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AmericanEmpireIILatinAmerica.pptx

American Empire II

Professor Mindi Sitterud-McCluskey

American Empire

By early 1900s, US officials had begun to make claims to territory far beyond American shores:

Hawaii (territory)

Guam (territory)

Puerto Rico (territory)

Philippines (territory in rebellion)

Cuba (protectorate/ territory)

Midway Island (territory)

Wake Island (territory)

Samoa (territory)

Alongside Britain and France, the US had also commenced to use diplomatic pressure and military force to bring the once commercially and culturally robust China to its knees. Through coercion, China became drawn into exploitive treaties which undermined her national sovereignty and economic health. Under the deceptive demand of “free trade,” western nations further coerced open her ports to the British opium trade, with devastating societal consequence.

Most of the US’s imperialist energies, however, became focused on Latin America.

US Military Interventions, 1898-1920s

Between 1900 and 1917, American troops repeatedly intervened in, occupied, and invaded, Cuba, Panama, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela.

Between 1890-Present, there have been over 80 US military interventions in Latin America, alone.

No Latin American nation has ever posed a national security threat to the US, unless we count the nuclear deterrents positioned in Cuba in 1962. In this case, the missiles were a response to repeated attacks by CIA proxy armies and subversions aimed at toppling the Cuban government and reversing Cuba’s revolution.

US imperialism in Latin America- the coups, proxy-wars, invasions, subversions, etc., have functioned to uphold “American interests.”

“American interests”: This phrase has usually referred to the private investments of American capitalists and corporations in the homelands of others.

It is critical to understand the American Empire as an empire of coercive and exploitive capitalist operations, backed by US diplomatic and military support.

Major US military interventions: 1898-1920s

The Monroe Doctrine

To justify the nation’s imperialist shift toward Latin America, US officials resurrected and reinterpreted a policy doctrine called the Monroe Doctrine :

1823: President James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine, as Latin American nations fought for independence from European Empires. The basic message was that US officials would interpret further European imperialist expansion into Latin America as hostile. US officials wanted to see Latin American people become independent, at the very least, to keep European Empires away from the US border.

As decades passed, the original intent of the doctrine became distorted by policy makers to mean that Latin America is to be a sphere of interest belonging only to the United States. In other words, the US, and only the US, is entitled to influence and intervene in Latin American affairs, and economically and militarily expand into Latin American nations.

The new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine strongly insinuated that Latin American nations shall not exercise self-determination. They shall not truly govern themselves and manage their own resources and economies in their own interest. They shall not choose for themselves what their relations with the rest of the world will be. Rather, they will be satellites (pseudo-colonies) of the US.

The Monroe Doctrine

Tropes, Stereotypes, False Narratives:

To justify US imperialism in Latin America, government officials, businessmen, and writers drew upon many of the same tropes and storylines previously used to rationalize the enslavement of people of African descent and the conquest, displacement, and subordination of Native Americans:

US policy-makers and pundits portrayed the US as acting with benevolent paternalism.

This benevolent paternalism trope required that Latin American people and nations be portrayed as childlike, weak, ignorant, defenseless, incapable of governing themselves, and otherwise lesser people in need of protection and uplift.

US policy makers and pundits further distorted the US’s role in Latin America as one of defender of the helpless against menacing foreign powers.

If Latin American people and leaders resisted having their sovereignty violated, their resources exploited, and economies looted, etc., they became “disobedient children” in need of punishment or “beasts” in need of being destroyed.

Roosevelt Corollary

Under the guise of protecting Latin America, US policy-makers used a new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine to justify remaking Latin American nations into economic satellites of the United States, subject to the coercive relations of colony and empire.

Roosevelt Corollary

1904: President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a State of the Union Address in which he argued that the US must assume international police power in the Western Hemisphere. Not until 1934, did Franklin D. Roosevelt denounce the interventionism that followed.

“I think it is our destiny to control more or less directly most all of the Latin American countries.”

Assistant Secretary of State,

Francis Loomis

Informal Empire

Even as US policy-makers and their capitalist partners asserted imperialist control over Latin America during the early 1900s, most ordinary Americans remained opposed to foreign interventionism and oblivious to what was being done in their name.

Most Americans were staunchly anti-interventionist and anti-imperialist. They proudly boasted of the US not being like Europe, perceived to be royalist, undemocratic and imperialist.

Largely due to the widespread aversion to empire among ordinary Americans, US policy-makers pursued an Informal Empire.

Informal Empire

Like all other forms of empire, the informal empire is about control and the extraction of wealth on behalf of certain private capitalist interests.

Unlike the European model of empire by the 1900s- overtly seizing foreign lands as colonies to directly rule over, informal empire entails asserting control over economies, resources, and governance through methods suited to avoiding public scrutiny and even congressional oversight.

Periodic military invasion reinforces dominion over targeted lands, but the imperialist goals of controlling economies, resources, and governance are primarily accomplished through less obvious methods.

Informal Empire

Many methods set in motion during the early 1900s, continue to the utilized to the present time:

Proxy forces: Empower a dissatisfied faction within the targeted nation, to foment coup, generate civil conflict and strategic chaos, conduct assassinations, and, otherwise, bring about the desired end.

These factions almost always represent a minority of the population, but they are portrayed as if they represent the majority.

Financial Imperialism: The extension of power over another nation through financial means, including the capture of its resources, markets, financial institutions, economic life, currency, etc.

Covert military operations and “police” actions

Typically, no congressional debate and oversight = No accountability to the public.

Proxy Tactic: Panama Canal

Columbia, 1903-1904

How the US government came to construct and control the Panama Canal provides a prime example of the use of proxy forces to advance the “interests” of the informal empire.…

US Goal: To construct a canal through what was then Columbia to facilitate the movement of commercial and military vessels between the Caribbean and Pacific.

Problem:

Columbia is not part of the United States. It is a sovereign nation with a government that does not want to lease a vital part of its territory to a foreign government for the purpose of building a canal and then controlling and profiting from this canal. The Columbian government would like Columbia to build the canal, control it and profit from it.

Solution:

Locate, instigate, and throw support behind a faction of discontent Columbians in the province of Panama (then a state of Columbia), willing to stage an uprising.

The Panama Canal

On cue, the rebels rose-up and declared their independence from Columbia.

The US mainstream press and political class responded by portraying the rebels as “comrades in the struggle for freedom” (“freedom fighters”).

Quite reasonably, Columbia moved to suppress this act of foreign-aligned treason and restore order to its province of Panama. Of course, the mainstream press responded by depicting the Columbian government as a vicious brute which oppresses its own people, an enemy to freedom,… (as if the US government would not crack-down on a faction of Americans who conspired with a foreign nations to revolt and break off a US state).

By conditioning the perceptions of the American masses with the “oppressive dictator” trope, the mainstream press laid the groundwork for overt US intervention under the guise of rescuing “freedom fighters.”

Accordingly, US naval warships blocked sea-lanes and prevented the Columbian military from suppressing what was, in actuality, a foreign-backed rebellion and territorial theft.

The Roosevelt Administration then extended diplomatic recognition to the rebel government as it severed Panama from Columbia and declared itself a new nation.

Three days later, the US signed a treaty with the rebels providing the US with rights to build, administer, and generate revenue from the Panama Canal.

Note:

Many of the tropes used, here, continue to be replicated by US officials (“freedom fighters,”- we must help them; “governments oppressing their own people”- we must intervene to stop them).

The willingness of the media to uncritically mimic Washington DC’s storyline in reporting to the public.

Financial Imperialism & the Informal Empire: Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua and El Salvador

The Informal Empire

The Informal Empire also controls, coerces, and exploits nations through financial imperialism on behalf of certain capitalists.

Financial Imperialism: The extension of power over another nation through financial means, including the capture of its resources, markets, financial institutions, economic life, and even currency.

Dollar Diplomacy: A type of financial imperialism pioneered by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, portrayed as benevolent “foreign aid” to a distressed nation, as if the money is simply gifted.

How it really functions (one manifestation):

The government of a poor nation becomes pressured into pursuing modernization projects, with the promise that modernization will make their country prosperous and advanced.

The US government agrees to guarantee the loans required to carryout the modernization projects. If the nation defaults, the US is responsible for repayment. Either way, the bankers get paid.

The loan requires that the nation contract with certain American or multi-national corporations to carryout the modernization projects. Thus, yet again, well-connected capitalist enterprise is the beneficiary of what is portrayed to be American benevolence and “handout” to a foreign nation

The Informal Empire

American and multinational corporations “modernize” the nation with roads and infrastructure designed to service and facilitate commercial development. The commercial sites are typically owned by foreign capitalist, not native-born entrepreneurs.

Subsistence-based villages, campesinos and small farmers become uprooted from the land to make space for the infrastructure and commercial development. They then become funneled into cheap servile waged-labor.

When these workers, naturally, challenge labor conditions and the loss of liberty, the foreign capitalists typically call Washington DC, and DC typically deploys its military assets to protect American “private property” in another people’s homeland.

When the modernization projects do not generate the revenue promised, the poor nation defaults on its loans.

Default leads the US to authorize foreign creditors to seize natural resources, infrastructure, state revenues, and even the currency and banking system of the nation.

If the host nation resists, the US deploys its military assets on behalf of “protecting American interests” and “private property rights.”

Ultimately: The target nation losses control of its natural resources, economy, and sovereignty. It becomes pulled into a web of dependencies, debt, and coercion. As Francis C. Howe reported, this looting and debt-enslaving of cash-poor countries too often entails the deployment of the US military on behalf of Wall Street.

“Dollar Diplomacy is the name by which overseas expansion and financial imperialism have come to be known in the United States… It involves the conversion of the State Department and the army and navy into collection and insurance agencies for Wall Street interests, concession seekers, munition makers, and those who would exploit weaker peoples under the philanthropic assurance of promoting their development.”

Francis C. Howe, 1916

Side Note: This process typically takes place, today, through the IMF and World Bank.

Today….

Side Note: John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hitman covers the evolution of financial imperialism since World War II. According this former “economic hitman”:

Financial consultants (“economic hitman”) sell distressed nations a growth package of modernization/electrification to be delivered by American/transnational corporations & funded by IMF (International Monetary Fund) loans. Promise: The economic growth to be delivered through the modernization plan will raise more than enough revenue to pay off IMF loans.

The promised growth does not reach projected levels. Thus, these nations become forced to sell their assets and resources to western corporations.

When a nation’s leader refuses the growth package or debt repayment, the “jackals” move in and assassinations and coups occur. Military invasion and/or airstrikes have typically been measures of last resort.

In a new chapter added to the most recent edition, Perkins warns that these processes are now coming home to Europe and the US. International bankers have no national loyalties.

Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic’s transition from a resource-rich newly independent nation to a resource- rich impoverished, financially colonized, and politically unstable nation provides a good example of financial imperialism…

1890s: An American corporation called the San Domingo Improvement Company (SDIC) forged a partnership with Dominican elite to “economically develop” the island nation.

Condition #1: To pay for this development, the Dominican Republic was required to accept unsustainably high-interest loans from European and American banks, guaranteed by the US government.

Condition #2: The Dominican Republic had to privatize vast tracks of land that had been worked by subsistence-based farmers for generations. Then, the nation had to turn this land over to mostly American capitalists, that it could become converted into wage-labor agribusiness (plantations).

Dominican Republic

The results were textbook “Dollar Diplomacy”

The privatization of land destroyed traditional villages, uprooted subsistence-based independent farmers, and funneled them into low-wage farm labor and debt-peonage on land they once considered their own.

Protests and resistance movements erupted across the island nation….

The Dominican Republic could not make its debt payments.

The modernization projects which the loans financed did not generate the revenue promised by foreign capitalists and their governments.

The debt payments were unsustainably high.

A new generation of Dominican nationalists came to power, determined to regain Dominican sovereignty and health.

These leaders challenged the SDIC bank which held the nation’s loans.

Dominican Republic

1904: The US government intervened on the side of SDIC bankers.

In the interest of collecting debt payments, the US government gave the SDIC control of the Dominican Republic’s main source of national income- its customs.

Over half of the nation’s income now went directly to creditors.

The US then imposed a puppet regime to do the bidding of the foreign bankers. The Dominican people rose-up in protest:

The US sent in the Marines to “protect American interests.”

The Marines violently suppressed the protests and militarily occupied the island on behalf of the bankers.

When the Dominican Republic defaulted on its loans to American and European bankers a year later, a standoff ensued between the US and Great Britain - which nation’s financial predators will get to loot the island nation for collateral?

Under the guise of protecting the Dominican Republic from Britain, Theodore Roosevelt expanded the US military occupation and imposed a customs receivership.

Reality: Europe constituted no greater threat to the DR than the US

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic subsequently became stripped of its political and economic sovereignty and much of the national wealth.

Foreign capitalists took control of the land, resources and infrastructure

Foreign financiers took control of the nation’s revenue

Foreign soldiers occupied and policed the island

A foreign government installed a puppet regime to work in the interest of foreign capitalists.

The Dominican Republic eventually fell into political chaos and a civil war between two contending factions:

Nationalists and the common masses favoring sovereignty and liberation from foreign capitalists, foreign soldiers, and foreign governments.

Dominican elite who financially benefitted by partnering with the foreign capitalists to loot and suppress their own nation.

This division has been, and continues to be, reflective of Latin American politics: Nationalists v. Collaborators.

1916-1925: President Woodrow Wilson ordered a military occupation of the Dominican Republic and imposed a military government to “protect American interests” (investments)

Racist caricatures and American exceptionalist tropes flooded the US newspapers, hiding the true causes of resistance and US occupation with a “law and order” meme

Dominican Republic

Under US military occupation:

The Navy took over all key positions in government and controlled the Dominican military and police.

Political and military elite were handpicked and groomed toward loyalty to the US.

The economy became restructured in the interest of American capitalists and financiers.

The nation’s resources became more fully controlled by US capitalists.

During the long US occupation, US Marines engaged in ongoing battles with Dominican nationalists who opposed US financial, political, and now military imperialism in their homeland.

Among other forces, a guerrilla movement, known as the gavilleros, fought the US occupation from 1917-1921

In the US press, the gavilleros were portrayed as bloodthirsty militants without rational purpose. Such portrayals stood in sharp contrast with the press’ characterization of the Columbian rebels as “freedom fighters” (Panama Canal).

Dominican Republic

1924: US forces withdrew.

1930s-1960s: The US-imposed puppet regime of Rafael Trujillo killed an estimated 30,000 Dominicans.

Instability, discontent, bloody conflict, and additional US interventions, occupations, & puppet dictators persisted…

Today, the Dominican Republic remains a resource-rich, financially colonized, poor nation.

An important question: What is the proper use and function of the US military? Would the average American approve of the military being used to protect and advance Wall Street profits? The nature of the informal empire is to keep these realities from public attention and prevent debate.

Haiti, 1909-1934

Haiti

The example of Haiti demonstrates another approach to Financial Imperialism….

In the context of overseas expansion, the National City Bank of New York (Citigroup, Citibank) targeted Haiti as a site for “modernization” and a radical economic restructuring.

To this end, Citibank bought-out Haiti’s Banque Nationale, and then used it as a springboard for controlling, sabotaging, and looting Haiti’s economy.

Citibank manipulated Haiti’s national currency, withheld public salaries, and starved the government of its operating budget.

1914: Citibank ordered the transfer of Haiti’s gold reserves from the vaults of Banque Nationale to Wall Street

Washington deployed a US gunship to carry the gold!

Haiti subsequently fell into an economic collapse and the kind of political and social turmoil which accompanies collapse.

Haiti, 1909-1934

1915: Washington deployed US Marines to Haiti under the pretext of:

Stabilizing Haiti’s political turmoil (created largely by Citibank)

“Protecting” Haiti from an alleged German threat in the context of World War I.

Protecting “American interests” (private capitalist investments in Haiti).

Protecting Haiti from itself, with the assertion that the Haitian people were to blame for the turmoil

Washington politicians and the mainstream press drew upon familiar racist caricatures and tropes to portray US intervention as a benevolent act on behalf of a people who could not govern themselves nor fix their own problems.

Thus, the same storyline and stereotypes used to justify slavery became applied to the task of justifying imperialism: The Haitians, like generations of chattels slaves, allegedly could not no manage themselves. They needed a “benevolent” master.

The press did not report Washington’s role in stealing Haiti’s gold on behalf of Citibank.

It looks like Haiti broke its government. How does the message conveyed by this cartoon betray the reality?

Haiti, 1909-1934

1919-1934: Another US military occupation:

Haitian nationalist resistance movements on behalf of national sovereignty became violently suppressed

Haitian nationalist leaders were assassinated.

Haitian parliament became disbanded and replaced by one favorable to Citibank

Citibank’s “investments” in Haiti expanded dramatically under the military occupation.

Cost to Haitians:

The brutal suppression of a series of peasant insurgencies left dozens of villages burned, thousands of Haitians dead, and hundreds more jailed.

Thousands were forced to work on chain-gangs as “corvee labor” (forced labor) to the benefit of US corporations in Haiti. This recalled the days of slavery and paralleled the ongoing convict labor system on the US home-front.

As many as 20,000 Haitians were killed during this period, alone.

Charlemagne Péralte (1886-1919). Haitian nationalist opposed to the US occupation & informal imperialism in his nation

https://makinghistorymatter.ca/2016/03/31/legacy-of-the-u-s-occupation-of-haiti/

And, Citibank was not alone. This pattern extended to Chase Manhattan’s engagements with Cuba and Panama and Brown Brothers Harriman in Nicaragua

United Fruit Company

The case of United Fruit represents several features of the informal empire, taken to the extreme, including:

Partnership between a Latin American elite and foreign (American/ European) capitalists in the exploitation and abuse of poor, laboring countrymen.

Foreign capitalists in control of the means of production (land- that which is needed to be truly free).

Foreign capitalists with their own private armies, police forces and/or the ability to call upon the US military as a coercive and suppressive power.

Virtual ownership of a nation.

The manner in which United Fruit epitomized the informal empire is suggested in the use of “banana.” Bananas were the major crop produced by United Fruit. Hence,

Banana Republic: Term used to describe corrupt and dictatorial political regimes.

Banana Wars: Another term for the US military interventions, occupations, and campaigns in Latin America on behalf of capitalist investments during the decades before WWII. US corporations also dealt in sugar, tobacco, and coffee.

United Fruit Company

United Fruit

Boston-based, 1899-1970.

Monopoly over the banana market in the US and Europe.

To establish and maintain its banana monopoly, United Fruit developed land and transportation monopolies across Central America

Owned 3.5 million acres of land in Central America and the Caribbean and most of the transportation infrastructure.

Consistent with capitalist expansion elsewhere, United Fruit acquired the best land. Small farmers and campesinos living on that land became uprooted and funneled into waged labor on the fruit plantation.

In its quest for profits, it destroyed forests and biodiversity, leading to the destruction of plant and animal life beyond the monocrop.

In its quest for profits, it established company owned towns and systems of surveillance and discipline.

The Banana Wars

United Fruit owned the largest private navy in the world as well as work camps staffed with armed guards, private militaries, and agents akin to the US Baldwin Felts and Pinkertons.

Mercenaries enforced production quotas and assassinated labor organizers and leaders.

When workers went on strike, their strikes became violently suppressed through the combined efforts of the company army, government forces and, not infrequently, US forces (“to protect American interests”)

Example: Columbia, 1928- As many as 5,000 striking fruit workers were killed by Columbian forces, under the direction of United Fruit Company and with the threat that US war ships were ready to invade if stability was not restored by the Columbian government. Washington demanded that Columbia do something about the “communist” tendencies among workers.

Thus even before the Cold War, peoples fighting for liberty and uplift in opposition to US capitalist profits became labeled “communists” and “communism,” at least from a capitalist, perspective, is a threat.

Nicaragua

Another fundamental truth about the Informal Empire and the history of Latin America: Every time that Latin American people raise-up a leader willing to work on-behalf of the people and the nation, and claim the bountiful resources of the land for the nation, he/she is targeted for assassinated and/or overthrow, and discredited.

Nicaragua

The long and ongoing struggle among the people of Nicaragua for sovereignty and dignity in the face of the Informal Empire was also initiated during the early 1900s.

After an extended history of colonialism, feudalism, the reign of foreign capitalist fiefdoms, civil war and instability, Nicaragua elected a progressive pro-sovereignty president in 1893, Jose Santos Zelaya:

Zelaya enacted progressive programs, including public education and modernization projects such as railroads, steamship lines and electricity.

He was a staunch nationalist and defender of Nicaraguan sovereignty. Like other nationalists of this time, Zelaya believed that the Nicaraguan people had a right to rule themselves and achieve prosperity and modernity.

Nicaragua

1893-1909: Zelaya clashed with US capitalists and other foreign investors:

He entertained the idea of building a second canal, linking the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific, through Nicaragua (like the Panama Canal). This would have “threatened” the profits of the US corporations who held a monopoly on canal traffic through Central America.

He took out a loan from European banks rather than US banks to build a railroad.

He pressured US corporations in Nicaragua to uphold their end of agreements:

For example, when Zelaya insisted that an American lumber company actually build an agreed upon rail-line and plant two trees for every one cut, the company lobbied for US military intervention to overthrow him.

Consequently, a corporate law firm representing US businesses in Central America launched a propaganda campaign in the US press to turn the public against Zelaya. The firm also lobbied Washington to overthrow him.

Thus, in the American press, Zelaya became portrayed as a “tyrant” who “oppresses his own people” and imposed a “reign of terror,” etc, etc, etc…

The nature of corporate law firms to the Informal Empire is important to understand. The corporate lawyer’s job is to help corporations make as much money as possible, typically by getting around laws and deceiving the public. They also lobby and pressure government officials, form partnerships with corrupt foreign governments/officials and seek to overthrown governments that threaten their client’s profits.

Nicaragua

By capturing the perceptions of the public via overt lies and exaggerations, the corporate lawyers employed by American capitalists effectively prevented the new US president, Grover Cleveland, from developing any sort of constructive relationship with Zelaya.

The corporate lawyers plant fake and salacious stories in the press to discredit said foreign leader = The president cannot constructively work with leader, lest he discredit himself (this still happens today, and it is very dangerous in out nuclear armed world)

With the tacit approval of the American Consul, American capitalists conspired to overthrow Zelaya. They plotted with Zelaya’s political opposition to ignite a rebellion and funneled millions of dollars to this opposition. The rebels, of course, were portrayed as “freedom fighters.”

The rebellion was quickly suppressed and crushed by Zelaya’s forces.

In the process, two US mercenaries, one from Virginia and the other from Texas, were killed (US ‘soldiers of fortune’ have long been widespread in the Latin America).

The corporate lawyers then responded with more propaganda and talking- points which have become standard in the vilification of targeted foreign leaders: Zelaya’s a war criminal who denies democracy to his own people and freedom of the press…

Through efforts by US Marines, Zelaya and his successor were forced into exile.

Nicaragua

The US imposed a puppet government upon Nicaragua then commenced to take over Nicaragua’s economy and resources on behalf of US corporations.

Washington established a customs collectorship modeled after that in the Dominican Republic

Washington facilitated a loan that gave Wall Street banks ownership of the Nicaraguan National Bank (the nation’s currency), the national railroad, and a steamship company

1912: After the Nicaraguan people rose-up against the corrupt US puppet government, Washington deployed the Marines to Nicaragua again.

Taft characterized the rebellion as “sheer lawlessness” and the military occupation as one to establish law and order and to protect “American interests.”

The US Marines violently suppressed political and labor-oriented activism. Of course, the activists were labeled with the scare words, “communists” and “anarchists.”

1912-1925: Nicaragua remained under US Marine occupation to uphold Washington’s puppet government and protect and advance American capitalist investments.

US Marines in Nicaragua, 1932

Nicaragua

1926: A new U.S. intervention triggered a lengthy counterinsurgency war. 

For 6 years, General Augusto César Sandino led a rebellion in the highlands in opposition to the US military and US financial and political imperialism.

As Marines scoured the rugged countryside for years in search of Sandino, the man became a heroic figure to those struggling against imperialism around the world.

One of the first examples of successful guerrilla warfare.

Even US aerial bombardments could not defeat him

1933, Sandino’s rebellion succeeded. A civilian president took office following a smooth election, and the US marines withdrew.

The peace was broken when the US-backed Somoza forces assassinated Sandino and launched a brutal offensive against his supporters. This led to a brutal family dictatorship and literal reign of terror that lasted for forty years.

Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans were killed under US-backed Somoza. Learn More:

John Pilger’s “Nicaragua, A Nation’s Right to Survive”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bqvLErbfKY

Later in the 20th century, members of a new resistance movement will take the name “Sandinistas”

“War is a Racket!”

Smedley Butler

An interesting and important figure to know about from this period of Informal Empire and beyond is General Smedley Butler:

Born a Quaker, enlisted in the Marines at age 16

He rose to the highest rank one could rise in the marines prior to WWII: Marine Corps Major General

The most decorated US Marine at the time of his death

34-year military career

16 medals, 5 for heroism

2 Medals of Honor

The only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.

In the process of being an active agent of the US Informal Empire- in the Philippines, China, Banana Wars of Central America and the Caribbean, and World War I, Butler became a staunch opponent of US imperialism and interventions on behalf of “Wall Street” and associated capitalist interests.

During the 1930s, he became a champion of the Veteran’s Bonus Army.

He foiled a plot among the business elite to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt and replace him with a “strong man” (authoritarian).

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National Citibank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

General Smedley Butler

Smedley Butler

" War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious…. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.“

“It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war. The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nation's manhood can be conscripted. […] Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our steel companies and our munitions makers and our ship-builders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted — to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.”

Chapters:

War is a racket

Who makes the profits?

Who pays the bills?

How to smash this racket!

To hell with war!

https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

Robert La Follett

Smedley Butler was not the only public figure who questioned the value of empire to the nation. Beyond issues of morality, does imperial expansion and overseas exploits truly benefit the nation or does it simply benefit certain capitalists at the expense of the nation?

Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin:

Argued that extensive overseas investment drained necessary capital from the United States; raised interest rates to the disadvantage of the average businessman and, therefore, to the consumer; necessitated too large and expensive an army and navy; led to armed intervention and international strife; crushed democratic movements in other nations and reduced their peoples to economic servitude.

In short, La Follette held that the US government resources spent on advancing the “interests” of big business abroad did not benefit the US and it did not benefit targeted nations.

In short, the only people who gain are big business, its army of lobbyists and lawyers, and the politicians who become entangled in the corruption.

During WWI, Follett became targeted by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI for questioning and surveillance as a potential “un-American” subversive.

Samuel Guy Inman

Samuel Guy Inman came to conclusions similar to those of La Follet:

Inman served as the Secretary of the Committee on Cooperation in Latin America

His “Imperialistic America” (July 1924, Atlantic Monthly) suggested that the U.S. was no better than the Old-World empires. 

“In the smaller countries of the South, controlled by our soldiers, our bankers, and our oil kings, we are developing our Irelands, our Egypts, and our Indias….. Run your eyes rapidly down the map and note the countries where the United States is now in practical control.  And remember that this control always brings resentment and enmity among the people, though their officials may approve it…. Out of the twenty Latin-American republics, eleven of them now have their financial policies directed by North Americans officially appointed.  Six of these ten have the financial agents backed by American military forces on the ground…. Four of the remaining half of these Southern countries have their economic and fiscal life closely tied to the United States through large loans and concessions, giving special advantages to American capitalists…. We are piling up hatreds, suspicions, records for exploitation and destruction of sovereignty in Latin America…. Only in the United States do the press and the people ignore how our economic imperialism is eliminating friendships and fostering suspicions.”

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