Memes

Belgian here. Nope. No idea what they're on about.

A lot of this is really old so it's the kind of thing my parents casually mentioned when I was growing up.

But then we learn the details at University, either in history classes or more broadly in any kind of discussion of colonialism, neoimperialism, etc.

Do high school history and social studies classes have a day or a week that discuss US imperialism & shady dealings of recent decades?

No, that's the entire curriculum. Kinda impossible not to properly discuss a country's hystory without mentioning the US when the US has been fucking with it

Austrian here - 1st question: no idea. 2nd question: no Same here, US imperialism was never discussed as such in my history lessons during the late 80ies and 90ies. Would read about these atrocities only mich later, maybe in more "official" sources only if you're a student of history or politics and such.

How they will teach about the military dictatorship era of my country without mentioning Operation Condor?

Gladio targeted all of Europe, not just the East. Remember that the Communist parties were strong in the west too, especially in Italy and France. Hell, they were part of the government under De Gaulle as members of the coalition.

Thx. I def recommend reading some articles that get into the depravity of some of these. Outside of the at least half a million people killed in the above operations, the coups, tortures, dissappearances, and entire communities wiped out is staggering.

Some more short blurbs :

• Starting in the 1970s, a CIA-backed coalition of right wing governments in Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil, began Operation Condor, a campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents, with the stated aim of "eliminating Marxist subversion." Victims included dissidents and leftists, union and peasant leaders, priests and nuns, students and teachers, intellectuals and suspected guerillas. An estimated 30,000 to 80,000 leftists or sympathizers were killed. 1
• From the 1950s-90s, the CIA and NATO ran a series of clandestine networks, headquartered in Rome, Italy called Operation Gladio. Its purpose was supplying aid (primarily money and weaponry) to right wing paramilitaries to attack left-wing movements, and carry out assassinations and bombings, as well as funnel money to centrist political parties. It had operations in Belgium, Finland, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria. In Italy, the group had 600+ members, and carried out car bombings during Italy's years of lead. In Germany, it included former Nazi SS members—Staff Sgt. Heinrich Hoffman, Lt. Col. Hans Rues, and Lt. Col. Walter Kopp. CIA weapons caches are still being discovered in all the countries above.
• From the 1940s - 60s, the CIA provided an average of $5 million annually in covert aid towards financially supporting centrist Italian governments and using the awarding of contracts to weaken the Italian Communist Party's hold on labor unions. It was also involved in bombings and assassinations as a part of Operation Gladio.
• Between 1963 and 1973, The US dropped ~388,000 tons of napalm bombs in vietnam, compared to 32,357 tons used over three years in the Korean War, and 16,500 tons dropped on Japan in 1945. US also sprayed over 5 million acres with herbicide, in Operation Ranch Hand, in a 10 year campaign to deprive the vietnamese of food and vegetation cover. 1,2
• In 1967, the CIA helped South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in villages, in the Phoenix Program. By 1972, Phoenix operatives had executed between 26,000 and 41,000 suspected NLF operatives, informants and supporters.1
• In 1965, The CIA overthrew the democratically elected Indonesian leader Sukarno with a military coup. The CIA had been trying to eliminate Sukarno since 1957, using everything from attempted assassination to sexual intrigue, for nothing more than his declaring neutrality in the Cold War. His successor, General Suharto, aided by the CIA, massacred between 500,000 to 1 million civilians accused of being communist, in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66. The US continued to support Suharto throughout the 70s, supplying weapons and planes.

Operation Condor: The Brazilian military overthrew president João Goulart in 1964.

a bunch of it was because of his intent to do land reform. we remain the world's farm to this day while most of our people starve. groceries are super expensive in one of the the biggest agrarian countries on the planet. of course they quite literally tortured and killed lefitsts left and right to the point the movement died and we turned into a reactionary country.

maybe in 40 years they will release the files on how they helped bolsonaro into power. it will remain in the realm of speculation until then. we are just lucky he was really incompetent.

same for portuguese speaking countries afaik, we use "estadunidense". many bootlickers say "americano" though, i imagine thats the case for spanish-speaking countries too.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usonia

I wish this had stuck.

feels too respectful idk

US history programs are 95% propaganda so it’s not surprising.

Wait, really?

Unfortunately this meme is only part of it. Things like covering up Unit 731 didn't even get mentioned.

Well, you guys should have come up with a better demonym that didn't belong to the entire continent(s)