US/Bombing campaigns since 1945

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Countries the US has bombed since 1945 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.

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 under the guise of trying to catch 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 ??
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 -
1973
Laos 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 "Bay of Pigs", a failed invasion, US-sponsored. No
1960 Guatemala By some
1959 -
1960
Cuba 40 years of terrorist attacks, bombings, full-scale military invasion, sanctions, embargoes, isolation, assassinations.[1] No
1958 Indonesia Large scale killings ??
1954 Guatemala A CIA-organised coup (Operation PBSUCCESS) overthrows the democratically-elected and progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating 35 or 40 years of death-squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions, and unimaginable cruelty (peaking 1967-69) 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

 

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References

  1. 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.
  2. Is the US State Department still keeping April Glaspie under wraps? Information Clearing House 12/25/2005.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. US-Nicaragua (1979-) history of US Interventions cooperative research.
  6. "United Nations General Assembly resolution 38/7, page 19". United Nations. 2 November 1983.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
  7. William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions since World War II, 2003
  8. US Bombing Interventions Since WW II, Third World Traveler
  9. Washington Monthly [SILENCE ON THE MOUNTAIN Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala by Daniel Wilkinson Houghton Mifflin.
  10. "Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954" Stanford University Press, 2006.
  11. "Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954" Princeton University Press, 1992.
  12. "Managing the Counterrevolution: The United States and Guatemala, 1954-1961" Ohio University Press, 2000.
  13. "U.S. Foreign Policy toward Radical Change: Covert Operations in Guatemala, 1950-1954". Latin American Perspectives, 1983, Vol. 10, No. 1, p. 88-102.