Discuss historic crimes of the US

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TM,

I always laugh when I hear people claim the US won the War of 1812.

:lol:

[paddington]

Scot,

Interesting and short article about the war from a more British perspective.

http://www.pbs.org/wned/war-of-1812/essays/british-perspective/

[maarsen]

It was just a plan on file "just in case", but got scrapped after like three years because they figured they'd never have to use it. We weren't mobilizing for war or anything, just being a bit paranoid about the British Empire.

The files were declassified years and years ago and it was very low profile since no one really saw the big deal about them except that it was funny.

Back when I was much younger, there were a few books written about the US invading Canada. They were terrible. I am drawing a blank on the names and I have no wish to find them out, but there were such thoughts even in the 70's.

[DanteGabriel]

Back when I was much younger, there were a few books written about the US invading Canada. They were terrible. I am drawing a blank on the names and I have no wish to find them out, but there were such thoughts even in the 70's.

Noted liberal filmmaker Michael Moore explored the same possibility in 1995.

[Top Notch Balanter]

I should have added in creating their own brilliant shows and then causing heartbreak by ruining them. Most examples are comedy shows the obvious one being the Simpsons which probably could have ended 10 years ago. Other examples are Scrubs, Two and a Half Men and Friends possibly could have done with 1 less season.

Here's hoping Modern Family doesn't go down that route i don't think i'd be able to bear that

[Lady Howell]

Back when I was much younger, there were a few books written about the US invading Canada. They were terrible. I am drawing a blank on the names and I have no wish to find them out, but there were such thoughts even in the 70's.

Yikes. That recently? Well my history teachers have been lying to me about how great of friends the US and Canada have always been (excluding the War of 1812).

[maarsen]

Yikes. That recently? Well my history teachers have been lying to me about how great of friends the US and Canada have always been (excluding the War of 1812).

Richard Rohmer wrote one called Exxoneration. BTW, he was a General in the Canadian Forces. Another is called the Trudeau Papers by Ian Adams.

[Spockydog]

Weird al Yankovic.

/thread.

[jarl the climber]

What about the US invasion of northern Mexico? Who was at fault there?

U.S. Grant considered the Mexican War to be one of the worst cases of a strong nation taking advantage of a weaker one. He felt that the Civil War was divine punishment for the US actions.

[Tears of Lys]

Weird al Yankovic.

/thread.

Bite your tongue, Spockydog! Weird Al is a TREASURE of the USA, second only to the Grand Canyon.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

Here's hoping Modern Family doesn't go down that route i don't think i'd be able to bear that

It hasn't already. No episode I've seen past the second season has been funny.

Oh and Slavery. That was a pretty big crime, especially since we had it long after most civilized countries had long gotten rid of it.

[Tears of Lys]

It hasn't already. No episode I've seen past the second season has been funny.

Oh and Slavery. That was a pretty big crime, especially since we had it long after most civilized countries had long gotten rid of it.

No. You've got to come up with another one. I got that one on Page 1, I think.

Thank you. Try again, please. :D

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

No. You've got to come up with another one. I got that one on Page 1, I think.

Thank you. Try again, please. :D

Ok, if you want this thread to be more serious, then not bombing railroads leading to concentration camps in wwii.

[Tears of Lys]

Jeeze, I didn't even know about that one. You mean we had the chance to bomb the railroads and we didn't? What the fuck was up with that?

[arya_underfoot]

U.S. Grant considered the Mexican War to be one of the worst cases of a strong nation taking advantage of a weaker one.

Hmm, I always assumed that this was the case, though a cursory wikipedia search doesn't really make it all that clear.

[paddington]

Jeeze, I didn't even know about that one. You mean we had the chance to bomb the railroads and we didn't? What the fuck was up with that?

I think the concern was the Germans would then figure out we had broken their codes and change them.

[sologdin]

nullem crimen sine lege, yo. probably can't charge a "crime" unless there's law on the books, somewhere. this means that we won't be effective regarding US policy until after WW2, when we see a number of violations of the UN charter, art. 2(4):

Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

this has been recently turned into specific criminal prohibition in the addition of the crime of aggression to the rome statute, art. 8 bis, which adopts the language of UNC art. 2(4):

1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime of aggression” means the planning,

preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control

over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by

its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United

Nations.

2. For the purpose of paragraph 1, “act of aggression” means the use of armed force by

a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another

State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations. Any of

the following acts, regardless of a declaration of war, shall, in accordance with United

Nations General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX) of 14 December 1974, qualify as an act

of aggression:

( a ) The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of

another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion

or attack, or any annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part

thereof;

( b ) Bombardment by the armed forces of a State against the territory of another

State or the use of any weapons by a State against the territory of another State;

( c ) The blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another

State;

( d ) An attack by the armed forces of a State on the land, sea or air forces, or

marine and air fleets of another State;

( e ) The use of armed forces of one State which are within the territory of another

State with the agreement of the receiving State, in contravention of the conditions provided

for in the agreement or any extension of their presence in such territory beyond the

termination of the agreement;

( f ) The action of a State in allowing its territory, which it has placed at the

disposal of another State, to be used by that other State for perpetrating an act of aggression

against a third State;

( g ) The sending by or on behalf of a State of armed bands, groups, irregulars or

mercenaries, which carry out acts of armed force against another State of such gravity as to

amount to the acts listed above, or its substantial involvement therein.

of course the rome statute is only effective against contracting parties, which the US is not--but we might argue that the law will estoppeth up the mouth the US to deny the applicability of these principles, as the US has ratified the UN charter and advocated the same principles, on the basis of customary law and then-existing treaties, at the IMT in nuremberg.

we do have a number of cases of nasty invasions, bombardments, blockades, all within the terms of the statute, but not prosecutable under the statute because its effect is not retroactive, even if there is jurisdiction where the victim state is signatory: panama, iraq, afghanistan, vietnam, laos, cambodia, iran, libya, and so on.

next in this parade of horribles is "low intensity conflict," the doctrine of the reagan years, wherein they kill many millions fighting marginal leftwing regimes: nicaragua, mozambique, afghanistan, angola, &c. nasty stuff. hanging stuff, as far as i'm concerned.

what follows next likely falls merely within disjunct 2(g) of art. 8 bis, as it involves the coordination with, support of, or assistance to local oppositions against the constituted authority of sovereign states (not to suggest that those authorities are themselves legitimate--but we are discussing the lawfulness of US conduct here), typically by means of CIA, state-sponsored NGOs, military advisors, and so on in perfecting a coup d'etat for the purposes of US foreign policy objectives (only successful operations are noted)

1946: thailand

1948: peru

1949: syria

1951: bolivia, thailand

1952: egypt

1953: iran, british guyana

1954: guatemala

1957: haiti

1958: iraq, sudan, laos

1959: laos

1960: laos, ecuador, south korea, turkey

1961: haiti, dominican republic, the congo

1963: dominican republic, iraq, honduras, guatemala, ecuador, south vietnam

1964: brazil, guyana, bolivia

1965: indonesia

1966: ghana

1967: greece

1969: libya

1970: cambodia, bolivia

1971: uganda, bolivia, liberia, turkey

1973: chile

1975: bangladesh

1976: thailand, uruguay

1979: south korea

1980: liberia, bolivia, turkey

1981: panama

1982: chad

1984: surinam

1987: fiji

1991: haiti

1992: afghanistan

1993: burundi?

1998: indonesia?

2000: ecuador

2001: nepal?

2002: venezuela

2004: haiti

i'm ten years outta the loop, so no idea about anything more recent. there are two patterns in the list above: a ) getting rid of annoying clients who are more trouble than they're worth--that's the rationale in thailand, korea, turkey, suharto in 1998, trujillo, et al.; and b ) getting rid of soviet or NAM or stubborn nationalist incursions, which explains quite a few of the others (my reading of the egyptian, sudanese, and libyan things early on was that it was part of the US position on decolonization, contra the british--so, US policy has a progressive effect, even if unlawful--but do we care, if the original regimes were also unlawful? thing is, those coups result in nasser and qaddafi--so, classic imperial blowback).

in clash of fundamentalisms, tariq ali wrote that the 1984 coup in india and the 1977 coup in pakistan are US operations; i wrote him to ask and he stated that there wasn't a smoking gun, but rather the general geopoltical pattern fit. i've also caught references to many failed operations over the years, the most significant of which are alleged attempts to assassinate nehru and zhou in 1955. and how to think through things like the brief ouster of soviet client hegedus in 1956? there's US involvement there, agitation and promises--but it may be almost completely spontaneous, as the hungarians likely needed little encouragement to bust outta the soviet empire. the 1993-94 coups d'etat in burundi and rwanda are a mystery to me. the US is all over the congo, and appears to have been in a jousting match with the frenchies around the lake (and elsewhere in the francophone african zone during the clinton years). my favorite failed coup attempt is the CIA-directed attack on the seychelles in 1981 or so by south african mercenaries. wtf?

probably outside the scope of art. 8 bis, but certainly unlawful in the US by domestic law, is the interference with local elections, such as funding local candidates to be the US proxy, or distorting the election with US-funded propaganda in the election, such as:

1947: france, philippines

1948: italy, colombia

1952: lebanon

1953: philippines

1955: vietnam

1958: lebanon, japan

1959: nepal

1962: dominican republic

1964: chile

1966: bolivia

1971: uruguay

1972: el salvador

1975: australia (!)

1976: portugal (!)

1978: dominican republic

1980: italy (!), jamaica, dominica

1982: spain (!)

1984: panama

1990: nicaragua

1991: bulgaria, albania

1994: el salvador

1994: the ukraine

1996: ex-yugoslav republics, mongolia

2001: nicaragua

2002: bolivia

again, those listed are mostly successful attempts (i.e., defeat of the commie candidates, or whatever). hard to say if US support was the sine qua non, though--and i doubt much of it involved actual ballot box stuffing--in fact, the US told diem (before killing him) that it's good to fake elections, but stop returning 99% of the vote for yourself--60% is good enough (then they killed him--i guess he didn't listen well). there's a record of failed attempts to mess with french elections in the 1960s, too. there were apparently some bizarre attempts to mess with post-soviet elections in russia, too, was my understanding.

anyway, good times apparently were had by all.

[sologdin]

Andrew Jackson was responsible for both genocide and the further development of democratic principles. What do you do with that? Anyway, I stopped writing on his forehead.

the Old Right can assimilate this, as reflected in items such as baron kuehnelt-leddihn's leftism: from de sade and marx to hitler and pol pot (!), which argues that the moment egalitarian doctrine allows democratic politics (i.e., french revolution), we are into tyranny or totalitarianism, and that accounts for the disruption of the Good Old Days and leads to commies and nazis killing everyone. any time someone complains about "mob rule" (i.e., ochlocracy), they are making this complaint. it's the default position in ayn rand, for instance, who argues, like our austrian baron, that the right to property is paramount, without reference to any enlightenment liberal theorists, and which right to property is disrupted by fake economic rights (i.e., those enacted by duly constituted democratic authority in the US).

[Weeping Sore]

Andrew Jackson was responsible for both genocide and the further development of democratic principles. What do you do with that? Anyway, I stopped writing on his forehead.

the Old Right can assimilate this, as reflected in items such as baron kuehnelt-leddihn's leftism: from de sade and marx to hitler and pol pot (!), which argues that the moment egalitarian doctrine allows democratic politics (i.e., french revolution), we are into tyranny or totalitarianism, and that accounts for the disruption of the Good Old Days and leads to commies and nazis killing everyone. any time someone complains about "mob rule" (i.e., ochlocracy), they are making this complaint. it's the default position in ayn rand, for instance, who argues, like our austrian baron, that the right to property is paramount, without reference to any enlightenment liberal theorists, and which right to property is disrupted by fake economic rights (i.e., those enacted by duly constituted democratic authority in the US).

Thomas Jefferson was one of the wealthy (well, actually in crippling debt) landowners saying that democracy had little value if the electorate is uninformed. While there may be some truth to that, being educated/informed came to hinge less and less on owning land. Also education was/is often served up with indoctrination toward protecting one's own class interests.

Every expansion of democracy entails a predictable period where new voters are more vulnerable to manipulation by elites. It doesn't mean expanding democracy is a bad thing, but perhaps a more gentile anti-Native American policy would have reigned for a time if the interests of poor whites seeking new land were less of a factor. (likewise in the counter-factual of the British maintaining control of North America; less democracy may have equalled a better result for Native Americans). Maybe I'm really talking about the "tyranny of the majority" here in the absence of special protections for minorities (murky as to whether to consider Amerindians a minority or as separate nations, though).

[Borque]

Once I had a discussion with someone who mentioned which US President who was the most recent one who never initiated military action abroad without Congress approval.

Can anyone here enlighten me who this was? I forgot, but I do recall that it was a ridiculously long time ago.