Regime change. Two little words, but OH how they warm the cockles of chicken hawk hearts everywhere! It's nothing new, powerful nations have been trying to reign in smaller, or even equal but competing nations to their particular point of view since mankind organized itself into clans. There's only one problem with it. It doesn't work. Countries have the governments they have for a reason, and the only way to change it is from within, never from without. We should know this by now.
It's not just us, and we're certainly not the only ones to try it. The English got a life lesson in India and southeast Asia, and lets not forget a little backwater property called America. The French got it handed to them in Africa and Indo-China. The Belgians, Dutch and Germans all took it in the chops in Africa, so did the white Boers minority in South Africa. Even the Russians got a bloody nose in Afghanistan and had to slink home with their tails between their legs, and it's in the process of happening right now in the Republic of Georgia. The Spanish got their legs waxed in the Philippines in 1896, and in South and Central America. You can argue all you want that most of these were "Colonial issues" of days gone by, but they were only colonial issues because the countries named came in and forcefully took over from whatever form of government, however primitive, that was functioning there at the time. They stopped being colonial issues and the landlords left only when the pressure from the local population reached the point where it was no longer possible for them to govern effectively.
We're Americans though. We don't like to be as bold and brash as other countries, and besides, we came on the scene too late to be strong enough to go running off and colonizing other countries, other than mebbe trying to make Cuba a Las Vegas of the Caribbean under U.S. tutelage. besides, it's not in our character, we prefer to try to do it in a back alley on the sneak. Follow me below the Orange Diplomacy Squiggle for a brief history.
I stated earlier that countries have the governments they do for a reason. Most of Europe was originally ruled by royalty, and some countries such as England, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Sweden still have monarchs, although basically all of them have enacted constitutional laws that have made the monarchs largely figureheads as a part of national history. Others, such as France, Germany with the Junkers caste system, Italy, Austria, Hungary and even Russia had monarchs or ruling families until the population decided this was a losing proposition. Even China had ruling dynasties until Mao said "Let's not and say that we did". But all of these changes came from within, generated by the population, by however means.
I'm not going into an exhaustive history of our miserable attempts to change the world to our liking, it's too depressing, and besides, we'd be here until Tuesday at least. But I think that a brief precis of the high or low lights depending on your point of view of our attempts at "Stealth Diplomacy" is in order as an educational tool for today.
Vietnam. We already had U.S. "advisers" by the bushel basket in Vietnam in 1963 to assist the South in fighting off the existential threat from Ho Chi Minh. But when Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem thought we might be getting just a wee frisky in our "advising", and had second thoughts about our involvement, what else was to be done but a military coup? Per History.com reporting;
U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge cabled President Kennedy, “We could neither manage nor stop [the coup] once it got started…It is equally certain that the ground in which the coup seed grew into a robust plant was prepared by us, and that the coup would not have happened [as] it did without our permission.” Lodge’s words were more than a little disingenuous since he had long been a proponent of removing Diem from power.
This decision led to more than a decade more of war, 50,000 U.S. lives, and the complete rending of our social fabric as a nation, plunging us dangerously close to our own revolution. Good call guys.
Chile. This was a disaster of almost biblical proportions. With the assassination of popular right wing President Salvador Allende, and the installation of military dictator Augusto Pinochet, we got a twofer. Not only did we throw away diplomatic relations with a sovereign state that in all honesty had absolutely no serious national influence in our world, but we immediately became pariahs in all of South and Latin America. Latin noses twitched everywhere at the duplicity and subversion of America, we immediately became the "Yankee Imperialists", out to take over the hemisphere.
Cuba. One would have thought that the lesson of Cuba would have been enough to tip off the Latins. Facing electoral defeat in 1952 in his run for the Presidency, U.S. backed former President and dictator Fulgencio Batista instead resorted to an armed coup to regain power. He remained there until the one-two punch of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara sent him packing in 1959. The rest is unfortunate history.
Iran . The feather in our "stealth diplomacy" cap. During the reign of Shah Reza Pahlevi, the Iranians had the gall to elect a progressive Prime Minister by the name of Mohammad Mossadegh, who nationalized the oil industry of Iran so that the people benefited from their treasure. The British and U.S. oil companies raised a world class snit, and as a result of pressure, the governments backed the assassination of Mossadegh, restoring the balance. We immediately became the Imperialist Dogs of the region, and then committed the sin of rubbing their noses in it by providing asylum to the Shah after the revolution, denying them justice to the man that had brutalized them for his entire reign.
Iraq. Siiiiiiigh. Enough said already. We invaded a sovereign country on a cobbled up excuse so that W could show Pappy how ti finish the job. Trying to bring democracy to a nation that has never known it in principle is like trying to get a fish to breathe out of water on the principal of evolution. We've seen how well that works.
But on the bright side, we have had our successes. At least two come to mind. And in both instances, we achieved success by doing absolutely nothing! The first is the China "Tienanmen Square Uprising". Other than protesting human rights violations and abuses, we stayed out of that one. While noble, the uprising was nowhere near large enough, nor widespread enough to be effective, it was a gesture of defiance.
The second was the "Green Uprising" in Iran after the 2009 elections. Chicken hawks of all stripes were screaming and clamoring for the U.S. to give recognition and direct support to the protesters. But again, the uprising, although passionate and well organized, was not large enough to tip the scales. Direct interference in another sovereign nations affairs, especially one we had already screwed over, would have been disastrous.
We have seen many revolutions in the world. But the successful ones have all shown us one bright shining thing. Lasting change is not achieved on the battlefield. Revolutionary visionaries such as Mahatma Gandhi in India, Ninoy and Corazon Aquino in the Philippines, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and Violeta Chamorro in Niucaragua have shown us that the way to change is through the mass will of the people. No violence is needed. When there are more people willing to disobey than the sitting government can control without an unacceptable level of violence, then and only then is change possible, in whatever form that change takes. This is the lesson that all governments need to learn in order to avoid repeating the same tired old mistakes of the past.
Thanks so much to any that made it this far.
Peace out.