Thursday March 28, 2024
SNc Channels:

Search
About Salem-News.com

 

Jan-27-2011 18:06printcomments

US Policy of Supporting Dictators and Punishing Democracies Continues

Far reaching results may follow the Tunisia revolt with two nations being particularly important.

Baby Doc Duvalier
Haitian dictator François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, and his son, Jean-Claude, known as "Baby Doc" in undated photo. Courtesy: The Reid Report

(JAMESTOWN, RI) - The US government continues its policy of supporting dictators and punishing democracies.

Last week Baby Doc Duvalier returned to Haiti and the US government said nothing. For readers who might be too young to remember, he, like Papa Doc, his father who preceded him, was a cruel murdering dictator who looted his country of millions. Baby Doc murdered thousands and prospered by selling drugs and body parts. After supported the Duvalier’s for years the US finally tired of Papa Doc and helped oust him in a popular uprising in 1986.

On the other hand, Haiti's first ever democratically elected president, the former Jesuit priest Jean Bertrand Aristide, was ousted from power with US assistance, primarily because he wanted a minimum wage law of one dollar per day for Haitian workers. U.S. corporations would not allow this and he was undermined, eventually kidnapped, and flown out of Haiti by the US, and forced to live in exile. When the scoundrel and murderer Baby Doc returned, Jean Bertrand Aristide asked for permission to return as well, but the Obama administration flexed its muscles and prevented the return of the only democratically elected leader in Haiti’s history.

When Haiti had its earthquake, the US sent, not food or supplies, but 27,000 Marines, supposedly to insure that rioting did not occur, but the real reason was to insure that Aristide, the popular reform leader, could not return to his country.

Meanwhile in North Africa the government in Tunisia has been overthrown, in part because Wikileaks cables made public just how corrupt the government of Tunisia had been over the years. While many suspected and thought this to be true, the leaked cables proved to the people of Tunisia just how corrupt their government really was, and in a peaceful revolt took to the streets bringing down their government. The cable also revealed the US government was very well aware of the massive corruption in Tunisia’s government but continued to support it.

Far reaching results may follow the Tunisia revolt with two nations being particularly important. Leaders in Jordan and Egypt are backed and supported by the US government with massive amounts of aid. Both are puppets of the US and Israeli governments. Both Jordan and Egypt will do the bidding of the US government, in return the puppets are rewarded with generous sums of aid from the US. While accurate figures are difficult to establish, we know that Egypt’s government which is headed by the repressive dictator Mubarak, is given well over one billion dollars per year to do our bidding. The same is true in Jordan.

Folks in Egypt who have learned much from citizens in Tunisia have taken to the streets in an attempt to duplicate the accomplishment in Tunisia. The US and Israel have grave concerns that both governments could fail. We have helped insure Israel’s security by buying off the leaders of Jordan and Egypt, neither of whom reflects the democratic wishes of their people. The last thing the US government wants is for “democracy “to prevail, for in both countries both puppets would be quickly removed.

In nearby Lebanon the US and Israel attempted to manipulate the UN into putting the blame for the assassination of Lebanon’s prime minister on Hezbollah. If the US can rig this properly, and place the blame on Hezbollah, the party now in control of Lebanon could be labeled a “terrorist organization”, even though it is apparently supported by the majority of Lebanon’s population. Hezbollah is not considered, and never has been considered a terrorist organization by most of the nations of the world, but it has proven to be Israel’s military nemesis by defeating Israel in its attempt to invade and take over Lebanon in the 2006. The US has already threatened to withdraw aid if Hezbollah rules Lebanon. Once again so much for the idea of the US supporting “democracy” in the Middle East.

In nearby Palestine, the Palestine Papers have been released by Aljazeera, demonstrating how the puppet government of the Palestine Liberation Organization has betrayed its own people, which surely will have long term ramifications, one of which could be the supremacy of Hamas, already the democratically elected government of nearby Gaza. Readers will remember when Hamas won the election in Gaza, supervised and declared fair by former President Jimmy Carter’s monitoring organization, both the US and Israel rejected the election results and initiated a policy of starving the poor folks of Gaza for voting the wrong way. So much for democracy in Gaza.

Recent Presidents have preached the spread of democracy, but obviously they mean only if the democracy does what we want it to do. Presidents should be careful in preaching rhetoric about spreading democracy around the world; they might just get what they wished for.

_________________________________

Salem-News.com Writer Joe Clifford, lives in historic Jamestown, Rhode Island, and has contributed a number of articles relating to foreign policy to newspapers in the Rhode Island area for years.

He graduated from Providence College where he earned an undergraduate and graduate degree. After a lengthy career as a high school teacher he turned to the study of US foreign policy, and then to writing, as a means of expressing an alternative perspective. His reading and research on foreign policy is broad and extensive, especially as the policy relates to the Middle East. His interest in foreign policy was inspired by the American misadventure in Vietnam. You can write to Joe at this address: jc21131@gmail.com

________________________________________

_________________________________________




Comments Leave a comment on this story.
Name:

All comments and messages are approved by people and self promotional links or unacceptable comments are denied.


[Return to Top]
©2024 Salem-News.com. All opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Salem-News.com.


Articles for January 26, 2011 | Articles for January 27, 2011 | Articles for January 28, 2011
googlec507860f6901db00.html
Tribute to Palestine and to the incredible courage, determination and struggle of the Palestinian People. ~Dom Martin

Support
Salem-News.com:

Special Section: Truth telling news about marijuana related issues and events.

Click here for all of William's articles and letters.

Annual Hemp Festival & Event Calendar