A friend wondered, while watching Ghana v. Serbia on Saturday, how many countries in the 2010 World Cup have been bombed by the USA.  The ensuing discussion became led inevitably to this:

Countries bombed, shelled, invaded, occupied or attacked by the US:

• Serbia (Kosovo War, 1999)
• North Korea (Korean War)
• South Korea (Korean War)
• Japan (WW2)
• Italy (WW2)
• France (WW1/WW2)
• Germany (WW1/WW2)
• Mexico (Wilson administration and Mexican war)
• Spain (Spanish-American war)
• Algeria (Tripolitan war)

Countries where the US has organized, sponsored, or supported coups d’etat (not including the above):

• Chile (Allende)
• Ghana (Nkruma)

Countries where the US has supported brutal totalitarian regimes (not including the above):

• South Africa (National party)
• Argentina (Jorge Rafael Videla)
• Greece (Colonels regime)
• Paraguay (Stroessner)

That’s 16, or half of the teams in the Mondial.  I’ve probably also forgotten something obvious and embarrassing.

Honorable Mention goes to Honduras, whose banana republican governments were backed by the United States and the United Fruit for much of the 20th century, and to Portugal under the Estadio Novo, with which the US was allied through NATO.

It should be emphasized that if the US had not supported these regimes and organized these coups, the communists would have won, and we’d all be speaking Russian today.