/\ Time Lines /\
America's Involvement in Regime Change - Throughout the world, starting in 1846
Costs of War: A Summarization of All Costs Since 9/11 and 20 Years of War in Iraq and Syria
1/18/24
Intercept: Biden Admits Strikes on Houthis Aren't Working, But Says They Will Continue Anyway - The beginning of the end of PaxAmericana or WWIII?
1/12/24
Guardian: 'Unacceptable': Biden Denounced for Bypassing Congress Over Yemen Strike
1/3/24
Guardian: At Least 103 Dead in Blasts at Memorial for Assassinated Iranian Commander
12/25/23
Reuters: Israeli Airstrike in Syria Kills Iranian Brigadier General - Israel is attempting to drag us into WWIII.
11/26/23
Guardian: Why is the US Ramping Up Production of Plutonium 'Pits' For Nuclear Weapons? - "a $1.5tn US effort to modernize the US nuclear arsenal", "“Why plant a $100-billion nuclear ‘kick me’ sign on the country’s breadbasket?” asked the authors of a report in Scientific American this month."
"Last week, Green party presidential hopeful Jill Stein warned that US leaders are “absolutely” risking the possibility of nuclear war in its support of Israel after sending the sub and missile groups to the region. “We’re not at nuclear war now, but could a nuclear war be triggered? Absolutely. And we’re seeing this become more dangerous every day,” Stein told Newsweek."
10/13/23
PBS: 70 People, Mostly Women and Children Killed in Israeli Strikes On Fleeing Convoys
Guardian: What Are the Roots of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
10/12/23
AP: CIA Finally Admits Officially That the 1953 Coup That It Backed in Iran Was Undemocratic - A straight line leads from that to the 1979 revolution and US Embassy seizure, Iran's current nuclear program, and its aid to current militia groups throughout the region - including Hamas and its recent mass terrorist attacks in Israel.
See America's Involvment in Regime Change starting in 1846 at the top of this page.
CIA's next target: Venezuela.
10/9/23
Common Dreams: War Profiteers' Stocks Soar as Israel Bombs Gaza
8/10/23
CNN: Biden Asks Congress for Another $24 Billion for Ukraine - This money is not for Ukraine. It is for Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, Northrup Grumman. CNN poll: Majority of Americans oppose any more money for Ukraine. Approval of this funding would bring the total US taxpayer money for these defense contactors to $140 Billion.
8/8/23
Guardian: Files Reveal Nixon's Role In Plot to Block Allende From Chilean Presidency - The U.S. has performed at least 81 overt and covert known interventions in foreign elections during the period 1946–2000. That does not include intervention activities before 1946 (back to at least 1846) or since 2000. So next time you hear about some other countries' attempted interventions in our elections (think Russian), keep that in mind.
7/7/23
CNN: What are Cluster Bombs and Why Are They So Controversial - From the article: This is part of a new $800 Million package of aid to Ukraine.
As of 2/21/23 the US had provided $112 Billion to Ukraine. 123 countries have banned the use of cluster bombs on humanitarian grounds. Last year White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated that cluster bombs are illegal.
4/6/23
NYTimes: US Acknowledges Afghanistan Evacuation Should Have Started Earlier - Joe Biden's 'Aw Shucks' moment.
"According to the document, the government has changed its policies to carry out such evacuations sooner when security conditions worsen."
News flash for Joe Biden and the rest of America: There's not going to be a next time. The whole world has seen how flimsy any promises from American occupiers are.
Biden left behind up to 200,000 Afghans who bravely helped our soldiers. We left those who supported us to the gentle mercies of the Taliban. They saw, or soon will see, their family members beheaded just before being beheaded themselves. The next time?
Here are the various costs of the Afghan war in terms of lives and dollars.
3/13/23
MSN: Biden Wants $886 Billion Defense Budget - $170B for new bombers, ICBMs, ballistic missile submarines, $30B for missile defense, $11B for hypersonic weapons and long range missiles, $13.5B for cyber activities. This does not include the $100+B we spent on Ukraine this year. Meanwhile almost half of US kids live at or just above the poverty rate which means they probably are hungry most of the time.
1/24/23
Politico: US Moves Closer to Sending Tanks to Ukraine - Arms manufacturers are jubilant.
12/18/22
Yahoo: Military Spending Surges, Creating New Boom for Arms Makers
- Announced at recent meeting of Biden with Zelensky: "Members of Congress are slated to provide an additional $44.9 billion for Ukraine and NATO allies through a fiscal 2023 spending bill. Ukraine has already received several rounds of funding from the U.S., with nearly $54 billion approved as of May." Approximately $100 Billion so far this year.
For some perspective: Russia's yearly military budget: $65 Billion. Average annual amount that the US spent on its war in Afghanistan: $50 Billion. Experts seem to agree that the war in Ukraine is currently a stalemate with no end in sight.
But this money is not going to Ukraine. It's going to Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, etc., who also happen to be the largest contributors to US politicians.
11/30/22
Irish Times(nytimes): The Text Messages From Desparate Afghans Left Behind
8/30/22
NYTimes: Text Messages From Desperate Afghans Left Behind: 'Show This to the American People' - A very moving article..."tens of thousands" of Afghans betrayed by America...actually Joe Biden
5/23/22
Forbes: Expanded NATO Will Send Billions to US Defense Contractors
3/5/22
WSWS: The Hysterical US-NATO Drive to War with Russia - From the article: "It seems to have occurred to none of them that there is a principled, left-wing basis upon which to oppose Putin’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine...
This opposition, rooted in the struggle to unify workers in Ukraine, Russia, and internationally in a global anti-war movement, does not require that one adapt to the predatory interests of the imperialist powers or cover up the role of fascism in Ukraine. It does not oblige one to maintain a shameful silence about the fact that among the NATO powers’ allies in their battle for a “democratic and independent Ukraine” are far-right nationalists and fascists whose political forefathers collaborated with the Nazis during World War II."
3/3/22
FAIR: NBC Off by 18 Years on US's Last Use of Cluster Bombs
2/27/22
New Yorker: Russia's Last Independent TV Channel Covers the Invasion of Ukraine
2/23/22
FAIR: Western Media Falls in Lockstep for Neo-Nazi Publicity Stunt in Ukraine
- and Here
2/21/22
SIPRI: In 2020 US Spent $778 B on Defense Contractors - That's more than the next 11 countries combined. We're going to need a war just to 'justify' that much money.
2/20/22
NYTimes: If Joe Biden Doesn't Change Course, Afghanistan Will Be His Worst Failure - "Ninety-five percent of Afghans don’t have enough to eat. Nearly nine million are at risk of starvation...The current humanitarian crisis could kill far more Afghans than the past 20 years of war,” David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, wrote recently."
2/12/22
WSWS: US Accelerates Troop Deployments as Biden Threatens "World War" With Russia - "Yesterday, Biden’s emergency call went to Prime Ministers Boris Johnson (UK), Justin Trudeau (Canada), and Mario Draghi (Italy); Presidents Emmanuel Macron (France), Andrzej Duda (Poland) and Klaus Iohannis (Romania), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and EU and NATO officials. According to a White House report, they pledged to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia..."
Read that as economic hardship on the working class of all those countries while the military contractors will celebrate with champagne and cavier in board rooms around the world.
2/11/22
Common Dreams: "Nothing More Grotesque Than Media Pushing For War" - "Retired Pentagon officials on the payroll of the defense industry are presented as "experts," often with no disclosure of their financial conflicts of interest."
This is all based on new intelligence information which of course cannot be disclosed, just like WMDs. Just trust us!
2/4/22
Common Dreams: Reporter Calls Out US Official on Russian Claims - "I remember WMDs in Iraq"
The reporter could also have mentioned "crimes against humanity" in oil-rich Libya. The Obama/Clinton bombings only made things worse, but we got the oil fields. Not to mention dozens of other such invasions and false flag events since before the sinking of the USS Main in 1898, and outlined in the book "War Is A Racket", by the most decorated Marine in US history at the time of his death.
1/21/22
NYTimes: Saudi-Led (and American taxpayer-facilitated) Kill Scores At Prison in Yemen - Doctors Without Borders: “It is impossible to know how many people have been killed. It seems to have been a horrific act of violence.”
No doubt we will find out over the coming days and weeks how many civilians/children were murdered.
1/9/22
Intercept: Joe Biden's Crimes Against Humanity - As a result of Biden's sanctions on Afghanistan: 1 million Afghani children may starve this winter unnecessarily; more Afghans will die as a result of sanctions than at the hands of the Taliban.
12/20/21
New Yorker: The Afghans America Left Behind - "The US promised protection to the locals it relied on during the war. When it withdrew, it abandoned thousands to the Taliban."
This will be Joe Biden's legacy. He is totally incompetent for the office to which Jim Clyburn and the rest of the Democratic party appointed him.
12/10/21
New Yorker: The Secret History of the US Diplomatic Failure in Afghanistan - "A trove of unreleased documents reveals a dispiriting record of misjudgement, hubris and delusion that led to the fall of the Western-backed government."
11/4/21
CNN: Biden Administration Notifies Congress of a $650 Million Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia - US supplied weapons will continue to be used to slaughter Yemeni civilians. What say you Democrats? Absolutely no difference.
9/23/21
Common Dreams: House Passes $780 Billion Pentagon Budget - That's $25 billion more than requested by President Biden and by the Pentagon itself, $38 billion more than Trump's last budget, and double the annual funding for the 10 year, $3.5 trillion reconciliation package.
9/12/21
NYTimes: The Legacy of America's Post-9/11 Turn to Torture - Both Bush and Obama engaged in torture. Obama had the official report on torture buried and then destroyed and then appointed the person who deleted it appointed to head up the CIA.
9/5/21
New Yorker: The Lessons of Defeat in Afghanistan
9/1/21
New Yorker: Is the US Withdrawal From Afghanistan the End of the American Empire? - Of course. Chris Hedges nailed it.
8/31/21
NYTimes: Biden Vehemently Defends US Withdrawal After Taliban Victory Celebration - Biden was clearly warned of a swift Taliban takeover as soon as he pulled US forces out. It didn't have to be this way.
8/30/21
New Yorker: Biden's Chaotic Withdrawal From Afghanistan is Complete - "An estimated two hundred thousand Afghans who were unable to get out now face retaliation from the Taliban." “There is no system. The system has collapsed.” “Where is the moral courage?”
8/28/21
NYTimes: It Shouldn't Fall to Veterans to Clean Up Biden's Mess
8/27/21
Guardian: US Marine Officer Relieved of Duty After Video Seeking 'Accountability' Over Afghanistan - Biden said he made his decision to exit Afghanistan the way he did based on a 'consensus' of his foreign policy advisors. In other words, he just took a vote, majority wins. It doesn't appear that he used any sort of judgement/discretion/intuition of his own. Therefore, we can conclude that the majority of his advisors are inept. But none of them have been removed, no reorg, no nothing.
Because of this ineptitude, 182+ people and 13 US service members are dead. Thousands of Afghans who assisted the US military during the war will probably be rewarded for their loyalty to the USA by having their throats cut and their family members murdered.
Angela Merkel's probable successor said that the pullout was the "biggest debacle" that NATO has ever seen. The U. K., which has been the second largest supplier of troops to Afghanistan, is questioning the reliability of the US as an ally.
We should all join with Col. Scheller and demand 'accountability'.
8/25/21
New Yorker: American Purpose After the Fall of Kabul - Now there IS no purpose. Initiated by 9/11, all of our efforts have failed abjectly. We're done. America is over.
In the words of Chris Hedges: "The bleak economic landscape, with its decay and hopelessness, will accelerate an array of violent and self-destructive pathologies including mass shootings, hate crimes, opioid and heroin overdoses, morbid obesity, suicides, gambling, and alcoholism. The state will increasingly dispense with the fiction of the rule of law to rely exclusively on militarized police, essentially internal armies of occupation."
The Goths will arrive any day now.
8/24/21
Biden Rejects Allies' Pleas to Keep Troups in Afghanistan Beyond End of August - Beginning to wonder about Biden's mental status. At 78 years old, it wouldn't be 'early onset'.
8/22/21
New Yorker: What We Left Behind in Afghanistan - "The United States’ hasty, ill-planned withdrawal was one last favor for the Taliban."
8/21/21
Guardian: 'Trapped in Hell': Kabul Airport Chaos Casts Doubts on US Promise of Safe Exit - One has to wonder if James Clyburn is still proud of his endorsement that effectively threw the Democratic nomination to Biden over Bernie Sanders. Perhaps someone should ask him.
Press News: Biden's Inaccurate Claims in Defending Afghanistan Withdrawal
8/20/21
New Yorker: David Patraeus on American Mistakes in Afghanistan
8/18/21
Guardian: "A Massive Policy Fail": CIA Warned White House of Swift Taliban Takeover
NYTimes: Biden Rattles U.K. With His Afghan Policy
8/17/21
AP: Costs of the Afghanistan War, in Lives and Dollars - A short article with some amazing and also disgusting numbers.
Guardian: After 20 Years and $2tn Spent in Afghanistan, What Was it All For? - 172,000+ lives lost, including 47,245 civilians, 2,448 US service members. Thousands of American veterans will need physical and mental support for the rest of their lives. Getting out was the right thing to do, but the dishonorable way in which Biden directed the military to do it is unnecessarily tragic and disgusting. He is inept and possibly at age 78 in cognitive decline.
8/16/21
8/15/21
Taliban take complete control of Kabul. They simply walked in with no resistance, as Afghan soldiers, after the abrupt withdrawal of allied forces and no transition plan, melted away.
New Yorker: How America Failed in Afghanistan - Per the article, to Biden it was just an annoyance that he inherited from the previous administration.
New Yorker: Does the Great Retreat From Afghanistan Mark the End of the American Era? - "It’s a dishonorable end that weakens U.S. standing in the world, perhaps irrevocably." Here's what Chris Hedges had to say on 7/26, correctly predicting everything that has happened since.
8/12/21
Guardian: US Deserves Big Share of Blame for Afghanistan Military Disaster
8/9/21
New Yorker: How Joe Biden Could Save Tens of Thousands of Afghan Allies - From just before the collapse. Biden (just like Trump) blames everyone else: Afghan military, Afgan government, refugees that didn't head the mythical warnings to get out.
8/4/21
New Yorker: A Near Press Blackout in Afghanistan - "The war that Americans forgot is ending in chaos and secrecy...The conflict will cost taxpayers more than two trillion dollars, including veteran care and interest on war borrowing, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University, which also estimates that more than a hundred and seventy thousand people died in the conflict, counting Afghan forces, Taliban fighters, and contractors. That figure includes twenty-four hundred U.S. troops and forty-seven thousand civilians who died in a project that failed at its most basic goal of defeating the Taliban, who are now surging back to seize control of districts and, according to human-rights groups, carrying out organized revenge killings."
7/30/21
New Yorker: The Uncomfortable Truth of Biden's Rapid Afghanistan Withdrawal - "The Biden Administration’s rapid and poorly planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan has spurred a debate over the moral responsibility that America bears to its partners in a failed foreign intervention." That's an understatement. This is about to get ugly and very bloody, and the victims will all be those who tried to help the USA. Some gratitude.
7/14/21
NBC News: George Bush: Afghan Troop Withdrawal "Breaks My Heart" - Chuckle-head frat boy, the guy who started the war sheds tears for Afghan women, when it was clear from the very beginning of the invasion that this day would come eventually. He nearly had Al Queda defeated, whereupon we could have brought our troops home. But he took his eyes off the ball and turned to weapons-of-mass-destruction Iraq and started nation building in both countries. This same thing will happen in Iraq eventually. His statement is the ultimate in hypocrisy and stupidity.
7/1/21
6/10/21
Democracy-NOW: Biden Going Full Steam Ahead on Trump's Nuclear Weapons Plans - He's seeking another $43 Billion, despite his criticisms of this exact strategy during his candidacy.
5/24/21
Code Pink: Reducing the Pentagon Budget is Not Irresponsible - America spends $2 Billion per day, mostly to private defense contrators. Maybe they should get a little less and poor people a little more?
5/6/21
Common Dreams: CodePink Interrupts General Dynamics Shareholders Meeting
4/16/21
Glenn Greenwald: Journalists, Upon Learning They Have Spread A CIA Lie, Instantly Spread A New One - All of them, including Rachal Maddow, are nothing more than repeating spokespeople for CIA state propaganda. Weapons of Mass Destruction, Antrax Attack, Russia Hacked the Election, and many more too numerous to mention.
4/14/21
Common Dreams: Biden to Advance $23B in F-35s and Armed Drones to UAE - This is a direct violation of his pledge to end such support. Meanwhile the human catastrophe in Yemen continues, with US assistance in targeting and refueling. No change, no difference. Big payday for Lockheed Martin.
2/26/21
HRW: Camaroon: Survivors of Military Assault Await Justice - Over the last decade, American taxpayers have provided over $224M in aid to Camaroonian security forces.
2/12/21
World Health Organization: 400,000 Yemeni Children Face Acute Malnutrition From Prolonged Conflict and US/Saudi Blockade and Here
12/29/20
12/28/20
Code Pink: Rep. Ro Khanna's Wife Is A Heavy Supporter of Perpetual War
12/6/20
Common Dreams: 'Money for War' - Bipartisan support for continual expansion of the war-pig trough leaves American families to the vagaries of capitalist devils.
11/24/20
Intercept: Generation Forever War: Biden's National Security Picks Hearald Return to Hawkish Normalcy - Defense contractors and neo-cons are now back in charge, guaranting perpetual monster defense budgets and perpetual war. An opportunity squandered. Very sad and depressing. The opposite of progressive.
11/22/20
Intercept: Joe Biden's Silence on Ending the Drone Wars
9/22/20
Common Dreams: Biden Poised to Appoint Endless War Hawk as Sec. of Defense
America At War With the World