Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
Recent
Stories
September 9, 2003
William A. Cook
Eating
Humble Pie
Robert Jensen / Rahul
Mahajan
Bush
Speech: a Shell Game on the American Electorate
Bill Glahn
A Kinder, Gentler RIAA?
Janet Kauffman
A Dirty River Runs Beneath It
Chris Floyd
Strange Attractors: White House Bawds Breed New Terror
Bridget Gibson
A Helping of Crow with Those Fries?
Robert Fisk
Thugs
in Business Suit: Meet the New Iraqi Strongman
Website of the Day
Pot TV International
September 8, 2003
David Lindorff
The
Bush Speech: Spinning a Fiasco
Robert Jensen
Through the Eyes of Foreigners: the US Political Crisis
Gila Svirsky
Of
Dialogue and Assassination: Off Their Heads
Bob Fitrakis
Demostration Democracy
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Echo Chamber: Globalizing the Whirlwind
Sean Carter
Thou Shalt Not Campaign from the Bench
Uri Avnery
Betrayal
at Camp David
Website of the Day
Rabbis v. the Patriot Act
September 6 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
Hot Stories
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
Chilean
Coup Memorial Edition
September 11, 2003
The
Chilean Coup
The
Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
By SAUL LANDAU
"The true American goes not abroad
in search of monsters to destroy."
John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821
"I am ready to resist by whatever
means, even at the cost of my life, so that this may serve as
a lesson to the ignominious history of those who use force not
reason."
Dr. Salvador Allende, in his last radio
address to the Chilean people, 8:30 a.m. -- 9/11/73
What did Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's 1970-73
conspiracy to overthrow the government of Chile have in common
with the 2001 Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda plot to destroy the
World Trade Center and Pentagon? Answer: Both of these criminal
intrigues reached their climax on 9/11.
Almost all Americans know that 9/11 now
refers to the horrendous events two years ago when almost 3,000
people died in terrorist attacks. Few Americans, however, recall
that 9/11 also refers to the day in 1973 on which the Chilean
armed forces, with US encouragement and help, launched air and
ground strikes against the presidential palace, the office of
Dr. Salvador Allende, the elected president. Allende died that
morning. A reign of terror followed the coup in which tens of
thousands of Chileans underwent torture, hundreds of thousands
were forced or fled into exile and the democratic institutions
of the country were systematically destroyed. The coup leader,
General Augusto Pinochet, remained military dictator of Chile
for seventeen years four years longer than Hitler.
"The terrorists hate our freedoms,"
the Chilean workers, peasants and students could have echoed
George W. Bush's post 9/11/01 comments. They would be explaining,
however, what lay behind the US and Chilean military plotters
who helped make the coup possible, just as George W. Bush simplistically
explained the 2001 attack from the mostly Saudi Arabian terrorists.
His Republican predecessor in 1970, Richard
Nixon, committed US covert power precisely to destroying the
freedom of Chileans, who had selected a president in a freer
and fairer election than the 2000 US vote. Indeed, Chileans watched
 their democracy go up in flames. Their
military with full support from Washington proceeded to wipe
out their ancient bicameral legislature, independent judiciary,
elected local and regional bodies, free trade unions and media
and their broad-based civil liberties.
The US government has not yet admitted
its actual role in the coup itself. According to a national security
source, the Chilean Navy had coordinated with the US armada to
hold maneuvers off the coast at precisely the time planned for
their putsch. US military spy ships intercepted communiques from
Chilean military bases and forwarded them to the treasonous coup-makers.
The mutinous general and admirals would then be able to send
sufficient force to repress those units whose messages indicated
loyalty to the elected government, and thus avoid civil war.
Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted
in April of this year that "it is not a part of American
history that we're proud of." Powell attributed the US role
in the destabilization of Chile from 1970-73 (some of which is
documented in Volume 7 of the 1975 Church Senate Select Committee
report on US Intelligence) to the Cold War. This refers to Allende's
political "sin" of allowing the Chilean Communist Party
as one of the five political groupings inside his Popular Unity
coalition.
In fact, for over a century, US policy
makers have consistently plotted to overthrow "disobedient"
regimes like Allende's socialist coalition in Chile. US forces
occupied Nicaragua and Haiti for some 20 years each in the early
20th Century after tossing out governments in those countries
that refused insufficient obeisance to Washington. Similarly,
in Cuba under the terms of the US-imposed Platt Amendment, American
forces occupied that island on several occasions (1906-9, 1912
and 1917-22).
Between 1900-10, US troops went into
Colombia, Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Panama, mainly
to put down revolutionary movements. These troop landings refer
only to military actions in this hemisphere. During the same
decade, Presidents deployed US troops in China (1900), Syria
(1903), Korea (1904-5) and Morocco (1904).
In the 1910-20 period, US troops made
numerous incursions into Mexico during its revolutionary era
and landed expeditionary forces in Guatemala and Costa Rica as
well. Outside the hemisphere, US troops landed again China (1911,
1912 and 1920), Turkey (1912) and the Soviet Union (1918-22)
in addition to US participation in World War I.
So, when Powell gives as an excuse the
"Cold War" he ignores significant interventionist antecedents
in 20th Century US foreign policy. True, during the Cold War
the CIA acted in flagrant violation of a host of new treaties
signed by the United States that eschewed intervention in the
internal affairs of other nations. But the UN and OAS Charters,
the NATO and the Rio Treaty be damned, said President Eisenhower
in 1953 as he signaled the CIA to overthrow the democratically
elected government of Iran. In 1954, the Agency toppled the government
of Guatemala. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson backed a coup in Brazil
and, in the words of former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley,
himself a victim of CIA destabilization in 1976 and 1980, "mashed
up the good order of society" in several countries. Former
CIA official Phillip Agee documented routine CIA interference
in the politics of Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico.
But the 1973 Chile coup took the proverbial
cake for blatant imperial illegality. Just days after Allende's
September 1970 electoral victory, Secretary of State Kissinger
and President Nixon conspired in the Oval Office to "correct"
the destiny of Chileans who had foolishly elected the wrong man
as president. For three years following Allende's electoral triumph,
the CIA plotted violence, economic sabotage and psychological
warfare against his government because it did not fall into line
behind Washington dictates: not allow Communists to enter a government;
not expropriate, even with compensation, US property; follow
free market economics; eschew all relations with Castro's Cuba
and never vote against the United States in any international
forum.
As then CIA Director Richard Helms testified
to the Church Committee, Nixon "wanted a major effort to
prevent Allende's accession to power." Nixon also ordered,
as Helms' notes indicate, that Chile's "economy should be
squeezed until it screamed."
The CIA failed to stop Allende's inauguration,
although in October 1970 it hired thugs to murder Chile's Army
Chief General Rene Schneider since he opposed a military coup.
Nixon and Kissinger intended to "save
Chile," as they told Helms, meaning that they saw the elected
socialist and quintessential Parliamentarian, Allende, as no
different from the Soviet Communists. Although Moscow gave no
significant aid to Allende, the Nixon-Kissinger ideological dogma
nevertheless proved sufficient to motivate the CIA in its course
of coup-fomenting or outright terrorism.
Did a memory lapse lead George W. Bush
to nominate the terrorist Kissinger who withdrew his name some
days later -- to investigate the 9/11/01 terrorism, or did some
White House savant think that "since Kissinger was a real-life
practicing terrorist, he would have the kind of knowledge and
experience to lead a probe in the subject"?
Indeed, refer again to CIA Chief Helms'
notes taken from his September 1970 conversation in the Oval
Office with Nixon and Kissinger where he received his orders
to overthrow the government of Chile. "Not concerned risks
involved," Helms had written. "$10,000,000 available,
more if necessary." A similar conversation could have taken
place somewhere in Saudi Arabia two years before 9/11/01, with
Osama bin Laden talking with his fiends about risks and costs
involved for hijacking jumbo jets and flying them into the twin
towers and Pentagon.
Suppose, I ask myself, I had lost my
father or brother in the Moneda Palace in 1973! You can't sue
Kissinger or even pursue justice abroad. US military and political
officials, Bush insists, must retain immunity from prosecution
outside the United States, thus protecting the terrorists in
his Administration and those violent ghosts from regimes past.
In this very born-again nation, with
people making pilgrimages to the recently removed Ten Commandments
monument in Alabama and piety dripping from the fundamentalist
lips of the political leaders, it seems odd that few can remember
the words that follow the opening phrase of the Christian adage:
"Do unto others."
Saul Landau
is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He teaches at
Cal Poly Pomona University. For Landau's writing in Spanish visit:
www.rprogreso.com.
His new book, PRE-EMPTIVE
EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM, will be published
in September by Pluto Books. He can be reached at: landau@counterpunch.org
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 1 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|