Peter_deT t1_iur2qbx wrote
Part of the CIAs calculation was that the Castro regime was unpopular, and the landing would be greeted with enthusiasm. The marines were a backstop against pockets of die-hard resistance after the invasion had succeeded. As it happened, the local militia gave the invaders such a hard fight that it was obvious that any invasion would be prolonged and bloody. Hence Kennedy's call. Maybe Bush II should have read the memo?
Atilim87 t1_iur303s wrote
Then”we will be treated as liberators “ is a justification countries used for centuries and for some shocking reason it never holds up.
Grahamshabam t1_iur4udr wrote
people really hate being invaded
blahbleh112233 t1_iur91dc wrote
Also doesnt help that us backed regimes in south america have a nasty habit of gross human rights abuses
ezrs158 t1_iurarvx wrote
US backed regimes in South America everywhere have a nasty habit of gross human rights abuses. Cuba, Nicaragua, Egypt, Iran, Panama, etc.
blahbleh112233 t1_iurbtou wrote
Dont disagree. But from a propaganda perspective. SA mattered more. Pretty easy to tell the population that things will be much worsen when the US is in charge when you dont need to lie about it
Grahamshabam t1_iurcocn wrote
that’s not very relevant here. Bay of Pigs was 7 years before Operation Condor, and it also ignores Soviet influence on Cuba. not judging the merits of communism but any country that aligned with the soviets isn’t likely to treat the capitalist invasion as liberators
CanuckPanda t1_iureiw7 wrote
It doesn’t, however, ignore the entirety of the Monroe Doctrine.
The US government had treated the Americas as its personal political sandbox for 140 years by the time of the Cuban Revolution. South and Central Americans already had generations of experience with “American interests” in their lands.
Grahamshabam t1_iurmur2 wrote
Along with generations of experience in spanish influence, french influence and were in the midst of soviet influence
the united states obviously has caused huge problems in south america but you’re being overly simplistic. the biggest thing that gets left out of these discussions is that while the us-backed coups were against democratically elected leaders, there were also large parts of the populations that supported the coups.
to this day you can talk to older chileans who have complicated feelings about pinochet because of how much they disliked allende. allende’s party didn’t even have a congressional majority at the time when they were still a democracy. these countries aren’t ideological monoliths and those leaders may well have seized power without the US’s help. switching to my personal belief is that the big issue is that we messed with the right of south americans to self determination, and the actual political outcomes are way too complicated for outsiders to talk about confidently
alekk88 t1_iut1i2p wrote
They had no need to look south to figure out what being in a us-backed regime is like. They just had to remember what it was like for decades before Fidel reached Havana
Flavaflavius t1_iuspikx wrote
Regimes everywhere have a nasty habit of human rights abuses; we don't call them that if they don't.
ComradeGibbon t1_ius65di wrote
I read a paper on the difference between NGO's and the military doing non military projects in foreign countries. Turns out locals tend to just grumble if an NGO does something unpopular. The military no matter what it is results in hard resistance.
rockrnger t1_iurj8qo wrote
Castro invaded cuba with 50 guys and boat. And the first thing he did was sink the boat.
Davebr0chill t1_ius4308 wrote
Castro was cuban and actually popular with the lower classes. This is fundamentally different from another country invading
alekk88 t1_iut2580 wrote
And then he won against a national army supplied by the United States
anarrogantworm t1_iurcrxv wrote
In the War of 1812 American warhawks were saying they would be welcomed as liberators of Canada and Jefferson said it would be 'a mere matter of marching'.
Painting_Agency t1_iurhi68 wrote
We welcomed the opportunity to burn Washington DC 🤷♂️.
BaronCoop t1_iusaor5 wrote
Oh come on! We JUST finished painting everything!
recycled_ideas t1_iuro0mq wrote
> for some shocking reason it never holds up.
It doesn't never hold up, it happened quite often during WW2.
But it requires
- That the people you're liberating feel in need of liberation.
- That they believe that your intention is to actually liberate them.
The US view of Cuba is heavily distorted and doesn't match the experience on the ground and the US was 100% intent on returning Cuba to US investors not to the people of Cuba.
Containedmultitudes t1_iut4yz4 wrote
I feel like liberating a people from a different foreign occupier is the sticking point with WWII. Even the Nazis had some of that good will in their invasions of Eastern Europe (although the people quickly realized the Nazis had no liberatory intentions).
ItsAlwaysSmokyInReno t1_iurvqjk wrote
It always true. Vietnamese soldiers were seen as liberators by the Khmer peoples when the Khmer Rouge was deposed by them and a puppet state was put in their place. But you’ll tend to side with anyone who wants to fight the guys genociding your family
Raging-Fuhry t1_iusnmha wrote
But Vietnam was fighting a defensive war, they didn't need it as justification.
24111 t1_iuthvlh wrote
Didn't help the sanctions from piling on though. That chapter of history gets buried way too deep from public consciousness given who the supposed "democracies" were supporting.
Kered13 t1_iuv298y wrote
He's not talking about the Vietnam War, he's talking about the Third Indochina War, in which Vietnam invaded and occupied Cambodia. Vietnam was very much not fighting a defensive war there.
Raging-Fuhry t1_iuv2hxo wrote
I know lol, why else would they be fighting the Khmer Rouge.
They were fighting a defensive war against an aggressive and probing Cambodia that was in kahoots with China, Vietnam's long time nemesis.
I'd say it was defensive when the Khmer Rouge starting killing Vietnamese villagers on the border.
Kered13 t1_iuv4tj0 wrote
The Khmer Rouge started the war by raiding Vietnamese villages, but the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia, which was the vast vast majority of the war, was not a defensive operation. I don't know if maybe you're taking this as some kind of moral judgement, because it's definitely not. It's just a fact that an invasion is inherently offensive.
Kered13 t1_iuv2c4l wrote
Cambodians were happy to get rid of the Khmer Rouge, but they were not happy with the Vietnamese puppet government or the Vietnamese soldiers who remained for years. There is a reason that the Third Indochina War lasted 16 years and ended with Vietnam's withdrawal.
24111 t1_iuthnrb wrote
Up until the end where the occupation turned extremely unpopular, and afaik plenty of Cambodians don't see that favorably today.
They still had a way better justification than the US got anywhere hilariously enough, but that didn't stop the sanctions. And Polpot were pretty much alive and well still at the end of the occupation, supported by Thailand.
mikechella t1_ius31z2 wrote
>for some shocking reason it never holds up.
Except when it does.
eranam t1_iuskbrk wrote
Garibaldi nods smugly
Zimmonda t1_ius03ih wrote
Ehhh its worked quite a few times
Napoleon is the most famous but coups and regime change rarely require the "full consent of the populace"
BartholomewBandy t1_ius71ol wrote
France in 44? South Pacific, same time? Never?
Teantis t1_iusj9pk wrote
Being treated as liberators wasn't used as a 'justification' because the allied side didn't need a justification, they were fighting a defensive war to begin with. It was the Japanese who actually used the liberators line saying they were throwing out the western colonizers to create an Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Nazis, of course, used next to no justification. Their whole ethos was based on having the will to take what you want.
Liutasiun t1_iustues wrote
You're very wrong about the nazis. Their justification for all conflicts of the appeasement were about the people there veing Germans or the territory being rightful 'German' territory. Austria, then Sudetenland, then Danzig. So that is pretty much the "liberator" justification, just liberation by adding them to their country. They even did a false falg ooeration where they pretended Poland was invading them to muddy the waters further
Teantis t1_iut71bx wrote
Initially, only because they were using the language of the western allies to leverage them into not acting. All the ones you cited were before any of the allies joined the war. Beyond those initial gains it was their actual motivation of pure conquest, Barbarossa and onward they dropped all pretense.
Japan kept up their Asian co prosperity sphere messaging throughout.
Liutasiun t1_iutilez wrote
I'd hardly call it just 'using the language of the western allies' considering it was always used extensively in terms of inward propaganda. One of Hitler's major promise was reversing Versailles, which included the territorial loss Versailles represented.
You are right that after they were at war with the Allies they didn't use that justification anymore, but that was probably in part because at that point they already occupied all of the territories they could even possibly claim as belonging to Germany. I still am not sure I'd say they had 'next to no' justification. They of course used the "Lebensraum" bit were they argued Germany needed more territory for the 'Arian' race. But they also used standard red scare tactics. The official justification for Barbarossa was that the Soviets were planning to attack the nazis (which, given a couple more years, very well might have happpened).
Meritania t1_iusznk5 wrote
Napoleon was shocked that when the coalition entered France there was no guerrilla war against the foreign invaders like there was in Spain.
Chenksoner t1_iurhp5f wrote
Rarely, wouldn’t the Ukrainians when being invaded by the Nazis be an example?
Containedmultitudes t1_iut4ju1 wrote
> The most extravagant idea that can take root in the head of a politician is to believe that it is enough for one people to invade a foreign people to make it adopt its laws and constitution. No one likes armed missionaries; and the first advice given by nature and prudence is to repel them as enemies.
Robespierre, unsuccessfully lobbying against the French revolutionary wars.
FriendoftheDork t1_iuuxlzr wrote
It held up fairly well in 1944 though.
props_to_yo_pops t1_iusnhe1 wrote
Apparently no one translated that into Russian. (In the 80s or now)
[deleted] t1_iur9yxp wrote
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TripleSecretSquirrel t1_iur992r wrote
And the whole plan was just a fuck up from the beginning.
It was all planned for a different location, then changed last minute without adjusting anything.
Dulles even mentioned privately afterward that he always knew that the invasion would very likely require US air or naval fire support but just assumed that when things were going down, Kennedy would agree. Kennedy did not agree to intervene militarily though.
More than anything, this is on Allen Dulles.
ChessTiger t1_iurjtlo wrote
The United States thought the same thing when we went blundering around in Iraq.
GreatCornolio t1_iutabpz wrote
There were a lot of people over there happy/open to it. That went away after about two weeks of lawlessness and looting tho
Kered13 t1_iuv2jpe wrote
> Maybe Bush II should have read the memo?
Well Saddam was genuinely unpopular. There's a reason his regime collapsed nearly overnight and most of the Iraqi army simply fled. The problem in Iraq was our complete lack of understanding of the factional tensions and our inability to establish a competent and popular government.
AgoraiosBum t1_iuy5sio wrote
There was a refusal to understand - the head of the Joint Chiefs opined that we'd need 400,000+ troops to ensure law and order and a stable country and was fired for giving that opinion to Congress.
And then after the US went in light with just 130,000, Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army. The insane thing is that he just kind of did it on a whim. The pre-war plan called for the end to Saddam's favored units - the Iraqi Republican Guard - but a significant use of the army in reconstruction efforts and the creation of a new Iraqi government. Bremer and his team looked at that and decided it would be hard, so he decided to just order the army to disband (rather than even try to pull things together and establish order), sent a memo up the chain, and it was approved based on his recommendation in Baghdad. But it was never discussed by the Joint Chiefs, by the National Security Council, or the State Department. Nuts.
[deleted] t1_iuyxoza wrote
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