Military (Screw-up) involvement in Latin America

            During the Cold War the US State Department believed that any form of Marxism revolutionary movement could be used by the Soviets as proxy force. Oddly enough the US policy actually encouraged any kind of violent counterrevolutionary acts that spread across the area throughout the 1960s and 70s. For a country that always screams democracy from the mountaintops it seems a bit odd to favor violent tactics. Marxists in Latin America thought that Soviet Russia was fighting alongside them. In actuality the Soviets did not really care. Proxy guerilla forces in the US were far more powerful anyway.

 Too many in Latin America accepting Marxism meant that they were picking sides with the weak and poor who were among those who were wealthy as well as US multinational corporations. Even though they may not agree with the US Multinational corporations, the US’s strongest allies were those in the armed forces of Latin America. Almost the poster of anticommunism the US armed forces and Latin American armed forces were an alliance to be reckoned with. The US permanently aided the Latin American Armies in addition to training many at the US military’s School of the Americas. The main topic was how to fight guerillas. Latin American armed forces were considered the key to defending the free world from communism. The US armed forces were concentrated in the naval and air area against communist attackers. 

Meanwhile Latin America was to focus on revolutionary action within their own country. They were to go against, “’the internal enemies of freedom’” (287). This included poor neighborhoods, factories and even universities who were siding with revolution. To Latin America being allied with the US was seen as being on a glorious mission to defend the free world. In my opinion I see no reason as to why there has to be an internal attack on one’s own country. To me it would be easier to work out a deal instead of just attacking. By attacking universities, factories and neighborhoods innocent people will be involved. I highly doubt that children and the elderly will have any negative impact on the society much less have the ability to be a part of any revolutionary action. And now there is the US always crying out democracy like the boy who cried wolf. The reality is they most likely trigger dictatorship more than anything. 

I think that US involvement just made everything worse. Trying to change a whole society is like trying to set water on fire, it’s not going to work; it’s going to fail horribly. The US should have found a more economic and sensible approach.

 To me the approach is like me at 16 telling my mom that I don’t need my glasses to drive the Panera with my friends at night. Because I can drive in the day without glasses, means I can drive at night without glasses. But I need to wear my glasses by law when driving a vehicle... Not only does it not make sense, but it’s also dangerous. I would not only endanger myself and my family but the neighbors and everyone within the vicinity. That’s what the US stirred up in Latin America by telling them to turn their guns on their own people. They claimed to be helping but really nothing they did seemed to make sense as far as helping Latin America as a whole.

http://history.mit.edu/subjects/latin-america-revolution-dictatorship-and-democracy-1850-present
http://dh.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/2/277.short