Gideon Polya, “American Independence. Freedom for invasion, conquest & genocide”, MWC News, 4 July 2007, not cached by Google.
American Independence. Freedom for invasion, conquest & genocide
AMERICA is celebrating the Fourth of July and its Independence from its British cousins – people with the same culture, same customs, same language and the same religion. However in the following 231 years the “free” Americans have taken advantage of their “freedom” to invade, conquer, dispossess and mass murder people around the world with DIFFERENT cultures, customs, languages and religions.
I recently was able to confirm directly, person-to-person with a Pullitzer Prize-winning American history specialist that the first major outcome of American Independence in 1776 was ”freedom” to invade Indian lands to the West. His explanation was that for complex reasons connected with the Big Game of the 18th century – Anglo-French rivalry – the British had a policy of NOT invading Indian lands West of the Thirteen States. Independence for the American colonists simply meant turning on the switch permitting invasion, conquest, dispossession and genocide in relation to the North American Indians West of the Appalachians.
Here is a brief, potted history of 4 centuries of American-imposed GENOCIDE (1607-2007).
In about 15,000 BC, Amerindians crossed from Asia and began settling the Americas.
In 1492, Columbus discovered America and commenced the Amerindian Genocide with great ferocity.
In the 16 th century, the Spanish settled in Florida and thence in the South West and California and there was French settlement at Quebec, Montreal and Louisiana.
In 1607, there was English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia; in 1620, Plymouth settlement by the Pilgrim Fathers.
In the 17th-19th century, African slave trade and the plantation economy in the South; Amerindian Genocide by introduced disease, dispossession, violence and even biological warfare (deliberately infecting Indians with smallpox).
The period 1775-1783 saw the American Revolution against Britain under Washington, Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence (equality of man and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), the American constitution, democracy and the rule of law; independence from Britain and FREEDOM for the genocidal invasion of Indian lands to the West.
In the 19th century, the major American “land grabs” in North America were as follows: 1803, Louisiana Purchase from France; 1812, War with Britain; 1812, Monroe Doctrine opposing European interference in the Americas; 1819, Florida obtained from Spain; 1836-1846, settlement of Texas and war with Mexico culminating in acquisition of Texas, the Southwest and California; 1853, Gadsden Purchase of further Hispanic lands; and in the mid-19th century, acquisition of the Northwest. Attempts to seize Canada were unsuccessful (the Americans were not so successful when faced with well-armed, fellow Anglo-Celts but they did really well at massacring unarmed non-European women and children, a cowardly tradition they have continued to the present). The westward spread remorselessly continued with legislated removal of Amerindians from East of the Mississippi under racist, genocidal President Andrew Jackson and extermination of Indians through disease, dispossession and violence.
However the 19th century also saw the extension of American power to Latin America and the Pacific with the acquisition of Hawaii (1898) and American Samoa (1899); the Spanish-American War (1898) with acquisition of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines and the entrenchment of Latin American hegemony. In the early 20th century, US imperialism was rampant with the 1899-1902, Philippines War (1 million Filipinos died); repeated military interventions in Panama (1864-1989), Cuba (1898-1920), the Dominican Republic (1916-1934), Haiti (US occupation forces 1919-1934) and Nicaragua (1912-1915); and the bullying “acquisition” of the Virgin Islands from Denmark (1917).
The Second World War saw the entrenchment of the highly profitable military-industrial complex and total air war against civilians (e.g. Tokyo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden). Post-war there was an economic, cultural and military domination of world by an immensely rich, technologically-advanced USA; culminating in final victory over the USSR in the Star Wars segment of the post-war Cold War that had involved megaton hydrogen bombs, ICBMs, nuclear-armed submarines, nuclear “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) and East- and West-supported armed conflicts throughout the world.
The major post-war American invasions and occupations are as follows with UN-derived estimates of war-related excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) in parentheses (for details see “BODY COUNT. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ and articles in MWC News: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ ): Korean War (1950-1953; 1.0 million excess deaths), Indo-China War (1954-1975; 13 million excess deaths in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), Dominican Republic (1965), Cuba (1961; economic sanctions, 1964-present), El Salvador (US-backed coup, death squads and civil war, 1972-1992, 30,000 killed), Guatemala (via US-armed and backed military from Honduras, 1954-1990, 0.5 million refugees), Nicaragua (via US-armed and backed Contras from Honduras, 1982-1990), Panama (1989), Grenada (1983), Columbia (US military involvement in the civil war since 1964), Afghanistan (Soviet invasion and US-backed resistance and civil war, 6.3 million deaths), Iran (overthrow of democracy, 1953-1979; military raid, 1979; backing Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988, 1.5 million dead), Iraq Gulf War and Sanctions war (1990-2003; 2.7 million excess deaths), Iraq War (2003- March 2007; 1.0 million avoidable deaths); Afghanistan War (2001-March 2007, 2.4 million post-invasion excess deaths).
Here is a chilling summation of 1950-2005 excess death (in millions, m) in all countries that America has partially or completely occupied as a major occupier since 1945 at some time (but excluding former Axis countries and the US-funded occupation of Palestine) and is presented for comparative purposes as a ratio (expressed as a percentage) with respect to the 2005 population of these countries (the asterisks indicate major involvement of others in the carnage). The list begins with the United States itself: United States [8.455m/300.038m = 2.8%] - Afghanistan* [16.609m/25.971m = 64.0%], Cambodia* [5.852m/14.825m = 39.5%], Dominican Republic [0.806m/8.998m = 9.0%], Federated States of Micronesia [0.016m/0.111m = 14.4%], Greece* [0.027m/10.978m = 0.2%], Grenada* [0.018m/0.121m = 14.9%], Guam [0.005m/0.168m = 3.0%], Haiti* [4.089m/8.549m = 47.9%], Iraq* [5.283m/26.555m = 19.9%], Korea* [7.958m/71.058m = 11.2%], Laos* [2.653m/5.918m = 44.8%], Panama [0.172m/3.235m = 5.3%], Philippines [9.080m/82.809m = 11.0%], Puerto Rico [0.039m/3.915m = 1.0%], Somalia* [5.568m/10.742m = 51.8%], US Virgin Islands [0.003m/0.113m = 2.4%], Vietnam* [24.015m/83.585m = 28.7%], total = 82.193m/357.651m = 23.0% (source: “BODY COUNT. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).
Racist, genocidal, child-killing America is insatiable in its blood-lust that also extends to its OWN people. Thus by the time President Bush retires from 8 bloody years in power 240,000 AMERICANS will have died from Guns during his pro-Gun presidency; 160,000 under-5 year old American infants (disproportionately African-American and Hispanic) will have died avoidably due to warped Bush priorities (killing Muslim infants rather than keeping American infants alive); and 8x15,000 = 120,000 Americans will have died from opiate drug-related reasons (largely due to American restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry to a current 90% of world market share).
However the really BIG PICTURE is that there have been 1.3 billion excess deaths since 1950 (0.8 billion being infants) on Spaceship Earth with racist, genocidal America at the helm on the flight-deck – 16 million people die avoidably (10 million of them infants) EACH YEAR– that’s 44,000 avoidable deaths EVERY DAY. Even in the genocidal microcosm of countries violently occupied by the US or its surrogates (currently Haiti, Somalia, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan) the AVOIDABLE under-5 infant deaths under Occupation are horrendous – about 600,000 die avoidably annually or ONE PER MINUTE (see MWC News: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/11968/42/ ).
However it is set to get worse. Iran is threatened with nuclear attack by the US and its surrogate, Racist Zionist-run Apartheid Israel i.e. by US-Israeli State Terrorism (USIST) as part of the Bush War on Terror that in horrible actuality a War on Women and Children, a War on Arab Women and Children, a War on Muslim Women and Children, a War on Asian Women and Children – and as it has been for 4 centuries, an Anglo-American War on Non-European Women and Children.
While the world as a whole was inspired by the great Jeffersonian message that “All men are created equal and have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” it is racist, genocidal, endlessly greedy America that has flagrantly ignored this supremely important dictum for 231 blood-soaked years. When will Haiti, Somalia, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan gain THEIR Independence from these quintessentially proto-Nazi, child-killing, pathological narcissistic, mass murdering psychopaths?