war

Articles about war and military interventions.

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 as the interventions in Latin America such as Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua,

1940-1989: The Cold War

Noam Chomsky explains the nature of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1989.

How the Cold War worked

1918-1930: Mutiny and resistance in the Royal Navy

A short history of mutinies and rebellions in the British Royal Navy and Marines from the end of World War I, Russian Revolution and up until 1930.

Whilst the mutinies in the German and French Navies in the First World War have been well documented little information is available concerning the British Royal Navy. There was, however, considerable talk of mutiny at Portsmouth, in the summer of 1918.

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.