"For over 175 years - ever since the United States conquered half of Mexico - nearly every president has messed with Latin America while telling the rest of the world to stay the hell out. We have helped depose democratically elected leaders and propped up murderous strongmen. Trained death squads and offered bailouts to favored allies. Ran economic blockades and encouraged American companies to treat the region's riches, and its workers, like a cookie jar."
"From the Mexican American War to the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Panama Canal to NAFTA, we've only looked out for ourselves in Latin America even while wrapping our actions in the banner of benevolence. It's rarely ended well for anyone involved - especially us. Many of the leaders we put into power became despots we tolerated until they ran their course, like Panama's Manuel Noriega."
"So there Trump was at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, insisting that the capture of Venezuela dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife by American troops was a military action as brilliant and consequential as D-day. He also announced that the U.S. would "run the country" and practically jiggled out his weird "YMCA" dance at the idea of making money from Venezuelan oil."
The United States has a long history of intervening in Latin America through military, political, and economic means. Interventions have included deposing elected leaders, propping up brutal strongmen, training death squads, imposing blockades, and enabling corporate exploitation. Historic examples range from the Mexican-American War and the Panama Canal to the Bay of Pigs and NAFTA. Those interventions often produced despotic regimes, political upheaval, and mass migration to the United States, reshaping American society. Recent actions and rhetoric portray Venezuela as subject to U.S. control, with explicit proposals to seize leadership and exploit oil resources, echoing older doctrines of hemispheric dominance.
Read at Los Angeles Times
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]