This is a deeply important interview!...
Part of me squirms when I hear all the talk and outrage in our country about Russia's interference in our election when I know more and more of our own history. What I have been learning, and especially since I began to seek to learn what I did not know in the wake of 9-11, is that our true history is not what I was taught in my history classes. As my husband and I listened to this program on Democracy Now! today, I told Ron that I'm still very much in process of untangling myself from my indoctrination into cultural belief systems and stories that are far from the truth. This takes courage, to do this shadow work. And that's true whether we're looking more deeply into ourselves, our families and relationships, our nation, and on and on. It takes courage because it's painful to truly be engaged in waking up, in lifting layer after layer after layer of our ignorance and illusions and indoctrination. AND I'm so grateful, so eternally grateful for the mystery of resilience and Grace that compels me and each of us to seek truth, wherever it may lead. - Molly
Excerpted from the transcript of this Democracy Now! interview
with Stephen Kinzer:
As
special counsel Robert Mueller continues his probe into Russian meddling in the
2016 election, we take a look back at Washington’s record of meddling in
elections across the globe. By one count, the United States has interfered in
more than 80 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000. And that doesn’t count
U.S.-backed coups and invasions. We speak to former New York Times reporter Stephen
Kinzer, author of “Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to
Iraq.”
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: As
special counsel Robert Mueller continues his probe into Russian meddling into
the 2016 election, we take a look back at Washington’s record of meddling in
elections across the globe. By one count, the United States has interfered in
more than 80 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000. And that doesn’t count
U.S.-backed coups and invasions. Former CIA Director James Woolsey
recently joked about the U.S. record of meddling overseas, during an interview
with Laura Ingraham on Fox News.
LAURA INGRAHAM: Have
we ever tried to meddle in other countries’ elections?
JAMES WOOLSEY: Oh,
probably. But it was for the good of the system, in order to avoid the communists
from taking over.
LAURA INGRAHAM: Yeah.
JAMES WOOLSEY: For
example, in Europe in ’47, ’48, ’49, the Greeks and the Italians, we—CIA—
LAURA INGRAHAM: We
don’t do that now, though? We don’t mess around in other people’s elections,
Jim?
JAMES WOOLSEY: Well,
mmm, yum, yum, yum, never mind. Only for a very good cause.
LAURA INGRAHAM: Can
you do that—let’s do a vine video and—as former CIA director. I love it.
JAMES WOOLSEY: Only
for very good cause—
LAURA INGRAHAM: OK.
JAMES WOOLSEY: —in
the interests of democracy.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The
list of countries where the U.S. has interfered is long. In 1893, the U.S.
helped overthrow the kingdom of Hawaii. Five years later, in 1898, the U.S.
invaded and occupied Cuba and Puerto Rico. A year later, it was the
Philippines. Early 20th century interventions included Nicaragua, Haiti, the
Dominican Republic, all in the 1910s.
AMY GOODMAN: In
1953, the U.S. helped overthrow the Iranian government. A year later, in 1954,
U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala, overthrowing the democratically elected leader
of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz. Then, in the '60s, the list grew to include, once
again, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia and the Congo. And that's just a
partial list. Even with the end of the Cold War, U.S. interference overseas did
not end. Next week marks the 15th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq to
topple the government of Saddam Hussein.
We now go to Stephen Kinzer, former New York Times foreign
correspondent, who writes about world affairs for The Boston Globe. He’s the
author of a number of books, including Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime
Change from Hawaii to Iraq, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup
and the Roots of Middle East Terror. He’s written the book Bitter
Fruit about the coup in Guatemala. And his latest book is The
True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire.
Stephen Kinzer, we welcome you back to Democracy Now! to
talk, sadly, about the very same issue. I’m not quite sure where to begin,
whether to go back to the beginning, but let’s start, since it was 65 years
ago, in Iran, in 1953, in March of 1953. The U.S. was in full swing making
plans for overthrowing the government of the democratically elected leader,
Mohammad Mosaddegh. Can you talk about what the U.S. did in Iran then? So well
known throughout Iran, but most people in this country have no idea.
STEPHEN KINZER: Early
in the 20th century, the people of Iran began moving towards democracy. It was
a very difficult struggle. It was back and forth. But finally, after the Second
World War, democracy did emerge in Iran. It was the one parenthesis, the one
period of real democracy that we’ve had in Iran over the last hundred years.
So, the problem came when the Iranians chose the wrong leader. They did
something that the United States never likes: They chose a leader who wanted to
put the interests of his own country ahead of the interests of the United
States. And that alarmed the West, and particularly the United States.
Mosaddegh’s first move was to nationalize Iranian oil. We thought this
would be a terrible example for the rest of the world. We didn’t want to start
this process going in other countries. So, in order to set an example, the
United States decided we would work with the British to overthrow the elected
democratic government of Iran. We sent a senior CIA officer, who worked in
the basement of the American Embassy in Iran organizing the coup. The coup
finally succeeded in the summer of 1953. Mosaddegh was overthrown.
And, more important, the democratic system in Iran was destroyed
forever. This was not just an attack on one person, but an attack on democracy.
And the reason why we attacked that democracy is the democracy produced the
wrong person. So, we like elections and democratic processes, but they have to
produce the candidates we like; otherwise, our approval disappears.
Please continue this transcript, or to
watch the full video interview, please go here: https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/12/100_years_of_us_interference_regime
No comments:
Post a Comment