Hi marcos; If it were possible to threaten people in order to get them to vote the way you want, then why is it that 90% of American blacks vote Democratic, and probably more than that in the American South?
Actual fact is that no matter what happens the US tends to get blamed.
I really don't feel bad about things that the US did back in 1920 &c. And I don't feel bad about things that the US did during the cold war, if they were directed at winning that war.
If you want to make me feel bad about things that the US has done, you're probably going to have to bring stuff up from after the fall of the Soviet Union. Here's some suggestions:
(1) Making the Kurds think that we liked them more than Turkey. (As if the Kurds hadn't heard this story a thousand times before from every other party of interest in Iraq, Iran and Turkey.)
(2) Blowing up the Asprin factory and other ineffectual actions against bin Laden.
(3) Bullying the Cubans for shooting down a private plane that was buzzing the presidential palace in Havana while at the same time the US installed Stinger missiles around the White House after someone flew a private plane into it. (And after the US had been asked to stop the morons who were pulling that dangerous stunt over Cuba.)
There's plenty of examples. But did the US threaten Nicaragua with retaliation if they re-elected Ortega?
It's possible some people in Nicaragua interpreted it that way, but I doubt it. Human tendency is to ignore that sort of pressure. Look at the Serbs with Milosevic.
It is true that American foreign policy has a strong tendency to not forgive people (or regimes) for past problems. That's the only explanation I can make for why the pointless embargo of Cuba persists. But this is not something that the American people have any control over, it's the f'ing diplomatic corps that does it, and they do it in a bipartisan fashion.
But the US pressure in Nicaragua is so tiny as to be laughable, as far as what's listed in the article you mentioned. Heck, Canada has its opinions as to which leader would be better for the US during our elections, Canada expresses its opinion on the subject, and we ignore them.
Maybe Bush will end the Cuba embargo. Eight years of Democratic rule didn't. In US politics, it sometimes seems that changes in stupid left wing policies have to be corrected by the Democrats and stupid right wing policies have to be corrected by the Republicans. Clinton, for example, brought welfare under control where no Republican administration had touched it.
-- Carl |
