September 11th, 1973.

[trancepriest]

Anyone familiar with this date?

[slamminshaun]

Google says it was the day the Chilean President was overthrown by a coup. ???

[trancepriest]

That was the day the democratically elected President of Chile... Salvador Allende was over thrown and killed. The CIA had attempted to oust Allende for 3 years before this... even though Chile had a democratic tradition from 1932 upto that point. After Allende was over thown the nation was lead in a dictatorship by General Augusto Pinochet. Thousands of people in the opposition were tortured to death in a dictatorship that lasted 17 years. And on the early morning of September 11th, 2001... Pinochet was charged with crimes against humanity. Henry Kissinger was later also charged in France too.

This is just to highlight the U.S. corporate minded foreign policy that really doesn't care about democracy... especially when the peoples choice goes against our economic interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973

"In a 2003 interview on the U.S. Black Entertainment Television network, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was asked about why the United States saw itself as the "moral superior" in the Iraq conflict, citing the Chilean coup as an example of U.S. intervention that went against the wishes of the local population. Powell responded: "With respect to your earlier comments about Chile in the 1970s and what happened with Mr. Allende, it is not a part of American history that we're proud of." Chilean newspapers hailed the news as the first time the U.S. government had conceded a role in the affair."

[slamminshaun]

And that's news? I mean, we could have this discussion all day long dating as far back as the Spanish-American War. "Remember the Maine" was just a sideshow to get public support for us to go to war against Spain. The truth was, we wanted the sugar cane down in Cuba to satisfy our economic needs. Forensics have proven that the USS Maine exploded on its own as it was carrying unsafe amounts of explosives and had nothing to do with Spain sending in a torpedo. I know you're linking all this to Iraq, and I can appreciate the debate.....but it does not appear that we are going to reap any real rewards from their oil. Let the historians decide.

[saintjohn]

Cooljunkie - it's like democraticunderground.com with a funky beat!

[trancepriest]

Its often a myth in this country that a democratic nation... such as ours... does not attack other nations. I've often heard only dictatorships act irresponsible and are more prone to invade other countries. Some form of that reasoning was used to oust Saddam Hussein.

Covertly and overtly.. the U.S. has intervened 72 times in the affairs of other nations since World War 2.. this includes plotting coups and direct invasions. When I was a child in Jamaica... I noticed the effects of CIA involvement in the political affairs of our country... which is a democratic nation. This lead to the nation being in turmoil, food shortages and a high climb in violence which still endures to this day.

Its good for the American people to know the effects of their foreign policy actions around the world and how this breeds resentment... and to the extreme terrorism. I believe the true way to fight against terrorism is to reduce the grievances that breed terrorism.

Any yes.. America has terrorized other nations.... quite often actually. Just as in the case I highlighted with Chile.

[slamminshaun]

Again, "Black Ops" is nothing new. The CIA has rigged elections, overthrown governments, and contracted to assassinate leaders. We'll never be able to measure whether more good came out of it then bad. It is what it is, and I think the general public was made aware of "Black Ops" years ago.

[trancepriest]

Originally Posted by Slammin'

Again, "Black Ops" is nothing new. The CIA has rigged elections, overthrown governments, and contracted to assassinate leaders. We'll never be able to measure whether more good came out of it then bad. It is what it is, and I think the general public was made aware of "Black Ops" years ago.

You label it so neatly as "Black Ops"... to the rest of the world its considered "Terrorism". When we carpet bombed Cambodia with more bombs than were dropped on Japan in World War 2... causing the lives of 500,000 and later famines and genocide from the instability that took the lives of millions more (in Cambodia alone). I doubt those people considered it "Black Ops". We denied involvement in Cambodia.

We deny our own government involvement in Terrorism... then we say theres no moral equivalence between the terrorist and us.

[slamminshaun]

I don't think any American is proud of everything the country has involved itself in.

[web_norah]

people are proud of the war in Iraq and thats hardly something to be proud of, only time and history will really tell