Ok this first part of the post is to provide some history of U.S. intervention (open and covert) in the region so that you can make your own decisions on what you think is going on. I don't expect all of you to read all of this, but for some of you it should be really interesting.
Oh yea this first part of the post i wrote.
Emerging U.S. Policy in Latin America
In the late 1890’s the U.S. stepped on stage in the world of global political interests. During this time European colonial countries were busy dividing Africa and Asia among themselves abandoning Latin America as their time there had run out. The U.S. took a mixed view of colonialism as it developed the foundations of U.S. Foreign policy. The U.S. maintained to have made a decidedly anti-colonial stance against the European powers “claiming” a desire for an open door for foreign trade favoring competition not colonially divided territories. During this time the over production of the U.S. economy forced the U.S. to take a new look at the expanding markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. At the same time the U.S. desired to project its self as a world power and actively worked to develop a strong naval/army presence around the world as a way to show off the strength and might of the U.S. and promote itself as a “counter weight” to European colonizers. Then came the Spanish American War of 1898 when the U.S. took over the Philipines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. Two of which remain under US control to this day. This not only gave the U.S. new economic outlets for goods and provided new sources of raw materials, but it provided several new platforms for U.S. military control. In the case of Cuba and Puerto Rico these countries provided for a stronger hold on U.S. Latin American interests. Seen as “our backyard” the U.S. put the word out for all other countries to stay out of “our” hemisphere. And so begain the very active history of U.S. involvement in Latin America. From 1898 – 1932 alone, the United States intervened 34 separate times in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean in 10 separate countries. Often characterized as “only for a short time” examples prove the opposite, that they were extensive and repeated interventions. U.S. troops were present in Haiti from 1915-1934, The Dominican Republic from 1916 – 1924, and Nicaragua from 1912 – 1925 and again from 1926 – 1933, just to name a few examples.
Moral Intervention and Dirty Wars the History Behind Possible US Intervention in Venezuelan Coup
There are several countries that serve as excellent examples of U.S. intervention in Latin America that have striking similarities to the situation in Venezuela. Most importantly found in all of these examples is the new threat envisioned by the United States after World War II of the global threat of Communism. In many of these cases the governments were left-leaning or even socialist and at times had communists as members of the government. In the eyes of U.S. policy makers this justified a Moral Intervention to save these countries from going Communist and protecting the interests of the United States within the hemisphere.
Guatemala
In the 1950’s a new democratically elected leftist government of Jacobo Arbenz emerged in Guatemala. One of the major platforms of this new government was a policy of agricultural reform where a study of all the country’s large land holdings would be assessed. If the government found that less than one third of the land was being cultivated the other two thirds of the land would be confiscated WITH compensation. The major problem with this in the eyes of the large landholders (especially the U.S. corporation United Fruit which during this time had 3 million acres of land, 2,000 railway miles, and 1,000 ships in Central America alone) was that these lands would be paid for at their declared tax value. Meaning whatever the landowners claimed the land was worth on their taxes would be how much they would be paid for the land. Obviously these landowners were under declaring the value of their land and were both furious and scared. The relationship between the Eisenhower administration and United Fruit were “downright cozy”. CIA Director Allen Dulles was former President of United Fruit (and former director of the Schroder Bank, which the CIA used to launder its funds for covert operations.) and his brother Attorney General John Foster Dulles formerly handled the deal between IRCA (International Railways of Central America) to United Fruit, Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs John Moors Cabot’s family owned interests in United Fruit, and Eisenhower’s personal secretary was also the wife of the company’s public relations director. Calls quickly broke out for the Eisenhower administration to intervene militarily against the “Communists” in Guatemala which so eagerly wanted to “steal their land” and redistribute it to the local population to put it to use, though it should be noted that the reforms of the Arbenz government were no more communist than the Alliance for Progress reforms in the 1960’s pushed by none other than the United States. The CIA soon began to openly circulate through Guatemala “creating a climate of tension and uncertainty to prompt divisions in the armed forces, weaken Arbenz’s resolve, and, hopefully, provoke a coup d’etat.” In a speech to Congress Eisenhower “warned that “the Reds” were already in control of Guatemala and now sought to spread their “tentacles” to El Salvador and other neighbors.” A CIA sponsored coup was put into action in 1954 with planes flown and provided by the United States. This coup against a democratically elected government was not viewed as something bad, all one needs to do is pick up a copy of president Eisenhower’s memoirs. The Guatemalan coup was a success for the newly formed CIA and helped to form many views regarding intervention in Latin America. This pattern follows through history of U.S. intervention in the region both open and covert. Other more brief examples include The Dominican Republic and Chile.
The Dominican Republic: Open Intervention
In December of 1962 Juan Bosch a reform minded president was elected with 60% of the vote in The Dominican Republic replacing an authoritarian dictatorship. Seen as a time of hope for the average citizen the hard core right in the Dominican Republic initiated a coup only 10 months after the elections. The Army coup failed to build a significant social base and the country erupted into civil war. The rebels, unlike the traditional view of the Latin American rebel, were not Communist but rather constitutionalists committed to upholding democracy in the country. President Lyndon Johnson saw this as a Communist plot to destabilize the region and sent in 23,000 U.S. troops after uncovering a “conspiracy” and to “evacuate American students”. President Bosch later commented that the world had seen a “democratic revolution smashed by the most democratic country”.
Chile: Covert Intervention
In 1970 in Chile Salvador Allende was elected president in Chile, Latin America’s most consistent democratic country. Allende a socialist formed a collation government known as the UP(Unidad Popular) Popular Unity party. Allende’s coalition received a majority of the votes on a platform of combining elections and social reform to create revolution using agrarian reform, increased wages (30% the first year alone), support for the urban poor, with the nationalization of key industries. From 1962 – 1970 the CIA sent 11 million dollars to Chile to keep Allende from being elected; this does not count private funds (this is more than spent by the campaigns of the 1964 American presidential candidates Johnson and Goldwater.). The US soon pushed for a policy to make Chile ungovernable. In 1972 the US funded a truckers strike in an attempt, in Nixon's words, was to "make the Chilean economy scream". The ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry, described his task as "to do all within our power to condemn Chile and the Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty." There was a massive destabilization and disinformation campaign. The CIA planted stories in El Mercurio, the most prominent newspaper, and fomented labor unrest and strikes. September 11, 1973 US-trained extremists in the Chilean military overthrew the government. Allende and several cabinet members were killed. The universities were put under military control, opposition parties were banned and thousands of Chileans killed, maimed and tortured. Henry Kissinger told the US ambassador, "Don't give me any of these political science lectures. We don't care about torture. We care about important things." Kissinger is also reported to have said, "I don't see why we should have to stand by and let a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people." This is indeed democracy redefined and is unfortunately too common in U.S. policy toward Latin America.
