History will judge us either way. Well we be remembered as a short sighted people who failed to control out border and disappeared as a nation, or one that controlled our border and provided safety and security to ourselves and our descendants?
When our poor neighbors to the south were suffering did we spend billions to help them out or did we spend billions to wall them out?
I agree that history will judge us.
Why do we have an obligation to spend billions on them? Do their nations have no wealth or natural resources to avert such suffering? Mexico, for example, has just as much natural resource per captia as the United States, but their distribution of wealth is radically different than ours. Let history judge that.
List of Latin American and Caribbean countries by GDP (PPP) - Wikipedia
1954: Guatemala[edit]
In a CIA operation code named
Operation PBSUCCESS, the U.S. government executed a
coup that was successful in overthrowing the democratically-elected government of President
Jacobo Árbenz and installed
Carlos Castillo Armas, the first of a line of brutal right-wing dictators, in its place.
[63][64][65] The perceived success of the operation made it a model for future CIA operations because the CIA lied to the president of the United States when briefing him regarding the number of casualties.
1912–1933: Nicaragua[edit]
The U.S. government
invaded Nicaragua in 1912 after intermittent US military landings and naval bombardments in the previous decades. The U.S. was providing political support to conservative-led forces who were rebelling against President
José Santos Zelaya, a liberal. U.S. motives included disagreement with the proposed
Nicaragua Canal, since the U.S. controlled the
Panama Canal Zone, which included the
Panama Canal, and President Zelaya's attempts to regulate access by foreigners to Nicaraguan natural resources. On November 17, 1909, two Americans were executed by order of Zelaya after the two men confessed to having laid a mine in the
San Juan River with the intention of blowing up the
Diamante. The U.S. justified the intervention by claiming to protect American lives and property. Zelaya resigned later that year. The U.S. occupied the country almost continuously from 1912 through 1933.
1900s–1920s: Honduras[edit]
In what became known as the "
Banana Wars," between the end of the
Spanish–American War in 1898 and the inception of the
Good Neighbor Policy in 1934, the U.S. staged many military invasions and interventions in
Central America and the
Caribbean.
[18] The
United States Marine Corps, which most often fought these wars, developed a manual called
The Strategy and Tactics of Small Wars in 1921 based on its experiences. On occasion, the
Navy provided
gunfire support and
Army troops were also used. The
United Fruit Company and
Standard Fruit Company dominated
Honduras' key
banana export sector and associated land holdings and railways. The U.S. staged invasions and incursions of US troops in 1903 (supporting a coup by
Manuel Bonilla), 1907 (supporting Bonilla against a Nicaraguan-backed coup), 1911 and 1912 (defending the regime of
Miguel R. Davila from an uprising), 1919 (peacekeeping during a civil war, and installing the caretaker government of
Francisco Bográn), 1920 (defending the Bográn regime from a general strike), 1924 (defending the regime of
Rafael López Gutiérrez from an uprising) and 1925 (defending the elected government of
Miguel Paz Barahona) to defend US interests.
[19] Writer
O. Henry coined the term "
Banana republic" in 1904 to describe Honduras.
