The United States has been involved or alleged to have been involved, in many covert regime change actions.

Introduction

According to various sources,[2] [3] [4] the United States of America government has forcibly overthrown, and attempted to overthrow, foreign governments perceived as hostile to its interests, and replaced them with new ones, actions that has become known as regime change.[5] [6] [7] [8] It has been noted that governments targeted by the U.S. have included democratically-elected governments, thus the target "regimes" are not necessarily authoritarian governments or juntas, but in some cases are replaced by such dictatorships. In other cases "dictatorships" have been replaced by "democracies", as some would argue.

This article covers regime change actions by the United States government, not regime change actions in or against the U.S. (see, e.g., the Business Plot of 1933 to overthrow the U.S. government, or the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln and members of his cabinet).

Regime change has been attempted through direct involvement of U.S. operatives, the funding and training of insurgency groups within these countries, anti-regime propaganda campaigns, coup d'états, and other, often illegal, activities usually conducted as operations by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The U.S. has also accomplished regime change by direct U.S. military action, see List of United States military history events, instead of by covert means.

It has been argued that non-transparent United States government agencies who work in secret and sometimes mislead or do not fully implement the decisions of elected civilian leaders has been an important component of many such operations.^[1]

For example the historian Spencer R. Weart has argued that the US has supported coups against democracies that it misperceived as nondemocracies, such as Communist states, or turning into such.^[2]

Notwithstanding a history of some covert actions to topple democratic governments, today U.S. officials have stated that democratic nations best support US national interests: "democracy is the one national interest that helps to secure all the others. Democratically governed nations are more likely to secure the peace, deter aggression, expand open markets, promote economic development, protect American citizens, combat international terrorism and crime, uphold human and worker rights, avoid humanitarian crises and refugee flows, improve the global environment, and protect human health."[9] In one view mentioned by the US State Department, democracy is also good for business. Countries that embrace political reforms are also more likely to pursue economic reforms that improve the productivity of businesses. Accordingly, since the mid-1980s, there has been an increase in levels of foreign direct investment going to emerging market democracies relative to countries that have not undertaken political reforms.[10] Former President Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party: "Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other."^[3]

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has been seen as attempting to stop regime changes that would establish a world of market democracies arbitrated by U.S. power.[11]

During the Cold War

Communist states 1945-1989

The United States supported the overthrow of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. One example is the counter-espionage operations following the discovery of the Farewell dossier which some argue contributed to fall of Communism.[12][13] The National Endowment for Democracy supported pro-capitalist movements in the Communist states and has been accused of secretly supporting regime change, which it itself denies.[14][15][16] Many of the Eastern European states later turned to capitalism and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Iran 1953

In 1953, the CIA worked with the United Kingdom to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Iran lead by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh who had attempted to nationalize Iran's oil, threatening the interests of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Declassified CIA documents show that Britain was fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry and pressed the U.S. to mount a joint operation to remove the prime minister.^[4] The prize was Iran's oil fields; in 1951 the Iranian parliament voted to nationalize the oil fields of the country. Anti-Communism had also risen to a fever pitch in Washington, and officials were worried that Iran might fall under the sway of the Soviet Union, a historical presence there. "The aim was to bring to power a government which would reach an equitable oil settlement, enabling Iran to become economically sound and financially solvent, and which would vigorously prosecute the dangerously strong Communist Party."^[5] Prime minister Mossadegh had dissolved the parliament, claiming massive support for the measure in a plebiscite and accepted the support of the Communist Tudeh party, allegedly leading to U.S. fears of a Communist overthrow.^[6]

See CIA Iran Covert Operations.

Guatemala 1954

See CIA Guatemala Covert Operations.

Cuba 1959-

The largest and most complicated CIA-led coup effort was the Bay of Pigs operation where CIA trained Cuban anti-communist mercenaries landed in Cuba to help overthrow the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro. The CIA made many attempts to assassinate Castro.

Democratic Republic of the Congo 1960

Patrice Émery Lumumba, an African anti-colonial leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after he helped to win its independence from Belgium in June 1960, was deposed in a US CIA-sponsored coup during the Congo Crisis. He was subsequently imprisoned and assassinated under controversial circumstances.

Iraq 1963

See CIA Iraq Covert Ops.

Iraq 1968

The leader of the new Baathist government, Salam Arif, died in 1966 and his brother, Abdul Rahman Arif, not a Ba'athist, assumed the presidency.^{[7] [8] [9] [10]} Said K. Abuirsh alleges that in 1967, the government of Iraq was very close to giving concessions for the development of huge new oil fields in the country to France and the USSR. PBS reported that Robert Anderson, former secretary of the treasury under President Eisenhower, secretly met with the Ba'ath Party and came to a negotiated agreement according to which both the oil field concessions and sulphur mined in the northern part of the country would go to United States companies if the Ba'ath again took over power.^[11] In 1968, again with the alleged backing of the CIA, Rahman Arif was overthrown by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of the Baath Party, bringing Saddam Hussein to the threshold of power. ^[12]

To carry out the coup, Ba'athists donned military uniforms, attacked the presidential palace and occupied it. The president surrendered immediately.

"You're going with me to the airport because you're leaving this country."

said Saddam Hussein to the prime minister as Saddam held a gun to his head. Years later, Saddam assassinated him in front of the Intercontinental Hotel in London.^[13]

The Asia Times reported that the CIA deputy for the Middle East Archibald Roosevelt (grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and cousin of Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.) stated, referring to Iraqi Ba'ath Party officers on his payroll in the 1963 and 1968 coups, "They're our boys bought and paid for, but you always gotta remember that these people can't be trusted"^[14] General Ahmed Bakr was installed as president. Saddam Hussein was appointed the number two man,^[15] security chief for the newly installed ruler, and became his protege.^[16]

Chile 1973

The role of the US in the coup and the events before this is disputed.

Afghanistan 1973-74

Roger Morris, writing in the Asia Times, argues that as early as 1973-74, the CIA began offering covert backing to Islamic radical rebels in Afghanistan premised on the claim that the right-wing, authoritarian government headed by Mohammed Daoud Khan, might prove a likely instrument of Soviet military aggression in South Asia. Morris argues that this premise was without basis in fact; Daoud had always held the Russians, his main patron when it came to aid, at arm's length, and had savagely purged local communists who supported him when he overthrew the Afghan monarchy in 1973. The Soviets had also shown no inclination to use the notoriously unruly Afghans and their army for any expansionist aim.^{[17][unreliable source?]} Morris claims that during this period U.S. foreign policy leaders saw the Soviets as always being "on the march." This apprehension resulted in a rash of U.S. secret wars, assassinations, terrorist acts and manifold corruptions. U.S. secret backing of radical Islamic rebels ceased following an abortive rebel uprising in 1975.^[18]

The Black Book of Communism argues that Daoud relied on Communist army officials in order to carry out the coup. After the coup, at the instigation of Communists a wave of repression was unleashed. However, he got rid of the Communists in the government in 1975 and after that his days were numbered. The Soviet Union had no intention of letting Afghanistan escape from Soviet influence.^[19]

Afghanistan 1978-1980s

Roger Morris, writing in the Asia Times, states that in April 1978, the crackdown by the regime of Daoud on Afghanistan's small Communist Party provoked a successful coup by Communist Party loyalists in the army. The coup occurred in defiance of a skittish Moscow, which had stopped earlier coup plans.

According to Morris, by autumn 1978, an Islamic insurgency, armed and planned by the U.S., Pakistan, Iran and China, and soon to be actively supported, at Washington's prodding, by the Saudis and Egyptians, was fighting in eastern Afghanistan. U.S. planners continued funding the radical Islamic insurgency to "suck" the Russians into Afghanistan.^[20] According to the "Progressive South Asia Exchange Net", claiming to cite an article in Le Nouvel Observateur, U.S. policy, unbeknownst even to the Mujahideen, was part of a larger strategy "to induce a Soviet military intervention." National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski stated:

"According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise." "That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap.... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War." ^[21]

The Black Book of Communism instead puts the blame on the Soviet Union who feared that Afghanistan was escaping its domination. There was little Muslim extremism before the Communist coup. After the coup, according to the Black Book, several antireligous campaigns by the Communist regime, as well as the harsh repressions, soon caused a fierce insurgency. The director of the infamous Pol-e-Charki prison stated "We'll leave only 1 million Afghans alive - that's all we need to build socialism."^[22] The claim in the Black Book that there was little Islamin insurgency before the coup is not necessarily inconsistent with the notion that the U.S. government organized the Islamic insurgency to lure in the Soviets to quell the instability in the country.

With instability and bloody civil strife raging in a country on their border, the Soviets invaded in December 1979, according to the Asia Times report, fulfilling the hopes of Washington as expressed by National Security Adviser Brzezinski.^{[23] [24]}

The Black Book of Communism states approximately 100,000 people had been killed by the Communists before the Soviet Invasion. It argues that one of the primary reasons for the Soviet Invasion and murder of the Communist President Hafizullah Amin was that he had began to show signs of independence from Moscow's control.^[25]

The CIA provided assistance to the fundamentalist insurgents through the Pakistani secret services, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in a program called Operation Cyclone. Somewhere between $3–$20 billion in U.S. funds were funneled into the country to train and equip troops with weapons, including Stinger surface-to-air missiles.^[26][27] On July 20, 1987, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country was announced pursuant to the negotiations that led to the Geneva Accords of 1988.^[28]

The people of Afghanistan suffered enormously in the war, with one and a half million died during more than a quarter-century of war and unrest. Morris claims that this was a continuing catastrophe beyond any other in the history of nation-states.^{[29] [30]} Five million Afghan people, one third of the prewar population of the country, were made refugees in Pakistan and Iran, and an additional two million Afghans were forced by the war to migrate within the country. In the 1980s, one out of two refugees in the world was an Afghan.^[31] The Black Book of Communism states that the Communists were the side most responsible for the deaths and that such high death tolls were not unusual in Communist regimes. For example the Khmer Rouge killed proportionately more than of the population than was the case in Afghanistan.^[32] The Black Book of Communism is controversial and has been criticized for being one-sided in its review of Communist regimes, and for attributing victims to Communist regimes that were not victims of Communism at all so that the Book can arrive at a set target of total victims.^{[33] [34] [35] [36]}

Iran 1980

Z magazine reported that in June 1980, students in Iran revealed a 1980 memorandum from U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance recommending the "destabilization" of the Iranian government by using Iran's neighbors.^[37] The U.S. has denied that it gave Iraq a "green light" for its September 22 1980 invasion of Iran, but evidence suggests that it did just that. Five months before Iraq's invasion, on April 14 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski, signaled the U.S.'s willingness to work with Iraq: "We see no fundamental incompatibility of interests between the United States and Iraq... we do not feel that American- Iraqi relations need to be frozen in antagonisms." According to Iran's president at the time, Abolhassan Banisadr, Brzezinski met directly with Saddam Hussein in Jordan two months before the Iraqi assault. Bani-Sadr wrote, "Brzezinski had assured Saddam Hussein that the United States would not oppose the separation of Khuzestan [in southwest Iran] from Iran."^[38]

Author Kenneth R. Timmermann and former Iranian President Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr argue separately that Brzezinski met with Hussein in July 1980 in Amman, Jordan, to discuss joint efforts to oppose Iran. According to Hussein biographer Said Aburish however, at the Amman meeting Saddam Hussein met with three CIA agents, not Brzezinski personally. Former Carter official Gary Sick denies that Washington directly encouraged Iraq's attack, but instead let "Saddam assume there was a U.S. green light because there was no explicit red light." ^[39] Journalist Robert Parry reports (Consortiumnews.com, January 31 1996) that in a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig noted:

"It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan.^[40]

The Financial Times reported that the U.S. passed satellite intelligence to the regime of Saddam Hussein via third countries, leading Iraq to believe Iranian forces would quickly collapse if attacked. ^[41] Z magazine therefore argues that it is likely therefore that the U.S. helped push Saddam Hussein to attack Iran, causing a long and bloody war.^[42]

The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague. Opinions differ among Middle East experts and former government officials about the pre-Iraqi tilt, and whether Washington could have done more to stop the flow to Baghdad of technology for building weapons of mass destruction. "Fundamentally, the policy was justified," argues David Newton, a former U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, who runs an anti-Hussein radio station in Prague. "We were concerned that Iraq should not lose the war with Iran, because that would have threatened Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Our long-term hope was that Hussein's government would become less repressive and more responsible." Although U.S. arms manufacturers were not as deeply involved as German or British companies in selling weaponry to Iraq, the Reagan administration effectively turned a blind eye to the export of "dual use" items such as chemical precursors and steel tubes that can have military and civilian applications. According to several former officials, the State and Commerce departments promoted trade in such items as a way to boost U.S. exports and acquire political leverage over Hussein. "Everybody was wrong in their assessment of Saddam," said Joe Wilson, Glaspie's former deputy at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and the last U.S. official to meet with Hussein. "Everybody in the Arab world told us that the best way to deal with Saddam was to develop a set of economic and commercial relationships that would have the effect of moderating his behavior. History will demonstrate that this was a miscalculation."^[43]

A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former U.S. policymakers shows that U.S. intelligence and logistical support played a crucial role in arming Iraq.^[44] The United States and its European allies had provided the regime of Saddam Hussein with its chemical and biological weapons.^[45] The American Type Culture Collection, a nonprofit Rockville, Md, made 70 government-approved shipments of anthrax and other disease-causing pathogens to Iraq between 1985 and 1989, according to congressional records<;ref>Newsday, November 27 1996</ref> According to reports of the U.S. Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the U.S., under the successive presidential administrations sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992^{[46] [47]}. The chairman of the Senate committee, Don Riegle, said: "The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licences for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think its a devastating record."^[48]

The U.S. also provided critical battle planning assistance at a time when U.S. intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program. The U.S. carried out the covert program at a time when Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci and National Security Adviser General Colin L. Powell were publicly condemning Iraq for its use of poison gas, especially after Iraq attacked Kurdish villagers in Halabja in March 1988. U.S. officials publicly condemned Iraq's employment of mustard gas, sarin, VX and other poisonous agents, but sixty Defense Intelligence Agency officers were secretly providing detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for airstrikes and bomb-damage assessments for Iraq. It has long been known that the U.S. provided intelligence assistance, such as satellite photography, to Saddam's regime. Carlucci said: "My understanding is that what was provided" to Iraq "was general order of battle information, not operational intelligence." "I did agree that Iraq should not lose the war, but I certainly had no foreknowledge of their use of chemical weapons."^[49] Notwithstanding all these efforts by the U.S., the Iranian government was not toppled by the war.

Nicaragua 1981-1990

See CIA covert ops Nicaragua 1981-1990.

South Africa 1984

In 1984, US President Ronald Reagan sent U.S. Ambassador Edward J. Perkins to South Africa with the mission to bring about the peaceful end of the Apartheid government. Ambassador Perkins achieved his objectives to organize opposition leaders, understand the Apartheid government, and bring about its peaceful end. Along with many others, Ambassador Perkins achieved this goal. [17]

Since the Cold War

Iraq early 1990s

According to former U.S. intelligence officials interviewed by the New York Times, the CIA orchestrated a bomb and sabotage campaign between 1992 and 1995 in Iraq via one of the insurgent organizations, the Iraqi National Accord, led by Iyad Allawi. The campaign had no apparent effect in toppling Saddam Hussein's rule.^[50]

According to the Iraqi government at the time, and former CIA officer Robert Baer, the bombing campaign against Baghdad included both government and civilian targets. According to this former CIA official, the civilian targets included a movie theater and a bombing of a school bus and schoolchildren were killed. No public records of the secret bombing campaign are known to exist, and the former U.S. officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. "But whether the bombings actually killed any civilians could not be confirmed because, as a former CIA official said, the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then." The Iraqi government at the time claimed that the bombs, including one it said exploded in a movie theater, resulted in many civilian casualties. In 1996, Amneh al-Khadami, who described himself as the chief bomb maker for the Iraqi National Accord, recorded a videotape in which he talked of the bombing campaign and complained that he was being shortchanged money and supplies. Two former intelligence officers confirmed the existence of the videotape. Mr. Khadami said that "we blew up a car, and we were supposed to get $2,000" but got only $1,000, as reported in 1997 by the British newspaper The Independent, which had obtained a copy of the videotape.^[50] The campaign was directed by CIA asset Dr. Iyad Allawi,^[51] later installed as interim prime minister by the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003.

Guatemala 1993

See CIA covert ops Guatemala 1993.

Zimbabwe 2000s

Robert Mugabe has accused the United States of trying to remove him in an illegal regime change.[18][19][20]

Serbia 2000

The United States is alleged to have made secret effort to topple the dictator Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia. The 5 October Revolution removed Milošević and installed a democratic government.[21][22]

Venezuela 2002

In 2002, Washington is claimed to have approved and supported a coup against the democratically-elected Venezuelan government, acting through senior officials of the U.S. government, including Special Envoy to Latin America Otto Reich and convicted Iran-contra figure and George W. Bush "democracy 'czar'" Elliott Abrams, who have long histories in the U.S. backed "dirty wars" of the 1980s in Central America, and links to U.S.-supported death squads working in Central America at that time.^[52] Top coup plotters, including Pedro Carmona, the man installed during the coup as the new president, began visits to the White House months before the coup and continued until weeks before the putsch. The plotters were received at the White House by the man President George W. Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Special Envoy Otto Reich.^[53] It has been claimed that Reich was the U.S. mastermind of the coup.^[54]

Former U.S. Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen, told the British newspaper the Guardian that American military attaches had been in touch with members of the Venezuelan military to explore the possibility of a coup. "I first heard of Lieutenant Colonel James Rogers [the assistant military attache now based at the U.S. embassy in Caracas] going down there last June [2001] to set the ground," Mr. Madsen reported, adding: "Some of our counter-narcotics agents were also involved." He claims the U.S. Navy assisted with signals intelligence as the coup played out and helped by jamming communications for the Venezuelan military, focusing on jamming communications to and from the diplomatic missions in Caracas. The U.S. embassy dismissed the allegations as "ridiculous".^[55]

The U.S. also funded opposition groups in the year leading up to the coup, channeling hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to U.S. and Venezuelan groups opposed to President Hugo Chavez, including the labor group whose protests sparked off the coup. The funds were provided by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED),^[56] a nonprofit organization whose roots, according to an article in Slate trace back to the late 1960s when the public learned of CIA machinations to covertly fund parties and activists opposing the Soviets. Congress created the NED in 1983 which disburses money to pro-democracy groups around the globe and do so openly.^[57] The State Department is now examining whether one or more recipients of the NED money may have actively plotted against the Venezuelan government. ^[58]

Bush Administration officials and anonymous sources acknowledged meeting with some of the planners of the coup in the several weeks prior to April 11, but have strongly denied encouraging the coup itself, saying that they insisted on constitutional means. [23] Because of allegations, Sen. Christopher Dodd requested a review of U.S. activities leading up to and during the coup attempt. The OIG report found no "wrongdoing" by U.S. officials either in the State Department or in the U.S. Embassy. Inspector General Report

Libya 2003

Libya in 2003 disarmed its weapons of mass destruction arsenal due to fear of U.S. regime change.[24]

North Korea 2003

A secret Donald Rumsfeld memorandum calling for regime change in North Korea was leaked in 2003.[25]

Georgia, 2003

There are allegations from Russia that the United States supported the Rose Revolution, which installed a democratic government.[26][27]

Ukraine, 2004

There are allegations from Russia that the United States supported the Orange revolution, which installed a democratic government.[28][29]

Equatorial Guinea 2004

Zimbabwe has accused the United States of involvement in a 2004 attempted coup against Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, dictator of Equatorial Guinea.[30]

Lebanon 2005

The Cedar Revolution is claimed to have been supported by the US.[31]

Palestinian Authority, 2006-??

Since at least January 2006, the United States has supplied guns, ammunition and training to Palestinian Fatah groups, and according to an article in the Asia Times, in order to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas government in the Palestinian territories.^[59] Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by many Western nations. Asia Times states that apparently headed up by Bush Administration "democracy czar" and neo-con Elliott Abrams, the U.S. supply of rifles and ammunition, which started as a mere trickle, has become a torrent and a large number of Fatah men have been trained at two West Bank camps to attack Hamas supporters in the streets. The Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz reports that the U.S. has designated an astounding US$86.4 million for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' security detail.^[60]

According the Asia Times article, U.S. arming of Fatah continued even though some officials predicted that it could lead to a Palestinian civil war, which would be an unwelcome development by most countries of the region. An anonymous official stated: "Who the hell outside of Washington wants to see a civil war among Palestinians?" Also according to the article, Elliott Abrams had also publicly advocated a "hard coup" against the newly elected Hamas government, but U.S. spokesmen later dismissed these remarks as due to momentary frustration.^[60] After months of street fighting in which hundreds of Palestinians were killed, Palestinian Authority President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas indeed dismissed the Hamas-led government in June 2007, and a new unelected "emergency cabinet," led by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, was sworn in in place of the Hamas government in the West Bank.^[61]

Somalia 2006-2007

See CIA covert ops Somalias 2006-2007.

Venezuela 2007

See CIA covert ops in Venezuela for 2007.

Iran 2007

The Asia Times cites a New Yorker Magazine's investigative report, according to which the U.S. has military commando units operating inside Iran.^[62] That same article in Asia Times reported that U.S. policy is one of lighting "the fire of ethnic and sectarian strife" to destabilize and eventually topple the government of Iran. The Washington Quarterly magazine as cited by the Asia Times article, reported:

"the Sunni Balochi resistance could prove valuable to Western intelligence agencies with an interest in destabilizing the hardline regime in Tehran.... The United States maintained close contacts with the Balochis till 2001, at which point it withdrew support when Tehran promised to repatriate any U.S. airmen who had to land in Iran as a result of damage sustained in combat operations in Afghanistan."^[63]

According to ABC news, citing U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources, U.S. officials have been secretly encouraging and advising a Pakistani Balochi militant group named Jundullah that is responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran, reported ABC News online. The Jundullah militants "stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera," This militant group is led by a youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, sometimes known as "Regi." The U.S. provides no direct funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "presidential finding" as well as congressional oversight. A CIA spokesperson said "the account of alleged CIA action is false" and reiterated that the U.S. provides no funding of the Jundullah group.^[64] Regi is also claimed by Iran to be associated with al Qaida which the group denies. The Baluchis accuse the government of discriminatory and repressive policies. Hossein Ali Shahriari, the representative from Zahedan in Parliament, said the attack had been carried out by “insurgents and smugglers who are led by the world imperialism,” a common reference to the United States and Britain.^[65]

Another claimed US proxy inside Iran has been the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK). The New Yorker in November 2006 was told by a government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon civilian leadership of secret US support for PEJAK for operations inside Iran, stating that the group had been given “a list of targets inside Iran of interest to the U.S.”.^[66]

Myanmar (Burma), 2007

Myanmar's junta has stated that nationwide monk protests, which took place in August and September, were the results of timely collaborated plots of "a Western power" and antigovernment groups aiming to install a puppet government in the country. The Myanmar junta used to refer the United States as "a Western power".[32]

References

See also

• Overthrow (book)
• Overthrow of the Hawai'ian Monarchy
  • Covert operations, coups, military advisors etc.
• William Walker (soldier) (1824 - 1860)
• Australian constitutional crisis of 1975
• NSC 5412/2 Special Group
• 40 Committee

External links

• [33] A Map of U.S. Foreign Policy
• U.S. Offensive in Latin America: Coups, Retreats, and Radicalization
• Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. Amy Goodman interviews Stephen Kinzer.
• "Part II...Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq" May 8th, 2006 Democracy Now!
• A paper that analyses the nature and maintenance of what it argues is a U.S. empire.

References

• Stephen Kinzer Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, Times Books, 2006, ISBN 0-8050-7861-4
• Robert Fisk The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East; (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate, xxvi, 1366 pages. ISBN 1-84115-007-X
• The Largest Covert Operation in CIA History by Chalmers Johnson
• William Blum 2003 Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, revised edition (Common Courage Press) ISBN 1-56751-252-6