Overthrow

Most Americans are outraged by Russian interference in our 2016 election. That’s because we hold dear our right to self-determination without another country determining the outcome. On the other hand, the USA has a long history of not showing the same kind of respect for the self-determination of other nations that we expect for ourselves. This book describes in shocking detail the fourteen times our country has overthrown legitimate governments – some duly elected – around the world. This is not dry history, however; Kinzer’s retelling reads like a suspense novel. The first instance came in 1893 when the American ambassador in Hawaii conspired with American planters to overthrow the native government of Queen Liliuokalani. It took 100 years for the U.S. government to recognize the error of its ways. A resolution passed Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1993 states that Congress, “apologizes to native Hawaiians on behalf of the people of the United States for the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom on Jan. 17, 1893,” and for the subsequent “deprivation of the rights of Native Hawaiians to self-determination.” Unfortunately, there has been no similar apology to the peoples of Iran, Cuba, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Guatamala, Vietnam and Puerto Rico. Hawaii is the 50th state. If Puerto Rico ever becomes the 51st, perhaps then another apology will be forthcoming. Following Hawaii, the second overthrow came at the end of the Spanish-American War, when the McKinley administration decided to take control of several Spanish colonies, instead of liberating them to govern themselves. The “consent of the governed” did not matter to most Americans when it came to Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Filipinos. Before Congress agreed to declare war on Spain, the Teller Amendment had to be added to gain sufficient support. That Amendment declares that “the people of the island of Cuba are, and of right ought to be, free and independent. The United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island.” Once the war ends. the USA intends “to leave the government and control of the island to its people.” Cuban rebels had been actively fighting Spanish rule three years, and they expected to gain their promised independence fighting alongside the Americans. Nonetheless, the Teller Amendment was quickly discarded at the end of the war as McKinley announced that the USA would rule Cuba. The new policy was embodied in the Platt Amendment of 1901, “a crucial document in the history of American foreign policy,” because versions of “plattismo” were subsequently applied to many nations in Central America and the Caribbean. Under this Amendment, which was adopted with only Republican votes, the USA agreed to end its occupation of Cuba as soon as Cubans accepted a constitution giving the U.S. the rights to maintain military bases, to supervise the treasury, and “the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence or the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of property and individual liberty.” Cubans weren’t the only Latin Americans denied self-determination. Similar domination happened to Nicaragua and Honduras, initially to protect the monopolies of a handful of American banana corporations. This interference led to generations of dictators, conflict and death. To this day, Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate, in part due to American policies. The greatest tragedy happened to the Philippines. The Filipino guerilla leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, understood that his people were promised their independence by Admiral Dewey, who later swore he made no such commitment. The USA paid $20 million to Spain for the islands. Meanwhile, the rebels had elected an assembly, produced a constitution, and proclaimed the independent Republic of the Philippines in 1899, with Aguinaldo as president. The new government was determined to defend its independence. McKinley had other plans. The war to suppress Philippine independence lasted three years and led to tens of thousands of deaths. Recent estimates put the total at 250,000. U.S. troops used torture and massacre of civilians suspected of aiding the guerillas. The New York Post wrote that American troops “have been pursuing a policy of wholesale and deliberate murder.” This war was one of the worst episodes in Filipino history. Filipinos were denied their independence until 1946. The first CIA overthrow of a foreign government was in Iran in 1953. The second came the following year in Guatamala. Both countries had democratically elected governments, and both were forcibly replaced by dictators – the Shah in one, and a former army officer in the other. The long-term effects were tragic. The next target for overthrow was in 1963 when JFK decided to remove the Diem regime that the USA had installed in South Vietnam. A friend of America, Diem was murdered and the war was lost anyway. Chile was the next target. The CIA had interfered in elections there since 1964 to prevent a socialist from winning. After Salvador Allende won, the CIA fomented his overthrow in 1973, installing a brutal dictator, Gen. Pinochet. Other targets were the governments in Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, and Iraq in 2003. Kinzer compares George W. Bush to William McKinley: both believed they were morally justified, and neither anticipated the deadly insurgencies that followed in the Philippines and in Iraq. “Do as I say, not as I do,” isn’t persuasive for children, much less to the rest of the world. American officials frequently assert the right to intervene militarily or otherwise whenever and where ever it is deemed in the American interest to do so, even to protect the interest of American corporations. “In almost every case,” writes Kinzer, “overthrowing the government of a foreign country, has, in the end, led both that country and the United States to grief.” Consequently, Americans should recognize the sources of anti-American resentment, and be less hypocritical in denouncing other nations who follow our example. If it’s wrong for others, then by what principle of international law is it justified when we do it? ###

I will not repeat the many excellent comments here except that Kinzer writes very well, making the read fascinating and factually solid. Other points: I think Kinzer made it fairly clear that the deposed leaders were not necessarily great or without flaws. The point is that when we went into these countries and replaced their democratically elected leaders with our puppet leaders, most of them turned out to be difficult to overthrow despots and tyrants. This left the fledgling democracies no chance to learn whether that elected official was good or bad, and gain more experience and time to develop their political parties and election processes. Instead, it repeatedly developed an environment where the only groups that could overthrow those puppets were fanatics and zealots, who grew out of the resentment of the American interference and the suffering of the country under quasi American rule. Besides, who are we to point fingers at the less than perfect elected leaders of other countries? The economic aspects of the overthrows were clearly an essential part of the pattern. However Kinzer stresses that the politicians had their own geo-political reasons for stepping in - often using the nationalization of companies as an excuse to hide their motives. The nationalization process is often misunderstood and Kinzer did a very good job of pointing out this rarely had much to do with anything but mild socialism. Instead, it was a response to the centuries of imperialism that allowed developed countries to take over so much of the underdeveloped world - almost exclusively those that had valuable resources to develop. During that phase, many companies became international power houses by developing those resources and selling them - with minimal compensation to the country whose economic futures were being plundered. Iran in '53 was looking at the incredible profits of the companies who developed the oil industries, yet hardly met their agreed payments to the country for being allowed to get rich off the resources they were given access to. This is still happening with globalization. Multinational corporations go into small countries with some agreement to have access to the resources, including cheap labor, and few restrictions on how they treat the employees, environment or invest some of the profit money in the country to help it gain it's own economic footing. It has been mentioned that countries operate on their own self-interest. They have reason to operate on enlightened self interest and do so far more than the corporations. Many figured this out and have formed coalitions to fight it. This book is important information Americans need to understand, in order to grasp the foreign policy deceptions that have been foisted on us by our government and the high profit media. James Pfiffner, professor of poli-sci at George Mason Univ, addressed presidential lying in a `99 essay (Presidential Studies Quarterly). He identified a hierarchy of presidential lying, some of which he considers justifiable: -Lying about personal matters that do not affect national policy or security. [Duh?] -Lying to foreign governments can be a necessary element of diplomacy. -Lying about matters of national security (Eisenhower denying U-2 flights over USSR) National security is where Pfiffner finds the worst errors because they are "lies of policy deception". The president says he is doing one thing, while in fact, the military, CIA, NSA or other agencies are doing something else. This is where he nails the issue for me: These lies are inexcusable because they deceive "the public about the direction of government policy" and deny voters the opportunity "to make an informed choice [which] undermines the premise of the democratic process". His examples are Johnson's escalation of the VN war and the Gulf of Tonkin deceptions. Nixon's secret bombing of Cambodia (14 months), and Reagan's lies about Iran/Contra. We need to develop the awareness in American voters about what has been done in our names, with our tax money; while being deceived about the real reasons - or even that we were doing it covertly- so we could not vote or contact our representatives. A variation of taxation without representation, let alone ignoring the grassroots American conviction that we don't support interfering with other countries governments. Kinzer's book is an excellent text for this enlightenment. I also consider it essential for dissemination on a much wider scale.

This is a fascinating book about all the countries the US has overthrown beginning with Alaska and ending with Iraq. The only reason I didn't give this book a five star rating is because the reader may become exhausted over the repetition. By repetition I'm referring to how our country has minimized other countries beliefs and by covert operations or invasion, destroyed relationships. One may become weary to the point of thinking, oh no not again! The author presented great detail and explanation as well as the author's summary of events. So, I'm not blaming the author, I'm blaming our country. We have entered into covert operations over threats by foreign countries, or more accuratly, perceived threats, to outright miss reading the tea leaves. And every other reason one can think of such as transportation, lumber, bananas, Pepsi and of course oil, to name a few. We have invaded because of poor intelligence or perhaps just to show the world how strong we may be. The only element we have been consistent in; is how we left these countries. Usually destroyed and defenseless from the internal parasites that pop their heads up once we leave. We have succeeded in leaving these countries, at best, only a bit better for a short time. Now they have no infrastructure, no single governing body and opportunities for those wishing to rob the country of resources and a sustainable economy. So, yes this book is worth reading. I very much enjoy this author's writings and literary style. His research is phenomenal. I have read at least five of his books thus far.

As a lay student of American history, I've always been fascinated with how our country has conducted itself overseas in the wake of Manifest Destiny. While I have picked up an article or analysis on particular U.S. interventions here or there, I have never come across a holistic treatment of the issue - until now. The wait has been worth it. "Overthrow" was not only painstakingly researched, but also written in the tone of historical fiction - although it is historical fact. Kinzer is a great story teller, inviting his reader to pull up a chair and watch the drama and intrigue unfold at close range - all the better to be revulsed. Some wonderful asides - for example, the replication of the John Foster Dulles study on a Texas campus, pickled for posterity - add great color. The author's segmentation of his narrative, allowing the reader to get a brief (perhaps all too brief) snapshot of the impact of American intervention on a given set of countries and form his or her conclusions, is also quite helpful. And there are some occasional surprises by the author, such as when he chides JFK for failing to lead his brain trust to an obvious conclusion regarding what to do (or not to) about the Diem regime and when he pays George W. Bush the backhanded compliment of stating that he has engaged in nation-building (cleaning up after one's mess) more than many of his interventionist predecessors. Kinzer does a fine job expounding on his premise that corporate interests play a large role in driving U.S. foreign policy and explaining why the axiom "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" can often prove fallacious. He does an even better job striking an important cautionary note regarding how Washington's rationale for intervention is deftly wrapped in the cloth of patriotism and The Mission of Democracy and signed, sold and delivered to the public. By and large, Kinzer takes a clear left-of-center view of things. The reader who is not a card-carrying liberal will need to weigh the author's words carefully. Kinzer seems overgenerous at times in ascribing American democratic ideals to virtually all of the leaders who found themselves at the other end of Washington's power games, and in fact some of his background on these leaders (land redistribution, nationalization, Czech weapons imports, etc.) weaken that assertion. Some readers may also quibble with Kinzer's definition of what is equitable in the world of business affairs (his endorsement of a strict 50-50 split of revenues from oil drilling in Iran begs the question of the role of Western technology and expertise in getting the black gold out of the earth). And then there is the issue of the historical quotes: are they as accurate as they read or must the reader assume them to be the best paraphrase of a conversation historically available, even though direct quotation marks are used? Despite these reservations, there's no denying that "Overthrow" is a fast-moving catalogue of many of America's gaffes, sins and self-delusions, foisted upon the world stage with serious and far-reaching consequences. We Americans are still paying a price. It's just that, until this book, most of us didn't know it.

Every American should read this to better understand where we are now, and the global mess we continue to make.

I’m from the Caribbean twin island nation of Trinidad & Tobago. I bought this book primarily for a rudimentary understanding of many (all would be too ambitious) of the instances America contributed to a foreign government’s overthrow. While this book achieves that, it was somewhat a victim of its own ambitions. It covers the “overthrow” of FOURTEEN countries in 322 pages. Some countries got their own chapter; others were mixed into a single chapter depending on their degree of interrelatedness. This occasionally made for slightly confusing reading because it was a little tough to keep track of the various leaders, players and plots afoot. With no more than a chapter dedicated to any one country, I often got the sense that pertinent details were being glossed over, overly simplified or left out altogether in favour of succinctness. Being familiar with Chile and Iran’s overthrows, I could see where this was the case. Despite the above, this book still deserves 5 stars. As it is, it’s an excellent starting point in the American intervention conversation; one can now choose which country’s details to delve into, while maintaining a general understanding of many others. Frankly, this is a must-read for Americans who want to understand one of the main (certainly not only) reasons for anti-Americanism. The gap between America’s pro-corporate actions and pro-democratic rhetoric in its foreign policies is somewhat well known, if only in principle, throughout the world, yet some Americans seem relatively oblivious. This book gives high level details. As a non-American, my previously stated aim for buying this book is actually nestled in my overall interest in geo-politics – to better understand current world events and relationships in the context of historical events. So I suppose if anyone (American or not) wants a better understanding of ongoing geopolitical circumstances, this book would be helpful although I’m not sure it’s absolutely necessary. I personally wanted some broad views before delving into Russia, China and the Middle East, although after having read this book, Latin America became even more interesting. Finally, this book was written over a decade ago and only casually mentioned a few things that for me highlighted the parallels between Trump’s and Reagan’s election and Trump the man and George W Bush the man. Reading this in the wake of Trump’s first 2 weeks as president was downright terrifying. Why? Because the personal biases, ideological leanings, short-sightedness and international ignorance of American presidents and their inner circles, coupled with the corrupting influence of corporate interest (which is stronger now than any previous time in history), shaped the lives of millions of people throughout the world in significant and often negative ways. All this done under benevolent, and mostly false, pretences. History has already repeated itself. So, definitely worth the read.

"Overthrow" by Stephen Kinzer is a historical synopsis of the sundry regime changes, coups, revolutions and topplings of foreign governments sponsored by the United States. Covered are actions in 14 countries: Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Panama, Nicaragua, South Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Honduras and Afghanistan. The bottom line, in the author's view, is that such actions are never worth it in the long run. This direct quote from page 320 of "Overthrow" is instructive: "In almost every case, overthrowing of a foreign country has, in the end, led both that country and the United States to grief". Depending on his or her outlook, readers could carp with the author about such a blanket statement. Liberals and conservatives will surely disagree but one must credit Kinzer with taking a firm stand and expressing his opinion clearly. One could also justly complain that the author drives home the same points over and over." Yet, "O" well-written and well-researched. It is easy and fast reading with a boredom quotient of near zero. It is especially recommended for those with little historical knowledge of the United States' activities in these areas but a curiosity to know more. This reviewer was one of those folks but arming oneself with such knowledge may well be ultimately disquieting-the USA does not always wear the white hat. Those who can deal with Kinzer's one sided approach and are willing to be slightly discouraged should enjoy "Overthrow". Approaching with an open mind will certainly enhance the prospects for happy reading.

'Overthrow' does a very good job of showing that overthrowing and destabilizing regimes, rather than being the exception, is the dirty reality of the US Empire. The first example cited here is Hawaii, and the overthrow of the of the Monarchy, to make a government ready to do the bidding of powerful families involved in sugar and other raw materials, as well as the equally odious Christian missionaries. However, beginning before the US Civil War, fully half of México was stolen and annexed to the US. Attempts we're made to expand chattel slavery to Nicaragua, among other countries of centroamerica. The history of the US in the second half of the 19th Century is one of conquest and colonialism. After the Second World War the newly created CIA, the successor to the wartime OSS, got to work by destabilizing Italy to ensure the defeat of the Partido Comunista Italiano (PCI) the party that had led the fight against the fascists and had enormous prestige in Italy. By dirty tricks and the spending of vast sums of money, the Christian Democrats gained power, quite willing to do the CIA's bidding. The trade unions in France were broken, again because they were largely aligned with the PCF, the French Communist Party. Germany, where they ensured that the reunification of Germany, as a non-aligned state, was made impossible. Iran, Guatemala, a failed attempt in Cuba, and on and on across the globe, the US used its unparalleled power and resources to mold countries to our liking, or destroy them in the process. Indonesia is one grievous example, and US Imperialism run rampant defines the 1960's-70's in South America, Chile, Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay,Bolivia and Peru is not a complete list, but the outcomes were despairingly similar: kidnappings, disappearances, torture (ably aided by US torture experts, such as Dan Mitrione, a USAID 'police specialist' in Uruguay, who was kidnapped and executed by Leftist guerillas. In summation, a very sound overview of US foreign policy, colonialist and Imperialist. A good companion work to Kinzer's 'The Brothers', about the demonic duo of John Foster and Allen Dulles, who were given a remit by Eisenhower to do as they wished.

Exposes the US as the worlds biggest war monger nation and it didn't start with the overthrow of Hawaii.

Great book about the history of American backed coups around the world

He iniciado su lectura, y hasta este momento lo encuentro imparcial

Kinzer has probed the many instances of US/CIA/Military involvements in overthrowing democratically elected leaders around the world because they didn't like their politics or their desire to own their own natural resources.

Uma série de casos acerca da dominação político-econômica estadunidense em todo mundo, fartamente documentado. Do Ocidente ao Oriente, a investida desta dominação apenas visa à consolidação do poderio hegemônico dos EUA, sem piedade mas municiado com muito cinismo, muita chantagem e grande dose de lawfare. No caso do Brasil, também mencionado no livro, é assustadora a sua presente atualização.