"If You Don't Come to Democracy" by Aleksandar Vodevic

by Aleksandar Vodevic

www.deviantart.com/deviation/19999588/?qo=38&q=by%3An...

Counties the U.S. has bombed:

Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)

Guatemala 1954

Indonesia 1958

Cuba 1959-1961

Guatemala 1960

Congo 1964

Laos 1964-73

Vietnam 1961-73

Cambodia 1969-70

Guatemala 1967-69

Grenada 1983

Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)

Libya 1986

El Salvador 1980s

Nicaragua 1980s

Iran 1987

Panama 1989

Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)

Kuwait 1991

Somalia 1993

Bosnia 1994, 1995

Sudan 1998

Afghanistan 1998

Yugoslavia 1999

Yemen 2002

Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular basis)

Iraq 2003-05

Afghanistan 2001-05


Plus
Iran, April 2003 -- hit by US missiles during bombing of Iraq, killing at least one persdon {2}

Pakistan, 2002-03 -- bombed by US planes several times as part of combat against the Taliban and other opponents of the US occupation of Afghanistan {3}

China, 1999 -- its heavily bombed embassy in Belgrade is legally Chinese territory, and it appears rather certain that the bombing was no accident (see chapter 25)

France, 1986 -- After the French government refused the use of its air space to US warplanes headed for a bombing raid on Libya, the planes were forced to take another, longer route; when they reached Libya they bombed so close to the French embassy that the building was damaged and all communication links knocked out.{4}

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1985 -- A bomb dropped by a police helicopter burned down an entire block, some 60 homes destroyed, 11 dead, including several small children. The police, the mayor's office, and the FBI were all involved in this effort to evict a black organization called MOVE from the house they lived in.

Them other guys are really shocking
"We should expect conflicts in which adversaries, because of cultural affinities different from our own, will resort to forms and levels of violence shocking to our sensibilities."
Department of Defense, 1999 {5}

The Targets
It's become a commonplace to accuse the United States of choosing as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns was carried out against the people of the former Yugoslavia -- white, European, Christians. The United States is an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become a target are: (1) It poses a sufficient obstacle to the desires of the American Empire; (2) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.


The survivors
A study by the American Medical Association: "Psychiatric disorders among survivors of the
1995 Oklahoma City bombing":

Nearly half the bombing survivors studied had an active postdisaster
psychiatric disorder, and full criteria for PTSD [posttraumatic stress
disorder] were met by one third of the survivors. PTSD symptoms were
nearly universal, especially symptoms of intrusive reexperience and
hyperarousal.{6}


Martin Kelly, publisher of a nonviolence website:

We never see the smoke and the fire, we never smell the blood, we
never see the terror in the eyes of the children, whose nightmares
will now feature screaming missiles from unseen terrorists, known
only as Americans.


NOTES
1. The Nation, September 26, 1994, p.304

2. RFE/RL Newsline, April 9, 2003 (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a "private" international communications service in Europe and Asia funded by the US government.)

3. Washington Post, January 1, 2003, Australian Broadcasting Company, January 1, 2003, Agence France Presse, September 19, 2003

4. Associated Press, "France Confirms It Denied U.S. Jets Air Space, Says Embassy Damaged", April 15, 1986

5. U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, "New World Coming" (Phase I Report), September 15, 1999, p.3

6. Journal of the American Medical Association, August 25, 1999, p.761


This is a chapter from the book Rogue State: A Guide to the

World's Only Superpower, by William Blum