“What I’ve Learned About American Foreign Policy”
“I’ve put together this 2-hour video called ‘What I’ve Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy’. The basic message being that the CIA, the military-industrial-complex, the Pentagon, the multinational corporations, the media and the government of the United States are responsible for the deaths of millions of people in the third world, not to mention the poverty and oppression of millions more. We support, arm, and train dictators and militaries that do these evil actions to their own people. All of this is to ensure that we control the natural resources of these countries and their market place, use the people for cheap labor and keep the business of war (which is our biggest business) ongoing.
The CIA has also done business with international drug dealers, allowing heroin and cocaine to enter the U.S., using the enormous profits to fund more covert operations. Since WWII the US has bombed Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and now currently Iraq, once again killing millions of innocent people! The [corporate media] will not tell these truths because it is owned by the very corporations who benefit from all of this.
When it comes to foreign policy, the [media] gets its stories straight from the Pentagon and the CIA. We have been taught all our lives that the US fights for freedom and democracy, that we are the good guys. And since so many people in America are doing well, do have freedom, opportunity and wealth, or are just trying to get by, there is very little motivation to look into the things being said on this tape. I believe that Americans are living in a state of mass denial, kind of a mass hypnosis. It is the BIG LIE! […] The people who are attempting to get this message out are labeled as crackpots, radicals, subversives, or worse, and are not given the opportunity to be heard in the mainstream media. […]The first step is to understand that this is really happening. We have been lied to! I believe the people on this video are telling the truth and it’s absolutely frightening.”
1. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
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He was not only a civil rights advocate, he also spoke out against the U.S. war in Vietnam. Some people feel he was assassinated after he criticized our involvement there and other regions of the world. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
2. John Stockwell, former C.I.A. Station Chief
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Former CIA Station Chief in Angola 1975, working for then Director of the CIA, George Bush. A 13 year veteran of the agency, Stockwell provides a short history of the CIA, estimating 6 million people have died as a direct consequence of the agency’s covert operations since its inception in 1947. This talk was given in the late 1980’s.
3. Coverup: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair
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This investigative documentary has been seen in theaters worldwide. Directed by Barbara Trent of the Empowerment Project. The Iran-Contra scandal is not an aberration of U.S. foreign policy. It has been estimated that between 20 to 30,000 Nicaraguan men, women and children were killed in U.S. sponsored terror conducted by the CIA backed right-wing Contra forces.
Elizabeth Montgomery narrates. Includes a short history of CIA covert operations by Peter Dale Scott
This segment comes from the full-length documentary ‘CoverUp: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair’ available from The Empowerment Project
4. School of Assassins
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The School of the Americas, located at Fort Benning, Georgia – our own terrorist training school right here in the United States. This documentary is narrated by Susan Sarandon and features Father Roy Bourgeois talking about this U.S. Army school where soldiers from Central and South America are trained in the art of torture, terrorism, and assassination. This school has since officially been renamed “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.”
This film was directed and produced by Robert Richter of Maryknoll World Productions.
This segment comes from the documentary “School of Assassins” available from the School of the Americas Watch web site.
5. Genocide by Sanctions
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Produced and directed by Gloria La Riva in 1998 (long before the current war in Iraq), this film features former Attorney General of the United States, Ramsey Clark, as he shows the terrible conditions the Iraqi’s were suffering from due to the first U.S. war on Iraq. UNICEF, the International Red Cross and other world organizations estimate around 5,000 children were dying every month in Iraq after that war and the imposition of sanctions placed on that country.
Over 1.5 million Iraqi’s died as a result of the sanctions alone. Ramsey Clark goes into the hospitals and talks with Iraqi doctors, who say many of these deaths could have been prevented if they had medicine to give to the children. The United States bombed out their way of life; their water treatment facilities, food delivery systems, sewage treatment facilities, electrical systems, their mass communication facilities and more. And American’s were lead to believe that this was a good thing.
This segment comes from the documentary ‘Genocide By Sanctions.’ Check out the Left Books web site for more info.
6. Philip Agee, former C.I.A. Case Officer
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Philip Agee spent 13 years in the C.I.A. before resigning in 1969. His book “Inside the Company: C.I.A. Diary” was first published in 1975 and has been translated in to 27 languages. It was a best seller world-wide. His autobiography, “On The Run” was published in 1987.
In this speech given in 1991 after the first Gulf War, Agee analyzes why the U.S. invaded Iraq. He also describes “the war against the third world” as being fought for the natural resources, the labor and the markets of these third world countries the United States invaded either overtly or covertly since the end of World War II.
7. Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!
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Journalist and host of Democracy Now!, a daily radio and TV news program on over 400 stations. Amy is the best at what she does! On this segment, Amy talks about two genocides Indonesia committed, first against its own people in 1965 and then against the people of East Timor in 1975. Both of these mass slaughters were sanctioned by the United States government and aided by the C.I.A. Includes scenes from “Bitter Paradise,” a video by Elaine Briere. Amy Goodman was filmed by Ralph Cole of Justice Vision.
8. The Panama Deception
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Won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Documentary. Directed by Barbara Trent of the Empowerment Project. This film documents the untold story of the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama. The United States military deliberately attacked and destroyed primarily residential neighborhoods, killing an estimated 3 to 4 thousand people in the process. This segment exposes the role the U.S. government and the mainstream media play in suppressing information about U.S. foreign policy. Includes never before seen footage of this invasion. Narrated by (actress) Elizabeth Montgomery
This segment comes from the feature-length documentary ‘The Panama Deception’ available from The Empowerment Project
9. Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
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Former Attorney General of the United States speaking in 1998 in Los Angeles. I was there that night and it was a very memorable evening called “Save the Iraqi Children.” Ramsey’s talk is very powerful as he conveys the sorry truth about U.S. foreign policy. He quotes Martin Luther King Jr. saying, “The greatest purveyor of violence on the earth is my own government.” The entire evening’s event was filmed by Ralph Cole of Justice Vision.
10. S. Brian Willson, Vietnam Veteran and Peace Activist
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Brian is the Vietnam veteran who, in 1987, lost both his legs when run over by a munitions train at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, located in California. The bombs and munitions aboard this train were bound for Central America. Brian is one of the most spiritual, courageous and honest activists who Wages Peace against our violent foreign policies. He is a hero in Central America where the people understand that he has stood up for their rights as equal human beings. Brian says that he doesnât want mothers and fathers and children to be killed and maimed in our name with our tax money!