“Whatever the sympathy we may have for the people of the United States, their country is still the main predator of humanity. We can in no circumstance claim to share their “values."” July 2019, Manlio Dinucci
……………………………………
“Overthrowing other people’s governments: The Master List," by William Blum
“Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the Second World War. (*indicates successful ouster of a government)
- China 1949 to early 1960s
- Albania 1949-53
- East Germany 1950s
- Iran 1953 *
- Guatemala 1954 *
- Costa Rica mid-1950s
- Syria 1956-7
- Egypt 1957
- Indonesia 1957-8
- British Guiana 1953-64 *
- Iraq 1963 *
- North Vietnam 1945-73
- Cambodia 1955-70 *
- Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
- Ecuador 1960-63 *
- Congo 1960 *
- France 1965
- Brazil 1962-64 *
- Dominican Republic 1963 *
- Cuba 1959 to present
- Bolivia 1964 *
- Indonesia 1965 *
- Ghana 1966 *
- Chile 1964-73 *
- Greece 1967 *
- Costa Rica 1970-71
- Bolivia 1971 *
- Australia 1973-75 *
- Angola 1975, 1980s
- Zaire 1975
- Portugal 1974-76 *
- Jamaica 1976-80 *
- Seychelles 1979-81
- Chad 1981-82 *
- Grenada 1983 *
- South Yemen 1982-84
- Suriname 1982-84
- Fiji 1987 *
- Libya 1980s
- Nicaragua 1981-90 *
- Panama 1989 *
- Bulgaria 1990 *
- Albania 1991 *
- Iraq 1991
- Afghanistan 1980s *
- Somalia 1993
- Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
- Ecuador 2000 *
- Afghanistan 2001 *
- Venezuela 2002 *
- Iraq 2003 *
- Haiti 2004 *
- Somalia 2007 to present
- Honduras 2009 *
- Libya 2011 *
- Syria 2012
- Ukraine 2014 *
Q: Why will there never be a coup d’état in Washington?
A: Because there’s no American embassy there.”
************************************
Added: Biden calling President Putin names and
refusing to converse is typical of late empire
behavior: “indifference to other people’s rights, views
and interests."…..(Ordinary Americans get the same
treatment that Pres. Putin gets. We're either totally ignored
or written off as selfish racists).
3/21/22, “PATRICK LAWRENCE: Imperial Infantilism," Consortium News
......
“We find that hurling playground insults at the
leader of another nation has become normal in
post-9/11 Washington….
Question of Statesmanship…
When those purporting to serve as America’s
statesmen and stateswomen think calling other
world leaders names is properly part of the
diplomatic repertoire — a prominent part,
I’ll add — we are left with only one conclusion:
The U.S. has no one capable of sailing its
ship of state, no one in a position of influence
worthy of the title “diplomat.”
3/16/22, “President Biden: “I think he is a war criminal.”” Cspan, You Tube
To qualify it, I’m certain there are plenty of
mid-level people trained in the foreign service
now in mid-level positions at the State Department.
But they do not count, by and large, because
what passes for diplomacy in Washington is
driven not by skill, experience or subtle
intelligence but by fidelity to American ideology
and a nose for what plays in Peoria.
Over the weekend I found myself thinking about FDR.
I thought about Roosevelt in that famous photograph
with Churchill and Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
There they are in their overcoats against the cold of
February 1945 (FDR in a dashing cape). Then I thought
about Biden and his nonsense name-calling and
his refusal to even consider an encounter with
Putin at this crucial moment….
It’s simply not easy to find truly good diplomats
in the post–1945 annals of the American Foreign
Service. I am talking about people who understand
that one of the primary responsibilities of a diplomat
is to understand how those on the other side of the
table think and see things, what the other side
wants and why.
Here’s why they don’t exist anymore: Simply
stated, power obviates the need for serious
statecraft. The powerful nation has no need
A figure such as George Kennan was the
exception proving the rule, and he was
an exception because he saw the need
to understand how the world looked to
the Soviet Union.
Henry Kissinger proved the rule: For all
his claim to diplomatic skill,
Hank K. was a wielder of American
power with a calculating mind,
nothing more.
The rest follows naturally: Antony Blinken
is not a serious diplomat. Samantha
Power is not a serious diplomat.
As a diplomat (and various other things),
Hillary “He’s Hitler” Clinton
is a walking calamity.
Biden, who’s spent his career selling
snake oil off the back of a buckwagon,
is not a statesman of any kind, serious or
otherwise.
We should consider when, precisely,
calling other leaders names became an accepted
feature of American “statecraft” (and I insist
on the quotation marks.)
When, why, and
what are the consequences
Sept. 11
I date this phenomenon to the events of
Sept. 11, 2001. The lineup of secretaries of
state and senior diplomats prior to the
attacks in New York and Washington is
other than brilliant, but it was by and large
accepted that talking to one’s adversaries
was at least as important (and often more so)
as talking to one’s friends
It was the Bush II regime, with all its kooky
ideologues in positions they never should
have gotten near, that declared:
“We don’t negotiate with our enemies.”
This pronouncement was advanced, if you
recall, as if it were a sound, baseline rule
of wise statesmanship. There were corollaries.
Diplomatic contacts with those deemed enemies
would “give them credibility.” At the outside there
was Richard Perle’s infamous dictum. Perle, one
of Bush II’s intellectual ornaments, urged
“decontextualization”: We must not put things
in context lest we understand them. Instead,
we must be confined to reaction (in both
senses of the term).
Responses to the events of 2001 bear careful
interpretation….The American way of defining
the world was the only acceptable way.
Nothing else need be considered. This is how
empires conduct themselves when aware
of their vulnerability as the Sept. 11 attacks
forced Washington onto its back foot.
Descendants of George W. Bush
Is there much distance between decontextualization
and the we-don’t-negotiate-with-enemies bit plus
“he’s Hitler, he’s a thug, a dictator, a criminal”?
I see none. In this way
all post–2001 U.S. administrations descend
from George W. Bush —
characteristic of late-empire regimes.
One can argue the Obama administration
was an exception, but I don’t buy it. At bottom,
Barack Obama’s perspective on the world and
America’s place in it was no different from that
of any other post–2001 president’s. He tinkered
with methods of American power — fewer invasions
(except Libya), more drones, a veneer of diplomacy —
to obscure continued reliance on power alone
to other people’s rights, views and interests.
[“In 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped
at least 26,171 bombs....That’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day."]
Look where this has landed us. Every time
I hear Biden call Putin or some other world
leader, not to Washington’s liking, a name
out of the American inventory of epithets
it is a reminder of how grotesquely U.S.
“statecraft” has been infantilized. We cannot
be surprised.
How much distance is there
between the infantilization of the American public
and the infantilization of the post–2001 excuse
for diplomacy?…
Americans post–2001 live in a state of
intellectual isolation so pervasive most are
not aware of it.
Name-calling, as a third-grade symptom of the
anxiety and insecurity of the past two decades,
is a way of expressing patriotism (a comforting
euphemism for nationalism). America is left utterly
incapable of imagining —
to say nothing of creating — new possibilities
in a new, multipolar world….
Every time Biden or another American “leader”
hurls one of their playground insults at the
leader of another nation, (Putin as the Beelzebub
du jour) they are reminding us: There will be no
diplomacy emanating from Washington because
they have no idea how to conduct it.
Power and coercion are all they know.”
…………………………………
“Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years,
chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist,
essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is
Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century.
Follow him on Twitter @thefloutist. His web site
is Patrick Lawrence. Support his work via his Patreon site.
The views expressed are solely those of the author
and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.”
…………………………………………..
Two among comments
………………………………………..
“Ian, March 21, 2022
It won’t be long before the US Empire decrees
it unlawful to acknowledge even the
existence of Russia, it’s language, or people.
They really have the hubris in thinking that
they hold the power to legitimate or
de-legitimate the mere existence of other
nations, and so the notion of even talking
to countries like Russia, or responding
to their views, is heresy. They won’t even
cede the millimeter of dominance
required to have cooperative relationships.”
…………………………………………
“Dienne, March 21, 2022
America is a giant drunken cruise ship run by
.............
a military crew that thinks they’re operating
a battleship in conjunction with a horde
of wasted frat boys looking for their next
score with the actual crew tied up in the
lowest cargo hold while the passengers
party on as the iceberg approaches.”
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