May 5, 2001

After World War II (*)

Fifty-six years since the end of the nightmare

Fifty-six bloody conflicts since then

Instigated by my adoptive land

Each fraying my dream of AAfter the War@

Each excoriating my festering war wound

And now...

East Timorese children wander in what looks like paradise

Searching for their dead parents and grandparents

Puerto Rican children die of heart disease

Caused by the loud noise of practice bombing on their tropical isle

Iraqi children huddle for protection

Waiting for the next bomb to drop

Yugoslav children drink water

Containing the uranium 238 that will eventually kill them

Vietnamese children dig for unexploded mines

And the remains of men who burnt their village 40 years ago

German children can=t believe the atrocities

Books say their grandparents committed

Armenian children sense the family secret

That once they had a land, towns, a culture, roots of their own

American children are tried in adult courts

Because they use adult weapons to kill

Botswanan children watch their siblings die of AIDS

Rehearsing their own torture as they too have the virus

Colombian children grow cocaine, their only means of livelihood

And the probable cause of their untimely, violent death

Nigerian children have never seen a starry night

Because raging natural gas fires have lit up the skies ever since they can remember

Palestinian children throw stones

At the state-of-the-art armored tanks that destroy their homes

Brazilian children hope that prostitution

Will at least give them some semblance of a life

I am in every one of these children

I was in the cellar once

Waiting for a bomb to kill me

My own children are on a chartered boat

Trusting their country to be just, fair, upright, well-meaning

Generous, free, humane, democratic.

United States Military and Central Intelligence Agency Interventions,1945-1995 (*)

China 1945-1960

Italy 1947-1948 1950's - 1970's

Greece 1947-1950 1964-1974

Philippines 1940's and 1950's

Korea 1945-1953

Albania 1949-1953

Eastern Europe 1948-1956

Germany 1950's

Iran 1953

Guatemala 1953-1954 1960 1962-1980's

Costa Rica Mid 1950's 1970-1971

Syria 1956-1957

Middle East 1957-1958

Indonesia 1957-1958 1965

Western Europe 1950's and 1960's

British Guiana 1953-1964

Soviet Union Late 1940's to 1960's

Vietnam 1950-1973

Cambodia 1955-1973

Laos 1957-1973

Haiti 1959-1963 1986-1994

France/Algeria 1960's

Ecuador 1960-1963

The Congo/ Zaire 1960-1964 1975-1978

Brazil 1961-1964

Peru 1960-1965

Dominican Republic 1960-1966

Cuba 1959-1980's

East Timor 1975

Ghana 1966

Uruguay 1964-1970

Chile 1964-1973

Bolivia 1964-1975

Iraq 1972-1975 1990-1991

Australia 1973-1975

Angola 1975-1980's

Jamaica 1976-1980

Seychelles 1979-1981

Grenada 1979-1984

Morocco 1983

Suriname 1982-1984

Libya 1981-1989

Nicaragua 1981-1990

Panama 1969-1991

Bulgaria 1990

Afghanistan 1979-1992

El Salvador 1980-1994

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(*) Blum, William, Killing Hope B U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine), 1995. Bold face type indicates direct U.S. involvement in the use of torture.

Interventions since 1995 include at a minimum

Iraq

Yugoslavia

Sudan

Mozambique

Afghanistan

Colombia.