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Through at least two administrations, Republican and Democrat, Bush and Obama, the U.S. has funded anti-leftist militarism in Colombia, to the military and to p
by dventimi 2y ago
Through at least two administrations, Republican and Democrat, Bush and Obama, the U.S. has funded anti-leftist militarism in Colombia, to the military and to paramilitary groups like AUC. It's not just a fruit company and it's not just a relic from the past.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/12/21/covert-action-in-colombia/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/12/21/co...
- xray2 2y ago[flagged]
- Obeehhh 2y agoAlso calling it anti-leftist is just poor framing, paramilitar organizations have very close ties with the right-wing politicians here.
- dventimi 2y ago> "Paramilitary organizations have very close ties with the far-right politicians here." Does that make it more likely those paramilitary organizations are on the left, or on the right?
- digging 2y agoI think they're implying that anti-leftist isn't the same as far-right. A centrist could in theory function as an anti-leftist.
- dventimi 2y agoAre there anti-leftist militarists in Colombia who are centrist?
- digging 2y agoI have no idea.
- dventimi 2y agoTake a guess.
- trust_bt_verify 2y agoYes.
- dventimi 2y agoWas Uribe center-left or far-right? It seems like was both at different times. In any case, viewed by this outsider from thousands of miles away, Colombian politics looks fluid enough that labels lose distinction. The one constant seems to be U.S. policy.
- trust_bt_verify 2y agoOk… no then? I was just trying to save the original poster from being badgered in bad faith with questions like, ‘take a guess’.
- Obeehhh 2y agoYeah, but also anti-comunist propaganda from the cold war is still prominent, so when they say anti-leftist it feels like a justification. I'm sorry this is not my main language.
- digging 2y agoIt's fair to call that out. Anti-communist propaganda is a problem still in the US as well.
- HideousKojima 2y agoIs the mountain of skulls really propaganda?
- dventimi 2y ago> when they say anti-leftist it feels like a justification I wrote "anti-leftist" to be descriptive, not normative. If it wasn't clear, I aim to criticize American policy, not to praise it.
- lazide 2y agoUh, aren’t the paramilitaries explicitly targeting leftists? As in ‘let’s go out and murder some of those leftists’? What else could you call anti-leftist but that?
- dventimi 2y agoHonestly, I was confused by that myself.
- ajhurliman 2y agoMaybe they meant the university
- dventimi 2y agoI apologize. I sometimes introduce typos, especially when using autocomplete on tiny mobile keyboards. I'm sure it's just me and never happens to anybody else. Anyway, I corrected that typo. Please, oh please, take me seriously now.
- kelnos 2y agoI can't take you seriously if you think a typo invalidates someone's argument or opinion.
- caycep 2y agolast 2? weren't they toppling latin American governments since Teddy Roosevelt?
- lazide 2y agoBanana republic the term was coined in 1904 - right when Teddy was in charge. Excellent reference!
- dventimi 2y agoYes. That's why I wrote, "Through at least two administrations". Personally, I consider the scale of injustice in Latin America alone at the hands of U.S. policy to be vast and unsparing in the culpability it lays at the feet of every American. I recognize that not everyone will be joining me out on that limb, however, so I chose to make my opening bid smaller but more unassailable.
- snypher 2y agoThere's not really anything the average person can do to influence this policy, so by saying "of every American", the blame is diluted across the population, instead of held directly against those responsible. So what is the answer? Large scale protests against imperialism are just shut down and the protestors get doxxed or arrested and the band plays on.
- dventimi 2y ago> There's not really anything the average person can do to influence this policy, so by saying "of every American", the blame is diluted across the population, instead of held directly against those responsible. Assign for yourself whatever share of the blame your conscience will allow. > So what is the answer? I have no idea, but whatever it is I suspect it's not yelling at strangers on the internet.
- eyelidlessness 2y agoProbably the best example I can think of where a vast injustice was halted, while assigning broad social culpability, with participation of some of those deemed culpable, and without substantial reliance on external force… would be the end of Apartheid in South Africa. Notably, the assignment of broad culpability was probably an essential component of that… and so probably was the limited application of consequences for that culpability. There are other historical examples I can think of which involved mass violence as a significant part of the means to halt the vast injustice. Those examples are probably not what we’d want to model, but they’re notably more readily available for reference.
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