"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service in the country's most agile military force, the Marines. I served in all ranks from second Lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

"Thus I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the raping of half-a-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers and Co. in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."

- Retired Major General Smedley Butler, 1933 [1]
Veteran of the United States Marine Corps

Four years before his death on December 17th 1830 at the age of 47 in Santa Marta, now in modern day Colombia on the Caribbean coast, the Liberator of South America from the Spanish Empire, Simon Bolivar, made the following prophesy:

"The United States of North America are destined by providence to plague America with misery in the name of freedom"

For something said in 1826, almost 170 years ago, it could not have been more accurate. Bolivar sensed from his dealings with the US at that time what the future held for the newly formed independent countries of the continent. He also saw it in light of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine which made it legal for the US to invade any country south of the Rio Grande and to ensure that "America is for the Americans" - in other words the Americas are for North Americans and no one else in the western hemisphere. Cental and South America would never belong to the people who inhabited them if the United States had their way. The US only nominally recognized these countries independence from Spain several years after Spain itself had recognized it!

Since 1846 when the US invaded, occupied and added over half of Mexico as it then was to its own territory. Since then, US-Latino relations have at best been strained. One characteristic that is common to the peoples of Latin America (aside from eating rice with chicken), is a clear sense of being Anti-Yankee.

The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq should not be a surprise for anyone. But what differentiates them from the list of historical invasions listed below is the public’s knowledge of the mass butchery, violation of human rights, torture, drug running all of which infringe the international conventions to which the U.S. has agreed. All this is carried out in the name of national security of the US and the ability to fill up an SUV in Manhatten with cheap gasoline whenever one has an itch. (Albeit that pleasure may be changing as I write). The obvious question: "Is it really worth it when it is a matter of time that the war will eventually come home as it did in Madrid and London?"

Before the League of Nations was formed after WWI in 1919 and the Geneva Conventions set out the rules of war, treatment of prisoners, etc., the invasions carried out by the US in Latin America were obviously bloody affairs. But today, these international laws appear to receive no recognition from the US military under the direction of the Neocons, who continue to violate human rights on all levels with impunity.

The world now knows that impeaching President Bush and prosecuting Rumsfeld, Powell and the rest who lied their way into war will be the only way for the U.S. to gain any international credibility. Lies, lies topped off by more lies and disinformation has been the recipe of this neo-fascist administration in order to achieve its geopolitical, geoeconomic and geostrategic goals. It is imperative that the people of the United States push forward an agenda of impeachment and adjudication for war crimes via the antiwar movement. Get organized and just do it! By acting on this initiative on September 24th, you will be doing your neighbors to the South a huge favor, especially for those of us in Venezuela - obviously a tempting target for the Neocon oil guzzlers.

Readers can clearly see from the long list of invasions, interventions and wars in Latin American, beginning in 1846 by the U.S. - that past administrations have been just as aggressive in terms of foreign policy as the current one. Please note that we are only referring to Latin America, - not other adventures in other parts of the world (Vietnam, Philippines or Kosovo, for example); nor are we including the slaughter and theft of lands from the indigenous peoples of the North American continent, after to the arrival of the Europeans.

The US has always had imperialist intentions and its practice has been to send its shock troops of the empire to protect the economic interests of US-based multinationals (e.g. the United Fruit Company in Central America in Guatemala in 1954). In the last few years, the driving force behind the Bush administration is the Global Corporate Empire in which most of the top people in the administration have a significant vested interest. By extension, these are not the interests of the US people. Instead, the ruling class in the U.S. have benefitted at the expense of the average citizen as wealth has become increasingly concentrated. This concentration accelerated after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the rigid application of neoliberal economic policies which benefit the rich. The exponential spread of poverty, despite good economic growth figures is one of the results. [2]

Just as the US led wars in Latin America have been historically fought to benefit US (read multinational) interests, the Iraq war is being fought for the profits of KBR, Halliburton, Exxon, Chevron-Texaco, etc. The same was true during WWI when the bellies of Bethlehem Steel and U.S. Steel were filled to finance the war. Another common ground that past U.S. invasions in Latin America share with the invasion of Iraq is the deceit used to launch them. Deceit is always a primary tool of the empire when launching its wars. But the lies that spawned the war on Iraq were so obvious that they cannot be denied by any honest observer. Ostensibly, this war is being fought on the premise of U.S. national security. But we in Latin America know that Iraq is being invaded and occupied for the same reasons the U.S. launched the 70 invasions listed below in Latin America. It’s all about the insatiable appetite of the beast of capitalism. It's always the same story.

We all know that US interventions in Latin America are to promote US imperial and business interests. However, the "official reasons" given by the State Department include ruses like: halting the spread of communism by overthrowing unfriendly presidents; defending national security; the war on drugs and the Bush doctrine of combating terrorism world wide using the unprecedented "pre-emptive strikes". The latter, of course, are sold to the unwitting public as, "We’ve gotta get them before they get us!"

1 Kilo brick of cocaine
In contrast to the "official stance" of the administration there is growing evidence that the US military is involved in drug running [3] just as the CIA has been heavily involved in trafficking cocaine in the past. [4] this could well be the tip of the iceberg.

The Iran-Contra affair, one of the worst scandals in U.S. history lies at the heart of U.S. aggression in Latin America in modern times. In 1992, George H. W. Bush pardoned John Poindexter (right) who had been "convicted on multiple felony counts on April 7,1990 for, obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and the alteration and destruction of evidence pertaining to the Iran-Contra Affair". (Wikipedia). Papa Bush also pardoned Caspar Weinberger and all 5 other ranking officials involved, who convicted of these crimes under the Reagan regime. Oliver North (left) was also convicted of 3 crimes related to Iran-Contra but was never punished and today enjoys the life of a radio talk show host. Only in the United States! Today, we learn that John Roberts, Bush's nominee for Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court was the lawyer who helped these criminals escape without punishment. The crime and corruption of today's Bush regime dates back in history and promises to remain until he and his gang of thugs are forced out of office.

As far as terrorism is concerned, you just have to look at the historical actions of CIA covert operations in the last 30 years or so as shown in the list that follows, without even mentioning the carnage in Fallujah. The truth is that all the latest overseas adventures are looking for oil and gas supplies to be secured for the U.S. This is vital to keep the US economy afloat as it sinks deeper and deeper into a commercial and fiscal black hole.

In other words, US Citizens, the Neocons in Washington are sending your young people out to be blown to smithereens by an increasingly sophisticated resistance army in Tikrit or Baghdad for the interests of a very small group of puppeteers in Washington. They could even have plans to invade Venezuela "to protect oil supplies" sometime in the future and get embroiled in a continental wide uprising against US imperialism and a 100 year guerrilla war [5]. This small group of men are absolutely culpable for the deaths of about 2,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq by official count (We’ll probably never know the true number). Cindy Sheehan is spot on when she said that "Bush killed my son."

U.S. citizens should know: There is no confusion on our part about who the enemy is. Our enemy in Latin American is the United States government: US imperialism, the CIA and DEA and the U.S.-led global corporate empire - all of which are represented by the Neocons in Washington. They are the danger and it was no surprise when China and Russia recently held joint military exercises for the first time in history, in order to send a clear message to the Bush administration to "keep their nose out" of their interests.

The enemy of the Latin American peoples has traditionally been the US after the Spanish Empire fell and British neo-colonial interests in the region waned. The number of military interventions of the past and listed in this article has already set the pattern for the future. There are no reasons to even suggest that this has changed in the slightest with the current bloodstained administration in Washington.

Increased aggressions in the Middle East and microphone diplomacy against Iran and Syria in recent months, has now converted the US into the enemy of the Muslims and continues the historical struggle for hegemony between Islam and Christianity going all the way back to the Crusades in the 12th century.

With their present stance, the Neocons are not just the enemies of poor Latin Americans and Muslims, they are in fact the enemy of the people of the United States ... and the enemy of mankind. They will gradually destroy the planet, exploit its resources both human and material unless they are stopped. Then people will wonder why the oceans are rising, there is no ozone layer, threatening most life forms with extinction - all due to the lust for money, power, profits to satiate the diabolical greed of a "few good men".

They have to go and I can assure US citizens and readers that 500 million Latinos will do everything we can to help you get these people out of government for the good of everyone.

Please take a few moments to read the list of atrocities we in Latin America have had to deal with by US actions in our region. Perhaps it will help you better understand what will happen to your homeland, your sons and daughters and grandchildren as your civil and human rights continue to gradually erode, "legally", by the establishment of "Homeland Security" and the Patriot Acts.