Michael the Leveller strikes again over at his blog. His latest is a well-wrought history of the US and her efforts to support democracy abroad (or not). A sample:
The U.S., especially the Bush administration, says that it keeps starting wars in order to "spread democracy," despite strong historical evidence that democracy cannot be imposed by force from without. But the U.S. record on this is very mixed.
Quite often in our history, even in the years since WWII, we have undermined democracies and imposed friendly dictatorships. The Baathists came to power in Iraq (eventually leading to Saddam Hussein--whom we liked and armed for years) because the US and UK stopped a previous attempt at Iraqi democracy.
Guatemala had a nonviolent revolution in 1948 and 10 years of democracy--modeling its constitution on the US one--until it nationalized the fruit industry in the '50s. Then-Sec. of State of John Foster Dulles was heavily invested in United Fruit Company, so he sent in the CIA which overthrew the government. Guatemala then had decades of military governments and civil war from which it is still trying to recover.
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Let me insert here what should be a needless assertion; that critiquing one's nation's actions does not equate - at all - with hating one's own nation. A brother who lets his brother repeatedly commit crimes and only responds by ignoring or even helping to cover up those crimes is not a loving brother.
People like Michael and myself point to these problems when we see them because we love the US, her ideals and promise. And we will not stand to see them undermined by the true traitors who'd undo those great ideals for which she stands.
Great stuff, Michael.
11 comments:
Or to quote the great poet Sage Francis, "This ain't a love it or leave it. It's a change it or lose it. I won't sing the anthem of a nation who never faces the music."
Thanks, Dan and Wasp J. I meant to focus more on the article I cited that Iraq's Speaker of Parliament has just called for us to pack up and leave. Now, he's just one man, but what if the whole Parliament (or a majority) votes for us to leave and take our bases (and Halliburton!)with us. It's their nation? Will we leave? If not, how have we shown a respect for democracy?
Will we leave if the sovereign democracy of Iraq asks us to? Here's an indepth and incisive prediction, based upon past history, present actions and leadership:
No.
Well, even when we "leave," we'll leave behind several military bases. Par for the course I guess.
I notice when confronted with well-documented facts such as these, the critics of the critics often are silent. Why would that be...?
Dan:"I notice when confronted with well-documented facts such as these, the critics of the critics often are silent. Why would that be...? "
Probably they find it very much like debating a brick wall.
"Well documented" includes, I suppose, statements like "Another Sec. of State, Kissinger, had Chile's democratically elected president Salvador Allende assassinated"
It is indeed documented that Nixon ordered Kissinger to initialize a coup against Allende's government in September of 1970. It is also documented that the order was withdrawn after one month. Allende died in an exchange of gunfire at the presidential palace in 1973. That's a hell of an assassination!
Also the critics of the critics probably noticed that the post mentions Dulles, Kissinger, Reagan, and Bush. So do we take it that Kenedy, Johnson, and Clinton all supported justice and equality in all their foreign dealings.
Or is it just another round of Bush bashing? The well documented history of foreign policy is something you can learn a lot from, but Bush bashing is like debating a brick wall.
"Well-documented," I said. Not "perfectly documented."
Clearly we have sponsored and encouraged coups, wars, rebellions and quite possibly assassinations. Would you dispute this, E?
"Or is it just another round of Bush bashing?"
If you read Michael's or my website long enough, you'll see that we are equal opportunity critics - not having much use for the excesses of either party. A Dem president was the one who began widespread terrorism by dropping atomic bombs on two civilian cities. The current Dems in office have done precious little to stand up to the questionably legal antics of the current president.
No, this is not about Bush-bashing. It's about standing against US's worse moments and pushing us to live up to our better ideals.
Dzn:"Would you dispute this, E?"
No. Not a word of it. By and large Michael has the straight of it, at least the parts he includes, which conspicuously doesn't have any Dem's in it.
I think it's going a little too far portray him as Kissinger the Shiv if we want to wax accurate.
Do you recall a post I did about the "Oil Standard"? Since the second world war, our culture's wealth has had it's basis in forcing the rest of the world to use our currency. When countries go Marxist and Socialist, they are in a position to back out of our money system and we no longer get a cut of their action. That's the real reason we try to undermine them.
And the solution is to individually bow out of the present wage/price/profit/grant economic scheme.
The coups and bombings and invasions are only a secondary shame. Our primary shame is that we ride the backs of the rest of the world and have to do those terrible things to keep the ride going.
That's what I'm saying. It is a shame, indeed. All of it.
Eleutheros,
I didn't intentionally omit Democrats. I was chronicaling times and places of U.S. undermining of others' democracies and I was doing so from memory. So, to set the record straight, let's add some Democratic notorious deeds along the same line: Jimmy Carter, usually one of my heroes and someone who tried more than most Cold War presidents to promote human rights equally, nevertheless continued to arm the dictatorial government of El Salvador--which used such arms to assassinate Archbishop Oscar Romero among others. During the Zimbabwean revolution and the Nicaraguan revolution, Carter tried to support more "centrist" movements than the socialist ones that were the clear choice of the people, but this failed to prevent both post-revolutionary nations from being Reagan targets after Carter was out of office. Most notoriously, Carter supported the autocratic Shaw of Iran against popular reform movements creating a power vacuum that led to Ayatollah Khoumeni, the hostage crisis, etc., and our current stand-off with a fundamentalist and anti-Western Iran. And that's one of the guys I like!
Clinton seemed to like every other war but Vietnam, the only one in which he was asked to serve! Convenient. In violation of the War Powers Act (something that REALLY WAS an imeachable offense as I said at the time), Clinton pushed for NATO attacks in Kosovo which undermined the local nonviolent movement, delayed the nonviolent overthrow of Slobadan Milosevic, and contributed to the further fragmentation and ethnic hatred of the former Yugoslavia.
(Clinton did many other things I hated, including NAFTA, but that's off this topic.)
Doubtless there would be more Democratic presidential perfidy except that we've had so few Democratic presidents post WWII. JFK? I don't know that era all that well. There was the Bay of Pigs, but, bad as that was, it wasn't an attempt on a democratically-elected leader!
Kennedy initiated and LBJ expanded the U.S. part of the Vietnam War, of course--defending France's colonialism against Vietnamese sovereignty, and replacing a series of governments in the South and NEVER trusting an elected govt. there.
I have little doubt that had John Kerry been elected that he's have supported some authoritarian movements, including in Iraq. Gore is more of a question mark with me.
The true believers in democracy and self-determination and peacemaking, from both parties, never seem to have had a real shot at becoming president. What does that say about us as a people?
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