U.S.-Chilean history haunts Rice visit

March 10, 2006, 11:25PM
U.S.-Chilean history haunts Rice visit
New president is a symbol of the end of the rule of generals backed by Washington


By CAM SIMPSON
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - With photographers snapping away, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared last summer that decades of American foreign policy toward the oil-rich Middle East had been a failure.

For 60 years, she told a Cairo audience, the U.S. "pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region," achieving neither. It was a candid confession, one that remains emblematic of a Bush administration foreign policy that supporters contend is now placing the long-term benefits of "spreading of freedom" ahead of the once-perceived short-term advantages of embracing despots.

But today Rice will pose for pictures at another event — one that will undoubtedly evoke a tableau of America's far longer history of embracing brutal regimes in its own backyard. She will attend the inauguration of Chile's president-elect Michelle Bachelet, who in her youth was tortured and exiled at the hands of a military junta backed by Washington.
(snip)

Chile remains, in the words of author and national security historian Peter Kornbluh, the "ultimate study of morality — or the lack of it — in American foreign policy."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3716254.html

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One sentence from this article I'd love to highlight might remind some DU'ers of something a DU visitor remarked during his extensive version, during his brief stay at D.U., of history between the U.S. and Chile, when he claimed the CIA was NEVER involved in that coup.....

Between the election and Allende's inauguration, Nixon himself instructed the CIA to foment a coup.
(snip)

I wonder if condi is aware of the US's untidy history.....

1963 Ecuador CIA backs military overthrow of President Jose Maria Valesco Ibarra.
1964 Panama Clashes between US forces in Canal Zone and local citizens.
1964 Brazil CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government of Joao Goulart and Gen. Castello Branco takes power.
1965-1975 Vietnam Large commitment of military forces, including air, naval and ground units numbering up to 500,000+ troops. Full-scale war, lasting for ten years.
1965 Indonesia CIA-backed army coup overthrows President Sukarno and brings Gen. Suharto to power.
1965 Congo CIA backed military coup overthrows President Joseph Kasavubu and brings Joseph Mobutu to power.
1965 Dominican Republic 23,000 troops land.
1965-1973 Laos Bombing campaign begin, lasting eight years.
1966 Ghana CIA-backed military coup ousts President Kwame Nkrumah.
1966-1967 Guatemala Extensive counter-insurgency operation.
1969-1975 Cambodia CIA supports military coup against Prince Sihanouk, bringing Lon Nol to power. Intensive bombing for seven years along border with Vietnam.
1970 Oman Counter-insurgency operation, including coordination with Iranian marine invasion.
1971-1973 Laos Invasion by US and South Vietnames forces.
1973 Chile CIA-backed military coup ousts government of President Salvador Allende. Gen. Augusto Pinochet comes to power.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/interventions.htm

1776. . our interventions started with the people who were here first and it hasn`t stopped since

check the link, it goes back to the beginning of our nation's history.

<snip>

1798-1800 France Undeclared naval war against France, marines land in Puerto Plata.
1801-1805 Tripoli War with Tripoli (Libya), called “First Barbary War”.
1806 Spanish Mexico Military force enters Spanish territory in headwaters of the Rio Grande.
1806-1810 Spanish and French in Caribbean US naval vessels attack French and Spanish shipping in the Caribbean.
1810 Spanish West Florida Troops invade and seize Western Florida, a Spanish possession.
1812 Spanish East Florida Troops seize Amelia Island and adjacent territories.
1812 Britain War of 1812, includes naval and land operations.
1813 Marquesas Island Forces seize Nukahiva and establish first US naval base in the Pacific.
1814 Spanish (East Florida) Troops seize Pensacola in Spanish East Florida.
1814-1825 French, British and Spanish in Caribbean US naval squadron engages French, British and Spanish shipping in the Caribbean.
1815 Algiers and Tripoli US naval fleet under Captain Stephen Decatur wages “Second Barbary War” in North Africa.
1816-1819 Spanish East Florida Troops attack and seize Nicholls’ Fort, Amelia Island and other strategic locations. Spain eventually cedes East Florida to the US.
1822-1825 Spanish Cuba and Puerto Rico Marines land in numerous cities in the Spanish island of Cuba and also in Spanish Puerto Rico.
1827 Greece Marines invade the Greek islands of Argentiere, Miconi and Andross.
1831 Falkland/Malvinas Islands US naval squadrons aggress the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
1832 Sumatra, Dutch East Indies US naval squadrons attack Qallah Battoo.
1833 Argentina Forces land in Buenos Aires and engage local combatants.
1835-1836 Peru Troops dispatched twice for counter-insurgency operations.
1836 Mexico Troops assist Texas war for independence.
1837 Canada Naval incident on the Canadian border leads to mobilization of a large force to invade Canada. War is narrowly averted.
1838 Sumatra, Dutch East Indies US naval forces sent to Sumatra for punitive expedition.
1840-1841 Fiji Naval forces deployed, marines land.
1841 Samoa Naval forces deployed, marines land.
1842 Mexico Naval forces temporarily seize cities of Monterey and San Diego.
1843 China Marines land in Canton.
1843 Ivory Coast Marines land.
1846-1848 Mexico Full-scale war. Mexico cedes half of its territory to the US by the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo.
1849 Ottoman Empire (Turkey) Naval force dispatched to Smyrna.
1852-1853 Argentina Marines land in Buenos Aires.
1854 Nicaragua Navy bombards and largely destroys city of San Juan del Norte. Marines land and set fire to the city.
1854 Japan Commodore Perry and his fleet deploy at Yokohama.
1855 Uruguay Marines land in Montevideo.
1856 Columbia (Panama Region) Marines land for counter-insurgency campaign.

Etc., etc....

....Official Washington, before and during the Bush administration, has rarely expressed second thoughts about America's troubled history in Chile and the rest of Latin America.

Nor does it look as if Rice is about to buck that trend, despite her strong personal support for Bachelet and the contention that the U.S. is now putting an increased emphasis on morality in America's foreign policy.

The history of American intervention in Latin America — overt and covert — didn't start or end in the Chile of Bachelet's youth.

But Washington's policy of regime change there in the early 1970s crystallized regional and international attention around that behavior, attention that lingers amid the recent declassification of documents.

Kennedy's administration stopped supporting right wing dictators as a matter of policy. JFK said that it only created more instability to support leaders the people eventually rejected. So, Kennedy supported center left governments.

It's bad that the US spent money to support candidates, yes, but Kennedy did, in fact, have second thoughts about the fascists the US supported during the Eisenhower administration.

Anyone who doesn't' agree should, before they respond to this post, read Peter Kornbleuh's (sp?) The Pinochet File.

Ok, and credit where credit is due: the Reagan administration did a lot of bad things in a lot of countries, but in Chile, their withdrawal of support for Pinochet led to his end. People in Pinochet's government tried to blackmail Reagan's State Department -- they said they would expose all the things the US did in support of Pinochet in the '70s and earlier. Reagan's state department said, almost literally, "fuck them" and withdrew support.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB110/

Thanks for the reccommendation.

...briefing Ziegler in which he specifically discusses preventing Allende from taking office, calls Korry a "son of a bitch" for failing to manipulate the Chilean elections sufficiently, etc. It gave me chills to hear that old goat's voice again, and in a setting that was clearly not meant for public consumption. I wonder if they still record those presidential briefings. I'll bet Bush and his partners in crime don't dare leave records behind.

all aspects of their devious operation. It would be WONDERFUL to see it unravelling, but that probably won't happen.

No doubt they still keep recordings of everything, but they'll never see the light of day. I recall one of the first things _Bush did in 2001 was to find a way to keep all Presidential records sealed for far longer than any time before now.

I'd love to see Henry Kissinger pop down to Chile to relive all the good times. Maybe they could show Hank the soccer stadium in Santiago, and allow him to star in a little re-creation of one of his greatest hits. Only this time, he could be on the other side.

Just stick to knowledge of the Rus you moron (the way we are going Russia will hate us again soon)...you know nothing of the ME or the dynamics of our shared histories. Up until about 5 YEARS AGO, we had a few problems with the ME. Now look at us. Rice helped bring about most of the instability in the ME...they call it 'spreading democracy'. Fucking evil losers.

I think she will take her vengeance, as she should, by moving Chile into the progressive column. Lagos was still suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, and was afraid of angering the fascist generals lurking in the shadows. I hope Bachelet integrates Chile with the new emerging order in Latin America, and says no to US hegemony.

Woman takes control in Chile
Former political exile is sworn in as first female president
Patrick J. McDonnell and Eva Vergara, Los Angeles Times

Sunday, March 12, 2006

~snip~
Bachelet, like Lagos, embodies a pragmatic socialism that embraces U.S. notions of free trade and democracy, while differing on issues like the war in Iraq, which is very unpopular in Chile and in much of the rest of Latin America.

She has consistently decried the wide income gap between Chile's elite and working classes and has pledged to help provide "decent and dignified" jobs for all. Part of her appeal, along with her personal charisma, has been her consistent refrain, which most Chileans seem to view as sincere, that she did not seek high office but rather accepted the challenge as her responsibility.

In her speech, the new president also pointedly noted that today marks the 32nd anniversary of the death in custody of her father, former Air Force Gen. Alberto Bachelet, who served in the Allende government and was arrested as a traitor after the Pinochet-led coup. Bachelet and her mother were ultimately arrested as well and suffered at notorious torture center Villa Grimaldi before being released and going into exile to what was then East Germany.

Bachelet mentioned the late Allende during her speech, generating strong applause. But the presence of Rice underscored the robust relationship between the United States and Chile at a time when a leftward drift on the continent has led to ascension of many U.S. critics as national leaders.
(snip/...)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/03/12/MNG9BHMS9R1.DTL

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During a time when U.S. conservatives are already attempting to build a base for Condoleeza Rice's consideration in 2008, yammering about her being "the most powerful woman in the world," it's very appropriate to see a decent, socially responsible woman step into the Presidency, with the blessing of the people, in Chile.