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Shedding blood for liberty : Comments
By John Quiggin, published 29/1/2008The US is notable among major nations in how little it has suffered in foreign wars.
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Posted by HenryVIII, Thursday, 31 January 2008 10:41:06 PM
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Here's a little bit of history. It happened, whether one likes it or not.
Around 1898-1900 the Philippinos had been fighting the Spanish for liberation of the Philippines when the USA bought the Philippines from Spain for $20 million USD and then sent in their troops to kill 216 000 Philippinos who simply wanted freedom from colonialism.
Guatamala 1954-the people elected a government in free elections and in came the marines to impose a fascist dictatorship.
Nicaragua- the locals kicked out a brutal corrupt dictator, brought in free health care and literacy programmes and in came the Contras, a murderous bunch of US-sponsored and trained terrorists who shattered the social programme of the popular government and killed about.... 80 000 wasn't it?
Cuba-invaded in 1961, under a US-led world trade embargo since 1957. Why? because a popular revolution had kicked out a corrupt US stooge, Batista.
And others, Chile, Vietnam, the installing of the corrupt crook and fascist, Suharto.
Wasn't it Kennedy's father, then ambassador to the UK in 1940, who went around bad-mouthing the British attempt to defeat Hitler?
And the USA SUPPORTED Pol Pot and his vicious thugs at the UN, and with aid, after the Vietnamese had driven them out of Cambodia and were trying to get things back to sanity.
And the US was a prime SUPPORTER of one Saddam Hussein before 1991, shipping him chemicals and weapons and credits for arms purchases.
I don't know what free world the USA defends; perhaps it's the one in which US corporations get cheap labour at a dollar a day and free access to national resources.