Of course, much like the Soviets in Eastern Europe, Washington asserted the prerogative of policing its own sphere of influence. When it did so — overthrowing regimes not to its liking in Guatemala, Iran and South Vietnam, for example — the “promotion of a liberal world order” did not rank high in the list of American motives. So too with the roster of despots, dictators and kleptocrats that the United States assiduously supported. From Batista and Somoza in the 1950s to Musharraf and Mubarak in the past decade, a regime’s adherence to liberal values seldom determined whether or not it was deemed a worthy American ally. Other disruptions to a “world order” ostensibly founded on the principle of American “global responsibility” included the 1947 partition of India (estimated 500,000 to one million dead); the 1948 displacement of Palestinians (700,000 refugees); the exodus of Vietnamese from north to south in 1954 (between 600,000 and one million fled); the flight of the pied noir from Algeria (800,000 exiled); the deaths resulting directly from Mao Tse Tung’s quest for utopia (between 2 million and 5 million); the mass murder of Indonesians during the anti-Communist purges of the mid-1960s (500,000 slaughtered); the partition of Pakistan in 1971 (up to 3 million killed; millions more displaced); genocide in Cambodia (1.7 million dead); and war between Iran and Iraq (more than 400,00 killed). Did I mention civil wars in Nigeria, Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sudan, Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone that killed millions? The list goes on.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 03:05:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015