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From: mokhtar@ubc-vision.UUCP (Farzin Mokhtarian)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: American Foreign Policy
Message-ID: <38@ubc-vision.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Jan-86 00:26:01 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.38
Posted: Tue Jan  7 00:26:01 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Jan-86 05:54:59 EST
Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 49

Subject: Re: American Foreign Policy

> American wars with the Indians and their virtual extermination
> 1848 - American war with Mexico to obtain California and the Southwest
> 1898 - American war with Spain to obtain Cuba, the Phillipines and ...
> 1920's - American troops sent to occupy Nicaragua
> 1954   - American overthrow of the democratic government of Jacob Arbenz
> 1956   - American overthrow of the democratic government of Mossadegh
>          to be replaced by the military dictatorship of the Shah
> 1954-1973 - American military intervention in Vietnam, in contravention
>          of 1954 Geneva Accords to settle Indochinese conflict.
> 1973   - American covert support for the overthrow of the democratic
>          government of Salvador Allende ending decades of the tradition
>          of stable Chilean democracy ...  
> 1984  -  American troops overthrow the government in Grenada
> 1983 -   American mining of Nicaragua's harbor ...
> 1981-?   American funding for contra campaign of terrorism in Nicaragua
> 1981     American resumption of arms sales to South Africa's apartheid
>          government
 
> I hope our foreign policy can come a lot closer to perfection than this!!
>                  tim sevener    whuxn!orb
   
Interesting list. I have two corrections to make:
 
1. Mossadegh was disposed of in 1953 (You were close!).
2. You should give some credit to the British for this achievement also.
   Mossadegh was tough enough that getting rid of him somehow required a joint
   effort by the CIA and the MI6 (the British equivalent). "Well over 1.5
   million" English pounds plus a "very large sum" in  American money was spent 
   just to "buy crowd leaders" and mobs (see reference).
     
But I also have a question:
   Why is America a democracy only inside? Somehow the democratic process
   ceases to exist when we get to foreign policy matters. Decisions are
   made by the president and a few advisors around him. This seems peculiar
   when so many things are done in the name of "national security". I
   think we are bound to see more abuses of power as long as so much of it
   is concentrated in the hands of the few. As long as things are the way
   they are, doesn't the term "American democracy" need to be qualified? 
     
       Farzin Mokhtarian
   
Reference:  End of Empire  by Brian Lapping, Granada Publishing 1985.
   
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