
William Blum, US Policy Critic Derided by NYT, Dies at 85 - cinquemb
https://fair.org/home/william-blum-us-policy-critic-derided-by-nyt-dies-at-85/
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peisistratos
The New York Times headline could be changed to "William Blunt, U.S. Policy
Critic Cited by bin Laden (U.S. erstwhile ally, armed by the CIA to overthrow
Afghanistan's secular government), Dies at 85".

Blum covered a lot of the US's Operation Cyclone in Killing Hope - the
financing and arming of bin Laden in his jihad against the secular Afghan
government in the 1970s and 1980s.

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starchild_3001
RIP. Oh, god when will US learn from its past mistakes? I did enjoy reading
Blum's books ~15 years ago.

"Basically it's US foreign policy which creates anti-American terrorists. It's
the things we do to the world. It's not, as the White House tells us, that
they hate our freedom and democracy. That's just propaganda."[8]

"It’s not clear how “unpopular” Blum’s views were—in a 2013 YouGov poll, 61
percent agreed with the statement, “In the long run, the United States will be
safer from terrorism if it stays out of other countries’ affairs”—but what is
certainly “not unique” was the Times‘ attempt to use an obituary to settle
ideological scores."

~~~
dgut
It's not US foreign policy alone that creates anti-American terrorists. You
don't see Cubans burning US flags or chanting N things against the US despite
>50 years of embargo and what not. You don't see the Vietnamese doing that
either. There is another element to it.

As a Cuban, I wish the US had intervened in Cuba when it had the opportunity,
back in 1959.

~~~
dsr_
If the US foreign policy apparatus hadn't had its head jammed quite so firmly
up its ass, they would have accepted the overtures of friendship from both
Castro and Ho instead of scorning them. Imagine Vietnam coming out of their
war for independence from France with a democratically elected government
starting in 1954. Imagine Cuba being the major US ally in the Caribbean and
primary vacation destination, with Fidel Castro serving as President from 1960
through 1970 in a constitutional republic.

Both of those scenarios were within the realm of possibility -- but not with
the Yale and Harvard asshats ruling the State Department.

~~~
oh_sigh
Imagine Cuba not being overtaken by armed rebels, and then keeping it living
in the 1950s for the next 70 years.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Is the US who kept it in the 50’s. It wasn’t even a socialist revolution. But
you must understand, they confiscated US property. That’s the crime they
committed.

~~~
darawk
> It wasn’t even a socialist revolution.

Was it not?

~~~
vidarh
It's "complicated".

Castro's "26th of July Movement" (M-26-7) originally had very limited
political goals. Beyond overthrowing Batista, they included some
redistribution of land and some degree of nationalisation of public services,
and confiscation of a lot of companies and property they considered basically
fruits of Batista's corruption, but beyond that there were wide disagreements,
and there certainly was not a clear agreed goal of introducing socialism at
the outset.

Castro had been on friendly terms with Batista for years before. Batista gave
him money for his honeymoon, and even considered him for government. Some saw
him as radical, but Batista at least considered him as a potentially viable
cabinet minister, despite himself being very much explicitly anti-socialist,
though of course it's possible Batista saw it as a way of pacifying him.

Castro may well have had exposure to socialist ideas before then, but at the
outset he was basically a nationalist with anti-imperialist views. It was
first after Batista's coup and crackdown on dissidents, that Castro seriously
started pushing a more radical agenda publicly.

Even them, after overthrowing Batista, Castro looked to the US as a potential
ally.

But when exactly Castro started supporting Marxist-Leninism is open for
debate. Castro denied it into '60 at least. Late in '61 he then claimed to
have been a Marxist-Leninist secretly for some years, but he clashed with the
more Soviet friendly parts of his own movement at times, and the Soviets
themselves doubted his sincerity - not least because of his past overtures to
the US, and how his "admission" coincided with increasing Soviet financial
support.

Whatever Castro was or was not early on, there was a decade long period of
Castro moving closer and closer to the Soviets where you can see the process
going in lockstep with each new US rejection and each new Soviet overture, and
where there's a very real possibility that the US could have turned Cuba into
an ally and encouraged more liberal policies. Of course we'll never know.

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ezoe
Recently, I've learned Nepal history just because I really like the nepal
curry at a restaurant nearby, .

In 2001, Nepalese royal massacre happened, and King Gyanendra crowned. He stop
the parliament and started absolute monarchism. Resulting civil war between
The King, the Politicians and the Maoists.

Guess which side US aided with weapons? The King!

Fortunately, all the political parties came to term quickly and threw out the
king, establish the parliament, publish interim constitution, separation of
religion and state, and the rest of the things democracy should have.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_royal_massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_royal_massacre)

To me, US is not a supporter of democracy and freedom, it's just a weapon
merchant.

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ncmncm
Recent Nepalese history is very interesting.

Someone machine-gunned the entire royal family except the one guy. He claimed
it was one of the dead, who had skipped killing him, and shot himself instead.
Everyone reported this as-is, without comment, ever since. I have never seen a
hint in print, since, that the new king had shot them all, although everyone
must have been thinking it.

All I can conclude is that no one knew when he might need to go to Nepal, so
could not risk writing anything that might turn out to endanger himself.

~~~
ezoe
Yeah. Very very suspicious. No proof though.

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sjburt
I don't understand what the NYT seeks to gain from this kind of headline.
Blum's positions were not unpopular or unusual, except maybe within the DC
bubble.

~~~
Gibbon1
> DC bubble

Far as I can tell, inside the DC Bubble they worship one thing and one thing
only; power.

The idea that they should have to deal with other countries and peoples as
equals or at least respect is alien to them.

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csours
When an organization puts its interests ahead of its ideals, you can do a few
things:

1\. Ignore it. I feel like this is the most common reaction.

1a. Accept the dissonance - hope the difference between interest and ideals is
temporary, etc.

1b. Accept that the ideals are only ideals and besides the other guy is
cheating anyway.

2\. Stay inside the organization and try to change it.

3\. Leave the organization and denounce it.

4\. Various "subversive tactics".

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Synaesthesia
Killing Hope is a must read. A chronicle of US interventions globally since
WW2, often supporting very reactionary and dictatorial governments against
democracy.

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tor_user
Washington post running the same headline, bravo whoever wrote the headline on
hn.

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starbeast
Reading the NYT obituary. It includes this gem;

>Mr. Blum repeatedly challenged the idealistic premise of American
exceptionalism and argued instead that world hegemony was Washington’s covert
goal, for economic, nationalistic, ideological and religious reasons.

You shouldn't try and parse meaning from that sentence without a respirator,
goggles and a crochet needle.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

