The United States has intervened militarily in more than
70 nations since the end of World War II.
It has claimed these incursions were a necessary sacrifice for building
democracy and stopping the spread of communism.
This country was created in slavery — genocide being the precursor
to the American dream.
The conquest began in 1492 when Christopher Columbus invaded, enslaved,
tortured and massacred the indigenous peoples of the Americas. He was
after gold — wealth — to be continued as the driving factor
of the empowered American politicians to come.
More than 500 years later, we can see what America’s version of
democracy has delivered. It has been ascribed as the cause to fight almost
every war. The outcome is always something much short of democracy.
In the midst of the Cold War and the hysteria of McCarthyism, an example
of the United States’ “building of democracy” was staged
in Guatemala in 1954.
After initiating a massive propaganda campaign, which declared him a communist,
the CIA overthrew the democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz.
He pressed for agrarian reform in a country where the United Fruit Co.
controlled almost half of the land.
Putting the company’s interest at the forefront of their policy
was none other than Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother,
CIA director Allen Dulles — both corporate attorneys for the United
Fruit Co.
The company rejected a compensation offer of $525,000 (the company’s
declared value for tax purposes) and decided it would be better to engineer
a coup, ignoring the rights of Guatemalans.
The coup led to 40 years of civil war that resulted in the death of 200,000
people, most of them Maya Indians.
In the late ‘70s it was El Salvador’s government that the
U.S. government began to fund and support.
Members of the Salvadoran military were trained at the School of the Americas
in Fort Benning, Ga.
Death squads ruled the country and on Dec. 11, 1981, more than 900 people,
the entire village of El Mozote, were massacred — some of them only
weeks old. Ten of the 12 soldiers cited responsible by the U.N. Truth
Commission Report on El Salvador were graduates from the School of the
Americas.
After 12 years of civil war, more than 75,000 Salvadorans were murdered.
The aforementioned U.S. military interventions are merely a subjective
selection of examples of the American version of democracy. Whether the
claim from leaders is to halt terrorism or support freedom fighters, the
public statement is always that war is to promote democracy and peace.
So it is true — just as George Orwell wrote — “War is
peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
The slogan of Big Brother in “1984” is too chillingly similar
to the rhetoric of Uncle Sam in 2002.
These policies of promoting democracy enable the continued embargo on
Cuba and the sanctions on Iraq (the cause of more than one million Iraqi
children deaths).
When the American version of democracy requires the blood of millions
of people, how noble can our democracy be?
Why should we promote democracy, when it means the overthrow of governments,
the assassination of leaders and the genocide of millions?
We must realize our history of promoting democracy as just that.
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present
controls the past,” wrote Orwell.
The U.S. government is in control of the present.
We are told that the war in Afghanistan is building democracy.
First-hand accounts of the situation in Afghanistan describe it as a war
zone, an area rampant in weapons and a more vigorous drug trade than ever
before.
Democracy was not delivered.
We are told that war with Iraq may be inevitable to build democracy for
Iraqis.
CIA documents claim that Iraq poses much less of a threat than prior to
the Gulf War.
It found that an unprovoked U.S. strike would likely be the only cause
for a hypothetical use of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq.
In a world where peace is claimed to only be possible through means of
violence and war, we must reflect on the history of such lies and ways
of deceit.
In the words of Albert Camus, “What is a rebel? A man who says no.”
Matt Kapko is the opinion editor and enjoys discussing his opinions
over pints of Guinness at room temperature. Depending on the weeks ahead,
this may be his last column. Fret not, for he plans to continue his quest
for the meaning of life and promises to tell everyone when he finds it.
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