More Hypocrisy From The U.S. Government

Politicians from both American political parties like to brag about the United States being the bulwark of freedom and human rights, and a nation that exports those ideas to the rest of the world. We are even told that the U.S. government actively works to oppose human rights abuses and institute democratic reforms around the world. I wish that was true, but if it ever was, it no longer is (and hasn't been for a long time).

The truth, whether we want to admit it or not, is that there is something much more important to our government and the politicians that run it than freedom, democracy, or human rights. That something is corporate profits. There are countless instances of our government supporting brutal dictatorships (or monarchies) when there was money to be made by the giant corporations. And there are an equally large number of instances where our government helped to overthrow democratically-elected governments because they were viewed as a threat to corporate profits.

It is common knowledge, although many Americans prefer not to believe it, that the United States government was an active participant in the overthrow of democratic-elected governments in Iran and Chile. The reason was that these governments were socialist-inclined, and were likely to seize their own natural resources (oil in Iran and copper in Chile) and use them for the betterment of their own people rather than the enrichment of American corporations. And these two examples are far from the only times the U.S. government has interfered in the affairs of foreign countries for corporate benefit.


The Chilean affair is one of the reasons that few Central and South American countries trust our government (and why many of those nations have reacted positively to leaders like Hugo Chavez, who stand up to the U.S. government). In Iran, the overthrow of their democratic government and the installation of the Shah (a brutal dictator and puppet of America) is the primary reason why the Iranians both fear and distrust the U.S. government.

And there are many times when the U.S. government has been on very friendly terms with brutal foreign leaders (a couple of examples are Marcos of the Philippines and Mubarak of Egypt - there have been many others). That is because these leaders, for their own enrichment, allowed U.S. corporations to steal the resources that should have rightfully belonged to their people.

Today, one of the "best friends" of the United States government is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That country is ruled by an absolute monarch, and democracy is nothing more than a joke there. As for human rights, there are none that are not granted by the king, and those can be taken away at his whim -- and no country has a worse record of human rights when it comes to women. But none of that matters, because the king allows American oil companies access to his country's vast oil resources, and he and his family use much of the money from that to invest in other American corporations. Democracy and human rights are not a concern, because there are corporate profits to be made.

And now we are acting to further prop up this brutal regime and insure their survival. The U.S. government has announced it is selling another 84 F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia (about $30 billion worth). In addition, the U.S. will upgrade another 70 F-15's that we previously sold them. This will insure the Saudi's have the most powerful air force in that part of the world (with the exception of Israel). That should keep the corporate interests of the military-industrial complex happy (and rich).

Remember this, and understand the next time you hear an American politician (of either party) talk about spreading democracy and human rights, they are not really talking about democracy and human rights. Those are just code words for insuring more corporate profits. It's just a "benefit" of living in a plutocracy instead of a democracy.