#gough whitlam

[luthienebonyx]

What a truly progressive government looks like

The man in this photo is Gough (pronounced Goff) Whitlam, the 21st prime minister of Australia. Fifty years ago, on 2 December 1972, Gough Whitlam’s Australian Labor Party won the federal election, and ushered in easily the most progressive government Australia has ever had. It was a government that truly changed Australia, and set it on the path towards being the country it is today.

Gough (he was one of those rare politicians who was widely known simply by his first name. There was truly only one Gough) was tall and imposing, with silver hair and dark eyebrows, and a booming voice that delivered his razor sharp wit. When he led the ALP to victory in 1972, the party had been out of government for 23 long years, and were determined to make a difference when at last they were back in power. As you’ve probably worked out from the glorious 1970s t-shirts in the picture, the election campaign slogan was It’s Time. It featured in a famous election ad jingle, performed by Alison McCallum and accompanied by many famous faces of the time.

After winning the 1972 election, Gough wasted no time in implementing his election promises. Not willing to wait until the final results of the election were confirmed and the full ministry could be appointed, he and his deputy, Lance Barnard, were sworn in as prime minister and deputy prime minister on 5 December. Between the two of them, they held all 27 government portfolios for two weeks until the rest of the ministry was sworn in. The duumvirate, as it was known:

ordered negotiations to establish full relations with China

ended conscription in the Vietnam War

freed the conscientious objectors who had been jailed for refusing conscription

ordered home all remaining Australian troops in Vietnam

re-opened the equal pay case (for women, who were at that time by law paid less than men for doing the same job) and appointed a woman, Elizabeth Evatt, to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, the body that made the decision

abolished sales tax on the contraceptive pill

announced major grants for the arts

appointed an interim schools commission

barred racially discriminatory sport teams from Australia, and instructed the Australian delegation at the United Nations to vote in favour of sanctions on apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia

And that was just the first two weeks.

In the three years that followed, the Whitlam government:

introduced a national universal health scheme

abolished university fees

abolished the death penalty for federal crimes

established Legal Aid

replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair as the national anthem

replaced the British honours system with the Order of Australia

created the family court and introduced no fault divorce, the first country in the world to do so

ended the White Australia policy

introduced the racial discrimination act

advocated for Indigenous rights, including creating the Aboriginal Land Fund and the Aboriginal Loans Commission, and returned some of their traditional lands to the Gurunji people in the Northern Territory. This was the first time that any Australian government had returned land to its original custodians. Here’s a famous photograph by Mervyn Bishop of Gough pouring a handful of red earth into the hands of Gurunji leader Vincent Lingiari, ‘as a sign that this land will be in the possession of you and your children forever‘:

I’m sure there are more achievements of the Whitlam government that I’m forgetting. There were a lot.

Of course, the Whitlam government will always be seen through the lens of the way it ended, but I’m not going to talk about the constitutional crisis of 1975 - plenty of books have been written about that, including one by Gough himself - or about the various dysfunctions of the Whitlam government, particularly once the international oil crisis hit in 1973.

I just really want to point out that truly progressive governments can change their countries profoundly, and for the lasting betterment of their people. Not everything that the Whitlam government achieved withstood the assaults of the conservative government that followed it, but some did and are still with us, half a century later, while other aspects, like universal healthcare, were resurrected by the Hawke Labor government a decade later, and endure to this day.

Gough died in 2014 at the age of 98, not quite making his personal century. Tonight I’m raising a glass to his memory. Thanks, Gough, for all the things you did to make this country a better, fairer, more inclusive place.

[v-as-in-victor]

Eugene! Not again!!

[hiddenhome]

Happy exactly 49 years since Australian Prime Minister Edward Gough Whitlam was dismissed from parliament by Governor-General Sir John Robert Kerr, at 1pm on the 11th of November 1975.

Happy Dissmissalversary to all who mourn !

do you guys think it's possible for a fungus and an algae to on purposed kiss

[brianrope]

Capturing Canberra

Photography Exhibition Review Capturing Canberra | Various Photojournalists CMAG | 8 JUL 2023 – 28 JAN 2024 Capturing Canberra showcases the recently acquired Press Photography Collection of the Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG). On display for the first time – part of it that is – this remarkable collection of 3,560 press photographs captures the essence of Canberra, its people, and events…

[funamblrist]

Smacka Fitzgibbon performing a parody of his own 'The Adventures of Barry McKenzie' for ABC’s This Day Tonight program in 1973, reviewing the first 12 months of the Whitlam government

[phlebasphoenician]

1972: While giving a speech, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam is repeatedly asked by a heckler for his stance on abortion. Frustrated he finally replies "Let me make it quite clear that I am for abortion, and in your case sir we should make it retrospective."

[mariacallous]

Good.

[sporco-filth]

Episode 1 - The Finale

This is the 'pilot' of that sitcom about slobs I described before.

Synopsis:

The finale of Tom’s favourite anime is airing, but a black out in the apartment complex risks ruining his plans. Kyle and Felix go to fix the problem but get locked in the basement. In order to watch his show (and save his friends) Tom must face his greatest nightmare: doing something.

[Kyle opens his door and sees Felix walking up the stairs, carrying a toolbox]

Kyle: Hey, Felix! Just the guy I wanted to see.

Felix: Yeah?

Kyle: You hungry? Fed and I are going out to grab a bite.

Felix: Sorry, Jess called. She has a leaky pipe that needs fixing.

Kyle: Boo. You’re no fun.

[He’s about to leave when an idea comes to mind]

Kyle: Actually… I have a bit of a plumbing job you could help with.

Felix: Really?

Kyle: Yeah. I need my pipes cleared. You think you can come round later tonight?

[Kyle gives a suggestive look. Felix scratches his chin]

Felix: I guess I could. What exactly is stuck in it?

Kyle: Cream.

Felix: OK? You can’t just flush it out yourself?

Kyle: I guess I could, but it’s really, really hard. And I don’t want to do it alone.

Felix: Can’t Fed help?

Kyle: I was thinking we could do it together.

Felix: Really? I’m sure it’d be an easy one man job.

[Kyle sighs]

Kyle: Boo. You’re no fun.

[He walks back inside and closes the door]

Felix: Huh? What do you mean?

[No response. Felix goes back to climbing the stairs.]

Felix (to himself): Clearing his pipes…? Oh…

[Realisation hits]

Felix: Heh that is kinda funny.

~Opening Credits~

[Kyle’s outside Tom’s door and knocks]

Kyle: Hey, Tommy! Open up!

Tom: It’s open.

[Kyle enters. We see Tom’s apartment. It’s dark, lit up only by the massive TV screen. Tom’s lying on the couch snacking on a bag of chips.]

Tom: [without looking up] What?

Kyle: Fed and I are going out for dinner. You wanna come?

Tom: Can’t. Got plans.

[He eats a chip and stares blankly at the TV.]

Kyle: What plans?

Tom: I’m watching Magical Siren Boy Tsugiharu.

Kyle: Isn’t that that dumb anime about the mermaid guy who has like weird singing powers?

Tom: It’s not dumb! It’s a masterfully crafted show that explores themes of love and purpose while skillfully blending epic battle sequences with stunning musical numbers. The show’s been going on for 13 years, with 338 episodes, five feature-length films and a spin-off series. The final episode airs tonight at ten thirty and I refuse to miss a second.

Kyle: But it’s only seven. You can come to dinner and get back before it starts.

Tom: Yeah, but they’re also showing a marathon of all the fan-favourite episodes before it and I want to watch that too.

Kyle: Suit yourself.

[Kyle leaves and heads across the hall to his place. Fed’s in the kitchen snacking.]

Kyle: Tom’s not coming.

Fed: Why not?

Kyle: Some stupid anime thing.

Fed: Oh! I completely forgot! Magical Siren Boy Tsugiharu has its finale tonight. It’s the end of an era…

[Kyle rolls his eyes, then notices Fed eating.]

Kyle: Aren’t you going to ruin your appetite?

[Kyle scratches his bum.]

Fed: No, I’m warming up. I need to get my stomach ready to eat by starting with something light before it can digest a full meal. [He eats another handful and talks with his mouth full.] Did you ask Felix?

Fed: Yeah, but he said he’s got some dumb plumbing thing to do. I guess it’s just us.

[We cut to Felix who does something, the building completely blacks out.]

Kyle: What was that?

Fed: It’s a blackout!

Tom: [from offstage] THE ELECTRICITY! WHO TURNED OFF THE POWER!? WHAT HAPPENED!?

[A loud fumbling is heard and a crash.]

Tom: Oww…

[Kyle and Fed open the door. They shine a torch from their phone and find Tom lying on the floor.]

Fed: You OK?

Tom: I’m fine. I tripped running out the door.

Kyle: You? Running? This is serious.

Tom: Of course it is! Life without electricity isn’t worth living! Everything I love needs electricity: internet, video games, microwaved food, TV. And I’ll miss Magical Siren Boy Tsugiharu! Wait, maybe I can livestream it from my phone…

[He opens his phone.]

Tom: OK, the wifi’s out, but I’ve got data still…

[The light from his phone goes black.]

Kyle: What happened?

Tom: It ran out of power.

Fed: That quickly?

Tom: Well, I meant to charge it this morning… but I couldn’t be arsed...

Kyle: That sounds more like our Tommy.

[Felix comes down the stairs using his phone as a torch.]

Felix: Hey, sorry about that guys…

Kyle: What do you mean?

Felix: I think it might’ve been my fault: Jess asked me to fix a leaky pipe and uh… well some water got on her hairdryer and there was a lot of scary sparks and stuff then it all went black.

Tom: What?! So it’s your fault I’ll miss the last ep of MSBT?

Felix: MS-what?

Fed: Magical Siren Boy Tsugiharu.

Felix: That’s tonight? Wow, I thought that show would never end.

Kyle: Am I the only one who doesn’t watch anime here?

Tom: Yes. [He turns to Felix] You have to fix this now! I can’t miss the finale.

Felix: All right, all right. I said I was sorry and I’ll make it up to you, don’t worry. The lights’ll be back on in no time.

Kyle: We better go talk to Bob. He should know what to do. Hopefully we can get it done quickly; I’d hate to see what Fed’ll do if the food in the fridge goes off.

Fed: Wait… the fridge!

[Fed runs back inside.]

Kyle: Me and my big mouth… [He turns to Felix and Tom] Well, you guys coming?

Felix: It was my fault after all; the least I can do is help fix things.

Tom: I’m too tired from trying to run before, you two go on without me.

[Tom slumps onto the ground.]

Kyle: I guess it’s just us two then. Let’s go.

[The scene changes to outside Bob’s room. Kyle knocks on the door.]

Kyle: Hey! Bob! Open up!

[A lot of rumbling is heard. The door eventually opens to show Bob, looking grumpy.]

Bob: Don’t tell me: you two are responsible for the blackout.

Kyle: No… just Felix.

Bob: I’ve had it up to here with you guys running to me whenever something goes bust here. It’s your mess, you clean it up this time.

Kyle: Bob, you know as well as I do that Felix doesn’t clean up anything, let alone his own messes.

Felix: Hey! I… yeah, that’s actually not wrong…

Bob: Here [he pulls out a ring of keys]: go down to the basement and you can find the circuit breaker. It’s probably just a matter of flicking a switch or something.

Felix: Which switch?

[Bob slams the door.]

Kyle: (Sigh). Let’s get this over with. Tom’s probably having a fit by now.

[Scene shifts back to the hallway. Tom’s fallen asleep on the ground.]

[Back in Fed’s kitchen, Fed opens the fridge.]

Fed: All right. Operation Save Food From Spoiling is go. I guess we’ll start with the cold meats…

[He grabs a pack of prosciutto and dangles a slice down into his gullet.]

[Outside the basement door, Felix is trying out the keys. Finally he gets the one that works.]

Felix: Got it!

[He opens the door to reveal the basement, which is filled with broken appliances and old boxes.]

Felix: Now, where’s this circuit breaker…

[They shine their torches around… maybe some funny quips happen.]

Kyle: Found it!

[The guys go over to it.]

Felix: It’s locked. I bet the key’s with the others.

[The door slams shut.]

Felix: Ah, Kyle.

Kyle: Yeah?

Felix: Have you got the keyring?

Kyle: No, I thought you had it.

Felix: Well I don’t.

[Felix goes to open the door but it’s locked.]

Kyle: Ok… This isn’t good.

Felix: Don’t worry, we can call Fed.

[He pulls out his phone.]

Kyle: It’s not just the door. It’s not good because I can feel a fart coming.

[Felix’s face falls.]

Felix: Oh no… please Kyle I beg you, hold on!

Kyle: You’ve got like a minute.

[He rings Fed.]

[The scene returns to the kitchen, Fed is now eating the last slice of a cheesecake. His phone rings and he picks it up.]

Fed: Yeah?

Felix (through the phone): Fed! You’ve got to come downstairs to the basement. We got ourselves locked in.

Kyle (through the phone, yelling): YOU got us locked in!

Felix: Yeah, anyway. We need you to open the door; the keys are in the lock. Please hurry! Kyle’s holding back a lot of gas.

Fed: I’ll be right there!

[He hangs up and tries to stand, but clutches his belly, flopping back down.]

Fed: Ooh… I’m not feeling too good…

[His stomach gurgles loudly.]

Maybe I can get Tom to go…

[He drags himself to the door, which is still open, and yells out.]

Fed: Tom! Tom!

[Tom snores. Fed throws the slice of cheesecake at him that he was still holding. Tom wakes up with a start.]

Tom: Huh? What was that for?

Fed: Felix and Kyle got locked in the basement and I’m not in any state to be climbing stairs. I need you to go down and open the door for them.

Tom: I ain’t going down there. Not without the elevator. Do you know how many steps that is?

Fed: You have to! Kyle’s got a massive fart brewing. Felix hasn’t built up a tolerance to Kyle’s gas like I have; he’ll suffocate!

Tom: I don’t care. Let him suffocate. I’m not walking down those stairs. I already ran today.

Fed: You ran like ten steps.

Tom: That’s ten more than I’ve run in the past five years.

[Fed tries to move closer, but his stomach gurgles and he stops, clutching it in pain.]

Fed: Please… if you don’t go… then you won’t be able to watch MSBT.

[Tom sits up straight.]

Tom: Argh, you’re right… For Tsugihara, I shall do it.

[Felix hands him his phone.]

Fed: It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.

[Tom stands up and wields the phone above his head, the torch light on.]

Tom: With the power of the Seven Seas flowing through me, I shall banish the darkness!

[Tom slowly walks down the stairs.]

Fed: You could go a little faster…

[Back in the basement. Kyle is straining.]

Felix: Please, hold it in!

Kyle: I don’t know if I can do it (grunt). This one feels pretty strong.

Felix: You must!

[Tom on the stairs, slowly going down. He pauses to catch his breath.]

Tom: Whew… I don’t know if I can do it… it’s so many steps.

Fed (from upstairs): You’ve only gone down half a floor.

Tom: I could do without the running commentary, thank you!

[In the basement. Kyle is sweating.]

Kyle: I’m sorry Felix… Ahhhhh…

[He relaxes and farts. It’s long and loud. Felix covers his mouth with his top.]

Felix: GAH! HELP! HELP!

[The door opens and Tom appears. He immediately covers his mouth.]

Tom: Ugh! I come all this way to save you and this is how you repay me?

Felix: Tom! My saviour!

[He grabs Tom into a hug. Tom pushes him off.]

Tom: OK, OK. That’s enough. I did this for Tsugihara, not you. Here: I believe you lost these?

[He hands out the keys. Kyle takes them.]

Kyle: I’ll take it from here. You guys should head up to get some fresh air.

Felix: I’m not sure my nose will recover from this…

[Tom and Felix leave the room. Kyle goes to the circuit breaker and opens it.]

Kyle: Let’s see…

[He flicks a switch and, after a bit of a sluggish start, the lights flicker back on.]

[Back upstairs, Fed, still eating, sees the lights turn on.]

Fed: They did it! Yes!

[He jumps up but immediately regrets it and clutches his stomach.]

Fed: Oooh…

[Soon after, the guys enter the room.]

Felix: I’m sorry again for all the trouble I caused, but I guess it’s all fixed now.

Tom: And not a moment too soon. I’ve got a finale to watch, see ya.

[Tom leaves. Kyle notices Fed’s discomfort.]

Kyle: You alright there?

Fed (not alright): Yep. Just a bit of a stomach ache… I ate too much too fast… And it’s like the UN down there: I don’t think that leftover Chinese is getting along with the Indian curry.

[His stomach gurgles ominously.]

Fed: Uh oh…

[All of a sudden, Fed releases a loud fart.]

Felix: No! Not again! Ack-urgh!

[He runs out of the room.]

Fed: Sorry Kyle…

Kyle: Heh, no stress. I’ll love you no matter how bad you stink. After all, you have to put up with my stenches, now it’s my turn to deal with the smell.

Fed: Aww, you’re so sweet.

Kyle: And anyway, [he gently rubs Fed’s gut while savouring the smell]  you know that it kinda turns me on. How about we cancel dinner and have some fun at home?

Fed: I think that sounds wonderful. Also, I may have just eaten everything in the fridge…

[In Tom’s room, he’s now settled back on the couch and ready to watch TV.]

Tom: Ah, at long last…

[The MSBT theme music plays. Suddenly it stops.]

News host: We interrupt this broadcast for a breaking news bulletin.

Tom: No! Don’t interrupt!

News host: His Excellency the Honourable Sir Arthur Vandeleigh, former Governor-General of Australia, has died peacefully in his sleep.

Tom: Come on, come on…

TV host: We have a three-hour obituary scheduled in honour of this great man who valiantly served his country.

Narrator: Though he may have inhabited the role for only three months, Arthur Vandeleigh’s tenure as Governor-General was…

Tom: NOOOOOO!

~End Credits~

[peglarpapers]

nothing radicalises you like postgraduate tuition fee calculators

[kesarijournal]

The Unspoken Link: Section 25, Aboriginal Genocide, and the Australian Referendum

Australia’s upcoming referendum, shrouded in a mysterious voting code, offers a unique lens through which we can reexamine some dark facets of the country’s history. Particularly, it provokes renewed scrutiny of Section 25 of the Australian Constitution, a clause deeply rooted in the colonial legacy, and raises questions about its role in perpetuating systemic inequalities against Aboriginal…

[innervoiceartblog]

This painting: Gough Whitlam Park (2004) by Gilbert Grace. Oil on cotton.

“When Europeans arrived on the east coast of the continent, the Cooks River Valley was on the frontier.

It was from the thick bush around the Cooks River that the Aboriginal hero Pemulwuy famously began his campaign of resistance.

Over the next two centuries Aboriginal people adapted to survive, some shifted to hidden campsites along the Georges River, while others moved down stream to the coast.”

Source: Cooks River Valley Association.

The Cooks River was the lifeblood of the Aboriginal people who lived along it before white settlement.

Its polluted and deteriorated state was a blow to both the Aboriginal people and their ancestors, according to Canterbury Aboriginal Advisory Group chair Joan Tranter.

“That’s their homeland, Aboriginal people lived along the Cooks River long before white people,” she said.

“It wasn’t the Cooks River before Captain Cook came.”

The river which runs through most of the inner west was home to different aboriginal clans such the Cadigal Wangal clan of the Darug tribe and the Bidjigal people also known as the river people.

“Who thought about concreting the banks of the Cooks River back then? In some areas they have taken out the concrete and it’s coming back to life,” Ms Tranter said.

“The mud crabs groups go along there and do the water testing, when they can see the mud crabs then they can tell the water quality is good.”

Ms Tranter has been working with council on the committee trying to raise awareness of the Aboriginal history along the river.

[philibetexcerpts]

“As Queen of Australia, Elizabeth II had an abiding affection for the distant realm she had visited five times since her coronation. When Whitlam was first elected in 1972, she was eager to win over the man who spoke frankly about wanting to eliminate the monarchy in his country. She invited him to stay at Windsor Castle in April 1973 on the night of her forty-seventh birthday, along with his wife…

After dinner, Whitlam gave the Queen a birthday present: a ‘deep-piled cream sheepskin rug,’ which she and her sister flirtatiously sat upon after it had been spread on the floor of the drawing room. ‘That evening she was quite determined to catch her man,’ Martin Charteris told author Graham Turner. ‘A lot of her sexuality has been suppressed, but that night, she used it like a weapon. She wrapped Gough Whitlam round her little finger, knocked him sideways. She sat on that rug in front of him, stroked it and said how lovely it was. It was an arrant use of sexuality. I was absolutely flabbergasted.’ Whitlam later said to Charteris, ‘Well, if she’s like that, it’s all right by me!’”

Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch by Sally Bedell Smith

Just found your page and went through the philibet dirty confessions 👀.

I WISH I could remember what book I read this in because I hear no one talking about this but there was a small part of this book about the queen where it talks about how this Australian government person came to England to meet the queen and the queen knew that he was anti keeping the monarchy for Australia (or something like that, I might be skewing this a little bit it was a while ago when I read it) but he gifted her a fur rug and she sat on it, directly in front of him and basically stroked it seductively and let a slight bit of her sexuality show and the guy literally told someone along the lines of “well if the queen is like that then I suppose the monarchy can stay” and I feel like that solidified what we all already knew that she was seductive and passionate as hell. (If I can remember the book and chapter I’ll report back and post an excerpt!)

CAUSE I REMEMBER READING THISSSS AJFNANFNAMFKAMFWMDKS

[batshit-auspol]

The 1962 Guiness Book of Records includes a 1955 world record for fastest beer drinker, achieved by a Mr R. Hawke while studying at Oxford University.

This man was none other than Bob Hawke, who went on to become Prime Minister of Australia.

When he died in 2019, nearly every newspaper commemorated him with stories featuring pictures of him drinking, including this pic of Hawke downing a yard glass of beer while standing next to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

He is commemorated by the 'Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure centre' - a popular pub in the current electorate of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, which claims to serve succulent Chinese meals.

[notahorseindisguise]

does it make anybody else super fucking pissed that the US just . decided they didnt like gough whitlam. and they just. got rid of him. god the US needs to fucking die

[lilithism1848]

Atrocities US committed against ASIA

Between 1996-2006, The US has given money and weapons to royalist forces against the nepalese communists in the Nepalese civil war. ~18,000 people have died in the conflict. In 2002, after another civil war erupted, President George W. Bush pushed a bill through Congress authorizing $20 million in military aid to the Nepalese government.

In 1996, after receiving incredibly low approval ratings, the US helped elect Boris Yeltsin, an incompetent pro-capitalist independent, by giving him a $10 Billion dollar loan to finance a winning election. Rather than creating new enterprises, Yeltsin’s democratization led to international monopolies hijacking the former Soviet markets, arbitraging the huge difference between old domestic prices for Russian commodities and the prices prevailing on the world market. Much of the Yeltsin era was marked by widespread corruption, and as a result of persistent low oil and commodity prices during the 1990s, Russia suffered inflation, economic collapse and enormous political and social problems that affected Russia and the other former states of the USSR. Under Yeltsin, Between 1990 and 1994, life expectancy for Russian men and women fell from 64 and 74 years respectively to 58 and 71 years. The surge in mortality was “beyond the peacetime experience of industrialised countries”. While it was boom time for the new oligarchs, poverty and unemployment surged; prices were hiked dramatically; communities were devastated by deindustrialisation; and social protections were stripped away.

In the 1970s-80s, wikileaks cables revealed that the US covertly supported the Khmer Rouge in their fight against the Vietnamese communists. Annual support included an end total of ~$215M USD, food aid to 20-40k Khmer Rouge fighters, CIA advisors in several camps, and ammunition.

In December 1975, The US supplied the weaponry for the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. This incursion was launched the day after U.S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had left Indonesia where they had given President Suharto permission to use American arms, which under U.S. law, could not be used for aggression. Daniel Moynihan, U.S. ambassador to the UN. said that the U.S. wanted “things to turn out as they did.” The result was an estimated 200,000 dead out of a population of 700,000. Sixteen years later, on November 12, 1991, two hundred and seventeen East Timorese protesters in Dili, many of them children, marching from a memorial service, were gunned down by Indonesian Kopassus shock troops who were headed by U.S.- trained commanders Prabowo Subianto (son in law of General Suharto) and Kiki Syahnakri. Trucks were seen dumping bodies into the sea.

In 1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis, the CIA helped topple the democratically elected, left-leaning government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, by telling Governor-General, John Kerr, a longtime CIA collaborator, to dissolve the Whitlam government.

In 2018 after the release of a suppressed ISC (International Scientific Commission) report, and the release of declassified CIA communications daily reports in 2020, it was revealed that the US used germ warfare in the Korean war, 2. Many of these attacks involved the dropping of insects or small mammals infected with viruses such as anthrax, plague, cholera, and encephalitis. After discovering evidence of germ warfare, China invited the ISC headed by famed British scientist Joseph Needham, to investigate, but the report was suppressed for over 70 years.

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.

In 1971 in Pakistan, an authoritarian state supported by the U.S., brutally invaded East Pakistan in the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971. The war ended after India, whose economy was staggering after admitting about 10 million refugees, invaded East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and defeated the West Pakistani forces. The US gave W. pakistan 411 million provided to establish its armed forces which spent 80% of its budget on its military. 15 million in arms flowed into W. Pakistan during the war. Between 300,000 to 3 million civilians were killed, with 8-10 million refugees fleeing to India.

In 1970, In Cambodia, The CIA overthrows Prince Sihanouk, who is highly popular among Cambodians for keeping them out of the Vietnam War. He is replaced by CIA puppet Lon Nol, whose forces suppressed the large-scale popular demonstrations in favour of Sihanouk, resulting in several hundred deaths. This unpopular move strengthens once minor opposition parties like the Khmer Rouge (another CIA supported group), who achieve power in 1975 and massacres ~2.5 million people. The Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, carried out the Cambodian Genocide, which killed 1.5-2M people from 1975-1979.

In 1969, The US initiated a secret carpet bombing campaign in eastern Cambodia, called, Operation Menu, and Operation Freedom Deal in 1970. An estimated 40,000 - 150,000 civilians were killed. Nixon lied about this campaign, but was later exposed, and one of the things that lead to his impeachment.

US dropped large amounts of Agent Orange, an herbicide developed by monsanto and dow chemical for the department of defense, in vietnam. Its use, in particular the contaminant dioxin, causes multiple health problems, including cleft palate, mental disabilities, hernias, still births, poisoned breast milk, and extra fingers and toes, as well as destroying local species of plants and animals. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.

US Troops killed between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians, including women, children, and infants, in South Vietnam on March, 1968, in the My Lai Massacre. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated. Soldiers set fire to huts, waiting for civilians to come out so they could shoot them. For 30 years, the three US servicemen who tried to halt the massacre and rescue the hiding civilians were shunned and denounced as traitors, even by congressmen.

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.

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.

Between 1964 and 1973, American pilots flew 580,000 attack sorties over Laos, an average of one planeload of bombs every eight minutes for almost a decade. By the time the last US bombs fell in April 1973, a total of 2,093,100 tonnes of ordnance had rained down on this neutral country. To this day, Laos, a country of just 7 million people, retains the dubious accolade of being the most heavily bombed country in the world per capita.

From the 1960s onward, the US supported Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The US provided hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, which was crucial in buttressing Marcos’s rule over the years. The estimated number of persons that were executed and disappeared under President Fernando Marcos was over 100,000. After fleeing to hawaii, marco was suceeded by the widow of an opponent he assasinated, Corazon aquino.

Starting in 1957, in the wake of the US-backed First Indochina War, The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections, specifically targeting the Pathet Lao, a leftist group with enough popular support to be a member of any coalition government, and perpetuating the 20 year Laotian civil war. In the late 50s, the CIA even creates an “Armee Clandestine” of Asian mercenaries to attack the Pathet Lao. After the CIA’s army suffers numerous defeats, the U.S. drops more bombs on Laos than all the U.S. bombs dropped in World War II. A quarter of all Laotians will eventually become refugees, many living in caves. This was later called a “secret war,” since it occurred at the same time as the Vietnam War, but got little press. Hundreds of thousands were killed.

In 1955, the CIA provided explosives, and aided KMT agents in an assassination attempt against the Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai. KMT agents placed a time-bomb on the Air India aircraft, Kashmir Princess, which Zhou was supposed to take on his way to the Bandung Conference, an anti-imperialist meeting of Asian and African states, but he changed his travel plans at the last minute. Henry Kissinger denied US involvement, even though remains of a US detonator were found. 16 people were killed.

From 1955-1975, the US supported French colonialist interests in Vietnam, set up a puppet regime in Saigon to serve US interests, and later took part as a belligerent against North Vietnam in the Vietnam War. U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was later found to be staged by Lyndon Johnson. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (see Vietnam War casualties). Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000 source to 3.8 million.source Some 240,000–300,000 Cambodians,source23 20,000–62,000 Laotians,4 and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict, with a further 1,626 missing in action. Unexploded bomb continue to kill civilians for years afterward.

In the summer of 1950 in South Korea, anticommunists aided by the US executed at least 100,000 people suspected of supporting communism, in the Bodo League Massacre. For four decades the South Korean government concealed this massacre. Survivors were forbidden by the government from revealing it, under suspicion of being communist sympathizers. Public revelation carried with it the threat of torture and death. During the 1990s and onwards, several corpses were excavated from mass graves, resulting in public awareness of the massacre.

In 1984, documents were released showing that Eisenhower authorized the use of atomic weapons on North Korea, should the communists renew the war in 1953. The 2,000 pages released show the high level of planning and the detail of discussion on possible use of these weapons, and Mr. Eisenhower’s interest in overcoming reluctance to use them.

In the beginning of the Korean war, US Troops killed ~300 South Korean civilians in the No Gun Ri massacre, revealing a theater-wide policy of firing on approaching refugee groups. Trapped refugees began piling up bodies as barricades and tried to dig into the ground to hide. Some managed to escape the first night, while U.S. troops turned searchlights on the tunnels and continued firing, said Chung Koo-ho, whose mother died shielding him and his sister. No apology has yet been issued.

The US intervened in the 1950-53 Korean Civil War, on the side of the south Koreans, in a proxy war between the US and china for supremacy in East Asia. South Korea reported some 373,599 civilian and 137,899 military deaths, the US with 34,000 killed, and China with 114,000 killed. Overall, the U.S. dropped 635,000 tons of bombs—including 32,557 tons of napalm—on Korea, more than they did during the whole Pacific campaign of World War II. The US killed an estimated 1/3rd of the north Korean people during the war. The Joint Chiefs of staff issued orders for the retaliatory bombing of the People’s republic of China, should south Korea be attacked. Deadly clashes have continued up to the present day.

From 1948-1949, the Jeju uprising was an insurgency taking place in the Korean province of Jeju island, followed by severe anticommunist suppression of the South Korean Labor Party in which 14-30,000 people were killed, or ~10% of the island’s population. Though atrocities were committed by both sides, the methods used by the South Korean government to suppress the rebels were especially cruel. On one occasion, American soldiers discovered the bodies of 97 people including children, killed by government forces. On another, American soldiers caught government police forces carrying out an execution of 76 villagers, including women and children. The US later entered the Korean civil war on the side of the South Koreans.

In 1949 during the resumed Chinese Civil War, the US supported the corrupt Kuomintang dictatorship of Chiang Kaishek to fight against the Chinese Communists, who had won the support of the vast majority of peasant-farmers and helped defeat the Japanese invasion. The US strongly supported the Kuomintang forces. Over 50,000 US Marines were sent to guard strategic sites, and 100,000 US troops were sent to Shandong. The US equipped and trained over 500,000 KMT troops, and transported KMT forces to occupy newly liberated zones as well as to contain Communist-controlled areas. American aid included substantial amounts of both new and surplus military supplies; additionally, loans worth hundreds of millions of dollars were made to the KMT. Within less than two years after the Sino-Japanese War, the KMT had received $4.43 billion from the US—most of which was military aid.

The U.S. installed Syngman Rhee,a conservative Korean exile, as President of South Korea in 1948. Rhee became a dictator on an anti-communist crusade, arresting and torturing suspected communists, brutally putting down rebellions, killing 100,000 people and vowing to take over North Korea. Rhee precipitated the outbreak of the Korean War and for the allied decision to invade North Korea once South Korea had been recaptured. He was finally forced to resign by mass student protests in 1960.

Between 1946 and 1958, the US tested 23 nuclear devices at Bikini Atoll, using the native islanders and their land as guinea pigs for the effects of nuclear fallout. Significant fallout caused widespread radiological contamination in the area, and killed many islanders. A survivor stated, “What the Americans did was no accident. They came here and destroyed our land. They came to test the effects of a nuclear bomb on us. It was no accident.” Many of the islanders exposed were brought to the US Argonne National laboratory, to study the effects. Afterwards the islands proved unsuitable to sustaining life, resulting in starvation and requiring the residents to receive ongoing aid. Virtually all of the inhabitants showed acute symptoms of radiation syndrome, many developing thyroid cancers, Leukimia, miscarriages, stillborn and “jellyfish babies” (highly deformed) along with symptoms like hair falling out, and diahrrea. A handful were brought to the US for medical research and later returned, while others were evacuated to neighboring Islands. The US under LBJ prematurely returned the majority returned 3 years later, to further test how human beings absorb radiation from their food and environment. The islanders pleaded with the US to move them away from the islands, as it became clear that their children were developing deformities and radiation sickness. Radion levels were still unacceptable. The United States later paid the islanders and their descendants 25 million in compensation for damage caused by the nuclear testing program. A 2016 investigation found radiation levels on Bikini Atoll as high as 639 mrem yr−1, well above the established safety standard threshold for habitation of 100 mrem yr−1. Similar tests occurred elsewhere in the Marshall Islands during this time period. Due to the destruction of natural wealth, Kwajalein Atoll’s military installation and dislocation, the majority of natives currently live in extreme poverty, making less than 1$ a day. Those that have jobs, mostly work at the US military installation and resorts. Much of this is detailed in the documentary, The Coming War on China (2016). 

After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Douglas MacArthur pardoned Unit 731, a Japanese biological experimentation center which performed human testing of biological agents against Chinese citizens. While a series of war tribunals and trials was organized, many of the high-ranking officials and doctors who devised and respectively performed the experiments were pardoned and never brought to justice. As many as 12,000 people, most of them Chinese, died in Unit 731 alone and many more died in other facilities, such as Unit 100 and in field experiments throughout Manchuria. One of the experimenters who killed many, microbiologist Shiro Ishii, later traveled to the US to advise on its bioweapons programs. In the final days of the Pacific War and in the face of imminent defeat, Japanese troops blew up the headquarters of Unit 731 in order to destroy evidence of the research done there. As part of the cover-up, Ishii ordered 150 remaining subjects killed.

In 1945 during the month-long Battle of Manila, the US in deciding whether to attack Manila (then under Japanese occupation) with ground troops, decided instead to use indiscriminate carpet-bombing, howitzers, and naval bombardment, killing an estimated 100,000 people. The casualty figures show the US’s regard for filipino civilian life: 1,010 Americans, 16,665 Japanese and 100,000 to 240,000 civilians were killed. Manila became, alongside Berlin, and Warsaw, one of the most devastated cities of WW2.

US Troops committed a number of rapes during the battle of Okinawa, and the subsequent occupation of Japan. There were 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture alone.1 American Occupation authorities imposed wide-ranging censorship on the Japanese media, including bans on covering many sensitive social issues and serious crimes such as rape committed by members of the Occupation forces.

From 1942 to 1945, the US military carried out a fire-bombing campaign of Japanese cities, killing between 200,000 and 900,000 civilians. One nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo took 80,000 lives. During early August 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing ~130,000 civilians, and causing radiation damage which included birth defects and a variety of genetic diseases for decades to come. The justification for the civilian bombings has largely been debunked, as the entrance of Russia into the war had already started the surrender negotiations earlier in 1945. The US was aware of this, since it had broken the Japanese code and had been intercepting messages during for most of the year. The US ended up accepting a conditional surrender from Hirohito, against which was one of the stated aims of the civilian bombings. The dropping of the atomic bomb is therefore seen as a demonstration of US military supremacy, and the first major operation of the Cold War with Russia.

In 1918, the US took part in the allied intervention in the Russian civil war, sending 11,000 troops to the in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions to support the anti-bolshevik, monarchist, and largely anti-semitic White Forces. 

In 1900 in China, the US was part of an Eight-Nation Alliance that brought 20,000 armed troops to China, to defeat the Imperial Chinese Army, in the the Boxer Rebellion, an anti-imperialist uprising. 

In 1899, after a popular revolution in the Philippines to oust the Spanish imperialists, the US invaded and began the Phillipine-American war. The US military committed countless atrocities, leaving 200,000 Filipinos dead. Jacob H Smith killed between 2,500 to 50,000 civilians, His orders included, “kill everyone over the age of ten” and make the island “a howling wilderness.”

Throughout the 1800s, US settlers engaged in a genocide of native Hawaiians. The native population decreased from ~ 400k in 1789, to 40k by 1900, due to colonization and disease. In 1883, the US engineered the overthrow of Hawaii’s native monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani, by landing two companies of US marines in Honolulu. Due to the Queen’s desire “to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life” for her subjects and after some deliberation, at the urging of advisers and friends, the Queen ordered her forces to surrender. Hawaii was initially reconstituted as an independent republic, but the ultimate goal of the US was the annexation of the islands to the United States, which was finally accomplished in 1898. After this, the Hawaiian language was banned, English replaced it as the official language in all institutions and schools. The US finally apologized in 1993, but no land has been returned.