William Blum, US Policy Critic Derided by NYT, Dies at 85
fair.org
fair.org
Blum covered a lot of the US's Operation Cyclone in Killing Hope - the financing and arming of bin Laden in his jihad against the secular Afghan government in the 1970s and 1980s.
"Basically it's US foreign policy which creates anti-American terrorists. It's the things we do to the world. It's not, as the White House tells us, that they hate our freedom and democracy. That's just propaganda."[8]
"It’s not clear how “unpopular” Blum’s views were—in a 2013 YouGov poll, 61 percent agreed with the statement, “In the long run, the United States will be safer from terrorism if it stays out of other countries’ affairs”—but what is certainly “not unique” was the Times‘ attempt to use an obituary to settle ideological scores."
As a Cuban, I wish the US had intervened in Cuba when it had the opportunity, back in 1959.
Both of those scenarios were within the realm of possibility -- but not with the Yale and Harvard asshats ruling the State Department.
Was it not?
Castro's "26th of July Movement" (M-26-7) originally had very limited political goals. Beyond overthrowing Batista, they included some redistribution of land and some degree of nationalisation of public services, and confiscation of a lot of companies and property they considered basically fruits of Batista's corruption, but beyond that there were wide disagreements, and there certainly was not a clear agreed goal of introducing socialism at the outset.
Castro had been on friendly terms with Batista for years before. Batista gave him money for his honeymoon, and even considered him for government. Some saw him as radical, but Batista at least considered him as a potentially viable cabinet minister, despite himself being very much explicitly anti-socialist, though of course it's possible Batista saw it as a way of pacifying him.
Castro may well have had exposure to socialist ideas before then, but at the outset he was basically a nationalist with anti-imperialist views. It was first after Batista's coup and crackdown on dissidents, that Castro seriously started pushing a more radical agenda publicly.
Even them, after overthrowing Batista, Castro looked to the US as a potential ally.
But when exactly Castro started supporting Marxist-Leninism is open for debate. Castro denied it into '60 at least. Late in '61 he then claimed to have been a Marxist-Leninist secretly for some years, but he clashed with the more Soviet friendly parts of his own movement at times, and the Soviets themselves doubted his sincerity - not least because of his past overtures to the US, and how his "admission" coincided with increasing Soviet financial support.
Whatever Castro was or was not early on, there was a decade long period of Castro moving closer and closer to the Soviets where you can see the process going in lockstep with each new US rejection and each new Soviet overture, and where there's a very real possibility that the US could have turned Cuba into an ally and encouraged more liberal policies. Of course we'll never know.
I mean don't get me wrong "communist states" end in totalitarianism but when their fear ends up pushing other countries towards communism instead of away from it there is no way to describe it but irrational.
In 2001, Nepalese royal massacre happened, and King Gyanendra crowned. He stop the parliament and started absolute monarchism. Resulting civil war between The King, the Politicians and the Maoists.
Guess which side US aided with weapons? The King!
Fortunately, all the political parties came to term quickly and threw out the king, establish the parliament, publish interim constitution, separation of religion and state, and the rest of the things democracy should have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_royal_massacre
To me, US is not a supporter of democracy and freedom, it's just a weapon merchant.
After the Vietnamese Army pushed the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh into western and northern Cambodia, guess who the US supported over the next 15 years?
The Khmer Rouge.
Someone machine-gunned the entire royal family except the one guy. He claimed it was one of the dead, who had skipped killing him, and shot himself instead. Everyone reported this as-is, without comment, ever since. I have never seen a hint in print, since, that the new king had shot them all, although everyone must have been thinking it.
All I can conclude is that no one knew when he might need to go to Nepal, so could not risk writing anything that might turn out to endanger himself.
Far as I can tell, inside the DC Bubble they worship one thing and one thing only; power.
The idea that they should have to deal with other countries and peoples as equals or at least respect is alien to them.
1. Ignore it. I feel like this is the most common reaction.
1a. Accept the dissonance - hope the difference between interest and ideals is temporary, etc.
1b. Accept that the ideals are only ideals and besides the other guy is cheating anyway.
2. Stay inside the organization and try to change it.
3. Leave the organization and denounce it.
4. Various "subversive tactics".
>Mr. Blum repeatedly challenged the idealistic premise of American exceptionalism and argued instead that world hegemony was Washington’s covert goal, for economic, nationalistic, ideological and religious reasons.
You shouldn't try and parse meaning from that sentence without a respirator, goggles and a crochet needle.