NRC's Caroline de Gruyter en Andere Clowns 19

 

Vrijdag 30 oktober 2020 verkondigde NRC’s opiniemaker Caroline de Gruyter in haar krant:

Amerika intervenieerde voor het eerst als internationale ‘beschavingsmacht’ in de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Daarna trok het land zich op last van een onwillig Congres van het wereldtoneel terug. Pas na twintig jaar Europese instabiliteit en chaos, culminerend in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, keerden de Amerikanen terug. Ditmaal bleven ze.

Is deze bewering juist. Nee, geenszins. Zeker niet  voor mensen die slechts Wikipedia hebben geraadpleegd. Binnen 0,68 seconde had dan ook mevrouw De Gruyter het volgende geweten over de ‘U.S. interventions in nineteenth century’ 

The 19th century saw the United States transition from an isolationist, post-colonial regional power to a Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific power.

The first and second Barbary Wars of the early 19th century were the first nominal foreign wars waged by the United States post-Independence. Directed against the Barbary States of North Africa, the Barbary Wars were fought to end piracy against American-flagged ships in the Mediterranean Sea, similar to the Quasi-War with the French Republic.

The founding of Liberia was privately sponsored by American groups, primarily the American Colonization Society, but the country enjoyed the support and unofficial cooperation of the United States government.

Notable 19th century interventions included:

Repeated U.S. interventions in Chile, starting in 1811, the year after its independence from Spain.

1846 to 1848: Mexico and the United States warred over Texas, California and what today is the American Southwest but was then part of Mexico (see Mexican–American War). During this war, U.S. troops invaded and occupied parts of Mexico, including Veracruz and Mexico City.

1854: Matthew Perry negotiated a treaty opening Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa. The U.S. advanced the Open Door Policy that guaranteed equal economic access to China and support of Chinese territorial and administrative integrity.

1898: The short but decisive Spanish–American War saw overwhelming American victories at sea and on land against the Spanish Kingdom. The U.S. Army, relying significantly on volunteers and state militia units, invaded and occupied Spanish-controlled Cuba, subsequently granting it independence. The peace treaty saw Spain cede control over its colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. The U.S. Navy set up coaling stations there and in Hawaii.

The early decades of the 20th century saw a number of interventions in Latin America by the U.S. government often justified under the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. President William Howard Taft viewed Dollar diplomacy as a way for American corporations to benefit while assisting in the national security goal of preventing European powers from filling any possible financial or power vacuum.

1898 to 1935: The United States launched minor interventions into Latin America. These included military presence in Cuba, Panama with the Panama Canal Zone, Haiti (1915–35), Dominican Republic (1916–24) and Nicaragua (1912–1925) & (1926–33). The U.S. Marine Corps began to specialize in long-term military occupation of these countries, primarily to safeguard customs revenues which were the cause of local civil wars.

1899 to 1901: The Boxer Rebellion saw an eight-nation alliance put down a rebellion by the Boxer secret society and toppled the Qing dynasty's Imperial Army.

1899 to 1902: The Philippine–American War saw Filipino revolutionaries revolt against American rule following the Spanish-American War. The U.S. Army deployed 100,000 (mostly National Guard) troops under General Elwell Otis to the Philippines, leading the poorly armed and poorly trained rebels to break off into armed bands. The insurgency collapsed in March 1901 when the leader Emilio Aguinaldo was captured by General Frederick Funston and his Macabebe allies.

1899 to 1913: The Moro Rebellion saw the annexation of the Philippines by the United States.

1901: The Platt Amendment amended a treaty between the U.S. and Cuba after the Spanish–American War, virtually making Cuba a U.S. protectorate. The amendment outlined conditions for the U.S. to intervene in Cuban affairs and permitted the United States to lease or buy lands for the purpose of the establishing naval bases, including Guantánamo Bay.

1903: U.S.-backed independence of Panama from Colombia in order to build the Panama Canal; Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty.

1904: When European governments began to use force to pressure Latin American countries to repay their debts, Theodore Roosevelt announced his "Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the United States would intervene in the Western Hemisphere should Latin American governments prove incapable or unstable.

1906 to 1909: U.S. governed Cuba under Governor Charles Magoon.[14]

1909: U.S.-backed rebels in Nicaragua depose President José Santos Zelaya.

1910 to 1919: The Border War along the U.S.-Mexico border saw U.S. forces occupy Veracruz for six months in 1914.

1914 to 1917: Mexico conflict and Pancho Villa Expedition, U.S. troops entering northern portion of Mexico.

1912 to 1933: United States occupation of Nicaragua.

1914: During a revolution in the Dominican Republic, the U.S. navy fired at revolutionaries who were bombarding Puerto Plata, in order to stop the action.

1915 to 1934: United States occupation of Haiti.

1916 to 1924: U.S. Marines occupied the Dominican Republic following 28 revolutions in 50 years. The Marines ruled the nation completely except for lawless parts of the city of Santo Domingo, where warlords still held sway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_United_States 

Al deze interventies begonnen voordat de VS van 1917 to 1919 ‘intervened in Europe during World War I. Over the next 18 months, the U.S. would suffer casualties of 116,708 killed and 204,002 wounded. U.S. troops also intervened in the Russian Civil War against the Red Army via the Polar Bear Expedition.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_United_States 

Kortom, Caroline de Gruyter’s stellige bewering dat ‘Amerika voor het eerst [intervenieerde] als internationale “beschavingsmacht” in de Eerste Wereldoorlog’ is apert onjuist. Gezien haar pro-Amerikaanse houding is het uitgesloten dat de NRC-propagandiste van mening is dat de VS in de gehele negentiende eeuw geen ‘beschavingsmacht’ was. Als zij wel die mening is toegedaan dan slaat zij de spijker op de kop. Al in 1935 schreef de Amerikaanse generaal buiten dienst Smedley Butler, die van 1898 tot 1931 bij het Korps Mariniers diende:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

De toen meest gedecoreerde Amerikaanse militair sprak uit ervaring -- in tegenstelling tot mevrouw De Gruyter die maar wat kletst zonder dat de eindredactie van de zelfbenoemde kwaliteitskrant ingrijpt, of zonder dat de 'hoog-opgeleide' NRC-lezers haar propaganda corrigeren. Die lezers hadden vanwege hun ‘superieure kennis’ De Gruyter kunnen wijzen op de volgende uitspraak van de Amerikaanse generaal David Sharp, de voormalige commandant van het United States Marine Corps. Hij merkte op:

I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these (Third World) nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their won. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the ‘haves’ refuse to share with the ‘have-nots’ by any peaceful method, at least what they get will will be their own, and not the American style, which they don’t want and above all don’t want crammed down their throated by Americans.  

Deze insiders zijn niet de enigen die door ervaring ongevoelig bleken te zijn voor de propaganda die broodschrijvers als Caroline de Gruyter vandaag de dag nog steeds proberen te slijten. Ziehier:

US Must face the Truth : Know who is the Terrorist

Classic Quotes on Western Hegemony

1-  ‘It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in.’ -General Colin Powell [When asked about the number of Iraqi people who were slaughtered by Americans in the 1991 "Desert Storm" terror campaign (200,000 people!)]

2- ‘I will never apologize for the United States of America - I don't care what the facts are.’  -President George Bush 1988 [Bush was demonstrating his patriotism by excusing an act of cold-blooded mass-murder by the U.S. Navy. On July 3, 1988 the U.S. Navy warship Vincennes shot down an Iranian commercial airliner. All 290 civilian people in the aircraft were killed. The plane was on a routine flight in a commercial corridor in Iranian airspace. The targeting of it by the U.S. Navy was blatantly illegal. That it was grossly immoral is also obvious. Except to a patriot.

3-  ‘To maintain this position of disparity (U.S. economic-military supremacy)... we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming.... We should cease to talk about vague and... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standard and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to 

deal in straight power concepts.... The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.’ -George Kennan [Director of Policy Planning U.S. State Department 1948]

4- ‘If they turn on the radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAM’s (surface-to-air missiles). They know we own their country. We own their airspace... We dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now. It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need." -U.S. Brig. General William Looney (Interview Washington Post, August 30, 1999) [Referring, in reality, to the brutal mass-murder of hundreds of civilian Iraqi men, women and children during 10,000 sorties by American/British war criminals in the first eight months of 1999]

5- ‘The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy.’ -Ramsey Clark [Former U.S. Attorney General under President Lyndon Johnson]

7- ‘We have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. Our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and maintain social stability for our investments. This tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and Peru. Increasingly the role our nation has taken is the role of those who refuse to give up the privileges and pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.’

-Martin Luther King, Jr. [‘A Time to Break the Silence’ speech given at Riverside Church New York City April 4, 1967]

8- ‘Death squads have been created and used by the CIA around the world - particularly the Third World - since the late 1940s, a fact ignored by the elite-owned media.' -Ralph McGehee [Former CIA analyst & Author] CIABASE; The Crisis of Democracy Deadly Deceits: My 25 years in the CIA

9- ‘The U.S.A. has supplied arms, security equipment and training to governments and armed groups that have committed torture, political killings and other human rights abuses in countries around the world.’

-Amnesty International [‘United States of America - Rights for All’ October 1998]

11- ‘We must become the owners, or at any rate the controllers at the source, of at least a proportion of the oil which we require.’ - British Royal Commission, agreeing with Winston Churchill's policy towards Iraq, 1913

12- ‘What we want to have in existence, what we ought to have been creating in this time is some administration with Arab institutions which we can safely leave while pulling the strings ourselves; something that won't cost very much, which the Labour government can swallow consistent with its' principles, but under which our economic and political interests will be secure. [.....] If the French remain in Syria we shall have to avoid giving them the excuse of setting up a protectorate. If they go, or if we appear to be reactionary in Mesopotamia, there is always the risk that [King] Faisal will encourage the Americans to take over both, and it should be borne in mind that the Standard Oil company is very anxious to take over Iraq." - Sir Arthur Hirtzel, Head of the British government’s 'India Office Political Department.' 1919

13- ‘If war aims are stated which seem to be solely concerned with Anglo-American imperialism, they will offer little to people in the rest of the world. The interests of other peoples should be stressed. This would have a better propaganda effect.’ - Private memo from The Council of Foreign Relations to the US State Department, 1941

14- ‘Our strategic and security interests throughout the world will be best safeguarded by the establishment in suitable spots of "Police Stations," fully equipped to deal with emergencies within a large radius. Kuwait is one such spot from which Iraq, South Persia, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf could be controlled. It will be worthwhile to go to considerable trouble and expense to establish and man a "Police  Station" there.' - British Foreign Office, policy memo, 1947

15- ‘We have about 60% of the world?s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction. We should cease to talk about such vague and unreal objectives as human rights, the raising of living standards and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.’ - George Kennan, former Head of the US State Department Policy Planning Staff, Document PPS23, 24th February 1948

16- ‘I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I 

heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a 

land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.’

-Albert Einstein, 1947

17- ‘The target suffered a terminal illness before a firing squad in

Baghdad.’  - CIA officer testifying to US Senate hearing, after bloody 

CIA aided Ba'th Party coup overthrew Iraqi Prime Minister Abdel 

Kassem, 1963

18- ‘Strikes at population targets (per se) are likely not only to 

create a counterproductive wave of revulsion abroad and at home, but 

greatly to increase the risk of enlarging the war with China and the 

Soviet Union. Destruction of locks and dams, however ? if handled 

right ? might offer promise. It should be studied. Such destruction does 

not kill or drown people. By shallow-flooding the rice, it leads after time 

to widespread starvation (more than a million) unless food is provided ? 

which we could offer to do at the conference table?’ -John McNaughton, 

US State Department Vietnam policy, as quoted in ‘The Mentality of the 

Backroom Boys.’ Article by Noam Chomsky, 1973

19- ‘The US must carry out some act somewhere in the world which 

shows its determination to continue to be a world power.’ - Henry 

Kissinger, post-Vietnam blues, as quoted in The Washington Post, April 

1975.

20- ‘It would not have been possible for a political party to be more

committed to a national home for the Jews in Palestine than was 

Labour.’ - Harold Wilson, former British Labour Party Prime Minister, 

1981

21- ‘One hundred nations in the UN have not agreed with us on just 

about everything that's come before them, where we're involved, and it 

didn’t upset my breakfast at all.’ - Ronald Reagan, former US President, 

basking in the triumph that was the US invasion of Grenada, 1983.

22- Q. ‘Mr. President, have you approved of covert activity to 

destablise the present government of Nicaragua?’ A. ‘Well, no, we're 

supporting them, the - oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm sorry, I was 

thinking of El Salvador, because of the previous, when you said 

Nicaragua. Here again, this is something upon which the national 

security interests, I just - I will not comment.’ - Ronald Reagan, former 

US President, Washington press conference, February 13th, 1983, as 

quoted by John Pilger in 'Heroes'

23- ‘After seeing “RAMBO” last night, I know what to do the next time 

this happens.’ - Ronald Reagan, former US President, as reported by 

Daily Express, July 2nd, 1985

24- ‘Aerosol DU (Depleted Uranium) exposures to soldiers on the

battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and

toxicological effects. [...] Under combat conditions, the most exposed

individuals are probably ground troops that re-enter a battlefield

following the exchange of armor-piercing munitions. [...] We are 

simply highlighting the potential for levels of DU exposure to military 

personnel during combat that would be unacceptable during peacetime 

operations. [...DU is..]... a low level alpha radiation emitter which is 

linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity 

causing  kidney damage. [...] Short term effects of high doses can result 

in death, while long term effects of low doses have been linked to cancer. 

[...] Our conclusion regarding the health and environmental 

acceptability of DU penetrators assume both controlled use and the 

presence of excellent health physics management practices. Combat 

conditions will lead to the uncontrolled release of DU. [...] The 

conditions of the battlefield, and the long term health risks to natives and 

combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued 

use of DU kinetic penetrators for military applications.’ - Excerpts from 

the July 1990 Science and Applications International Corporation 

report: 'Kinetic Energy Penetrator Environment and Health 

Considerations,’ as included in Appendix D - US Army Armaments, 

Munitions and Chemical Command report: 'Kinetic Energy Penetrator 

Long Term Strategy Study, July 1990' These documents state clearly and 

equivocally that the US army was well aware of the radioactive and toxic 

dangers of Depleted Uranium ammunition long before the first shots of 

the war were fired.

25- ‘We do not have any defence treaties with Kuwait, and there are no

special defence or security commitments to Kuwait.’ - Margaret 

Tutweiller, US State Department spokeswoman, 24th July 1990, nine 

days before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait

https://www.islamawareness.net/WarCrimes/American/quotes1.html 

Stel u nu de vraag wat overblijft van Caroline de Gruyter’s bewering in de NRC dat:

Amerika intervenieerde voor het eerst als internationale ‘beschavingsmacht’ in de Eerste Wereldoorlog,

en wat zou zij toch bedoelen met het begrip ‘beschavingsmacht’? En wanneer werd de VS die 'beschavingsmacht'?