Rlent,Your explanation can be also in affect explain our role in Vietnam pre-vietnam war.
Yup, pretty much.
We allowed the French, who's government surrendered and was non-existent until 1946, to be treated as an equal. At the end of the war we handed back Vietnam because of the French need to have their preexisting colonies back.
Not only that, but again, as in the case with Korea, we refused to abide by the Geneva Accords (1954), struck between France and the Viet Minh (which the US had actually funded at one point), which
promised a general election (to held by July 1956) to determine the government for a unified Vietnam -
simply because we were afraid that Ho Chi Mihn, being popular from his military career in the war, would win the election.
While it's certainly true that Ho was no angel and a bad guy, the fact remains:
We denied an entire people their right to self-determination, by refusing to abide by the Geneva Accords.
Coming forward in time about 20 years, the United States facilitated the subversion of
the right of the citizens of a sovereign nation to self-determination with respect to Chile, by using the CIA to subvert the Chilean military, which resulted in the
assassination of
General René Schneider (commander in chief of the Chilean Army and a strict constitutionalist) which allowed
General Roberto Viaux to attempt to take power (failed)
Ultimately, other military officers, led by
General Augusto Pinochet, were later involved in a successful coup against Salvador Allende - the first
democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in the Americas, ushering in an era of assassinations, torture, and human rights violations.
Although
Henry Kissinger claims that "we didn't do it", he essentially admitted that we did everything short of actually "doing it" to make it happen.
I personally consider
Kissinger a criminal of the worst possible stripe, and it really wouldn't surprise me at all if he were lying thru his teeth.
And considering that
Richard Helms (another crim) was at the wheel of the CIA at the time (of the first coup attempt in '70), it also wouldn't be really surprising if there is very little documentary evidence remaining to verify what our involvement actually was, considering Helms propensity to destroy documents to hide the crimes.
In 1972,
Helms ordered the destruction of most records from the huge
MKULTRA project, over 150 CIA-funded research projects designed to explore any possibilities of
mind control.
Helms was the only CIA Director to be
convicted of lying to the
United States Congress regarding CIA undercover activities - specifically about the CIA's involvement with the Allende affair.
While I am certainly no fan of Marxism or Communism, I am a real big fan of a people's right to self-determination, to elect their own leaders, and to form their own political systems.
While there are additional, similar instances where the government of the United States has blood on it's hands, I'll stop here and offer my own take on what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving:
I am thankful that the peoples of the world - who number almost
7 Billion at this point - specifically those who have been unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of some of our "help", have not seen fit to unite against us and cause our downfall as a nation.
I am thankful that the ability to forgive is inherent within human nature, and that people are capable of differentiating that actions undertaken by a small number of folks -
even if in the name of the many - may not be sanctioned, or even known about by the many.
While being thankful for the above, I also recognize that it is also part of human nature
to have a limit to ones patience ....
