Getting to know Uncle Sam

 

The Panama Canal is a navigation channel located between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The canal crosses the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, with an extension of 82 km. This strait is considered one of the great engineering works of the 20th century because it operates through locks at each end that lift ships to Gatun Lake, an artificial lake created to reduce the amount of work required to excavate the canal to 27.5 meters above sea level and then lower them to the level of the Pacific or the Atlantic. Prior to its opening, the natural passages used between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were the Strait of Magellan and Cape Horn, located at the southern tip of Chile.  However, not many people are aware that after the construction of this engineering marvel, there was an intervention by the U.S. government to take over the jurisdiction of this channel. It is for this reason that for a more comprehensive understanding of this historical process, we offer you a...

CIA activities in Laos had their beginnings in the 1950s. In 1959, US Special Operations Forces (military and CIA) began training some Laotian soldiers in unconventional warfare techniques as early as the fall of 1959 under the code name "Erawan". As Ahern (2009) rightly points out is that under this code name, General Vang Pao, who served the Lao royal family, recruited and trained his Hmong and Iu-Mien soldiers. The Hmong and Iu-Mien were targeted as allies after President John F. Kennedy, who refused to send more U.S. soldiers into battle in Southeast Asia, took office. Instead, he called on the CIA to use its tribal forces in Laos and "do everything possible to launch guerrilla operations in North Vietnam with its Asian recruits." General Vang Pao then recruited and trained his Hmong soldiers to ally with the CIA and fight against North Vietnam. The CIA itself claims that CIA air operations in Laos from 1955 to 1974 were the "largest paramilitary operations...