The Third World War

People talk a lot about World War Three.

A few years ago, I realized that World War Three, the way we all imagine it to be, is not going to happen.  Nations secure in economy and military have no reason to launch war in the manner seen in the 1940s – actions like that were brought about by a decrepit Germany and Italy, as well as by an overpopulated under-resourced Japan.  We no longer see developed nations like those having problems like they had then; those problems are now found in what we consider the third world.  It is by doing business that the developed nations prevent war; it is by being exploited that the third world finds itself continually at war.

I would make the argument that the USA has been in an ongoing global military conflict for the last 50-or-more years; World War Three was never declared, because World War Three is not what is happening.

This is the Third World War: a war in the third world, a place where it’s hard to get news coverage and easy to conduct covert operations. Because of the American notion of War meaning storming a beach and punching a NAZI in the face, for a long time it was easy to convince Americans that the USA wasn’t “really at war.”

But, looking at a timeline of just what we know has been going on (not even getting into the realm of conspiracy theories), it’s clear that we are seeing a Third World War.  Let me offer you a partial list of American military involvement since Vietnam, so you can see what I mean.

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1960-1975 – Vietnam Conflict

1960-1996 – CIA backs coups in the Congo and Mobutu’s regime

1961-1962 – US invades Cuba; Cuban Missile Crisis

1963-1963 – CIA orchestrates a coup in Iraq, placing Saddam Hussein as the new leader of a puppet government

1964-1964 – US troops shoot Panamanians at the Panama Canal

1965-1965 – CIA orchestrates a coup in Indonesia

1965-1966 – US Army/Marines occupy the Dominican Republic to protect elections (which somehow involved dropping bombs from airplanes)

1966-1967 – Green Berets run special operations against Guatemalan insurgents

1967-1983 – CIA assists drug lord Manuel Noriega in Panama, assisting him in controlling the region

1973-1973 – CIA orchestrates a coup in Chile

1976-1992 – CIA assists insurgents in Angola

1979-1980 – Iran hostage crisis and US energy crisis (deepens US involvement in the Middle East and Latin America) ensues after insurgents remove the US-backed Iranian puppet government

1979-1989 – Operation Cyclone gives CIA military aid to Afghan insurgency, becoming the largest and most expensive covert operation in history, helping to launch the career of Osama bin Laden

1980-1988 – Iran/Iraq War (there are claims that the US sold weapons to both sides)

1981-1989 – US Navy is involved in Libya through air operations

1981-1992 – CIA and other military advisers secure the El Salvadorian dictatorship against insurgency

1981-1990 – CIA aids Contra insurgency in Nicaragua

1982-1984 – US Marines/Navy assist with Israeli military operations against the PLO in Southern Lebanon

1983-1989 – CIA supports Noriega in taking full control of Panama

1983-1984 – US invades Grenada, four years after a non-US-backed revolution

1984-1984 – Two Iranian jets shot down over Persian Gulf by US-backed Saudi Arabia

1985-1987 – Iran-Contra Scandal

1986-present – US special forces help raid/destroy coca fields in Bolivia, Peru, Columbia, Brazil

1987-1988 – US officially backs Iraq in the Iran/Iraq War, protecting re-flagged Iraqi ships and shooting down an Iranian civilian aircraft

1989-1989 – US provides air support in the Philippines to protect from insurgents

1989-1990 – US invades Panama to remove Noriega, who is no longer obeying CIA commands

1990-2003 – US begins an active military presence in Saudi Arabia, at the request of their government

1990-2003 – US begins military operations in Iraq, ranging from full-scale offensives to regulating no-fly zones

1991-1991 – US reestablishes Kuwaiti royal family and establishes a military presence in Kuwait

1992-1994 – US Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia

1993-present – US operations during the Yugoslav Wars and Bosnia War (check out the KLA, and how they mysteriously got off the terrorist list in 1998 because they started working for NATO)

1994-1994 – US military intervention in Haiti, restoring the overthrown government (from 1991)

1996-1997 – US troops are in/around Zaire/Congo/Rwanda, helping spark the Congo’s revolution

1997-1998 – Troops attacked evacuating embassies in Liberia and Albania, leading to other attacks on US embassies by Osama bin Laden

1997-1998 – US Navy and Air Force attack Sudan and other targets in northern Africa in retaliation to US embassy attacks; the US bombs training camps in Afghanistan (originally set up by the CIA) for the same reason

2001-present – US invades and occupies Afghanistan

2002-present – US launches air strikes in Yemen

2002-present – US gives military training/assistance in the Philippines, to combat insurgents

2003-present – US special forces sent to Columbia to help protect an oil pipeline in FARC-controlled region, leading to continued US military presence

2003-present – US invades and occupies Iraq

2003-2003 – US sends troops into Liberia to evacuate Embassy (though it took over a month) as insurgents stage a coup

2004-2005 – US troops land in Haiti to assist the newly-deposed president flee the country

2005-present – US missile/air strikes, special operations, and CIA involvement in Pakistan

2006-present – US special forces advise various militaries and militias in Somalia and Ethiopia; US air support is also offered

2008-2008 – Special forces operation in Syria goes wrong, leading to the deaths of eight civilians

2011-present – US Navy and Air Force supports insurgents in Libya

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Currently, the USA has an official military presence in around 150 countries (in a world with less than 200 countries). This doesn’t include where we have US Navy vessels just outside a nation’s waters, undisclosed special operations and/or CIA/NSA operations, or other “military advisement.” For example, the 60-or-so special forces guys we have had in Uganda for the last six months are not included. There are around 35 nations that see US military involvement in a violent capacity. Some estimate that over half the nations on Earth are heavily influenced by the US military.

The US military victory in WWII ended with the start of the Third World War – the Cold War helped lay the foundation until, now, it’s grown into something far more interesting. Instead of two superpowers fighting each other in the third world, now there’s one consolidated superpower (not simply the USA, but really NATO as a whole) fighting the people of the third world anywhere it leads to economic imperialism.  That has been the development of a very legitimate long-standing global conflict policy that absolutely qualifies as a World War.

Where that war will lead, I don’t know, but I do know the idea of what most people think WWIII will be like is never going to happen, and the idea of it serves solely as a distraction from the war we are actually engaged in, and have been, for half a century.  The definitions of war, conflict, coup, rebel, insurgent, terrorist, and much more change constantly to fit the agenda of various people/groups in power, each semantic concept used to create support from the general populace.  It’s terrifyingly ingenious.  The majority of events of the Third World War, most of us won’t even hear about.

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