why people are scared of the USAUS troops are deployed in approx 130 nations United States military spending for 2003 is $396 billion - greater than that of the next 25 nations combined since the end of World War II, the USA has mounted military campaigns in the following countries - Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, China, Congo, Cuba, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Somalia, Sudan, Vietnam, Yugoslavia it has actively interfered with and undermined governments of the following countries - Brazil, Chile, Congo, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Ecuador, Greece, Haiti, Uruguay ************************************** most of the information below comes from a post to Greenpeace (21 Oct 2002) - http://act.greenpeace.org/1035137010/1035190615/1035193315/index_html a partial list of international treaties that the US government has either vetoed and/or undermined - 1. In December 2001, the United States officially withdrew from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, gutting the landmark agreement - the first time in the nuclear era that the US renounced a major arms control accord. 2. 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention ratified by 144 nations including the United States. In July 2001 the US walked out of a London conference to discuss a 1994 protocol designed to strengthen the Convention by providing for on-site inspections. At Geneva in November 2001, US Undersecretary of State John Bolton stated that "the protocol is dead," at the same time accusing Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Sudan, and Syria of violating the Convention but offering no specific allegations or supporting evidence. 3. UN Agreement to Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small Arms, July 2001: the US was the only nation to oppose it. 4. April 2001, the US was not reelected to the UN Human Rights Commission, after years of withholding dues to the UN (including current dues of $244 million)-and after having forced the UN to lower its share of the UN budget from 25 to 22 percent. (In the Human Rights Commission, the US stood virtually alone in opposing resolutions supporting lower-cost access to HIV/AIDS drugs, acknowledging a basic human right to adequate food, and calling for a moratorium on the death penalty.) 5. International Criminal Court (ICC) Treaty, to be set up in The Hague to try political leaders and military personnel charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Signed in Rome in July 1998, the Treaty was approved by 120 countries, with 7 opposed (including the US). In October 2001 Great Britain became the 42nd nation to sign. In December 2001 the US Senate again added an amendment to a military appropriations bill that would keep US military personnel from obeying the jurisdiction of the proposed ICC. 6. Land Mine Treaty, banning land mines; signed in Ottawa in December 1997 by 122 nations. The United States refused to sign, along with Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Egypt, and Turkey. President Clinton rejected the Treaty, claiming that mines were needed to protect South Korea against North Korea's "overwhelming military advantage." He stated that the US would "eventually" comply, in 2006; this was disavowed by President Bush in August 2001. 7. Kyoto Protocol of 1997, for controlling global warming: declared "dead" by President Bush in March 2001. In November 2001, the Bush administration shunned negotiations in Marrakech (Morocco) to revise the accord, mainly by watering it down in a vain attempt to gain US approval. 8. In May 2001, refused to meet with European Union nations to discuss, even at lower levels of government, economic espionage and electronic surveillance of phone calls, e-mail, and faxes (the US "Echelon" program). 9. Refused to participate in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)-sponsored talks in Paris, May 2001, on ways to crack down on off-shore and other tax and money-laundering havens. 10. Refused to join 123 nations pledged to ban the use and production of anti-personnel bombs and mines, February 2001. 11. September 2001: withdrew from International Conference on Racism, bringing together 163 countries in Durban, South Africa. 12. International Plan for Cleaner Energy: G-8 group of industrial nations (US, Canada, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, UK), July 2001: the US was the only one to oppose it. 13. Enforcing an illegal boycott of Cuba, now being made tighter. In the UN in October 2001, the General Assembly passed a resolution, for the tenth consecutive year, calling for an end to the US embargo, by a vote of 167 to 3 (the US, Israel, and the Marshall Islands in opposition). 14. Comprehensive [Nuclear] Test Ban Treaty. Signed by 164 nations and ratified by 89 including France, Great Britain, and Russia; signed by President Clinton in 1996 but rejected by the Senate in 1999. The US is one of 13 nonratifiers among countries that have nuclear weapons or nuclear power programs. In November 2001, the US forced a vote in the UN Committee on Disarmament and Security to demonstrate its opposition to the Test Ban Treaty. 15. In 1986 the International Court of Justice (The Hague) ruled that the US was in violation of international law for "unlawful use of force" in Nicaragua, through its actions and those of its Contra proxy army. The US refused to recognize the Court's jurisdiction. A UN resolution calling for compliance with the Court's decision was approved 94-2 (US and Israel voting no). 16. In 1984 the US quit UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and ceased its payments for UNESCO's budget, over the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) project designed to lessen world media dependence on the "big four" wire agencies (AP, UPI, Agence France-Presse, Reuters). The US charged UNESCO with "curtailment of press freedom," as well as mismanagement and other faults, despite a 148-1 in vote in favor of NWICO in the UN. UNESCO terminated NWICO in 1989; the US nonetheless refused to rejoin. In 1995 the Clinton administration proposed rejoining; the move was blocked in Congress and Clinton did not press the issue. In February 2000 the US finally paid some of its arrears to the UN but excluded UNESCO, which the US has not rejoined. 17. Optional Protocol, 1989, to the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at abolition of the death penalty and containing a provision banning the execution of those under 18. The US has neither signed nor ratified and specifically exempts itself from the latter provision, making it one of five countries that still execute juveniles (with Saudi Arabia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria). China abolished the practice in 1997, Pakistan in 2000. 18. 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The only countries that have signed but not ratified are the US, Afghanistan, Sao Tome and Principe. 19. The US has signed but not ratified the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protects the economic and social rights of children. The only other country not to ratify is Somalia, which has no functioning government. 20. UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966, covering a wide range of rights and monitored by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The US signed in 1977 but has not ratified. 21. UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948. The US finally ratified in 1988, adding several "reservations" to the effect that the US Constitution and the "advice and consent" of the Senate are required to judge whether any "acts in the course of armed conflict" constitute genocide. The reservations are rejected by Britain, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Mexico, Estonia, and others. 22. Is the status of "we're number one!" Rogue overcome by generous foreign aid to given less fortunate countries? The three best aid providers, measured by the foreign aid percentage of their gross domestic products, are Denmark (1.01%), Norway (0.91%), and the Netherlands (0.79), The three worst: USA (0.10%), UK (0.23%), Australia, Portugal, and Austria (all 0.26). 23. The UN spent 10 years watering down the Third Convention of the Law of the Sea. In order to avoid the US dropping out, the rest of the world went along with it. Then the US refused to ratify it, because that would have meant it lost its control of strategic minerals to be found on the seabed. ****************************************** the information below comes from a post to Greenpeace (21 Oct 2002) - http://act.greenpeace.org/1035137010/index_html#1035196891 in any one year - * 27,000 Americans commit suicide * 50,000 attempt suicide; some estimates are higher * 23,000 are murdered * 85,000 are wounded by firearms * 38,000 of these die, including 2,600 children * 13,000,000 are victims of crimes * 135,000 children take guns to school * 5,500,000 people are arrested for all offenses (not including traffic violations) * 125,000 die prematurely of alcohol abuse * 473,000 die prematurely from tobacco-related illnesses - 53,000 of these are nonsmokers * 6,500,000 use heroin, crack, speed, PCP, cocaine or some other hard drug on a regular basis * 5,000+ die from illicit drug use - thousands suffer serious debilitations * 1,000+ die from sniffing household substances found under the kitchen sink - about 20 percent of all eighth-graders have "huffed" toxic substances - thousands suffer permanent neurological damage * 37,000,000, or one out of every six Americans, regularly use emotion controlling medical drugs * 2,000,000 non-hospitalized persons are given powerful mind-control drugs, sometimes described as "chemical straitjackets" * 5,000 die from psychoactive drug treatments * 200,000 are subjected to electric shock treatments that are injurious to the brain and nervous system * 600 to 1,000 are lobotomized, mostly women * 25,000,000, or one out of every 10 Americans, seek help from psychiatric, psychotherapeutic, or medical sources for mental and emotional problems, at a cost of over $4 billion annually * 6,800,000 turn to nonmedical services, such as ministers, welfare agencies, and social counselors for help with emotional troubles - in all, some 80,000,000 have sought some kind of psychological counseling in their lifetimes * 1,300,000 suffer some kind of injury related to treatment at hospitals * 2,000,000 undergo unnecessary surgical operations - 10,000 of whom die from the surgery * 180,000 die from adverse reactions to all medical treatments, more than are killed by airline and automobile accidents combined * 14,000+ die from overdoses of legal prescription drugs * 45,000 are killed in auto accidents - yet more cars and highways are being built while funding for safer forms of mass transportation is reduced * 1,800,000 sustain nonfatal injuries from auto accidents; but 150,000 of these auto injury victims suffer permanent impairments * 126,000 children are born with a major birth defect, mostly due to insufficient prenatal care, nutritional deficiency, environmental toxicity, or maternal drug addiction * 2,900,000 children are reportedly subjected to serious neglect or abuse, including physical torture and deliberate starvation * 5,000 children are killed by parents or grandparents * 30,000 or more children are left permanently physically disabled from abuse and neglect - child abuse in the United States afflicts more children each year than leukemia, automobile accidents, and infectious diseases combined - with growing unemployment, incidents of abuse by jobless parents is increasing dramatically * 1,000,000 children run away from home, mostly because of abusive treatment, including sexual abuse, from parents and other adults. Of the many sexually abused children among runaways, 83 percent come from white families * 150,000 children are reported missing * 50,000 of these simply vanish - their ages range from one year to mid-teens - according to the New York Times, "Some of these are dead, perhaps half of the John and Jane Does annually buried in this country are unidentified kids" * 900,000 children, some as young as seven years old, are engaged in child labor in the United States, serving as underpaid farm hands, dishwashers, laundry workers, and domestics for as long as ten hours a day in violation of child labor laws * 2,000,000 to 4,000,00 women are battered - domestic violence is the single largest cause of injury and second largest cause of death to US women * 700,000 women are raped, one every 45 seconds * 5,000,000 workers are injured on the job; 150,000 of whom suffer permanent work-related disabilities, including maiming, paralysis, impaired vision, damaged hearing, and sterility * 100,000 become seriously ill from work-related diseases, including black lung, brown lung, cancer, and tuberculosis * 14,000 are killed on the job; about 90 percent are men * 100,000 die prematurely from work-related diseases * 60,000 are killed by toxic environmental pollutants or contaminants in food, water, or air * 4,000 die from eating contaminated meat * 20,000 others suffer from poisoning by E.coli 0157-H7, the mutant bacteria found in contaminated meat that generally leads to lifelong physical and mental health problems - a more thorough meat inspection with new technologies could eliminate most instances of contamination - so would vegetarianism At present - * 5,100,000 are behind bars or on probation or parole - 2,700,000 of these are either locked up in county, state or federal prisons or under legal supervision - each week 1,600 more people go to jail than leave - the prison population has skyrocketed over 200 percent since 1980 - over 40 percent of inmates are jailed on nonviolent drug related crimes - African Americans constitute 13 percent of drug users but 35 percent of drug arrests, 55 percent of drug convictions and 74 percent of prison sentences - for nondrug offenses, African Americans get prison terms that average about 10 percent longer than Caucasians for similar crimes * 15,000+ have tuberculosis, with the numbers growing rapidly - 10,000,000 or more carry the tuberculosis bacilli, with large numbers among the economically deprived or addicted * 10,000,000 people have serious drinking problems; alcoholism is on the rise * 16,000,000 have diabetes, up from 11,000,000 in 1983 as Americans get more sedentary and sugar addicted - left untreated, diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney failure and nerve damage * 160,000 will die from diabetes this year * 280,000 are institutionalized for mental illness or mental -.mMany of these are forced into taking heavy doses of mind control drugs * 255,000 mentally ill or retarded have been summarily released in recent years - many of the "deinstitutionalized" are now in flophouses or wandering the streets * 3,000,000 or more suffer cerebral and physical handicaps including paralysis, deafness, blindness, and lesser disabilities - a disproportionate number of them are poor - many of these disabilities could have been corrected with early treatment or prevented with better living conditions * 2,400,000 million suffer from some variety of seriously incapacitating chronic fatigue syndrome * 10,000,000+ suffer from symptomatic asthma, an increase of 145 percent from 1990 to 1995, largely due to the increasingly polluted quality of the air we breathe * 40,000,000 or more are without health insurance or protection from catastrophic illness * 1,800,000 elderly who live with their families are subjected to serious abuse such as forced confinement, underfeeding, and beatings. The mistreatment of elderly people by their children and other close relatives grows dramatically as economic conditions worsen * 1,126,000 of the elderly live in nursing homes - a large but undetermined number endure conditions of extreme neglect, filth, and abuse in homes that are run with an eye to extracting the highest possible profit * 1,000,000 or more children are kept in orphanages, reformatories, and adult prisons - most have been arrested for minor transgressions or have committed no crime at all and are jailed without due process - most are from impoverished backgrounds - many are subjected to beatings, sexual assault, prolonged solitary confinement, mind control drugs, and in some cases psychosurgery * 1,000,000 are estimated to have AIDS as of 1996 - over 250,000 have died of that disease * 950,000 school children are treated with powerful mind control drugs for "hyperactivity" every year - with side effects like weight loss, growth retardation and acute psychosis * 4,000,000 children are growing up with unattended learning disabilities * 4,500,000+ children, or more than half of the 9,000,000 children on welfare, suffer from malnutrition - many of these suffer brain damage caused by prenatal and infant malnourishment * 40,000,000 persons, or one of every four women and more than one of every ten men, are estimated to have been sexually molested as children, most often between the ages of 9 and 12, usually by close relatives or family acquaintances - sSuch abuse almost always extends into their early teens and is a part of their continual memory and not a product of memory retrieval in therapy * 7,000,000 to 12,000,000 are unemployed - numbers vary with the business cycle - increasing numbers of the chronically unemployed show signs of stress and emotional depression * 6,000,000 are in "contingent" jobs, or jobs structured to last only temporarily - about 60 percent of these would prefer permanent employment * 15,000,000 or more are part-time or reduced-time "contract" workers who need full-time jobs and who work without benefits * 3,000,000 additional workers are unemployed but uncounted because their unemployment benefits have run out, or they never qualified for benefits, or they have given up looking for work, or they joined the armed forces because they were unable to find work * 80,000,000 live on incomes estimated by the US Department of Labor as below a "comfortable adequacy"; 35,000,000 of these live below the poverty level * 12,000,000 of those at poverty's rock bottom suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition - the majority of the people living at or below the poverty level experience hunger during some portion of the year * 2,000,000 or more are homeless, forced to live on the streets or in makeshift shelters * 160,000,000+ are members of households that are in debt, a sharp increase from the 100 million of less than a decade ago - a majority indicate they have borrowed money not for luxuries but for necessities - mounting debts threaten a financial crack-up in more and more families |