from the book

Killing Hope

U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II

by William Blum

published by Common Courage Press in 1995

"[American leaders] are perhaps not so much immoral as they are amoral. It's not that they take pleasure in causing so much death and suffering. It's that they just don't care ... the same that could be said about a sociopath. As long as the death and suffering advance the agenda of the empire, as long as the right people and the right corporations gain wealth and power and privilege and prestige, as long as the death and suffering aren't happening to them or people close to them ... then they just don't care about it happening to other people, including the American soldiers whom they throw into wars and who come home-the ones who make it back alive-with Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome eating away at their bodies. American leaders would not be in the positions they hold if they were bothered by such things."

William Blum. Killing Hope

 

Edited versions

Killing Hope - excerpts from introduction to Original Edition

Angola 1975-1980s
Brazil 1961-1964
Cambodia 1955-1973
Chile 1964-1973
Congo 1960-1964
Cuba 1959-1980s
Dominican Republic 1960-1966
East Timor 1975
El Salvador 1980-1994
Greece 1964-1974
Grenada 1979-1984
Guatemala 1953-1954
Guatemala 1962-1980s
Haiti 1986-1994
Indonesia 1957-1958
Indonesia 1965
Iran 1953
Laos 1957-1973
Nicaragua 1981-1990
Uruguay 1964-1970
Zaire 1975-1978

US government assassination plots since World War II

"It was in the early days of the fighting in Vietnam that a Vietcong officer said to his American prisoner: "You were our heroes after the War. We read American books and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was 'to be as rich and as wise as an American'. What happened?

An American might have been asked something similar by a Guatemalan, an Indonesian or a Cuban during the ten years previous, or by a Uruguayan, a Chilean or a Greek in the decade subsequent. The remarkable international goodwill and credibility enjoyed by the United States at the close of the Second World War was dissipated country by country, intervention by intervention."

William Blum

Unedited versions

Killing Hope - introduction to Original Edition
Killing Hope - introduction to New Edition

Angola 1975 to 1980s
Bulgaria 1990 / Albania 1991
Cuba 1959-1980s
Ecuador 1960-1963
Haiti 1986-1994
Indonesia 1957-1958
Iraq 1990-1991
Italy 1947-1948
Uruguay 1964-1970

The American Empire: 1992 to present - 2004 edition

 

www.killinghope.org/

bblum6@aol.com


William Blum page

Authors and Books