U.S. leaders must face the music
U.S. leaders must face the music
Published 9:16 pm, Monday, December 2, 2013
Chileans recently marked the 40th anniversary of their nation's September 11th terror event. On that date in 1973 Chile's military overthrew the democratically-elected, moderately socialist government of Salvador Allende at the behest of the United States. Sixteen years of repression, torture and death followed under Augusto Pinochet, while the flow of profits to multinationals resumed. Profits, along with concern that others might get ideas about independence, were the reasona for the coup. U.S. business elites would not tolerate even Allende's modest reforms.
As national security advisor, Henry Kissinger was key architect of the coup. He and his boss, Richard Nixon, were carrying on a tradition that spanned the 20th century and continues in the 21st - see, for example, the failed coup attempt in Venezuela in 2002 and the one in Honduras in 2009 that deposed the democratically elected Manuel Zelaya. Where coups were insufficient for dealing with popular insurgencies, war was a fallback option, as Kissinger demonstrated all too well.
One such case was Indochina, where Kissinger and Nixon oversaw the slaughter during the final four plus years of the U.S.'s war there. It is impossible to know precisely how many were killed during that time; estimates of Indochinese deaths for the war as a whole start at four million and are likely more.
~snip~
Our outrage at the monstrous crimes of official enemies like Pol Pot is so much hot air until we account for the cabal of "leaders" from Kennedy on, including Kissinger, who caused far more Indochinese deaths than the Khmer Rouge. Millions around the world, particularly in an invigorated Latin America, are working to end the "might makes right" ethos the U.S. has lived by since its inception. The 99 percent of us here who have no vested interest in empire would do well to join them. The prevention of an attack on Syria is a hopeful development in that direction. Another hopeful sign is the ongoing disruption of the lives of individuals at various levels of empire. David Petraeus, for one, has been confronted by demonstrators since being hired to teach by CUNY; in 2010, Dick Cheney canceled a trip to Canada because of demands for his arrest; long after his reign ended, Pinochet was arrested for human right violations and held in England for 18 months; and earlier this year, Efrain Rios Montt, one of Washington's henchmen in Guatemala, was convicted of genocide.
More:
http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/U-S-leaders-must-face-the-music-5029215.php