Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Democracy and Covert Action -- Uniquely American?

Covert operations in foreign countries and spreading democracy seem to be paradoxical ideas--yet the reading shows us how common US covert operations were in democratic as well as authoritarian countries after World War II.  How can these two agendas exist simultaneously?  How might this help us better understand the American foreign policy initiatives in the post World War II years?

10 comments:

  1. Well as we saw with Guatemala and in the text America became involved under the name of "covert" intervention within an already democratic society. However, from the examples explored in the text and with Guatemala the idea of spreading democracy while also essentially over throwing a government cannot actually exist with out spinning your words a little. In the reading it even says, "the USA directly participated in violence against a government that was genuinely democratic." Sure, America feared that Guatemala would continue along the thread of communist thought, despite solid evidence, but they decided to involve themselves during a time when the government had been elected and there's no way to over throw a genuine democracy in the name of democracy, it simply doesn't work.

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  2. The fact that covert actions are being used to instill democracy is justified by the idea that the overall end goal of avoiding communism greatly outweighs the horrible means of instilling it. The article clearly articulates that the "superficial driving force behind US policy was a fear that the elected leaders were Leninists." Therefore just based on fear itself, the US feels the need to act upon this in a covert way because, again, according to the article, it was like "there was a war between the USA and these elected governments."

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  3. The US covert operations were in democratic along with authoritarian countries after WWII because they were trying to avoid/prevent communism from all boundaries. The US even feared that commitment to democratic processes and values "might lead to eventual implementation of communist values and policies" which is somewhat confusing and does not make much sense to me. The US strived for "dictatorial determination of governments or governmental policies" to avoid communism's spread.

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  4. Context is key here. With regards to American covert operations in countries that were already democratic, the US didn't usually get involved unless there was enough supposition that the country had a high likelihood of turning to a communist structure, like Guatemala. So on the surface yes, preaching, enforcing, and occasionally forcing democracy with one hand, while sneaking into those very same democratic countries may seem hypocritical at a glance. But like many things in life context truly is key.

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  5. As always, this was an anti-communist tactic. The CIA acted "on behalf" of democracies to overthrow authoritarian governments. This allows us to understand that US foreign policy took action when governments seemed to become close to Communist. The US still feared Communism and did what they thought was best to prevent the spread of it. This ties into the saying "It's better safe than sorry".

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  6. The article is fairly self-explanatory, it provides abundant amount of textual evidence that how US government was concerned about the spread of the Red in Third World countries like Brazil, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, etc. CIA as the dirty weapon of US, helped us achieved several implementation economically or violently by providing military support to the army to over-through authorities who are inclined to be Communism sympathizers or eliminating candidates by bribing members of the parliament. As the article says, the reason behind all these is : “Under Eisenhower and Dulles, Wahington developed a foreign policy that equated Third World non-alignment with evil”, it is basically says it is better safe than sorry.

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  7. The US was in great fear of countries going to communism, as Trent said, like Guatemala. While the US CIA was corrupt, sneaky, or unjust in their ways of carrying out covert operations, they made sure to do so in places that had evidence of an eventual turn to communism. I am unsure about a good deal of it though.

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  8. The quote "all you have to fear is fear its self" comes to mind after reading this. The covert missions and covert warfare were all necessary (in the governments eyes) in order to stop communism. The us weighed the good and bad of the situation and it was boiled down to waging this warfare with the CIA and other intelligence agencies was necessary and needed to protect the us and the world from further communistic takeovers.

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  9. I think it was wrong that America interfered in other countries' matters this strongly. After all, democracy kind of contradicts with the motion of forcing form of governments upon other countries. The US government saw itself as world police - and still does in some way. It was convinced that it was necessary to inhibit communism in the world in order to make piece. History shows us that cruel dictatorships in Latin America were even strengthened by the USA, which is totally paradoxical. On the other hand, I can understand that covert actions were based on a good intent.

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  10. I believe that the actions of the cia, yet very bad, can be justified for the wipeight of communism. To think about communism taking over our nation, it's very scary. So in my opinion, the cia yet corrupt, the cia has justified reasons doing what it did. The spread of communism even to other countries means that it is just that much closer to us.

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