Sigh.
poster: ABC
fred smith :YOU SAID XYZ! CAN YOU PROVE XYZ?
poster:Actually, I didn’t say XYZ, I said ABC. Here’s more proof for ABC
fred smith: AHA!! YOU CAN"T DEFEND XYZ!! YOU MUST ADMIT YOU ARE TOTALLY WRONG ABOUT XYZ!!!
poster: No, because if you read my original post, I didn’t say XYZ, I said ABC, and gave evidence for that.
fred smith: Looks like a lot of backtracking on XYZ to me.
[[quote]YES!!! The US funded actors and plotted coups. But did this happen in a vacuum? Were there any other actors funding agents as well? The issue is whether the US involvement was key or instrumental to overthrowing any of the various regimes. The strongest case is in Guatemala with Arbenz, and no I don’t believe that two banana companies could subvert/influence entire US military/diplomatic strategy. [/quote]
Uh, fred, there’s a reason the American interventions in Central America and the Caribbean in the 1900s to 1930s are called the Banana Wars, and I’m sure you are familiar with the term “Banana Republic”- you, like me, are old enough to know it wasn’t just a clothing store.
The two companies didn’t influence the entire US military /diplomatic structure- they didn’t have any influence on US policy toward Germany for example (unlike during the later US/EU trade dispute, also sometimes jokingly referred to as the Banana Wars.)
The reason Dole and United Fruit were so influential in Central America is that
a) there were no counter-balancing US interests.
b) both companies were heavy lobbyists on this particular issue.
c) it lined up with other US corporate and political stands: keeping Communism out of Latin America; ensuring wages were kept low for American companies; ensuring US companies were able to extract resources without worrying about high local taxes or threats of nationalisation.
Exactly- like Iran in Lebanon, Yemen , and Syria. I, for one, haven’t argued against that in anything I’ve said.
MikeN said:
Indeed, when it comes to international politics, the man’s almost totally a simple-minded ideologue- still, even a blind pig etc.
My reply was specifically directed to agentsmith’s contention that I was ignorant of, or turning a blind eye to, previous instances of dastardly CIA interference- which ruffled my feathers a bit, since I was out marching holding signs saying "US OUT OF [fill in the blank] " while he was still in diapers. :raspberry:
Actually, fred, I agree with almost everything you said in there with two caveats- US bombing in Cambodia had a tremendous death toll (though not as bad as the Khmer Rouge, certainly) and the death toll in Cuba wasn’t that great, though more than in Chile -about 9,000 compared to about 3,000, if I recall the best figures.
Well, I believe we’ve had this discussion about 10,000 times- reading your last quote was deja vu all over again.
The point of this thread was discussing the Iran nuclear agreement, and my post specifically was saying to agentsmith- is it something about the name?- that he was being overly paranoid in imagining the whole thing was a cunning US plot to overthrow the mullahs. That, while, to quote someone
this is NOT the main purpose of the current agreement. End of involvement in this.