Timeline of US Hegemony

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Revision as of 13:38, 13 April 2020 by imported>PoliticalAustralian

</image> <label>Type</label> <label>Effects</label> <label>Source</label> <label>Cost to buy</label> <label>Cost to sell</label> </infobox>Content Warning: This article contains extensive discussion and description of torture, rape, murder and genocide Note: We acknowledge that occasionally, US hegemony CAN have benefits (for instance, killing Nazis) and we do not support all groups opposed to US hegemony. The US is also not behind every event in global politics, they are an empire but not omnipotent. However, we strongly condemn US hegemony as most of it leads to loss of life and the underdevelopment of countries, condemning hundreds of millions to a life of poverty. A timeline of the actions taken by the United States government in order to secure greater hegemony and power and wealth at the expense of people, both its own and abroad. We include authoritarian regimes and dictatorships supported by the US, coups supported by the US, interference in elections, invasions, suppression of rebellions (domestic and abroad), bombing campaigns and support for terrorist or guerilla groups. Actions against piracy and retaliation against states that the declared war on the US are not included on this list, except in situations where the US used it for hegemonic gains or lied to their population.

1700s

  • 1776: The US begins to invade indigenous Cherokee lands.[1]
  • 1785: The US invades the indigenous Western Confederacy.[2]
  • 1786: The US crushes Shays' Rebellion with federal troops, an effort by former American Revolution veterans over unpaid wages to American Revolution veterans, economic injustice, high taxes and a desire for greater democracy.[3]
  • 1794: The US crushes the Whiskey Rebellion with federal troops, an effort by former American Revolution veterans and farmers to resist unconstitutional taxes.[4]
  • 1799: The US crushes Fries Rebellion with federal troops, an effort to resist unconstitutional taxes mainly led by German-Americans and veterans of the American Revolution.[5]

1800s

  • 1812: The US attempts to invade and occupy Canada.
  • 1846: The US government sends two navy ships (one armed with 72 cannons) into Tokyo Bay, Japan where they anchor themselves in an effort to end the 213-year-old policy of Japanese isolationism.
  • 1853: The US government sends four navy ships to Japan in order to end the now 220-year-old policy of isolation and to open Japanese ports to US commercial interests. The commander in charge threatens war with Japan and repeatedly intimidates Japanese boats sent to stop him, it eventually succeeds as Japan opens up with several treaties.[6] The resulting political change briefly destabilises Japan and triggers several small-scale civil wars, rebellions, famines and economic collapse.[7]
  • 1878: The US begins a positive relationship with Mexico dictator Porforio Diaz, with the US promising to invest money into Mexico despite Mexico's dictatorship standing against American "Values".[8]
  • 1898: The US declares war on the Spanish Empire after the USS Maine explodes in Havana Harbor, Cuba. Later investigations reveal it was caused by an onboard explosion of gunboard and not the Spanish navy, but nonetheless the US takes the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba and the Philippines.[9]

1900s

1910s

  • 1912: The US invades and occupies Nicaragua until 1932.
  • 1915: The US invades and occupies Haiti in order to capture its wealth and prevent the expansion of the German Empire into Latin America. Numerous abuses of the Haitian population by US soldiers occur, including the rape of thousands of Haitian women.

1920s

  • 1929: The US begins supporting the authoritarian government in Mexico, support is maintained for the next 71 years.

1930s

  • 1936: The US declares neutrality in the Spanish Civil War, but numerous US corporations illegally sell or donate vehicles, oil or weapons to the Nationalists, which is later credited with allowing their victory in the war.
  • 1936: The US begins supporting the Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua until 1979, where it is overthrown.

1940s

  • 1945: The US deploys two nuclear weapons on Japanese cities in a moved that even several prominent members of the US government criticise.
  • 1945: The US begins its military occupation of Japan, which is a rare case of US actions leading to a much better society. The US administration promotes democratisation and demilitarisation, legalises trade unions, enacts women's suffrage and creates a thriving social democracy in Japan. However, in spite of this, the US leaves a large military presence in Japan to help encircle the USSR and later China (this also sees an epidemic of rape and occasional of Japanese women by US soldiers), censors the media and
  • 1945: The US begins a military alliance with Saudi Arabia with the Saudi government granting rights to oil to US corporations and allowing the US to build military bases in the country and the US providing military and financial support. This strong relationship has continued to this day, with the US overlooking the numerous human rights abuses committed by the Saudi government, including:
    • Being a totalitarian dictatorship with an absence of elections, political parties, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion.
    • Extreme restrictions on women's rights that are so severe they have been called 'gender apartheid', until the 2010s (after the Arab Spring hit Saudi Arabia) women made up 5% of the working class, required their husbands permission to go outside or drive a car, could not expose their skin,
    • The government openly promoting anti-semitism and blaming Jews for the worlds problems, in addition to rampant discrimination against non-Arab minorities such as the large south asian migrant workforce.
    • Heavily restricted workers' rights, with workers occasionally having months of work stolen from them and being unable to obtain healthy amounts of food and water.
    • Being a global centre for human trafficking and slavery, especially sexual slavery.
    • Execution, torture or imprisonment of any kind of dissenters, including all LGBT people.[10] (despite this, members of the monarchy are permitted to engage in homosexuality)[11]
    • Extensive funding of radical Islam, including the construction of 1,500 mosques globally that promote radical Islam and giving weapons and money to Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. There is also significant evidence the Saudi government was connected to the 9/11 attacks.[12]
  • 1945: The US begins to support Kuomintang forces in the Chinese Civil War, a conflict that kills around 6 million people.
  • 1946: The US begins enlisting the help of the underground right in Ukraine to create a network of spies and saboteurs
  • 1947: The US begins to support the government of Turkey due to its strategic geopolitical position and ability to block the USSR's access to the Mediterranean sea, providing massive amounts of military and economic aid to the country.
  • 1948: The US begins supporting South Africa during Apartheid, a brutal system of white supremacy and racial segregation that killed around 21,000 people. It also criminalised homosexuality, abortion, sex education, gambling, pornography, prostitution and selling alcohol on sundays.
  • 1949: (Alleged) The US supports a military coup in recently-independent and democratic Syria in order to prevent the possibility of leftists gaining power and ensure the construction of the Trans-Arabian Pipeline.[13]
  • 1949: The US, working with the UK, begins the Albanian Subversion, training Albanian anti-communists (including several fascists and fascist-collaborators) and sending them to try and overthrow the socialist government in Albania. All attempted insurrections failed and the operation caused 300 deaths. The operation lasted until 1953 and the US government denied responsibility until 2006.[14]
  • 1949: After their failure to win the Chinese Civil War and loss to the communists led by Mao, the US begins to support the Kuomintang's dictatorship in Taiwan, which only began to democratise in 1987. Some major achievements of the regimes White Terror:
    • Executions of countless dissidents, including ones based overseas
    • Arrest of those who spoke out against the government
    • Racism towards the indigenous Taiwanese population by mainlanders
    • Conscription of child soldiers
    • 38 year long martial law, the second longest in history (and the longest at the time), only surpassed by Syria's 48 years of martial law (1963 - 2011)

1950s

  • 1950: The US forms positive relations with the fascist dictatorship in Spain, selling weapons and building military bases in the country. The support continued right until the dictatorships collapse due to revolution in 1975. Spain had just carried out a brutal White Terror which involved:
    • Slavery in concentration camps where around a third of prisoners died
    • Massive restriction of women's rights, including rape of leftist women by soldiers
    • Executing dissenters on mass
    • Restrictions on the media and art
  • 1952: The US secretly aids the military coup that ends the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.[15]
  • 1952: The US ends its military occupation of Japan but leaves behind its military bases and begins funding Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (later involved in numerous corruption scandals and an assassination of) to prevent the electoral victories of the socialists until the 1970s. The funding of the LDP was not revealed until 1994 where it was exposed by US journalists and quietly admitted to by the LDP and CIA.[16]
  • 1952: The US overthrows the democratic government of Cuba and begins supporting the Batista Dictatorship in Cuba, by the admission of the US government, the dictatorship kills 20,000 people.
  • 1953: The US overthrows the democratic government of Iran and began supporting the Shah, a monarchist (although surprisingly progressive) dictator that enforced his ideas violently until 1979 when he was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution.
  • 1954: The US overthrows the democratic government of Guatamala and begins supporting a series of military dictatorships that carries out a brutal civil war which kills 5% of the countries population.
  • 1955: (Alleged) The US, working with the Taiwanese government, bombs the Air India plane Kashmir Princess which was flying over Indonesia in order to allegedly kill Zhou Enlai, a high-ranking Chinese politician. The alleged bomber was escorted out of Hong Kong (where the bomb was most likely planted) by CIA.[17]
  • 1956: The US attempts to encourage the revolution in Hungary, using the CIA-controlled Radio Free Europe broadcasts directed toward Hungary, supporting the revolutionaries and encouraging violent resistance against the occupying Soviet troops.[18]
  • 1959: The US secretly supports the Tibetan Uprising by providing material assistance and aid, including arms and ammunition, as well as training to members of Chushi Gangdruk and other Tibetan guerrilla groups at Camp Hale in Colorado.[19]

1960s

  • 1961: (Alleged) The US supports the OAS, a far-right terrorist group operating in France and Spain that aimed to prevent Algerian independence.[20]
  • 1961: The US tries and fails to invade newly-socialist Cuba.
  • 1963: (Alleged) The US helps politicians in Canada to take down the prime minister over his refusal to station US nuclear missiles in the country and being too independent in terms of foreign policy.[21]
  • 1964: The US supports (and according to some sources, organises) a far-right military coup in Brazil, toppling a democratic, centre-left government and ensuring Brazil is run as a dictatorship for the next 21 years. To extinguish its left-wing opponents, the dictatorship used arbitrary arrests, imprisonment without trials, kidnapping, and most of all, torture, which included rape and castration. The military government murdered hundreds of others, although this was done mostly in secret and the cause of death often falsely reported as accidental. The government occasionally dismembered and hid the bodies. The new government (although initially successful in economically developing the country) soon became riddled with massive debt and hyper-inflation.[22]
  • 1964: The US begins advising the Uruguayan government on torture use
  • 1965: The US and Britain help organise and support the Indonesian Mass Killings by providing the Indonesian army (many of whom had collaborated with the Japanese Empire) with weapons, information and other support in order to wipe out the powerful Indonesian left, that was pushing various places for land reform, workers' control and trade with the USSR. Between 500,000 and 3,000,000 people had been killed (0.4 to 2.8% of the population) and the CIA secretly compared it to the Holocaust and the Red Terrors in China and Russia.
    • Killing methods included shooting, stabbing, beheadings, impaling, disemboweling, cutting off people's limbs and letting them bleed to death, strangling and castration (forced removal or disfiguring of genitals).
    • Killing devices included assault rifles, small arms, knives, sickles, machetes, swords, ice picks, bamboo spears, iron rods and other makeshift weapons.
    • Both men and women were subjected to sexual violence while in prisons, including rape and electric shocks to the genitals.
    • Torture methods included severe beatings with makeshift materials like electric cable and large pieces of wood, breaking fingers and crushing toes and feet under the legs of tables and chairs, pulling out fingernails, electric shocks, and burning with molten rubber or cigarettes. Detainees were sometimes forced to watch or listen to the torture of others, including relatives such as spouses or children.
    • Mass looting and burning down of pro-communist villages after killings.
    • Many of the killings had a distinctly racist nature against Chinese, Abangans and Atheist minorities in Indonesia.
    • The killings enabled the New Order regime to come to power, which has been considered one of the most corrupt governments in human history and paved the way for genocides in Timor-Leste and West Papua.
  • 1966: (Alleged) The US (through the CIA) and UK help assist in the military coup against the socialist government in Ghana.[23]

1970s

  • 1970: The US begins to support the government of Oman, an authoritarian Islamic monarchy. Oman allows US corporations to access Oman's oil reserves and strategic position in the Indian Ocean by building military bases in Oman.
  • 1973: The US supports a military coup and the subsequent military dictatorship in Uruguay (1973 - 1984), destroying a 150-year old democracy. The dictatorship was destroyed after a grassroots general strike led to the democratisation of the country in 1984. Some of the notable achievements of the regime include:
    • Around 180 dissidents being murdered by the government.
    • The highest number per capita of political prisoners in the world. Almost 20% of population were arrested at some point.
    • In the early 1980s, GDP fell by 20% and unemployment rose to 17% due to the state aggressive neoliberalism.
    • Almost 10% of Uruguayans left the country during the dictatorship.
    • All art and media critical of the government was censored.
    • Reforms of the education system to be more 'moral' which included government monitoring of students and class discussions.
  • 1973: The US organises economic warfare and a military coup in Chile, South America's most stable democracy, in order to take down the elected socialist government that had nationalised the mining sector.[24] The new military dictatorship destroyed the economy, leaving the country deep in poverty and killing between 2,000 and 30,000 people, 27,000 people being tortured and survived) and 200,000 people were forced into exile (mainly to Argentina). In other words, 2.2% of Chile's population (of 10.1 million) had their lives ended or ruined by the dictatorship. Some notable torture and killing methods include:
    • Electrocution of open wounds and the genitals on a person tied up on a metal bed.
    • Arresting entire families if a single member had leftist sympathies, and forcing family members to watch soldiers rape other members of their family, in other situations, families or close friends would have to listen to their beloved being tortured.
    • Forcing prisoners to crawl on the ground and lick the dirt off the floors. If the prisoners complained or even collapsed from exhaustion, they were promptly executed.
    • Forcing prisoners to swim in vats of excrement (shit) and eat and drink it.
    • Forcing prisoners to stay awake for five days while lying down, threatening to kill their children if they didn't.
    • Forcing prisoners to lie down and driving trucks and cars over their arms and legs, crushing their bones.
    • Beating prisoners to the point that they'd either be deaf from being hit on the ears or have broken arms and legs, occasionally, amputation would be used as a torture technique.
    • Pouring water over a cloth that covered prisons' faces and breathing passages, causing individuals to experience a drowning sensation, and a near-death experience and killing many through asphyxiation.
    • Prisoners were hung upside-down with ropes, and they were dropped into a tank of water, headfirst. The water was contaminated (with poisonous chemicals, shit and piss) and filled with debris.
    • Anal rape of prisoners by soldiers while soldiers insulted them to break their spirit.
    • Using dogs to rape prisoners and inserting rats into prisoners anuses and vaginas.
    • Forcing female prisoners to engage in sex with their brothers and fathers at gunpoint.
    • Throwing dissidents from helicopters into the ocean, rivers, lakes or mountains where they would be instantly killed (and spend the last seconds of their live in absolute terror) and their bodies never found. This method of torture is continuously joked about in online right-wing spaces as their 'joking' plan for leftists.
    • Left many victims reported suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, isolation, worthlessness, shame, anxiety and hopelessness.
  • 1975: (Alleged) The US helps politicians in Australia to take down the prime minister over his desire to close a US military base violating its contract in Australia and to nationalise Australia's mining sector, it is alleged by one source that the CIA controls most trade unions, banks and political parties in Australia.[25]
  • 1979: The US begins funding far-right Islamic militias to fight against the socialist government in Afghanistan, with the intention of drawing the USSR into a prolonged conflict in the region.
  • 1979: The US begins siding with the government in the Salvadoran Civil War against leftist rebels, a conflict that kills at least 70,000 people and creates over a million refugees.
  • 1979: The US begins supporting the Contra rebels in Nicaragua against the leftist Sandinista government in an 11-year long civil war. The Contras employ terrorist tactics and the US assists them in drug trafficking.

1980s

  • 1980: The US supports both sides of the Iran-Iraq War that kills between 400,000 and 1.2 million people and sees numerous war crimes and deployments of chemical weapons.
  • 1981: The US begins supporting the drug-trafficking dictator of Panama.
  • 1982: The US and France help Hissène Habré come to power as dictator of Chad and provide him with extensive support in the form of training, intelligence, weapons and money until 1990. In 2016, he was found guilty by a court in Senegal of human-rights abuses, including rape, sexual slavery and ordering the killing of 40,000 people.[26]
  • 1982 (Alleged): IRA members allege that the CIA had sold guns to them to prevent them becoming a force to be used by the USSR.[27]
  • 1983: The US invades the socialist island nation of Grenada to topple its government.
  • 1986: (Alleged) The US helps organise the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, as part of their opposition to social democracy and Olof's outspoken support for the ANC.[28]
  • 1987: The US (alongside France, Libya and Israel) supports a coup that takes out the socialist government in Burkina Faso. This contributes to a reversal in women's rights, ecological destruction, increased poverty and less access to key services like healthcare and education. Additionally, it fails to lead to the democratisation of Burkina Faso, with it remaining a dictatorship until 2014[29]
  • 1989: The US invades Panama to depose their former ally Manuel Noriega (supported because of his assistance in the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan conflicts, and his drug trafficking was overlooked) who ruled as Panama's military dictator. Between 100 and 3,000 people died in the conflict and 20,000 people were rendered homeless.[30]

1990s

  • 1990: The US begins to support Idriss Déby as the new (and current) dictator of Chad after he overthrows previous US-backed dictator Hissène Habré in a rebellion.[31] Despite this, by the own admission of the US state department, Chad's government engages in extrajudicial killings, beatings, torture, and rape by security forces; limits on freedom of speech and the press and freedom of assembly; arbitrary arrest and detention; and widespread corruption. Additionally women face widespread discrimination and violence. Female genital mutilation, while technically illegal, is still widely practiced. Harassment of journalists and human rights activists has also been documented as well as the use of child soldiers by Chadian security forces, by various human rights groups.[32] Additionally, this government made homosexuality illegal in 2017.[33]
  • 1991: The US, along with Saudi Arabia, France and the UK begins a bombing campaign and invasion of Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait to secure greater oil wealth.
  • 1994: The US begins to aid Mexico in the Chiapas Conflict by training soldiers and death squads, as well as supplying guns, tanks, helicopters and fighter jets[34] who are aimed at destroying the libertarian socialist EZLN and taking over their autonomous areas that are international symbols of feminism, environmentalism and indigenism. Around 1600 people have been killed in the conflict and numerous acts of state terrorism, killings (including of children and pacifist civilians) and rape of women are carried out.[35]
  • 1995: The US normalises relations with Vietnam and begins to provide the country with foreign aid, nuclear fuel and joint-naval exercises as a bulwark against China.
  • 1996: The US begins interfering in Mongolian politics, giving millions of dollars to anti-communist political parties whose electoral victories privatise much of the economy and destroy the social safety net in the country, leading to widespread poverty. NSA listening posts to listen to Chinese and Russian military communications are also installed.[36]

2000s

  • 2001: The US begins its invasion and ongoing occupation of Afghanistan over alleged involvement of Afghan-based terrorists committing the 9/11 bombings which killed nearly 3,000 US citizens. The resulting war and disastrous occupation kills over 160,000 people/
  • 2002: The US attempts to overthrow the government of Venezuela.
  • 2003: The US invades Iraq in an act that violates international law.
  • 2006: The US interferes in elections in Palestine.
  • 2009: The US overthrows the democratic government of Honduras.

2010s

  • 2011: The US (along with France, the UK, Canada and Italy) begins a campaign of bombing in Libya in order to overthrow the government of Gaddafi, which kills between 40 - 700 people, including alleged attacks on a TV station, medical clinic, restaurant and apartment complex.[37] This helps overthrow the government which triggers the Libyan Crisis, a set of two civil wars that have ruined the country (which once had the highest income and life expectancy in Africa) which is now the modern slavery capital of the world and has lost all ability to progress as a country.[38] Despite claiming the bombing was to protect civilians, leaked emails indicates the bombing actually had three main purposes:
    1. Greater control of Libya's oil by western corporations
    2. Reasserting France's power in Africa
    3. Preventing the creation of an independent African currency[39]
  • 2012: The US begins to assist the rebels in the Syrian Civil War, secretly supplying money, weaponry and training to rebel forces. The program leads to a flooding of assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades into Middle East's black market.[40]
  • 2013: The US begins arming the government of Niger despite its extreme neglect of its people (ranking lowest globally in human development), repeated human rights violations and neglect of the countries huge slavery problem.[41]
  • 2014: The US begins to deploy airstrikes and soldiers in the Syrian Civil War in order to support the rebels and Rojava.[42] Motivations are heavily speculated on, ranging from trying to take down a major ally of Russia and Iran (preventing the formation of an anti-american geopolitical power bloc) to securing the safe passage of a Saudi-European oil pipeline.
  • 2015: The US begins to assist Saudi Arabia and the government of Yemen in their civil war. The US sends hundreds of elite soldiers (Green Berets) and massive amounts of funding, equipment and training to their favoured side, this massively prolongs the conflict.[43]
  • 2019: The US attempts to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

References

  1. Wikipedia - Cherokee American wars
  2. Wikipedia - Northwest Indian War
  3. Wikipedia - Shays' Rebellion
  4. Wikipedia - Whiskey Rebellion
  5. Wikipedia - Fries Rebellion
  6. Wikipedia - Perry Expedition
  7. Wikipedia - Bakumatsu
  8. Wikipedia - Mexico-United States relations
  9. Wikipedia - Spanish-American War
  10. Wikipedia - Human rights in Saudi Arabia
  11. https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/48038/saudi-princes-gay-sex-and-death-threats-on-four-day-coke-binge/
  12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism#Saudi_Arabia
  13. Wikipedia - March 1949 Syrian coup d'etat
  14. Wikipedia - Albanian Subversion
  15. Wikipedia - Project FF
  16. New York Times Archive (1994) - C.I.A. Spent Millions to Support Japanese Right in 50's and 60's
  17. Wikipedia - Kashmir Princess
  18. Wikipedia - CIA activities in Hungary
  19. Wikipedia - Chushi Gangdruk
  20. Wikipedia - Operation Gladio
  21. Wikipedia - CIA Activities in Canada
  22. Wikipedia - Military dictatorship in Brazil
  23. Wikipedia - National Liberation Council
  24. Wikipedia - 1973 Chilean coup d'état
  25. Wikipedia - 1975 Australian constitutional crisis
  26. Wikipedia - Hissène Habré
  27. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/cia-stayed-silent-on-allegations-it-was-involved-in-ira-gunrunning-35379463.html
  28. Wikipedia - Assassination of Olof Palme
  29. Wikipedia - 1987 Burkinabé coup d'état
  30. Wikipedia - United States invasion of Panama
  31. https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-chad/
  32. Wikipedia - Human Rights in Chad
  33. Wikipedia - LGBT rights in Chad
  34. guidetoaction.org - U.S. Military Involvement in Mexico's Quagmire Deepens
  35. NACLA - The Escalation of the War in Chiapas
  36. William Blum - Rogue State
  37. Wikipedia - 2011 military intervention in Libya
  38. https://time.com/4538445/libyas-migrant-economy-is-a-modern-day-slave-market/
  39. https://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-emails-reveal-nato-killed-gaddafi-to-stop-libyan-creation-of-gold-backed-currency/5594742
  40. Wikipedia - Timber Sycamore
  41. Wikipedia - United States Military Operation in Africa (2007 - Present)
  42. Wikipedia - American-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War
  43. Wikipedia - Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)