Difference between revisions of "US/Bombing campaigns since 1945"
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This is a list of '''countries the US has bombed since 1945'''. This is in fact only the most visible aspect of [[US Intervention]] abroad. In practice, [[US Foreign Assassinations since 1945|US led assassinations]] and [[US Efforts to Suppress Democracy since 1945|overthrows of legitimate governments and interference with elections]] may be just as significant as the actual bombings listed here. | This is a list of '''countries the US has bombed since 1945'''. This is in fact only the most visible aspect of [[US Intervention]] abroad. In practice, [[US Foreign Assassinations since 1945|US led assassinations]] and [[US Efforts to Suppress Democracy since 1945|overthrows of legitimate governments and interference with elections]] may be just as significant as the actual bombings listed here. | ||
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| 1981 -<br>1992 || [[El Salvador]] || Officially, the U.S. military presence in El Salvador was limited to an advisory capacity. About 20 Americans were killed or wounded in helicopter and plane crashes while flying reconnaissance or other missions over combat areas, and considerable evidence surfaced of a U.S. role in the ground fighting as well. The war came to an official end in 1992; 75,000 civilian deaths at a cost of six billion dollars. Meaningful social change still largely thwarted by 1999. A handful of the wealthy still owned the country, the poor remained as ever, and dissidents still suffered from death squads.<ref name=bluminterventions/> || By some | | 1981 -<br>1992 || [[El Salvador]] || Officially, the U.S. military presence in El Salvador was limited to an advisory capacity. About 20 Americans were killed or wounded in helicopter and plane crashes while flying reconnaissance or other missions over combat areas, and considerable evidence surfaced of a U.S. role in the ground fighting as well. The war came to an official end in 1992; 75,000 civilian deaths at a cost of six billion dollars. Meaningful social change still largely thwarted by 1999. A handful of the wealthy still owned the country, the poor remained as ever, and dissidents still suffered from death squads.<ref name=bluminterventions/> || By some | ||
|- | |- | ||
| − | | 1983 -<br>1984 || [[Grenada]] || Operation Urgent Fury, termed by the UN General Assembly termed it "a flagrant violation of international law"<ref name="grenada"> | + | | 1983 -<br>1984 || [[Grenada]] || Operation Urgent Fury, termed by the UN General Assembly termed it "a flagrant violation of international law"<ref name="grenada">http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/resguide/r38.htm </ref>. || No |
|- | |- | ||
| 1982 -<br>1984 || [[Lebanon]] || Shelled villages from warship. || ?? | | 1982 -<br>1984 || [[Lebanon]] || Shelled villages from warship. || ?? | ||
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==References== | ==References== | ||
{{reflist|2}} | {{reflist|2}} | ||
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Revision as of 00:06, 8 August 2021
 US/Bombing campaigns since 1945  (Foreign policy of the United States, US intervention)   | |
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 | |
| Start | 1945 |
| List of countries the US has bombed from the air since 1945. | |
This is a list of countries the US has bombed since 1945. This is in fact only the most visible aspect of US Intervention abroad. In practice, US led assassinations and overthrows of legitimate governments and interference with elections may be just as significant as the actual bombings listed here.
Contents
Official narrative
This article was intended as an adjunct to two Wikipedia articles, Timeline of United States military operations (which is extremely long as uses rather biased language) and Covert US foreign regime change actions (deleted in April 2016, but the original content is still available here). Both articles (one of which is rated as of 'low importance') are unclear, lack useful summaries and have big gaps. There was no mention, for example, of the successful World Court action by Nicaragua against the US). The talk page confirm the difficulty faced by editors attempting to restore objectivity to the page in the face of a bevy of editors beholden to the US-sponsored official narrative.
Countries the US has bombed since the end of World War 2
The US is said to have carried out 32 distinct and separate bombing campaigns on 24 different countries between 1945 and 1999.[1] However, the listing below includes later operations as well. In most cases, bombings with aircraft cannot be denied, though in some cases this has been attempted.
| Date | Country | Details | Disputed? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 - present |
Iraq and Syria | Said to be against ISIS with alleged beheadings as the primary casus belli | No |
| 2011 - present |
Somalia | Ongoing drone strikes | No |
| 2011 | Libya | Early US attacks under UNSC 1973 were followed by NATO's “Operation Unified Protector”, leading to regime change and death of Gaddafi. | No |
| 2004 - present |
Yemen | Ongoing drone strikes, allegedly targeting terror suspects | No |
| 2004 - present |
Pakistan | Ongoing drone strikes, allegedly targeting militants | No |
| 2003 - 2011 |
Iraq | Regime change against Saddam Hussein, an ally who had gone rogue. By all accounts, US Ambassador in Baghdad, April Glaspie, gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait in August 1990. She was totally silent on everything until her retirement in 2002 and has not spoken since.[2] | No |
| 2001 - present |
Afghanistan | Regime change and boosting the opium trade under the pretext of pursuing Osama Bin Laden. | No |
| 1999 | Yugoslavia, Serbia | Allegedly to stop an ethnic cleansing that had begun or might begin. Targeted television stations and bombed the Chinese Embassy. | No |
| 1998 | Afghanistan | Cruise missiles on Osama Bin Laden's compounds. | No |
| 1998 | Sudan | Cruise missile attack on an antibiotic factory wrongly alleged to be producing WMD. | No |
| 1998 | Iran | ?? | |
| 1995 | Bosnia | Serbian forces bombed. Depleted Uranium shells used. | No |
| 1992- 1994 |
Somalia | Known to the West chiefly for "Black Hawk Down" | ?? |
| 1991 | Kuwait | See bombing of Iraq, below. Some of the attack took place within Kuwait, leaving quantities of Depleted Uranium, and causing much subsequent concern about cancers. | No |
| 1991 | Iraq | Bombing for 40 days and nights devastated the ancient and modern capital city of one of the most advanced nations in the Middle East. 177 million pounds of bombs fell in the most concentrated aerial onslaught in the history of the world.[1] Genuine multi-national effort and seen by most as a "good war". | No |
| 1989 - 1990 |
Panama | December 1989, a large tenement barrio in Panama City wiped out, 15,000 people left homeless. Casualties disputed.[1] | No |
| 1987 - 1988 |
Iran | Operation Prime Chance, nominally to protect U.S.-flagged oil tankers in the Gulf | No |
| 1986 | Libya | Attempt to kill Gaddafi, Tripoli bombed. Operation El Dorado Canyon, one of more than 50 attempts to assassinate foreign leaders (no listing in Pilger's "The World War on Democracy").[3] | No |
| 1979 - 1990 |
Nicaragua | Ronald Reagan's "freedom fighters." Sandinistas overthrow Somoza dictatorship in 1978, CIA uses profits from drug running to arm the Contras "Iran-Contra" (i.e. Somoza's vicious National Guard and other supporters of the dictator). US was condemned for "terrorism" by the World Court in 1986.[4][5] All-out war, aimed at destroying all social and economic programs of the government, burning down schools and medical clinics, raping, torturing, mining harbors, bombing and strafing. [1] | Denied by some? |
| 1981 - 1992 |
El Salvador | Officially, the U.S. military presence in El Salvador was limited to an advisory capacity. About 20 Americans were killed or wounded in helicopter and plane crashes while flying reconnaissance or other missions over combat areas, and considerable evidence surfaced of a U.S. role in the ground fighting as well. The war came to an official end in 1992; 75,000 civilian deaths at a cost of six billion dollars. Meaningful social change still largely thwarted by 1999. A handful of the wealthy still owned the country, the poor remained as ever, and dissidents still suffered from death squads.[1] | By some |
| 1983 - 1984 |
Grenada | Operation Urgent Fury, termed by the UN General Assembly termed it "a flagrant violation of international law"[6]. | No |
| 1982 - 1984 |
Lebanon | Shelled villages from warship. | ?? |
| 1969 - 1970 |
Cambodia | More bombs than the whole of WW2. | No |
| 1961 - 1973 |
Vietnam | South Vietnam devastated. | No |
| 1964 - 1975 |
Laos | "Anti-communism" | No |
| 1965 | Peru | Bombing of Peru and assistance to counter-insurgency operations [7][8] | By some |
| 1965 - 1966 |
Dominican Republic | ?? | |
| 1964 | Guatemala | ?? | |
| 1964 | Belgian Congo | By some | |
| 1961 | Cuba | The infamous Bay of Pigs invasion, designed to fail, intended to draw JFK into a full scale invasion. | No |
| 1960 | Guatemala | By some | |
| 1959 - 1960 |
Cuba | 40 years of attacks, bombings, full-scale military invasion, sanctions, embargoes, isolation, assassinations.[1] | No |
| 1958 | Indonesia | Large scale killings[citation needed] | ?? |
| 1954 | Guatemala | A CIA-organised coup (Operation PBSUCCESS) overthrew the democratically-elected and progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating over 35 years of death squads, torture, disappearances, mass murder, totaling well over 100,000 victims - one of the most inhuman chapters of the 20th century. Arbenz had nationalized the U.S. firm, United Fruit Company. The Russians had so little interest in the country that it didn't even maintain diplomatic relations.[1] Bombers based in Nicaragua. 200,000 people are eventually dead in a 36 year long Guatemalan Civil War.[9][10][11][12][13] | Disputed by some |
| 1950 - 1953 |
China | By some | |
| 1950 - 1953 |
Korea | At least 20% and perhaps up to 1/3rd of the population killed in order to prevent re-unification. | No |
| 1945 - 1946 |
China | By some |
Related Documents
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:Harold Pinter - 2005 Nobel Prize lecture | speech | 7 December 2005 | Harold Pinter | Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize acceptance speech made by video-link to the ceremony in Norway because of his illness. He was in the terminal stages of cancer. The speech is inspirational in its scathing rejection of Western (especially US) foreign policy objectives and methods. |
| Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower | book | 2000 | William Blum | A critical examination of United States foreign policy during and following the Cold War |
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References
- ↑ a b c d e f g A Brief History of U.S. Interventions 1945 to the Present by William Blum - Z magazine, June 1999.
- ↑ Is the US State Department still keeping April Glaspie under wraps? Information Clearing House 12/25/2005.
- ↑ The World War on Democracy One of more than 50 attempts to assassinate foreign leaders (but no listing) Global Research, John Pilger Jan 19, 2012, citing William Blum's "updated summary of the record of US foreign policy". Since the Second World War" of July 2011.
- ↑ Judgment of the International Court of Justice of 27 June 1986 concerning military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua: need for immediate compliance United Nations General Assembly 3 Nov 1986.
- ↑ US-Nicaragua (1979-) history of US Interventions cooperative research.
- ↑ http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/resguide/r38.htm
- ↑ William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions since World War II, 2003
- ↑ US Bombing Interventions Since WW II, Third World Traveler
- ↑ Washington Monthly [SILENCE ON THE MOUNTAIN Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala by Daniel Wilkinson Houghton Mifflin.
- ↑ "Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954" Stanford University Press, 2006.
- ↑ "Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954" Princeton University Press, 1992.
- ↑ "Managing the Counterrevolution: The United States and Guatemala, 1954-1961" Ohio University Press, 2000.
- ↑ "U.S. Foreign Policy toward Radical Change: Covert Operations in Guatemala, 1950-1954". Latin American Perspectives, 1983, Vol. 10, No. 1, p. 88-102.
