IMPERIALISM
U.S. Interventionism
U.S. Interventionism
Interventionism has a detrimental impact: it starts civil wars, kills hundreds of thousands, generates migrant crises, fuels poverty and gang violence, and supports dictators.
- Vice: Kazdin 18 (various sources included)
- Central American devastation and refugee crisis was created or at least helped by the US’s interference in those countries going back decades
- 1954 Guatemala CIA Coup (Elizabeth Oglesby, professor of Latin American studies, University of Arizona)
- Overthrew democratic government
- continued to train the Guatemalan military well into the 70s
- an estimated 200,000 were killed
- Sparked a 36-year-long civil war
- hundreds of thousands of people were displaced
- Late 70s US Opposition in Nicaragua
- A Nicaraguan resistance group overthrew the country’s dictatorship that had been in power for over 40 years
- the US opposed the revolution, backed the dictatorship, and supported the Contra rebels
- El Salvador, Cold War Era (Xochitl Sanchez of the Central American Resource Center, Los Angeles)
- The US amplified its presence in the region in order to defeat the guerrillas of the FMLN
- Created the rampant and bloody gang violence, dire poverty, displacement and migration from El Salvador.
This is just a brief overview of some of the U.S.’ most famous Latin American interventions. RockyDerFailure#6781 has a MASSIVE list of a variety of worldwide interventions here.
Anti-American Terrorism
Anti-American Terrorism
` `Anti-American terrorism is primarily fueled by foreign policy and a legacy of interventionalism, rather than a distrust in democracy or “western values.”
- Pew Research: Kohut 05
- An analysis of Middle Eastern perceptions and their relations to terrorism
- Found that the U.S. is less popular in the Middle East than in any other part of the world and that “anti-Americanism around the world is driven first and foremost by opposition to U.S. foreign policy.”
- High pluralities in all Middle Eastern countries surveyed cited opposition to the U.S. based on:
- The war in Iraq
- The war on terror
- the perception that America acts unilaterally on the world stage
- U.S. policy in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
- Also found that Middle Easterners do not hate so-called “Western values” nor cite that as a point of opposition against the U.S.
- “overwhelming majorities of Jordanians, Lebanese, and Moroccans say democracy is not just a Western way of governance, and that it can work in their countries”
- Pew Research 05
- Support for democracy is high in Middle Eastern countries; the public generally does not have a hatred for perceived “Western values”
- The following proportions of the public say that democracy can work well and is not just for the West:
- Morocco (83%)
- Lebanon (83%)
- Jordan (80%)
- Indonesia (77%)
- Turkey (48%)
- Pakistan (43%)
Arms Deals
Arms Deals
Arms deals and similar forms of military aid create, prolong, and intensify conflict.
- CATO: Thrall and Dorminey 18
- Arms sales make conflict more likely.
- Recipients of new weapons feel more confident about launching attacks or because changes in the local balance of power can fuel tensions and promote preventive strikes by others.
- Arms sales can also prolong and intensify ongoing conflicts and erode regional stability
- Studies:
- Sub-Saharan Africa study: “arms transfers are significant and positive predictors of increased probability of war.’”
- Africa study: “Weapons imports are essential additives in this recipe for armed conflict and carnage.”