After September 11, 2001, Americans have been asking why so many people around the world hate us. President Bush has told the nation that others hate us because they hate our love for freedom and liberty... or do they?

1946: The School of the Americas (SOA) is established in Panama. The SOA will eventually train over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained at the SOA. (source)

1947: Under the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 (which became effective on 18 December 1947) the National Security Council (NSC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were created. The 1947 Act charged the CIA with coordinating the nation's intelligence activities and correlating, evaluating, and disseminating intelligence which affects national security.  In addition, the Agency was to perform other duties and functions related to intelligence as the NSC might direct. The Act defined the DCI's authority as head of the Intelligence Community, head of the CIA, and principal intelligence adviser to the President, and made him responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods. The act also prohibited the CIA from engaging in law enforcement activity and restricted its internal security functions. (source: http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/history/cia_history.shtml)

1949: The Central Intelligence Agency Act was passed and supplemented the 1947 Act. The addendum permitted the Agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures and exempted CIA from many of the usual limitations on the expenditure of federal funds.  It provided that CIA funds could be included in the budgets of other departments and then transferred to the Agency without regard to the restrictions placed on the initial appropriation.  This Act is the statutory authority which allows for the secrecy of the Agency's budget. (source: http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/history/cia_history.shtml)

1952: In response to threats from Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, to carry out modest land reforms against the interests of produce giant, United Fruit Company, U.S. President Harry S. Truman authorizes a CIA collaboration with Nicaraguan dictator Anastacio Somoza to "remove" the Guatemalan president from office (operation PBFORTUNE).

1952, Dictator Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar stages a coup ousting democratically-elected Cuban president Carlos Prío Socorras. 17 days later, Batista’s government was formally recognized by the Truman administration which immediately began sending military and economic aid.

1953: Fearful of plans to nationalize Iran's oil industry, the C.I.A. stateges it's first successful coup d'etat overthrowing the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq (operation TPAJAX). The elected government was replaced by an American puppet regime led by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi commonly referred to as simply “the Shah”. The next 26 years of Iran’s history was marred by brutal oppression at the hands of the Shah as American oil companies made huge profits on cheap Iranian crude. (source)

1953: President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes a $2.7 million budget for "psychological warfare and political action" and "subversion," among the other components of a small paramilitary war to overthrow President Arbenz of Guatemala (operation PBSUCCESS).

1954: A CIA-orchestrated coup ended what Guatemalans call the "Ten Years of Spring," which began with the bloodless overthrow of military dictator Jorge Ubico in 1944. During this period, two democratically-elected civilian presidents governed Guatemala, trying to provide opportunities and raise the standard of living. Jacobo Arbenz, elected in 1950, began to push agrarian reforms more seriously than his predecessor. The United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) (UFCo) protested when unused portions of its vast holdings were expropriated and distributed to land-less peasants. The Guatemalan government paid the US company the tax-declared value of the land, but UFCo protested to the highest levels of the US government. Two UFCo stockholders at the time were the Dulles brothers, Secretary of State and head of the CIA in the Eisenhower administration. The CIA installs Col. Carlos Castillo Armas as dictator. 200,000 civilians are killed. (source)

1957: CIA installed Guatemalan dictator Col. Carlos Castillo Armas is assassinated.

1959: After "friendly" dictator Batista is ousted by "un-friendly" dictator, Fidel Castro, President Eisenhower approves a program proposed by the Department of State, in agreement with the CIA, to support elements in Cuba opposed to the Castro government. The operations are intended to make Castro's downfall seem to be the result of his own mistakes. As a part of this program, Cuban exiles mount sea borne guerrilla raids against Cuba from U.S. territory leading up to the ill-fated the Bay of Pigs invasion.

1959: On Independence Day Panamanians march into the Canal Zone to raise the Panamanian flag; U.S. troops turn them back. U.S. Government begins to convert police force into full-fledged military, the very military that the U.S. Government later fears because of its potential as a nationalist force.

1960: The U.S. orchestrated the overthrow of Zairean Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba soon after he came to power in that country’s first national elections. The U.S. opposed Lumumba’s nationalist and non-aligned policies, and simplistically viewed him as an extension of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy. While serving as Lumumba’s army chief-of-staff, Mobutu Sese Seko carried out the CIA-backed coup d’état on September 5, 1960, in which Lumumba was dismissed, and played a central role in Lumumba’s assassination in January 1961. The U.S. installs Mobutu as dictator of Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo).

1961: U.S. trained Cuban exiles, led by CIA commanders, attempt to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs. 2,350 total casualties.

1963: The U.S. backs the assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.

1964: On April 1, 1964, the CIA backed the Brazillian military coup of democratically elected  Joao Goulart and installed its own caretaker government (source).

1964: During the spring of 1964, US military planners developed a detailed design for major attacks on North Vietnam, but at that time President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers feared that the public would not support an expansion of the war. By summer, however, rebel forces had established control over nearly half of South Vietnam, and Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee for president, was criticizing the Johnson administration for not pursuing the war more aggressively. (source)

1964: On Aug. 2, 1964, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers -- in sync with coordinated attacks on North Vietnam by the South Vietnamese navy and the Laotian air force. During the exchange, the USS Maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. On Aug. 4, US naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin believed that they were under attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Cables from the U.S. task force commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, referred to "freak weather effects," "almost total darkness" and an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing ship's own propeller beat." One of the Navy pilots flying overhead that night was squadron commander James Stockdale, who gained fame later as a POW and then Ross Perot's vice presidential candidate. "I had the best seat in the house to watch that event," recalled Stockdale a few years ago, "and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets -- there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power." The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an "unprovoked attack" against a U.S. destroyer on "routine patrol" in the Tonkin Gulf on Aug. 2 -- and that North Vietnamese PT boats followed up with a "deliberate attack" on a pair of U.S. ships two days later. (source)

1964: On Aug. 7, 1964, Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution -- the closest thing there ever was to a declaration of war against North Vietnam. The resolution authorized the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." (source1) (source2)

1964-75: The U.S. military kills 4 million people in S.E. Asia. 50,000 US soldiers are killed... and Congress never declared war.

1964: On January 9, U.S. students raise U.S. flag by itself at high school in Canal Zone. Panamanians march into Zone and are turned back by U.S. troops. This leads to two days of demonstrations during which U.S. troops kill more than 20 civilians and wound more than 300. Panama breaks diplomatic relations and demands revision of treaties. Relations resume in April after U.S. Government agrees to discuss treaties.

1968: The Panamanian National Guard, under Col. Omar Torrijos, overthrows the oligarchy and installs a junta from which Torrijos emerges dictator of Panama.

1969: The U.S. supports Mohammed Siad Barre, Major General and commander of the Somali army, who overthrew an elected civilian Somali government taking power as dictator in a military coup d'état.

1970: Amid mounting criticism of President Richard M. Nixon's Cambodian incursion, the resolution was terminated (December 31, 1970), but the Vietnam War continued. (source)

1973: The U.S. stages a coup in Chile on September 11, 1973. Democratically-elected President Salvador Allende is assassinated. Dictator Agusto Pinochet is installed. 5,000 Chileans are murdered.

1975: President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met with Indonesian President Suharto during a brief stopover in Jakarta while they were flying back from Beijing. Aware that Suharto had plans to invade Portuguese East Timor, Kissinger told Suharto that the use of U.S.-supplied arms in the invasion-equipment that under U.S. law could not be used for offensive military operations-"could create problems," but indicated that they might be able to "construe" the invasion as self-defense. Ford and Kissinger wanted to ensure that Suharto acted only after they had returned to U.S. territory. The invasion took place on December 7, 1975, the day after their departure, resulting in the quarter-century long violent and bloody Indonesian occupation of East Timor. 200,000 Timorese died during the occupation. (source)

1976: Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier is killed by a car-bomb while driving down Embassy Row in Washington, DC. De-classified government documents in 1999 reveal a cover-up by then CIA Chief, and future President George H. W. Bush.

1976: The U.S. creates IMET (International Military Education and Training) for the training or education of foreign military and a limited number of civilian personnel. Funded through the foreign aid appropriations process, IMET is overseen by the U.S. State Department and implemented by the Defense Department. (source)

1977: Under pressure from human rights activists, President Carter cut off military aid to Guatemala.

1977: The U.S. backs the military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans and 4 American nuns are killed.

1979: In response to Libyan leader Colonel Gadhaffi's anti-imperialist rhetoric, his regime's support for the Palestinians and opposition to Israel, the U.S. designated Libya a "terrorist" nation.

1979: Throughout the Shah’s 26 year reign in Iran, fundamentalist Islamic and anti-American sentiments were fomenting. The volatile mixture finally hit the boiling point in 1979 and erupted in the form of the Iranian Islamic Revolution during which 52 American hostages were taken from the US Embassy in Iran and held for 444 days. (source)

1979: The U.S. Republican Party, along with then vice-President nominee George H. W. Bush, enter secret talks with the Iran, obstructing President Jimmy Carter's attempts to win the release of 52 American Hostages held by Iran.  The hostages are released on Ronald Reagan's Inauguration Day.

1980: Iraq invades Iran. The U.S. armed both sides of the conflict and provided intelligence to Saddam Hussein that was used to pinpoint the locations of Iranian troops to be sprayed with mustard gas. An estimated 1 million Arabs were killed during the 8 year Iran-Iraq war. (source 1, source 2, source 3)

1980: A well-known critic of violence and injustice, the Archbishop of San Salvador, Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez was perceived in right-wing civilian and military circles as a dangerous enemy. His sermons deeply irritated these circles because they included human rights violations….  In his sermon on 17 February 1980, he expressed opposition to United States military aid to El Salvador. On March 24, 1980 Monsignor Romero was celebrating mass in the Chapel of the Hospital de la Divina Providencia when he was killed by a professional assassin who fired a single .22 or .223 calibre bullet. The assassin, Amado Antonio Garay, had been trained at the School of Americas (SOA). (source)

1980: The Carter Administration secretly gave approval to South Korean contingency plans to use military units against student and labor demonstrations occurring in South Korea. As a direct result of the United States' secret approval of the use of elite Korean Special Forces to quell the student riots, hundreds were massacred in an incident that brought attention worldwide. This information was obtained from previously classified documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and published as a copyrighted article in the Journal of Commerce, Feb. 27, 1996, by reporter Tim Shorrock. (source) This diplomatic action by the Carter Administration carries a heavy burden of hypocrisy with it in light of the Posse Comatatus Act. This act of Congress, established in 1878, forbade the use of the United States Army against its own citizens. (It was later revised in 1956 to include other branches of the U.S. military).

1980s: The U.S. trains Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets (who invaded Afghanistan in 1980). The CIA provides Osama bin Laden with $3 billion.

1981: The Reagan administration trains and funds the "Contras". 30,000 Nicaraguans die.

1981: On June 7, 1981, in an attempt to prevent Iraqi acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability, Israeli aircraft bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, before it became operational. (source)

1982: President Ronald Reagan issued National Security Directive 58 which empowered Robert McFarlane and Oliver North to use the National Security Council to secretly retrofit FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) to manage the country during a national crisis. (source)

1982: During February 1982 the U.S. State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. It had been included several years earlier because of ties with several Palestinian nationalist groups, not Islamicists sharing the worldview of al-Qaeda. (source)

1982: A U.S. backed military coup overthrows Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia in Guatemala. The CIA and Reagan White House install Gen. Ríos Montt as dictator. The junta immediately suspended the constitution, set up secret tribunals and began a brutal crackdown on political dissidents that featured kidnapping, torture, and extra-judicial assassinations. Montt also unleashed a scorched earth attack on the nation's Mayan population that, according to a UN commission, resulted in the annihilation of nearly 600 villages. Within 18 months, more than 19,000 people had perished at the hands of Ríos Montt's death squads.

1982: President Reagan visited Guatemala City where he hailed Ríos Montt "a man of great personal integrity and commitment" and assured the troubled nation that the man who came to power in a military coup was "totally dedicated to democracy." President Reagan resumes military aid to Guatemala.

1982: In February, Somali dictator, Mohammed Siad Barre visited the United States. He had responded to growing domestic criticism by releasing from detention two leading political prisoners of conscience, former premier Igaal and former police commander Abshir, both of whom had languished in prison since 1969. In mid-July, Somali dissidents with Ethiopian air support invaded Somalia in the center, threatening to split the country in two. Siad Barre's regime declared a state of emergency in the war zone and appealed for Western aid to help repel the invasion. The U.S. government responded by speeding deliveries of light arms already promised. In addition, the initially pledged $45 million in economic and military aid was increased to $80 million. The new arms were not used to repel the Ethiopians, however, but to repress Siad Barre's domestic opponents.

1983: A U.S. backed military coup overthrows Gen. Ríos Montt. The CIA installs General Mejía Víctores as dictator. The rural repression, death squads and disappearances continued.

1983: The White House secretly gives Iran weapons to kill Iraqis (remember the "Iran-Contra" hearings in 1986?).

1983: President Reagan withdraws U.S. forces from Lebanon after a suicide bomber kills 241 Marines who were part of a force that had entered Beirut as peace-keepers but found itself drawn into the middle of a brutal civil war.

1983: General Manuel Noriega takes over in August as commander of armed forces of Panama. Legislature creates the Panamanian Defense Forces with tremendous powers (control over National Guard which is merged into it, other military and police forces, Canal matters, and functions such as immigration control and regulation of civilian aircraft). Noriega has been working with CIA since 1959 (as contract agent since 1966 or 1967) and was also on the United States Army's payroll from 1955 to 1986.

1984: The CIA and the Medellin cartel help finance the campaign of Nicolás Ardito Barletta, former official of the World Bank, for President of Panama and "rig" the election. Barletta is declared the winner ten days after the election, while the media reports that Barletta had been defeated by at least four thousand votes. Political opposition parties demonstrate for weeks against the egregious fraud, to no avail. Reagan welcomes Barletta to the Oval Office, and Secretary of State George Schultz attends the inauguration of his protégé (Ardito Barletta had been an assistant to Shultz when Shultz was a University of Chicago professor) to praise the election as democracy in action. U.S. aid to Panama grows from $12 million to $75 million.

1984: Under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty, the U.S. School of the Americas (SOA) is kicked out of that country and moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. Former Panamanian President, Jorge Illueca, stated that the School of the Americas was the “biggest base for destabilization in Latin America.” (source)

1984: The U.S. provides $34 million in military and economic aid to the regime of Somali dictator, Siad Barre.

1984: In spite of UN reports confirming Iranian allegations that Iraq had been using chemical warfare weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. restored formal relations with Iraq in November 1984, but the U.S. had begun, several years earlier, to provide it with intelligence and military support (in secret and contrary to this country's official neutrality). (source 1, source 2)

1984, Under direction from President Ronald Reagan, the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) simulated civil unrest culminating in a national emergency with a contingency plan for the imprisonment of 400,000 people (Readiness Exercise 84 - a.k.a. REX 84). The ostensible purpose of this exercise was to handle an influx of refugees created by a war in Central America. (source)

1985: General Manuel Noriega (Commander of the armed forces of Panama) learns of U.S. Government plan to invade Nicaragua during a meeting with U.S. National Security Adviser, Admiral John Poindexter; and refuses to cooperate. From this time on, the U.S. Government is concerned about Noriega who is not just working for the U.S. Government any longer, but with countries like Cuba and Nicaragua.

1985: U.S. backed Somali dictator, Siad Barre unleashed a reign of terror against the Majeerteen, the Hawiye, and the Isaaq, carried out by the Red Berets (Duub Cas), a dreaded elite unit recruited from among the president's Mareehaan clansmen.

1986: In August, Somalia held joint military exercises with the United States. During this same year, Amnesty International charges the Somali regime with blatant violations of human rights. Wholesale human rights violations documented by Amnesty International, and subsequently by Africa Watch, prompted the U.S. Congress by 1987 to make deep cuts in aid to Somalia.

1986: The U.S. bombed Tripoli and Benghazi, in an action launched from British bases that killed Libyan dictator Gadhaffi's daughter. The U.S. imposed unilateral economic sanctions the same year.

1987: An Iraqi Mirage F-1 fighter jet fires two Exocet AM39 air-to-surface missiles into the USS Stark. 37 American seamen are killed.

1988: The USS Vincennes mistakes an Iran Air passenger jet for an enemy aircraft and shoots it down with a missile. All 290 civilians on board are killed.

1988: Terrorists bomb Pan Am flight 103, killing its 270 passengers and crew over Lockerbie, Scotland.

1988: General Manuel Noriega is indicted by two U.S. Federal grand juries in Tampa and Miami on charges of taking $5.4 (Tampa indictment) and $4.6 (Miami) million dollars from Medellín drug cartel to protect cocaine smuggling and money laundering operations in Panama. Noriega demands the withdrawal of U.S. Southern Command, which has its headquarters in Panama.

1989: Panamanian Presidential election: Carlos Duque vs. Guillermo Endara. U.S. Government gives $10 million overtly (how much covertly?) to Endara campaign (equivalent to $1 billion given to candidate in U.S., although of course it is illegal for a U.S. candidate to accept election funds from foreign sources). Election results are annulled by the Panamanian Government 5/10/89. The Bush Administration sends 2,000 more troops. From this time on, U.S. Armed Forces stage regular military maneuvers in Panamanian territory in violation of treaties. U.S. forces carry out military exercises in the "white" areas that were returned to Panama in 1979 (as opposed to "green" areas still under U.S. control), as well as in outlying areas. The Bush Administration also confirms a plan for another coup to oust Noriega. Called Panama 5 (there were 4 previous plans), it has a $3 million budget. The aim is not assassination but if that were to happen, "that's not constrained," a Government official says. The CIA is supposed to be bound by a 1976 law banning its involvement in assassination plots. Panamanian legislature names Noriega head of government and declares Panama is in a "state of war" with the U.S. The U.S. invades Panama and removes Noriega. 3,000 Panamanian civilian casualties are reported.

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait using weapons from the U.S.

1991: Under U.N. authority, U.S. forces enter Iraq (Operation Desert Storm). Bush re-instates the dictatorship of Kuwait. The U.S. admit that their estimates of Iraqi dead exceed 750,000.

1991-2003: U.S. planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis. U.N. estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions.

1992: Under the pretense of famine relief, the U.S. deploys tens of thousands of US combat troops in Somalia. (The Horn of Africa has long been viewed by the U.S. as a strategic area of the globe because of its proximity to the sea lanes linking the oilfields of the Persian Gulf with the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.)

1992: Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh uncovered evidence that proved President George H.W. Bush was very much in the loop on the arms-for-hostages operation (while serving as Vice-President) and had misled the American people. But Bush stanched further disclosures about his secret involvement with Iran’s fundamentalist government by pardoning a half dozen Iran-Contra defendants on Dec. 24, 1992.

1993: President Bill Clinton, recognizing the hopelessness of the "leadership-decapitation strategy" in Somalia, withdraws U.S. troops after the botched “Black Hawk Down” raid in Mogadishu cost the lives of 18 U.S. soldiers. Estimates of Somalian civilian casualties are as high as 5,000.

1993: The human rights report "State Terrorism in Colombia" cites 247 Colombian officers for human rights violations. Fully one half of those cited were graduates of the U.S. School of the Americas (SOA). Some were even featured as SOA guest speakers or instructors or included in the "Hall of Fame" after their involvement in such crimes. For example, Gen. Farouk Yanine Diaz was a guest speaker at the School in 1990 and 1991 after his involvement in the 1988 Uraba massacre of 20 banana workers, the assassination of the mayor of Sabana de Torres, and the massacre of 19 businessmen. According to a U.S. State Department Report, he was also accused of "establishing and expanding paramilitary death squads, as well as ordering dozens of disappearances, and the killing of judges and court personnel sent to investigate previous crimes." (source)

1993: President Clinton creates an the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), a four-person, independent board charged with investigating excesses and abuses by the US intelligence community.

1995: CIA covert operator Terry Ward was fired by the CIA for mismanagement of the Guatemalan military in Guatemala... and also for lying to Congress ( Terry Ward was a CIA operative helping the Guatemalan military carry out the Guatemalan genocide during the 80's).

1995: A string of U.S. newspaper editorials call for the School of the Americas (SOA) to be closed. LA Times editorial, April 3,1995: "In fact, it is hard to think of a coup or human rights outrage that has occurred in [Latin America] in the past 40 years in which alumni of the School of Americas were not involved." Atlanta Constitution editorial,June 3, 1995: "The school is a relic and ought to be closed...It has strung together such a perverse "honor roll" of cold-blooded murderers that America's meanest prison might be pressed to match it." Cleveland Plain Dealer, editorial, July 20, 1995: "The SOA's best known products have shared distressing tendency to show up as dictators or as leaders of death squads. They have been the agents of oppression..." Bangor Daily News, editorial,October 3, 1995: The school costs U.S. Taxpayers $18.5 million a year in direct funding and untold millions of dollars in foreign aid. The cost for civilians in Latin America, of course, is much higher." (source)

1995: November 1995 a U.S. military barracks in Dharan, Saudi Arabia is bombed by terrorists (al Qaeda is suspected).

1996: Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) report issued June 28, 1996, in Washington, DC, cites U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) as using training materials that condoned "executions of guerillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion, and false imprisonment". The report discredited Pentagon assertions that the SOA strengthens Latin American democracies.

1996: Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass) introduced Bill HR 2652 to close the School of the Americas (SOA). It failed. (source)

1996: Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) filed a Freedom of Information Act request with various US intelligence and defense agencies seeking information on the PEPES (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar) death squad operating in Columbia. Some of the requests were denied in full, while others were only partially met. (source)

1997: On February 5, 1997, Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass) introduced Bill HR 611 to shut down the School of the Americas (SOA). HR 611 failed. (source and source2)

1998: The U.S. bombs a "weapons factory" in Sudan. The factory turns out to be making aspirin.

1998: On Aug. 8, 1998, terrorist bombs destroyed the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. (source: ABC News)

2000: Supreme Court members (some appointed by former President George H.W. Bush) stop the U.S. ballot recount. Reagan appointee, Justice Antonin Scalia, said counting the votes might harm George W. Bush by "casting a doubt" on his legitimacy.

2000: Human Rights Watch report links Colombian military support for paramilitary (terrorist / death squad) activity at national level and includes units receiving or scheduled to receive U.S. military aid.

2000: On September 13, 2000, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), in frustration over the lack of cooperation from various U.S. intelligence and defense agencies in response to their 1996 request filed under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information on the PEPES (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar) death squad operating in Columbia, prepared a lawsuit to compel the release of information from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and other agencies. (source)

2000-01: The U.S. gives the oppressive Taliban-ruled government of Afghanistan $245 Million in aid.

2000: October 2000 the US destroyer USS Cole is bombed by terrorists (al Qaeda suspected) while in Yemen (the ancestral home of al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden). 17 US sailors are killed.

2001: On January 17, 2001 the School of the Americas (SOA) was replaced by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). The result of a Department of Defense proposal included in the Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal 2001, the name-change measure passed when the House of Representatives defeated a bi-partisan amendment to close the SOA and conduct a congressional investigation by a narrow ten vote margin. (source)

2001: On September 11, Osama bin Laden uses his expert CIA training to engineer the murder over 3,000 Americans (9-11).

2001: After their refusal to turn over suspected terrorist, Osama bin Laden, the U.S. invades Afghanistan overthrowing the Taliban-ruled government. Guerrilla opposition continues.

2002: The International Crisis Group reported in May 2002, "Better military training will not alter the fact that there is a fundamental lack of political will on the part of the Indonesian national civilian and military authorities to exert control over private armies, punish abusive soldiers, end military occupation, or proceed with long-promised reforms." Were aid restrictions to be removed or a military training program put into place, such programs would likely be used by the Indonesian military against their own people. It would be supreme folly to allow our government's war on terrorism to increase the use of terror against other people in other parts of the world. (source)  In August, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that the U.S. will give the dictatorship of Indonesia $50 Million over "several years to help the country fight terrorism". Powell also signalled his support for restoring military ties with Indonesia - which were suspended in 1999 because of human rights abuses in East Timor. (source)

2002: On November 4, 2002, the Bush administration acknowledged that it had carried out a strike in Yemen, violating that country's sovereignty. Using an armed "Predator" unmanned surveillance aircraft monitored by CIA operatives based at a French military facility in Djibouti and at CIA headquarters in Virginia, the U.S. released a Hellfire missile that destroyed an SUV said to contain a senior al-Qaeda terrorist. The vehicle was so completely vaporized that this claim cannot be verified. (source)

2003: In September 2003, the U.S. supported dictatoriship of Indonesia accepts delivery of two SU-27 and two SU-30 fighter planes, and also two MI-35 attack helicopters in accordance with the contract signed in April of 2003 during the visit of Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri to Russia. (source: Pravda)

2003: The U.S. invades Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom), ousting dictator Saddam Hussein and installing a foreign dictator (U.S. provisional authority chief L. Paul Bremer) in his place. Guerrilla opposition kills more U.S. troops during 2003 than were killed during the first three years of the Vietnam War. (source)

2003: In July, Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch (HRW) call for the U.S. supported Indonesian dictator, President Magawati Sukarnoputri to release political prisioners and repeal Suharto-era legislation used to prosecute and imprision activists who are merely engaged in peaceful political expression. (source)

2003: As of September, the U.S. holds 660 suspected terrorists from 43 countries at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Some of these prisoners have been held in Guantanamo for nearly two years without charges. (source: Independent.co.uk - Sept. 21, 2003)

2003: U.S. forces are currently stationed in over 120 countries (source: CNN).

Note:
International law clearly states that one country can attack another one only when it is itself under attack, about to be attacked, or when the U.N. Security Council grants permission. U.S. law: Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war. Congress shirked its responsibilities by approving a measure that fell short of a war declaration but supported:
- The Vietnam War under Presidents Kennedy(D), Johnson(D) and Nixon (R)
- The bombing of Sudan under President Clinton (D)
- The invasion and occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq under President George W. Bush (R)

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden remains free; while American soldiers are still being killed by people who don't want them in their countries.

"'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world...."
- George Washington (1796)

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto."
- Thomas Jefferson (1799)

"I deem (one of) the essential principles of our government (to be) peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none...."
- Thomas Jefferson (1801)