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I saw this tweet and I realized how little knowledge Americans have about the CIA’s involvement in the destabilization of countries all around the world.
What I find so fascinating about Americans who complain about immigration is that many of them are also the biggest defenders of the American empire.
They’ll complain endlessly about immigrants coming into this country, taking American jobs, and using American resources. They’ll tell these people to go back to whatever “shithole country” they came from, without ever stopping to question why so many people are desperate to leave those countries in the first place.
And apparently, it has never occurred to them that the American government has spent decades interfering in the governments, economies, and resources of the very countries these people are fleeing.
And here’s what I find so ridiculous about this entire conversation. Americans will go on and on about how corrupt, impoverished, and dangerous these countries are, but how many of them could tell you a single thing about the history of American involvement in those countries?
How many Americans even know that over the last 75 years, the CIA has overthrown over 80 foreign governments, supported brutal dictatorships, and protected American corporations that were exploiting the land, labor, and natural resources of countries all over the world?
And what makes this entire conversation so absurd is that American intervention is one of the very reasons so many of these countries have been plagued by poverty, violence, and political instability in the first place.
So Americans will complain about immigrants fleeing these so-called “shithole countries,” without having the slightest idea that their own government helped create the conditions that made so many people desperate to leave.
And that’s exactly what I want to talk about. And listen, I’m not coming from a place of judgment here, because to be completely honest with you, I used to think the same way. I had absolutely no idea just how much our own government was responsible for the instability, poverty, and violence in countries all around the world. I certainly wasn’t taught any of this in school, and it wasn’t until I started digging into the history of American foreign policy that I began to understand just how much of the story we’d never been told.
So for this article, let’s focus specifically on Latin America, where the United States has overthrown 56 governments.
If you want a brief overview of these interventions and coups, check out this article:
But for this piece, I want to dive a little deeper into one of the most notorious CIA-backed coups in Latin American history: the 1954 overthrow of Guatemala’s democratically elected president.
And I think this particular coup is one of the best examples of just how deeply Americans have been conditioned to believe our government interferes in other countries to spread “freedom and democracy.” Because that’s what we’re constantly told, isn’t it? That we’re overthrowing foreign governments to protect innocent people and liberate them from oppressive regimes.
But in 1954, the CIA helped overthrow Guatemala’s democratically elected president to protect the financial interests of an American corporation.
And what was this corporation so concerned about protecting? Its banana plantations.
Yes, our government helped overthrow a foreign government over bananas.
So let’s get into it.
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STOP BELIEVING THE MEDIA
Whenever the United States wants to overthrow a foreign leader, Americans are almost always fed the same story by the media. We’re told he’s a communist, that he’s killing his own people, or that he’s some enormous threat to our national security. And of course, our government has absolutely no choice but to intervene.
But what Americans are rarely told is that many of the leaders the CIA has overthrown weren’t dictators at all. They were democratically elected presidents. And their real offense wasn’t oppressing their own people. It was threatening the profits of powerful American corporations.
So what does our government do? It helps overthrow these leaders and, in many cases, supports brutal dictators who go on to torture and murder the very people we were supposedly trying to “save.”
And Guatemala is a perfect example of exactly what I’m talking about.
THE BACK-STORY
In 1899, an American corporation called the United Fruit Company was founded, and over the following decades, it became so powerful in Guatemala that it practically controlled the country’s economy.
The company realized Guatemala had the perfect climate for growing bananas so it started buying up massive plantations. But apparently owning all that land wasn’t enough. They wanted control over practically everything involved in getting those bananas out of the country.
So United Fruit bribed the Guatemalan government to secure enormous tax breaks, control the railroads, and dominate the ports.
The company essentially owned 42% of Guatemala’s land, while paying almost nothing in taxes.
And what were the Guatemalan people getting out of this arrangement?
Plantation workers were earning 50 cents a day, with virtually no rights, little access to healthcare, and horrific working conditions.
So you’ve got an American corporation making an absolute fortune off the backs of Guatemala’s land and labor, while the people who actually live there are being paid next to nothing.
Then, in 1951, Guatemala elects a president named Jacobo Árbenz, who decides he wants to do something about this.
His plan is pretty simple. He wants to take unused land owned by these enormous corporations, compensate the owners, and redistribute it to poor Guatemalan farmers.
But of course, United Fruit could not allow that to happen. So they call up their buddies in the U.S. government and they tell them that Guatemala is going communist. Isn’t it interesting how often the word “communist” comes up whenever a foreign government threatens the profits of American corporations?
“Communist” is just code for “They’re no longer allowing us to exploit their country and steal their resources, so we need to overthrow their government.”
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THE CIA OVERTHREW A COUNTRY OVER BANANAS
So in 1954, the CIA orchestrates a coup known as Operation PBSuccess, and overthrows Guatemala’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Árbenz, and helps install a military dictator in his place. United Fruit gets to keep its land, and the American corporation’s profits are protected.
And what happens to Guatemala? The country descends into a devastating 36-year civil war, during which over 200,000 people are killed.
For decades, Guatemalans are subjected to massacres, torture, and political repression, with government forces responsible for the overwhelming majority of the atrocities.
Throughout the period of this genocide, the United States continued to provide military support to the Guatemalan government, mainly in the form of arms and equipment. The infamous guerrilla training school, the School of the Americas in Georgia USA, continued to train Guatemalan officers notorious for human rights abuses. The CIA worked with Guatemalan intelligence officers, some of whom were on the CIA payroll despite known human rights violations.
So an American corporation wanted to protect its banana plantations, the CIA helped overthrow a democratically elected government, and the people of Guatemala were left to suffer the consequences for generations.
All to protect the interests of an American fruit company.
And this is just ONE example of what our government has done to countries all around the world.
So if you have a problem with how many immigrants are coming into this country, maybe you should start directing some of that anger toward your own government.
Because let me ask you something. Would YOU stay in a war-torn country where there’s a very real possibility that you and your entire family could be killed? Would you willingly raise your children somewhere that their lives are constantly in danger?
Of course you wouldn’t. You’d do whatever it took to protect your family and give your children a chance at a better life. And why would you expect parents in other parts of the world to feel any differently?
So instead of blaming immigrants for fleeing their countries, maybe it’s time Americans started asking why those countries became so dangerous to live in in the first place, and what role our own government played in making them that way.
Because if you actually want to understand the immigration problem, you need to understand what’s driving people to leave their homes in the first place.
Did you know about the CIA-backed coup in Guatemala? Or is this the first time you’re hearing about it?
And if you want to learn more about the history of the CIA, including the 80+ coups it’s orchestrated all throughout the world, you’ll love my Forbidden Reading List. It’s completely free:
Relevant reading:
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