This is a blog post I wrote a few months back on the subject of US-sponsored dictators, coups, etc. during the Cold War. Since this subject comes up, like five times a week, I thought I'd post it:

Cold War revisionism
The subject of proxy wars during the Cold War period is a subject that nowadays is mainly covered only on left-wing blogs and history sites. It's really a shame, too, because their text contains some pretty vicious slander of the United States. Many people read these sites(or books by Chomsky, Zinn, and Cockburn) and now have a distorted view of that period.

According to the left-wing narrative, the US sponsored coup after coup in the Third World, funded and armed tyrants, and stood in the way of democratic progress. It's all true, but it's only half the story. It's a prosecution case which leaves out the historical context. It's like saying that from 1941-1945, the United States murdered millions of Germans and Japanese and invaded country after country, all to protect our economic interests. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of World War II would find such a statement to be ridiculously out of context, despite technically being true. Unfortunately, revisionism of Cold War history tends to work because it happened over a longer period, much of what happened was secret(a lot of very important events are still disputed), and there is a dearth of good, balanced books about the period. And even those books don't deal much with the proxy wars, preferring instead to concentrate on US-Soviet diplomatic strategies and arms control, along with the most well-known crises that almost led to World War III. This is sad, because the US's victories in the proxy wars had as much to do with the eventual fall of the Eastern bloc as any other factor. It's just not a sexy subject for historians without any particular agenda.

Back to that agenda, if you want to learn about the proxy wars, there is no shortage of left-wing authors who have written extensively about them. From Chomsky's writings to "Killing Hope", you can learn all you could ever want to know about US crimes. Not that these books don't serve a valuable purpose. War is ugly. We should know what war looks like so we aren't eager to fight it(or have others fight it on our behalf). But these books don't really tell the reader why we did what we did. Nor do they touch on the end result of our policies.

First let's look at the context. It was the Cold War. The Soviets and Cuba were supporting guerilla forces intent on overthrowing the governments in the region. We had two options: do nothing, and hope for the best, or actively support the governments under attack. We chose the latter. There are varying situations and exceptions, but that's the gist of it. Noncommunist governments were under attack, so we supported those governments to prevent them from falling into the Soviet orbit. In most cases, we succeeded.

In the case of coups, there are two that are nearly legendary in left-wing circles: the coup that overthrew Allende in Chile and the coup that ousted Mossadegh in Iran. There are others, but they aren't as well known on the left because a) the coup victim wasn't a "progressive", or b) the aftermath of the coup wasn't nearly as ugly. In the case of Allende, Pinochet replaced him and Chile fell under tyranny for the next 15 years. In the case of Mossadegh, Iran too fell into dictatorship, as the Shah replaced him for the next 25 years. He in turn was replaced by the mullahs due to his misrule. The Chile story ended much better, but I'll get to that later.

Anyway, the left-wing narrative on Allende is that he was a democratically elected leader who was overthrown in a CIA coup because he threatened US economic interests because he was nationalizing industries. What they don't tell you is that Allende was elected with only 37% of the vote and thus did not enjoy widespread popular support. Of course, this alone means nothing, because a fairly elected leader is a fairly elected leader. But in the context of the rest of the story, it becomes important. Allende tried to make revolutionary changes to Chilean society. A leader with slim support who does this kind of thing can expect the majority that didn't vote for him to be very pissed off, which is exactly what happened. Okay, so you may ask why we overthrew him. If the Chilean people hated him so much, they'd just vote him out, right? Not exactly. Allende was violating the constitution on a regular basis and had Fidel castro over for a full month to dispense advice on Chile's transition to socialism. I think it's pretty easy to see how this would alarm the people who didn't vote for Allende. Allende also made statements that he intended to overthrow democracy. The end result was anarchy. When faith in the democratic process evaporates, the people realize that the only way to get power back is to fight for it. Allende supporters and anti-Allende people fought in the streets. The situation got so bad that the elected Congress called on the military to restore order. And that's the final, most important context that the left-wing authors leave out: the fact that the ELECTED Congress called on the military. Not the United States, not Henry Kissinger. In the end, the military overthrew Allende. What is known is that the coup plotters did consult with CIA agents. But the US did not direct the coup, nor was the coup done because as Chomsky says, "Allende was trying to help his people".

The case of Mossadegh is a lot simpler. He was elected with a lot more popular support. His problems weren't internal, they were external. Mossadegh tried to nationalize Western oil interests. Now when left wing authors say "nationalize" they think they are saying, "give to the people". But to the owner of property, nationalize means to steal. It's eminent domain of a sort, something that US homeowners have become increasingly familiar with. Making things worse, Mossadegh's compensation offer was ridiculously low. The US and Britain rightly saw this as theft and acted. Should they have overthrown Mossadegh? I don't think so. It was a disproportionate response. It was wrong. It's led directly to the problems we have today with Iran. But when you have the whole picture, it does look a little more understandable, doesn't it?

The Cold War was for all intents and purposes a 45-year World War fought by proxies rather than directly between the US and Soviet Union. The US, by doing what left-wingers apparently wanted us to do(stay out of it), would merely have ceded the battlefield to the Soviet Union, condemning billions to Communism and hundreds of millions to mass graves. We fought that war, and we won that war. And because we won that war, today most of the world is democratic. Almost all of those legendary pro-US dictators are now a part of history, dead or in exile, often due to US pressure on those regimes to hold free elections. That's the epilogue to the story that they don't want you to know. Meanwhile, the epilogue to Communism has a far less happy ending. Although the European Communist nations all became democracies, the Third World nations where the Communists managed to win are still tyrannical hellholes to this day. I think it's safe to assume that if we'd conceded those Third World battlegrounds to the Soviet Union back then, they would all look like Cuba and North Korea today. The fact that we won is something to be proud of. That doesn't mean we should shirk our responsibility for the suffering of untold numbers of Third World peoples in those wars. As the ones who did most of our fighting for us I'd say we owe them a Marshall Plan of some sort, especially Latin America. It's more than Russia will ever do. Russia, by the way, STILL supports all of their old clients. You won't be hearing any apologies from them, much less reparations. For all the faults of our Cold War strategy, thank God we won and not them.

I don't know the full details of Allende.

I will say that your comments in general and in regard to Iran's oil, are ridiculous. What you basically are saying is that people of a country should be fleeced out of the natural resources of their country. You seem to call this justice. How much should they be fleeced by. Should they receive 25% of the market value for their own resources? 10%? 5%? 1%? It seems that you really don't care which of these it is. You care that a contract is a contract, and you don't care whether or not the terms are fair. This is foolish and selfish.

WRT the US' general conduct during the Cold War, you are trying to make the world into a black and white world, when it is a world of shades of grey. Most of Latin America was socialist in some way. We had one Cuba. Where are the rest of the communist socieites that you claim existed, adaher? We need not have made their states authoritarian nightmares to prevent communism. We should have facilitated them to go their own third way, just as they are doing now.

Has India been communist or capitalist? It's been both. Most third world nations have had large state industrial sectors (or controls of the "commanding heights" of their economies) while allowing the rest of their socieities to be run by private enterprises. It doesn't have to be as extreme as you insist it must be.

Also, what about Vietnam? They are (or were) communist. You claimed that this implies some sort of mass famine. Please show it me. Also show it to me for Laos, which is also communist. The only massive deaths that occurred in those countries was due to US military attacks which killed millions of people.


WEB

I think that the whole period was grey, not black and white. We did good and bad. So did the USSR. We had Veitnam, they had Afghanistan. Both sides are responsible for Korea. Neither side can claim moral victory.

__________________
"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent."
-John Calvin

Moral victory was won by the USA and its allies right from the start, since they fought for individual freedoms and democracy, against forced collectivism and dictatorship.

Sure, both sides did both good and bad stuff. The ends doesn't fully justify ugly means, but you cannot disregard the ends that the ugly means were aimed at acheiving.

__________________
President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

I will say that your comments in general and in regard to Iran's oil, are ridiculous. What you basically are saying is that people of a country should be fleeced out of the natural resources of their country. You seem to call this justice. How much should they be fleeced by. Should they receive 25% of the market value for their own resources? 10%? 5%? 1%? It seems that you really don't care which of these it is. You care that a contract is a contract, and you don't care whether or not the terms are fair. This is foolish and selfish.


Iran had no capability to exploit its own oil. So they made deals that would allow them to get something, where otherwise they'd get nothing. Then when all the infrastructure was built, Mossadegh decided to steal it, figuring that now Iran could exploit its own oil.

Yes, a contract is a contract. Iran was getting more money free and clear than the oil companies. What you need to understand is that when a nation sells oil rights, there is zero expense for them. Every dollar they earn is free and clear. The oil companies take on all the expenses, and while they do get the bulk of the revenue, the actual profit tends to be lower than what the national government gets.

WRT the US' general conduct during the Cold War, you are trying to make the world into a black and white world, when it is a world of shades of grey. Most of Latin America was socialist in some way. We had one Cuba. Where are the rest of the communist socieites that you claim existed, adaher? We need not have made their states authoritarian nightmares to prevent communism. We should have facilitated them to go their own third way, just as they are doing now.


It wasn't opposition to a natural evolution towards socialism or socialism-lite. It was opposition to armed Communist guerilla groups. Every dictator we favored was dealing with a Marxist insurgency.

Also, what about Vietnam? They are (or were) communist. You claimed that this implies some sort of mass famine. Please show it me. Also show it to me for Laos, which is also communist. The only massive deaths that occurred in those countries was due to US military attacks which killed millions of people.


I don't know the numbers, but the death toll in both countries due to political violence after the Communists won was quite high. Dwarfed by Cambodia obviously, but at least in the tens of thousands.

I think that the whole period was grey, not black and white. We did good and bad. So did the USSR. We had Veitnam, they had Afghanistan. Both sides are responsible for Korea. Neither side can claim moral victory.


Not in terms of tactics, but in terms of what we were fighting for, sure we can. The Soviets wanted to enslave everyone. We wanted to free everyone. Thanks to our victory, most of the world's people today live under democratic governments.

Was there really much moral distance between our tactics in WWII and the Germans and Japanese? It wasn't the tactics that made us the good guys, it was what we fought for. They fought to enslave. We fought to liberate.

Moral victory was won by the USA and its allies right from the start, since they fought for individual freedoms and democracy, against forced collectivism and dictatorship.

Sure, both sides did both good and bad stuff. The ends doesn't fully justify ugly means, but you cannot disregard the ends that the ugly means were aimed at acheiving.


And there you have it.

Methinks you are a) opening a can of worms, and b) showing as much revisionism as you accuse the "left" of here.

I don't have the time to go through and give you a full reply right now, but I certainly shall sometime this weekend since there is just too much you are either ignoring or glossing over here. Indeed, Chile is hardly the worst or the most significant US coup.

This line was particularly outrageous. You are overlooking the Shah of Iran, Saddam in Iraq and Marcos in Philippines, to name just a few...

Indeed, "pro-US dictators" smudges the point. It is "US-puppet dictators" that are the issue. Any given dictator might favour the USA, but only some dictators were installed by the USA. It is the US-puppets that ought to concern people (like the Shah of Iran and Saddam in particular).

How is the line outrageous when it's true? The dictators you mention are gone. The Soviet dictators are mostly still there.

The Shah was ours. Saddam was not. Saddam was a nationalist who came to power through internal politics and was then supported primarily by the Soviets. Our flirtation with him came during two periods: Before he came to power, when he had contacts with the CIA, and during the Iran-Iraq war, where we aided him in fighting a nation that had attacked us many times.

Saddam was indeed a US puppet. The CIA was involved in his coup.

Shah and Marcos and Suharto were all US puppets that the US installed and did not take out of power. Indeed, in many ways, the USA is still suffering 'blowback' for the Shah.

USA has a far stronger 'anti-democratic' foreign policy record than 'pro-democratic', that's for sure.

I shall follow up later with an extensive listing of US coups since WW2. It ain't pretty.

If you like, you could list for us all the 'pro-democracy' coups the USA has engineered.

I am no expert on the history of Iran, but I recall that Iran was invaded by both Russia and England and was incorporated into their empires. So, it's kind of hard to buy anything after you've been conquered.

So, ok a contract is a contract. So if the ruler signs a contract whereby his country gets to keep 1% of the market value of the oil and some foreign company gets to keep 99% of the market value of the oil, then that is ok with you? If so, then this appears to be little more than greed and a sense of US nationalism on your part. Fairness has a place in contracts. If you don't think so, then ok, you are just in favor of big business and the US being a hegemonic world power.

What about Zaiire. There was no Maxist insurgency there to my knowledge, yet we had their Prime Minister assasinated. In Vietnam (you claim) there was some large scale starvation (which there never was). The only large scale death was US military operations there. Same for Laos. I believe that about 1/4 of their population was killed due to military operations against the Ho Chi Minh trail. US aggression was far more lethal to those people than communism.

In Chile, was there a Marxist insurgency? Why was it necessary to have their national leader killed due to an insurgency? In Brazil, LBJ gave the go-ahead for a takeover of the civilan government by the military. What is the justification for doing that?

I think 1 million were killed in Laos by the United States. I'd say that 2 million in Vietnam were killed, including forces fighting to unify the country. Bear in mind that North Vietnam actually proposed a democratic vote to decide their country's fate, which the US refused. So much for democracy, eh adaher?


WEB

I disagree that Saddam was a US puppet. There was a sighting of him leaving a US embassy while he was in exile from Iraq. However, there were a great many coups in Iraq during Saddam's time. It is likely that Saddam's coup was just one in a line of coups. WRT US support for Iraq, this was a spontaneous event that coincided with the rise of the Ayatollah, which I believe came after Saddam's rise to power. So the US could not have supported Saddam to fight the Ayatollah, since Saddam rose before the advent of the Ayatollah.

Suharto, I would agree had covert US support.


Not interested in a conversation with you MM. Just wanted to address your comments.


WEB

Since we did not murder millions of our own people in Gulags i would say hands down that US conduct was far superior to that of the USSR.

Your thoughts?

^ Good point.

WEB, your opinion is rather romantic, but unfortunately untrue. USA has been heavily involved in the coups an political assassinations in the M East. All you can see today there is the result of US secret policies since 1950s.

I want to put a link here to a short video - maybe it is not scientific enough to this thread but it is a good summary on Saddam and USA. You MUST watch that indeed:

Thanks for the Memories

Ah, we've been heavily involved in coups and political assassinations, so therefore we're guilty of all that we are accused of.

That line of evidence is about as solid as Iraqi links to Al Qaeda.

Who killed Allende?

__________________
... ..................
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.