---<fwd>---
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 12:04:11 -0400
From: Richard Sanders <•••@••.•••>
Subject: US Role in Middle East Wars & Regime Changes since WWII
To: •••@••.•••
Here's the Table of Contents for the upcoming issue of
Press for Conversion! The introductory article is also
appended below. If you are interested in getting a
copy, there's a form at the end of this email.
Richard Sanders
Editor, Press for Conversion!
(published quarterly by the Coalition to Oppose the
Arms Trade) Table of Contents (Issue #51) May 2003:
"The U.S. Role in Wars and Regime Changes in the Middle
East and North Africa since World War II"
Curious George asks: Why the "Vitriolic Hatred for America?".......3
1941-1946, Saudi Arabia: The Making of a U.S. Colony...............4
The Arabian-American love affair...............................5
1941-1951, Iran: Making "Sheeps' Eyes" at Anglo Oil................6
"Running Iran" and Running out the Brits.......................7
1942-1952, Egpyt: Nasser's Nazis and the CIA.......................8
Nasser, the "Moslem Billy Graham"..............................9
1947-1948, Palestine: The Creation of Israel......................10
1948-1949: The First Arab-Israeli War.............................11
Czech and U.S. Support for Israel.............................11
1949-1958, Syria: Early Experiments in Covert Action..............12
1953, Iran: Replacing Mossadegh with the Shah.....................14
1953-1956, Egypt: The Suez Crisis – Britain's Last Gasp...........16
1957-1958, Lebanon: Send in the Marines!..........................18
1958-1963, Iraq: Revolution and the US Response...................20
Kassem the Reformer...........................................20
Saddam's Early Role as a CIA Hitman...........................21
Saddam used CIA Death Lists to Target Leftists................21
1961-1966, Algeria: Plotting Against de Gaulle....................22
1967, Israel: Defeating the Arabs in Six Days.....................24
19691972, Libya: America's New Ally, Colonel Qaddafi..............26
1972-1975, Iraq: The Fine Art of Betraying Kurds..................27
1976-1983, Lebanon: Another CIA President in Lebanon..............28
Bombing Lebanese Villages.....................................29
1980-1988, Iran-Iraq: Helping Both Sides Lose the War.............30
1979-1988, Iraq: Supporting Saddam's War..........................32
1980-1986, Iran: Supporting Khomeini's War........................33
The October Surprise..........................................33
Iran-Contragate...............................................33
1981-1986, Libya: Tweaking Qaddafi's Nose.........................34
Qaddafi's Real Sins...........................................35
1991, Iraq: It Wasn't a War it was "a Turkey Shoot"...............36
Colin Powell, the Moderate?...................................37
Weapons / Casualties........................................37
1991-2003, Iraq: The War that Raged on Between Wars..............38
2003, Iraq: The Man Who would be King............................41
A Little-Read Book: Quotations from Chairman Garner...........41
U.S. Terror Expert, Paul Bremer, Takes Over Iraq..............41
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Press for Conversion also includes the VANA Update
(the National Newsletter of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms)
Signs of the Times................................................42
Outrage Spreads in Arab World.....................................43
Eminent German Historians Predict U.S. defeat.....................44
Stop the War Now!.................................................47
Using UN Resolution 377: "Uniting For Peace"......................46
Pentagon calls for "usable" N-weapons.............................45
Senate Committee Agrees to Lift Ban on Small-Scale Nukes..........45
Hyogo Council Against A & H Bombs, Kobe, Japan....................48
Following the Bombs: Eyewitness in Baghdad........................49
Military Integration Undermines Canada's Anti-War Position........50
Who Says Canada's Not at War?.....................................51
====================================================================
Here's the introductory article for this issue:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"How do I respond when I see that in some Islamic
countries there is vitriolic hatred for America? I'm
amazed...that there is such misunderstanding of what
our country is about.... Like most Americans, I just
can't believe it. Because I know how good we are....
We've got to do a better job of explaining to the
people in the Middle East...that we don't fight a war
against Islam or Muslims."
-- President' George W.Bush, October 11, 2001.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Curious George asks: Why the "Vitriolic Hatred for America?"
By Richard Sanders, Editor, Press for Conversion!
After September 11, 2001, some Americans began asking:
"Why would anyone in the Middle East hate America?" The
fact that such a question has to be asked reflects a
profound ignorance of the U.S. government's role in
that region.
In setting out to research the history of U.S. military
involvement in the Middle East and North Africa, I
began by creating a timeline of America's part in wars,
invasions, interventions, coups and regime changes in
the region. Within a month, I had compiled an unwieldy
list of more than 200 such events, reaching back to the
very beginnings of American history.
Several U.S. military "firsts" occurred during the
Barbary War (1801-1805), fought by the fledgling U.S.
Navy against North African "pirates" who would nowadays
be labeled "terrorists":
(1) It was the first foreign war waged by the U.S.
outside the Americas.
(2) In 1805, the U.S. military engaged in its first
attempted regime change outside the Americas. But
former U.S. consul of Tunis, William Eaton, failed in
his scheme to use 600 mercenaries to foment a rebellion
to replace Yusuf, the Pasha of Tripoli, with his
brother Hamet.
(3) Later in 1805, U.S. marines (commanding Greek
mercenaries) overthrew Derna, a city in Tripoli. It was
the first time a city outside the Americas had been
captured by U.S.-led forces. It is immortalized in
opening lines of "The Marines' Hymn": "From the Halls
of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli..."
Soon after their failed war in Canada (1812), the U.S.
launched a second Barbary War (1815). The two Barbary
wars not just about fighting "pirates." They were also
about challenging colonial European (primarily British
and French) control of Mediterranean trade, getting a
piece of "Old Europe's" profits and creating useful
pretexts to rationalize increasing the budget of
America's first navy.
This early pattern is instructive. It has repeated
itself for two centuries. The prime reason for the
bewildering array of examples of U.S. meddling in the
Middle East, and for that matter the rest of the world,
is usually the same; the desire of corporate "pirates"
to get their hands on foreign resources.
Excuses for U.S. military interventions in the region
have covered the usual gamut of pretexts from
protecting U.S. citizens to highly ironic lies about
promoting peace, human rights and democracy. Since
WWII, when U.S. military and intelligence operations in
the region got increasingly frequent and intense, the
real purpose of U.S. involvement was to gain access to
one very specific, highly-craved natural treasure,
namely, oil.
WWII was a turning point in the imperial contest for
control of the region and its main prize. It was the
twilight of the reigning British Empire and its
hegemony over the area and it was the dawn of U.S.
neo-colonialism in the region. Eventually, competition
between U.S. and British "pirates" gave way - at least
on the surface - to cooperation between the two
colonial powers. But their competition continues, even
as they work together to siphon off the region's
incredible wealth into their respective coffers.
America's drive to control the region's oil has been
ruthless and the impact on people's lives has been
devastating. The U.S. has been involved in at least
three types of regional wars:
(1) Wars waged directly by U.S. forces. These wars have
killed or wounded hundreds of thousands, and many more
were made homeless and refugees.
(2) Proxy wars between states. In several cases, both
sides were armed, trained, paid and guided by the U.S.
(3) Wars of repression waged by U.S.-client states
against their own populations. Countless activists have
been killed, tortured and imprisoned by exceedingly
violent, corrupt and repressive governments that were
put into power (and then kept there) by the U.S.
Sometimes, such regime changes occured through the
direct, overt use of U.S. military force. Usually
though, such changes come about through more covert
means, such as military coups, the rigging of
elections, the arming and military training of some
factions over others, financial coersion such as
bribery, blackmail or tied loans, and many more subtle,
"dirty tricks" applied by intelligence agencies.
Whichever type of war is used to install and maintain
U.S. client states, the ubiquitous problem of the
poverty remains. U.S.-backed regimes enforce economic
structures that impose crushing poverty upon the many,
while creating huge profits for a few.
This issue of Press for Conversion! highlights only a
handful of the most blatant examples of U.S. wars and
regime changes in the Middle East and North Africa
since WWII. Nevertheless, if even this limited history
were known, Americans might get begin to get an inkling
of why some people might be inclined to hate, not the
American people, but their government, its military and
spies, and the corporate interests that they represent.
Source: Press for Conversion! May, 2003. Published by
the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade.
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