For as long as it has existed, the United States of America has been hell bent on driving up profits for the capitalists that fund their political power. As a result of this, any international development that threatens the monetary gain of CEOs and shareholders is met with the ferocious fire and fury of the American imperialist war machine. Such activities ramped up after the end of the Second World War, when the Soviet Union’s victory inspired left-wing revolutions all around the globe. The US responded by invading several countries, funding sub-fascist paramilitaries, and killing millions of innocent people. Many American presidents since 1945 have racked up a monstrously high kill count, all in the name of capitalism and country.

Harry S. Truman (April 12, 1945 – January 20, 1953):

• Authorized the use of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed up to 226,000 people.
• Organized a major counter-insurgency campaign in Greece, which killed 160,000 people, displaced 60,000, and led to another 60,000 people being brutally tortured. The entire political system of Greece was dismantled and a right-wing regime took power.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (January 20, 1953 – January 20, 1961):

• Funded and trained Guatemalan rebels to stage a coup d’état and place a military dictatorship in power, which later went on to commit genocide against Mayan civilians (200,000 deaths).
• Sent 54,000 soldiers and 70 ships to invade Lebanon after a pro-Soviet group took power (6,000 Lebanese casualties).
• Carried out a coup d’état against the Iranian government, leading to 300 deaths.

John F. Kennedy (January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963):

• Used 1,500 right-wing exiled Cuban paramilitaries and 8 B-26 bomber planes in a failed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government. The invasion killed 4,122 people.
• Fully involved America in the Vietnam War, a war that killed upwards of 3,800,000 Vietnamese people.

Lyndon B. Johnson (November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969):

• Escalated the Vietnam War, leading to thousands more deaths.
• Sent a force of 1,700 Marines to intervene in the Dominican Civil War, which killed 2,825 Dominicans.

Richard Nixon (January 20, 1969 – August 9, 1974):

• Carried out Operation Menu, a massive bombing campaign of the Cambodia/Vietnam border which killed up to 4,000 people.
• After promising to deescalate American involvement in Vietnam, he collaborated with the South Vietnamese government to launch a ground and air invasion of Cambodia with more than 100,000 soldiers. About 150,000 Cambodian people died as a result of this.

History has shown that American leaders have committed crimes against humanity on par with those who were found guilty and the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, yet they faced no punishment for their atrocities because the current international social-political structure of ruthless capitalism gives the state a legitimate and unjust monopoly on the use of violence. What’s worse is that just 5 American presidents in 29 years were responsible for the deaths of more than 4 million people, not to the mention the millions of deaths from the Korean War and other acts of American imperialism that took place during this time, or the millions more deaths under the presidents that came after Richard Nixon. Change is needed in the way our society operates in order to make sure such atrocities never happen again.