Posted on by rjonakait

Whither Venezuela?

President Trump hints that the United States will attack Venezuela’s homeland even though there is no declaration of war or other congressional authorization for such a hostile act. Trump has been a norm breaker, but in this instance, he would not be, for the United States has a long record of invasions and incursions into Caribbean countries. I heard from several people who had watched Ken Burns’s The American Revolution that his version was not the history that they had been taught in school. Even fewer of us were taught about our colonial adventures in Latin America.

Although Americans coveted Cuba throughout the nineteenth century and the United States had tried to purchase the island from Spain, America sent troops into Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Even though the conflict was concluded before the year’s end and even though Cubans had been fighting for their independence from Spain for decades, America occupied the island until 1902. We pulled out and allowed Cuba its independence only after she agreed to the Platt Amendment which permitted the United States to intervene when needed for “good government” and agreed further to lease us Guantanamo Bay in perpetuity for a handful of dollars. With the Platt Amendment as justification, we had troops in Cuba from 1906 to 1909, sent them back in 1912, and ruled Cuba militarily from 1917-22.

American troops, however, have been sent to more Caribbean places than Cuba. Using civil unrest as a justification, the United States sent troops into the Dominican Republic in 1916. They stayed there for eight years. More recently, 42,000 of our troops were ordered into the Dominican Republic in 1965. They left a year-and-half later.

We did not ignore the other part of Hispaniola. We occupied Haiti in 1915 and continued to do that for two decades, finally withdrawing our troops in 1934. In 1994, the United States again sent troops into Haiti to “restore democracy” and did again ten years later as part of a multinational force. Haiti, however, remains a troubled, failed country.

Our Haitian occupation was long, but we occupied Nicaragua even longer, from 1912-1933. We say that our Afghanistan war was our longest, but our armed forces were in Haiti and Nicaragua for nearly as long.

During the Mexican Revolution (1910–1917), the United States occupied Veracruz and sent troops to chase Pancho Villa.

We, however, intervened with more than just our military in Latin American countries. In 1954, the CIA led the overthrow of the Guatemalan government; the CIA directed the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Moreover, the United States has tried to coerce our neighbors through sanctions, boycotts, and embargoes including those on Cuba and Nicaragua.(We did not limit such actions to the Americas. Daniel Immerwahrin “The United States Is an Empire” collected in Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, Myth America: Historians Take the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past [2022], states that the United States during the Cold War secretly interceded sixty-four times in other countries to oust a government or tilt an election, often in support of authoritarians.)

Our actions in the Caribbean were designed in part to keep Europe out of the Western Hemisphere, following our self-proclaimed Monroe Doctrine, which, by the way, has no basis in international law. Thus, part of the reason for our occupation of Mexico’s Veracruz was to keep Germany, with whom Mexico was friendly, at bay. We occupied Nicaragua for those decades partly to make sure that no other country would build a waterway to compete with the Panama Canal.

Sean Mirski in We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and Rise of the American Colossus (2023) also suggests that the United States was discomfited by some countries’ debt. Some Latin American countries borrowed profligately from Europe and could not pay their bills. Under international law, the creditors were entitled to use force to collect the money owed to them. This was often a simple procedure when tariffs were the chief source of a country’s revenue. The creditors were allowed to seize the customhouse and collect the duties. The United States was concerned about this kind of European intervention in the Western Hemisphere with the additional concern that the Latin American countries would grant the Europeans more concessions in order to have their sovereignty restored. Facing these possibilities, America thought it was better for it to intervene and use the customs revenues to pay the Europeans. This was often beneficial for the Latin American countries where corruption was so endemic that little tariff revenue made its way to the public fisc. The Americans did not skim the money, or at least not at the same rates, as the native tax collectors. As a result, the debtor nation often saw its revenues increase.

Europe learned to play America in these circumstances. European interventions were expensive, and those foreign powers often actually wanted America to do it instead. America soon recognized that the debt and corruption problems would recur unless the countries became stable and lived within their means. This then required United States to become more involved in the internal affairs of the Latin American countries often leading to military interventions and authoritarian governments.

This pattern can be seen in the Dominican Republic which, in 1907, agreed that United States could appoint a receiver to collect customs duties until the outstanding Dominican debt was paid. Even so, or perhaps as a result, the next decade saw an eight-year occupation of the Republic by the United States.

America, however, intervened, invaded, occupied, and meddled because of more than concern about Europeans getting footholds in the Americas. We were also seeking to protect our own businesses. Our first occupation of Haiti came at the urging of what is now Citibank. Many American businesses urged the occupation of Veracruz. American companies often had massive holdings in Caribbean countries. For example, by 1926, United States companies owned 60% of Cuban sugar industry and imported 95% of the sugar crop.

The United States also claimed an interest in preventing communists from getting power in the Americas. For example, Lyndon Johnson said he was sending troops into the Dominican Republic to protect American lives and property but also to prevent establishment of communist dictatorship. Reagan placed embargoes on Nicaragua because of fears the country was becoming communist.

However, as Stephen Kinzer says specifically about Foster Dulles in The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War (2013), America foreign policy in general “could not distinguish between indigenous nationalism and imported communism.”

Furthermore, our foreign policy has often conflated support for large, multinational corporations with opposition to communism. Guatemala is a case in point. Seventy years ago, Jacobo Árbenz, the head of the Central American country, wanted land reform. He meant to purchase uncultivated acreage for the government to be redistributed among the people. Eighty-five percent of the United Fruit Company’s vast holdings in Guatemala were in those very uncultivated lands. The corporation cried “communism.” They cried even more when Guatemala offered to pay what United Fruit claimed the land was worth for tax purposes. The corporation wanted ten times that amount. Our country’s response: Overthrow the Central American government, which we did.

Over the years our interventions succeeded in keeping European countries from grabbing significant influence in the region. They also succeeded in increasing the profits and influence for a number of multinational companies. They may have kept the price of bananas and other commodities lower than otherwise. However, they did not improve the lives of most of those in the region, and they did not improve the working lives of most Americans. Finally, our actions did not lead to democracies or stable governments, and thus our interventions continued.

Now the United States seems poised for military action on Venezuela’s home soil. It is almost impossible to gauge the likelihood of success because the goals are murky. A stated goal has been the elimination of “narcoterrorism” to reduce overdose deaths in this country. If that were the real reason, we could declare victory now. Few of the drugs bought in the U.S. come from Venezuela, and these drugs cause almost none of the overdose deaths. Maybe we want Venezuela’s oil. They have a lot of it, and it’s being inefficiently managed. The real goal, however, seems regime change. We want Nicolas Maduro to leave office. Many people do. He is an illegal, brutal ruler overseeing a failing economy. It is not surprising that many citizens have now left Venezuela. But even if regime change is the goal, it is not clear why Trump and Rubio are singularly fixated on Caracas and not other countries with brutal rulers. Rubio may have a far too personal interest. His family fled Cuba, and Rubio has always resented Venezuelan support of Cuba.

History does not necessarily repeat itself, but history often holds lessons. We have forced many regime changes in Caribbean countries. Peace and bonhomie seldom followed. Instability with harsh conditions for the people of those nations often has. Whither Venezuela?

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets (Tariffs and Other Stuff)

Tariffs were controversial before the Civil War. Their benefits and detriments were not equal throughout the country. Brenda Wineapple reports in The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation (2019) that in 1832 the South Carolina legislature said that, if not repealed, a federal tariff was null and void and a ground for secession.

Tariffs were also controversial after the Civil War. They were the chief source of federal revenues until the early twentieth century. The issue was not whether tariffs should be applied but at what rate. As Troy Senik wrote in A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland (2023), tariffs had conflicting goals. Should they only be high enough to fund government or go further to protect American industry from ruinous foreign competition? Industry was best protected when tariffs were so high that almost no foreign goods were imported, but then little revenue was collected. On the other hand, tariffs set best for funding the government did not protect industry as much as higher taxes.

Troy Senik also says that Grover Cleveland correctly saw another conflict in tariffs: They helped to raise wages in protected industries, but this gain was offset by higher prices workers had to pay for goods

Friends talk about fleeing to Canada. But what is the point if Canada becomes the 51st state?

No friend talks about fleeing to Greenland. Perhaps that will be different when Trump builds Mar-a-Lago Northeast there.

Deputy Attorney Genereal Todd Blanche said recently that the Justice Department is opening a criminal investigation into a leak of “inaccurate, but nevertheless classified” intelligence about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. It comes as a shock that anyone in the Trump administration wants to keep false information secret.

Present policies show that the Republican party has abandoned much of what Ronald Reagan stood for. Nicole Hemmer in Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s states that Reagan, fueled by anticommunism, had “a preference for more open borders and higher immigration levels, for fewer tariffs[,] a stingier social net, [as well as] a more aggressive posture toward the Soviet Union.”

Under Reagan, the federal workforce grew by 200,000.

Because of tariffs, the United States has intervened militarily and politically in foreign countries. Sean Mirski in We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and Rise of the American Colossus (2023) maintains that our interventions in Latin America at the turn of 20th century and beyond were not primarily to protect American business interests but rather to keep European governments outside the hemisphere. Some Latin American countries borrowed profligately from Europe and often could not pay the money back. Under international law, the lender countries were entitled to use force to service the debts. This was often a simple procedure: Seize the customhouse and collect the tariffs. The United States was concerned about this potential European presence in the Americas and feared further that the Latin American countries would grant the Europeans concessions that would disfavor the United States. Consequently, the United States thought it was better to intervene in the debtor nations and use the customs revenues to pay the Europeans. Frequently, this was good for the invaded country since the Americans did not skim from the tariffs, or at least not as much as before, and the Latin American country often saw its revenues increase. Moreover, Europe learned that interventions in the Western Hemisphere were expensive. The European powers then often blustered about intervening to get America to do the expensive work. America soon recognized that the problems would recur unless the debtor countries became stable and lived within their means. As a result, the United States became more and more involved in the internal affairs of Latin American countries.

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First Sentences

“For most of Richard Nixon’s tenure as president, he had an insurance policy against impeachment and removal from office. Its name was Spiro Agnew.” Jeffrey Toobin, The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy.

“All children mythologize their birth.” Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale.

“The call to adventure came in libraries, in faculty offices, at campus football games.” Elyse Graham, Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II.

“It’s a Saturday morning, and I’m midway through my shift at the Winter Park Public Library when I see it.” Kristin Harmel, The Book of Lost Names.

“Two things happened the year I turned eleven: my father died and I became friends with my first professional chef, a guy named Jacques. Eric Ripert, 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line.

“The staff meeting of the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Egyptian Art was supposed to start at ten, which meant associate curator Charlotte Cross arrived at nine to prepare her colleagues for battle.” Fiona Davis, The Stolen Queen.

“If something begins when it acquires a name we can date the beginnings of fascism precisely.” Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism.

“You must leave as few clues as possible.” Richard Osman, We Solve Murders.

“Noon, 8 September 2021. Central Paris, Île de ka Cité, under a heavy police guard. For the first time, several hundred of us walk through the security gates which we’ll pass through every day for a year.” Emmanuel Carrère, V13: Chronicle of a Trial (Translated from the French by John Lambert).

“Secretary of War Edwin Stanton learned over the bedside of his good friend, Abraham Lincoln, and, tears spilling down his cheeks, spoke the memorable phrase: now he belongs to the angels—or the ages.” Brenda Wineapple, The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation.

“On a hot afternoon in May 2016, five miles outside the young petro-city of Fort McMurry Alberta, a small wildfire flickered and ventilated, rapidly expanding its territory through a mixed forest that hadn’t seen fire in decades.” John Vaillant, Fire Weather: On the Front Line of a Burning World

“On July 28, 1915, Rear Admiral Willaim B. Caperton stood on the quarterdeck of the USS Washington with a pair of binoculars at his eyes and several questions running through his head.” Sean Mirski, We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and Rise of the American Colossus.

“When Mac was three years old and Anya was five, they watched their mother get arrested for a seatbelt violation.” Alexandra Natapoff, Punishment without Crime: How our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal.

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First Sentences

“General Phillip H. Sheridan sat motionless atop his horse as the summer sun beat down upon him.” Sean Mirski, We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and Rise of the American Colossus. 

“My name is Lila Macapagal and my life has become a rom-com cliché.” Mia P. Manansala, Arsenic and Adobo. 

“Sometimes your body is someone else’s haunted house.” Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present. 

“I sometimes wonder what was disappeared first—among all the things that have vanished from the island.” Yoko Ogawa, The Memory Police. 

“On the morning of August 2, 1973, from his summer cottage in Goose Prairie, Washington, Justice William O. Douglas set in motion one of the strangest proceedings in the history of the United States Supreme Court.” Stephen Vladeck, The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic. 

“They crested the hill to see the winter sun hovering on the far horizon, a wide vista of pale grey hills and leafless woodland ahead and the dark ribbon of a river threading the valley floor below.” Christobel Kent, A Murder in Tuscany. 

“There was once a doe that was portal through time.” Sinclair McKay, The Hidden History of Code-Breaking: The Secret World of Cyphers, Uncrackable Codes, and Elusive Encryptions. 

“It was ten years since Mrs. Bradley had been at the institution known as Shafton.” Gladys Mitchell, When Last I Died. 

“Far below the walkway that circled the top of the Cook County courthouse, Chicago spread itself out beneath Mathias Schaefer, an ordinary fireman in the most fire-prone city in the world.” Scott W. Berg, The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul. 

“Bunky Millerman caught me from behind on the first day of Woody Wilson’s little escapade in Vera Cruz.” Robert Olen Butler, The Hot Country. 

“Yes, I do have a Texas connection, but, as we’d say in the Midwest, where I grew up, not so’s you’d know it.” Calvin Trillin, Trillin on Texas. 

“On a warm midsummer’s evening just before the end of the last century, in a book-lined lawyers’ office in the pretty town of Kent, Connecticut, I handed over a check for a moderate sum in dollars to a second-generation Sicilian-American, a plumber named Cesare, who lived in the Bronx but who had driven up in the lush New England countryside especially for the formalities of this day.” Simon Winchester, Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World. 

“His green-and-vermillion topknot was as colorful as a parrot’s, and in Colleton County’s courtroom that afternoon, with its stripped-down modern light oak benches and pale navy carpet, a cherryhead parrot couldn’t have looked much more exotic than this Michael Czarnecki.” Margaret Maron, Bootlegger’s Daughter: A Deborah Knott Mystery.