American Crimes and Consequences from the American Crime Series

Screengrabs from videos of U.S. bombing of Caracas, Venezuela

U.S. attack on Venezuela, January 3, 2026.

Hours after Trump sent U.S. forces into Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Trump declared that the U.S. would be "running Venezuela" and will make "Venezuela great again." But history shows what really happens when the world’s #1 criminal imperialist empire “intervenes” in countries around the world. Drawing from the American Crime Series, we are posting only some of the crimes committed by the U.S. imperialists against the people of the world.

We begin with Panama where the same accusation of "drug lord" was used as justification to remove its leader.

Panama, 1989-1990: The U.S. military invaded Panama with 27,684 troops and 300 aircraft, including Stealth bombers that dropped 2,000-pound bombs, to remove Manuel Noriega from power.

Result: An estimated 3,000-6,000 Panamanian civilians lost their lives in the invasion, whose real aim was to ensure U.S. control of the Panama Canal, which plays a vital role in international shipping.

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Bob Avakian has written that one of three things that has “to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better: People have to fully confront the actual history of this country and its role in the world up to today, and the terrible consequences of this.” (See “3 Things that have to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better.”)

See all the articles in this series.

In that light, and in that spirit, “American Crime” is a regular feature of revcom.us. Each installment focuses on one of the 100 worst crimes committed by the U.S. rulers—out of countless bloody crimes they have carried out against people around the world, from the founding of the U.S. to the present day.

U.S. Sponsored War and Terror in Central America ...

Young girl whose mother was killed by Nicaraguan contras at her mother's burial.

Nicaragua, 1979-1989: The U.S. attempted to overthrow the Sandinista-led regime by creating a mercenary army known as the “Contras.”

Result: Ten years of U.S.-sponsored war killed as many as 50,000 people and left Nicaragua as one of the poorest countries in this hemisphere.

Guatemala, 1980s: The U.S. orchestrated a coup by General José Efraín Ríos Montt and trained the Guatemalan military that waged a brutal counter-insurgency.

Result: The Guatemalan military destroyed more than 600 indigenous villages and slaughtered more than 75,000 people, overwhelmingly Mayans.

Victims of guerrilla attack on village of El Mozote, 1981.

El Salvador, 1980-1992: The U.S. government backed, trained, and armed the reactionary government and military of El Salvador in its murderous counterinsurgency war.

Result: Death squad executions and massacres of guerrillas and those suspected of supporting them led to as many as 75,000 deaths—and hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans were forced to flee north seeking refuge.

Honduras, 1980s: The U.S. military and CIA trained, financed, and covered up the crimes of “Battalion 316”—a Honduran military death squad.

Result: The death squad carried out a campaign of torture, murder, and state-sponsored terror—they stalked, kidnapped, tortured, disappeared, and murdered union leaders, students, religious activists, and others the Honduran military considered political opponents.

... and South America

Brazil, 1964: After years of covert actions aimed at destabilizing the sitting president, the U.S. military sent a massive naval presence to Brazil and supplied arms and ammunition to the right-wing military coup plotters.

Result: Two decades of a murderous and brutal military dictatorship and atrocities that led to the disappearance and death of close to 1,000 political opponents and the systematic torture of more than 30,000.

Operation Condor 1968-1980s: The U.S. organized, financed, and directed a campaign of political repression, torture and disappearances that was implemented by right-wing military dictatorships in the Southern Cone of Latin America—Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil (later joined by Ecuador and Peru).

Result: Some estimates put the total number murdered as a result of Operation Condor at 60,000 or more.

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Chile, 1973: With secret backing by the U.S., the Chilean military, headed by General Augusto Pinochet, carried out a military coup against the government of President Salvador Allende.

Result: The Pinochet regime systematically and violently suppressed political dissidents, with over 3,000 people killed and more than 200,000 driven into exile.

Honduras, 2009: Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, and the U.S. State Department backed a coup that overthrew the elected president in Honduras.

Result: The generals and politicians behind the coup brought to power a more openly fascistic and pro-U.S. regime that plunged the Honduran people even more deeply into the hell of U.S. domination, state-sponsored political assassinations and terrorism, and intensified violence, poverty, and oppression.

Haiti, 1915-1934: The U.S. military invaded Haiti and occupied the country for 19 years.

Result: At least 15,000 Haitians were killed during the U.S. invasion and occupation, which was the beginning of, and laid the basis for, the following decades of U.S. domination and brutal U.S.-backed regimes.

Dominican Republic, 1965: During its fourth invasion of the Dominican Republic, the U.S. landed 40,000 troops and used a fleet of 41 vessels to blockade the country.

Result: Most estimates are that 3,000 to 4,000 Dominican people were killed in the invasion (with some estimates saying the toll was 6,000 to 10,000).

Vietnam, 1961-1975: For well over a decade, the U.S. waged a savage war in the name of fighting communism.

Result: Mass murder of the Vietnamese people was the military doctrine of the U.S. military; an estimated two million Vietnamese civilians were killed during the war; use of toxic chemical defoliants destroyed forests and farmlands.

Vietnam, March 16, 1968—The My Lai Massacre

The 1972 Christmas Bombing of North Vietnam

US airstrike of Cambodia near Phnom Penh, 1973.

The Bombing of Cambodia, 1969-1973

Women at a bar and passing U.S. soldiers in Saigon on May 28, 1971.

The War in Vietnam and the Sexual Subjugation of Women

CIA sponsored coup against Iran premier Mohammed Mosaddeq. Pro-Shah troops in the streets of Tehran, 1953.

Iran, 1953: The U.S. CIA launched a military coup installing the Mohammad Reza Shah [King] Pahlavi.

Result: The Shah ruled as an iron-fisted U.S. puppet for 25 years during which thousands were murdered, jailed or barbarically tortured.

Iraq: In 1991 and again in 2003, the U.S. launched wars against Iraq.

Result: The U.S. wars and occupations killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people, forced hundreds of thousands more to become refugees, and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, including its electrical, water, and sewage treatment systems.

The 1991 Persian Gulf War – “Operation Desert Storm”

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“Operation Iraqi Freedom,” 2003

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Korea, 1950: The U.S. led a United Nations invasion of Korea with 342,000 troops.

Result: The U.S. and its allied war criminals killed millions of Koreans in three years of open warfare—estimates range from three to five million, mostly civilians.

Indonesia, 1965: The U.S. CIA sponsored a military takeover by the reactionary pro-U.S. Suharto regime.

Result: One million slaughtered in nationwide pogroms.

East Timor, 1975‑1998: The U.S. government backed the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, in a war that was characterized as “one of the most brutal operations of its kind in modern warfare.”

Result: The Indonesian military bombed, massacred, tortured, raped, and brutalized the population of East Timor until nearly one-third of the original population of 650,000 had been killed.

These three rape victims testified at the 2016 trial about being raped repeatedly by Hissène Habré’s military forces.

Chad, 1981-1990: The CIA conducted covert operations to bring Hissène Habré to power and supplied him with tens of millions of dollars every year in weapons and other assistance.

Result: It’s estimated that Habré’s secret police killed tens of thousands, tortured as many as 200,000 and disappeared countless others.

Explore the whole series

Angola, 1975-2002: For 27 years, the U.S., joined by apartheid South Africa, fueled a reactionary and immensely bloody civil war in Angola.

Result: About 500,000 Angolans were killed and millions internally displaced, and the civil war left Angola with much of its public institutions, economic enterprises, religious institutions, infrastructure, and medical and other basic life support systems in ruins.