X-Message-Number: 18798 Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 21:53:51 +0000 From: Philip Rhoades <> Subject: Why do so many hate the US? Will it lead to all our deaths? - Part II The reason why US foreign policy has been so bad for so long would require a book but here are some pointers: "... neoconservative Jeane Kirkpatrick ... argued in 1979 that Third World revolutions are illegitimate, the products of Soviet expansion rather than of local historical forces opposed to repressive dictatorships. ... Kirkpatrick had solved the moral problem of the rollbackers: why it is fine to overthrow left-wing governments and make friends with rightist dictators. The Kirkpatrick Doctrine held that right-wing dictatorships can evolve into democratic governments while left-wing nations cannot. Under this Doctrine, Marcos, Pinochet, and P.W. Botha were leading their countries down the path of democracy." - Rollback: Right-wing Power in U.S. Foreign Policy Friendly dictators "In strict confidence ...I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one." - Theodore Roosevelt, American president from 1901-1909 "We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of the world's population... Our real task in the coming period is ... to maintain this positon of disparity ..." - George Kennan, head of US State Deparatment Policy Planning Staff, 1946 "The fundamental assumption that the United States retains the right and obligation to intervene in the Third World in any way it ultimately deems necessary, including military, remains an article of faith among the people who guide both political parties." - Confronting the Third World, p296 "We live constantly with the tensions and costs of the United States' aggressive foreign policy, which not only affects profoundly the likelihood of war or peace throughout the world but also imposes monumental constraints on urgently needed social and economic changes in the Third World today." - Confronting the Third World, p298 "A brutally repressive regime was essential to America's interests because there was no civilian political option for it to turn to, and Washington had no hesitation in immediately endorsing the new order and aiding it, revealing again its two-decades-long preference for dictators and repressive regimes in the hemisphere. Chile also proved once more that the United States could never gracefully accept the verdict of democratic politics in any nation, where anti-Yankee sentiment was overwhelming for fear of seeing not only its local investments lost but also encouraging anti-United States economic legislation elsewhere in the hemisphere." - Confronting the Third World, p221 -- Philip Rhoades Pricom Pty Limited (ACN 003 252 275) GPO Box 3411 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia Mobile: +61:0411-185-652 Fax: +61:2:8923-5363 E-mail: Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18798