Should the U.S. do "Non-Intervention"(i.e., No More Coups)Treaties w/Latin America, Asia, & Africa?

[Ken Burch]

(note: I'd have said "the countries of..." there, but there wasn't enough room in the thread title space).

President Obama has four more years. He no longer needs to worry about appeasing the hawks and the neocons. He could use this time to make history and totally change the way the world sees us.

Do you think it's time for the U.S. to say "we were wrong every time we blockaded, destabilized, or overthrew a government in the developing world in the past, and we won't ever DO that(or help cause that)again"?

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[Ken Burch]

1. It would be nice if those voting "no" would say why. n/t.

[Riftaxe]

2. Basically you are asking if it is time to become isolationists

and that we are so ignorant of history that we think only internal politics lies behind our previous actions, many of which i disapprove of.

As for apologies they are made out of the same ephemeral fabric of campaign promises, and have as much substance.

[Ken Burch]

3. Are there no choices but A)"isolationism" and B)not even promising not to stage coups?

It's not as if any U.S. interventionism in Latin America, Asia, or Africa(at least SINCE 1945)has had any progressive or humanist results.

Every time we've overthrown a government in any of those places, all that's ever come of it was unrelenting misery. It would have brought nothing but misery and increased poverty if we'd overthrown Fidel, too.

How can it ever again be defensible to use the kind of tactics we still seen our government use, and use recently, in places like Honduras and Haiti?

[Dokkie]

4. I say we stay isolationist

with our military until we balance the budget or provide every American with affordable university education. The US is just to broke to be playing the world's police man, let switzerland do it

[Ken Burch]

5. It isn't even "isolationism"...just "common decency".

The fact that it was wrong to do nothing to stop Hitler(the situation that gave birth the term "isolationism&quot does not mean that it is now obligatory to be ready to send in the Marines or Seal Team ONE in EVERY situation...and generally as the default option.

There has to be some sort of positive, non-brutal way for this country to interact with the world.

[Riftaxe]

6. Yet there is also misery when we do not intervene.

misery has hardly ever been an index for intervention, and as the arab spring turns towards winter...sometimes the cure is worse then the disease.

Either way it is hardly acceptable, the real question is when is it time for us to intervene i suppose?

The actions in Latin America I am probably more familiar with since they are more my time, I honestly cannot say I approve of most of them, I always hated that we backed the wrong rebels in Nicagura.

[Ken Burch]

7. There can be misery in situations in which we do not intervene...

but the question you always have to ask is whether our intervention could have prevented or even minimized that misery...or whether it might not have made it worse.

We should have offered sanctuary to people from Rwanda(also Bosnia and Kosovo, for example)when they were in humanitarian crisis-but it's not clear that the attempts to impose or abet "regime change" were useful in saving anyone from suffering.

I thank you for the thoughtful post...there are always complexities in these situations.