¿Dónde se encuentra la Historia almacenada?
¿Hay que recordarla?
¿Hay que olvidarla?
Orwell, en su "1984", nos deja las cosas muy claras:
"Hay --dijo O'Bien-- un estribillo en el Partido que se relaciona con el dominio del pasado. Repítalo, por favor:"
"Quíen domina el pasado, fiscaliza el fúturo; quíen es
dueño del presente, domina el pasado" --repitió Winston sumiso--
"Quíen es dueño del presente, domina el pasado" --dijo
O'Brien, asintiendo con la cabeza-- "¿Cree usted Winston, que el pasado tiene existencia real?"
...Esbozando una sonrisa, dijo O'Brien:
"La metafísica no es su fuerte, Winston. Nunca meditó usted sobre el verdadero significado de la existencia. A ver si logro hacerme entender".
Y formulando la pregunta en términos más precisos, prosiguió:
"¿Existe en algún lugar un mundo de objetos corpóreos dónde el pasado sigue desarrollándose?"
"No"
"Entónces: ¿dónde existe ese pasado, si es que existe?"
"En los documentos, en las constancias escritas"
"En los documentos, ¿y en dónde más?
"En el entendimiento, en la memoria de los hombres"
"En la memoria. Perfectamente. Pero nosotros, el Partido, ejercemos el dominio sobre todas las constancias escritas y sobre la memoria de los hombres. Por consiguíente, también dominamos el pasado, ¿no es así?"
"Pero ¿cómo pueden ustedes impedir que los hombres recuerden las cosas?" --exclamó Winston, olvidándose por un momento de las esfera--. "Lo que se recuerda es espontáneo, algo que escapa a la voluntad. ¿Cómo es posible que ustedes dominen la memoria del hombre? ¿Acaso han dominado la mia?"
Volvio O'Brien a asumir una expresión de severidad y puso la mano en la manija de la esfera. "
"Olvidemósnos por un momento de la esfera",
como Winston.
No permitamos que nos dominen la Memoria:
es lo único que tenemos.
No "padezcamos la história", como decía Marx:
¡Hagamos História,
recordándola,
sintíendola,
denunciándola!
.............................
"O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave
A lo cual Mark Twain sugirió:
"Se tendrían que sustituir las barras y estrellas en nuestra bandera por la calavera y las tibias cruzadas".
El "American Way" le dio la razón:
DESPUES DE COMER EL PASTEL
Estimated civilian deaths: 150,000 people instantly; hundreds of thousands more by the slow, horrible death of radiation poisoning.
The two cities were not military targets, as President Truman and others claimed. Those 150,000 people murdered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were almost all civilians. And the United States terrorist government knew it.
The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey said in its official report:
“Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population.”
Contrary also to the persistent lies of politicians to this day, the bombing was militarily unnecessary. Japan was in fact ready to surrender. Even if they hadn’t surrendered an invasion would definitely not have cost anywhere near the “1 million American lives” claimed by politicians. That figure was a total lie, simply invented by politicians because they needed a dramatic excuse for their nuclear terrorism. People all over the world were growing increasingly horrified as they discovered the evil that Americans had done to hundreds of thousands of helpless civilian people.
An invasion would never have been needed. The fire-bombing of cities like Tokyo, in which 80,000 civilian people were burned alive in one night, had already reduced Japan to almost total ruin. It was not possible for them to carry on with the war under any circumstances. The U.S. government and military knew this perfectly well.
Together with the Dresden Holocaust, this appallingly inhuman act of genocide set the stage for American postwar foreign policy:
Total criminality
Total terrorism
Total ruthlessness
Total deception
Total hypocrisy
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Puestos a recordar,
"In Memoriam",
recordemos también,
"a grosso modo",
en éste aniversario,
a las otras víctimas
de éste Gran Holocausto
Michael Parenti
Chronology of American State Terrorism
U.S. State Department Policy Planning Study #23, 1948:
“Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity [U.S. military-economic supremacy]... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming... We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”
— George Kennan
Director of Policy Planning
U.S. State Department, 1948
The following collection of relatively brief entries is divided into three pages. Each page has the full list near the top so you can jump around from entry to entry between pages.
This list of nations represents literally millions of human beings all over the world who have been brutally murdered — directly by the United States military/government or by its obedient proxies. Huge though the list is, there is yet more to add. But it does at least contain most of the known campaigns of American state terrorism, genocide and subversion — all of which are in the historical record for the whole world to see. God only knows what evil the U.S. government and military have committed that remains hidden.
And as long as the United States remains a military power, the list of state terror victims will keep growing.
1940s – 1960s
American Assassination, Sabotage and Subversion Within the Soviet Union
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"The US infiltrated many hundreds of Russian emigres into the Soviet Union to gather intelligence about military and technological installations; commit assassinations; obtain current samples of identification documents; assist Western agents to escape; engage in sabotage, such as derailing trains, wrecking bridges, actions against arms factories and power plants; or instigate armed political struggle against Communist rule by linking up with resistance movements.
There was also a mammoth CIA anti-Soviet propaganda campaign, highlighted by the covert publishing of well over a thousand books in English, a number by well-known authors, which were distributed all over the world, as well as hundreds in foreign languages."
1950s – 1960s
American Intrigue & Subversion in Western Europe
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"For two decades, the CIA used dozens of American foundations, charitable trusts and the like, including a few of its own creation, as conduits for payments to all manner of organizations in Western Europe.
The beneficiaries of this largesse were political parties, magazines, news agencies, journalists’ and other unions, labor organizations, student and youth groups, lawyers’ associations and other enterprises, all ostensibly independent, but nonetheless serving Washington’s Cold-War, anti-communist, anti-socialist agenda — an agenda which also included a militarized and united Western Europe, allied to (and dominated by) the United States, and support for the Common Market and NATO, all part of the bulwark against the supposed Soviet threat."
1959
American Support of Dictatorship in Haiti
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"The US military mission, in Haiti to train the troops of noted dictator Francois Duvalier, used its air, sea and ground power to smash an attempt to overthrow Duvalier by a small group of Haitians, aided by some Cubans and other Latin Americans."
1957 – 1958
American Subversion in Indonesia
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"Indonesia’s Sukarno, like Egypt’s Gamel Abdul Nasser, was the kind of Third World leader the United States could not abide by: a nationalist who was serving the wrong national interest. He took neutralism in the Cold War seriously, making trips to the Soviet Union and China as well as to the White House. He nationalized many private holdings of the Dutch, the former colonial power."
And he refused to crack down on the Indonesian Communist Party, which was walking the legal, peaceful road and making impressive gains electorally. Such policies could easily give other Third World leaders “wrong ideas.”
Thus it was that the CIA began throwing money into the elections, plotted Sukarno’s assassination, tried to blackmail him with a phoney sex film, and joined forces with dissident military officers to wage a full-scale war against the government, including bombing runs by American pilots."
1956 – 1958
American Tyranny in the Middle East
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"The Eisenhower Doctrine stated that the United States “is prepared to use armed forces to assist” any Middle Eastern country “requesting assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism.”
The English translation of this was that no one would be allowed to dominate, or have excessive influence over, the Middle East and its oil fields except the United States, and that anyone who tried would be, by definition, “communist”.
In keeping with this policy, the United States twice attempted to overthrow the Syrian government, staged several shows-of-force in the Mediterranean to intimidate movements opposed to US-supported governments in Jordan and Lebanon, landed 14,000 troops in Lebanon, and conspired to overthrow or assassinate Nasser of Egypt and his troublesome Middle-East nationalism."
1953
American/British Overthrow of Democracy in Iran
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown in a joint US-British operation. Mossadegh had been elected to his position by a large majority of parliament, but he had made the fateful mistake of spearheading the movement to nationalize a British-owned oil company, the sole oil company operating in Iran.
The coup restored the Shah to absolute power, initiating a period of 25 years of repression and torture, while the oil industry was restored to foreign ownership, with the US and Britain each getting 40 percent."
1950s
American/NATO Terrorism in Germany, Italy and All of Europe
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"The CIA orchestrated a wide-ranging campaign of sabotage, terrorism, dirty tricks and psychological warfare against East Germany. This was one of the factors which led to the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
The United States also created a secret civilian army in Germany, which drew up a list of 200 leading Social Democrats, 15 Communists and various others who were to be “put out of the way” if the Soviet Union invaded. This secret army had its counterparts all over Western Europe as part of “Operation Gladio”, developed by the CIA and other intelligence services, and not answerable for its actions under the laws of any state.
After NATO was formed in 1949, Gladio came under its discreet aegis. “Gladiators” were responsible for numerous acts of terrorism in Europe, foremost of which was the bombing of the Bologna railway station in 1980, claiming 86 lives.
The purpose of the terrorism was to place the blame for these atrocities on the left and thus heighten public concern about a Soviet invasion and at the same time discredit leftist electoral candidates. NATO feared that if the left came to power in the government of any of its members, they might pass legislation that would be a threat to the NATO installations or operations in that country."
1948 – 1956
American Subversion in Eastern Europe
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"Allen Dulles, Director of the CIA, in a remarkable chess game, instigated a high Polish security official, Jozef Swiatlo, to use a controversial American, Noel Field, to spread paranoia amongst the security establishments of Eastern Europe, leading to countless purge trials, hundreds of thousands of imprisonments and at least hundreds of deaths."
1949 – 1953
American/British Subversion in Albania
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"By infiltrating emigre guerrillas into the country, the US and Britain tried to overthrow the communist government and install a new one that would have been pro-Western, albeit composed largely of monarchists and (former) collaborators with Italian fascists and Nazis. Hundreds of the emigres lost their lives or were imprisoned."
1945 – 1953
American Terrorism and Genocide of the Korean People
Estimated civilian deaths: 1,000,000 – 3,000,000 people
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"After World War II, the United States suppressed popular progressive organizations, who had been allies in the war — at times with brutal force — in favor of the conservatives who had collaborated with the Japanese.
As a result, the best opportunities to unify North and South were derailed. This led to a long era of corrupt, reactionary and ruthless governments in the South and the huge, war-crime filled American military intervention of 1950-53 in the “Korean War”, which was far from the simple affair of North Korea invading South Korea on a particular day, which the world has been led to believe.
In 1999, we learned that shortly after the war began, American soldiers machine-gunned hundreds of helpless civilians; amongst many other such incidents, hundreds were killed when the US purposely blew up bridges they were crossing."
See also:
American Terrorism and Genocide of the Korean People
The No Gun Ri Massacre
U.S. Biological Warfare Against the Korean People
1945 – 1953
American Subversion in the Philippines
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"The US military fought against the leftist Huk forces even while the Huks were still fighting against the Japanese invaders in the world war.
After the war, the US organized Philippine armed forces to continue the fight against the Huks, finally defeating them and their reform movement. The CIA interfered grossly in elections, installing a series of puppets as president, culminating in the long dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, for whom torture was “la specialite de la maison” (see Elections chapter of Rogue State).
See also:
American Terrorism and Genocide of the Philippine People, 1899-1902
1947 – 1949
American Tyranny and Subversion in Greece
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"The United States intervened in a civil war, taking the side of the neo-fascists against the Greek left, who had fought the Nazis courageously.
The neo-fascists won and instituted a highly brutal regime, for which the CIA created a suitably repressive internal security agency [called KYP]. For the next 15 years, Greece was looked upon much as a piece of real estate to be developed according to Washington’s needs.
... KYP [carried] out all the endearing practices of secret police everywhere, including systematic torture. It was most active during the military junta, 1967-74, a period of routine horrific torture."
1946 – 1958
American Nuclear Poisoning of the Homeland of the Marshall Islands People
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"Driven by perceived Cold War exigencies, the United States conducted dozens of ICBM, nuclear bomb and other nuclear tests on this trust territory in the Pacific, after forcing the residents of certain islands, notably Bikini Atoll, to relocate to other, uninhabited islands.
In 1968, the former residents of Bikini were told by the Johnson administration that their island had been cleaned and was safe for habitation. Many went back, only to be told later that they had been subjected to massive doses of radiation and would have to leave again.
In 1983, the US Interior Department declared that the islanders could return to their homes immediately — provided they ate no home-grown food until the late 21st century.
They have never returned."
1947 – 1948
American Subversion of Democracy in Italy
From Killing Hope
by William Blum:
"Using every trick in the book, the U.S. interfered in the elections to prevent the Communist Party from coming to power legally and fairly. This perversion of democracy was done in the name of “saving democracy” in Italy. The Communists lost. For the next few decades, the CIA, along with American corporations, continued to intervene in Italian elections, pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars and much psychological warfare to block the specter that was haunting Europe."
1947
American Subversion of Democracy in France
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"Communist Party members had fought in the wartime resistance, unlike many other French who had collaborated with the Germans. After the war the Communists followed the legal path to form strong labor unions and vie for political office.
But the United States was determined to deny them their place at the table, particularly since some unions were taking steps to impede the flow of arms to French forces seeking to reconquer their former colony of Vietnam with US aid.
The US funneled very large amounts of money to the Socialist Party, the Communists’ chief rival; sent in American Federation of Labor (AFL) experts to subvert the CP’s union dominance and import scabs from Italy; supplied arms and money to Corsican gangs to break up Communist strikes, burn down party offices and beat up and murder party members and strikers; sent in a psychological warfare team to complement all of these actions and used the threat of a cutoff of food aid and other aid... all to seriously undermine Communist Party support and prestige. It worked.
A portion of the financing for these covert operations came from the funds of the Marshall Plan, which also helped finance the corruption of the Italian elections of 1948 (see above), and set up a special covert operations agency which later melded into the CIA.
These are a few of the hidden sides of the Marshall Plan, which has long been held up to the world as a shining example of America’s “unselfish benevolence.”
At the same time, Washington was forcing the French government to dismiss its Communist ministers in order to receive American economic aid. Said Premier Paul Ramadier: “A little of our independence is departing from us with each loan we obtain.” "
1945 – 1951
American Betrayal and Subversion in China
From Rogue State
by William Blum:
"At the close of World War II, the US intervened in a civil war, taking the side of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists against Mao Tse-tung’s Communists, even though the latter had been a much closer ally of the United States in the war. To compound the irony, the US used defeated Japanese soldiers to fight for its side.
After their defeat in 1949, many Nationalist soldiers took refuge in northern Burma, where the CIA regrouped them, brought in other recruits from elsewhere in Asia, and provided a large supply of heavy arms and planes. During the early 1950s, this army proceeded to carry out a number of incursions into China, involving at times thousands of troops, accompanied by CIA advisers (some of whom were killed), and supplied by air drops from American planes."
August 1945
American Atomic Holocaust of the People of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
(Citado ariba)
February 1945
The Dresden Holocaust: American/British Genocide of the German People
Estimated civilian deaths: 130,000 to 500,000 German people
It was the greatest single massacre of World War Two, a genocide which surpassed the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. As many as half-a-million German civilian men, women were burned to death on the night of February 13-14, 1945 by two massive firebombing attacks, carried out by the U.S. Army Air Force and the British Royal Air Force.
The next morning a third firebombing attack was carried out, during which sadistic American fighter pilots even strafed helpless crowds of injured and terrorized refugees as they tried to flee along the banks of the Elbe River.
1942 – 1945
Holocaust of Civilian People in Japanese, German and French Cities
Estimated civilian deaths: 672,000 Japanese people; 500,000+ German people; thousands of French people
Quotes are from A People’s History of the United States
by Howard Zinn:
" “The bombing of Japanese cities continued the strategy of saturation bombing to destroy civilian morale; one nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo took 80,000 lives.”
This occured on the night of March 9-10, 1945, when the United States Army Air Force dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs on the civilian men, women and children of Tokyo.
Zinn points out in the book that “nighttime bombing” was by its very nature indiscriminate, not aimed primarily at military targets.
The February 13, 1945, American/British firebombing of the civilian people of Dresden, Germany was the greatest single massacre of the war. In one night, American and British air forces burned to death between 250,000 and 500,000 civilian men, women and children. During the course of the war, further tens of thousands of civilian men, women and children were firebombed to death in Hamburg, Darmstadt and Pforzheim by the United States Army Air Force.
Howard Zinn himself was a bombardier during WWII. He remembers bombing places like Pilsen, Germany and Royan, France. Royan was a little town on the Atlantic coast near Bordeaux. In an interview, Zinn recounts:
“There were a few thousand German soldiers holed up near this town, waiting for the war to end, not doing anything, not bothering anybody. But we were going to destroy them. ... So we destroyed the town, the German soldiers, the French also who were there.”
Twelve-hundred heavy bombers of the U.S. Army Air Force dropped napalm on all the people of Royan.
Many years after the war, during a visit to Europe, Zinn ran into a man and woman from Pilsen. He says:
“Hesitantly, I told them that I had been in one of the crews that bombed Pilsen. They said, ‘When you finished, the streets were full of corpses, hundreds and hundreds of people killed in that raid.’” "
1800s – 1930s
American Terrorism and Tyranny Around the World
From A People’s History of the United States
by Howard Zinn:
"For the United States to step forward [in WWII] as a defender of helpless countries matched its image in American high school history textbooks, but not its record in world affairs.
It had instigated a war with Mexico and taken half of that country. It had pretended to help Cuba win freedom from Spain, and then planted itself in Cuba with a military base, investments, and rights of intervention. It had seized Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and fought a brutal war to subjugate the Filipinos.
It had “opened” Japan to its trade with gunboats and threats. It had declared an Open Door Policy in China as a means of assuring that the United States would have opportunities equal to other imperial powers in exploiting China. It had sent troops to Peking with other nations, to assert Western supremacy in China, and kept them there for over thirty years.
While demanding an Open Door in China, it had insisted (with the Monroe Doctrine and many military interventions) on a Closed Door in Latin America — that is, closed to everyone but the United States. It had engineered a revolution against Colombia and created the “independent” state of Panama in order to build and control the Canal.
It sent five thousand marines to Nicaragua in 1926 to counter a revolution, and kept a force there for seven years. It intervened in the Dominican Republic for the fourth time in 1916 and kept troops there for eight years. It intervened for the second time in Haiti in 1915 and kept troops there for nineteen years.
Between 1900 and 1933, the United States intervened in Cuba four times, in Nicaragua twice, in Panama six times, in Guatemala once, in Honduras seven times. By 1924 the finances of half of the twenty Latin American states were being directed to some extent by the United States. By 1935, over half of U.S. steel and cotton exports were being sold in Latin America.
And in every single case, these interventions were for the purpose of crushing popular revolts against the tyranny of the puppet governments the United States had installed in hapless countries around the world. Perhaps we’ll never know how many innocent men, women and children were murdered during all these “interventions.” "
1899 – 1902
American Genocide of the Philippine People
Estimated civilian deaths: 200,000 people
In 1898 the United States went to war with Spain, taking over the Philippines. America defeated Spain with the help of our allies, the brave Filipino nationalist guerrillas.
The U.S. government had promised independence to them. The U.S. government lied.
From A People’s History of the United States
by Howard Zinn:
"In February 1899, the Filipinos rose in revolt against American rule. It took 70,000 American soldiers, marines and sailors three years to brutally crush the rebellion. The death toll of Filipinos was enormous, both from battle casualties and disease.
In Manila, a United States Marine named Littletown Waller, a major, was accused of shooting eleven defenseless Filipinos, without trial, on the island of Samar. Other marine officers described his testimony:
“The major said that General Smith instructed him to kill and burn, and said that the more he killed and burned the better pleased he would be; that it was no time to take prisoners, and that he was to make Samar a howling wilderness.
“Major Waller asked General Smith to define the age limit for killing, and he replied ‘Everything over ten.’”
In the province of Batangas, the secretary of the province estimated that of the population of 300,000, one third had been killed by combat, famine, or disease.
American firepower was overwhelmingly superior to anything the Filipino rebels could put together. In the very first battle, Admiral Dewey steamed up the Pasig River and fired 500-pound shells into the Filipino trenches. Dead Filipinos were piled so high that the Americans used their bodies for breastworks.
A British witness said:
“This is not war; it is simply massacre and murderous butchery.”
(End of People’s History excerpt)
Hearing of this American genocide, Mark Twain suggested we replace the stars and stripes in our flag with the skull and crossbones.
That remains a very good idea. At least it would be “truth in advertising.”
Twain said further:
“We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our protecting flag over that swag. And so, by these Providences of God — and the phrase is the government’s, not mine — we are a World Power.”
Thus began “The American Century”, consecrated in the blood of civilian people and children. With much more to follow.
1607 – 1890
American Genocide of the Native Peoples of America and Africa
Estimated civilian deaths: 90,000,000 people
(in North, South and Central America combined)
The British arrived in Jamestown in 1607. By 1610 the intentional extermination of the native population was well underway.
America’s contribution to “the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world” continued unabated to 1890. In December of that year the vengeful soldiers of the United States Seventh Cavalry used gattling guns and rifles to slaughter Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
More recently, with the unwitting sterilization of Indian women at hospitals in South Dakota, the FBI covert murder and terror campaign against the American Indian Movement people and the BIA covert and overt intimidation of Navajo people at Black Mountain — the genocide can be said to have entered a more surreptitious phase.
And how many millions of Africans died as a result of slavery? All of them, actually. If they died in slavery they died of slavery too. Their lives were stolen from them before they were born.
The slave trade was “justified” by demented, inhuman racism, but it was motivated by material greed. It was a business, like everything else in America’s bloody, ruthless history.
“The business of America is business” admitted President Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. These days Presidents aren’t quite so open about that fact.
But a truly evil corporate plutocracy rules this country today just as surely as it did then. And America’s modern addiction to plundering the world has its historical roots in the theft of Indian land and the slavery of Africans. America’s wealth owes its origins in large measure to generations of African blood, sweat and tears. And to the land stolen from its original inhabitants.
The evil, genocidal origins of America are the best explanation for the evil, genocidal nature of modern-day America. This country started out rotten as hell. It has improved domestically, but it has gotten much worse internationally. And the vast majority of Americans are still in total denial as to the true nature of the country they live in. It doesn’t bode well for the future. You can’t cure a disease if you won’t even diagnose it honestly.
And America is one deeply diseased nation.
See the bibliographies:
Genocide and Oppression of the American Indian Peoples
Enslavement and Oppression of the African-American Peoples.