History buffs--List the countries in which CONS killed democracy

I'm writing an article, and maybe you can think of some I haven't.

1957 Eisenhower okays CIA plan to oust democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran because he wants to nationalize oil. Shah of Iran put in his place.

1963 CIA helps ARVN generals assassinate duly elected South Vietnamese President Diem. Although this was under JFK's watch, hardline right-wing "anti-communists" pressured leaders of both parties into more and more involvement in Vietnam.

1970's Left-leaning Salvatore Allende is elected president of Chile. He nationalizes copper mines. Copper multinationals appeal to US gov't. With Nixon's approval, Kissinger drafts plans for a CIA assassination of a key loyal General. Military junta storms Allendes' residence. Kissinger is now wanted in Europe for helping to install the brutal right-wing dictator Pinochet.

1984 The Sandinistas come to power in Nicaragua's first ever elections after enduring the Somoza regime for decades. Reagan immediately funds right-wing death squads called Contras to harass and intimidate the democratically elected government. The CIA mines harbors to cut off trade. When Congress passes laws forbidding the funding of the Contras, Reagan continues to do so secretly.

1998 Republican conservatives seek to overthrow the will of a majority of Americans by impeaching the twice-elected President Clinton.

2000 When Bush "wins" the official election count in November in Florida by 351 votes out of 6 million cast, Florida law requires a mandatory recount. The Bush team springs into action to slow, stall, or prevent a recount by any means necessary. Led by Bush mafiosi James Baker and John Bolton, they stage protests that shut down election offices so that a recount could not be held. By the time the legal issues had worked their way to the Supreme Court, it bizarrely ruled that a recount should be conducted, but because so much time had elapsed in the legal process, there was not enough time.

Tellingly, conservatives never argue that the will of the majority was observed. They merely say, "you're mad you lost," as if winning the election justifies everything.

2004 A well-organized coup emerges out of nowhere in Haiti to challenge the left-leaning elected president Jean Baptiste Aristide. In the 90's, Clinton sent troops to prop up the Aristide presidency. Bush dispatched a jet to spirit him out of the country. Aristide claims he was kidnapped by the US.

2005 Bush continues to express disapproval of twice-elected President of Venezula, Hugo Chavez. Bush-shill Pat Robertson calls for his execution.

*****

These are examples I have compiled to show that conservatives do NOT believe in democracy, despite their claims to the contrary. Iraq is exhibit A.

Any other ideas out there?

I can think of one example, the most obvious being Julius Caesar. Caesar wanted total control over his people, then he was killed by the senate in an uprising.

Bush shouldn't be knocked off like Caesar, just thrown out of office in disgrace.

But wasn't the CIA involved in some assassinations in Africa during the post-colonial period -- maybe Lumumba? Wasn't Charles Taylor installed by the U.S.?

There are some new books out that deal with U.S. involvement overseas. I'll dig around and see what I can find.

BANANAS! BANANAS!

:9

out on the Internets.

Conservative generals overthrow the government and run a dictatorship for several years.

Spain, mid 1930s, Franco's Fascists revolt against a left-leaning constitutional monarchy, setting off the Spanish Civil War and eventually taking over the country, allying themselves with Hitler, and staying in power until Franco's death in the late 1970s.

Conservative militarists take over the formerly multi-party government in Japan, until there is only one opposition party member in the Diet by the time of Pearl Harbor.

Ok, gosh this list is long, then...

Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia, East Timor, Argentina, Chile,
Peru, Bolivia, Columbia (panama), venezuela, mexico, nicaragua,
el salvador, iran, iraq, pakistan, a good many of the "stans" the
new CIS caspian republics, romania keeping ceucescu in power, lebannon,
egypt, south africa, phillipines, cuba, puerto rico, russia,
afganistan, spain, viet nam, cambodia, laos, nigeria, zaire, Kenya
palestine, Hawaii, diego garcia ...
but i'm interpreting 'pukes' to be the monopolists that have dominated
the US for 150 years.

They've had a finger in every pie, some more obvious than others, as how
else does the world's largest arms exporter with 800 bases abroad use
its elephant feet to supress democracy wherever possible.

The legacy of failed states and ungovernable chaotic entities speaks loads for
the real legacy of americana intervention....

But did permanent economic damage in the process?

to contribute, but I bet Octafish, H20Man and Pitt, among others, would!

:kick:

1950s, when Ike used the CIA to install the Shah

Timeline of CIA Atrocities.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html

A Timeline of CIA Atrocities
by Steven Kangas
http://www.atrocities.net/
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/cia_time.htm

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Killing Hope. Over 250 Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
http://www.killinghope.com/

1. China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid?
2. Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style
3. Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state
4. The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America's oldest colony
5. Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?
6. Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy
7. Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor
8. Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism
9. Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings
10. Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched
11. Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1
12. Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government
13. Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America
14. Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography
15. Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts
16. British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA's international labor mafia
17. Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing
18. Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal's orphans and techno-fascism
19. Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus
20. Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism
21. Laos - 1957-1973: L'Armée Clandestine
22. Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again
23. Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another
24. France/Algeria - 1960s: L'état, c'est la CIA
25. Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks
26. The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba
27. Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads
28. Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle
29. Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy by getting rid of democracy
30. Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution
31. Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno ... and 500,000 others
East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more
32. Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line
33. Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture -- as American as apple pie
34. Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead
35. Greece - 1964-1974: "Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution," said
the President of the United States
36. Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d'etat
37. Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized "final solution"
38. Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally -- Part 2
39. Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work
40. Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust
41. Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game
42. Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven
43. Jamaica - 1976-1980: Kissinger's ultimatum
44. Seychelles - 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance
45. Grenada - 1979-1984: Lying -- one of the few growth industries in Washington
46. Morocco - 1983: A video nasty
47. Suriname - 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman
48. Libya - 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match
49. Nicaragua - 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion
50. Panama - 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier
51. Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about
52. Iraq - 1990-1991: Desert holocaust
53. Afghanistan - 1979-1992: America's Jihad
54. El Salvador - 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style
55. Haiti - 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?
56. The American Empire - 1992 to present

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Overthrow - America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
Democracy Now
Friday, April 21st, 2006

part 1
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/21/132247&mode=thread&tid=25
part 2
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/08/1353206
(video, audio, transcript)

Interview with former New York Times foreign correspondent, Steve Kinzer. Kinzer's new book is titled, "Overthrow: America"s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq." In it, he examines how the United States has thwarted independence movements in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Nicaragua; staged covert actions and coups d'etat in Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam and Chile; and invaded Grenada, Panama and Afghanistan and Iraq.

Kinzer argues that over 110 years, the United States has deployed its power to gain access to natural resources, stifle dissent and control the nationalism of newly independent states or political movements. I interviewed Kinzer in Chicago last month.

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What I've Learned About US Foreign Policy
http://www.chomskytorrents.org/TorrentDetails.php?TorrentID=1220
The basic message being that the CIA, the military-industrial-complex, the Pentagon, the multinational corporations, the media and the Government of the United States are responsible for the deaths of millions of people in the third world, not to mention the poverty and oppression of millions more. We support, arm, and train dictators and militaries that do these evil actions to their own people. All of this is to insure that we control the natural resources of these countries and their market place, use the people for cheap labor and keep the business of war (which is our biggest business) ongoing.

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Trials Of Henry Kissinger
http://www.chomskytorrents.org/TorrentDetails.php?TorrentID=1222
Featuring previously unseen footage, newly declassified US government documents, and revealing interviews with key insiders to the events in question, The Trials of Henry Kissinger examines the charges facing him, shedding light on a career long shrouded in secrecy. In part, it explores how a young boy who fled Nazi Germany grew up to become one of the most powerful men in US history and now, in the autumn of his life, one of its most disputed figures.

Germany. Won without a majority, but rather a plurality of 20-something percent of the vote, with the fact that less than 100% of the voters went to the polls. His German version of neocons took over the Reichstag and played havoc with the Social Democrats and started the destruction of democracy. Once President Hindenberg died, Hitler consolidated all power and made himself the Unilateral Executive and banned civil liberties indefinitely in HIS "War on Terror" following the arson upon the Reichstag Building. Goebbels became the one-man FOX network, Goering was Rumsfeld and Rudolf Hess was Condoleeza Rice until he flew to England to secretly negotiate a peace treaty.

The Eisenhower administration was heavily involved in the coup that overthrew President Arbenz of Guatemala in 1953. what is often forgotten is that then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had previously been a high legal muckety-muck in the United Fruit Company.

employed by United Fruit. The Dick Cheney of his day . . .

I don't think that John Foster Dulles was working for United Fruit Co at the time he was US Secretary of State, but I have no doubt that his opinions on what was happening in Guatemala at the time were certainly informed by what he'd been doing earlier.

I suspect his opinion as shaped by his UF Co experience was that land reformer (Even with compensation) equals hard-line commie with ties to Stalin's Moscow. Solution equals overthrow.

Proving your point won't shame conservatives. When cornered about their opposition to democracy, most so-called "conservatives" turn around and say that they don't believe in democracy, they believe in a republic.

This pattern of behavior always seems to come about just when right-wingers dream up a new scheme to restrict voting rights. It came about in the South during the Civil Rights era and there has been a resurgence when the right-wingers started the so-called anti-vote fraud campaign in Arizona, Georgia, and other states.

The trick would be to record each and every time one of these cornered jerks say that they don't believe in democracy, document it, collate and index it, then club said conservatives over the head repeatedly when they try to fatten their wallets when running for public office.

We were involved in most of the Central American countries. Noriega in Panama was our son of a bitch until he wasn't any more (rehearsal for Saddam?). Rios Montt in Guatemala. El Salvador.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic, repeatedly. I'm sure that when all is said and done, we'll discover that the Bushies pulled the strings in the recent coup against the (repeatedly) democratically elected Aristede.

We backed, and probably fomented, the recent unsuccessful coup against Chavez in Venezuela. We prop up the Colombia and Peru governments with military assistance disguised as the War on Drugs, and we were doing likewise in Bolivia until Morales won. (It's a good question whether there's a dartboard with his picture on it in the State Department.)

I don't know enough about Peron. I don't know enough about the Brazilian coup in the '60s, except to note that it was during Lyndon Johnson's term.

Conservatives love to misinterpret the Monroe Doctrine. I thought it warned the European colonial powers not to mess with the New World, but I didn't think it claimed that we were free to mess with whoever we wanted.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic, repeatedly. I'm sure that when all is said and done, we'll discover that the Bushies pulled the strings in the recent coup against the (repeatedly) democratically elected Aristide.

I remember Democracy Now covering this. It appears pretty likely.