Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Book: 'Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq'
The ANNOTICO Report
Berlusconi, not Italy is America's Ally in it's latest "Colonialistic, Imperialistic Escapade"
There's nothing really new about George W. Bush's war to remove Saddam Hussein.
For more than 100 years, presidents have been persuading Americans to send troops to change foreign governments they don't like.
And in
almost every case, the invasions and coups have had "terrible unintended
consequences."
Kinzer focuses on U.S.-backed coups in Hawaii, The Philipines, Cuba, Chile, Guatemala, Viet
Nam, Iran. and 7 other cases in which
the United States deposed established foreign
leaders. [and I might add mostly democratically elected!!!!!] The United States is the only country in modern
history to have done this so often and in so many places. Few of these coups
brought democracy to the target countries; instead, he shows, they brought
decades of oppression and mass killings, followed in some cases by passionately
anti-American revolutions.
Why have
so many presidents sought regime change? In virtually every case, he
demonstrates, U.S. leaders worked to advance the
economic interests of U.S. corporations: sugar in Hawaii and Cuba, copper in Chile, oil in Iran. The Philippines were a stopover en route to the
riches of China.
Why have invasions and coups won popular support. The reason is the same today
with Iraq as in all the earlier cases:
Presidents said we were bringing democracy to the oppressed. Ordinary Americans
won't go to war to advance corporate interests, but they will go to war in the
name of democracy. Americans are idealistic. They believe their country has the
purest of motives.
And they can be frightened into going to war: Lyndon B.
Johnson declared that, if the communists were allowed to take South Vietnam,
we'd eventually be fighting them "on the beaches of Waikiki." Kinzer's
conclusion is inescapable: Various presidents from McKinley to Kennedy and
George W. Bush have misled the American people about the real reasons for wars
to topple foreign governments.
'Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq'
Los Angeles Times
Review by
Jon Wiener
Special to The Times
April 3, 2006
THERE'S nothing really new about George W. Bush's war to remove Saddam Hussein;
for more than 100 years, presidents have been persuading Americans to send
troops to change foreign governments they don't like. And in almost every case,
Stephen Kinzer argues in his new book "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From
Hawaii to Iraq," the invasions and coups
have had "terrible unintended consequences."
Kinzer is a New York Times foreign correspondent who has reported from more
than 50 countries. He's also written much-admired books on the 1954 U.S.-backed
coups in Guatemala and Iran. This book focuses on these and 12 other cases in which
the United States deposed established foreign
leaders. The United
States, Kinzer
writes, is the only country in modern history to have done this so often and in
so many places. Few of these coups brought democracy to the target countries;
instead, he shows, t! hey brought decades of oppression and mass killings,
followed in some cases by passionately anti-American revolutions.
This record of unintended consequences is no secret to historians or
policymakers, so Kinzer asks the necessary question: Why have so many presidents
sought regime change? In virtually every case, he demonstrates, U.S. leaders worked to advance the
economic interests of U.S. corporations: sugar in Hawaii and Cuba, copper in Chile, oil in Iran. The Philippines were a stopover en route to the riches
of China.
But that doesn't explain why invasions and coups won popular support. Kinzer
says the reason is the same today with Iraq as in all the earlier cases: Presidents said we were bringing
democracy to the oppressed. Ordinary Americans won't go to war to advance
corporate interests, but they will go to war in the name of democracy.
Americans are idealistic. They believe their country has the purest of motives.
And they can be frightened into going t! o war: Lyndon B. Johnson declared
that, if the communists were allowed to take South Vietnam, we'd eventually be fighting them "on the beaches of Waikiki." Kinzer's conclusion is
inescapable: Various presidents from McKinley to Kennedy and George W. Bush
have misled the American people about the real reasons for wars to topple
foreign governments.
The first major U.S. interventions (after Hawaii in 1893) came in the 1898
Spanish-American War; "democracy" was the justification for imposing
American control in Cuba and the Philippines. After World War II, presidents
said we were coming to the aid of countries threatened by Soviet-sponsored
"subversion": in Iran, Guatemala and Vietnam. In each case, Kinzer shows that argument to have been a
myth. The Soviets had no interest in Guatemala, they had little influence in Iran, and the Vietnamese communists were relatively independent of both the
Russians and the Chinese.
Kinzer's case studies generally show how the Unite! d States undermined
democracy by targeting legitimately elected leaders. He's especially good at
describing the CIA-backed coups that overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz Guzmбn in Guatemala in 1954 and Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. His Vietnam chapter is the exception because
his focus is too narrow. That chapter tells the story of the U.S.-backed 1963
coup that overthrew Ngo Dinh Diem. That wasn't the moment democracy was
undermined in Vietnam. The turning point came in 1956,
when the United States blocked elections required by the
Geneva Accords. (Diem had been an unknown, put in power — also in the
volatile Cold War atmosphere of 1954 — only because the Eisenhower
administration had nobody better.) President Eisenhower's explanation for
stopping the elections was refreshingly frank: Ho Chi Minh, the nationalist
leader who had led the fight against French colonialism, would have won the
votes of "possibly eighty per cent of the population." That was t! he
moment when the United
States went wrong in
Vietnam.
All these interventions, Kinzer writes, led to short-run profits and long-term
disaster, especially in Iran, where the 1954 coup that
installed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi also opened the Iranian oil fields to
Standard Oil, Texaco and Mobil. But the shah's brutal and corrupt dictatorship
eventually sparked a revolution in 1979 that put Muslim fundamentalists in
power and inspired anti-American Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 1996 and, finally, the attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001.
Kinzer ends with a series of tantalizing "what-ifs": What if the United States had not blocked an election in Cuba in 1952? Young Fidel Castro and Che
Guevara might have decided to fight U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista's
corruption through democratic channels and never turned to the Soviets. What if
the United States had not put the Shah in power in Iran in 1954? Iran might have become! a secular
democracy instead of a beacon of anti-American Muslim fundamentalism. What if
the United States had permitted Vietnamese elections
in 1956 that Eisenhower conceded would have put Ho Chi Minh in power? U.S. forces would not have killed 2
million Vietnamese, and the Vietnamese would not have killed 58,000 Americans.
And when Bush argued that Saddam should be overthrown, what if the American
people had learned that wars for regime change almost always bring disaster?
Jon Wiener is a UC Irvine professor of history and contributing editor of the Nation. His most recent book is "Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud and Politics in the Ivory Tower."
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