| > Last time I checked, for 70 years the US has overwhelmingly acted as a defender of liberal democracies, not an antagonist. There is so much wrong with this statement. Let's take a look at some of your great examples. > Iran (theocracy) Do you know anything about American and British led operations to overthrow the Iranian government in the 1950s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... They overthrew a democratically elected government in order to install one more friendly to Western oil interests. Does that sound like a government that is the "protector of liberal democracies"? > Cuba (dictatorship) So the popular revolution against the military dictator Fulgencio Batista ended up with a pretty authoritarian government. We can argue on the legitimacy of the communist government, but let's talk about the government before that. If the US was a "protector of liberal democracies" and likes to be "in conflict" with dictators, why didn't they care much about the government before the communist one? Oh yeah, because American companies owned 70% of the island and Batista was put into power by the US themselves. > Venezuela (dictatorship) Oh, Venezuela. This is a great topic. The US has been wanting to topple the democratically elected government since it's inception. Here's a quote summarizing the sentiment of the people before 1999, when Hugo Chavez was elected. > A sensation of insecurity became generalized throughout the population, constituting "an emerging culture of violence. . . very distinct from the culture of tolerance and peace that dominated Venezuelan society in the past." (Briceño León et al., 1997: 213). Along with unemployment, personal safety topped the problems perceived as most serious by the population. Between 1986 and 1996 the number of homicides per 10,000 inhabitants jumped from 13.4 to 56, an increase of 418 percent, with most of the victims being young males It was a very bad time to be Venezuelan. Nowadays it is also a bad time to be Venezuelan. Why though? Do you think American sanctions and big business sabotage has nothing to do with it? To think so would be naive. There are countless examples in every region of the entire planet where the US has done things that are not in line with the tag "protector of liberal democracy". They regularly cooperated with dictators, even brutal ones like Pinochet or Saddam Hussein. They do not care one lick about liberal democracy. It is realpolitik, plain and simple. Now, I must state for posterity... The US is not the only country that behaves in this manner. I think any country will behave this way, because it's simply game theory. If someone's interests are in line with yours, you're going to cooperate with them. I just think the US has so much power that it's influence is felt at a much higher presence than any other nation. So while any other country in the US's position would be performing similar actions, it's the US that's performing this actions. |