Operation Condor: right wing dictators in South America repressing leftists with the support of Americans and possibly the French
Gladio: Post WWII Allied Forces and then NATO intelligence operations to delegitimize and destabilize leftist groups in Eastern Europe from end of WWII through the 1990s
Ranch Hand: US led effort to destroy the foliage and agricultural land in Vietnam to deprive the Viet Cong of food and places to stage attacks
PBSuccess: CIA led coup d’état in Guatemala at the request of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita)
Thx. I def recommend reading some articles that get into the depravity of some of these. Outside of the at least half a million people killed in the above operations, the coups, tortures, dissappearances, and entire communities wiped out is staggering.
Some more short blurbs :
Starting in the 1970s, a CIA-backed coalition of right wing governments in Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil, began Operation Condor, a campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents, with the stated aim of "eliminating Marxist subversion." Victims included dissidents and leftists, union and peasant leaders, priests and nuns, students and teachers, intellectuals and suspected guerillas. An estimated 30,000 to 80,000 leftists or sympathizers were killed. 1
From the 1950s-90s, the CIA and NATO ran a series of clandestine networks, headquartered in Rome, Italy called Operation Gladio. Its purpose was supplying aid (primarily money and weaponry) to right wing paramilitaries to attack left-wing movements, and carry out assassinations and bombings, as well as funnel money to centrist political parties. It had operations in Belgium, Finland, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria. In Italy, the group had 600+ members, and carried out car bombings during Italy's years of lead. In Germany, it included former Nazi SS members—Staff Sgt. Heinrich Hoffman, Lt. Col. Hans Rues, and Lt. Col. Walter Kopp. CIA weapons caches are still being discovered in all the countries above.
From the 1940s - 60s, the CIA provided an average of $5 million annually in covert aid towards financially supporting centrist Italian governments and using the awarding of contracts to weaken the Italian Communist Party's hold on labor unions. It was also involved in bombings and assassinations as a part of Operation Gladio.
Between 1963 and 1973, The US dropped ~388,000 tons of napalm bombs in vietnam, compared to 32,357 tons used over three years in the Korean War, and 16,500 tons dropped on Japan in 1945. US also sprayed over 5 million acres with herbicide, in Operation Ranch Hand, in a 10 year campaign to deprive the vietnamese of food and vegetation cover. 1,2
In 1967, the CIA helped South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in villages, in the Phoenix Program. By 1972, Phoenix operatives had executed between 26,000 and 41,000 suspected NLF operatives, informants and supporters.1
In 1965, The CIA overthrew the democratically elected Indonesian leader Sukarno with a military coup. The CIA had been trying to eliminate Sukarno since 1957, using everything from attempted assassination to sexual intrigue, for nothing more than his declaring neutrality in the Cold War. His successor, General Suharto, aided by the CIA, massacred between 500,000 to 1 million civilians accused of being communist, in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66. The US continued to support Suharto throughout the 70s, supplying weapons and planes.
Gladio targeted all of Europe, not just the East. Remember that the Communist parties were strong in the west too, especially in Italy and France.
Hell, they were part of the government under De Gaulle as members of the coalition.
Unitedestadian has long been the term used to describe USA citizens by the Spanish-speaking population of the Americas. Not their fault the country picked a length intro title and a vague region as their country name. Imagine if the UK was the UKE, United Kingdom of Europe, and called themselves Europeans by default. The other 90% would be pissed and make their own names, no?
How...How have I gone so long without hearing about any of this at all? Like I always hear we are evil, but the specifics are chalked up to 'cold war hysteria/propaganda'
Consider me spooked, and many thanks for the awareness boost OP!
Instead of 'american' or USian or others, why not Yankee? It has historical significance to the united states, originated a a pejorative, and the south hates it. Perfect
I prefer usonian, but ppl seem to hate that even worse. Much shorter than saying "US citizen", and also not going along with the US cooption of the term america.
USian here, and totally agree. The willful ignorance is stunning to behold.
But help me with my potential ignorance here - is this meme also suggesting that ordinary citizens of other developed countries know about these things? Do high school history and social studies classes have a day or a week that discuss US imperialism & shady dealings of recent decades?
My impression has always been that people in other countries read about this awful shit in the same places I do online, and that the differences in mainstream knowledge are about much more basic stuff like coal and climate change being bad while healthcare is good.
Do high school history and social studies classes have a day or a week that discuss US imperialism & shady dealings of recent decades?
No, that's the entire curriculum. Kinda impossible not to properly discuss a country's hystory without mentioning the US when the US has been fucking with it
Austrian here -
1st question: no idea.
2nd question: no
Same here, US imperialism was never discussed as such in my history lessons during the late 80ies and 90ies.
Would read about these atrocities only mich later, maybe in more "official" sources only if you're a student of history or politics and such.
Sounds like a term created by those people who get weirdly upset at Americans being called Americans because "America is 2 continents so technically everyone from North and South America is American"
Yea, because it is weird, you dolt. It’s literally just because it’s easier to say that it stuck, but it’s flatly useless. The country’s name is stupid, hard to deal with, and pretty much only the reality on the surface…much like the country itself.
I just say “US citizens”. It would probably be more accurate to say “citizens of the USA” buy my fucking god they aren’t worth that kind of effort.
I'm going to bet that if I did one of those street interview things with the question: "Do you know what operation condor is? Do you know what the phoenix program is?" I'd get maybe 1 usonian out of 300 that would have even heard of them.