CanuckPanda t1_iureiw7 wrote
Reply to comment by Grahamshabam in When it comes to Cuba's military victory at the Bay of Pigs, does Che Guevara deserve any credit or should it be assigned exclusively to Castro's leadership? by Anglicanpolitics123
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
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