PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN GLASS HOUSES SHOULDN’T THROW ROCKS — U.S. HYPOCRISY AND ELECTION INTERFERENCE
For my American readers you must have been living in a cave hidden away in the mountains if you have not heard politicians yammering on about Russian and Chinese interference in our Presidential election. Almost everyone else is familiar with this red herring. We now know that the whole “Russia helped Trump to win in 2016” was a bogus creation courtesy of the Hillary Clinton campaign. Of course she had some help from the CIA, the FBI and the legacy media in spreading that nonsense and persuading a size-able chunk of the American electorate that it was true.
My foreign readers are probably scratching their heads and asking the question, “Are Americans really this clueless?” The short answer is, YES! It is irony in its purest form, i.e., Americans getting outraged at the hint of foreign interference in our elections. Why irony? Since the end of World War II the United States, thanks to the CIA, has engaged routinely in election interference in other countries. This interference includes facilitating and/or organizing coups. In other words, regime change.
So what do I mean by “political interference? It covers a spectrum of activities. It can start with funding and/or organizing opposition political groups. Then there is the production and placement of propaganda via print media, radio, television and now, social media. It can also involve the CIA recruiting key politicians as a “source.” I am not suggesting that all outside interference is necessarily illegal or wrong. Changing the government in Germany from Nazis to something approximating a democracy was the right thing to do.
But the interference does not stop with benign acts. There also is the equipping, training and support for insurgencies or military strongmen. Here’s a fun fact — the CIA played a role in bringing the Baathist Party to power in Iraq in 1963. Is it any wonder that Saddam was later confused and puzzled by the U.S. animus directed at him given that the U.S. played a key role in helping develop Iraq’s chemical weapons and provided direct intelligence support to Saddam during the war with Iran.
The average American has been bamboozled over the past 75 years to believe that the U.S.A.’s only interest was in promoting democracy and freedom. But that was not what led to U.S. intervention in Iran and Iraq. That was all about oil and ensuring the access of U.S. and European corporations to that oil.
Wikipedia provides a nice thumbnail sketch of the various interventions. Some succeeded (and caused horrible civilian suffering as a consequence) and some failed. This particular article in Wikipedia does not discuss the U.S. role in fomenting a guerrilla war in Ukraine in the 1950s nor does it address the role of the West in funding the Chechen uprising in Russia in 1999 — a war that lasted ten years. I also failed to include Israel — the Obama Administration directly interfered in Israel’s Presidential campaign.
So peruse this list of 50 plus interventions and ask yourself these questions: Did U.S. interference make the country more stable, prosperous and democratic? Did U.S. interference lead to peace and a reduction in conflict? I think in the majority of cases the answer would be a resounding, “NO.” I encourage the readers to sort this out in the discussion.
1941–1952: Japan
1941–1949: Germany
1941–1946: Italy
1944–1946: France
1945–1948: South Korea
1947–1949: Greece
1948: Costa Rica
1949–1953: Albania
1949: Syria
1950–1953: Burma and China
1952: Egypt
1952–1955: Ukraine
1952–1954: Guatemala
1952–1953: Iran
1956–1957: Syria
1957–1959: Indonesia
1959–1963: Iraq
1959–1963: South Vietnam
1959–1962: Cuba
1959: Cambodia
1960–1965: Congo-Leopoldville
1960: Laos
1961: Dominican Republic
1964: Brazil
1965–1967: Indonesia
1970–1979: Cambodia
1970–1973: Chile
1971: Bolivia
1974–1991: Ethiopia
1975–1991: Angola
1975–1999: East Timor
1976: Argentina
1979–1992: Afghanistan
1980–1989: Poland
1981–1982: Chad
1981–1990: Nicaragua
1983: Grenada
1989–1994: Panama
1986–1991: Soviet Union
1991–1996: Iraq
1991: Haiti
1994–1995: Haiti
1996–1997: Zaire
2000: FR Yugoslavia
2001–2021: Afghanistan
2003–2021: Iraq
2004: Ukraine
2005: Kyrgyzstan
2006–2007: Palestinian territories
2005–2009: Syria
2011: Libya
2012–2024: Syria
Let me posit that there is a good reason the United States is disliked and, in some cases, deeply despised. We have been so busy trying to tell others how to live and how to govern themselves that the United States failed to properly govern itself. The horrendous number of black kids in major cities — e.g., Baltimore — that cannot read at grade level is creating a time bomb that is detonating and playing a major role in the number of unwed mothers, fatherless children and rampant drug addiction. Crime in many major U.S. cities surpasses that found in so-called third world “shit-holes.”
I have a simple suggestion. America ought to focus on cleaning up its own act before it has the audacity to tell other countries how to live their lives.