I'll end this post with a list of the wonderful things we've done for world peace and democracy. I'm not saying these places were nonviolent or democratic to begin with, just saying that we have a habit of getting involved with other people's business in ways we would never allow others to do to us:

• In 1953, the CIA worked with the United Kingdom to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Iran

• In 1954, the CIA participated in the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Guatemala led.

• 1959 - The largest and most complicated coup effort, approved at White House level, was the Bay of Pigs operation. Under initiatives by the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations, CIA trained Cuban anti-communist exiles and refugees to land in Cuba and attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. Plans originally formed under Eisenhower were scaled back under Kennedy.

The CIA made a number of attempts to assassinate Castro, often with White House approval, as in Operation Mongoose.

• 1960 - Soon after the election, during the Congo Crisis, the CIA and the Belgian government orchestrated a military coup to remove the Lumumba government from power. Lumumba was subsequently murdered in prison.

• 1963 - In February 1963, the United States backed a coup against the government of Iraq headed by General Abdel Karim Kassem, who five years earlier had deposed the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. The US was concerned about the growing influence of Communist Iraqi government officials under his administration, as well as his threats to invade Kuwait, which almost caused a war between Iraq and England.

To pave the way for the new regime, the CIA provided to the Baathists lists of suspected communists and other leftists. The new regime used these lists to orchestrate a bloodbath, systematically murdering untold numbers of Iraq's educated elite—killings in which Saddam Hussein himself is said to have participated. The victims included hundreds of doctors, teachers, technicians, lawyers and other professionals as well as military and political figures. The U.S. sent arms to the new regime, weapons later used against the same Kurdish insurgents the U.S. supported against Kassem and then abandoned.

• A democratically-elected government headed by President João Goulart was successfully overthrown by a CIA-supported coup in March 1964.

• On 24 February 1966, Kwame Nkrumah, the President of Ghana, was overthrown in a military coup backed by the CIA while on a state visit to North Vietnam and China.

• The U.S. Government’s hostility to the election of Socialist President Salvador Allende government was substantiated in documents declassified during the Clinton administration; involving the CIA, which show that covert operatives were inserted in Chile, in order to prevent a Marxist government from arising and for the purpose of spreading anti-Allende propaganda. While U.S. government hostility to the Allende government is unquestioned, the U.S. role in the coup itself remains a highly controversial matter.

• As early as 1973-74, the CIA began offering covert backing to radical Islamist rebels in Afghanistan (we all know the eventual connection to 9/11).

• 1980s - During the Iran-Iraq war, the US covertly worked to destabilize both Iran and Iraq. By 1982, the war's momentum had shifted to Iran, which was threatening Basra, Iraq's second largest city. According to a 1995 affidavit by Reagan National Security Council staffer Howard Teicher, "In the Spring of 1982, Iraq teetered on the brink of losing its war with Iran.... In June, 1982, President Reagan decided that the United States... would do whatever was necessary and legal to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran."

• 1981-90 Nicaragua, the CIA planted mines in civilian harbors and sunk civilian ships in an attempt to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The U.S. also armed and trained the Contra guerilla insurgency to destabilize the Nicaraguan government.

• Guatemala 1993 - the CIA helped in overthrowing Jorge Serrano Elías

• 2002, Washington is claimed to have approved and supported a coup against the Venezuelan government

• 2005 The insurgency against the government of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was allegedly supported by the United States, and Aristide claims he was physically removed from the country by U.S. personnel against his wishes.