MommC said:Dominican Republic - USAID, IMF Pt.1
By J. Clancy. 11 January, 1996
Neither Noam Chomsky nor Eduardo Galeano have a kind word to say about US invasion and continued repression of this section of the Caribbean, "which with Puerto Rico, Haiti, Barbados, Leewards and others of the 'Sugar islands' were incorporated one by one into the world market and condemned to sugar until the present. Grown on a grand scale, sugar spreads its blight on a grand scale, and today unemployment and poverty are its permanent guests", states Eduardo.
With a history of claiming hegemony over all of South America, interference in Dominican affairs only increased when uprisings against Spanish genocides of indigenous inhabitants occurred, or US repression became unbearable. In 1916, Marine Corps General Smedley boasted, "I brought light to Dominican Republic for American sugar interests". In 1965 the last US invasion began with 40,000 Marines, CO General Palmer, who counted 4000 enemy dead and who "intended to stay indefintely in view of the reigning confusion". Actually the confusion was the poverty occasioned by the steep drop in sugar prices on the world markets, aided by the repression and injustices by the US approved govt, combined with the US fear of another Cuba- type uprising whereby people fight for the return of their US- stolen property. (most from Ed Galeano).
Noam adds more enlightenment with, "Bloodbaths carried out by counterrevolutionaries are regarded favorably, as they are in the interests of passive population stabilising of the Third World. But US govt and media tend to hide the killings, torture and terror inflicted on the dissidents. This is described as readjustments, or lately, bundled under the term 'structural adjustments', and is true whether the bloodbath destroys the full organisational apparatus of the population base of radical movements -as in Indonesia- or kills more modestly to permit rightist totalitarian rule as in the Dominican Republic.
From 1965, there has been a total, extensive and systematic terror-control by the US in a client-fascist, death squad State system of control of the Dominican people. Their El Nacional newspaper on Dec 30 reported 186 political murders and 30 dis- appearances for the year, -a media understatement when compared with such deaths in Brazil, Guatemala and many other US clients...
This quote was taken from MommC's post to another forum. I quoted it in part here on account of MommC's being subject-challenged. Though dated and credited to a far left-wing source (Noam Chompsky), it is actually very relevant to this thread - particularly, I think, in regard to Jefe's remarks that the invasion was as much about protecting US corporate interests as about stopping the spread of commumism from a Cold War chess game perspective.
I don't agree with Chompsky, though. I have not heard about any threats by Bosch or Camaano against US interests. And I still don't understand why the US could not have waited to see if there was a real threat prior to invading. I think the whole thing was a knee-jerk reaction to Cuba and a message to Vietnam and others. I will provide citations for my position later in the day.