Geert Mak en de Kroning van 2013 (17)

Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman or child is likely to be displaced, tortured, killed, or ‘disappeared’, at the hands of governments or armed political groups. More often than not, the United States shares the blame.

Amnesty International. Human Rights & US Security Assistance. 1996

Het Land fungeerde…  decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent

Geert Mak. Reizen zonder John. 2012

Little is left to chance in The Selling of America. The Clinton administration announced in 1999 that it was forming a new International Public Information group to ‘influence foreign audiences’ in support of US foreign policy and to counteract propaganda by enemies of the United States. IPI’s charter says that control over ‘international military information’ is intended to ‘influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups and individuals.'

William Blum. Rogue State. A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower. 2001

Mak’s bewering dat de VS overal ter wereld ‘decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent’ optrad,  wordt wat betreft de periode 1945 -1970 weersproken door de feiten. Laten we nu de jaren ’70 en ‘80 nader bestuderen.

Chile, 1964-73:

Salvador Allende was the worst possible scenario for a Washington imperialist. He could imagine only one thing worse than a Marxist in power-an elected Marxist in power, who honored the constitution, and became increasingly popular. This shook the very foundation stones on which the anti-Communist tower was built: the doctrine, painstakingly cultivated for decades, that ‘communists’ can take power only through force and deception, that they can retain that power only through terrorizing and brainwashing the population.

After sabotaging Allende's electoral endeavor in 1964, and failing to do so in 1970, despite their best efforts, the CIA and the rest of the American foreign policy machine left no stone unturned in their attempt to destabilize the Allende government over the next three years, paying particular attention to building up military hostility. Finally, in September 1973, the military overthrew the government, Allende dying in the process.

They closed the country to the outside world for a week, while the tanks rolled and the soldiers broke down doors; the stadiums rang with the sounds of execution and the bodies piled up along the streets and floated in the river; the torture centers opened for business; the subversive books were thrown into bonfires; soldiers slit the trouser legs of women, shouting that ‘In Chile women wear dresses!’; the poor returned to their natural state; and the men of the world in Washington and in the halls of international finance opened up their check- books. In the end, more than 3,000 had been executed, thousands more tortured or disappeared.

Greece, 1964-74:

The military coup took place in April 1967, just two days before the campaign for the national elections was to begin, elections which appeared certain to bring the veteran liberal leader George Papandreou back as prime minister. Papandreou had been elected in February 1964 with the only outright majority in the history of modern Greek elections. The successful machinations to unseat him had begun immediately, a joint effort of the Royal Court, the Greek military, and the American military and CIA stationed in Greece. The 1967 coup was followed immediately by the traditional martial law, censorship, arrests, beatings, torture, and killings, the victims totaling some 8,000 in the first month. This was accompanied by the equally traditional declaration that this was all being done to save the nation from a ‘Communist takeover.’ Corrupting and subversive influences in Greek life were to be removed. Among these were miniskirts, long hair, and foreign newspapers; church attendance for the young would be compulsory.

It was torture, however, which most indelibly marked the seven-year Greek nightmare. James Becket, an American attorney sent to Greece by Amnesty International, wrote in December 1969 that ‘a conservative estimate would place at not less than two thousand’ the number of people tortured, usually in the most gruesome of ways, often with equipment supplied by the United States.

Becket reported the following: Hundreds of prisoners have listened to the little speech given by Inspector Basil Lambrou, who sits behind his desk which displays the red, white, and blue clasped-hand symbol of American aid. He tries to show the prisoner the absolute futility of resistance: ‘You make yourself ridiculous by thinking you can do anything. The world is divided in two. There are the communists on that side and on this side the free world. The Russians and the Americans, no one else. What are we? Americans. Behind me there is the government, behind the government is NATO, behind NATO is the U.S. You can't fight us, we are Americans.’

George Papandreou was not any kind of radical. He was a liberal anti-Communist type. But his son Andreas, the heir-apparent, while only a little to the left of his father had not disguised his wish to take Greece out of the Cold War, and had questioned remaining in NATO, or at least as a satellite of the United States.

East Timor, 1975 to present:

In December 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor, which lies at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, and which had proclaimed its independence after Portugal had relinquished control of it. The invasion was launched the day after U. S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had left Indonesia after giving Suharto permission to use American arms, which, under U.S. Iaw, could not be used for aggression. Indonesia was Washington's most valuable tool in Southeast Asia.

Amnesty International estimated that by 1989, Indonesian troops, with the aim of forcibly annexing East Timor, had killed 200,000 people out of a population of between 600,000 and 700,000. The United States consistently supported Indonesia's claim to East Timor (unlike the UN and the EU), and downplayed the slaughter to a remarkable degree, at the same time supplying Indonesia with all the military hardware and training it needed to carry out the job.

Nicaragua, 1978-89:

When the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1978, it was clear to Washington that they might well be that long-dreaded beast-‘another Cuba. Under President Carter, attempts to sabotage the revolution took diplomatic and economic forms. Under Reagan, violence was the method of choice. For eight terribly long years, the people of Nicaragua were under attack by Washington's proxy army, the Contras, formed from Somoza's vicious National Guard and other supporters of the dictator. It was all-out war, aiming to destroy the progressive social and economic programs of the government, burning down schools and medical clinics, raping, torturing, mining harbors, bombing and strafing. These were Ronald Reagan's ‘freedom fighters.’ There would be no revolution in Nicaragua.

Grenada, 1979-84:

What would drive the most powerful nation in the world to invade a country of 110,000? Maurice Bishop and his followers had taken power in a 1979 coup, and though their actual policies were not as revolutionary as Castro's, Washington was again driven by its fear of ‘another Cuba,’ particularly when public appearances by the Grenadian leaders in other countries of the region met with great enthusiasm.

U. S. destabilization tactics against the Bishop government began soon after the coup and continued until 1983, featuring numerous acts of disinformation and dirty tricks. The American invasion in October 1983 met minimal resistance, although the U.S. suffered 135 killed or wounded; there were also some 400 Grenadian casualties, and 84 Cubans, mainly construction workers.

At the end of 1984, a questionable election was held which was won by a man supported by the Reagan administration. One year later, the human rights organization, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, reported that Grenada's new U.S.-trained police force and counter-insurgency forces had acquired a reputation for brutality, arbitrary arrest, and abuse of authority, and were eroding civil rights.

In April 1989, the government issued a list of more than 80 books which were prohibited from being imported. Four months later, the prime minister suspended parliament to forestall a threatened no-confidence vote resulting from what his critics called ‘an increasingly authoritarian style.’

Libya, 1981-89:

Libya refused to be a proper Middle East client state of Washington. Its leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, was uppity. He would have to be punished. U.S. planes shot down two Libyan planes in what Libya regarded as its air space. The U. S . also dropped bombs on the country, killing at least 40 people, including Qaddafi's daughter. There were other attempts to assassinate the man, operations to overthrow him, a major disinformation campaign, economic sanctions, and blaming Libya for being behind the Pan Am 103 bombing without any good evidence.

Panama, 1989:

Washington's bombers strike again. December 1989, a large tenement barrio in Panama City wiped out, 15,000 people left homeless. Counting several days of ground fighting against Panamanian forces, 500-something dead was the official body count, what the U.S. and the new U.S.-installed Panamanian government admitted to; other sources, with no less evidence, insisted that thousands had died; 3,000-something wounded. Twenty-three Americans dead, 324 wounded.

Question from reporter: ‘Was it really worth it to send people to their death for this? To get Noriega?’

George Bush: ‘Every human life is precious, and yet I have to answer, yes, it has been worth it.’

Manuel Noriega had been an American ally and informant for years until he outlived his usefulness. But getting him was not the only motive for the attack. Bush wanted to send a clear message to the people of Nicaragua, who had an election scheduled in two months, that this might be their fate if they reelected the Sandinistas. Bush also wanted to flex some military muscle to illustrate to Congress the need for a large combat-ready force even after the very recent dissolution of the ‘Soviet threat.’ The official explanation for the American ouster was Noriega's drug trafficking, which Washington had known about for years and had not been at all bothered by.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html

Links Pinochet. Rechts Kissinger nadat zij de democratie in Chili omver hadden geworpen.

In 2004 schreef ik over Henry Kissinger het volgende:

Onder leiding van de toenmalige Nationale Veiligheidsadviseur Henry Kissinger werd in het geheim ‘een strategie van destabilisatie, ontvoering en moord,’ ontwikkeld ‘met het doel een militaire staatsgreep uit te lokken,’ zo blijkt uit vrijgekomen documenten. Op 11 september 1973, de dag dat de Senaat Kissinger’s benoeming als minister van Buitenlandse Zaken sanctioneerde, werd Allende tijdens een gewelddadige staatsgreep vermoord. Omdat hier sprake was van een grove schending van de internationale rechtsorde verklaarde minister Kissinger tegenover de Senaatscommissie voor buitenlandse betrekkingen dat de Amerikaanse regering geen enkele rol had gespeeld in die militaire coup. Op zijn beurt beschreef de Amerikaanse marineattaché in Chili, Patrick Ryan in een intern rapport de elfde september tevreden als ‘onze D-day’ om vervolgens te concluderen dat ‘Chili’s coup de etat (sic) bijna perfect’ was. Onmiddellijk nadat de wettige en democratisch gekozen regering van Chili was uitgeschakeld, kreeg het militaire regime die de macht had gegrepen aanzienlijke economische en militaire steun van de VS. Dat in Chili intussen op grote schaal de mensenrechten ernstig werden geschonden, speelde daarbij geen enkele rol. Integendeel, zo valt te lezen in een in 1999 vrijgegeven Amerikaans memorandum, waarin een gesprek tussen Kissinger en juntaleider Pinochet te lezen is. Het onderhoud vond plaats op 8 juni 1976, op de dag dat Henry Kissinger een toespraak zou houden voor de Organisatie van Amerikaanse Staten over het onderwerp mensenrechten. Gedwongen door de publieke opinie en het Congres moest hij als Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken in het openbaar enkele kritische opmerkingen maken over de martelingen en verdwijningen van politieke tegenstanders in Chili. Voorafgaand aan dit optreden zei Kissinger in een gesprek onder vier ogen geruststellend tegen de despoot Pinochet: ‘De toespraak is niet tegen Chili gericht. Dat wilde ik u zeggen. Naar mijn oordeel bent u een slachtoffer van alle linkse groeperingen ter wereld en bestaat uw grootste zonde erin dat u een regering omver hebt geworpen die bezig was communistisch te worden… We hebben de omverwerping van de pro-communistische regering hier met instemming begroet. We zijn er niet op uit uw positie te verzwakken… Ik wil graag onze betrekkingen en vriendschap bevorderen.’

http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.nl/search?q=chili%2Bkissinger

Zie ook: http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.nl/search?q=reagan+nicaragua

Zaterdag 11 mei 2013 werd het volgende bekend:

Mexico City - A three-judge panel Friday convicted former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt of genocide, saying his military regime used “extreme terror” in an effort to wipe out a Mayan minority ethnic group in the early 1980s.

In a packed courtroom in Guatemala City, Judge Yassmin Barrios said investigators had proven that the regime led by Rios Montt, who is 86, used starvation, mass homicide, dislocation, rape and aerial bombardment as tactics to exterminate the Ixil minority, which it believed to harbor leftist guerrillas.

Barrios gave Rios Montt a 50-year jail term for genocide and an additional 30 years for crimes against humanity...

At the time of Rios Montt’s rule, the United States was engaged in proxy war across Central America in an effort to turn back Cuban-backed leftists in the region. In December 1982, President Ronald Reagan said after meeting with Rios Montt in Honduras that the Guatemalan dictator got a “bum rap” as a human rights violator.

Begin april 2013 berichtte de New York Times:

In the tortured logic of military planning documents conceived under Mr. Ríos Montt’s 17-month rule during 1982 and 1983, the entire Mayan Ixil population was a military target, children included. Officers wrote that the leftist guerrillas fighting the government had succeeded in indoctrinating the impoverished Ixils and reached ‘100 percent support.’

So, everyone was targeted in these scorched-earth campaigns that eradicated more than 600 Indian villages in the Guatemalan highlands. But this genocide was not simply the result of a twisted anticommunist ideology that dominated the Guatemalan military and political elites. This genocide also was endorsed by the Reagan administration.

A document that I discovered recently in the archives of the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, revealed that Reagan and his national security team in 1981 agreed to supply military aid to the brutal right-wing regime in Guatemala to pursue the goal of exterminating not only ‘Marxist guerrillas’ but people associated with their ‘civilian support mechanisms.’

This supportive attitude toward the Guatemalan regime’s brutality took shape in spring 1981 as President Reagan sought to ease human-rights restrictions on military aid to Guatemala that had been imposed by President Jimmy Carter and the Democratic-controlled Congress in the late 1970s.

As part of that relaxation effort, Reagan’s State Department ‘advised our Central American embassies that it has been studying ways to restore a closer, cooperative relationship with Guatemala,’ according to a White House ‘Situation Room Checklist’ dated April 8, 1981. The document added:

‘State believes a number of changes have occurred which could make Guatemalan leaders more receptive to a new U.S. initiative: the Guatemalans view the new administration as more sympathetic to their problems [and] they are less suspect of the U.S. role in El Salvador,’ where the Reagan administration was expanding support for another right-wing regime infamous for slaughtering its political opponents, including Catholic clergy.

http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.nl/search?q=reagan+nicaragua

President Ronald Reagan meeting with Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt.

Kort samengevat kan geen enkele serieuze journalist volhouden dat in de jaren zeventig en tachtig van de vorige eeuw de VS als ‘als ordebewaker en politieagent [fungeerde],’ zoals Geert Mak met grote stelligheid in Reizen zonder John stelt.

Vanaf ’45 tot 1990 is de waarheid eerder het tegenovergestelde. 13 april 2013 schreef de vooraanstaande Amerikaanse bestseller auteur, Pulitzer prijs winnaar en onderzoeksjournalist Chris Hedges, 15 jaar lang correspondent van de New York Times:

Murder is our national sport. We murder tens of thousands with our industrial killing machines in Afghanistan and Iraq. We murder thousands more from the skies over Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen with our pilotless drones. We murder each other with reckless abandon. And, as if we were not drenched in enough human blood, we murder prisoners—most of them poor people of color who have been locked up for more than a decade. The United States believes in regeneration through violence. We have carried out blood baths on foreign soil and on our own land for generations in the vain quest of a better world. And the worse it gets, the deeper our empire sinks under the weight of its own decay and depravity, the more we kill.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/16337-murder-is-our-national-sport 

Volgende keer analyseren we de jaren 90 tot nu om te zien of Geert Mak propaganda bedrijft of de werkelijkheid beschrijft. 

Een substantieel deel van de Amerikaanse blanke christelijke middenklasse juichte de genocide in Latijns Amerika toe.

John Lennon en Yoko Ono, die in tegenstelling tot Geert Mak allang wisten dat de VS geenszins   'decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent [fungeerde],' maar wel als massamoordenaar.