Militarizing Latin America - USA crimes, as ever by Noam Chomsky
The United States was founded as an "infant empire," in George
Washington's words. The conquest of the national territory was a
grand imperial venture, much like the vast expansion of the
Grand Duchy of Moscow. From the earliest days, control over the
Western Hemisphere was a critical goal. Ambitions expanded
during World War II, as the US displaced Britain and lesser
imperial powers. High-level planners concluded that the US
should "hold unquestioned power" in a world system including not
only the Western Hemisphere, but also the former British Empire
and the Far East, and later, as much of Eurasia as possible. A
primary goal of NATO was to block moves towards European
independence, along Gaullist lines. That became still more clear
when the USSR collapsed, and with it the Russian threat that was
the formal justification of NATO. NATO was not disbanded, but
rather expanded, in violation of promises to Mikhail Gorbachev
that NATO would not even