It’s the Foreign Policy, Stupid

11 April, 2008

“Why do they hate us?”  The question simultaneously captures the ignorance of the average American as to their government’s use of hard-earned tax dollars, and an unshakable faith in American innocence and purity of motives. After all, as President Truman declared in 1947 with unabashed idealism "It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."[i]  So how indeed could they hate us?

 

US foreign policy is the one factor that stands out from all the rest that contribute to anti-American sentiment worldwide.[ii]  It is replete with idealistic sounding doctrinal statements that have been used to justify economic and military interference in the affairs of other sovereign nations.   An example is the Truman Doctrine quoted above, that was used to justify the Cold War and military intervention in Vietnam.  In an address to Congress in 1823, President James Monroe stated his position towards any attempted European colonization in the Western Hemisphere.

 

“The American continents… are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers…  we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”[iii]

 

The Monroe Doctrine as this address became known, despite possible idealistic intent, has become the basis for an imperialist and interventionist foreign policy, first applied in the Americas and later in the rest of the World.  It established a foundation upon which future US Presidents would build a foreign policy proclaiming America’s unilateral right to intervene and colonize in an ever-expanding domain.

 

In 1845 President James K. Polk applied the Monroe Doctrine to promote expansionism under the slogan of Manifest Destiny.  President McKinley made the imperialist intentions clear to the world by annexing Hawaii in 1898,[iv] then the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico after the Spanish American War.[v]  In 1904 President Theodore Roosevelt emphasized the need for American intervention by his “Roosevelt Corollary.”

 

“Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation.”[vi]

 

President Woodrow Wilson removed any doubts that the “civilized nation” doing the required intervention would be the United States.  He was also very specific about the necessity of colonization and use of force to protect business interests.

 

“Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked.”[vii]

 

 “The business of America is business.”  This quote by President Calvin Coolidge points to the true motives behind American foreign policy: to protect the interests of US multinational corporations by ensuring their access to resources necessary for profitable operation and by supporting a unitary executive with complete control over his country.  With a dictatorship, there are no worries about rejection of an agreement by a meddling, democratically elected parliament whose members may actually be looking out for the interests of their constituents.  The needs of the multinational corporations are assured of being met and the needs of the colonized country’s citizens can be safely subordinated if not totally ignored.  Hence the US support of dictators time and again.[viii]

 

To see the truth of this, one need look no further than the history of US foreign policy in Latin America and how it is intertwined with Chiquita Banana, formerly The United Fruit Company and later United Brands.  As the company admits on their website:

 

“The United Fruit Company, also made a number of mistakes - including the use of improper government influence, antagonism toward organized labor, and disregard for the environment.”[ix]

 

One such case of “antagonism” occurred in the Santa Marta District of Columbia in 1928. The Columbian Army, under pressure from United Fruit via the US Embassy in Bogotá, had killed 500 or more employees involved in a labor dispute as was proudly reported in a dispatch from the embassy to the US Secretary of State on 29 December 1928.

 

“I have the honor to report that the legal advisor of the United Fruit Company here in Bogotá stated yesterday that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military authorities during the recent disturbance reached between five and six hundred; while the number of soldiers killed was one.”[x]

 

As for improper government influence, the owners of Cuyemal Banana, a United Fruit predecessor company, organized a successful coup against the government of Honduras in 1916.  Also, the company’s ships were used by the US Government in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and again in the failed attempt to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro by the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.

 

While the US colonization of Latin America started with delegations sent to secure US commercial interests at the time the Monroe Doctrine, it continues to this day with military funding programs. Among these are the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program whose top recipient is Columbia, and the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program whose top recipient is El Salvador.

 

El Salvador has been under repressive military dictators since 1931, all had the support of the pro-business Washington regime as well as training by US programs.[xi]  Despite attempts at reform through peaceful means, civil war broke out in 1980 and lasted 12 years, during which 75,000 people were killed and the US contributed $1.5 million a day in military and economic aid to support the military dictatorship’s fight against guerillas.[xii]  And President Reagan justified the funding by insisting that civil rights in El Salvador were improving while death squads terrorized the citizens.  And of course, there was the “threat” of a Sandinista Communist-backed revolution spilling over into other Latin American countries.[xiii]

 

And El Salvador is just one country of many.  The US has supported dictators General Efrain Rios Mont in Guatemala, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, Roberto Suazo Cordova in Honduras, and General Manuel Noriega in Panama, just to name a few.[xiv]  So the next time someone asks, “Why do they hate us?” You will be able to look them straight in the eye and say, “It’s the foreign policy, stupid!”

 

Yuram Abdullah Weiler

2008-04-07

 

NOTES

Posted by yuram 10:58 | General , United States | Comment(2) | Permalink

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