Throughout a century of wars and transcontinental occupations, the US has donned the cloak of freedom to conceal merciless fangs. From the jungles of Vietnam to the plains of Mozambique, from the mountains of Colombia to the islands of the Philippines, it has left behind only scorched, devastated land, crucified peoples, and generations born amidst the ashes of wars ignited by American hands that have never hesitated to transform green lands into mass graves, resources into spoils of war, and human beings into mere numbers in death records.
This is a history written only in the blood of millions, the cries of bereaved mothers, the tears of the displaced, and the remains of cities crushed under the weight of bombing, looting, and bulldozing. It is a history that exposes brutality as a firmly established and consistent principle of American policy, rearing its ugly head whenever wealth is plundered, a nation is violated, or a people is punished for daring to dream of freedom.
Evidence of the American Crimes
Vietnam: Between 1959 and 1975, US forces dropped approximately 8.4 million tons of bombs and napalm, and 18 million barrels of toxic chemicals on Vietnam, destroying more than 40% of its fields, gardens, forests, and most of its water resources. Millions were killed in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, millions more were maimed or poisoned, and nearly ten million people were displaced.
Cambodia: From 1979 until the 1990s, the US supported the remnants of the Khmer Rouge to overthrow Cambodia's socialist-leaning government, and the ensuing civil war claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Mozambique: The US pressured for the privatization of approximately 1,500 state-owned enterprises, leading to widespread unemployment and extreme poverty, factory closures, a decline in humanitarian services, and a surge in crime, homelessness, and prostitution.
Colombia: Washington-funded repression has systematically killed tens of thousands of workers, students, farmers, and clergy at the hands of the armed forces and US-backed militias. Since 1986, some 2,000 union members have been killed by CIA-backed teams. In addition to weapons and helicopters, the US military supplies these forces with toxic defoliants that devastate the environment and kill Colombians.
Indonesia, Nigeria, India, and Burma: US multinational corporations have paid police and military personnel to beat, arrest, and even kill labor activists and those protesting environmental damage and displacement.
Mexico: In the late 1980s, the US Department of Homeland Security helped Mexico eliminate progressive reformers, and Mexican authorities have admitted to torturing and killing at least 275 political opponents. One survivor recounted how she was raped and tortured, then forced to watch the torture of her husband and infant daughter.
The United States and Election Fraud
The US proxies have repeatedly manipulated election results in Jamaica, Chile, El Salvador, Panama, and Yugoslavia, using vast sums of money, vote rigging, and intimidation. When the results remain unsatisfactory, US leaders claim they are “rigged” and “a lie”—regardless of whether international observers accept these claims. This occurred in Nicaragua in the 1980s, Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000, and Haiti in 2000.
These countries become targets of destabilization operations by Washington. When Hugo Chávez used oil revenues to benefit the poor in Venezuela, the White House labeled him a “dictator,” a “warmonger,” and an “enemy of the US,” accusing him of undermining Washington’s efforts to establish friendly relations. It then recognized “another president” without elections or any legal basis.
Occupation: Systematic Land Grabbing
1846: The United States declared war on Mexico with a majority vote in the Senate. Two years later, it occupied California and parts of Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, annexing them to the United States.
1860: It attacked Honduras.
1867: It purchased Alaska from Russia.
1881: It supported Peru against Chile, seizing the port of Chimbote as a naval base, along with its coal mines and railway.
1887: It occupied Pearl Harbor and transformed it into a naval base under the pretext of "protecting trade."
1893: It overthrew the king of Hawaii and formally annexed the island in 1898.
1895: It intervened in Venezuela.
1898: Under the banner of "defending democracy," the United States went to war with Spain and occupied Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Guam, later purchasing the Philippines for $20,000. Cuba gained independence only nominally, while the United States imposed an amendment to its constitution allowing it to occupy the islands at will "in support of freedom," and retained the right to lease the islands for its naval bases.
The Philippines: After purchasing and annexing it, the American imperialists deemed the Filipinos "too backward to benefit from independence." The Filipinos, who had fought Spain for independence, declared their republic in 1899 under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo. In 1901, the United States sent General MacArthur, who committed massacres against the independence fighters, arrested the president, and crushed the movement—proving himself even more barbaric than the Spanish and British. Approximately 200,000 Filipinos were killed in the war. The Americans then turned their attention to the Moro Muslims in the south, occupying Moro State in 1903 and appointing three brutal military commanders for ten years.
Institutional Brutality Without Exception
When we piece together this blood-stained record, we realize that American brutality is a comprehensive system that views the world as an open field for power experiments. Every weak country is a potential arena, every non-American resource is raw material for plunder, and every people who hold their heads high or dream of independence is a legitimate target for bombs, sanctions, coups, or smear campaigns cloaked in the guise of freedom and democracy.
This bloody legacy exposes the hypocrisy of American slogans about human rights, while Arab and Muslim countries—and before them, the forests of Vietnam—are burned with napalm, murderous militias are supported in Colombia, the will of the people in Latin America is assassinated, and the Philippines, Mexico, and Hawaii are violated in the name of "liberation."
And nothing is more brutal than military occupation except political and economic occupation: the plundering of countries from within, the transformation of their future into the complete ownership of multinational corporations, and the plunging of millions into a spiral of poverty, hunger, and displacement.
Experience proves—one after another—that the US values human life only insofar as it serves its interests, and only stands by a nation if its land is a passage for its fleets or a market for its wealth.
As long as this approach persists, the world's peoples will continue to remember that behind the modern facade of "empire" lies a brutality that cannot be softened by conferences, polished by the media, or concealed by the language of diplomacy, however embellished. This report is nothing more than a mirror reflecting what the US has tried to bury. A mirror that recounts the truth as experienced by the afflicted peoples: that American brutality has never been the exception—it has always been the rule.
