-Caveat Lector-
http://members.aol.com/superogue/sorry.htm
Being the World's Only Superpower
Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
I will never apologize for the United States
of America. I don't care what the facts are.
George Bush{1}
Cuba
Cuba, said US District Judge James Lawrence King on December
17, 1997, "in outrageous contempt for international law and
basic human rights, murdered four human beings in international
airspace." He then proceeded to award $187.6 million to
the families of the Florida-based Cuban pilots who had been shot
down in February 1996 by Cuban jets while on an air mission,
destination Cuba.{2} (In actuality, the Cuban government had
done no more than any government in the world would have done
under the same circumstances. Havana regarded the planes as
within Cuban airspace, of serious hostile intent, and gave the
pilots explicit warning: "You are taking a risk." Planes from the
same organization had gone even further into Cuban territory on
earlier occasions and had been warned by Cuba not to return.)
In November 1996, the federal government gave each of the
families a down payment of $300,000 on the award, the money coming
out of frozen Cuban assets.{3}
Such was justice, anti-communist style.
Totally ignored by the American government, however,
was Cuba's lawsuit of May 31, 1999, filed in a Havana court
demanding $181.1 billion in US compensation for death and injury
suffered by Cuban citizens in four decades of "war" by Washington
against Cuba. The document outlined American "aggression", ranging
from backing for armed rebel groups within Cuba and the Bay of
Pigs invasion in 1961, to subversion attempts from the US naval
base of Guantanamo and the planting of epidemics on the island.
Cuba said it was demanding $30 million in direct
compensation for each of the 3,478 people it said were killed
by US actions and $15 million each for the 2,099 injured. It
was also asking $10 million each for the people killed, and $5
million each for the injured, to repay Cuban society for
the costs it has had to assume on their behalf. That was
"substantially less" than the amount per person fixed by US
Judge King in the pilots' case, the document pointed out.
Cuban officials delivered the papers for the suit to the
US Interests Section in Havana. The Americans refused to
accept them. The Cuban government subsequently announced plans to
take the lawsuit to an international forum.{4}
Vietnam
On January 27, 1973, in Paris, the United States signed
the "Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam".
Among the principles to which the United States agreed was
the one stated in Article 21: "In pursuance of its traditional
policy [sic], the United States will contribute to healing the wounds
of war and to postwar reconstruction of the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam [North Vietnam] and throughout Indochina."
Five days later, President Nixon sent a message to the
Prime Minister of North Vietnam in which he stipulated the
following:
"(1)The Government of the United States of America will
contribute to postwar reconstruction in North Vietnam without
any political conditions. (2)Preliminary United States studies
indicate that the appropriate programs for the United States
contribution to postwar reconstruction will fall in the range
of $3.25 billion of grant aid over 5 years."{5}
Nothing of the promised reconstruction aid was ever paid.
Or ever will be.
However -- deep breath here -- Vietnam has been compensating
the United States. In 1997 it began to pay off about $145
million in debts left by the defeated South Vietnamese
government for American food and infrastructure aid.
Thus, Hanoi is reimbursing the United States for part of the
cost of the war waged against it.{6}
How can this be? The proper legal term is "extortion". The
enforcers employed by Washington included the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, the Export-Import Bank, the Paris
Club, and the rest of the international financial mafia. The
Vietnamese were made an offer they couldn't refuse: Pay up or
subject yourself to exquisite forms of economic torture, even
worse than the considerable maiming you've already experienced
at the hands of our godfathers.{7}
At the Vietnamese embassy in Washington (a small office
in an office building), the First Secretary for Press Affairs,
Mr. Le Dzung, told the author in 1997 that this matter, as well
as Nixon's unpaid billions, are rather emotional issues in
Vietnam, but the government is powerless to change the way the
world works.
Nicaragua
Under siege by the United States and its Contra proxy army
for several years, Nicaragua filed suit in 1984 in the World
Court (International Court of Justice), the principal judicial
organ of the United Nations, located in The Hague, Netherlands,
for relief from the constant onslaught, which included mining its
harbors. The Court ruled in 1986 that the US was in violation of
international law for a host of reasons, stated that Washington
"is under a duty immediately to cease and to refrain from all
such acts [of hostility]" and "is under an obligation to make
reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury".
Anticipating the suit, the Reagan administration had
done the decent and right thing: It announced, on April 6, 1984,
three days before Nicaragua's filing, that the US would not
recognize the World Court's jurisdiction in matters concerning
Central America for a two-year period.
Apart from the awesome arbitrariness of this proclamation,
the court's ruling of June 27, 1986 actually came after the
two-year period had expired, but the United States ignored it
anyway. Washington did not slow down its hostile acts against
Nicaragua, nor did it ever pay a penny in reparation.{8}
Libya
The April 1986 American bombing of Libya took the lives of scores
of people and wounded another hundred or so. The dead included
Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi's young daughter; all of Qaddafi's
other seven children as well as his wife were hospitalized,
suffering from shock and various injuries. A year later, 65
claims were filed with the White House and the Department of
Defense under the Federal Tort Claims Act and the Foreign Claims
Act, on behalf of those killed or injured. The claimants, who
were asking for up to $5 million for each wrongful death,
included Libyans, Greeks, Egyptians, Yugoslavs and Lebanese.{9}
Before long, the number of claimants reached to about 340, but
none of their claims got anywhere in the American judicial
system, with the Supreme Court declining to hear the case.{10}
Panama
For several years following the American invasion of 1989, with
its highly destructive bombing and ground combat, many individual
Panamanians tried in various ways to receive compensation for
the death or injury of themselves or family members, or the
wreckage of their home or business. But their legal claims and
suits were met by an implacable US government.
One American law firm filed claims on behalf of some 200 Panamanians
(all non-combatants), first in Panama with US military officials
-- under provisions of the Panama Canal treaty -- who rejected
the claims; then in two suits filed in US courts, all the way up
to the Supreme Court, with each of the courts declining to hear
the cases.{11}
During the years 1990 to 1993, some 300 Panamanians petitioned
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization
of American States (OAS) for a finding that the United States had
violated many of their rights and was liable for "just compensation".
In 1993, the Commission ruled the petition "admissible". But as of
Fall 1999, it was still pending as to its "merits", which were being
"studied".{12} It should be born in mind that over the years, the
United States has wielded inordinate influence in the OAS, far more
than any other member. Witness Washington's success in getting Cuba
suspended from the organization in 1962 and kept out to the present
time despite repeated, growing, and publicly-expressed support for
Cuba's reinstatement by other OAS members.
There was a report some years ago that a few small payments
-- seemingly somewhat arbitrary -- had been made "on the ground"
by US officials to Panamanians in Panama. But in December
1999, the State Department Press Office dealing with Panama
stated that "the United States has not paid any compensation for
combat-related deaths or injuries or property damage due to Operation
Just Cause" (this being the not-tongue-in-cheek name given to the
American invasion and bombing).{13} Some of the American aid
given to Panama since 1989, the State Department added, has been
used by Panama for such purposes. The State Department puts
the matter thusly, it would appear, to make it clear to the world
that they do not feel any guilt or responsibility for what they
did to the people of Panama and will not succumb to any kind of
coercion to pay any compensation.
On December 20, 1999, the tenth anniversary of the American
invasion, hundreds of Panamanians took to the street to demand
once again that the US pay damages to civilian victims of the
bombing.
Sudan
The El-Shifa pharmaceutical plant had raised Sudanese medicinal
self-sufficiency from less than five percent to more than 50
percent, while producing about 90 percent of the drugs used to
treat the most deadly illnesses in this desperately poor country.
But on August 20, 1998, the United States saw fit to send more
than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles screaming into the plant,
in an instant depriving the people of Sudan of their achievement.
Based on a covertly acquired soil sample, Washington claimed
that the plant was producing chemical weapons. At the same time
the US gave the world the clear impression that the factory's
owner, Saleh Idris, was a close associate of terrorists and was
involved in money laundering. Washington proceeded to freeze $24
million in Idris's London bank accounts. But the US was never able
to prove any of its assertions, while every piece of evidence and
every expert testimony that surfaced categorically contradicted
the claim about chemical weapons.{14} The case fell apart
completely, and in the meantime, Idris sued to recover his money
as well as compensation for his pulverized plant.
Finally, in May 1999, the United States unfroze Idris's
accounts rather than contest his suit because they knew they
had no case. But as of the end of that year, the US had yet
to apologize to Sudan or to Idris for the plant's destruction,
or for the serious harm done to his reputation, and had yet
to compensate him for the loss of the plant and the loss of
business; nor the plant's employees for the loss of their jobs
and income, or the ten people who were injured. The degree of
Washington's arrogance in the whole matter was stunning, from
the initial act on. "Never before," observed former CIA
official Milt Bearden, "has a single soil sample prompted an act
of war against a sovereign state."{15}
Iraq
The American government and media had a lot of fun with an obvious
piece of Iraqi propaganda -- the claim that a biological
warfare facility, bombed during the Gulf War in 1991, had actually
been a baby food factory. But it turned out that the government
of New Zealand, whose technicians had visited the site
repeatedly, and various other business people from New Zealand
who had had intimate contact with the factory, categorically
confirmed that it had indeed been a baby food factory. The
French contractor who had built the place said the same. But
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, insisted:
"It was a biological weapons facility, of that we are sure."{16}
As to American compensation ... this stood as much chance as
a ground war with Russia in the wintertime.
China
An exception? After the United States bombed the Chinese embassy
in Belgrade in May 1999, Washington apologized profusely to
Beijing, blaming outdated maps and such. But this, it appears,
was just a cover for the fact that the bombing wasn't actually
an accident. Two reports in The Observer of London in October and
November, based on NATO and US military and intelligence sources,
revealed that the embassy had been targeted after NATO discovered
that it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.
The Chinese were doing this after NATO jets had successfully
silenced the Yugoslav government's own transmitters.{17}
Over and above the military need, there may have been a
political purpose served. China is clearly the principal barrier
to US hegemony in Asia. The bombing of the embassy was perhaps
Washington's charming way of telling Beijing that this is only
a small sample of what can happen to you if you have any ideas
of resisting the American juggernaut. Being able to have a much
better than usual "plausible denial" for carrying out such a
bombing may have been irresistible to American leaders. The
chance would never come again.
All of US/NATO's other bombing "mistakes" in Yugoslavia
were typically followed by their spokesman telling the world:
"We regret the loss of life." These same words were used by the
IRA in Northern Ireland on a number of occasions over the years
following one of their bombings which appeared to have struck
the wrong target. But their actions were invariably called
"terrorist".
Guatemala
On March 10, 1999, in a talk delivered in Guatemala City,
President Clinton said that US support for repressive forces in
Guatemala "was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that
mistake." But the word "sorry" did not cross the president's
lips, nor did the word "apologize", nor the word "compensation".{18}
Forty years of unholy cruelty to a people for which the United
States was preeminently responsible was not worth a right word
or a penny.
This was the first visit by an American president to Guatemala
since Lyndon Johnson went there in 1968, during the height of the
oppression by Washington's client-state government. Johnson did
not of course say that the current US policy in Guatemala was wrong,
when it would have meant a lot more than Clinton saying so 31 years
later. LBJ did, however, inform his audience that he had heard that
Guatemala was called "the land of eternal spring".{19}
Greece
Clinton's visit to Greece in November 1999 brought out large and
fiery anti-American demonstrations, protesting the recent American
bombing of Yugoslavia and the indispensable US support for the
torturers par excellence of the 1967-74 Greek junta. During his
one-day stop, the president found time to address a private group
-- "When the junta took over in 1967 here," he told his audience,
"the United States allowed its interests in prosecuting the Cold
War to prevail over its interest -- I should say its obligation
-- to support democracy, which was, after all, the cause for which
we fought the Cold War. It is important that we acknowledge that."
National Security Council spokesman David Leavey was quick to point
out that the president's statement about the former junta was
"not intended as an apology."{20}
Questions arise. How can it be that the US fought the Cold
War to "support democracy" and wound up supporting not only the
Greek dictators but dozens of other tyrannies? Were they all
simply "wrong" actions, all "mistakes", like in Guatemala? At
what point do we conclude that a consistent sequence of "mistakes"
demonstrates intended actions and policy? Moreover, if US "interests"
in the Cold War "prevailed" over the cause of
democracy, we must ask: What are these "interests" that are in
conflict, or at least not harmonious, with democracy, these
"interests" which are routinely invoked by American statesmen,
but never given a proper name? (Hint: follow the money.)
Finally, we have the words of President Clinton spoken in Uganda
in March 1998:
During the cold war when we were so concerned about being in
competition with the Soviet Union, very often we dealt with
countries in Africa and in other parts of the world based more
on how they stood in the struggle between the United States
and the Soviet Union than how they stood in the struggle for
their own people's aspirations to live up to the fullest of
their God-given abilities.{21}
What is going on here? Guatemala, Greece, Africa, other parts of
the world ... Is the president disowning a half-century of American
foreign policy? Is he saying that the United States brought all that
death, destruction, torture and suffering to the world's multitudes
for no good reason? That all we were diligently taught about the
nobility of the fight against the thing called "communism" was a fraud?
We'll never know what William Clinton really thinks about
these things. He probably doesn't know himself. But we do know
what he does. As discussed in the Introduction and in Interventions,
we know that he has continued the very same kind of policies he now
repudiates. And some day a future American president may acknowledge
that what Clinton did in Iraq, Colombia, Mexico, Yugoslavia and
elsewhere was "wrong" or "mistaken". But that future president, even
while the words cross his lips, will be doing the "wrong" thing himself
in one corner of the world or another. And for the same
"interests".
NOTES
1. Speaking as vice president in the context of the shooting down
of an Iranian passenger plane by an American ship, taking 290
lives, Newsweek, August 15, 1988
2. Washington Post, December 18, 1987
3. New York Times, November 11, 1996, p.12
4. Author's conversation with the Cuban Interest Section in
Washington, DC
5. U.S. Aid to North Vietnam, Hearings Before the Subcommittee
on Asian and Pacific Affairs, House Committee on International
Relations, July 19, 1977, Appendix 2.
6. Los Angeles Times and New York Times, March 11, 1997
7. For a discussion of this maiming, see John Pilger, "Vietnam:
The Final Battle", Covert Action Quarterly (Washington, DC),
#64, Spring 1998, p.54-65
8. Holly Sklar, Washington's War on Nicaragua (South End Press,
Boston, 1988), p.169-70, 314
9. San Francisco Chronicle, April 16, 1987, p.15
10. Interview of attorney Ramsey Clark, September 7, 1999, by
the author. Clark had acted on behalf of many of the claimants.
11. Interview of attorney John Kiyonaga of Alexandria, VA,
September 10, 1999; he and his brother David were the attorneys
for these cases; see their op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, April
1, 1990; see also The Guardian (London), July 28, 1990, p. 7;
San Francisco Examiner, April 26, 1992, p.4
12. Interview of Elizabeth Abimershad of the IACHR-OAS in
Washington, September 7, 1999. The case is Salas, et al.
against United States of America, Case No. 10.573
13. Read to the author over the phone, December 22, 1999, by
the State Department's Panama desk from an official press
announcement.
14. The Independent (London), February 15, 1999, p.12; Seymour
Hersh, "The Missiles of August", The New Yorker, October 12,
1998, p.34-41; New York Times, October 21, 1998, p.1 and 8
15. Washington Post, July 25, 1999, p.F1
16. Peacelink magazine (Hamilton, New Zealand), March 1991, p.19;
Washington Post, February 8, 1991, p.1 (includes Powell remark)
17. "Nato bombed Chinese deliberately", The Observer (London),
October 17, 1999; and November 28, 1999. Also see Extra! Update
(Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, New York), December 1999
18. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, dated March 15,
1999, p.395
19. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (GPO),
1968-69, Vol. II, p.800
20. The Associated Press, dispatch from Athens, Greece, November
20, 1999, by Terence Hunt; Washington Post, November 21, 1999
21. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, March 24, 1998,
p.491
This is a chapter from the book Rogue State: A Guide to the
World's Only Superpower, by William Blum
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