All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic

 

Americans have always fought in other people's wars.

Some fought for democratic interests.

Some fought against them, both directly

In 1953, the United States CIA led by one of President Theodore Roosevelt’s grandsons, initiated a coup in Iran (Operation Ajax) to remove the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. The Iranian government was understandably dissatisfied with the terms of its contract with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company that allowed British interests to claim 85% of the oil profit from Iran. Iran voted to nationalize the oil industry in 1951 after the British declined to renegotiate the terms. The US-led coup was successful, and the royal monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, became virtual dictator. Fearing popular reprisal, Pahlavi’s government was supported by the CIA in creating the Iranian SAVAK, a vicious secret police for the Shah’s dictatorial government. We can only assume that the oil revenue sharing agreement with the Shah was acceptable to the US and UK.

 and indirectly.

To Peter Kornbluh, author of 'The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability', a new book on U.S.-Chilean relations from the 1960s through the 1980s, the newly declassified document makes clear precisely what arguments lay behind the Nixon administration's destabilization policy. 

''This document is the Rosetta Stone for deciphering the motivations of Kissinger and Nixon in undermining Chilean democracy'', Kornbluh, who obtained the document through the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA), told IPS.

''It also reinforces the judgment of history on Kissinger's role as the primary advocate of overthrowing the Allende government'', added Kornbluh, who has directed the Chile Documentation Project of the independent National Security Archive for more than a decade.

In his memoirs, Kissinger has denied the United States deliberately attempted to destabilize Allende, consistent with his 1974 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it was the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to try and prevent Allende from taking office after his Unidad Popular coalition won a plurality of votes in the 1970 national elections, and to subsequently finance efforts to destabilize his government.

Allende was eventually overthrown -- and committed suicide -- in a bloody military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet on Sep. 11, 1973, ushering in a repressive, 17-year dictatorship.

''The intent of the United States was not to destabilize or subvert Allende'', Kissinger said at the time, ''but to keep ... in being those political parties that had traditionally contested the elections, and our concern was with the election in 1976 and not at all with the coup in 1973, about which we knew nothing and (with) which we had nothing to do".

Apologists for U.S. actions in Chile have long argued Allende posed a serious threat to the country's democratic institutions.

In his book, which scholars have widely hailed as the most authoritative on the subject, Kornbluh concludes there is no concrete evidence of a CIA role in the coup itself, although the accumulated evidence of a U.S. role in preparing the ground for an overthrow and in providing Pinochet with support after the coup is overwhelming. 

...

Some went so far as to invent a fake country and use it as a base of operations to attack us:

Georgia

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
... 

Mississippi

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union. In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.
...

South Carolina

Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
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And some took up our enemy's cause and fought against us under his banner:

US volunteers in the Waffen-SS 

There were some US citizens who were members of the Waffen-SS, but no unit made up of American volunteers was ever raised (despite some claims about an "American Free Corps" or "George Washington Brigade"). According to figures from the SS five US citizens served in the Waffen-SS in May 1940, but after that date no numbers are available.

Second Lieutenant Martin James Monti (born 1910 in St Louis of an Italian-Swiss father and German mother) went AWOL Oct 1944, travelled from Karachi to Naples (through Cairo and Tripoli) where he stole a F-4 or F-5 photographic reconnaissance aircraft (photo recon version of the P-38) and flew to Milan. There he surrendered, or rather defected, to the Germans and worked as a propaganda broadcaster (as Martin Wiethaupt) before entering the Waffen-SS as a SS-Untersturmführer in SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers. At the end of the war he went south to Italy where he surrendered to US forces (still wearing his SS uniform) claiming that he had been given the uniform by partisans. He was charged with desertion and sentenced to 15 years hard labour. This sentence was soon commuted and Monti rejoined the US Air Corps, but in 1948 he was discharged and picked up by the FBI. He was now charged with treason and sentenced to 25 years the following year. He was paroled in 1960.

Peter Delaney (aka Pierre de la Ney du Vair), a Louisiana born SS-Haupsturmführer in SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers who is believed to have served in Légion des Volontaires Français (LVF). He met Monti and probably arranged for him to enter the Waffen-SS. Delaney was killed in 1945.

At least eight American volunteers are known to have been killed during their service.

Numerous ethnic Germans who were born in the USA served in the Wehrmacht, for example Boy Rickmers who was born in New York and won the Knight's Cross as part of 320. Infanterie-Division on 26 March 1943.

No real attempt by the US authorities to investigate the matter and trace the volunteers was made after the war, as opposed to for example the efforts by the British.

Now add in non-state actors and science fiction technology and welcome to the 21st Century,