Originally Posted by
Egg Nog
Crimefighter: This is copied over from another thread (that just died), and I feel that it would be pretty relevent here....
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Of course they have, according to them. The US, dozens of times, has helped leaders get overthrown in favour of their own national interests. It's been happening since the late forties, with some example countires like Laos, Honduras, Haiti, Liberia, Chad, Grenada, Fiji, Cambodia, Venezuela, and many others. Many supported coups have been in favour of governments that will allow easier US access to resources and labour.
Do you realize that the economic pressure that the US has put on the world's underdeveloped countries is one of the major reasons why they've gotten stuck in their situations in the first place? The aid provided by the US does not come anywhere near close to offsetting the economic stress and dependence that they've influenced. And besides, it would only be expected that the US provides more aid than any other country. The US has the world's largest economy, by a longshot.
Here's a quote from a site looking at the United Nations agreements for rich countires to provide international aid:
"USA's aid, in terms of percentage of their GNP is already lowest of any industrialized nation in the world, though paradoxically in the last three years, their dollar amount has been the highest."
The US is the most economically successful country in the world, and the average income there is larger than anywhere else. They are the the flagship of the developed world. It only seems natural that this would be the case.
That's not a ridiculous statement at all. Especially in Central America and Southeast Asia, the US has given weapons and finanical support that have killed hundreds of thousands of people in crimes of humanity. The US has also directly killed many hundreds of thousands more. This is the truth. You want some examples? What about the carpet bombing of Cambodia, and support of the Khmer Rouge, which eventually lead to millions of dead civilians? What about sending Indonesia all of the weapons that they needed to complete the East Timor Genocide, which resulted in the death of 200,000? What about the support and arming of the Nicaragua's government illegally put in place by the USA so that over 80,000 dissidents could be killed off, or the Arming and support of Guatemala's government death squads that killed nearly 300,000 people over the course of two decades, right into the late '90s? What about arming and supporting the rebels in Angola between 1974 and 1992, when they killed 650,000? What about the CIA-sponsored terrorism in Lebanon in the mid-80s that killed thousands? What about the training and financial backing for El Salvador's government death squads, which killed nearly 80,000? What about arming and financially supporting the Turkish regime that killed over 27,000 Kurds and dissidents in the mid-90s? What about the My Lai massacre? What about support for urban bombers in Italy during in 1980? What about carpet bombing the civilians of Vietnam and Laos in the '60s and '70s, resulting in over 2.5 million deaths?
As I said earlier, I'm here to offer a different side to the story, and that's why I'm choosing not to praise the US. I've enjoyed every time I've visited the US (except one when I went for a funeral), and I think that Americans as people are kind and welcoming. However, there's already lots of praise out there, and not enough is known about the gloomier apects of the US, especially historically. What I personally not like is the US government's foreign, humanitarian, and environmental policy. I like the US as a country, and they have done many great things for the world. I just want to make sure you see both sides of the picture.