What follows is created with the assistance of AI. To get to this point of clarity took many iterations with a system that has some of my political knowledge embedded. I have edited heavily as I post it here. The outcome is what I want to say.  I’d like to verify every fact, but the overall picture would remain despite of possible errors.

Summary

Since 1947, the United States has organised a global system of power routinely described as aid, or maintaining a liberal world order. (It is not doing that under the current fascist turn.)

That word “aid” used for decades conceals the formation of empire.

The empire operates through three interlocking mechanisms

The result is mass death, shattered societies ruled by gangsters, and long-term political dependency, all while the violence is narrated as benevolence.

The three pillars of the system

1. Military

• Arms, intelligence, training, logistics.
• Used overwhelmingly against domestic populations.
• Outcome: killing, torture, mass imprisonment.

2. Direct killing

• Bombing campaigns.
• Invasions and occupations.
• Napalm, chemical agents, siege, starvation.

3. Financial corruption (purchase of people i.e. slavery)

• Bribes, military budgets, development funds.
• A cultivated slave mentality: compliance in exchange for protection.
• Fund the local capitalists and their parties
• Supply CIA intelligence

Selected cases: deaths enabled by U.S. power

 

Country / Conflict	Dates	Estimated deaths	U.S. role
Greece – Civil War	1946–1949	~100,000–150,000	Money, arms, advisers; napalm via client state
Turkey	1947–present	~0 (direct)	Militarisation, coups, repression without civil war
Guatemala	1954–1996	~200,000	Coup, death squads, counter-insurgency training
Haiti	1957–present	~70,000+	Political and financial support, Intelligence cooperation, CIA links to coup leaders, Direct involvement in forced removal, Installation of compliant interim regim, UN occupation backed by the U.S.
Chile	1973–1990	~3,000 killed; ~30,000 tortured	Coup backing, economic warfare, regime support
Vietnam / Laos / Cambodia	1955–1975	~2–4 million	Direct war, saturation bombing, napalm, chemicals
Indonesia	1965–1966	~500,000–1,000,000	Green light, kill lists, logistics, diplomatic cover
Palestine / Israel	1948–present	~30,000–40,000 killed (pre-2023); far higher incl. Gaza 2023–25	Arms, funding, vetoes, impunity
Korea	1950–1953	~2–3 million	Direct war; systematic bombing of civilian cities
El Salvador	1980–1992	~75,000	Death squads, military funding
Nicaragua	1981–1990	~30,000	Proxy war, terror, economic strangulation
Congo (post-Lumumba)	1960–1965	tens–hundreds of thousands	Assassination, managed chaos
Iran (post-1953 coup)	1953–1979	thousands imprisoned/killed	Coup, secret police, dictatorship
Iraq	2003–2011	~150,000–600,000+	Direct invasion and occupation
Afghanistan	2001–2021	~170,000–240,000	Direct war, drone warfare
Panama	1989	~500–3,000	Direct invasion
Syria	2011 -present	~500,000	US share indirect but significant. Covert CIA arms programs, Airstrikes
Yeman	2002 – present	~15,000–20,000	Directly from airstrikes and raids; far higher indirectly via famine and disease
Lybia	2011 – present	~30,000 Initial war deaths; many more from post-collapse violence	NATO bombing campaign Regime destruction
Somalia	1992 – present	~10s of thousands	Direct intervention, Drone warfare, Proxy forces – A permanent low-visibility war with high civilian cost.
Pakistan	2004 – –2018 (peak drone period)	~4,000–10,000 including civilians	Drone assassination program, Intelligence operations
Sudan	1990s- 2010s	~Hundreds of thousands (complex attribution)	Proxy politics, Arms flows, Diplomatic engineering Part of the imperial management system.
Honduras	2009 – present	~thousands via repression and gang-state violence	Backing of coup government, Security assistance
Philippines	2001 – present	~tens of thousands (counter-insurgency and “war on drugs”)	Training, intelligence, Joint operations
Dominican Republic	1965	~600+ Dominican casualties	Direct military intervention to suppress a nationalist/populist revolt.
Grenada	1983	~45+ Grenadian combatants and others killed (plus Cuban casualties	Direct invasion to topple a left-leaning government under Cold War pretexts.
Venezuela	2026	~80–100+ reported so far	Direct military strikes on Caracas and surrounding areas, capture of President Nicolás Maduro and security forces, bombing of civilian infrastructure and military targets.

Figures are conservative historical ranges. They often exclude wider demographic loss from displacement, famine, and long-term infrastructural collapse. I checked one figure and found this: The Costs of War Project at Brown University:

The Indonesian example.

See the 2012 documentary The Act of Killing and the book by Vincent Bevins  The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World 

Half a million to one million people were murdered.

Extermination by United States owned elites

The term Jakarta Method later circulated in:
• Latin America
• Central America
• The Philippines

It meant:
Mass killing of the left enabled by the US.

The Indonesian massacre was described at the time (if at all) as a success.

You do not need to invade a country to destroy a million people. You coerce and own people to do it for you.

The whole thing is covered up. See  red with blood.

The American capitalist system and its empire is a killing machine

The US Empire is a  coherent post-1945 system.

It kills directly.

It buys people to kill others.