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Scaggs
Joined: 19 Sep 2006
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 Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:49 am Post subject: |
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Sounds like a lot of very general statements being made against Chavez. If you want to criticise something criticise the brutal removal of his political opponents.
As for his claims about America's behavior, I'll stay out of current actions in the Middle East and Central Asia and the general disregard for international treaties, but if you look at the history, even more conservative accounts than Chomsky, The United States has an insane track record in Latin America. Regular US foreign policy called for removal democratically chosen leaders and popular leftist-movements and replacement with capitalist-friendly dictators.
Examples include Pinochet and Allende in Chile, Somoza and the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, and Operation Condor in Argentina. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| [One may say Chavez is crazy or unstable. How stable is George Bush? I am worried about Chavez, but I am also worried about the harm Bush can do.] |
I am more concerned about people who cannot talk about world affairs without angrily referencing the United States and W. Bush as the root and branch causes of all evil.
We are talking about Chavez and Venezuala here. And, for the most part, their problems are problems that they have created for themselves.
References to Washington's "insane track record" in Latin American affairs, by the way, only evinces that many remain quite enslaved by a very simplistic, U.S.-centric, anti-U.S. worldview, a worldview that sees faults and only faults in U.S. foreign policy, and a worldview that also faults the U.S. for all that has gone on in the world since 1945.
And by the way, Latin American affairs have been insane since before Plymouth Colony was even dreamed of. Yet U.S. critics show no awareness whatsoever of this central fact.
Interesting how scholars like Stephen Cohen criticized the state of Sovietology at the height of the Cold War. Cohen said Sovietology suffered from a "know-your-enemy" syndrome and, consequently, our understanding of the Soviet Union and Soviet affairs was heavily distorted. Sovietologists tended to simplistically reduce all Soviet behavior to unwarranted, linear and monocausal Stalinist-oriented interpretations. Also, Sovietologists, unlike, say, Chinese area specialists who tended to become enamored of their subject-matter, tended instead to dislike their subjects and even dreaded research trips to the Soviet Union. As far as one of the many regnant negative attitudes that distorted our understanding of the Soviets, Cohen and others compared Cold War-era Sovietologists to "a hanging jury," and noted that only two or three writers (E.H. Carr, for one) dared to say anything at all positive about Soviet Russia. Everyone else simply tended to produce condemnation after condemnation (and this is esp. in Britain and the United States).
Cohen cautioned that Sovietologists should not at all whitewash the negative features of Stalinism and Soviet Russia. But he insisted that there was much complexity that was wholly overlooked and unappreciated in Soviet affairs and Soviet foreign policy when everyone started marching to the beat of the same "anti-Soviet" drum...
http://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Soviet-Experience-Politics-History/dp/0195040163/sr=8-1/qid=1160173676/ref=sr_1_1/104-3570198-3163100?ie=UTF8&s=books
Unfortunately, with respect to U.S. foreign policy and the historiography that treats it, we have multiple hanging juries running around (and do I need to reference "the case against Kissinger" or The Trial of Henry Kissinger to illustrate just one example of this?), and no one would even listen to a Cohen were he to emerge and make the same case about striving for an enlightened revisionism in post-Vietnam U.S. diplomatic historiography.
Critics and their slave-like, unthinking followers are too busy quoting Chomsky and repeating the words "lie!" or "liar!" every time they hear something that contradicts every thing they embrace as "the truth about the U.S." In Latin America, Chavez, the Sandinistas, Allende, Castro, or Juan Arevalo, unfortunately, only have ears for this one-sided propagandistic, indeed jingoistic nonsense.
But, simply put, there is much more to this story than what these stereotype-driven, angry, and just plain ill-tempered critics are telling us about the United States.
And what is the point of all of this, anyway? Are we striving to apprehend and possibly overcome the forces that drive world affairs and eventually work to alleviate human suffering? Or are we just interested in heaping scorn and opprobrium onto the Great Satan until he might go away? |
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Scaggs
Joined: 19 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 5:25 pm Post subject: |
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In response to Gopher:
My US-centric world view comes from being an American. I believe that people must be the sharpest critics of their own society, because they are the only ones that can make changes. Outsiders can be dismissed as biased nationalists. My concerns focus on Washington's behavior because it in some way represents who I am, and supposedly acts on my behalf. That seems to be the basis of what you just said, that I have pre-conceived anti-American sentiment. In fact, I couldn't be more pro-American. Being pro-American does not mean defending all actions taken by the American government. For me it means looking at past and present actions critically so that the future course of action might work out better.
It is amazing to me that you would reference Sovietology so much but not acknowledge the Cold War mindset lead to the violent US responses in Latin America that I mentioned. Broadly, the socialist movements in Latin America were popular movements with national political agendas, not antiquated Marxist internationalism. |
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brento1138
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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| You know, at least Chavez is entertaining and amusing. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| My US-centric world view comes from being an American. I believe that people must be the sharpest critics of their own society, because they are the only ones that can make changes. Outsiders can be dismissed as biased nationalists. My concerns focus on Washington's behavior because it in some way represents who I am, and supposedly acts on my behalf. That seems to be the basis of what you just said, that I have pre-conceived anti-American sentiment. In fact, I couldn't be more pro-American. Being pro-American does not mean defending all actions taken by the American government. For me it means looking at past and present actions critically so that the future course of action might work out better. |
Here! Here! Cultivez votre jardin....
And once again on Chavez. I might hate how dividing and polarizing he is. How he talks of himself with EGO and in the third person. I might hate and condemn his own militaristic and uncompromising streak and I might chastize all those Chavistas who want "revolution" and the pain, death and eggs broken to make that omlette (and long ago, like a child becoming an adult, saw how foolish all revolutions are. They are but the wish of heaven on earth and the only result, hell, no matter the good intentions). I might see Chavez in all that negativity but I can still say he has done some good and said some things that need to be said and also at times is quite lucid and intelligent.
A contradiction? Yes, but true. I admire Chavez initially for his participatory democracy and his unique drafting of a new constitution. I admired his own wish to create a society with its own ideology. I admired his wish to give to the poor and downtrodden and with his laws , renew a priority of health care and education.
What I don't and didn't and which I see as being so destructive -- is how he went about so much. Polarizing Venezuelans with talk of revolution and the poor claiming their own etc....He didn't work to create dialogue as Havel, another proponent of the "power of the powerless" did. Sober compromise, forcing the Venezuelan elite to undo the wrongs and excesses and create more equality.
A lot can also be attributed to the historical backdrop of S. Americans, their belief in revolutionary change and picking up the gun. A lot too can be attributed to Venezuelan's own history, Perez's own excesses and cowtowing to outside economic interests, world bank etc....
Okay -- what I am saying is that we should listen to Chavez. Look at how polarized and full of inequality the U.S. is becoming. It begs us to see the future that might be and to do something to give to the poor in America and create a more equitable state, a more kind hearted and generous state. America can only do that if she gets to work today ...... this is where her attention should be.
DD
DD |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:20 pm Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
I worry about Bush too. Not being Fond of Hugo doesn't mean I like W.
And, generally, I'm not one to play the "your sources are bad" game, but, dude, The Nation? Really? Camon. That reported would have been like a communist kid in a Left Wing candy store. |
One of my friends is from Venezuela. He is kind of a moderate. He owns condos, saved a lot of money, and he is a capitalist. He even admits Chavez has done many things for the poor that his predecessors did not do. So many news organizations say the same thing. Has he made a major dent? That is debatable. But did he help the poor? Yes. I think Chavez is somewhat unstable, but I think the people of Latin America since Chavez came into power are working on integrating with each other rather than just the outside. So he has made some positive contributions to his region. At any rate, George Bush is making the 1% of society richer and richer. I don't think the U.S. is doing better than Venezuela on the world stage. Even though many consider Chavez kind of eccentric and more of a street kid populist who got into power, he is definitely one of the people instead of pretending to be like Bush. I think Chavez went too far when he called Bush the devil, even though I think Bush deserves it after all the evil he has done. He kept talking about evil-doers, but he never looked in the mirror. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Scaggs wrote: |
| In response to Gopher... |
You have responded to multiple issues, and most of them were not issues that I was addressing, so I am going to isolate them and respond to them individually, including the new ones you have introduced, for the sake of clarity.
As it is you are "all over the place" in your thinking.
| Scaggs wrote: |
| My US-centric world view comes from being an American. |
Absolutely. We ourselves are the root of the U.S.-centric fallacy. Indeed, does Chavez not wholly rely on what Chomsky is telling him about the United States? And U.S.-centrism is not antiAmericanism, either, incidentally.
Leftist -- that is, leftist and rather oppositionist to the U.S. govt, I remind you -- historians Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley have discussed the origins of U.S.-centrism in the minds of many Americans in their oft-cited Cold War text, Rise to Globalism, particularly in their analysis of how so many Americans could blame Truman and Acheson for "losing" China or JFK for "losing" Cuba or Carter for "losing" Nicaragua and Iran.
If Washington did nothing to stop these events, critics like McCarthy charged, then it was either infiltrated by Communists and Communist-sympathizers or unwilling to do what needed to be done, right...?
| Ambrose and Brinkley wrote: |
This widespread attitude underscored one of the basic assumptions of American foreign policy during the Cold War. Americans high and low implicitly assumed that with good policies and enough will, the United States could control events anywhere. If things did go wrong, if Poland or China did fall to the enemy, it could only have happened because of mistakes, not because there were areas of the world in which what America did or wanted made little difference. The assumption that in the end every situation was controllable and could be made to come out as the United States wished -- what Senator William Fulbright later called "the arrogance of power" -- colored almost all foreign-policy decisions in the early Cold War...
The roots of the assumption were deep and complex. The American belief that the United States was different from and better than other countries was part of it. American successes in 1917-1918 and 1941-1945 contributed to the conceit that the United States could order the world... |
The Church Committee reached a similar conclusion as early as 1975. After this committee -- which, again, and it is absurd that I must keep emphasizing such points to establish credibility with the audience on this board, was a committee that was extremely hostile to the U.S. govt and CIA in particular -- reviewed several (failed but attempted nonetheless) U.S. interventions in subSharan Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia, it concluded the following...
| Church Committee wrote: |
| [U.S. govt] officials had exaggerated notions about their ability to control the actions of coup leaders...the United States has no such power. |
This issue exploded (again) in Foreign Affairs just two years ago, when the journal reviewed Kornbluh's The Pinochet File.
Foreign Affairs' Latin America and Caribbean editor, in an exchange with a former Nixon official, conceded that the problem of U.S.-centrism, based in part on the scholarly community and the outside world's acceptance of such assumptions about U.S. power in world affairs as I have outlined above, in part on the "easy antiAmericanism" Edward W. Said referred to in his updated introduction to Orientalism (published just before he died in 2003) and its tendency to blame the U.S. for all problems in the Middle East (and elsewhere in the world, I might add), and, of course other variable factors as well, the literature on world affairs whereever the U.S. was involved tends to present only one side of a complex and complicated story that really involves at least two and, of course, also many other significant actors as well.
That is, the stories we have been seeing for decades now are one-sided stories.
There are other factors accounting for this.
Few, if any, other govts declassify dox like the U.S. does; or holds hostile hearings in the legislature, where there has been -- since 1975 -- full Congressional oversight over, for example, all CIA covert operations; or does any of the other things that we see happening in the U.S. with respect to the release of secret govt information on its doings.
Certainly not any Latin American, Caribbean, East Asian, Middle Eastern, or subSaharan African govt.
So, I strongly suggest that you reassess this problem and factor it into your thinking on how everything you think you know might be skewed and distorted by this U.S.-centric bias in the literature (and behind that, in the available evidence).
| Scaggs wrote: |
| I believe that people must be the sharpest critics of their own society, because they are the only ones that can make changes. |
I do not disagree. But I draw a distinction between cynicism and skepticism, constructive criticism and sneering, etc.
What are your intentions with your criticism? To prove that the U.S. govt is the Great Satan, and should be scorned by all, if not destroyed once and for all, or that it should modify its behavior?
And do you not recognize that you can make sharp criticism and be skeptical of your govt (which I, for one, think is the way our system was intended to be, and, in spite of what the anti-Bush mob is screaming, it still is, and is still functioning) without resorting to a worldview that sees everything as "a lie" and everyone as "a liar"?
That is, can the govt sometimes be right, too? Or is it always wrong, morally depraved, peddling "a pack of lies," and acting maliciously, egregiously, and in very bad faith, like a villain? (See Blum's Killing Hope if you are going to claim that you do not know what I am talking about; and if necessary, I will produce an entire bibliography as well...and, while I am at it, was there not a U.S. professor who applauded 9/11 on 11 September, when he first heard the news, who said to his class that he hoped the plane had destroyed the Pentagon and killed everyone there?)
| Scaggs wrote: |
| Being pro-American does not mean defending all actions taken by the American government. For me it means looking at past and present actions critically so that the future course of action might work out better. |
Absolutely. But, in practice, most critics do not stop at the kind of skepticism you speak of here.
They mindlessly and ignorantly get on board the oppositionist bandwagon -- and here they are no better at all than those who mindlessly and ignorantly get on board the overly patriotic, "my govt right or wrong" bandwagon. They denounce the United States as morally depraved and rather than merely "not defending all actions taken by the American government," they indeed oppose and sneer at them.
In short, their position lacks all moderation and is nothing less than extremism, which they go to all sorts of lengths to deny and/or justify, at least in their own minds, which, almost always falls back on the U.S.-centric fallacy I illustrated above.
| Scaggs wrote: |
| It is amazing to me that you would reference Sovietology so much but not acknowledge the Cold War mindset lead to the violent US responses in Latin America that I mentioned. Broadly, the socialist movements in Latin America were popular movements with national political agendas, not antiquated Marxist internationalism. |
First, as I said above, you are "all over the place" in your commentary. Your response here has nothing at all to do with the analogy I suggested in my above-referenced post.
I agree that most of these actions that occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean had more to do with local politics and perceptions, and local actors and conditions, than anything else. That is, than anything else, including whatever actions the U.S. govt may have undertaken as well as the Soviets.
Even the Soviet ambassador on the ground in Santiago de Chile when Allende was self-destructing saw this. But then, again, this should not come as a surprise, as the Soviets were never caught up in the U.S.-centric worldview that has so distorted many's understanding of world affairs and U.S. diplomatic history for so long...
| Ambassador Yuri Pavlov wrote: |
| ...it was well understood in Moscow that although CIA had a lot to do with the coup d'etat, it was not the main reason [emphasis added]. |
Leftist -- again, leftist, and no friend of the U.S. govt or CIA -- political scientist Brian Loveman clarified this point in his Oxford Univ. Press and very oft-cited overview of Chilean history, Chile: The Legacy of Hispanic Capitalism...
| Brian Loveman wrote: |
| Whatever the full extent of United States complicity in the tragedy of September 1973, and whatever the impact of international economics, the most critical factor of all[emphasis added] in the failure of the Allende administration was bad politics and unrealistic economic policies...[Allende] also failed because, unlike a transition to social democracy, there is no peaceful road to the socialism envisiaged by Marxist-Leninists...By aggressively pursuing an illusion dreaded and resisted since the 1930s by Chilean anti-Marxists and by threatening the basic values, beliefs, and interests of broad sectors of the population [do not forget that nearly 2/3 of the electorate had voted against Allende in Sept. 1970 -- g.], President Allende's Unidad Popular coalition set the stage for a military government and counterrevolution[emphasis added]. |
...and this is just one case. Chomsky, Chavez, and their groupies cite a whole collection of such cases to back up their "arguments."
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:19 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Scaggs
Joined: 19 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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Again to Gopher:
Scratching my head at me being the one all over the map.
You continually reference my Bush bashing, when I explictly avoided Bush's foreign policy, instead focusing on US policy toward Latin America as a whole born out of the Monroe doctrine.
| Quote: |
| What are your intentions with your criticism? To prove that the U.S. govt is the Great Satan, and should be scorned by all, if not destroyed once and for all, or that it should modify its behavior? |
You also questioned my intentions, and refered to sneering. I don't see where I made any snide comments, rather I feel I addressed the issue in a very straightforward manner. I plainly declared my intentions, that it is important to acknowledge past mistakes in order to do better in the future. I think that quite clearly indicates that my intentions focus "modifying its behavior".
My references to the importance of "self" criticism (the nation being part of self) was in direct response to your tangent on Amero-centric views. As I thought I made clear the first time, the Amero-centric focus is because that is a place that makes sense for me to criticize, a place that I can participate in the political process, a place that's government makes decisions on my behalf. I am not focusing on American decision making because it is the be all end all (though to see that it isn't amazingly powerful in shaping the world's political and economic landscape is naive or intentionally ignorant for the sake of argument), I am focusing on America because it is the only country I can call mine.
You began by saying that talking about Chavez has nothing to do with Bush, before you rambled off about Sovietology. But Chavez has created his political persona as an anti-Bush, making Bush relative in a discussion of Chavez. And in the supposed leftist anti-American tear I am on, I believe I opened with criticism of Chavez.
And frankly, you come off like the grad student in Good Will Hunting, that can only work through his list of other thinkers' arguements. You blame others for citing Chomsky and then go on to pick the scholars you fancy rather than simply posting your thoughts with citation of history.
Do you like apples? |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:06 am Post subject: |
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Get your head out of the clouds.
Venezuela has one of the most corrupt governments on earth (you can find the comparative data at www.worldbank.org, click on the "governance indicators" tab) and has suffered a strangling of media and democratic institutions. Almost every governmental indicator (in fact, every one I could find) shows that the nation is creeping towards a full-on authoritarian state and the Left just doesn't care.
Poverty first increased, and then slightly decreased to levels slightly below pre-Chavez times and the anti-poverty projects are, from all available evidence, a joke. At a median of 65$/oil he should be able to END ALL POVERTY in the nation, if that was his goal. Instead, he gives away billions upon billions upon billions of dollars to buy support for his view of a himself-centered world opposition to Bush while his people stay poor. I can't believe people don't see this.
His goal is NOT to end the poverty, but only to give the illusion that he is ending poverty so that those who are poor think he is their only hope and thus give them their continued support. It is only with the support of the poor, who constitute a thin majority of the nation, that he can maintain his power. Christ, why do I have to walk seemingly normal Westerners through this?
Gawddamn, can you imagine if Bush said he was going to change the constitution to stay in power till 2018? The left would $hit elephants. This site would go bonkers. America would be screamed at from all corners of the world.
Uncle Hugo does it and the Left just continues to support/defend him. Pathetic blowhards. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:17 am Post subject: |
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Scaggs: I give up on you; you are unreachable. Apples, indeed. If I am who you say I am in your unoriginal analogy, then you are the protaganist of that film?
The Monroe Doctrine? I doubt you are even clear on its genesis and purposes.
So. Whatever.
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:20 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Scaggs
Joined: 19 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:25 am Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
Get your head out of the clouds.
Venezuela has one of the most corrupt governments on earth (you can find the comparative data at www.worldbank.org, click on the "governance indicators" tab) and has suffered a strangling of media and democratic institutions. Almost every governmental indicator (in fact, every one I could find) shows that the nation is creeping towards a full-on authoritarian state and the Left just doesn't care.
Poverty first increased, and then slightly decreased to levels slightly below pre-Chavez times and the anti-poverty projects are, from all available evidence, a joke. At a median of 65$/oil he should be able to END ALL POVERTY in the nation, if that was his goal. Instead, he gives away billions upon billions upon billions of dollars to buy support for his view of a himself-centered world opposition to Bush while his people stay poor. I can't believe people don't see this.
His goal is NOT to end the poverty, but only to give the illusion that he is ending poverty so that those who are poor think he is their only hope and thus give them their continued support. It is only with the support of the poor, who constitute a thin majority of the nation, that he can maintain his power. Christ, why do I have to walk seemingly normal Westerners through this?
Gawddamn, can you imagine if Bush said he was going to change the constitution to stay in power till 2018? The left would $hit elephants. This site would go bonkers. America would be screamed at from all corners of the world.
Uncle Hugo does it and the Left just continues to support/defend him. Pathetic blowhards. |
I am looking the thread over and I am having trouble finding anyone, myself included, praising Chavez, so I am not sure who has their head in the clouds. If you are referring to the subject head, if you peeked at the article the OP linked, I imagine you would have picked up on the sarcasm in calling Chavez a hero. |
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Scaggs
Joined: 19 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:27 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Scraggs: I give up on you; you are unreachable. Apples, indeed. If I am who you say I am in your unoriginal analogy, then you are the protaganist of that film?
The Monroe Doctrine? I doubt you are even clear on its genesis and purposes.
So. Whatever. |
Well argued ... |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:30 am Post subject: |
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| It was directed at 'adverturerer', who actually believes in Chavez the poverty fighting crime dog. Then, it became more of a rant than anything else, directed, in my mind to fatbird and a post a few months back where she overtly supported the clown. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:44 am Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| It was directed at 'adverturerer', who actually believes in Chavez the poverty fighting crime dog. Then, it became more of a rant than anything else, directed, in my mind to fatbird and a post a few months back where she overtly supported the clown. |
Whether Scaggs knew that or not, BJWD, his claims that he has not praised Chavez are rather disengenuous.
You cannot come onto this thread, Scaggs, defend Chavez by shifting attn to W. Bush in the usual style of the anti-Bush mob, and then assert that you never praised Chavez.
Whether you admit it here or not, you have been, at the very least, defending Chavez's Chomsky-derived case against the U.S. and doing nothing more than what he does in attempting to center the debate on U.S. foreign policy and W. Bush. (Unoriginality, indeed!) In any case, I strongly suspect that there is simply no neutral ground on this and related issues.
Trying to shift from arguing to demonstrating your ability to be "witty," at least in your own mind, only shows me that you are simply too dense to follow the position I was outlining above. And, in spite of your pseudorefutatious attack -- by linking me with the grad student in that film -- that position is indeed my own position, and I challenge you to find anyone anywhere who has published anything at all along the lines of the criticism I advance against the U.S.-centric critics...
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:20 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:08 am Post subject: |
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| Scaggs wrote: |
| Broadly, the socialist movements in Latin America were popular movements with national political agendas, not antiquated Marxist internationalism. |
Also, you allege I am caught up in "antiquated" ideas about "Marxist internationalism," but as I have pointed out here before, you and the other U.S.-centric critics are the ones trapped in an antiquated "revisionist" worldview of the Cold War.
This material just treats the Chilean case...
http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_1148_368/rev72_ulianfediakingles.pdf
http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_1120_1516/rev79_ulianova_ing.pdf
Here is some material on the KGB in Latin America and the Caribbean more generally...
http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_1141_1464/rev73.leonov.interv.ing.pdf
Also see Cole Blasier, The Giant's Rival: The USSR and Latin America; and Ilya Prizel, Latin America through Soviet Eyes.
On the KGB and its activities (and successes and failures in the entire Third-World) see Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World; and, recently, Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Krushchev's Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary.
On what the Cubans were up to all over the African continent see Piero Gliejeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976.
Anyway, I do not expect someone who focuses only on Chomsky's assertions on the U.S. role in world affairs to know anything at all about these findings or any of the other findings George Washington Univ.'s Cold War Study Group is publishing either, for that matter. I list them here only for your reference and to let you know that I still remain unconvinced that you know anything at all about world affairs, from a balanced perspective, and, more importantly, the relative U.S. role in bringing about the outcomes most of us are familiar with.
You, like Chomsky (who is neither a political scientist nor an historian by training) and Chavez, and indeed many who post on this board, simply and simplistically look around, see many things you dislike, and blame the U.S. for making them happen. |
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