The US overthrows plenty of governments without throwing the extremely disingenuous ones onto the list.
Which ones are you thinking of as disingenuous?
The obvious one is Honduras, but Venezuela in 2002 is also not really true.
Honduras was old fashioned legal fascism, one party got the courts to produce a warrant to target the president who was looking for a third term and then that party used every excuse possible to enter into martial law. To say that the United States overthrew the government is laughable, even if you disagree with the US not re-seating a legally ousted leader. The worst the US did was try and get people to vote in the upcoming election where the current party came to power, and then the Trump administration palling up to the government.
Even in 2002, the US was aware of a coup attempt (despite claiming it wasn’t for a while) and the State Department recorded that it tried to warn Chavez from before the coup and they said the warnings were dismissed. There were some claims that the US was involved, but there is absolutely no proof and later releases of documents make that claim very questionable. Now, the CIA shouldn’t have been close enough to the military to have the military try and bring the US into the coup, but the US stayed out of it entirely.
Those are two I am immediately familiar with, even though Ukraine, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan I’m also familiar with and the US 100% contributed to the government being overthrown.
I don’t know the Honduran situation well; I didn’t follow it as it happened, and all I know comes from a few things on Twitter and a bit of Googling.
Here’s what Wiki has to say:
Reading between the lines, that looks to me as if the Obama administration’s attitude to the situation was indifferent at best. And, although we won’t know for decades (if ever), I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the State Department was actively in favour of the coup.
Their actions look like what they’d do if they were stalling while trying not to upset the liberals too much, and the US has a history on this sort of thing (e.g. Carter indirectly arming Indonesia).
But for now, I’d go with Adam Johnson and call it “implicitly endorsed” rather than active involvement.
Venezuela is another I don’t know a huge amount about; I was busy in the lab when Chavez happened, and he was too obviously sketchy for me to be impressed by.
There is a general sentiment amongst the online left that much of Venezuela’s current mess is due to US interference. I have no idea how accurate that is, but again: it wouldn’t be out of character.
Mexico’s getting interesting; Obrador is a runaway favourite for the Presidency. Any of you folks know much about him?
Meanwhile…
The problem with “implicitly endorsed” is that it’s not accurate at all. If we are to be critical of the US’s acts of imperialism and colonialism, then you can’t also criticize the US for not overriding the constitution of Honduras in order to contradict the Supreme Court ruling and reinstate Zetaya. The entire arrangement to respect the 2009 election was the compromise to respect sovereignty - which is the opposite of:
The problem with Honduras is that the situation is one that the US is barreling towards. Hell, judging by the GOP in Texas the next plank in the GOP platform is to actively reduce the power of the judiciary in the name of “preventing legislation from the bench.” In trying to blame the US, it’s missing the ultimate lesson that what happened in Honduras can easily happen here.
I will agree that the US’s involvement in the drug trade (including military training and arming) has resulted in many coups and has kept the area destabilized and violent. It would be ridiculous if me to say the US doesn’t hold some responsibility for the appeal of far-right politics in South America, but out of the last 7 countries on that I can see 2 are not justified and 4 are and I don’t know enough about Haiti to say. Saying those 4 is already extremely shitty of the US’s foreign policy - tossing some extras on top doesn’t drive the plot home and means smart people whose interest is on the US overthrowing nations can dismiss the entirety of the list by picking it apart.
On Honduras, I’m not making any statement at all about what the US should have done; I’m trying to understand what they did do. Which is a thing that very rarely aligns with the official narrative when Latin America is involved.
When the US is actually opposed to a coup, they generally do not behave as the US did in this case. When the US is supporting a coup, they very often do not admit this support publicly.
The nature of covert actions in international politics means that we are very rarely dealing with a full dataset, especially when considering the recent past. If we insist on granting the US the benefit of the doubt in the absence of solid proof, we’re guaranteed to underestimate the actual harm done.
Did the US actively support the rise of the current Honduran government? I don’t know; I don’t have strong evidence either way. Did the US genuinely oppose that government? No; the belated and partial condemnations were unconvincing, and inconsistent with what they’d be expected to do if they were genuinely interested.
This isn’t just about military action; economic and diplomatic behaviour suggests US indifference or support.
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I do get what you’re saying about exaggeration and credibility, though. I probably wouldn’t post that list at BB; I’d look for a more conservative alternative that was easier to defend.
All I’m saying is that when the US gets involved like it normally would, it overthrows a government.
When the US stands back when it could or should get more involved, it isn’t overthrowing a government.
I don’t know any leftist that wants the US to take its typical action and overthrow governments by actively backing rebellions and dropping bombs and declaring war and assassinating key figures, so it’s a bad practice to just assign the same “the US government overthrew X government.” Not only does it weaken the point severely, it cheapens the entire anti-interventionist platform.
It can erode credibility, yes.
OTOH:
Jump to 2:17 to skip the intro. No flashy graphics, just a good uni lecture.
From before the election, but very worthwhile.
Blyth just after the election:
The statistic he cites at 5:23 is noteworthy.
Speaking of Honduras…