At 06:03 PM 02/15/2000 -1000, Reese wrote:
>At 08:03 PM 2/15/00 -0800, Aaron Evans wrote:
>>Don't be insolent. Everyone knows that the US government represses growth
>in the third world in order to have a
....
>Precisely what steps has the US gov't taken to actively repress all the
>worlds "third world" countries? Be specific please,,, and give me a
>breakdown of at least two such nations with specific actions taken which
>serve only to repress them,,,
First of all, according to Libertarian ideology, governments are
bad for economic growth, so anything that encourages bigger governments
is bad, and anything that encourages governments that would otherwise
be taken out by Darwin is bad (e.g. revolutions, voting out, collapse,
though outside aggression may not count.) In this case,
Libertarian ideology probably sides with the liberals,
though of course not with Real Commies :-)
Very few things are done for single motives -
there's usually a mixture of agendas. For instance, the US
embargo on Cuba for the past ~40 years has been partly to weaken Castro,
and partly to punish Cuba for letting the Russians put missiles there,
and partly to keep Miami Cubans voting Republican,
but it's basically designed to interfere with Cuba's economy -
it hurts Castro's power and destabilizes him,
but it also keeps Cuban sugar and tobacco out of the US market.
If the US seriously wanted to take down Castro's regime,
they could open the borders and let the rest of the Cubans move to Miami
the way the East Germans moved out and collapsed their regime.
Is the blockade partly because nobody wants to be the first Congresscritter to
declare anti-Communism obsolete? Sure. But it's an economic attack.
Why is the US (er, excuse me, UN) still blockading Iraq?
It's not to topple Saddam Hussein - that'd be easy if they wanted to,
whether by assassinating him or helping one of his competitors to.
It's not to bring democracy to Iraq, or prevent another invasion.
It's to cripple their economy - largely to let everybody know that
the New World Order is still in charge and you'd better not cross them.
It was also nice for Bush's friends in the oil business.
The US government has propped up right-wing dictators around the world
since at least WW2, and has been intervening in Central America longer.
Was it FDR or Truman who said the elder Somoza "might be a son of a bitch,
but he's *our* son of a bitch"? Not only were the Somozas brutal dictators
and kleptocrats by themselves, but supporting them meant that when
Nicaragua finally got rid of them, it was a decade of civil war
led by a bunch of Socialists who fixed their war-torn economy in typical
Commie fashion, i.e. blatant incompetence mixed with greed and stupidity.
The US intervention in Guatemala in 1954 was primarily to protect
United Fruit from the somewhat liberal government (they weren't
vaguely close to Communist, but taking massive quantities of land
that were given by a previous government to one of its friends
and giving it to their own voters is close enough for Anti-Communist work.)
The US support for the various juntas and dictators in Guatemala
during the repression of the 70s, 80s, and 90s hasn't been to
protect United Fruit - they got eaten by corporate mergers in the late 70s :-)
Marcos in the Philippines and Suharto in Indonesia were supported
largely due to their anti-Communism, but the US certainly helped
them maintain their corrupt regimes, and US industry did get
cheap labor there - and US industries who benefited from that
helped keep the political climate supporting them.
The current excuse for intervention in Latin America is the Drug War;
it's certainly used to keep local militaries well-armed and
fighting their various guerilla narcoterrorista enemies.
I'd say the primary motivation there is supporting the militaries,
and the US military, and the US arms dealers, rather than
the oppression itself.
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
