Overthrow
 

Overthrow
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman


Hawaii
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Nicaragua
Honduras
Iran
Guatemala
South Vietnam
Chile
Grenada
Panama
Afghanistan
Iraq

What do these 14 governments have in common?

You got it.

The United States overthrew them.

And in almost in every case, the overthrow can be traced to corporate interests.

In Hawaii, the sugar companies didn't want to pay export duties -- so they overthrew the queen of Hawaii and made it part of the United States.

In Guatemala, United Fruit wanted Arbenz out.

Out he went.

In Chile, Allende offended the copper interests.

Allende -- dead.

In Iran, Mossadegh offended major oil interests.

Mossadegh out.

In Nicaragua, Jose Santos Zelaya was bothering American lumber and mining companies.

Zelaya -- out.

In Honduras, an American banana magnate organized the coup of the Honduran government.

And on down the list.

Democratic Party critics charge that the Bush administration is ripping the United States from a long history of diplomacy by violently overthrowing governments.

Not true, says former New York Times foreign correspondent Stephen Kinzer.

Kinzer says that in fact the opposite is true.

"Actually, the United States has been overthrowing governments for more than a century," Kinzer said in an interview.

He documents this in a new book: Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Times Books, 2006).

Overthrow is the third in a series of regime change books by Kinzer.

His previous two: All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (2003), and Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (1982).

Together, they would make a remarkable "regime change" boxed set for the holidays.

Kinzer left the Times last year. He says that the parting was "perfectly amicable" -- although he doesn't sound convincing when he says this.

What is clear is that Kinzer is not comfortable with establishment rationales for the American imperial project.

This became clear during an interview Kinzer gave on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross earlier this month.

Gross tried to get Kinzer to concede that if we hadn't overthrown these governments, the Soviets would have taken over, or today, radical Islam will take over.

Kinzer didn't give an inch.

For example, Gross said that had we not overthrown these 14 governments, "the Soviets might have won the Cold War."

"I don't think that's true at all," Kinzer responded. "In the first place, the countries whose governments we overthrew, all countries that we claimed were pawns of the Kremlin, actually were nothing of the sort. We now know, for example, that the Kremlin had not the slightest interest in Guatemala at all in the early 1950s. They didn't even know Guatemala existed. They didn't even have diplomatic or economic relations."

"The leader of Iran who we overthrew was fiercely anti-communist. He came from an aristocratic family. He despised Marxist ideology."

"In Chile, we always portrayed President Allende as a cat's paw of the Kremlin. We now know from documents that have come out that the Soviets and the Chinese were constantly fighting with him and urging him to calm down and not be so provocative towards the Americans. So, in the first place, the Soviets were not behind those regimes. We completely overestimated the influence of the Soviet Union on those regimes."

When Gross asked Kinzer what he thought of the "spread of radical Islam," Kinzer didn't hesitate.

"We sometimes like to think that our interventions in these countries don't have effects, but when we break down the doors of foreign countries and impose our own leaders, as we did in Iran and as we've recently done in Iraq, we outrage a lot of people," Kinzer said. "We like to think that everybody will soon calmly come to realize that by rational standards, this was a good thing to do. But that doesn't happen. We are not able to change cultures as easily as we are able to change regimes."

The United States had a hand in many other overthrows, but Kinzer limited his cases to those where the United States was the primary mover and shaker.

So, for example, while the United States played a role in the overthrow of Lumumba in the Congo, Kinzer says that it was primarily an operation by Belgium on behalf of large Belgian mining interests.

This might be the most important book to read as the United States approaches a showdown with Iran.

President Bush says he's trying to bring democracy to Iran.

In fact, Iranians had democracy once.

And we crushed it.

Kinzer is on tour promoting his book.

And he's got a gig at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he lives.

He's teaching a course in regime change.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. Mokhiber and Weissman are co-authors of On the Rampage: Corporate Predators and the Destruction of Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).

© Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

See 'Killing Hope' by William Blum. He documents US interventions abroad since 1945. His list is much longer.

Hey, I see this afore!

why not complete the list....

Germany, Japan, etc........

and to be fair...you should report what the lefties have been responsible for............line 20 million deaths in the Soviet Union alone...plus millions in China...etc.

Good thread Z.

Even though Zaire/Congo is not officially included, we've had dirty fingers there as well.

Former Wall St. reporter Jonathan Kwitny wrote a nifty book some time back:
"Endless Enemies: the Making of an Unfriendly World." He had some good stuff on Zaire, and some of the nonsensical projects foisted on that nation with the help of large bribes to Mobutu and the self-interesed "help" of large American and multi-national corps. only too happy to sell $billion ice-makers to eskimos, or projects roughly that inane.

Not surprising that your thread and Kinzer would not attract a lot of attention -- after all, Kinzer is a hate-America first kind of guy.

ok, everyone on the left of the room put your heads in the sand......



now everyone on the right side of the room whip it out and pee in the sand....:eek:

If China and the Soviets are the lefties, the righties would be Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy.

I think we fall somewhere in the middle.

Enormous irony dept: BHD lamenting the misfortune of people having their head in the sand.

Oh cruel world! :bigcry:

..........how will you know when this was accomplished..........since you will never be able to see it.......:confused:

BHD...my hero.

I am going to drink lots of soda, followed by some Coronas (I already bought some in anticipation of the illegal alien boycott day, which interesting enough is on May Day, a day long revered in communist Soviet Union and Castro's Cuba)...I'll follow it up with several cups of coffee harvested from the rain forest (hopefully from a country where the US has changed the government to satisfy some corporate mandate)...

I hope to have enough piss (and maybe a little vinegar to boot) to piss on the sand where they have conveniently buried their heads in a sufficient amount to drown their collective chorus of hand wringing about alleged American corporate intervention.

I would pay good money to see the US engage in a little bit of government change in Cuba.

In fact, I am still pissed off (there goes that reference again) that Eisenhower did not have huevos big enough to do a little government change prior to Castro's take over...or that JFK was too busy doing Marilyn Monroe, and assorted other Mafia girls, to care enough to see what Castro was doing in Cuba.

Oh lordy Lord...

I remember getting into a heated debate, back in my college days, when a professor repeatedly referred to Russian/Communist intervention as "nation building" and good for the people. The same professor referred to the US as an interventionist nation, hell-bent on raping other countries.

Normally I would not have many allies in these debates (many of my classmates feared the prof's ability to screw them over when it came to grade time). On this particular issue I was joined in by the son of a Hungarian refugee who was a tank commander when the Soviets invaded...er, sorry, liberated Hungary.

His father fought the Soviets, hoping to hold off long enough for the US to do a little intervention itself. When the US turned its back on the HUngarian people, his father fled to Austria and eventually to the US.

His son, my classmate, was just a baby then and he had to be smuggled out of Hungary by his mother. They were eventually reunited in New York. He showed me a nice picture of his family, on a Sunday afternoon, posing in front of the Statute of Liberty. Ah yes, America the raping interventionist!!!

My classmate and I gave this a**hole professor hell. He finally had to back down and run (in a manner of speaking), tail between his legs, like a dog.

The professor, of course, had his final revenge though. My friend and I both got C's. His and mine only C grades in college.

Gotta love academia....

Like I said before, BHD, you ARE my hero. I'll join you at the pissing trough!

MInd you, however, I am not defending corporate interests.

I blame corporate interests for shipping good jobs to foreign countries...and I blame corporate interests for supporting the avalanche of illegal aliens now swarming our borders.

I just get a little tired (actually, more than just a little tired) of all of this bad US bashing bulls**t.

Z, please don't forget about Bosnia. I am sure it was just an oversight.

I'd be interested in hearing more about the overthrow of South Vietnam. Think I missed that one. And, does the overthrow of the overthrow of South Korea count?

Well, the US did sort of let the generals whack Diem without stopping them. Iirc, JFK approved the blind eye policy and Diem was assassinated in early November of '63. A few weeks later, the Kennedy clan took a dimmer view of regicide.

Well, South Korea never completely lost (Pusan perimeter, etc.), so it doesn't make the list. On the other hand, Kuwait was fully overthrown before we reversed it, so we should get credit for that one.

KGB thugs used to get tired of people badmouthing the Soviet Union, more than just a little tired, in fact, they'd lock up 'em up and torture them over it.

Respiteme meine freunde, patriotism is a knee-jerk emotion, which may or may not be worth a damn.

You like US corporate interventions in Latin Am countries? Well surely you loved the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, where American corps. helped keep Somoza in a position oddly similar to the one Saddam had in Iraq.

I'll grant you that the situation in Cuba with Batista was not so cut and dried but Somoza was a major a$$ but like Roosevelt said, "he was our a$$" -- or "bastard" actually, I think.

Surest way for our country to screw up is to have a majority of citizens willing to rubberstamp any GD thing our gubmint wants to do.

Bosnia, isn't that the one where nobody did anything for years while the Serbs were shelling civilian populations? I didn't approve of Clinton's bombing of the bridges on the Danube during the Kosovo thing -- they could have done it w/o that, based on what I was reading -- but I don't believe it's wise to let Hitlers in training just do their thing.

Patriotism is a knee-jerk emotion. That ol' George Washington was a knee-jerking kind of guy, huh?

The rules of this forum, V4, as posted by our Mod, Hatterasguy include the following:

Thus, in fully keeping with the letter, as well as the spirit of the rules enacted by our mod (who for a young guy has a lot on the ball) I will state the following:

Stupid comparison. KGB thugs couldn't care less one way or the other. they were simply acting under orders given by their superiors, who were intent on preserving the status quo and their privileged position.

Stupid comparisons reflect a large measure of intellectual dishonesty as well as an inability to put things into their proper content and accurately compare and contrast them. Apples and oranges...apples and oranges...apples and oranges. You'd think that picking oranges and apples would make a person an expert in their differences. Apparently not. Ay que lastima.

Still, what a wonderful fantasy...for one day to be able to lock up people exhibitng the same levels of intellectual dishonesty and turn them over to the KGB. Do you think that Putin would be interested?

Mierda es mierda es mierda y toda apesta igualmente, En Ingles, en Aleman o en cualquier otro idioma. As long as that jerking knee is attached to a boot-wearing leg, it ain't so bad. It seems to be a sport, among some, to criticize patriotism. Normally such criticism comes from effete, nattering naboobs of negativism.

In the words of Larry, the cable guy:

I don't care what anyone says, that's just stupid (opinion) there.

And...to hold such stupid opinions...well, that just speaks volumes about a mindset that can fashion such stupid utterings.

Oh lordy Lord, where would we ever be w/o the highbrow intelligentsia hailing from the more clever and progressive regions of California telling the rest of us less fortunate commoners how to be proper citizens and to properly discharge of our civic duties. Oh mighty ones, oh please tell us how to be good little citizens...

Of course it would be stupid to rubberstamp anything that the government does. DUH!!!

We all can think of a number of things that our government has done that were just wrong.

Turning our backs on Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956 and again in 1968.

Not going into WWII sooner and waiting, instead, for the Japanese government to destroy more than half of the Pacific fleet.

Opening our borders to illegal aliens.

I am sure that others can add to that list.

I certainly hope that my comments have not run afoul of the OD Rules, V4.

Now, if you excuse me, I am going to have a couple of cups of coffee, harvested from a country that we are either currently raping, invading or intervening in (your choice) in behalf of corporate interests.

I am hoping to get my kidneys to generate enough excess waste water to join my new hero, BHD, at the trough...I am getting the urge to "discharge" on some heads buried in the sand.

See Bot, you obviously don't get it.

Good old George was a rich, male white supremacist. It was not patriotism that motivated good old George to risk his life, his family and his fortune in the fight against England.

It was simply the desire to create a nation that would eventually turn around and enslave, rape, intervene, invade, etc., other less fortunate countries.

Don't you get it Bot??? :eek:

Oy vey!

BENZ-LUGGY:

Whoa, first he takes the bold step of badmouthing Janet Reno from a few thousand miles away (Wooo-EEE! Tha's bad, Jack!), now he's quoting forum rules (that I have clearly broken :rolleyes:).

Dude, you keep making stuff up. You don't have the barest clue about what various KGB dudes were thinking. Neither do I actually, but I can tell I've had a lot more exposure to the matter than you have.

A lot of those guys really believed in the Great Soviet Union, or some such nonsense. Likewise for Napoleon's soldiers. Those popular movements never get off the ground if there isn't widespread patriotic support.

The point is, Sherlock, dissenting voices usually always find someone, in power or otherwise, who strenuously disagree with the opinion being expressed. The societies that grow are the ones who don't censure peacefully expressed dissent.

Your have clearly shown a willingness to "relieve yourself" on these fools crawling at your feet. The attitude is more like the KGB than Jefferson and Franklin.

Dude, pride is one of the seven deadly sins and is warned against in the good book. Contempt is the bastard child of pride. Jesus advised against it strenuously.

effete, nattering nabobs of negativism, lol, as stupid then as it is now

You know if you change the names and places you would think that we were talking about Iraq.

EDIT:

Iraq, isn't that the one where nobody did anything for years while the Sunnies were shelling the Kurd populations? I didn't approve of Clinton's bombing of the bridges in operation firefox during the Lewinsky thing -- they could have done it w/o that, based on what I was reading -- but I don't believe it's wise to let Hitlers in training just do their thing.

had there been oil and strong suspicion of WMD's in Bosnia then would we have been UNJUSTIFIED in invading? Or if Dubyuh had a blow-job, would Iraq have been ok? Of course, in neither case did the UN sanction the invasions. These dang rules are confusing.

"BENZ-LUGGY?"

Dearest comrade:

Not desiring to see this thread closed by the mods, and being blamed by it, I chose not to respond in kind.

In my experience, however, hiding behind Jesus' robes is a sign of inttlectual cowardice. If the sandals fit, then please wear them.

Apropos to nothing, or to everything, I recently read that a lack of testosterone tends to make old men cranky and makes them act stupid.

Makes one wonder.

Now comrade, you keep it up with the personal attacks, you keep hiding behind Jesus' robes. Intellectual cowardice and intellectual dishonesty do not deserve a response.

"There are no permanent allies, or permanent enemies. Only permanent interests".


I had a professor who loved this quote, don't know where he stole it from.

Bismarck?

Bismarkee?
Oh baby you.....
you got what I need.

Just kidding

I don't know. I couldn't find any Bismarck quotes on Wikipedia.

All of those other countries...
 

Guatemala declared war on us as did Chile, Iran, and all those other tin-pot dictators. We sure kicked some foreign butt and showed them.

I now know (thanks BHD) that because the lefties are more deadly, conservatives are better. Pondering: maybe we should hire mercenary lefties to fight Iraqi insurgents?

I'm sacrificing by burying my head in the sand. Anyone who does otherwise is engaged in pre-9/11 thinking. We all know what that led to: post 9/11 thinking.

George?
 

George was a rich, white (mostly slave-holding) conservative who didn't want to pay any taxes, as were almost without exception all of the "founding father."

It would seem to be quite a stretch to call someone engaged in a revolution a "conservative."

It's probably a stretch to call the replacement of one form of elite rule with another form of elite rule, a revolution...violent evolution, perhaps?

What brass balls George and his fellow rich whitge guys must have had.

To risk life, family, liberty and fortune, against the most powerful empire of the time...just to avoid paying taxes.

Holy s**t, I wish I had balls like his.

And then, when George was offered the "job" of King of the new nation, he turned it down.

What an impudent, rich white guy.

:eek: :eek: :eek:

Excuse me?
 

Revolution (and revolutionaries) can be either conservative or liberal, I suppose. Reactionary revolutions are as common as liberal. Iran is a case in point. Is the French Reign of Terror liberal or conservative?

Our "founding fathers" did not want to be taxed. The only democracy they wanted was of the ruling class variety. They ran the country and wanted to continue to do so but without paying taxes and expected the govenment to protect their property: land, slaves and whatever else they owned.

Those who were of the female persuasion and those who did not own property were inelgible to vote. I wouldn't characterise that as liberal nor even revolutionary. Myths make for great storytelling.

it obviously doesn't take a genius

You forgot Great Britain's Colonial goverment...

1775-1783, American Revolutionary War.

Here you go, from a Google search...

Was he nothing more than that to Geo Washington?
Are these the most important features of his life?
Any idea what became of his slaves after his death?

1. A great warning to modern lawmakers.

2. The "only" thing? have you ever read, the "

3. False. They paid taxes before and after the revolution at all levels. Look it up. They resented somebody for whom they did not vote and over whom they had no power, confiscating their wealth. Ever heard the phrase, "No taxation without representation"?

4. Judging historic culture with present values is a fools judgement.

Did I bruise your tender ego? A little more bruising is ahead for you in that dept., though I'm going to get tired of it pretty soon.

Hiding behind Jesus's robes? Dude, I'm pointing out the obvious: your writing is heavy on the personal attack angle even if you don't call me an idiot. I can only wonder if you use this same attitude w/ your family. Jesus is just another authority to quote, sort of like using precedence in a legal case. IOW, it's not just my opinion that pride and contempt are corrosive to character. There's sound precedence for that opinion.

Reading your stuff has informed me of one thing though: white trailer trash on Jerry Springer ain't got a monopoly on hillbilly temper tantrums.

Taxes of that time was paid on legal documents and on imported goods, luxury items, manufactured good, etc. as the colonies had no manufacturing since their ecomomy was primarily based upon raw materiall exports. I have looked it up and have written about it.

History is only judged by present day values. I (nor other historians) would judge Nazi genocide to be a fantastic reponse to Europe's ehtnic issues.

However, slaveholding was an enlightenment for the African population. Through such slavery they were taught Christian values, "civilized" behavior, and an appreciation for all things American. That is judging history by other than present values.

Many forms and manifestations of patriotism. It can be a very good thing. I admire Washington for many reasons.

I'm a little less impressed with guys who beat the crap out of each other based on their high school alma mater losing and then dissed in the big game. Happens all the time. A crude variant of patriotism.

Did you ever see the footage of crowds in early 40s Japan cheering as they sent their young men off into glorious battle? Tell me those folks weren't feeling strong patriotism. Was the force of that channeled wisely?

Yep, the study about testosterone deficiency in old men causing crankiness and lapses in judgment was right after all.

Moving on....

On the issue of the Founding Fathers, they chose to tax themselves. But Botnst has already pointed this out, so no need to elaborate.

"Female persuasion?" I don't think that anyone can be persuaded to be a female, although some people have changed their gender. I understand that gender bending is a favored pastime among some residents of some parts of California.

I agree with you gdemoss01, there was a certain level of hypocrisy at play with the Founding Fathers. To exclude people of color and women was, to put it mildly, a major oversight. They could've gone further than they did, but instead chose not to. That's a shame, because a lot of the problems that we still have today could have been eliminated way back then.

In their defense, I would offer the following. Given the historical context of their efforts, however, I would say that they went pretty far. No other society of the time gave women equal rights. Matriarchal societies, such as those found among certain Native-American groups were thought of as primitive. It is interesting that in ancient Greece, women had no rights. In Roman times, however, women had far more legal rights than women had previoulsy enjoyed.

Many religions, Christian and otherwise, give women no rights whatsoever. I believe that in present day Saudi Arabia women cannot even get a driver's license. Incidentally, my wife is a far better driver than I am--she can drive her Yukon like it was a Miata. Yet in SA she couldn't even hold a driver's license. Does not seem fair.

Also don't forget that generations later, the men who came after the Founding Fathers found inspiration in the words the FF wrote in order to extend the same rights to all men and women, regardless of race. So give them credit where credit is due.

Still, you ar right, they did not go far enough.

Further on the subject of patriotism. The thought that the actions of bands of drunken high school thugs (or drunken English soccer fans for that matter) is on the same level as the kind of patriotism that makes men and women risk life and limb, in order to fight for an ideal is not just plain ... (what's the word that I am searching for here???) oh yes ... stupid, but it also worthy of (what's that other word that I am searching for here???) oh yes...contempt.

So you're going to begin testosterone therapy soon?

:juggle:

That's funny old man.

Sorry Hatterasguy, I think that may have violated the rule about personal attacks.

:P

Aren't you the guy who recently said something like, no it wasn't your finger that was jabbing me in the chest, it was something else and jabbing somewhere else. Not sure exactly what you meant :rolleyes:, but neither of my best guesses is too cool.

If you can't beat me in one on one b-ball, go holler for the teacher to punish me. Yeah, that'll work.

It's WELCOME BACK KOTTER time. :scream:

See, I pay you a compliment on your nascent sense of humor and you go off half cocked with some B-ball challenge. I just can't win.

A five year old girl with her right hand tied behind her back and the sun on her eyes could beat me at B-ball. DUH!

If you define vitality and manhood in terms of outscoring someone in a meaningless game of hoops, then you got me.

May I, however, also suggest that you look into purchasing an old Cadillac Eldorado, you know, the one with the real longggggggggggggg hood.

:bowrofl:

Incidentally, if you were not so busy trying to come up with retorts to my posts, you'd have noticed that the comment about violating OD Forum rules was aimed at...drumroll please...myself.

Of course, I would not have expected you to get it.

Man, this is just too funny.

If you get to invent the definition then you get to decide how to apply it.