Ron Ridenour
Author, Activist, Journalist
Credit: The Conversation
US President Barack Obama took to three former enemy targets in Asia this year.
His mission in Vietnam was to sell “lethal weapons”. This comes after a 50 year embargo of selling it weapons, and after the US weapons industry had scored billions selling death tools to its government so that it could conduct the un-provoked war (1960-75). The cost in human lives: between 1.5 and 3.9 three million Vietnamese and 58,000 US aggressors.
Weapon sales are conditioned, naturally, on Vietnam respecting US-defined human rights.
In return for this generous offer, the Vietnamese government commits itself to drop its Russian-built MIG-21 jet fighters and buy US-made F-16s. And The Man didn’t even have to apologize for previous White House custodians’ mass murder.
Japan was next Obama’s marketing list. He even dared stop at Hiroshima where he didn’t apologize either. He simply said that “artefacts tell us that violent conflict appeared with the very first man.”
The Man began his speech thusly:
“Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.”
“We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner.”
“We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow.”
“Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering. But we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.”
“We must change our mind-set about war itself. To prevent conflict through diplomacy and strive to end conflicts after they’ve begun.”
Go Tell It On The Mountain! On the mountains of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Russia….
Then The Man took the historic step of becoming the first sitting US president to visit Laos. Hallelujah! He didn’t apologize here either but he made concessive remarks, something like there were “sufferings and sacrifices on all sides of the conflict.”
Laotian Hmong with US “adviser”. These mountain tribes were recruited by the CIA to fight the communist menace. An enormous proportion of their population died in this misguided effort, and a few lucky ones escaped to America.
“Conflict”! That is to say, the giant invaded the little land of Laos, 2.6 million people at the time, because the US had already invaded its larger neighbour, Vietnam, 35 million at the time. Americans had to do this, because Vietnam’s politics and social welfare-based economy was subversive and “regime change” was necessary.
The US dropped more bombs on this small country than it did on the Axis countries during WW11—270 million tons (many of them “mother”/ cluster bombs). The slim man in the white house came offering funds to help remove some of the unexploded bombs in Laos’ earth that 40 years later still kill thousands of people, especially playful children.
While on his mission, the elegant spokesperson for peace spoke of US containment concerning Asian “regional issues”, and had the felicitous gall to challenge China with this egalitarian message:
“Every nation matters. Bigger nations should not dictate to smaller ones, and all nations should play by the same rules.”
No lie. The graceful hypocrite said THAT while announcing that the United States of America will increase its military presence in the geographical area where lay China.
Remember!
- Grenada—1983, population 100,000—Invaded.
- Dominican Republic—1954, 2.6 million—Coup for Regime Change.
- Cuba—1961, 7.2 million—Invaded.
- Cambodia—1972, 7.3 million—Bombed incessantly.
- Chile—1973, 7.7 million—Coup for Regime Change.
- Nicaragua—1980, 3.2 million—Invasion by proxy.
- More recently and on-going: Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya…
In 1823, the congress legalized, the “Monroe Doctrine” as part of Manifest Destiny: hands off the US’s backyard, Latin America.
Of the thousands of times that US military force has been used against scores of countries, many have been subjected several times. Cuba has been attacked 12 times since 1814; Nicaragua 12 times since 1853; Panama on 13 occasions since 1856. Although Latin America has been the most targeted, China has been attacked 30 times, from 1843 “gunboat diplomacy” to 1999 when the US bombed its embassy in Yugoslavia.
Major-General Smedley Butler [Credit: Gunnyg – Photobucket]
“I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps… And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.”
is the author of six books on Cuba including: “Backfire: The CIA’s Biggest Burn”, Cuba Beyond the Crossroads with Theodore MacDonald, and Cuba at Sea, plus other books such as "Yankee Sandinistas", “Sounds of Venezuela”, and “Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka”. He has lived and worked in Latin America including in Cuba 1988-96 (Cuba's Editorial José Martí and Prensa Latina), Denmark, Iceland, Japan, India. www.ronridenour.com; email: ronrorama@gmail.com.
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