\u201cThere are three stages. In the first one, the government that we don\u2019t like shows bad faith by bothering an American company. Then we convince ourselves that this country is our geo-political enemy. And we sell the intervention as humanitarian intervention,\u201d<\/em> says Kinzer, who currently lectures at Brown University, in his introduction.<\/p>\n \u201cWe only do it to help them. We don\u2019t do anything for ourselves; in fact we sacrifice ourselves for the good of others,\u201d<\/em> he adds sarcastically.<\/p>\n Guatemala, where the CIA installed a right-wing government in 1954 before backing a series of strongmen, shows the more covert Cold War-style meddling. Libya serves as a more modern example, where the media, activists, and international organizations created a public campaign of demonization and \u201cred lines\u201d<\/em> leading to armed involvement.<\/p>\n Read more<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2011, Muammar Gaddafi looked like he might be about to carry out a human rights atrocity. So we decided it was time to participate in an operation to overthrow Gaddafi. In that operation, of course, he was killed,\u201d<\/em> says Kinzer. \u201cSo we succeeded in the short term goal: get rid of Gaddafi and depose that government. But then what happened, we didn\u2019t have a plan for what was going to come next. We thought that by magic, some peaceful regime would emerge, everybody would cooperate, sing songs together.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n But after the 15-year disaster of Iraq, the disappointment of the Arab Spring, and the brutality of Syria where even Washington seems to have forgotten who it supports, will lessons be learned?<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States, at least in a relative sense, is declining in power in the world,\u201d<\/em> reasons Kinzer. \u201cWe\u2019re not used to this. We\u2019re not ready for this. Psychologically, Americans have always been on top. We think of ourselves as always getting our way. And we\u2019re entering into a period when that\u2019s not going to be so easy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Watch \u2018Coups R US\u2019 on May 16 on RTD website<\/a>\u00a0and on \u00a0RT\u2019s live feed<\/a>. The time of the broadcast is available on\u00a0RT\u2019s schedule page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the new RT documentary Coups R US, prominent American journalist Stephen Kinzer examines the rationale and impact of Washington\u2019s interventions, from complacent colonialism in Hawaii to regime change in Libya. \u201cThere are three stages. In the first one, the government that we don\u2019t like shows bad faith by bothering an American company. Then we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":361398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-361397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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