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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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