[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Sign-in] [Mail] [Setup] [Help]
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
|
History See other History Articles Title: THE US BELICOSE FOREIGN POLICY Almost from the very beginning, the United States held a foreign policy of constant expansion. The original thirteen colonies saw the vast expanse of their uncharted continent as an adolescent today would view a new video action game. The fact that there were other inhabitants predating their arrival was of little consequence. The near complete genocide of the American native proved to be but a precursor of things to come. Historian David Stannard is of the opinion that the indigenous peoples of America were the victims of a "Euro-American genocidal war." While conceding that the majority of the indigenous peoples fell victim to the ravages of European disease, he estimates that almost 100 million died in what he calls the American Holocaust. One can dispute the population numbers from before and after, but one cannot argue with the fact that the US set out deliberately and from the very beginning, even while a colony under British rule, to conquer land and subjugate those living there prior to their arrival. It is important to note that the fact that American natives had not been exposed to common European diseases prior to their arrival, was a factor used quite often by military and civilian groups to purposefully weaken and deteriorate the strength and will of the American native. Blankets laden with small pox and other diseases were often offered to native Americans as “gifts” with the benefactors knowing full well that this constituted the death knell for the recipient natives. Often the native Americans would be forced into hard labor for little or no pay and then discarded when they no longer served a useful purpose. But this was just the beginning of the American foreign policy. Early in its life, the US sought to expand its influence well beyond the eventual borders that would mark its current boundaries. The Monroe Doctrine was written in 1823 by then president James Monroe and it stated simply, “In the discussions to which this interest has given rise, and in the arrangements by which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers....” Though seemingly innocuous in nature, this one statement would have a very profound effect in future events. The US would hide behind this shield time and time again in its pursuit of foreign intervention into the affairs of its neighbors both in North America and South America. The US had already used its emerging prowess in aggressive attacks of its neighboring countries long before this time, but this marked the first time that a US president spoke out forcefully to the world about American intentions in its forming foreign policy. In 1806, Captain Z. M. Pike and his troops invaded Mexico across the Rio Grande. In 1812, President James Madison and Congress authorized the seizure of Amelia Island in then Spanish Florida under brutal means by General George Matthews. Over the next ten years the US would forcibly invade Spanish Florida five times and the Marguesa Islands as well. In the 1820s and 1830s, the US invaded Cuba, Puerto Rico, Greece, the Falkland Islands, Sumatra, Argentina, and Peru. While most of these incursions involved retaliation against pirate attacks, the attack on Peru was different. For the first time in US history, in 1835 the US attacked a sovereign nation to protect American interests inside that nation. For the first time US Marines were solicited to enter into armed conflict to protect American companies located in the towns of Callao and Lima. Over the next two centuries, this policy of protecting US business interests using US military and American soldiers would become a hallmark of US foreign policy. Over the next ten years, the US would invade such countries as Fiji, Samoa, Ivory Coast and China. In China in 1843, sailors and marines from the USS St. Louis landed after fighting broke out over factories and trading posts in the city of Canton. The troops crushed a riot over Yankee imperialism. Following the annexation of Texas into the US in 1845, border disputes with Mexico were rampant. The US decided to take the area now known as New Mexico in 1846 under a concept known as Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was a phrase that expressed the belief that the United States was destined to expand from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean; it has also been used to advocate for or justify territorial acquisitions. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only good, but that it was obvious and certain. It was originally a political catch phrase or slogan used by Democrats in the 1845-1855 period, and rejected by Whigs and Republicans of that era. Manifest Destiny was an explanation or justification for that expansion and westward movement, or, in some interpretations, an ideology or doctrine which helped to promote the process. In just three of those years, 1846 to 1848, the US wages an all out war against Mexico ending in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which Mexico cedes more that half of its territory to the US. More than 13,000 US soldiers died in this quest, representing two in five in the military, yet the US public were largely supportive of the war effort and applauded the annexation. On September 17, 1852, US Marines landed in Buenos Aires to protect American interests during a revolution and they remained until April 1853. Again we have American intervention in internal strife to maintain US business interests through force. In 1853 this scene is repeated in Nicaragua. Again in1853, Commodore Perry and his troops sailed into Tokyo Harbor demanding that Japan open its markets to international trade. Perry landed Marines twice and secured a coaling company from the provincial ruler in Okinawa. He also secured facilities for commerce in Bonin Island. In 1863, the USS Wyoming was dispatched to retaliate against an attack on the Pembroke at Shimonoseki. Over the next five years, the US used blatant military force to punish the Japanese into allowing international trade dictated on American terms. In 1854, US naval forces bombed and burned San Juan del Norte, Nicaragua, to avenge an insult to the American ambassador to Nicaragua who was wounded by an angry mob who later refused to apologize for the event. 1856 also saw American attacks on China and Panama (then still part of Colombia). The attack on Panama was to secure the Atlantic-Pacific railroad being built through the region. In 1858, the US lashed out against Levant, in the Ottoman Empire after a massacre of Americans at Jaffe. Over the next ten years, the US would invade China, Mexico, Colombia, Angola and Korea in pursuit of bandits or protecting American interests. From 1873 to 1896, the US invaded Mexico repeatedly in pursuit of bandits and renegades. The US attempted to legitimize such raids with a treaty with Mexico in 1882. In 1885, the US shows it first use of the famous “Gunboat Diplomacy” in which American troops and naval power were sent to Guatemala to protect American civilians and property. In 1893, the US moved against the sovereign nation of Hawaii and annexed it outright despite the outrage of the Hawaiian people. Though president Grover Cleveland was completely against the idea, his successor, president William McKinley, had no problem completing the job. Hawaii would eventually become the 50th state of the United States in 1959. In 1894, the US deliberately beached a naval vessel at Tientsin, China, in order to provide safe haven for Americans during the Sino-Japanese War. That brings us to the first major US intervention in the world. The US had major sugar interests in Cuba towards the end of the 19th Century. Their constant conflicts with the Spanish government were duly reported back to the American government. In 1898, The USS Maine was stationed in Havana Harbor. When an engine boiler blew next to the magazine compartment, the vessel sank, and 266 US sailors lost their lives. This provided the dawning of Yellow Journalism and the beginning of manipulative media reporting in US newspapers. William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, two wealthy New York newspaper tycoons, vied ferociously with each other to prove that Spain had sunk the USS Maine. “Remember the Maine,” was the cry of the period and the American public was seduced into waging war against Spain, though it had nothing to do with the sinking of the USS Maine. Through outright lies and media spin, these two tycoons launched America into a war it had no right to be in. Though the US lost nearly 3,000 soldiers, the Treaty of Paris saw Spain ceding not only Cuba, but Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the US. But the Philippines wanted independence, not a transfer of rulers. Emilio Aquinaldo declared himself president of the Philippines soon after the US intervention, and led a new fight against the Americans. The brutality of US forces knew no bounds and by July 4, 1946, over 4,000 American soldiers lay dead, and more than 20,000 Philippine soldiers and over 500,000 Philippine civilians joined them. In the end, the Philippines did receive its long awaited independence, but at the cost of over half a million souls. During the next ten years, the US intervened in Nicaragua, Panama, China, Morocco, Honduras and Cuba. Every single one of these military and illegal interventions were started solely to protect American business interests and American lives. In 1910, the US upped the ante with foreign countries. That year, they landed in Nicaragua because then President Jose Zalaya had decided to impose a tax on American mining and fruit companies. The US military forced him to resign and fully supported his successor Adolfo Diaz. This would mark the first time that the US intervened forcefully in the removal of a democratically elected president. By the end of the century, this act would become commonplace. In 1912, US forces returned to Nicaragua in order to prop up the regime of President Diaz. Until 1934, US forces remained in Nicaragua to continue to keep their puppet regime in power. Year after year, Diaz would be unanimously elected by the Nicaraguan people, even though only 4,000 of the 572,000 voters were allowed to cast a ballot. The next twenty years witnessed US military interventions in China, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Haiti, all in the name of protecting US businesses in those countries. The major intervention, however, was its involvement in WWI. On May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was sunk off the coast of County Cork, Ireland by a U-boat after it had slowed to await the arrival of the English escort vessel, the Juno, which was intended to escort it into the English port. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, issued orders that the Juno was to return to port, and the Lusitania sat alone in the channel. Because Churchill knew of the presence of three U-boats in the vicinity, it is reasonable to presume that he had planned for the Lusitania to be sunk, and it was. 1,201 people lost their lives in the sinking. The US had its long-anticipated war with Germany and its allies. Even though the ship was loaded with war ammunitions and Germany had posted several ads in the New York newspapers warning Americans that it would consider any ship carrying arms from America to Great Britain to be a military ship, the American public was outraged and demanded retaliation. At the same time, in 1917 the US landed troops on Cuba and kept them there for over fifteen years. In 1918, troops landed in Panama and remained on police duty there for over two years. In 1918, US troops landed in Russia and fought the Russians for over five years. Between WWI and WWII, the US invaded Haiti, China, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Dalmatia, Turkey, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Greenland, Dutch Guiana, and Iceland. In February, 1941, while Europe was engulfed in its third year of war and the Sino-Japanese war was in full force, the US decided to do something completely insane. They moved their entire US Pacific naval fleet from the safe and easy confines of San Diego, California, to a small island lost in the middle of the Pacific even though they new that this meant they’d be half-way to Japan and the mighty Japanese warships. Within ten months, the US fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor was attacked and the US entered WWII. It was later discovered that the Americans had broken the Japanese code weeks prior to the attack and knew full well of the Japanese intentions yet refused to let the commanders at Pearl Harbor in on the pending attack. The US deliberately played opossum allowing the Japanese to inflict the maximum amount of damage against the American forces stationed in Hawaii. 2,400 US soldiers went to their graves that day because the US government kept secret the pending attack. At the conclusion of WWII, the United States and the Soviet Union divided Korea into two separate nations. South of the 38th parallel, the US imposed a strict military rule which lasted until 1948. In 1946, the US opened its famous School of the Americas intended to “modernize” Latin American armies. Since then, more than 60,000 students have become experts in counter-insurgency, weapons training, psychological warfare and interrogation techniques. With many dictators, assassins, and hatchet men included among its graduates, this school is held in contempt throughout Latin America. Some of the graduates include Manuel Noriega, Bolivia’s Hugo Suarez and the assassins of Archbishop Oscar Romero. In just one of their courses, they teach how to eliminate potential political rivals, how to obtain information involuntarily, and how to neutralize people. In 1948, the US invaded Nanking and Shanghai in China to evacuate Americans when Mao Tse-Tung took over mainland China. In Korea over 2.5 million people died as the US and Soviet forces battled each other on their soil. This war was never about the Koreans nor their future. Rather it was training ground for US and Soviet militaries to test their latest weapons and fighting techniques. Both sides tried to outdo the other at the complete expense of the Korean people. Not long after Iranian President Mohammed Mosadegh vowed to nationalize British Petroleum’s holdings in his country in 1953, he was overthrown in a military coup backed by the CIA. He was replaced by the Dictator Pahlevi Shah. In 1954, after Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz expropriated 234,000 acres of unused land owned by Rockefeller’s United Fruit Company, American President Eisenhower authorized a military coup ousting Arbenz. The 1950s also saw US military intervention into Indonesia, Laos, Lebanon and Haiti. On July 21, 1954, the Geneva Accords divide Vietnam into two countries at the 17th parallel. Ho Chi Minh is granted control of North Vietnam and Bao Dai is given South Vietnam. The Accords stipulate that a unifying election must be held within two years of the signing of the Accords, but the US refuses to allow them to proceed fearing a victory by Ho Chi Minh. On October 23, 1955, Bao Dai is ousted from power, defeated by Prime Minister Diem in a U.S.-backed plebiscite which was rigged. Diem is advised on consolidating power by U.S. Air Force Col. Edward G. Lansdale, who is attached to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In January 1957, the Soviet Union proposes permanent division of Vietnam into North and South, with the two nations admitted separately to the United Nations. The U.S. rejects the proposal, unwilling to recognize Communist North Vietnam. Meanwhile, the US steps up its military aid to South Vietnam in the form of armament, weapons, and intelligence advisors. On August 2, 1964, three North Vietnamese patrol boats attack the American destroyer U.S.S. Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin ten miles off the coast of North Vietnam. They fire three torpedoes and machine-guns, but only a single machine-gun round actually strikes the Maddox with no causalities. U.S. Navy fighters from the carrier Ticonderoga, led by Commander James Stockdale, attack the patrol boats, sinking one and damaging the other two. At the White House, it is Sunday morning (twelve hours behind Vietnam time). President Johnson, reacting cautiously to reports of the incident, decides against retaliation. Instead, he sends a diplomatic message to Hanoi warning of "grave consequences" from any further "unprovoked" attacks. Johnson then orders the Maddox to resume operations in the Gulf of Tonkin in the same vicinity where the attack had occurred. Meanwhile, the Joints Chiefs of Staff put U.S. combat troops on alert and also select targets in North Vietnam for a possible bombing raid, should the need arise. On August 3, 1964, the USS Maddox, joined by a second destroyer U.S.S. C. Turner Joy begin a series of vigorous zigzags in the Gulf of Tonkin sailing to within eight miles of North Vietnam's coast, while at the same time, South Vietnamese commandos in speed boats harass North Vietnamese defenses along the coastline. By nightfall, thunderstorms roll in, affecting the accuracy of electronic instruments on the destroyers. Crew members reading their instruments believe they have come under torpedo attack from North Vietnamese patrol boats. Both destroyers open fire on numerous apparent targets but there are no actual sightings of any attacking boats. On August 4, 1964, although immediate doubts arise concerning the validity of the second attack, the Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly recommend a retaliatory bombing raid against North Vietnam. Press reports in America greatly embellish the second attack with spectacular eyewitness accounts although no journalists had been on board the destroyers. The all out invasion of Vietnam by US troops had begun. When the US finally admitted defeat and left Vietnam some eleven years later, over 56,000 US troops had died and over two million Vietnamese had gone with them. Ho Chi Minh had finally achieved his life’s dream, a free and independent Vietnam. This dream had started back in 1919 when he first approached the French at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles requesting a free and independent country from the French. Though it had taken 56 years, and cost the lives of over ten million people, Ho Chi Minh finally achieved his goal. The 1960s also saw US intervention in Ecuador, Cuba, Brazil, Zaire, the Dominican Republic, Greece, Guatemala, Bolivia and El Salvador. In the 1970s, the US military intervened in Cambodia, Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile, Iraq, Cypress, Angola, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan. In this last country, the CIA along with the Pakistani secret service, ISI, provided weapons to the mujahideen fighting the Soviet puppet government in Kabul eventually leading to a Soviet invasion of the country and their subsequent defeat. Funding of these groups lasted well into the 1990s and was eventually used to create both al Qaeda and the Taliban government. The 1980s saw US intervention into Iran, El Salvador, Honduras, Libya, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Cambodia, Guatemala, Grenada, Angola, Syria, Bolivia, Haiti, the Persian Gulf, Panama, Colombia, and Peru. Many of these countries were attacked multiple times during the decade. In particular, Nicaragua was attacked by the CIA-led Contras stationed in Honduras. For years these guerrilleros would randomly attack small villages and kill innocent civilians indiscriminately. In 1986, the media uncovered the sourcing of their funds which came in the form of military weaponry sold to Iran even though this had been outlawed by the Boland Amendment. In the 1990s, the US attacked Bulgaria, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Haiti, Zaire, Sudan, Afghanistan, Colombia, and Yugoslavia. The attacks on Iraq alone cost the lives of over 500,000 infants, more than those who died at Hiroshima. In 1996, when asked if this was a just price for the sanctions against Iraq President Saddam Hussein, then UN Secretary Madeleine Albright said, “We think the price is worth it.” And so far in the 21st Century, the US has two major conflicts raging in Afghanistan and Iraq. But they have also intervened in the Philippines, Venezuela, and Haiti. By the end of the decade the US will have lost both major conflicts it is now engaged in. That will not stop, however, its insatiable desire to intervene in the internal affairs of other nations. The list I have provided is but a partial one, but it is reflective of the nature of US foreign policy since its inception and into the future. Small countries around the world can definitely fear the wrath of the US if they dare to affect US interests within their country. The United States has shown over the past two centuries that it is capable of causing complete regime change and invoking totalitarian practices in any country it so desires. For the third world, the Latin phrase “Caveat Emptor” or “Buyer Beware” still applies. Authors Website: http://beyond.euskalaretoa.com/belief/YaBB.pl Authors Bio: 53 year old Californian male - I've lived in three different countries, USA, Switzerland, Mesico - speak three languages fluently, English, French, Spanish - parttime journalist for Empower-Sport Magazine
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: Split, *Agriculture-Environment* (#0)
How odd. I got straight As in history all through school. Even took a couple of courses in college. Don't remember reading about nearly any of this in the history books. Let me see..... public school, public school text books, but much the same text books in the Catholic school I was in for 4 years, Ummmmm. Nope. Nothing in any of the government approved text books or classes. Must be just an oversighte, or an accident. I mean, they would not do this deliberately or anything? Right? Right? RIGHT!?
#2. To: richard9151 (#1)
(Edited)
There's his-story and then there's history. Everyone in the public indoctrination system learns his-story.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest |
||
|
[Home]
[Headlines]
[Latest Articles]
[Latest Comments]
[Post]
[Sign-in]
[Mail]
[Setup]
[Help]
|
||