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These are Important Articles Which Were Posted Over Time:
2002 - Sandanistas document U.S. as a Terrorist Nation
What's LeftTerrorism as Foreign Policy
By Stephen Gowans
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, terrorism is the "use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."
When George W. Bush gave the CIA a green light to 'to topple or capture' the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, using violence and 'deadly force' if necessary," he adopted terrorism as his official foreign policy regarding Iraq.
But terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy isn't a recent innovation. It has long been used by great powers, not least by the United States, to achieve geopolitical goals.
In fact, the United States and other great power allies, like Britain, have been the most ardent, and destructive, practitioners of terrorism. But because Western governments present their acts of terrorism as legitimate, necessary and sometimes even humanitarian, we don't see that the greatest terrorist acts of all haven't been incubated in Afghan caves, or refugee camps in the West Bank, but in richly-appointed government offices in places like Washington, Tel Aviv and London.
After relentlessly bombing German cities in World War II, Winston Churchill drafted a memorandum to his chiefs of staff. "The moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed," he wrote. "Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land." (1)
The horrors of the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo would later be followed by the greatest single terrorist act in history, the atomic incineration of thousands at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Frequent programs of terror would follow.
When the Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua, ousting the US-backed dictator Samosa, Washington organized former members of Samosa's dreaded National Guard to carry out terrorist attacks against civilian targets, such as schools and medical clinics. The hope was that the use of force against people and property would be sufficiently coercive and intimidating to topple the new government. The contra's terrorism, on top of the economic terrorism of U.S. sanctions, eventually did topple the Sandinistas, but not before the World Court convicted the United States of....terrorism. Strange that the United States, which demonizes countries its calls sponsors of terrorism and sanctimoniously appoints itself to rid the world of the scourge, is the only state to be convicted of this reprehensible act.
Washington has also sponsored terrorist attacks against Cuba, the Bay of Pigs invasion being the most well known, but only one of dozens, if not hundreds, of attacks launched from the United States with either the government's passive knowledge or active connivance. And these days at the centre of U.S. foreign policy in the Americas lurks Otto Reich, the Undersecretary of State for Hemispheric Affairs, a virulent anti-Castro Cuban exile, linked to terrorist attacks on the Caribbean country.
U.S. backed and supported death squads in Central and South America, which have actively terrorized civilian populations, have also served Washington's political and ideological ends, intimidating and coercing movements and organizations that threaten U.S. hegemony. And a major training centre for death squad terrorists is the U.S. Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Georgia, known by its detractors as "the school of assassins". The school trains Latin American soldiers in what it calls counterinsurgency, but what often amounts to terrorizing domestic populations for political and ideological reasons. Colombia, which has the worst human rights record in the Americas, has sent over 10,000 soldiers to the school.
In Afghanistan, the CIA organized the mujahideen, Islamist fanatics, to use violence against people and property -- in other words, terrorism -- to topple the Communist government. Zbigniew Brezinski, national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, told an interviewer in 1998 that the U.S. began funnelling aid to the mujahideen terrorists six months before the Soviet Union intervened, with the intention of drawing the Soviets into their own Vietnam. (2)
After the Soviets withdrew and Afghanistan's Communist government fell, some mujahideen made their way to the Balkans, carrying out terrorist attacks in Bosnia and Kosovo. As late as 1998, the U.S. State Department listed the KLA, to which it would later provide aid, as a terrorist organization linked to the most notorious mujahideen terrorist of all, Osama bin Laden.
But while the United States record on sponsoring terrorists is bad enough, its record in directly using violence against people and property to achieve political ends is infamous.
Since World War II some 35 million people have died in wars, (3) many of them wars the United States has been at the centre of, in pursuit of political and ideological objectives. Ninety percent of the dead have been civilians, many killed in indiscriminate bombing raids by the U.S. Air Force.
"Air bombardment is state terrorism," notes political scientist, C Douglas Lummis. "It is the terrorism of the rich. It has burned up and blasted apart more innocents in the past six decades than have all the anti-state terrorists who ever lived." (4)
When a U.S.-led NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days in the spring of 1999, killing hundreds, if not thousands of civilians, U.S. Air Force Lt. General Michael Short's explanation of NATO's strategy sounded exactly like the American Heritage Dictionary definition of terrorism. Said Short, "If you wake up in the morning and you have no power to your house and no gas to your stove and the bridge you take to work is down and will be lying in the Danube for the next 20 years, I think you begin to ask, 'Hey, Slobo, what's this all about? How much more of this do we have to withstand?'" (5)
And when British Defense Staff, Adm. Sir Michael Boyce, declared the bombing of Afghanistan, led by U.S. forces, would continue until "the country themselves recognize that this is going to go on until they get the leadership changed," (6) it just seemed more of the same. Great powers are prepared to use violence on a massive scale to intimidate and coerce civilian populations, for political and ideological reasons.
So while terrorism may seem the preserve of men with exotic sounding Arabic names, it is hardly exotic, or uniquely Arabic. On the contrary, most of the terrorism practised during and since World War Two has either been sponsored, or directly carried out, by the United States, with far more murderous and destructive consequences than Palestinian suicide bombings or 9/11. Indeed, the number of Afghan civilians estimated to have died in U.S. bombing raids, to say nothing of those who have died of starvation and cold in refugee camps after being driven from their homes by U.S. bombs, exceeds the number of people who died as a result of the 9/11 attacks. (7) While one doesn't justify the other, it does show that U.S. terrorism can be more destructive than even the most destructive al-Qaeda connected attack.
But apologists for U.S. terrorism argue that American acts of violence (which they call self-defense or humanitarian intervention) are justified because they're aimed at stopping or pre-empting illegitimate, illegal or far worse acts of terror. Moreover, they claim the U.S. doesn't deliberately target civilians, while terrorists, and terrorist states, do.
This is artful.
It can hardly be said a campaign of bombing doesn't produce massive terror, or that the killing of civilians and the destruction of civilian property is not an inevitable outcome of the air wars the United States and its allies carry out.
And it's hardly the case that recent American acts of terror were necessary. While Washington said it had to bomb Yugoslavia to stop what it claimed was a Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, almost all the Kosovo-related events of which former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is accused, happened after the bombing. And the deal NATO reached with the Yugoslav government after 78 days of terror bombing was almost identical to the deal Milosevic proposed before the bombing began. Why was the bombing campaign necessary?
Washington's campaign of terror bombing over Afghanistan began, it will be recalled, after George W. Bush's demand that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden was met by the eminently reasonable request to see evidence of bin Laden's culpability. Rather than producing the evidence (which the U.S. government has yet to present to anyone, including the American people) Bush opted for terror bombing. Had he furnished the Taliban with evidence of bin Laden's guilt, the al-Qaeda leader may have been brought to book and Washington could have avoided a massive campaign of terror against innocent Afghans. So what has the campaign of terror availed, besides more deaths than the original reason for the war -- the 9/11 attacks -- produced?
Rather than reducing the threat of terror attacks, the FBI and CIA say the threat has increased.(8) It seems al-Qaeda's infrastructure wasn't uprooted after all. Instead, there are a now whole lot more people who hold grudges against the United States. And with al-Qaeda operatives dispersed across dozens of countries, it was unlikely from the start that bombing Afghanistan was going to disrupt the terrorist organization.
But even apart from the terror bombing failing to achieved its stated objectives, the absurdity of saying that American terrorism is necessary and legitimate, where all other terrorism is unjustified under any circumstances, should be clear.
Palestinians face military occupation, denial of their human rights, repression and daily humiliation, yet we deny this as grounds to justify Palestinian terrorist attacks. Palestinian grievances must be addressed in non-violent ways, we insist.
And while Washington's insistence on maintaining sanctions against Iraq has occasioned other legitimate grievances (according to the U.N., sanctions have killed well over a million Iraqis), we deny this as justifiable grounds for terror attacks.
Saying that the terrorist acts of the U.S. and its allies and proxies are justifiable while those of its enemies are not, is unrelieved hypocrisy. It amounts to saying terrorism directed at America's enemies is just, while terrorism directed at America, and its janissaires, is unacceptable under any circumstances. Talk about a self-serving double-standard.
Terrorism is always unjustifiable, no matter who's behind it. Even if it is the official foreign policy of one's government.
(1) The Guardian (London), August 24, 2001
(2) William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, Common Courage Press, 2000.
(3) Gabriel Kolko, Century of War: Politics, Conflict and Society Since 1914 (New York: New Press, 1994), 470.
(4) C Douglas Lummis, The Nation, September 26, 1994
(5) Washington Post Foreign Service, May 24, 1999
(6) The Guardian (London), December 20, 2001
(7) Marc W. Herold, "A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting", http://www.media-alliance.org/mediafile/20-5/casualties12-10.html
(8) The Guardian (London), June 17, 2002
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What's Left
January 8, 2003
Ex-Bush speechwriter: I was to provide a justification for war
By Stephen Gowans
In late December 2001, chief presidential speechwriter Mike Gerson "was parcelling out the components of the forthcoming State of the Union speech. His request to me," recalls David Frum in his new book The White House in The Right Time: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush, "could not have been simpler: I was to provide a justification for a war."
And so was born the phrase "the axis of evil."
A year later, the impending all-out assault on Iraq is spinned as "a war of liberation." And there's a certain truth to the claim.
It will be a war that could liberate up to 500,000 Iraqis of their lives, according to the British healthcare group, Medact.
It will be a war that could liberate 200,000 Iraqis of their homes, and 10 million of their security against hunger and disease, according to a new UN report.
And, above all, it will be a war that will liberate Iraq of its oil wealth and put America more wholly in charge.
It will indeed be a war of liberation.
And one long in the making.
Key Bush cabinet members had been pushing for a take-over of Iraq and its oil fields for some time.
In September, 2000, Dick Cheney, now vice-president, along with his current chief of staff Lewis Libby, and Donald Rumsfeld, now Secretary of Defense, along with his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, laid out a plan to create a new American century, in which the United States would be supreme in the world, the first truly global empire.
The plan adumbrated regime change in Iraq, that is, the installation of a US puppet regime in Baghdad.
The events of 9/11 were pressed into service to provide the trigger.
Within hours of hijacked jets careening into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, Rumsfeld was ordering his staff to find something that could be used to pin the blame on Iraq.
National Security advisor Condoleeza Rice ordered her staff to consider the opportunities 9/11 provided, as if the grim events of that day were a sliver lining that could justify the vigorous extension of US hegemony.
In his book, Frum recounts how he spent two days dreaming up a pretext for "going after Iraq," eventually hitting on the "axis of evil" idea, which he originally conceived of as the "axis of hatred" but which Gerson changed "to use the theological language that Bush" (mirroring Osama bin Laden) "had made his own since Sept. 11."
While Frum denies the decision to launch a ground invasion had been made when he was asked to "sum up in a sentence or two our best case for going after Iraq," the events leading up to Frum's inventing a pretext for the mass murder suggest the decision had been made long before that.
But more revealing is Frum's attack on the antiwar camp, for in dismissing its arguments, Frum lets slip the real reasons for the impending slaughter: American control of the Middle East.
"I knew that opponents of action against Iraq relied on two main points," Frum writes. "First, they say there was no direct, conclusive proof that Saddam Hussein aided the Sept. 11 terrorists."
This, Frum does not deny, but says Iraq, Iran, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda are linked in "resenting the power of the West," his rationale for drawing all four into an axis. (North Korea was added at the last minute, he explains, because "it needed to feel a stronger hand.")
"Saddam Hussein was certainly a very bad man, so was Stalin," Frum acknowledges. "We had relied on deterrence, not war, to contain him; why should we not do so with Saddam, who after all controlled a much weaker state than the old Soviet Union?"
Actually, it was less Stalin, and more Washington, with its insatiable appetite for meddling in Central and South America, in Africa, in Indochina, that needed to be contained, but lay that aside. In reply, Frum says this argument is nothing more that resentment of American power.
"An American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein...and a replacement of the radical Baathist dictatorship with a new government more closely aligned with the United States--would put America more wholly in charge of the region than any power since the Ottomans. People who resent American power...very understandably dreaded such an outcome."
In Frum's view, there's a lot of resenting going on, all having to do with Washington's throwing its weight around to "more wholly take charge," and while it's no doubt true that Washington's jackbooting around the world occasions considerable resentment (as the Nazi's did), it's clear that Frum regards the resenting as somehow illegitimate.
Certainly, in the case of countries or organizations, resenting a US take-over is sufficient to earn your way onto Washington's hit-list; resentment is the tie that binds set upon countries into an axis.
Frum's views are entirely consistent with the tacit doctrine that holds sway among his journalistic colleagues in North America and the UK (Frum now writes for Canada's viciously right-wing, Washington-aligned The National Post) that the United States is now the legitimate world ruler, whose authority must be obeyed. Under this regime, ideas of national sovereignty are illegitimate, for all countries (at least the weakest ones, unable to fight back) are to consider themselves subordinate, and are to make way for Washington to manoeuvre itself into a position where it can be "more wholly in charge."
Emblematic of this thinking is the way North Korea is presented in the Anglo-American media: as defiant, for refusing to be bound by an international agreement Washington long ago abandoned, but has commanded Pyongyang to comply with. The very act of asserting one's national sovereignty or right of self-defense in the face of American edicts is considered a defiant act, as if Washington's power to compel compliance rests on legitimate authority and not simply the threat of force or economic warfare.
On the other hand, Washington can unilaterally rip up as many international agreements as it likes, undermine some (such as the International Criminal Court), refuse to be bound by others, and brazenly thumb its nose at international conventions (such as those established at Nuremberg,) and this veridical rogue behavior is regarded as perfectly legitimate, the actions of a sovereign.
Stripped of its verbiage, Frum's account reduces to this: "I was asked to provide a justification for a war that would put Washington more wholly in charge of the region that any power since the Ottomans."
For Frum, and the velociraptors plotting mass murder in the name of strengthening American primacy, there can be no cause higher than service to Washington's imperial ambitions. Inventing justifications for mass murder, are, therefore, wholly justifiable.
Pity those who resent it.
Frum's book is being excerpted in The National Post. His recounting of his inventing a pretext for going after Iraq appears in the January 8, 2003 edition.
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Replies
It is worthy to note that the U.S.A. was also a signatory to the neutrality law as did the Hawaiian Kingdom. Despite being established as a neutral nation, the U.S. has been anything but neutral based on its actions and attitude. Its military has intervened and invaded countries throughout the world continuously as a form of an active watchdog in promoting its form of democracy along with its doctrines of expansionism, imperialism, and manifest destiny. It's also worth taking note that the U.S. has now engaged in pre-emption similar to the actions of Hitler's Germany. This pre-emption U.S. foreign policy means to stike against any country before they even think about declaring war or attacking the U.S.A. In other words to invade and attack a country before it even thinks of waging war against the U.S.A. ; exactly like the United States of America's actions against the Kingdom of Hawai, Native Americans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Japan, Phillipines, Palestine, Iran, Puerto Rico, etc.
This deems the U.S.A. as a rogue, terrorist state.
Hi Tane,
Yes indeed, agree with you, and several authors documented U.S. A. as a rogue, terrorist state too:
*Stephen Kinzer
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
Part II...Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from ...
* David Blum
Since 1945:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=50QUvqP0...
Greek musician named Nefeli .....don't think that she was the poster but the musik sounds kool....
aloha.
Axis of evil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Frum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Axis of evil" authorship settled! - Slate Magazine
How I created the axis of evil - The Guardian
David Frum - Profile - Right Web - Institute for Policy Studies
Why 'Axis of Evil' is Still Right—David Frum - The Daily Beast
'Axis of Evil' Author David Frum on Breitbart - YouTube
From the Majority Report, live M-F 11:30am EST and via daily podcast at http:// Majority.FM: David ...
AOL On - David Frum's Role in the Axis of Evil Speech
David Frum, resident fellow at American Enterprise Institute, talks about his role in writing the Axis of Evil speech.
'Axis of evil' author turns his sights on Bush - CNN
Neo-Con, "Axis of Evil"er, Giuliani wingman David Frum tells "Insane ...
http://on.aol.com/video/david-frums-role-in-the-axis-of-evil-speech...
Why 'Axis of Evil' is Still Right
by David Frum Jan 29, 2012 8:50 PM EST
Ten years later, the content of the 'Axis of Evil' speech stands up to scrutiny.
US President George W. Bush delivers his first State of the Union Speech 29 January 2002 (PAUL RICHARDS / AFP / Getty Images)
It has been less than a week, and already it's hard to remember a single line from President Obama's most recent State of the Union address.
Yet people are still arguing about the State of the Union delivered by George W. Bush 10 years ago Sunday: the famous, or notorious, "axis of evil" speech. I played a small part in the crafting of that speech. Rereading it again after this long interval of time, I'm impressed to see how well it stands up—and how wrong so many of its critics were.
Ten years ago, President Bush asserted that the world's leading rogue regimes and a variety of terrorist groups together formed an "axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."
Those words touched off possibly the most explosive reaction ever heard to a presidential speech: an outpouring of enraged criticism that reverberates all these years later.
The criticism could be summarized under three main headers:
1) It was naive, paranoid, or outright deceptive to suggest that rogue states and terrorist groups might cooperate across ideological or theological lines. Communist North Korea would never cooperate with Shiite Iran. Shiite Iran would never aid Sunni Hamas.
2) By pointing fingers at these regimes, the president disrupted fruitful negotiations and cooperation.
3) And what about Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? Didn't they support terrorism? Why were they omitted from the memorable axis?
Criticism #1 is the criticism most thoroughly debunked by subsequent revelations. The whole world now knows what 10 years ago counted as highly sensitive intelligence information: rogue regimes do cooperate, and support for terrorism does cross ideological and theological lines.
From the New York Times, Nov. 2010:
Secret American intelligence assessments have concluded that Iran has obtained a cache of advanced missiles, based on a Russian design, that are much more powerful than anything Washington has publicly conceded that Tehran has in its arsenal, diplomatic cables show.
Iran obtained 19 of the missiles fromNorth Korea, according to a cable dated Feb. 24 of this year.
...
The missiles could for the first time give Iran the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe or easily reach Moscow, and American officials warned that their advanced propulsion could speed Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
From CNN, April 2008:
U.S. intelligence officials will tell members of Congress on Thursday that North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear facility, according to a source familiar with internal administration discussions. The facility in question was bombed by Israeli planes in September.
From the leading book on Hamas, by a former intelligence analyst at the US Treasury, published in 2007: "The Islamic Republic of Iran ... is Hamas's most important and explicit state sponsor. ... Estimates of Iran's financial assistance to Hamas vary, but there is unanimity on one score: the sum is significant ... at least $25-50 million in 1995 and 1996."
I could fill the column with more examples, but you get the idea. The president's claims in 2002 have been fully corroborated by later knowledge.
The second criticism—that Bush's tough words prevented cooperation with Iran and North Korea—has also been discredited. The period 1997-2001, the period when Iran was supposedly most open to cooperation with the West, was precisely the period in which Iran was investing heavily in the nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak that were exposed to the world in the summer of 2002.
Yes, the Iranian regime had bad relations with the Afghan Taliban, the prime exporters of heroin into Iran. Yes, the Iranian regime was happy to stand aside as US forces overthrew Mullah Omar and his gang. But the claim circulated at that time that the Axis of Evil speech derailed some possible “grand bargain” with Iran was the purest wishful thinking. When the Taliban fell, the Iranians extended refuge to fleeing al-Qaeda members, including relatives of Osama bin Laden. Work on the nuclear program never slowed.
In 2009, a new American president put to the test the hopes that a US appeal might gain a positive Iranian response. Instead, the regime rigged its 2009 presidential elections; jailed, tortured, and killed protesters; and proceeded apace toward a nuclear bomb.
In North Korea likewise, the Axis of Evil speech did not disrupt any good-faith negotiations, for the compelling reasons that there were no good faith negotiations to disrupt. Both regimes valued their nuclear programs more than they valued good relations with the US. If they could dupe the US into offering good relations while continuing their nuclear programs, they were delighted to do that—but if abandonment of their nuclear programs became a serious price for good relations, they then preferred bad. That choice was always theirs, not America’s.
Indeed, the only pause in the Iranian nuclear program occurred in the two years after the invasion of the Iraq, when Qaddafi of Libya surrendered his nuclear program and a frightened Iran slowed down its weaponization. It was the hard line, not the soft line, that briefly diverted Iran from its dangerous path.
The third criticism heard at the time was that the speech was hypocritical: why single out some countries but not others, equally problematic? What about Saudi Arabia? What about Pakistan?
Fair points, up to a point. The 2002 State of the Union offered Pakistan in particular praise it did not deserve.
“Many nations are acting forcefully. Pakistan is now cracking down on terror, and I admire the strong leadership of President Musharraf.”
These words were spoken not even 8 weeks after Pakistani-backed terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament. And within some very few months after these words were spoken, Osama bin Laden would find refuge inside Pakistan.
But critics of President Bush’s inconsistency have some inconsistencies of their own to iron out.
Would they have wished him to adopt a tougher line to more countries? Or is the argument, “Since we weren’t able to do much about Pakistan, therefore we should not do much about Iraq and Iran either?”
In fact, Bush in 2002 took exactly the gamble with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that critics of his Iraq and Iran policy urged him to take with the latter two countries: he tried to woo them with a softer line. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the gamble paid off. Especially after Saudi Arabia suffered a burst of terrorism on its own soil in 2005, the Saudi authorities became much more cooperative with the United States, cracking down on terrorist financing within their country and better sharing information. With Pakistan, unfortunately, the gamble failed. Pakistan today presents even more challenges to US policy than in 2002.
Yet the Pakistan example should chasten Bush’s critics even more than the Bush administration: that example suggests that soft-line policies can also fail—a good lesson to keep in mind on this 10th anniversary.
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David Frum is a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast and a CNN contributor.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqg90Qj2ApU
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/29/axis-of-evil-ten-y...
of U.S. Support for Dictators
p162
The primary force driving American policy has been and remains ... the protection of U.S. economic interests, irrespective of the undemocratic nature or human rights record of the groups and governments with whom it has allied.
THE ROOT DOCTRINE
Schmitz makes it clear in his book Thank God They're on Our Side: the United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships 192119651 that Washington's support for rightwing dictators during the Cold War was a continuation, an elongation and an intensification of a policy developed during the early part of the century. That policy placed the fear of communism, socialism, and the spread of disorder as the centerpiece of its formulation. The Cold War demanded new and expanded tactics, approaches, and procedures, "but the ideological basis and fundamental assumptions remained remarkably consistent. 112 By casting the hegemon in the role of the supporter of rightwing dictators, Schmitz contradicts the traditional "triumphalist" interpretation of the way Washington waged and won the Cold War: that victory came to the United States because its governments followed a policy of containment as well as a steadfast adherence to the promotion of democracy and liberalism.
(Concentrating on the period since 1921, Schmitz argues that since that date \ authoritarian regimes that have promised stability, anti-communism, and . investment and trade opportunities for American business have received \ American support. While critics argue that this behavior violates the stated ideals of the country, the leadership often embraces it because, so it reasons, business is business. Or, stated differently, politics is power politics; morals are secondary, if they apply at all.
The overarching rationale for accepting and sustaining rightwing dictatorships was written in 1922 by Elihu Root. A Nobel prize winner and senior policy spokesman for the Republican Party, he described the "right of selfprotection" in a presidential address to an audience at the American Society of International Law. The former U.S. secretary of state proclaimed the sovereign right of a state to take early action to "prevent a condition of affairs in which it will be too late to protect itself."
Root justified support for right-wing dictatorships with the argument that the populace in the victim country was incapable of democratic rule. They hadn't learned the knack of it. But no matter: the Italians had undertaken to govern themselves without having learned the knack of it, Root averred, singling Mussolini out for praise as the man of the hour, under whose dictatorship Italy had experienced a revival of prosperity, contentment, and happiness.
While this might be projected as the Republican reaction to Wilsonian idealism, Wilsonian idealism remains open to question, at least in Wilson's dealings with Latin America, where he invaded no less than four countries in the region-Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic-at the behest of American interests. In fact, it seems reasonable to presume that the Root Doctrine has been operational throughout United States history, both long before its articulation and to this very day. Prior to the Spanish American War, the United States carried out 103 interventions; between the end of that war and the Great Depression, it sent troops to Latin America 32 times. In any case, the Root Doctrine would soon become bipartisan, and it was touted as being more cost-effective than invasions.
The Good Neighbor policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt was entirely compatible with the Root doctrine. It simply required that Washington substitute support of local dictators for its previous policy of invasions and occupations, the , latter being the ultimate forms of interference forbidden by the new policy. Keylor ascribes the adoption of this new policy to Washington's embarrassment at the obvious similarity between its previous invasions and occupations of Latin America and the then current aggression of Japan in China. The parallel was too obvious, and compelled the implementation of a new way to maintain hegemony in the hemisphere.
The new policy was initiated by the Hoover administration, and taken up and "completed" during the succeeding Roosevelt administration. By 1934 all American troops had been withdrawn from Latin America, except for those at the military and naval bases maintained in Panama and in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The financial supervision of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua was phased out between 1936 and 1940. Washington relinquished, at least on paper, its right to intervene. For direct forms of dominance, it substituted indirect ones, reminiscent of but less formal than those employed in British indirect rule in Africa. Central to this new scheme was support-economic, military and diplomatic-for local autocrats-for their currencies, their national constabularies, and their personal greed. In return, these autocrats suppressed local communists and radicals, protected American business, and performed other favors when called upon to do so. The good neighbor policy and the Root doctrine not only accomplished the same essential goals, but the latter was generally more cost effective and presented a smoother surface. No need to invade to change unwanted regimes. Better to support the local military that would make the changes for you.
p164
[Gabriel] Kolko argues that General Eisenhower inaugurated "the era of the generals" in the realm of policy. Eisenhower preferred generals and helped them to take over because they preserved traditional values (a phrase which largely, as we have seen, serves as a euphemism for elite dominance) and brought order to situations plagued with disorder and the threat of social change.
p165
NICARAGUA, THE SOMOZAS. AND THE SANDANISTAS: FROM COOLIDGE TO BUSH, SR.
A revolt in 1912 induced the president of Nicaragua, Adolfo Diaz, to request military aid from Washington to maintain order. The marines were sent, and they remained until 1925. When they withdrew, however, another revolt occurred, and the marines returned the next year. It was during this occupation that the Coolidge administration insisted on the establishment of a Nicaraguan national guard to be trained by the marines. It handpicked Anastacio Somoza as the commander of the guard, which in turn facilitated his accession to political power. A former latrine inspector, Somoza spoke fluent English, and he impressed Colonel Stimson, a former secretary of war, who had been sent to Managua to find a solution to the Nicaraguan problem. President Hoover withdrew the marines from Nicaragua in 1933. Because the dictatorship of Somoza provided stability in the Central American country and protected Washington's interests, they were no longer needed. Eleven administrations followed the example of Coolidge by honoring the Root Doctrine in Nicaragua.
The elder Somoza and his two sons, Luis and Anastacio, Jr. used the national guard as the vehicle to maintain their reign until the last Somoza (Anastacio) was forced to resign in 1979. Washington was aware of the corruption of, and the repression practiced by, the Somozas. In 1939 Somoza was invited to visit Washington, where he had an audience with President Roosevelt and was given the honor of speaking to a joint session of Congress. U.S. military and economic assistance to Nicaragua increased steadily between 1945 and 1975, even as Somoza's sons refined and expanded the repression and corruption that had characterized their father's rule. The Somozas reciprocated, with Nicaragua assuming the role of client state by providing a training ground and a launching pad for the intervention in Guatemala in 1954 and the invasion of Cuba in 1961.
When a devastating earthquake hit the country in 1972, Somoza reacted by siphoning off much of the relief money for himself and his cronies. On June 28, 1979 the United States Ambassador Lawrence Pezzullo cabled Washington that he had met with Somoza and suggested that "we" design a scenario for his resignation. 13 Having put the elder Somoza on the throne, Washington took his son off it 46 years later. On July 17 of the next month Anastacio, Jr. left for exile in Miami. He was compelled to step down as part of a scheme of the Carter administration to form a provisional government of moderate leaders to prevent the Sandanistas from coming to power. The Sandanistas were to be excluded from the coalition, and the national guard was to be preserved. Finally the Organization of American States was asked to form a peacekeeping force with the United States at its head to provide the muscle for the transitional period. A large majority of Latin American states, however, rejected this proposal. The scheme fell through, the national guard disintegrated, and Sandanistan troops marched into Managua unopposed.
The Reagan administration waged a low intensity war against the Sandanistas with the avowed purpose of driving them from power. This type of warfare is many sided, and it has been called total war at the grassroots level. The CIA was ordered to organize the Contras, a guerrilla force that consisted of former national guard officers and disaffected civilians. A liaison officer from the National Security Council serving with them characterized their leaders as liars motivated by greed and the desire for power, and charged that the war had become a business for them. They attacked bridges, electric generators, but also state-owned agricultural cooperatives, rural health clinics, villages, and non-combatants. CIA commandos launched a series of sabotage raids on Nicaraguan port facilities. They mined the country's major ports and set fire to its largest oil storage depot.
Washington imposed a complete trade embargo on the Central American country, pressed allies to do the same, and used its influence in intergovernmental agencies to cut off all aid. It built up its military forces in neighboring Honduras and conducted joint war games near its border with Nicaragua to create the fear of invasion. It instituted an economic de-stabilization program, as well as a propaganda war directed at Nicaragua, but also at the Western allies and (illegally) at the United States itself. According to the General Accounting Office, the propaganda campaign extended to the point of engaging in prohibited, covert propaganda activities designed to influence the American media and the American public to support the Administration's Latin American policies.
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In 1984, Congress cut off aid to the Contras, at least it thought so. But the Reagan administration resorted to illegal means to aid them. Thus the notorious Department in me paramilitary war. On April 9, 1984 Nicaragua filed an application before the International Court of Justice, charging that in dealing with the Central American state, Washington had violated general and customary international law as well as the terms of several bilateral treaties.
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The administration of the elder Bush employed a softer, more delicate, but time tested, approach to the Nicaraguan problem. It organized the electoral opposition to the Sandanistas and fashioned a campaign strategy for its presidential candidate, Violeta Chamorro. The CIA funneled money to former contra leaders, and the Congress openly authorized nine million dollars to aid her campaign as the opposition candidate. She started her campaign in Miami, and went on to win the election. The Sandanistas stepped down. A peaceful transition like this, without benefit of a coup d'etat, is a rare phenomenon in Nicaraguan history. Whatever leftist or communist leanings the Sandanistas may have had, they in no way impaired their demonstrably greater commitment to democracy.
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THE CONGO: FROM KENNEDY TO BUSH, SR.
Immediately upon independence in 1960, the Congo was beset by a struggle for power between President Lumumba, supported by the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Kasavubu, supported by Washington. The CIA characterized Lumumba as another Castro. However, Mobutu, the head of the Force Publique (a combination army and national police) ultimately won the power struggle and ruled the country with help from Washington for 32 years. The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the evidence permitted a reasonable inference "that a plot to assassinate Lumumba was authorized by President Eisenhower." The CIA had one of its science advisers, Sidney Gottlieb, assemble an assassination kit that the agency sent to Leopoldville by diplomatic pouch. The kit included a poison that produced symptoms similar to an indigenous African disease. Gottlieb was sent to explain to the local CIA station chief that the poison had to be put in Lumumba's food or on his toothbrush. Neither was done, and it is not known for sure who killed him. There are many versions of how it happened and who did it. Each version exonerates the narrator .
Early in his career while in the Force Publique, Mobutu was an informant for the Belgians. Later, he became one for the CIA. After independence, he consolidated his power position through his control of units of the army loyal to him. Washington trained, armed, and paid these units.
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Mobutu took over in a coup d'etat that "neutralized" the two chief contestants for power, Lumumba and Kasavubu. He closed down the parliament, and established in its place "a College of Commissioners." This was a group of students chosen from those who had studied abroad. Mobutu also closed the Soviet and Czechoslovak embassies. The CIA regarded Mobutu as an asset, and the agency certainly was an asset for him. Several times it provided him with crucial information that helped to extend his tenure as dictator. Israel was again involved. It trained Mobutu's own presidential guard." After taking over the government, Mobutu no longer depended upon the fees paid him as an informant. He amassed a personal fortune from local sources estimated at between three and five billion dollars.
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THE KHMER ROUGE: FROM CARTER TO BUSH, SR.
The Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia in 1975 following the disarray resulting from the secret illegal U.S. bombing of the country, and were removed from power by an invasion from Vietnam in 1979. During their reign, they slaughtered anywhere from one half million to a million and a half of their fellow citizens and were accused of committing genocide. They cut the country off from the outside world, emptied the capital city, banned foreign and minority languages, closed the schools and hospitals, abolished the currency, militarized the economy and the labor force, and attacked neighboring countries. The Khmer Rouge were a strange brand of leftist radicals, usually denominated communist, but in reality were rather more nativistic, chauvinistic and anti-modernist. Since they were anti-Soviet, they received Washington's support as long as the Cold War continued. Paradoxically, when it ended, Washington called for the trial by an international tribunal of Pol Pot and other top leaders of the Khmer Rouge. The support resulted from the Cold War configuration at the time, in which the Soviets backed Vietnam and the government it imposed on Cambodia, while China and Washington backed the Khmer Rouge, the enemy of Vietnam. Washington's support for the Khmer Rouge was more egregious, given that its beneficiary was consistently charged with committing genocide. Moreover, the support came even from the Carter regime despite the fact that President Carter ran on a platform that featured the promotion of human rights. The Carter administration helped arrange continued Chinese aid to the Khmer Rouge when it was fighting the government installed by the invading forces from Vietnam.
Kiernan referred to Washington's support in this way:
Along with China, which supplied arms, and Thailand, which supplied sanctuary, the United States was instrumental in rescuing the Khmer Rouge army from its 1979 defeat by Hanoi. From 1979 to 1981, the United States led Western nations in voting for the Khmer Rouge to represent their Cambodian victims in the United Nations.
In 1982, Washington helped prod two small proAmerican groups into a Khmer Rouge-dominated alliance, and for more than a decade the United States has rejected all opportunities to take individual or collective action against the Khmer Rouge. Former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski says that in 1979: "I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot .... Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him but China could." They both did. The United States, Brzezinski says, "winked semi-publicly at Chinese and Thai aid for the Khmer Rouge .
Washington also pressured United Nations agencies to provide food assistance to the Khmer Rouge. This pressure yielded over $12 million in aid from the World Food Program alone when it was most needed, after the defeat by Vietnam. The Western media and Western intelligence supported the Khmer Rouge as well. Washington and its Western allies voted to give the United Nations seat to the Khmer Rouge when it ruled alone, and after 1983 when it ruled in coalition with other parties. The coalition was called the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK). Washington rejected any attempt to brand the Khmer Rouge as "genocidal" until the beginning of the Paris peace process in 1989.
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Haas traced the origin of Washington's aid to the diplomacy of Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who talked Thailand into being a conduit for Chinese aid to sustain Pol Pot's forces against Vietnam and their internal enemies. Thus began "the Faustian pact," whereby Washington became "the ally twice-removed" of the Khmer Rouge.
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Although a CIA report in 1980 concluded that the Khmer Rouge was responsible for the deaths of 1.5 million people during Pol Pot's rule, the Reagan administration steadfastly refused to acknowledge it.
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In November 2002, the General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the resumption of negotiations for the establishment of negotiations to establish a special tribunal to try the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge. Following years of failed negotiations, this effort was led by Australia, France, Japan, and the United States. The resolution was criticized by human rights advocates because it did not contain explicit language guaranteeing that the trials would meet international standards. It gave the Cambodian government ultimate control over the jurisdiction of cases with the privilege of overriding decisions of the United Nations . Meanwhile the top leaders of the Khmer Rouge continue to live openly and freely in the country; some of them are included in the present government. The trial courts would be set up by the Cambodian government, and their jurisdiction would be limited to the senior Khmer Rouge leaders and those responsible for the crimes of the Pol Pot regime committed between 1975 and 1979.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNh-D1wb0bw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpwSxHiiNSw