Salvador

[luiz]

The american foreign policy regarding Latin America, and specially Central America, was(and to some extent still is) pretty screwed-up since the 19th Century.

It's not that the US actually created the problems, as some say, but rather made problems worse on many occasions.

 

[Longasc]

In the case of Iraq, wasn't it to help Iraq set up its' infrastructure?

Of course not. There are lots of african nations of the so-called third world that dream of Iraqi living standard, even under Saddam. No need for military intervention to build up their even worse infrastructure, their dictators are just as bad, but they restrict their doings to their closer surroundings and attack no neighbouring oil sheiks.

The reason for the war in Iraq were officially that a dangerous dictator might have weapons of mass destruction or develop them, both things are now deemed to have been intelligence failures, as there was obviously not the potential to create any in near future. The mustard and VX gas Saddam used against Curds and against Iran came from European, Russian and American sources, as did a lot of his military hardware. The question what the reasons where for military action against Iraq should be discussed in another thread and probably have already been discussed a long time ago.

But this really deviates from eyrei's topic, it was about Salvador and not about a possible american intervention. This was some 20 years ago, nobody can change by now what happened in that time.

 

[Stapel]

From what I know (or atleast learned), the US was fighting communism. Although, eyrei said in the debate that it was peasants and they weren't communist. So, what was the war about anyway? (I'm kind of confused about this, though). All I know is that, in the 80's, the US wanted to spread democracy and fight communism.

If you read Jack Merchants post, you'll see communism was actually fuelled by the US.

The US has quite a reputation as a communism fighter. That is a good thing in tiself! As Akka said, being a communist is not illegal, but that applies to nazis too. Communism is evil, and fighting it is right, IMHO.

But the US started acting out of fear, instead of true purposes. Anything that even smelled a tiny bit like communism, was labelled as evil. The support for the centro-american dictatorships didn't prevent communism. There hardly ever was a real threat of El Salvador becoming a communist state. It has been an unbelievable mistake.

About spreading democracy..... That is about the biggest bullcrap I have ever seen. Where did the US bring democracy in the 80s?

I have been in El Salvador in 1999, and the logical conclusion of most ElSalvadorians is that I am American. Once I told people I was Dutch, the became more friendly! And not just a bit. Generally, Americans are not really popular in Centro America. Partly caused by jealousy of course, but many people hold the US responsible for part of the misery they have been through.
And they are rigth to do so!

I'm not sure why the US (or any other country for that matter) would attack another country just so that they give a resource to them... In the case of Iraq, wasn't it to help Iraq set up its' infrastructure?

It was about getting rid of Saddam, or in more diplomatical terms: Regime Change. It has been on the US agenda since the end of GWI in 1991. Bush sr, Clinton and Bush jr never changed this.
It has been confirmed by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Being communist isn't a crime, AFAIK.

Being a rebel usually is, with no legal defense other than winning the revolution.. Thoses who begin violence to advance their their political aims have usually have little moral ground and less legal ground for complaint of those using force to stop them. Even with much right on your side, when you elect warfare to advance your aims you will be met with warfare, and the imediate issue will be decided by strenght of arms, not by debate on issues. Most factions will have allies from abroad, with such allies commonly being the difference in a revolution, since ideginous faction will be crippled by the war. There is little international law against military aid to goverments, litmited to scantion situtiona and few internation arms treaties; you can genrally support any goverments you want. Supportting rebels can be a bit more dicy in international law in some situtations. Anyone who starts shooting should expect bullets to be comming back from many directions. Stick to ballots unless you have the superpowers lined up on your side.

 

[jack merchant]

Being a rebel usually is [a crime], with no legal defense other than winning the revolution.. (...) Anyone who starts shooting should expect bullets to be comming back from many directions. Stick to ballots unless you have the superpowers lined up on your side.

That's all well and good, but it's also completely besides the point. For one thing, most of the Latin American countries where revolts or resistance took place didn't have 'ballots'- they had caudillos, colonels, lieutenants in charge, and where they had them, they rigged them.

But the legitimacy, or the lack of it, isn't even the main issue. That is the exceptionally dirty nature of the counterinsurgence, aided and abetted by the West and the US in particular. Would you really excuse putting down a revolt by means of torture ? Is it OK to have mass disappearances of political opponents - preferably by throwing them out of airplanes over the open ocean ? And do you condone assassinations and systemic rape ? The stealing of children ? How about the case of Central American Indians, where virtual genocide took place?
We're not talking Western democracies here, we're talking a continent controlled by dictatorships, fear and terror. You can't excuse what happened by taking refuge in legalisms and the law of the strongest.

 

[Akka]

Lefty : the point is, it's not because rebels are communists that USA has the moral right to fight them. They can be communist rebels AND have the moral high ground, as Jack Merchant pointed it.

 

[Stapel]

Being a rebel usually is, with no legal defense other than winning the revolution.. Thoses who begin violence to advance their their political aims have usually have little moral ground and less legal ground for complaint of those using force to stop them. Even with much right on your side, when you elect warfare to advance your aims you will be met with warfare, and the imediate issue will be decided by strenght of arms, not by debate on issues. Most factions will have allies from abroad, with such allies commonly being the difference in a revolution, since ideginous faction will be crippled by the war. There is little international law against military aid to goverments, litmited to scantion situtiona and few internation arms treaties; you can genrally support any goverments you want. Supportting rebels can be a bit more dicy in international law in some situtations. Anyone who starts shooting should expect bullets to be comming back from many directions. Stick to ballots unless you have the superpowers lined up on your side.

I can agree with large chunks of this, but, as JM said, it is a bit beside the point. According to international law, the US had (IT think) the right to support the meso-american governments.

But what moral right did the US have? Fighting communism, as it migth be become a thread to the US? Idealism? Preventing the mesi-american from the evils of communism? That would be defendable!

If these governments would have been enlighted despote ones, slowly turning towards more democracy, facing a massive communistic revolution, the US would have had a point. But we all do know now (and we could and should have known then), it was a tremendously blown up irrealistic fear for communism.

On the other hand: the fear was not 100% fried air. As an example I'd like to bring up Chili and Salvador Allende. Though chosen by the people, he wanted to collectivise (that is THEFT, and communism/socialism is used as euphanism here!) agriculture and industry. You will never hear me say Pinochet is a nice fella. He is a big criminal. But in our world, all is relative. Allende's collectivism ideas might have lead to far more death! Collectivising agriculture is the best way to starve people!

 

[luiz]

Just to make a quick point, the danger of massive communist revolutions on Central America was very real.

Akka has the best answer: the fact that communist uprisings were taking place does not automatically gives the US(or anyone else) the right to intervene, specially by supporting governments as repressive as the communists one.

But have no illusions: those left-wing rebels would turn out to be as bad as the right-wing gvts. The best movie to understand Central-American politics(and even South American, to some extent) is not "Salvador". It is "Bananas", by Woody Allen.

 

[test_specimen]

As far as I know, the US isn't supporting this. However, the entire world seems content just to sit back and watch it happen.

What ever happened to caring about our fellow humans?

Maybe if they had natural ressources exploited by an enterprise having influence on members in one of the western governments ..... Halliburton is not involved in the region, is it? Too bad.

About communism: what do you really think is better, having companies run by the state or having a state run by companies? Is there a difference? It's not your decision either way.

 

[eyrei]

About communism: what do you really think is better, having companies run by the state or having a state run by companies? Is there a difference? It's not your decision either way.

What does that have to do with anything? What I want is my government not helping to get a lot of people murdered under the guise of fighting communism.

And why is it not my decision? It has to be someone's decision. Unlike many people I don't think it is fine that my government is run in many cases by evil men. I guess people won't actually get the point until something like a death squad shows up on their front doorstep.

 

[Stapel]

Just to make a quick point, the danger of massive communist revolutions on Central America was very real.

The chances of massive revolutions were indeed real, but I doubt they were communist.
It was my point that rebel forces were too easily given a communist label. Afaik, this has been admitted in several occasions.

 

[eyrei]

Just to make a quick point, the danger of massive communist revolutions on Central America was very real.

Do you actually have any factual information to back this up? Or are you going on an assumption based on the fact that the US could quite possibly have deceived the entire world in this matter?

 

[carlosMM]

eyrei: Your harsh reactions to posts critical of Bush a while back has shocked me. Now as I red this I can't help thinking the old eyrei I missed is back!
I is always great to see that there's people in the world who can look 'beyond the rim of their plate' (German saying).

 

[eyrei]

eyrei: Your harsh reactions to posts critical of Bush a while back has shocked me. Now as I red this I can't help thinking the old eyrei I missed is back!
I is always great to see that there's people in the world who can look 'beyond the rim of their plate' (German saying).

I do very much enjoy playing the devil's advocate, particularly when it evens out the dialogue. This forum was so blatantly anti-Bush back then, that I felt it was necessary to give some support to the other side. Also, I do sometimes change my mind on things, and I have a tendency not to make up my mind for a long time if I don't have to. Plus, I had some sort of epiphony while I was in El Salvador.

 

[Ayatollah So]

I don't understand why the U.S. never tried to co-opt any of the revolutionaries. I.e., if the fear is that they will collectivize the entire economy, give aid to those within the movement who have more moderate views. Etc.

 

[luiz]

Do you actually have any factual information to back this up? Or are you going on an assumption based on the fact that the US could quite possibly have deceived the entire world in this matter?

As a Latin-American I'm very aware of the great number of marxist guerillas that existed in all the continent through the 60's and 70's, specially in Peru, Central America and of course Colombia.

Virtually all Latin American countries had at leats one marxist guerilla at one point of their history.

 

[amadeus]

First, it was never our responsibility to uphold the concepts of "liberty" and "justice" outside of our home shores. Our primary goal should be to advance the agenda of the United States. Whether this is compatible with democratic measures or not is irrelevant.

The rebels, regardless of whether they were "actually communist" or not, they were still against the goals of the United States. It was almost the same in Iran, where a pro-Soviet leadership didn't take over, just a rabidly anti-U.S. one.

We should also get some world perspective in this. Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were all collectivist murderers. Of their regimes, how many more lives were lost? Literally tens of millions.

Even Tito, the "moderate" communist autocrat, killed more than the regime in El Salvador. Between postwar Franco, El Salvador, Pinochet, Rhodesia, and Malaya, none of those come close to even the first year of Kim Jong Il or Saddam Hussein.

Beside even this, who says that states shouldn't be allowed to protect their interests?

 

[Akka]

And THAT is the guy who say that rapists are bastards who gave up their right to live

Man, what did you give up with the mentality "support mass murderers as long as it benefit me", if a single rape make one forfeit his life...

 

[amadeus]

What you say sounds nice, but will you act on it? Are you going to stop purchasing clothes made in Honduras or Indonesia, or a TV set manufactured in China?

What difference does it make if I say that I support a state? Will my words help a dictator in El Salvador? I wouldn't think so. But my, and your money does.

 

[Akka]

What does difference it makes if I say we should release all rapists from prisons ? Nobody would do it. I would still be bastard for siding with bastards. Draw your own conclusions.