Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Interventi USA in MO in passato: A cosa portarono

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0210-07.htm
Iran, 1953: When the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh
nationalized the Anglo-Iranian oil company, the resulting sanctions on
the country - led by Great Britain and the United States - resulted in
economic hardship and political unrest. Fearing that such instability
could result in a communist takeover and concerned about the precedent
of nationalization on American oil companies elsewhere in the Middle
East, agents of the Central Intelligence Agency organized a military
coup in 1953, ousting the elected prime minister. The United States
returned the exiled Shah to Iran, where he ruled with an iron fist for
more than a quarter century. Tens of thousands of dissidents were
tortured and murdered by his dreaded SAVAK secret police, organized
and trained by the United States. The repression was largely
successful in wiping out the democratic opposition. The SAVAK was less
successful in infiltrating religious institutions, however, so when
the revolution finally took place, toppling the Shah in 1979, the
formerly secular Iran came under the leadership of virulently
reactionary and anti-American Islamists. The result of the Islamic
revolution was not only the end of one of America's strongest economic
and strategic relationships in the Middle East, but also the hostage
crisis of 1979-81, Iranian support for anti-American terrorist groups,
and a series of armed engagements in the Persian Gulf during the
1980s. Had the United States not overthrown Iran's constitutional
government in 1953 and replaced it with the dictatorial Shah, there
would not have been the Islamic Revolution and its bloody aftermath.
Lebanon, 1958 and 1982-84: U.S. Marines briefly entered Lebanon in
1958 to block an attempt by Arab nationalist forces to topple the
confessional representation system imposed by departing French
colonialists fifteen years earlier. This system effectively kept
elites of rival clans in control of the country, particularly those of
the pro-Western Maronite Christian minority. Tensions grew in
subsequent years as rival factions began forming heavily-armed
militias. A full-scale civil war broke out in 1975, which included
militias made up of Palestinian refugees expelled from their country
during Israel's war for independence in 1948. The United States
provided military, financial and diplomatic support for Israel's June
1982 invasion of Lebanon targeted at the Palestinians and their
leftist Lebanese allies. Despite tens of thousands of civilian
casualties from the Israeli onslaught, the United States blocked
efforts by the United Nations to force an Israeli withdrawal or even a
cease fire. The United States brokered an agreement that September
which led to a withdrawal of Palestinian forces from the country and
the appointment of a new Lebanese government led by the neo-fascist
Phalangist Party, representing part of the country's Maronite
Christian community. After Israeli occupation forces led by General
Ariel Sharon facilitated a Phalangist massacre of thousands of
Palestinian refugees just south of Beirut, U.S. troops moved into
areas around the capital and Navy ships were stationed off the coast.
When a popular uprising commenced against the minority Phalangist
government, U.S. forces began bombing villages in the Shouf Mountains
and other opposition strongholds while U.S. Marines exchanged gunfire
with Muslim militias in nearby Beirut suburbs. There were also a
series of armed engagements with Syrian forces in eastern Lebanon,
resulting in the killing and capture of American pilots. In 1983,
suicide bombers struck the U.S. embassy in April and a Marine barracks
in October, killing nearly 300 Americans, which led to a U.S.
withdrawal in early 1984. Meanwhile, the United States continued its
military and financial support for Israeli occupation forces in
southern Lebanon, blocking the UN Security Council from enforcing a
series of resolutions demanding Israel's unconditional withdrawal.
Periodic attacks by U.S.-armed Israeli forces against Lebanese
civilian population centers resulted in hundreds of thousands of
internal refugees, many of whom joined radical Islamic groups like
Hizbollah, which were responsible for a series of kidnapping and
assassinations of Americans in Lebanon. The collapse of leftist and
nationalist Lebanese forces as a result of the U.S. intervention and
the U.S.-backed Israeli invasion led to a power vacuum filled by
extremist Islamic groups from below and an overbearing presence of the
anti-American Syrian government from above. Combined with resentment
at the enormous human costs of these interventions, Lebanon has turned
from a staunchly pro-Western country to a center of anti-American
sentiments.
Libya, 1981-86: Beginning in 1981, in part to challenge Libyan claims
for expanded territorial waters, the United States launched a series
of air strikes along the Libyan coast, shot down Libyan military
aircraft, and engaged in a series of minor naval battles with the
Libyan forces in the Gulf of Sidra. Partially in response to this U.S.
hostility, Libya increased its funding for radical groups such as Abu
Nidal, which launched a series of terrorist attacks in Europe against
Americans. In April 1986, the United States bombed Libya's two largest
cities, killing over sixty civilians, including the two-year old
daughter of Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi. In retaliation, Libyan
agents planted a bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103 bound for New York in
December 1988, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all
259 people aboard.
Iran-Iraq war, 1980-90: The United States actively supported Iraq's
invasion of Iran, blocking efforts by the United Nations to place
sanctions upon Saddam Hussein's regime for its aggression, and
providing the Iraqis with economic and military assistance. Even
though Iraq was actively supporting terrorist groups such as Abu
Nidal, the United States dropped Iraq from its list of countries
sponsoring terrorism in order to send otherwise banned military and
technological support. These included the seed stock for Iraq's
anthrax supply (which were used to make biological weapons) and
various toxic chemicals (which were used to make chemical weapons),
which the United States now claims makes Iraq enough of a threat to
require a U.S.-led invasion. Officials from the U.S. Defense
Intelligence Agency were sent to Iraq to use U.S. satellite imagery to
help the Iraqis target Iranian troop concentrations, even though they
knew the Iraqis were using banned chemical weapons against Iranian
soldiers. The U.S. also covered up for Iraq's use of chemical weapons
against Kurdish civilians in 1988 by falsely claiming the Iranians
were responsible for the massacres. In 1987, the United States sent in
the U.S. Navy to protect Kuwaiti ships that were supporting the Iraqi
war effort, launching a series of armed engagements with Iranian naval
forces and bombing Iranian coastal areas. When the Iraqis attacked the
U.S. navy frigate Stark in May 1987, killing 37 sailors, the United
States accepted Iraqi claims that it was an accident despite evidence
to the contrary. In July 1988, the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian
airliner on a regularly-scheduled flight over Iranian air space,
killing all 290 on board.
This American support for Saddam Hussein despite his invasion of Iran,
his use of weapons of mass destruction, and his unprovoked attack on a
U.S. Navy ship in international waters undoubtedly emboldened the
Iraqi dictator to believe he could get away with invading another
neighbor country: the small but wealthy emirate of Kuwait.
The Gulf War, 1991: The United States led a devastating six-week war
against Iraq in early 1991 over Saddam Hussein's refusal to withdraw
from the emirate of Kuwait, which Iraq invaded, occupied and annexed
in August 1990. Going well beyond what was necessary to liberate
Kuwait from Iraqi occupation forces, the damage to Iraq's civilian
infrastructure and the humanitarian consequences from the resulting
sanctions led to widespread anti-American resentment in the region,
even among Saddam Hussein's fiercest opponents. These included Osama
bin Laden, the exiled Saudi businessman who had been a U.S. ally in
the war against the communist government in Afghanistan and its Soviet
backers during the 1980s and had offered to raise an army of mujahadin
to fight the Iraqi occupation forces. Bin Laden and his followers were
particularly incensed at the increased strategic cooperation resulting
from the Gulf War between the United States and the repressive family
dictatorships of the Gulf region, particularly Saudi Arabia. An
additional consequence of the Gulf War was the ongoing stationing of
U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia - the guardian of Islamic holy places -
which was deeply offensive to bin Laden and his followers who saw this
as a desecration by non-believers of sacred land. As a result, bin
Laden formed the Al-Qaeda network. Had there been no Gulf War, there
would have been no 9/11.
Sudan, 1998: U.S. planes bombed and destroyed the Al-Shifa
pharmaceutical plan outside of the capital of Khartoum in August 1988.
The Clinton Administration justified the attack by falsely claiming
that it was a chemical weapons factory controlled by Osama bin Laden.
Though the United States blocked the United Nations from
investigating, independent reports leave little doubt that the plant
was solely used for civilian medical items and there was no connection
with the exiled Saudi terrorist. Estimates from foreign embassies and
development groups believe that thousands of Sudanese, particularly
children, died as a result of the shortages of antibiotics and
vaccines caused by the destruction of the facility, which manufactured
as much as half of the country's domestic supplies. In retaliation,
the Sudanese government refused to extradite two Al-Qaeda suspects who
were scheduled to be turned over to U.S. custody along with documents
that many believe could have shed light on plans for the 9/11
terrorist attacks. In addition, the U.S. destruction of the
pharmaceutical plant likely saved the repressive Islamist military
regime from imminent collapse, as opposition groups - that had been
making dramatic gains in the weeks leading up to the attack - closed
ranks behind the government in response to the bombing. That
government, which has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of
deaths in the southern part of the country and continues to harbor
anti-American terrorists, remains in power to this day.
Afghanistan, 1979-90, 1998, and 2001-present: The United States began
secretly arming Islamist rebels fighting the leftist government of
Afghanistan in July 1979. According to former National Security
Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the decision to aid these fundamentalist
militias was based in part on the hope that it would provoke the
Soviets to invade, which they did that December. U.S. support for
Islamist rebels dramatically increased in the coming years, with 80%
of the aid going to the Hekmatyar faction, the most extremist of the
seven major mujahadin factions fighting the Soviets and their Afghan
allies. The reason for wanting to encourage a Soviet invasion and to
support the opposition group least likely to compromise was the hope
that the Soviets would be bogged down in a debilitating
counter-insurgency war, which would thereby assist America's Cold War
aims. Soviet forces withdrew in 1989, but U.S. support for Hekmatyar
continued and a coalition of mujahadin groups ousted Afghanistan's
leftist government in 1992. Not satisfied with the Islamic coalition
government that resulted, Hekmatyar forces shelled the capital of
Kabul, killing thousands of civilians and making a stable government
impossible. Out of the ensuing chaos rose the Taliban militia, which
seized power in 1996 and imposed a theocratic fascism upon the
country. The Taliban allowed use of its territory by the Al-Qaeda
network, which served as the base of operations for a series of
terrorist attacks against Americans in Africa, the Middle East and
finally in the United States itself. Had the United States not
supported the extremist Hekmatyar faction and instead backed efforts
by the United Nations and others to bring a peaceful settlement to the
Soviet occupation and civil war, Afghanistan could have a established
a stable government many years earlier and the Taliban would have
never come to power.
The Clinton Administration bombed a series of camps belonging to
Al-Qaeda in August 1998 after terrorist attacks against two U.S.
embassies in Africa. The Bush Administration launched a major bombing
campaign and limited ground operations against both Al-Qaeda and
Taliban positions in October 2001 following the 9/11 attacks against
the United States, facilitating the takeover of the government in
Kabul by the rebel Northern Alliance. U.S. military operations
continue to this day. Dozens of American servicemen and thousands of
Afghan civilians have died as a result of the U.S.-led war. Whether
this military operation will eventually lead to a similar blowback
against the United States as have these previous interventions remains
to be seen.

 
*ROTFL*
-Stefano

 *ROTFL*
Cribbio, De Cesari, lo sai che mi hai convinto?
Pensa, io ero molto scettico sulla guerra in Iraq perche', come dice
quell'articolo, i precedenti non sono proprio stellari.  
Ma quel *ROTFL* cosi' carico di significato non lo posso proprio
resistere.   
Grazie per avermi illuminato, De Cesari, cosa faremmo senza di te!
Perche' non mandi quel *ROTFL* pure a Chirac, Shroeder e Saddam Hussein?
Sono sicuro che i primi cadranno in ginocchio davanti a Bush chiedendogli
perdono, mentre il secondo indira' elezioni democratiche a men che non si dica.
GT