Declassified: US Imperialism, Terror, and Support for Tyranny

[Ghost Rider]

Wait, what is this even about?

Someone who hate the US.

^^
This an authoritarian way of thinking. Anyone who critizes their government's policies hates their country. This is by definition "unamerican". No secret police here is forcing you to be obediant. North Korea couldnt've done it better.

I really don't know how to respond. Are you hating the US or is it something else?

The entire premise of your statement is unamerican. "Hating the US"? You might find this type of rethoric in totalitarian states. It's like this man. Every time he challenges me with nonsonse I will respond with more.

So you hate the US?

No, I hate covert and overt colonial wars. Take what's happenning now for example. The Obama team overthrew the democratically elected government of Honduras in 2009 and installed a fascist regime. They attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government of Equador in 2010, and they have been working to overthrow the democratically elected government in Venezuela. They established military bases in Colombia, right on the boarder of Venezuela. Various NGO's like the NED, USAID, the NDI, and the IRI are currently in Bolivia, Equador, Argentina, Venezuela, and Nicaragua trying to organize military coup's because these "nationalist" governments "respond" to the "increasing popular demand for immediate improvement in the low living standards of the masses, with the result that most Latin American governments are under intense domestic political pressures to increase production and to diversify their economies."

Do you honestly think that the US is the only one doing this?

[BANE]

We've moved onto the "Well everyone else is doing it, mom!" argument I see.

[Horhey]

CIA-Military Coup and Death Squad Killings in Guatemala

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ-E--rmi3k#ws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02SSYm_NapM#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgFMREdwQwA#

In 1944, a revolution in Guatemala overthrew a vicious tyrant, leading to the establishment of a democratic government that basically modeled itself on Roosevelt's New Deal.

From The National Security Archives declassified US documents:

Arbenz was elected President of Guatemala in 1950 to continue a process of socio- economic reforms that the CIA disdainfully refers to in its memoranda as "an intensely nationalistic program of progress colored by the touchy, anti-foreign inferiority complex of the 'Banana Republic.'"

In the ten-year democratic interlude that followed, there were the beginnings of successful independent economic development. That caused virtual hysteria in Washington. Eisenhower and Dulles warned that the "self defense and self-preservation" of the United States was at stake unless the virus was exterminated. US intelligence reports were very candid about the dangers posed by capitalist democracy in Guatemala.

A CIA memorandum of 1952 described the situation in Guatemala as follows:

The current political situation is adverse to US interests. In the name of the Revolution, the successive administrations of Arevalo and Arbenz have pursued radical and nationalistic policies. Their persecution of foreign economic interests in Guatemala, especially the United Fruit Company, and their demands for the "restitution" of Belize (British Honduras} have had the support or acquiescence of almost all Guatemalans.

Guatemala has frequently taken occasion to demonstrate its independence of US leadership and in general has been less cooperative than could be desired, particularly in Hemispheric affairs. Moreover, the regime has systematically been hostile toward US private economic interests in Guatemala.

Their promotion of labor organizations and agrarian reforms has tended to neutralise political opposition by creating mass support for the present regime. Any objection to the trend of developments has been stigmatized as resistance to the Revolution by "feudal" and "imperialistic" interests.

Things became still worse after a successful land reform began to threaten "stability" in neighboring countries where suffering people did not fail to take notice.

Charles R. Burrows of the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Inter-American Affairs warned that:

Guatemala has become an increasing threat to the stability of Honduras and El Salvador. Its agrarian reform is a powerful propaganda weapon; its broad social program of aiding the workers and peasants in a victorious struggle against the upper classes and large foreign enterprises has a strong appeal to the populations of Central American neighbors where similar conditions prevail.

In short, the situation was pretty awful. So the CIA carried out a successful coup.

From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

PBSUCCESS, authorized by President Eisenhower in August 1953, carried a $2.7 million budget for "pychological warfare and political action" and "subversion," among the other components of a small paramilitary war. But, according to the CIA's own internal study of the agency's so-called "K program," up until the day Arbenz resigned on June 27, 1954, "the option of assassination was still being considered." Although Arbenz and his top aides were able to flee the country, after the CIA installed Castillo Armas in power, hundreds of Guatemalans were rounded up and killed.

After overthrowing the democratic government of Guatemala, the United State installed a series of right wing military juntas, which, with the aid, training & support of the CIA nad Green Berets murdered an estimated 200,000 people.

In an article entiteled "Papers show US role in Guatemalan abuses", The Washington Post reports:

During the 1960s, the United States was intimately involved in equipping and training Guatemalan security forces that murdered thousands of civilians in the nation's civil war, according to newly declassified U.S. intelligence documents.

Guatamala was turned into the slaughterhouse it remained untill 1996, with regular US intervention whenever things threaten to get out of line.

From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

GUATEMALAN DEATH SQUAD DOSSIER:

The Guatemalan military kept detailed records of its death squad operations, according to a document released by four human rights and public interest groups today. The army log reveals the fate of scores of Guatemalan citizens who were "disappeared" by security forces during the mid-1980s.

Throughout the war, the Guatemalan military used abduction, torture and assassination in their counterinsurgency campaign against the Guatemalan left. By the time the government and the guerrillas signed the peace accord in 1996, some 160,000 people had been killed and 40,000 "disappeared" -- 93 percent at the hands of the Guatemalan security forces, according to "Guatemala: Memory of Silence," the report of the Historical Clarification Commission.

By the late 1970s, atrocities were again mounting beyond the terrible norm, eliciting verbal protests. And yet, contrary to what many people believe, military aid to Guatemala continued at virtually the same level under the Carter "human rights" administration. The Carter administration poured and average of $13.7 million a year into the death squad war. Our allies have been enlisted in the cause as well- notably Israel, which is regarded as a "strategic asset" in part because of its success in guiding state terrorism.

Under Reagan, support for genocide in Guatemala became positively ecstatic.

The New York Times reports:

The Administration has sent hundreds of American advisers and C.I.A. operatives to oversee the training, arming and management of Central American client states' armies and police over the last six years. In Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador, they became among the most repressive and corrupt armies in Latin America and the Reagan Administration has continued the traditional American practice of funneling military aid directly to local armies and police forces. In Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Panama, Government officials have virtually no say in whether the aid will be given or how it will be used.

Furthermore, the Washington Post reports:

The documents show that the CIA retained close ties to the Guatemalan army in the 1980s, when the army and its paramilitary allies were massacring Indian villagers, and that U.S. officials were aware of the killings at the time. The documents were obtained by the National Security Archive, a private nonprofit group in Washington.

Some of the documents were made available to an independent commission formed to investigate human rights abuses during Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which killed an estimated 200,000 people.

U.S. military advisers confer as Col. Carlos Arana Osorio
and an aide look on (U.S. Army, 1965)



The most extreme of the Guatemalan Hitlers Washington propped up, Rios Montt, was lauded by Reagan as "a man of great personal integrity" who was "totally dedicated to democracy," and dismissed charges of atrocities in Guatemala as a "bum rap.".



In an article entiteled "Party to Mass Murder?", Human Rights Watch reports:

In the early 1980s he [Rios Montt] headed a military regime that carried out hundreds of massacres of unarmed civilians and -- according to a U.N.-sponsored truth commission -- "acts of genocide."

Reagan posed with Rios Montt, praised him as "a man of great personal integrity" who was "totally dedicated to democracy," and dismissed charges of atrocities in Guatemala as a "bum rap."

As Reagan spoke, Rios Montt's troops were preparing to march on a village called Las Dos Erres for a counterinsurgency operation that was to include the rape of young women, smashing of infants' heads and the interment of more than 160 civilians -- some while still alive -- in the village well.

In the early 1980s, Washington's death squads slaughtered tens of thousands of Guatemalans, mostly Indians in the highlands, with countless others tortured and raped. Large regions were decimated. The 1999 UN-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification determined they were "acts of genocide against groups of Mayan people."

From the Truth Commission report:

Using the National Security Doctrine as its justification, and acting in the name of anti-communism, crimes were committed which include the kidnapping and assassination of political activists, students, trade unionists and human rights advocates, all categorised as "subversives"; the forced disappearance of political and social leaders and poor peasants; and the systematic use of torture.

The Truth Commission report on the role of the United States in the death squad war:

The United States demonstrated that it was willing to provide support for strong military regimes in its strategic backyard. In the case of Guatemala, military assistance was directed towards reinforcing the national intelligence apparatus and for training the officer corps in counterinsurgency techniques, key factors which had significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed confrontation.

From School of the Americas Watch:

The truth commission report singled out the controversial US Army School of the Americas (SOA) for its counterinsurgency training that "had a significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed conflict."

In describing the National Security Doctrine taught at the SOA, the independent Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) report states: "By identifying all opponents as adversaries, the National Security Doctrine helped to broaden the definition of counterinsurgency and to spread techniques of persecution...within a growing atmosphere of State terror."

The US army School of the Americas played a key role in the three brutal military dictatorships that ruled Guatemala from 1978 to 1986.

According to documents obtained by School of the Americas Watch:

Notorious Graduates from Guatemala

SOA graduates comprised four of eight military officials in the cabinet of Lucas Garcia , six out of nine under Rios Montt, and five out of ten under Mejia Victores.

Furthermore, three top leaders and many officials of the fearsome Guatemalan intelligence agency D-2 (also known as G-2) were SOA graduates. In a chapter titled "D-2: The Very name of Fear," the Guatemala Nunca Mas Report states that Guatemalan military intelligence played "a central role in the conduct of military operations, in massacres, extra-judicial executions, forced disappearances and torture" (Vol. 2, p.65)

SOA graduates featured in the report include three D-2 directors, Francisco Ortega Menaldo, Cesar Augusto Cabrera Mejia, Manuel Callejas y Callejas, and others in leadership posts, including Federico Sobalvarro Meza, Cesar Quinteros Alvarado, Luis Felipe Caballeros Meza, Harry Ponce, Francisco Edgar Dominguez Lopez, Eduardo Ochoa Barrios, Domingo Velasquez Axpuac and Jose Manuel Rivas Rios. (Guatemala Nunca Mas)

Guatemalan Death Firing Squad

[chupacabras acheronsis]

pfft. no "nationalistic group" wants to improve living standards, they just want to move things around for their own convenience. nobody really cares about poor people.

what does that story has to do with anything, anyways? that's a Private landlord being an asshole, no US there.

[Ghost Rider]

We've moved onto the "Well everyone else is doing it, mom!" argument I see.

I was just winging it.

this is all under the assumption that American Influence doesn't benefit the Population here.

GLOBAL TRENDS 2015:

Globalization's evolution will be rocky, marked by chronic financial volatility and a widening economic divide. Regions, countries, and groups left behind will face deepening economic stagnation, political instability, and cultural alienation.

http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_globaltrend2015.htm

http://www.globalenvision.org/files/sweatshop.jpg

Overall US enforced authoritarian and corporate-state capitalist programs in El Salvador were described by one Salvadoran this way in 1995:

I used to work on a hasienda. My job was to take care of the [owner's] dogs. I gave them meat and bowls of milk, food that I couldn't give to my own family. When the dogs were sick, I took them to the veterinarian. When my children were sick, the [owner] gave me his sympathy, but no medicine as they died. To watch your children die in sickness and hunger while you can do nothing is violence to the spirit. We have suffered that silently for too many years.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MRw9Vzv_nuI/StIAlYtBILI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/QAlCUPZ01xk/s400/sweatshop+1.JPEG

Um what?

[Horhey]

US Military Coup in Brazil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFKgfekb328#

Lars Schoultz, one of the leading specialists on Latin America, writes that the US goal in Latin America was to:

to destroy permanently a perceived threat to the existing structure of socioeconomic privilege by eliminating the political participation of the numerical majority.

One US strategy was to establish Neo-Nazi National Security States. The move set off a plague of repression and terror throughout the continent, reaching Central America during the Reaganite phase of the current political leadership.

The plague began with the military coup in Brazil set in motion before Kennedy's assassination and carried out shortly after. Washington cooperated with the military forces that overthrew parliamentary democracy in recognition of their "basically democratic and pro United States orientation," Kennedy's ambassador Lincoln Gordan explained.



From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

Audio tape: President Johnson urged taking "every step that we can" to support overthrow of Joao Goulart. U.S. Ambassador Requested Pre-positioned Armaments to aid Golpistas; Acknowledged covert operations backing street demonstrations, civic forces and resistance groups.

U.S. Ambassador Requested Pre-positioned Armaments to aid Golpistas; Acknowledged covert operations backing street demonstrations, civic forces and resistance groups. The documents and cables refer to the coup forces as "the democratic rebellion". After General Castello Branco's takeover, the military ruled Brazil until 1985.

While the torturers and assassins were carrying out their work, Gordan hailed "the most decisive victory for freedom in the mid-twentieth century."The "democratic rebellion," Gordan cabled Washington, would help in "restraining left wing excesses" of the former moderate populist elected government, and the "democratic forces" now in charge should "create a greatly improved climate for private investment."

Human Rights Watch reports:

The Brazilian military regime from 1964 to 1985 was responsible for systematic human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detention, and the curtailment of free expression. According to official estimates, around 50,000 persons were detained just in the first months of the dictatorship and roughly 10,000 went into exile at some point during that period.

Lincoln Gordan's view was endorsed by other leading figures in the Kennedy-Johnson administrations, though by the 1980's, as in Chile at the same time, the Brazilian Generals were happy to transfer the wreckage to civilian hands.

According to the Professor Helio Jaguiribe commission report on "Brazil's social problems," despite the enormous advantages of the "colossus of the south" the Generals had left Brazil in "the same category as the less developed African or Asian countries when it came to social welfare indices" (malnutrition, infant mortality, etc) with conditions of inequality and suffering rarely matched elsewhere, but a grand success for foreign investors and domestic privilege.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsLdCyXoYRc#



During the military rule of Emilio Garrastazú Médici, the US and Brazil conspired to overthrow the social democratic president of Chile - Salvador Allende, and later discussed working together to topple other left leaning populist governments in Latin America.

From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

Declassified U.S. Documents Show Richard Nixon and Brazilian President Emilio Médici Discussed Coordinated Intervention in Chile, Cuba, and other Latin American nations "to prevent new Allendes and Castros"

In December 1971, President Richard Nixon and Brazilian President Emilio Garrastazú Médici discussed Brazil's role in efforts to overthrow the elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile, formerly Top Secret records posted by the National Security Archive today reveal.

Nixon told Médici, "must try and prevent new Allendes and try where possible to reverse these trends."

a CIA intelligence memorandum noted that Médici had proposed that Brazil and the U.S. cooperate in countering the "trend of Marxist/leftist expansion" in Latin America and that Nixon promised to "assist Brazil when and wherever possible."

A CIA National Intelligence Estimate done in 1972 predicted that Brazil would play an increasingly bigger role in hemispheric affairs, "seeking to fill whatever vacuum the US leaves behind. It is unlikely that Brazil will intervene openly in its neighbors internal affairs," the intelligence assessment predicted, "but the regime will not be above using the threat of intervention or tools of diplomacy and covert action to oppose leftist regimes, or keep friendly governments in office, or to help place them there in countries such as Bolivia and Uruguay."

In 2002, National Security Archive analyst Carlos Osorio posted a declassified Top Secret memorandum of conversation of Nixon's meeting with British Prime Minister Edward Heath dated December 20, 1971, during which the two discussed Brazil's role in South America. "Our position is supported by Brazil, which is after all the key to the future," states Nixon, "The Brazilians helped rig the Uruguayan election... There are forces at work which we are not discouraging."

[chupacabras acheronsis]

He's was old Decrepit Buffoon which often made things worse but he did what needed to be done. really the country was gone to shit, people were hungry and the UP was way out of line. you may not know there were multiple other attempts at coup before 1973.

i stand dead center because i know both sides did awry shit. however, i won't let anyone implicitly wash their hands by bringing up shit that should be over with long time ago. specially Anarchist brats who aren't even older than me rubbing shit they weren't alive to have a say on. you know, the kind that go out to trow molotov cocktails and burn bus stops every September 11th, or that ruined the Students manifestations back in 06.

[Horhey]

US Military Coup and support for General Pinochet's tryanny in Chile

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00kQorWVIsw#ws



Inquiry reveals that the real enemy of the United States is independant nationalism, particularly when it threatens to become a "contagious example", to borrow Henry Kissinger's characterization of social democracy in Chile, a "virus" that, he feared, might "infect" other countries as far away as the southern Europe. The source of the contagion therefore had to be destroyed, as it was.

In October 1970, President Richard Nixon was cursing in the Oval Office about the Social Democratic president of Chile, Salvador Allende. "That son of a (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)!" said Richard Nixon on 15 October. "That son of a (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) Allende – we're going to smash him." A few weeks later he explained why.

From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

If Chile moves as we expect and is able to get away with it -- our public posture is important here -- it gives courage to others who are sitting on the fence in Latin America.

I will never agree with the policy of downgrading the military in Latin America.They are power centers subject to our influence. The others (the intellectuals) are not subject to our influence. We want to give them some help. Brazil and Argentina particularly. Build them up with consultation. I want Defense to move on this. We'll go for more in the budget if necessary.

The main concern in Chile is that [Allende] can consolidate himself, and the picture projected to the world will be his success ... If we let the potential leaders in South America think they can move like Chile and have it both ways, we will be in trouble.

No impression should be permitted in Latin America that they can get away with this, that it's safe to go this way. All over the world it's too much the fashion to kick us around. We are not sensitive but our reactions must be coldly proper. We cannot fail to show our displeasure. We can't put up with "Give Americans hell but pray they don't go away." There must be times when we should and must react, not because we want to hurt them but to show we can't be kicked around.

Furthermore, from the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

Kissinger personally requested an hour to brief Nixon on November 5 in preparation for a National Security Council meeting to discuss Chile strategy the next day. The briefing paper records his threat perception of an Allende government as a model for other countries. As Kissinger informed the president: "The example of a successful elected Marxist government in Chile would surely have an impact on-an even precedent value for-other parts of the world, especially in Italy; the imitative spread of similar phenomena elsewhere would in turn significantly affect the world balance and our own position in it."

Thus, President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to destroy Chile's left leaning populist democracy and establish and fascist totalitarian state which would protect "our postition" in the "world balance" by teaching others that progressive economic reforms would not be tolerated.

The United States pursued a two-track policy toward Allende's Chile. At the overt level, Washington was frosty, especially after the nationalization of the copper mines. The government of President Richard M. Nixon launched an economic blockade conjunction with U.S. multinationals (ITT, Kennecott, Anaconda) and banks (Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank).

The US squeezed the Chilean economy by terminating financial assistance and blocking loans from multilateral organizations. But during 1972 and 1973 the US increased aid to the military, a sector unenthusiastic toward the Allende government. The United States also increased training Chilean military personnel in the United States and Panama.

On Tuesday, September 11, 1973, a date often called "the other 9/11" in Latin America, Pinochet's forces attacked the Chilean presidential palace. Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president, died in the palace, apparently by his own hand, because he was unwilling to surrender to the assault that demolished Latin America's oldest, most vibrant democracy and established a regime of torture and repression.

From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

President Richard Nixon had ordered the CIA to "make the economy scream" in Chile to "prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him."

These documents include:

** Cables written by U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry after Allende's election, detailing conversations with President Eduardo Frei on how to block the president-elect from being inaugurated. The cables contain detailed descriptions and opinions on the various political forces in Chile, including the Chilean military, the Christian Democrat Party, and the U.S. business community.

** CIA memoranda and reports on "Project FUBELT"--the codename for covert operations to promote a military coup and undermine Allende's government. The documents, including minutes of meetings between Henry Kissinger and CIA officials, CIA cables to its Santiago station, and summaries of covert action in 1970, provide a clear paper trail to the decisions and operations against Allende's government .

** National Security Council strategy papers which record efforts to "destabilize" Chile economically, and isolate Allende's government diplomatically, between 1970 and 1973.

** State Department and NSC memoranda and cables after the coup, providing evidence of human rights atrocities under the new military regime led by General Pinochet.

More declassified documents on the CIA-military coup in Chile from the National Security Archive:

Among the key documents declassified that shed considerable light on the history of U.S. involvement in Chile, and the repression of the Pinochet regime are:

*Files on National Security Council and cabinet meetings chaired by Richard Nixon recording his administration's commitment to "do everything we can to bring Allende down" after covert efforts to foment a coup to prevent his inauguration failed. (Dozens of other White House, CIA and NSC records, used by Frank Church's special committee reports on Chile in 1975, have been declassified for the first time.)

*U.S. government efforts to avoid pressuring the Pinochet regime on human rights atrocities.

The official death toll for the coup is 3,200; the actual toll is commonly estimated at double that figure. An official inquiry 30 years after the coup found evidence of approximately 28,000 cases of torture during the Pinochet regime.

Reuters reports:

Nearly 3,200 people died or disappeared in political violence during the 1973-1990 dictatorship, according to government accounts. The vast majority were killed by Pinochet's forces and by his infamous secret police in clandestine detention centers. Another 28,000 were tortured, according to official figures.

Furthermore the CIA actively supported the Junta and his secret police from 1973-1990.

From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

After twenty-seven years of withholding details about covert activities following the 1973 military coup in Chile, the CIA released a report yesterday acknowledging its close relations with General Augusto Pinochet's violent regime. The report, "CIA Activities in Chile," revealed for the first time that the head of the Chile's feared secret police, DINA, was a paid CIA asset in 1975, and that CIA contacts continued with him long after he dispatched his agents to Washington D.C. to assassinate former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and his 25-year old American associate, Ronni Karpen Moffitt.

"CIA actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende," the report states. "Many of Pinochet's officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses....Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or US military."

Many of Pinochet's henchmen trained at the US Army School of the Americas in Fort Benning Georgia.

From declassified US documents obtained by School of the Americas Watch:

General Augusto Pinochet was not a graduate of the School of the Americas; yet his influence is held in high esteem. in 1991, visitors could view a note from Pinochet, and a ceremonial sword donated by him, on display in the office of the Commandant (Charles Call, MH, 8/9/93)

Graduates of the School of the Americas have also comprised 1 out of every 7 members of the command staff of DINA, the notorious Chilean intelligence agency responsible for many of the worst human rights atrocities during the Pinochet years.

Pinochet soon moved to integrate other US-backed Latin American military dictatorships into an international state terrorism program called "Operation Condor". The program killed and tortured mercilessly within the region, while installing US-backed fascist regimes in Ecuador and Bolivia, and branched out into terrorist operations in Europe and the United States.

From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

On March 6, 2001, The New York Times reported the existence of a recently declassified State Department document revealing that the United States facilitated communications among South American intelligence chiefs who were working together to eliminate left-wing opposition groups in their countries as part of a covert program known as Operation Condor.

The document, a 1978 cable from Robert E. White, the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, was discovered by Professor J. Patrice McSherry of Long Island University, who has published several articles on Condor. She called the cable "another piece of increasingly weighty evidence suggesting that U.S. military and intelligence officials supported and collaborated with Condor as a secret partner or sponsor."

Throughout these crimes, and long after, Pinochet was greatly honored by Ronald Reagan and Margeret Thatcher. After Operation Condor was called off, the venom continued to spread. The worst atrocities in Argentina were yet to come, along with the expansion of state terror to Central America by the current incumbants in Washington.

Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy

[Valaquen]

Interesting. So is the MKULTRA stuff.

[maledoro]

I would be impressed if he posted current documents. Otherwise, it's like saying that Germany is still being run by the Nazis because he uncovered some documents from 1939.

[chupacabras acheronsis]

you keep citing biased sources. it's like if didn't had any others...

and the Left Tortured and Killed their fair share of Dissidents too. look it up. the country had to move out of it.

[Horhey]

The National Security Archive

ON 30th ANNIVERSARY OF ARGENTINE COUP

NEW DECLASSIFIED DETAILS ON REPRESSION AND
U.S. SUPPORT FOR MILITARY DICTATORSHIP

Kissinger sought immediate support for the new
military regime in spite of staff warnings on bloodshed

22,000 people murdered or disappeared by military between
1975 and 1978 according to secret Chilean intelligence report

Secret Argentine documents record Operation Condor kidnappings
and disappearances carried out by military intelligence Battalion 601.

Relatives continue to search for the tens of thousands of disappeared in Argentina.

Washington, D.C., March 23, 2006 - On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the National Security Archive posted a series of declassified U.S. documents and, for the first time, secret documents from Southern Cone intelligence agencies recording detailed evidence of massive atrocities committed by the military junta in Argentina. The documents include a formerly secret transcript of Henry Kissinger's staff meeting during which he ordered immediate U.S. support for the new military regime, and Defense and State Department reports on the ensuing repression. The Archive has also obtained internal memoranda and cables from the infamous Argentina intelligence unit, Battalion 601, as well as the Chilean secret police agency, known as DINA, which was secretly collaborating with the military in Buenos Aires.


Admiral Emilio Massera and Junta chief General Rafael Videla.

The documents record Washington's initial reaction to the military takeover. "I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States," Secretary of State Kissinger ordered his staff after his assistants warned him that the junta would initiate a bloodbath following the coup. According to the transcript, Kissinger's top deputy on Latin America, William Rogers, told him two days after the coup that "we've got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long."

State Department cables, including some obtained previously by the Argentine newspaper, Clarin, show that U.S. officials had prior knowledge of coup plotting. More than a week before the coup, Ambassador Robert Hill sent Assistant Secretary Rogers a secret cable reporting that the commander of the Navy, Admiral Emilio Massera, had requested that the U.S. embassy "indicate to him one or two reputable public relations firms in the U.S. which might handle the problem for a future military government." Massera, according to the cable, promised that the Argentine military would "not follow the lines of the Pinochet takeover in Chile," and would "try to proceed within the law and with full respect for human rights."

But although the military repression in Argentina drew less international attention than the Pinochet regime's in Chile, it far exceeded it in terms of human rights violations. By mid 1978, according to a secret cable from the DINA station in Buenos Aires, posted here publicly for the first time, the secret police battalion 601 had "counted 22,000 between dead and disappeared, from 1975 to the present date [July 1978]." Thousands of additional victims were killed between 1978 and 1983 when the military was forced from power.


A secret Argentine military document revealed here for the first time records the capture of Jorge Zaffaroni and his wife Maria, who were never seen again. (Source: Sin Olvido)

Some of the victims were Uruguayans living in Buenos Aires at the time of the coup. A secret Argentine intelligence report records an operation to kidnap two Uruguayan citizens who were then disappeared. "From: State Intelligence Secretariat. To: Intelligence Battalion 601... Primary objective: Jorge Zaffaroni [and] Maria Zaffaroni, Results: Positive..." reads the military form dated September 29, 1976. Other records posted today provide details on efforts to wipe out a Uruguayan resistance group known as OPR-33 through Operation Condor, a network of Southern Cone secret police services that worked together to eliminate opponents of their regimes.

"For the sake of history, memory and justice, it is extremely important that this kind of information from the Argentine intelligence and security services be made public and rigorously analyzed," said Professor Marcos Novaro, who directs the political history project at the University of Buenos Aires.

"It is clear from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's reaction that Argentina had to pay in blood for the sake of stability in the region," said Archive analyst Carlos Osorio. "The U.S. knowingly supported a national security doctrine that disregarded all civilized norms and any adherence to human rights, and tens of thousands of Argentines paid the ultimate price."

The National Security Archive

KISSINGER TO ARGENTINES ON DIRTY WAR:
"THE QUICKER YOU SUCCEED THE BETTER"

Newly declassified documents show Secretary of State
gave green light to junta, Contradict official line that
Argentines "heard only what [they] wanted to hear."

While military dictatorship committed massive
human rights abuses in 1976, Kissinger advised
"If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better."

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger meets with Argentine foreign minister, Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti, on October 7, 1976 (Photo courtesy of Clarín.com (Argentina),

Washington, D.C., 4 December 2003 - Newly declassified State Department documents obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act show that in October 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and high ranking U.S. officials gave their full support to the Argentine military junta and urged them to hurry up and finish the "dirty war" before the U.S. Congress cut military aid. A post-junta truth commission found that the Argentine military had "disappeared" at least 10,000 Argentines in the so-called "dirty war" against "subversion" and "terrorists" between 1976 and 1983; human rights groups in Argentina put the number at closer to 30,000.

The new documents are two memoranda of conversations (memcons) with the visiting Argentine foreign minister, Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti - one with Kissinger himself on October 7, 1976. At the time, the U.S. Congress was about to approve sanctions against the Argentine regime because of widespread reports of human rights abuses by the junta.

The memcons contradict the official line given by Assistant Secretary of State Harry Shlaudeman in response to complaints from the U.S. ambassador in Buenos Aires that Guzzetti had come back "euphoric" and "convinced that there is no real problem with the USG" over human rights. Schlaudeman cabled, "Guz;etti [sic] heard only what he wanted to hear."

According to the memcon's verbatim transcript, Secretary of State Kissinger interrupted the Foreign Minister's report on the situation in Argentina and said "Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed the better... The human rights problem is a growing one. Your Ambassador can apprise you. We want a stable situation. We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better. Whatever freedoms you could restore would help."



One day earlier, on October 6, 1976, Admiral Guzzetti had been told by Acting Secretary of State Charles W. Robinson "that it is possible to understand the requirement to be tough." But Robinson also remarked on the "question of timing of the relaxation of extreme countersubversion measures" before Congress voted sanctions on Argentina. The memcon with Robinson goes on to note that "[t]he Acting Secretary said... The problem is that the United States is an idealistic and moral country and its citizens have great difficulty in comprehending the kinds of problems faced by Argentina today. There is a tendency to apply our moral standards abroad and Argentina must understand the reaction of Congress with regard to loans and military assistance. The American people, right or wrong, have the perception that today there exists in Argentina a pattern of gross violations of human rights."

Beginning in September 1976, the U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Robert Hill, had been pressing the Argentine military on human rights issues, amid a dramatic increase in the number of victims being disappeared, killed and tortured, including half a dozen American citizens. The Argentine generals dismissed Ambassador Hill's demarches, according to previously declassified cables written by Hill, and alluded to an understanding with high ranking U.S. officials "that the USG's overriding concern was not human rights but rather that GOA 'get it over quickly.'"

After Admiral Guzzetti returned from Washington, Ambassador Hill wrote "a sour note" from Buenos Aires complaining that he could hardly present human rights demarches if the Argentine Foreign Minister did not hear the same message from the Secretary of State. Guzzetti had told Hill that "[t]he Secretary... had urged Argentina 'to be careful' and had said that if the terrorist problem was over by December or January, he (the Secretary) believed serious problems could be avoided in the U.S..." Wrote Ambassador Hill, "Guzzetti went to U.S. fully expecting to hear some strong, firm, direct warnings on his government's human rights practices, rather than that, he has returned in a state of jubilation, convinced that there is no real problem with the USG over that issue."


Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Harry W. Shlaudeman, who attended both the Kissinger and the Robinson meetings with Guzzetti, responded to Hill on behalf of Kissinger with a cable that directly misrepresented the actual conversations recorded in the memcons: "As in other circumstances you have undoubtedly en countered in your diplomatic career, Guz;etti [sic] heard only what he wanted to hear. He was told in detail how strongly opinion in this country has reacted against reports of abuses by the security forces in Argentina and the nature of the threat this poses to argentine interests... [T]he USG regards most seriously Argentina's international commitments to protect and promote fundamental human rights. There should be no mistake on that score..."

A final note from Hill shows that the Ambassador was appeased by the strong response from Washington. "Your message on Guzzetti's visit was most helpful. It is reassuring to have chapter and verse on what Guzzetti was told. We will keep after him and other GOA officials," Hill wrote. There is no evidence that Ambassador Hill ever saw the actual transcripts of the conversations with Guzzetti included here.

The two new memorandums of conversation (memcons) were not among the 4700 documents released in August 2002 by the Argentina Declassification Project of the U.S. Department of State. Much to the credit of Secretary of State Colin Powell and his predecessor, Madeleine Albright, who began the project, that release made front page news in Argentina, contributed dramatically to civilian control of the military, provided documentation on military decisionmaking now being used in dozens of court cases related to the "dirty war," and for some of the families of the "disappeared," gave the first available evidence of what had actually happened to their loved ones.

The State Department project, however, did not included documents from the often-vigorous internal U.S. policy debates over Argentina; and neither the CIA nor the Pentagon participated in the declassification effort. The National Security Archive obtained the new memcons in November 2003 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the Department of State in November 2002, seeking to fill in the missing pieces from the larger release.

In the following selection of documents, the memoranda of conversations Guzzetti had at the Department of State are preceded by two cables from Ambassador Hill reporting on the fruitless human rights demarches he had made to Admiral Guzzetti and President Jorge Rafael Videla in September, together with the contemporaneous Department of State intelligence analysis of the counter-terrorism practices of Argentine military, and the testimony of an American citizen tortured by the Argentine security forces.

The torture report was written after an interview with the victim on October 4, 1976 by the same U.S. official, Fernando Rondon, who served as the notetaker at the October 7, 1976 Kissinger-Guzzetti meeting.

[chupacabras acheronsis]

correction, that is the interpretation of a guy of declassified documents. bunch of citations and no context. and with that cover and title, how am i supposed to not take ìt with a grain of salt?

nobody here is getting anything across, and i have no interest, so i'm just going to stop posting.

[BANE]

I would be impressed if he posted current documents. Otherwise, it's like saying that Germany is still being run by the Nazis because he uncovered some documents from 1939.

I'm guessing they're not as available to the public as these...or is that your point?

[Ghost Rider]

He's was old Decrepit Buffoon which often made things worse but he did what needed to be done.

Really? A fascist dictator installed by the CIA, that tortured and murdered tens of thousands of his own people did what needed to be done?

US Imperialism and support for General Pinochet's tryanny in your country - Chile

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00kQorWVIsw#ws

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB212/pino_cover250.jpg

Inquiry reveals that the real enemy of the United States is independant nationalism, particularly when it threatens to become a "contagious example", to borrow Henry Kissinger's characterization of social democracy in Chile, a "virus" that, he feared, might "infect" other countries as far away as the southern Europe. The source of the contagion therefore had to be destroyed, as it was.

In October 1970, President Richard Nixon was cursing in the Oval Office about the Social Democratic president of Chile, Salvador Allende. "That son of a (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)!" said Richard Nixon on 15 October. "That son of a (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) Allende – we're going to smash him." A few weeks later he explained why.

From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

If Chile moves as we expect and is able to get away with it -- our public posture is important here -- it gives courage to others who are sitting on the fence in Latin America.

I will never agree with the policy of downgrading the military in Latin America.They are power centers subject to our influence. The others (the intellectuals) are not subject to our influence. We want to give them some help. Brazil and Argentina particularly. Build them up with consultation. I want Defense to move on this. We'll go for more in the budget if necessary.

The main concern in Chile is that [Allende] can consolidate himself, and the picture projected to the world will be his success ... If we let the potential leaders in South America think they can move like Chile and have it both ways, we will be in trouble.

No impression should be permitted in Latin America that they can get away with this, that it's safe to go this way. All over the world it's too much the fashion to kick us around. We are not sensitive but our reactions must be coldly proper. We cannot fail to show our displeasure. We can't put up with "Give Americans hell but pray they don't go away." There must be times when we should and must react, not because we want to hurt them but to show we can't be kicked around.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB135/phone350.jpg

Furthermore, from the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

Kissinger personally requested an hour to brief Nixon on November 5 in preparation for a National Security Council meeting to discuss Chile strategy the next day. The briefing paper records his threat perception of an Allende government as a model for other countries. As Kissinger informed the president: "The example of a successful elected Marxist government in Chile would surely have an impact on-an even precedent value for-other parts of the world, especially in Italy; the imitative spread of similar phenomena elsewhere would in turn significantly affect the world balance and our own position in it."

Thus, President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to destroy Chile's left leaning populist democracy and establish and fascist totalitarian state which would protect "our postition" in the "world balance" by teaching others that progressive economic reforms would not be tolerated.

The United States pursued a two-track policy toward Allende's Chile. At the overt level, Washington was frosty, especially after the nationalization of the copper mines. The government of President Richard M. Nixon launched an economic blockade conjunction with U.S. multinationals (ITT, Kennecott, Anaconda) and banks (Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank).

The US squeezed the Chilean economy by terminating financial assistance and blocking loans from multilateral organizations. But during 1972 and 1973 the US increased aid to the military, a sector unenthusiastic toward the Allende government. The United States also increased training Chilean military personnel in the United States and Panama.

On Tuesday, September 11, 1973, a date often called "the other 9/11" in Latin America, Pinochet's forces attacked the Chilean presidential palace. Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president, died in the palace, apparently by his own hand, because he was unwilling to surrender to the assault that demolished Latin America's oldest, most vibrant democracy and established a regime of torture and repression.

From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

President Richard Nixon had ordered the CIA to "make the economy scream" in Chile to "prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him."

These documents include:

** Cables written by U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry after Allende's election, detailing conversations with President Eduardo Frei on how to block the president-elect from being inaugurated. The cables contain detailed descriptions and opinions on the various political forces in Chile, including the Chilean military, the Christian Democrat Party, and the U.S. business community.

** CIA memoranda and reports on "Project FUBELT"--the codename for covert operations to promote a military coup and undermine Allende's government. The documents, including minutes of meetings between Henry Kissinger and CIA officials, CIA cables to its Santiago station, and summaries of covert action in 1970, provide a clear paper trail to the decisions and operations against Allende's government .

** National Security Council strategy papers which record efforts to "destabilize" Chile economically, and isolate Allende's government diplomatically, between 1970 and 1973.

** State Department and NSC memoranda and cables after the coup, providing evidence of human rights atrocities under the new military regime led by General Pinochet.

More declassified documents on the CIA-military coup in Chile from the National Security Archive:

Among the key documents declassified that shed considerable light on the history of U.S. involvement in Chile, and the repression of the Pinochet regime are:

*Files on National Security Council and cabinet meetings chaired by Richard Nixon recording his administration's commitment to "do everything we can to bring Allende down" after covert efforts to foment a coup to prevent his inauguration failed. (Dozens of other White House, CIA and NSC records, used by Frank Church's special committee reports on Chile in 1975, have been declassified for the first time.)

*U.S. government efforts to avoid pressuring the Pinochet regime on human rights atrocities.

The official death toll for the coup is 3,200; the actual toll is commonly estimated at double that figure. An official inquiry 30 years after the coup found evidence of approximately 28,000 cases of torture during the Pinochet regime.

Reuters reports:

Nearly 3,200 people died or disappeared in political violence during the 1973-1990 dictatorship, according to government accounts. The vast majority were killed by Pinochet's forces and by his infamous secret police in clandestine detention centers. Another 28,000 were tortured, according to official figures.

Further more the CIA actively supported the Junta and his secret police from 1973-1990.

From the National Security Archives declassified US documents:

After twenty-seven years of withholding details about covert activities following the 1973 military coup in Chile, the CIA released a report yesterday acknowledging its close relations with General Augusto Pinochet's violent regime. The report, "CIA Activities in Chile," revealed for the first time that the head of the Chile's feared secret police, DINA, was a paid CIA asset in 1975, and that CIA contacts continued with him long after he dispatched his agents to Washington D.C. to assassinate former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and his 25-year old American associate, Ronni Karpen Moffitt.

"CIA actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende," the report states. "Many of Pinochet's officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses....Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or US military."

Many of Pinochet's henchmen trained at the US Army School of the Americas in Fort Benning Georgia.

From declassified US documents obtained by School of the Americas Watch:

General Augusto Pinochet was not a graduate of the School of the Americas; yet his influence is held in high esteem. in 1991, visitors could view a note from Pinochet, and a ceremonial sword donated by him, on display in the office of the Commandant (Charles Call, MH, 8/9/93)

Graduates of the School of the Americas have also comprised 1 out of every 7 members of the command staff of DINA, the notorious Chilean intelligence agency responsible for many of the worst human rights atrocities during the Pinochet years.

What is your point?