Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucbcad.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!ucbcad!notes From: notes@ucbcad.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: US invasion -> free election - (nf) Message-ID: <686@ucbcad.UUCP> Date: Fri, 11-Nov-83 01:01:59 EST Article-I.D.: ucbcad.686 Posted: Fri Nov 11 01:01:59 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 11-Nov-83 21:42:08 EST Sender: notes@ucbcad.UUCP Organization: UC Berkeley CAD Group Lines: 87 #R:bbncca:-25600:ucbesvax:2900032:000:4390 ucbesvax!turner Nov 4 17:44:00 1983 Re: U.S. invasion -> free elections .... I seem to remember a couple of interventions in the Caribbean in the 60's but I don't remember what the outcome was. These are just off the top of my head though. marty !decvax!bbncca!schoff schoff@bbnu How convenient that you can't remember the outcomes of those Caribbean invasions. Nor do you see fit to comment on the ultimately undemocratic fates of the four third world countries on your list (I'm excluding Japan). The Lebanon invasion resulted in "free elections"? I suppose this is true. In the broad sense of "free", as in "the Free World". Some people think that the U.S. invasion destabilized the situation there in a way that is still giving us problems today. Is the the Philipines also "free"? And South Korea? Egypt?? Give me a break! What you have is a positive correlation (and not a good one) between U.S. invasions and subsequent "free elections". In the case of the European nations involved in WW II, most were freed from Hitler. And how did Hitler come to power? The German voters put him into the office of the Chancellor--twice, if I recall correctly. The voters of Europe have certainly been a little more careful ever since. But to imply that they owe their democratic traditions to U.S. military action is little stretched, to say the least. And how free were these post-invasion elections? The CIA did its utmost in Italy and France to exclude electoral elements that they thought might be sympathetic to the Soviet Union--going so far as to save Klaus Barbie from certain lynching so that he could finger Nazi-identified Communists in the French Resistance. The U.S., after having aided in the Chilean military take-over, could certainly have applied more pressure for "free elections"--even if they excluded the element that had been overthrown. But it didn't. Chilean democracy had already proven itself to be inimical to U.S. interests--so why bother? In the 50's Guatemalan and Iranian governments were overthrown--just shortly after the first free elections they had known in a long time. (If ever; I'm unclear on their prior histories.) The U.S. just happened to dislike the choices those voters made. Of course, these were not strictly invasions. Democracy is more easily crushed by the sneak attack from within. Am I saying that the U.S. is consistently opposed to democracy in its client states and allies? No! Clearly, democracy is often in the U.S. interest. I will even admit of a few examples where the U.S. supported democracy as a matter of principle, rather than expediency. McArthur's political reconstruction of Japan (however incomplete) is a fair example. Japan might have remained a conquered province of the U.S. The high principles of an appointed U.S. military dictator did not allow this possibility--though it took many years for McArthur to bring about even an approximation of his vision. I think it's fair, however, to say that the U.S. often *accedes* to democracy in the third world, rather than promoting it in any real sense. It is not at all helped by it's rather cavalier definition of "democracy"--as in, say, the Nicaraguan "Democratic" Force that just received another $20 million to help its Somocista contingent to raze more villages and kill more children. How is any U.S. commitment to "democracy" lent credibility by using the word in this manner? What will happen in Grenada? I don't know. It is interesting, however, that the Grenadan army troops that willingly turned themselves in were disarmed and then allowed to go free. Which is to say, they must have felt safer disarmed within the civilian population than up in the hills with their guns. While that's probably not saying much, it does lead one to suspect that they felt like they could clear themselves with their own people on the extent of their complicity with the coup leaders. Possibly, large sections of this small army were still sympathetic to Bishop, or antipathetic to both the coup and Bishop. If so, they might be the core of a new democratic movement, sensitive to the problems that they themselves helped bring down on their own country. History has turned up worse opportunities than these. To prove its good faith, the U.S. should withdraw now, and take the risk. The world will think the better of it for doing so. --- Michael Turner