoy operation since World War II.The U.S. Navy warships that escorted the tankers, part of...
, in which the US escorted and protected Kuwaiti oil tankers from Iranian attacks, at Kuwait's request. Operation Earnest Will was the largest naval convoy operation undertaken by the US since World War II and constituted a policy of "neutral intervention", calculated to be delterious to Iran but officially maintaining the US policy of neutrality.
Between 1987 and 1988, the US engaged in a secret effort to spy on Iran with aircraft, in what was called Operation Eager Glacier
Operation Eager Glacier
Operation Eager Glacier was a secret U.S. effort to spy on Iran with aircraft in 1987 and 1988. The information gathered became part of an intelligence exchange between U.S. military intelligence services and Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War....
.Operation Prime Chance
Operation Prime Chance
Operation Prime Chance was a United States Special Operations Command operation intended to protect U.S.-flagged oil tankers from Iranian attack during the Iran–Iraq War. The operation took place roughly at the same time as Operation Earnest Will , the largely Navy effort to escort the tankers...
was a U.S. naval operation from August 1987 until June 1989, said by the U.S. to be in response to the mining
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...
of the U.S.-flagged Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
i oil tanker Bridgeton
MV Bridgeton
MV Bridgeton, ex-al-Rekkah, was a Kuwait Oil Company oil tanker that was reflagged during Operation Earnest Will. Bridgeton was built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nagasaki and was launched August 14, 1976. The tanker was built as al-Rekkah, renamed Bridgeton and scrapped as Pacific Blue...
. Operation Nimble Archer
Operation Nimble Archer
Operation Nimble Archer was the October 19, 1987, attack on two Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf by United States Navy forces. The attack was a response to Iran's missile attack three days earlier on the MV Sea Isle City, a reflagged Kuwaiti oil tanker at anchor off Kuwait...
was the U.S. naval attack on October 19, 1987 on two Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
. The attack, claimed by the U.S. to be response to Iran's October 16, 1987 attack with a Silkworm missile
Silkworm missile
The Shang Yo or SY-series , and the Hai Ying or HY-series were early Chinese anti-ship missiles. They were derived from the Soviet P-15 Termit missile.The HY-1 and HY-2 received the NATO reporting name Silkworm...
on the MV Sea Isle City
MV Sea Isle City
MV Sea Isle City, ex-Umm al Maradem, was a Kuwait Oil Company oil tanker that reflagged during Operation Earnest Will. The ship was completed in 1981 by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan, as hull number 1867, for the Kuwait Oil Tanker Company....
, a Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
i oil tanker
Oil tanker
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a merchant ship designed for the bulk transport of oil. There are two basic types of oil tankers: the crude tanker and the product tanker. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries...
reflagged as a U.S. vessel at anchor off Kuwait. On April 18, 1988, the US launched Operation Praying Mantis
Operation Praying Mantis
Operation Praying Mantis was an attack on April 18, 1988, by U.S. naval forces within Iranian territorial waters in retaliation for the Iranian mining of the Persian Gulf during the Iran Iraq war and the subsequent damage to an American warship....
, claimed by the U.S. to be in response to the mining of the . By the end of the operation the American fleet had damaged Iranian naval and intelligence facilities on two inoperable oil platforms in the Persian Gulf, and sunk at least three armed Iranian speedboats, one Iranian frigate and one fast attack gunboat. One other Iranian frigate was damaged in the operation. This American operation is credited with forcing Iran to agree to a ceasefire with Iraq. Also, the US-supported People's Mujahedin of Iran
People's Mujahedin of Iran
The People's Mujahedin of Iran is a terrorist militant organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran....
invaded Iran from its base in Iraq shortly after the end of the Iraq-Iran war in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Iran.
Nicaragua 1981-1990
From 1981-90, the CIA planted mines in civilian harbors and sunk civilian ships in an attempt to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The U.S. also armed and trained the ContraContras
The contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle's dictatorship...
guerrilla insurgency
Insurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
to destabilize the Nicaraguan government.
Destabilization through CIA assets
In 1983 the CIA created a group of "Unilaterally Controlled Latino Assets" (UCLAs), whose task was to "sabotage ports, refineries, boats and bridges, and try to make it look like the contras had done it." In January 1984, these UCLA's carried out the operation for which they would be best known, the last straw that led to the ratifying of the Boland Amendment, the mining of several Nicaraguan harbors, which sank several Nicaraguan boats, damaged at least five foreign vessels, and brought an avalanche of international condemnation down on the United States.Arming the Contras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
, waged a guerrilla war
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
of insurgency in an effort to topple the government of Nicaragua and to seize power. The Contras' form of warfare was "one of consistent and bloody abuse of human rights, of murder, torture, mutilation, rape, arson, destruction and kidnapping." The "Contras systematically engage in violent abuses... so prevalent that these may be said to be their principal means of waging war." A Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
report found that the Contras were guilty of targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination; kidnapping civilians; torturing and executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat; raping women; indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian homes; seizing civilian property; and burning civilian houses in captured towns.
The Boland Amendment
Boland Amendment
The Boland Amendment was the name given to three U.S. legislative amendments between 1982 and 1984, all aimed at limiting U.S. government assistance to the Contras in Nicaragua...
made it illegal under U.S. law to provide arms to the Contra militants. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration continued to arm and fund the Contras by hatching the Iran-Contra plan, pursuant to which the U.S. secretly sold arms to Iran in violation of U.S. law in exchange for cash used by the U.S. to supply arms to the Contras in violation of the Boland Amendment, was planned and executed by a number of senior Reagan officials, including National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane
Robert McFarlane
Robert Carl "Bud" McFarlane was a National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan, serving from 1983 through 1985.After a career in the Marines, he became part of the Reagan administration, and was a leading architect of the Strategic Defense Initiative for defending the United States...
, Deputy National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter
John Poindexter
John Marlan Poindexter is a retired United States naval officer and Department of Defense official. He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor for the Reagan administration. He was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies as a result of his actions in the Iran-Contra...
, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams
Elliott Abrams
Elliott Abrams is an American attorney and neoconservative policy analyst who served in foreign policy positions for two Republican U.S. Presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. While serving for Reagan and in the State Department, Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, and retired U.S. Marine Corps officer...
, National Security Council staffer Col. Oliver North
Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, a military historian, and a New York Times best-selling author....
and others. When the public somehow learned of this, it became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. The U.S. argued that:
The United States initially provided substantial economic assistance to the Sandinista-dominated regime. We were largely instrumental in the OAS action delegitimizing the Somoza regime and laying the groundwork for installation for the new junta. Later, when the Sandinista role in the Salvadoran conflict became clear, we sought through a combination of private diplomatic contacts and suspension of assistance to convince Nicaragua to halt its subversion. Later still, economic measures and further diplomatic efforts were employed to try to effect changes in Sandinista behavior.
Nicaragua's neighbors have asked for assistance against Nicaraguan aggression, and the United States has responded. Those countries have repeatedly and publicly made clear that they consider themselves to be the victims of aggression from Nicaragua, and that they desire United States assistance in meeting both subversive attacks and the conventional threat posed by the relatively immense Nicaraguan Armed Forces.
The Sandinista government headed by Daniel Ortega won decisively in the 1984 Nicaraguan elections, which Western observers called free and fair. The national elections of 1984 were conducted during a state of emergency necessitated by the war fought against the Contras insurgents and the CIA-orchestrated bombings. Many political prisoners were still held as it took place, and none of the main opposition parties participated due to what they claimed were threats and persecution from the government. The 1984 election was for posts subordinate to the Sandinista Directorate, a body "no more subject to approval by vote than the Central Committee of the Communist Party is
in countries of the East Bloc." The U.S. continued to pressure the government by illegally arming the Contras insurgency. On October 5, 1985 the Sandinistas broadened the state of emergency begun in 1982 and suspended many more civil rights. A new regulation also forced any organization outside of the government to first submit any statement it wanted to make public to the censorsip bureau for prior censorship.
As the Contras' insurgency continued, funded by US aid, the Sandinistas struggled to maintain power. They were overthrown in 1990, when they ended the SOE and held an election that all the main opposition parties competed in. According to the satirist P.J. O'Rourke, the Sandinistas were forced to agree to the elections by the US and the Contras, and lost them despite "the unfair advantages of using state resources for party ends, the Sandinista control of the transit system that prevented UNO
United Nicaraguan Opposition
The United Nicaraguan Opposition was a Nicaraguan rebel umbrella group formed in 1985, led by the triumvirate of Adolfo Calero, Alfonso Robelo, and Arturo Cruz...
supporters from attending rallies, the Sandinista domination of the army that forced soldiers to vote for Ortega and the Sandinista bureaucracy keeping $3.3 million of U.S. campaign aid from getting to UNO while Daniel Ortega
Daniel Ortega
José Daniel Ortega Saavedra is a Nicaraguan politician and revolutionary, currently serving as the 83rd President of Nicaragua, a position that he has held since 2007. He previously served as the 79th President, between 1985 and 1990, and for much of his life, has been a leader in the Sandinista...
spent millions donated by overseas people and millions and millions more from the Nicaraguan treasury."
El Salvador 1980-92
In the Salvadoran Civil War between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or umbrella organization of five left-wing militias; the US supported the Salvadoran military government. America also supported the centrist Christian Democrats, who were targets of death squads. The security forces were split between reformists and right-wing extremists, who used death squads to stop political and economic change. The Carter Administration repeatedly intervened to prevent right-wing coups. The Reagan Administration repeatedly threatened aid suspensions to halt right-wing atrocities. As a result, the death squads made plans to kill the American Ambassador. After years of bloody fighting; the rebels were forced, in part due to US involvement, to concede defeat. The US then threatened to cut off aid to the Salvadoran regime unless it made democratic reforms, which might have let the rebels regroup. The regime accepted. As a result; a new Constitution was promulgated, the Armed Forces regulated, a "civilian" police force established, the FMLN metamorphosed from a guerrilla army to a political party that competed in free and fair elections, and an amnesty lawAmnesty law
An amnesty law is any law that retroactively exempts a select group of people, usually military leaders and government leaders, from criminal liability for crimes committed.Most allegations involve human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.-History:...
was legislated in 1993. El Salvador is today a prosperous and democratic nation. In 2002, a BBC article about President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's visit to El Salvador reported that "U.S. officials say that President George H.W. Bush's policies set the stage for peace, turning El Salvador into a democratic success story."
Cambodia 1980-95
The Reagan AdministrationReagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
sought to apply the Reagan Doctrine
Reagan Doctrine
The Reagan Doctrine was a strategy orchestrated and implemented by the United States under the Reagan Administration to oppose the global influence of the Soviet Union during the final years of the Cold War...
of aiding anti-Soviet resistance movements abroad to Cambodia, which was under Vietnamese occupation following the Cambodian genocide carried out by the Communist Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
. The Vietnamese had installed a Communist government led by a Khmer Rouge dissident. According to R. J. Rummel; the Vietnamese invasion, occupation, puppet regime, ongoing guerrilla warfare, and ensuing famine killed 1.2 million Cambodians in addition to the roughly 2 million who had been killed by the Khmer Rouge. The largest resistance movement fighting Cambodia's communist government was largely made up of members of the former Khmer Rouge regime, whose human rights record was among the worst of the 20th century. Therefore; Reagan authorized the provision of aid to a smaller Cambodian resistance movement, a coalition called the Khmer People's National Liberation Front
Khmer People's National Liberation Front
The Khmer People's National Liberation Front was a political front organized in 1979 in opposition to the Vietnamese-installed People's Republic of Kampuchea regime in Cambodia...
, known as the KPNLF and then run by Son Sann
Son Sann
Son Sann was a Cambodian politician and anti-communist resistance leader. Born in Phnom Penh, he held the office of Prime Minister in 1967-68. A devout Buddhist, he fathered seven children and was married....
; in an effort to force an end to the Vietnamese occupation. Eventually, the Vietnamese withdrew, and Cambodia's Communist regime fell. Then under UN supervision free elections were held.
Angola 1980s
South African military intervention against the communist MPLA government in AngolaAngola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
led to decades of civil war that cost 1 million lives. The Reagan administration offered covert aid to a group of anti-Communist rebels led by Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi was an Angolan political leader. He founded and led UNITA, a movement that first waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule, 1966–1974, then confronted the rival MPLA during the decolonization conflict, 1974/75, and after independence in 1975 fought the ruling...
, called UNITA
UNITA
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought with the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola in the Angolan War for Independence and then against the MPLA in the ensuing civil war .The war was one...
, whose insurgency was backed by South Africa. Dr, Peter Hammond, a Christian missionary who lived in Angola at the time, recalled: "There were over 50,000 Cuban troops in the country. The Communists had attacked and destroyed many churches. MiG-23s and Mi-24 Hind helicopter gun ships were terrorising villagers in Angola. I documented numerous atrocities, including the strafing of villages, schools and churches. In 1986, I remember hearing Ronald Reagan's speech – carried on the BBC Africa service – by short wave radio: "We are going to send stinger missiles to the UNITA Freedom Fighters in Angola!" Those who were listening to the SW radio with me looked at one another in stunned amazement. After a long silence as we wondered if our ears had actually heard what we thought we heard, one of us said: "That would be nice!" We scarcely dared believe that it would happen. But it did. Not long afterwards the stinger missiles began to arrive in UNITA controlled Free Angola. Soviet aircraft were shot down. The bombing and strafing of villagers, schools and churches came to an end. Without any doubt, Ronald Reagan's policies saved many tens of thousands of lives in Angola."
Philippines 1986
The United States had for many decades coddled the dictator Ferdinand MarcosFerdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos, Sr. was a Filipino leader and an authoritarian President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives and a member of the Philippine Senate...
, even as his regime abused human rights and his wife Imelda Marcos
Imelda Marcos
Imelda R. Marcos is a Filipino politician and widow of 10th Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Upon the ascension of her husband to political power, she held various positions to the government until 1986...
plundered their country of billions of dollars. The U.S. support was based on the U.S. military's desire of Philippine territory for its naval bases. But some American presidents, such a Ronald Reagan, were genuinely fond of Marcos, calling him a "freedom fighter."
Notwithstanding the history of U.S. support, when his grip on power was slipping, the US, for fear that the former ally had become a liability, played a significant role in pressuirng Marcos to step down and in the peaceful transition to democracy in the Philippines.
Iraq 1992-1995
According to former U.S. intelligence officials interviewed by The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, the CIA orchestrated a bomb and sabotage campaign between 1992 and 1995 in Iraq via one of the insurgent organizations, the Iraqi National Accord
Iraqi National Accord
The Iraqi National Accord known inside Iraq as Wifaq is an Iraqi political party founded by Iyad Allawi and Salah Omar Al-Ali in 1991. Al-Ali subsequently left the party after he realised the extent of Allawi's links to foreign intelligence agencies, mainly the C.I.A. and MI6.It was founded at the...
, led by Iyad Allawi
Iyad Allawi
Ayad Allawi is an Iraqi politician, and was the interim Prime Minister of Iraq prior to Iraq's 2005 legislative elections. A prominent Iraqi political activist who lived in exile for almost 30 years, the politically secular Shia Muslim became a member of the Iraq Interim Governing Council, which...
. The campaign had no apparent effect in toppling Saddam Hussein's rule.
According to the Iraqi government at the time, and former CIA officer Robert Baer
Robert Baer
Robert "Bob" Booker Baer is an American author and a former CIA case officer assigned to the Middle East. He is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and has contributed to Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Baer is a frequent commentator and author about issues related to...
, the bombing campaign against Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
included both government and civilian targets. According to this former CIA official, the civilian targets included a movie theater and a bombing of a school bus and schoolchildren were killed. No public records of the secret bombing campaign are known to exist, and the former U.S. officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. "But whether the bombings actually killed any civilians could not be confirmed because, as a former CIA official said, the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then." The Iraqi government at the time claimed that the bombs, including one it said exploded in a movie theater, resulted in many civilian casualties. In 1996, Amneh al-Khadami, who described himself as the chief bomb maker for the Iraqi National Accord, recorded a videotape in which he talked of the bombing campaign and complained that he was being shortchanged money and supplies. Two former intelligence officers confirmed the existence of the videotape. Mr. Khadami said that "we blew up a car, and we were supposed to get $2,000" but got only $1,000, as reported in 1997 by the British newspaper The Independent, which had obtained a copy of the videotape. The campaign was directed by CIA asset Dr. Iyad Allawi, later installed as interim prime minister by the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003.
Guatemala 1993
In 1993 the CIA helped in overthrowing Jorge Serrano ElíasJorge Serrano Elías
Jorge Antonio Serrano Elías was President of Guatemala from January 14, 1991 to May 31, 1993.-Career:Serrano was born April 26, 1945 in Guatemala City as the son of Jorge Adán Serrano and Rosa Elías...
. Jorge then attempted a self-coup
Self-coup
A self-coup or autocoup is a form of coup d'état that occurs when a country's leader, who has come to power through legal means, dissolves or renders powerless the national legislature and assumes extraordinary powers not granted under normal circumstances. Other measures taken may include...
, suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court, and imposed censorship. He was replaced by Ramiro de León Carpio
Ramiro de León Carpio
Ramiro de León Carpio was the President of Guatemala from 6 June 1993 until 14 January 1996.-Career:He studied law at the University of San Carlos and then at the Rafael Landívar University, where he ran the Sol Bolivariano newspaper...
.
Serbia 2000
The United States is alleged to have made secret effort to topple the nationalist Slobodan MiloševićSlobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
in Serbia during and after the events of the Kosovo War
Kosovo War
The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...
. The 5 October Revolution removed Milošević and installed a pro-western government which permitted the extradition of Milosevic and other war crime suspects.
Venezuela 2002
In 2002, Washington is claimed to have approved and supported a coup against the Venezuelan government. Senior officials, including Special Envoy to Latin America Otto ReichOtto Reich
Otto Juan Reich , a Cuban-American, is former senior official in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush...
and convicted Iran-contra figure and George W. Bush "democracy 'czar'" Elliott Abrams
Elliott Abrams
Elliott Abrams is an American attorney and neoconservative policy analyst who served in foreign policy positions for two Republican U.S. Presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. While serving for Reagan and in the State Department, Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, and retired U.S. Marine Corps officer...
, were allegedly part of the plot. Top coup plotters, including Pedro Carmona
Pedro Carmona
Pedro Francisco Carmona Estanga is a former Venezuelan trade organization leader who was briefly declared President of Venezuela during an abortive 2002 military coup against Hugo Chávez. He occupied the office of President from April 12 to April 13...
, the man installed during the coup as the new president, began visits to the White House months before the coup and continued until weeks before the putsch. The plotters were received at the White House by the man President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Special Envoy Otto Reich. It has been claimed by Venezuelan news sources that Reich was the U.S. mastermind of the coup.
Former U.S. Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen
Wayne Madsen
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, D.C.-based author, columnist, and investigative journalistspecializing in intelligence and international affairs. He has written for The Village Voice, The Progressive, CounterPunch, CorpWatch, Multinational Monitor, CovertAction Quarterly, In These Times, and The...
, told the British newspaper the Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
that American military attaches had been in touch with members of the Venezuelan military to explore the possibility of a coup. "I first heard of Lieutenant Colonel James Rogers [the assistant military attaché now based at the U.S. embassy in Caracas] going down there last June [2001] to set the ground", Mr. Madsen reported, adding: "Some of our counter-narcotics agents were also involved." He claims the U.S. Navy assisted with signals intelligence as the coup played out and helped by jamming
Radio jamming
Radio jamming is the transmission of radio signals that disrupt communications by decreasing the signal to noise ratio. Unintentional jamming occurs when an operator transmits on a busy frequency without first checking whether it is in use, or without being able to hear stations using the frequency...
communications for the Venezuelan military, focusing on jamming communications to and from the diplomatic missions in Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
. The U.S. embassy dismissed the allegations as "ridiculous".
The U.S. also funded opposition groups in the year leading up to the coup, channeling hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to U.S. and Venezuelan groups opposed to President Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...
, including the labor group whose protests sparked off the coup. The funds were provided by the National Endowment for Democracy
National Endowment for Democracy
The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...
(NED), a nonprofit organization whose roots, according to an article in Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
trace back to the late 1960s when the public learned of CIA machinations to covertly fund parties and activists opposing the Soviets. Congress created the NED in 1983 which disburses money to pro-democracy groups around the globe and do so openly. The State Department is now examining whether one or more recipients of the NED money may have actively plotted against the Venezuelan government.
Bush Administration officials and anonymous sources acknowledged meeting with some of the planners of the coup in the several weeks prior to April 11, but have strongly denied encouraging the coup itself, saying that they insisted on constitutional means. Because of allegations, Sen. Christopher Dodd
Christopher Dodd
Christopher John "Chris" Dodd is an American lawyer, lobbyist, and Democratic Party politician who served as a United States Senator from Connecticut for a thirty-year period ending with the 111th United States Congress....
requested a review of U.S. activities leading up to and during the coup attempt. A U.S. State Department Office of Inspector General report found no "wrongdoing" by U.S. officials either in the State Department or in the U.S. Embassy.
Haiti 2004
The insurgency against the government of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand AristideJean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a Haitian former Catholic priest and politician who served as Haiti's first democratically elected president. A proponent of liberation theology, Aristide was appointed to a parish in Port-au-Prince in 1982 after completing his studies...
was allegedly supported by the United States, and Aristide claims he was physically removed from the country by U.S. personnel against his wishes.
Palestinian Authority, 2006-present
After winning Palestinian legislative electionsPalestinian legislative election, 2006
On January 25, 2006, elections were held for the Palestinian Legislative Council , the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority . Notwithstanding the 2005 municipal elections and the January 9, 2005 presidential election, this was the first election to the PLC since 1996; subsequent...
in 2006, Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
and Fatah
Fatah
Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...
formed the Palestinan authority national unity government in 2007, headed by Ismail Haniya
Ismail Haniya
Ismail Haniyeh ; is a senior political leader of Hamas and one of two disputed Prime Ministers of the Palestinian National Authority, the matter being under political and legal dispute. He became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won...
. In June 2007 Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and removed Fatah
Fatah
Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...
officials. The ICRC
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
estimated that at least 118 people were killed and more than 550 wounded during the fighting in the week up to June 15.
In May 2007, US officials promised to continue funding a $84 million aid package aimed at improving the fighting ability of the Abbas Presidential Guard loyal to Fatah. The US insisted that all of its aid to the Presidential Guard is "nonlethal", consisting of training, uniforms, and supplies, as well as paying for better infrastructure at Gaza's borders. "The situation has gotten to be quite dire in Gaza, we have a situation of lawlessness and outright chaos", he said. "This chaotic situation is why the [US] is focused on [helping] the legal, legitimate security forces in our effort to reestablish law and order.", said Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, who was overseeing the US program.
In the April 2008 the journalist David Rose suggested that the United States collaborated with the Palestinian Authority and Israel to attempt a coup on Hamas, and Hamas pre-empted the coup. Hamas Foreign Minister Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar has echoed this view, and called the arming of Fatah by the United States an "American coup d'état". Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by many Western nations.
Somalia 2006-2007
Although the United States has had an ongoing interest in SomaliaSomalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
for decades, in early 2006 the CIA began a program of funding a coalition of anti-Islamic warlords. This involved the support of CIA case workers operating out of the Nairobi, Kenya office funneling payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism
Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism
The Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism was a Somali alliance created by various warlords and businesspeople. The alliance included Botan Ise Alin, Mohammed Dheere, Mohamed Qanyare, Musa Sudi Yalahow, Nuur Daqle, Abdi Hasan Awale Qeybdiid, Omar Muhamoud Finnish and others...
. As the power balance shifted towards this alliance, the CIA program backfired and the militias of the Islamic Court Union (ICU) gained control of the country. Although the ICU was locally supported for having restored a relative level of peace to the volatile region after having defeated the CIA-funded Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism
Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism
The Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism was a Somali alliance created by various warlords and businesspeople. The alliance included Botan Ise Alin, Mohammed Dheere, Mohamed Qanyare, Musa Sudi Yalahow, Nuur Daqle, Abdi Hasan Awale Qeybdiid, Omar Muhamoud Finnish and others...
in the Second Battle of Mogadishu
Second Battle of Mogadishu
The Second Battle of Mogadishu was a battle fought for control of Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia. The opposing forces were the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism , and militia loyal to the Islamic Court Union . The conflict began in mid-February, 2006, when Somali...
, concerns about the growth and popular support for an Islamic country during the United States' War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
led to a new approach of the intervention of CIA, the United States military and Ethiopia's dominantly Christian government.
In late December 2006 a United States-trained and funded Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
n military force attacked militias of the ICU in a series of battles known as the War in Somalia.
War in Somalia (2006–present)
The War in Somalia was an armed conflict involving largely Ethiopian and Somali Transitional Federal Government forces and Somali troops from Puntland versus the Somali Islamist umbrella group, the Islamic Court Union , and other affiliated militias for control of the country. There is a clear...
The use of the Ethiopian Army was seen by the United States as awkward, but necessary way to prevent Somalia from being ruled by an Islamic government unsympathetic to American interests. In December 2006 State Department officials were issued internal guidelines and talking points such as "The press must not be allowed to make this about Ethiopia, or Ethiopia violating the territorial integrity of Somalia...." Because of Ethiopia's known human rights abuses such as the massacre of 193 protesters
2005 Ethiopian police massacres
The Ethiopian police massacre refers to the killing of innocent people by government forces during June and November 2005 which led to the deaths of 193 protesters and injury of 763 others, mostly in the capital Addis Ababa, following the May 2005 elections in Ethiopia...
after the 2005 presidential elections, there is conflict between the strategic interest Ethiopia's army and leadership provides in the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
and the human rights this war is allegedly addressing. This conflict has manifested itself in the United States Congress where the Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007, calls for the millions of foreign aid to Ethiopia only be delivered if there are significant improvements in the democracy and human rights in that country. The Bush Administration and Samuel Assefa, Ethiopia's ambassador to the US were strongly opposed to the bill.
Iran 2001-present
President Bush secretly authorized the CIA to undertake black operationBlack operation
A black operation or black op is a covert operation typically involving activities that are highly clandestine and often outside of standard military protocol or even against the law.-Origins:...
s against Iran in an effort to topple the Iranian government. The Black Ops include a U.S. propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize the government, and disrupting the Iranian economy by manipulating the country's currency and its international financial transactions.
The United States began to target Iran and several other Muslim countries for regime change starting at least in 2001. The book War and Decision written by Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith
Douglas Feith
Douglas J. Feith served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for United States President George W. Bush from July 2001 until August 2005. His official responsibilities included the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, United States Department of Defense relations...
quotes a high level government policy memorandum written after September 11, 2001, stating that the United States should "[c]apitalize on our strong suit, which is not finding a few hundred terrorists in caves in Afghanistan, but in the vastness of our military and humanitarian resources, which can strengthen the opposition forces in terrorist-supporting states." The memorandum outlined a list of military actions to be undertaken against some of these states. Undersecretary Feith and Gen. Wesley Clark confirmed that Iran is on this list.
An article in the New York Times in 2005 said that the Bush administration was expanding efforts to influence Iran's internal politics with aid for opposition and pro-democracy groups abroad and longer broadcasts criticizing the Iranian government. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns said the administration was "taking a page from the playbook" on Ukraine and Georgia. Un-named administration officials were reported as saying the State Department was also studying dozens of proposals for spending $3 million in the coming year "for the benefit of Iranians living inside Iran" including broadcast activities, Internet programs and "working with people inside Iran" on advancing political activities there.
In 2006, the United States congress passed the Iran Freedom and Support Act
Iran Freedom and Support Act
The Iran Freedom Support Act is an Act of Congress that appropriated $10 million and directed the President of the United States to spend that money in support of groups opposed to the Iranian government. Opponents claimed the bill was a first step towards a US-led invasion of the country.In...
which directed $10 million towards groups opposed to the Iranian Government. In 2007, ABC news
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
reported that U.S. president George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
had authorized a $400 million CIA covert operation to destabilize Iran.
Jundullah militants
ABC NewsABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
and The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
reported, citing U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources, that U.S. officials have been secretly encouraging and advising a Pakistani Balochi militant group named Jundullah that is responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran. The Jundullah militants "stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera", This militant group is led by a youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, sometimes known as "Regi."
The U.S. provides no direct funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "presidential finding
Presidential Finding
A presidential finding is an executive directive issued by the head of the executive branch of a government, similar to the more well-known executive order. The term is mostly used by the United States Government, and in other countries may be identified by different terms...
" as well as congressional oversight. Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to Abd el Malik Regi through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Persian Gulf states. A CIA spokesperson said "the account of alleged CIA action is false", and reiterated that the U.S. provides no funding of the Jundullah group. Regi and Jundullah are also suspected of being associated with al Qaida, a charge that the group has denied. Jundullah "is a vicious Salafi
Salafi
A Salafi come from Sunni Islam is a follower of an Islamic movement, Salafiyyah, that is supposed to take the Salaf who lived during the patristic period of early Islam as model examples...
organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists," according to Professor Vali Nasr
Vali Nasr
Vali Nasr is a leading expert on Middle East and Islamic world, a best-selling author, influential commentator and Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings Institution, and a columnist for...
, "They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture." Regi "used to fight with the Taliban. He's part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist", said Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Center and an ABC News consultant who recently met with Pakistani officials and tribal members.
"Regi is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera", Debat said. Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan.
Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan
Another claimed US proxy inside Iran has been the Party for a Free Life in KurdistanParty for a Free Life in Kurdistan
The Party of Free Life of Kurdistan , is a militant Kurdish nationalist group with bases in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq, which has...
(PEJAK). The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
reported in November 2006 that a U.S. government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon civilian leadership leaked the news of secret US support for PEJAK for operations inside Iran, stating that the group had been given "a list of targets inside Iran of interest to the U.S.".
People's Mujahedin of Iran
Another terrorist group allegedly protected by the United States government that operates out of Iraq is the People's Mujahedin of IranPeople's Mujahedin of Iran
The People's Mujahedin of Iran is a terrorist militant organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran....
, PMOI, known also as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq or MEK. PMOI is dedicated to the overthrow of the Iranian regime and is accused of orchestrating a series of bombings inside Iran, including one attack that left the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, partially paralyzed. Since 1997, the U.S. has listed the PMOI as a terrorist organization.
"They're terrorists only when we consider them terrorists. They might be terrorists in everybody else's books ... It was a strange group of people and the leadership was extremely cruel and extremely vicious."
said Lawrence Wilkerson
Lawrence Wilkerson
Lawrence B. "Larry" Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell...
, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
.
See also
- Australian constitutional crisis of 1975
- 40 Committee
- American Empire
- Foreign Military SalesForeign Military SalesThe U.S. Department of Defense's Foreign Military Sales program facilitates sales of U.S. arms, defense equipment, defense services, and military training to foreign governments...
- Foreign policy of the United States
- Timeline of United States military operations
- Human rights in the United StatesHuman rights in the United StatesHuman rights in the United States are legally protected by the Constitution of the United States and amendments, conferred by treaty, and enacted legislatively through Congress, state legislatures, and plebiscites...
- Human Rights Record of the United StatesHuman Rights Record of the United States.The Human Rights Record of the United States is a publication on the annual human rights record in the United States of America, published by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China...
- Kirkpatrick DoctrineKirkpatrick DoctrineThe Kirkpatrick Doctrine was the doctrine expounded by United States Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick in the early 1980s based on her 1979 essay, "Dictatorships and Double Standards". The doctrine was used to justify the U.S...
- NSC 5412/2 Special GroupNSC 5412/2 Special GroupThe NSC 5412/2 Special Group, often referred simply as the Special Group, was an initially secret, but later public, subcommittee of the United States National Security Council responsible for coordinating government covert operations...
- Overseas expansion of the United States
- Overseas interventions of the United StatesOverseas interventions of the United StatesThe United States has been involved in a number of overseas interventions throughout its history.- Before the Cold War :The Barbary Wars of the 18th and early 19th centuries were the first was waged by the United States outside it's boundaries after the War of Independence...
- Overthrow of the Hawai'ian Monarchy
- Truman DoctrineTruman DoctrineThe Truman Doctrine was a policy set forth by U.S. President Harry S Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947 stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere...
- United States military aidUnited States military aidThe United States government first recognized the usefulness of foreign aid as a tool of diplomacy in World War II. It was believed that it would promote liberal capitalist models of development in other countries and that it would enhance national security....
- United States Foreign Military FinancingUnited States Foreign Military FinancingThe Foreign Military Financing program provides grants and loans to help countries purchase weapons and defense equipment produced in the United States as well as acquiring defense services and military training. FMF funds purchases are made through the Foreign Military Sales program, which...
- United States Agency for International DevelopmentUnited States Agency for International DevelopmentThe United States Agency for International Development is the United States federal government agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid. President John F. Kennedy created USAID in 1961 by executive order to implement development assistance programs in the areas...
- Special Activities DivisionSpecial Activities DivisionThe Special Activities Division is a division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service responsible for covert operations known as "special activities"...
of the CIA - Torture and the United StatesTorture and the United StatesTorture in the United States includes documented and alleged cases of torture both inside the United States and outside its borders by U.S. government personnel...
- United States war crimes
Books
- Stephen KinzerStephen KinzerStephen Kinzer is a United States author and newspaper reporter. He is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more than fifty countries on five continents. During the 1980s he covered revolution and social upheaval in Central America...
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to IraqOverthrow (book)Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq is a book published in 2006 by award-winning New York Times foreign correspondent and author Stephen Kinzer about the United States's involvement in the overthrow of foreign governments from the late 19th century to the present...
, Times Books, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8050-7861-9 - Robert FiskRobert FiskRobert Fisk is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. As Middle East correspondent of The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported on the United States's war in Afghanistan and the same country's...
The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East; (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate, xxvi, 1366 pages. ISBN 978-1-84115-007-9 - William BlumWilliam BlumWilliam Blum is an American author, historian, and critic of United States foreign policy. He studied accounting in college. Later he had a low-level computer-related position at the United States Department of State in the mid-1960s. Initially an anti-communist with dreams of becoming a foreign...
2003 Killing HopeKilling HopeKilling Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions since World War II is a history book on covert CIA operations and U.S. military interventions during the second half of the 20th century. It was written by former State Department employee William Blum...
: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, revised edition (Common Courage Press) ISBN 978-1-56751-252-6
External links
- "Hope and Memory". 1801-2004 timeline of 163 U.S. interventions. AdbustersAdBustersThe Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian-based not-for-profit, anti-consumerist, pro-environment organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia...
. - A Map of U.S. Foreign Policy
- U.S. Offensive in Latin America: Coups, Retreats, and Radicalization
- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12805.htmOverthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. Amy Goodman interviews Stephen KinzerStephen KinzerStephen Kinzer is a United States author and newspaper reporter. He is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more than fifty countries on five continents. During the 1980s he covered revolution and social upheaval in Central America...
.] - "Part II...Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq" May 8, 2006 Democracy Now!
- Killing Hope: US Military and CIA: Interventions Since World War II