US intervention

1904-2003: History of Iraq

A short history of Iraq, focusing on foreign intervention, imperialism and attempts by Western powers to control oil and other resources in the country and the rest of the Middle East.

See also our 1900-2000: Iraq timeline

1989-today: The War on Drugs

Noam Chomsky on the 'war' on drugs that Western governments have been allegedly pursuing since 1989. In reality, their response to the drug trade has depended very much on who is doing it...

The war on (certain) drugs

1983: The US invasion of Grenada

Historian Howard Zinn's account of the American invasion of the small Caribbean island of Grenada, ostensibly to 'protect' US citizens, but in fact to re-assert US military and financial dominance over the region.

In the autumn of 1982, President Reagan sent American marines into a dangerous situation in Lebanon, where a civil war was raging, again ignoring the requirements of the War Powers Act as the government did with Cambodia in the Mayaguez affair.

1975: The Mayaguez Affair

Historian Howard Zinn's account of the brief but disatrous invasion of a Cambodian island by a small US force which suffered massive casualties.

The invasion was in response to Cambodia holding the crew of an American cargo ship, with the intention of re-asserting US military dominance in the wake of its defeat in Vietnam.

1948-1991: US intervention and war in South East Asia

Noam Chomsky's very brief account of US military, economic and "diplomatic" action in Indochina in the last half of the 20th century

The US wars in Indochina fall into the same general pattern

1957-1975: The Vietnam War

Howard Zinn's short history of the war in Vietnam from the beginning of the Communist insurgency in 1957 until the defeat of US and South Vietnamese forces in 1975.

Following the partitioning of Vietnam into the pro-independence Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the North, and the US puppet state the Republic of Vietnam in the South in 1954 (see our short history of Vietnam from 1945 to 1957) elections were due to be held on re-unification.

1968-1990: The invasion of Panama and US intervention

Noam Chomsky's account of the US invasion of Panama, its intervention over the previous twenty years and its backing of drug-trafficking dictarator Manuel Noriega.

Panama has been traditionally controlled by its tiny European elite, less than 10% of the population. That changed in 1968, when Omar Torrijos, a populist general, led a coup that allowed the black and mestizo [mixed-race] poor to obtain at least a share of the power under his military dictatorship.

1986: The Iran-Contra Affair

Chomsky's brief account of the US selling arms to Iran via Israel in order to fund far-right paramilitary contras in Nicaragua.

The major elements of the Iran/contra story were well known long before the 1986 exposures, apart from one fact: that the sale of arms to Iran via Israel and the illegal contra war run out of Colonel Oliver North's White House office were connected.

1970-1987: The contra war in Nicaragua

Noam Chomsky's account of the US-backed “contra” counter-insurgency in Nicaragua against the left-wing government brought to power on the back of a popular mass movement from below.

It wasn't just the events in El Salvador that were ignored by the mainstream US media during the 1970s. In the ten years prior to the overthrow of the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, US television - all networks - devoted exactly one hour to Nicaragua, and that was entirely on the Managua earthquake of 1972.

1944-1989: The coup and US intervention in Guatemala

Noam Chomsky on the US intervention and coup following the 1944 revolution which overthrew Guatemala's brutal dictator.

Making Guatemala a killing field

1970-1990: The war of counter-insurgency in El Salvador

Noam Chomsky on the ultra-violent war of the right-wing regime in El Salvador against grassroots resistance of workers, peasants and liberation theologists – socialist clergymen and women.

The crucifixion of El Salvador
For many years, repression, torture and murder were carried on in El Salvador by dictators installed and supported by the US government, a matter of no interest in the US. The story was virtually never covered. By the late 1970s, however, the government began to be concerned about a couple of things.

21. Carter-Reagan-Bush: The Bipartisan Consensus

Halfway through the twentieth century, the historian Richard Hofstadter, in his book The American Political Tradition, examined our important national leaders, from Jefferson and Jackson to Herbert Hoover and the two Roosevelts—Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. Hofstadter

12. The Empire and the People

Theodore Roosevelt wrote to a friend in the year 1897: "In strict confidence . . . I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one."

A Brief History of Liberia 1822-1991

Below is a brief history of Liberia I wrote at the time of the civil war there in 1991, intended to be background for a feature in Black Flag that never happened. It probably needs improving, especially on the responses of the people who lived there to their role as supplier of raw materials to the west, but is at least a start.

LIBERIA