The resolution also calls for the declassification of all U.S. documents related to the coup and its aftermath.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and several other U.S. lawmakers introduced a resolution on Thursday that formally commemorates the 50th anniversary of the deadly 1973 military coup in Chile and apologizes for the role the United States played in the toppling of the Latin American nation’s democratically elected government.
The resolution also calls for the declassification of all remaining U.S. documents related to the coup and the events preceding and following it.
“Let me be clear: we must stand up for democracy here in the United States and beyond,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. “And that means we must also acknowledge that the United States has not always defended democracy abroad, and in fact, has sometimes done the opposite.”
“As we mark the 50th anniversary of the horrific coup in Chile, we must make clear that we regret our involvement and commit to supporting Chilean democracy,” he added. “To build the lasting partnerships we need in this hemisphere, we will need to establish a basis of trust and respect. Part of that process includes full accountability for the coup and its aftermath.”
The new resolution comes after Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) joined a group of U.S. lawmakers on a Latin America trip that included a stop in Chile, where the New York Democrat stressed the importance of declassifying the coup-related documents to shed more light on the Nixon administration’s role in the violent ouster of Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973.
I think USA is primarily a good force on this planet, and the fact that resolutions like this are possible emphasizes that somewhat. If it passes, even better, although that’s probably way too optimistic.
It’s very hard to agree with your first sentence if the second is so hard to become a reality.
Secondarily we’re a force for evil, so that tracks.
It’s easy when you realize that the real world is not comicbook -style good and evil. It’s a spectrum.
You don’t read a lot of comic books either, do you?
To finance a military coup and regime in a foreign country, committing or helping to commit magnicide while denying it to your citizens and the world in the name of democracy, is evil. After 50 years, apologizing for it is not absolutely “good”, I’d say it’s the absolute least you can do about it, after the fact. Seriously, you can do so much better.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. It’s a spectrum, and it’s relative. We can talk about optimal situation and utopias (sure, I’d love it if none of them were evil at all), but in the real world the big actors are evil countries and more evil countries. Unfortunately we don’t have a view into everything they’ve done, so we have to go by the little we know, and by the gut. My knowledge + gut says that USA is among the less evil countries. Yours seem to say differently.
Too bad this apology decades after the fact won’t undo what happened and won’t prevent the US from carrying out actions like this in the present and the future. It’s better than nothing, but in the context of the actual global policies of the US, it’s fluff. The US has always been good with PR, so I’m not surprised that you think this empty gesture is meaningful in any way.
Contrast the op with say, an apology by China for the tienamen square massacre. Oh wait…
Again, an apology without correcting behavior is meaningless. What’s the point of this apology if the US is still invading and couping countries on the regular? I’d rather no apology and just stopping that.
China and tankies outright deny that it even happened, really. You can see it even here, in some lemmygrad comments. So apologizing for it would be a fine first step since it would acknowledge it.
In what way is the USA a force for good? This isn’t the only coup that they have orchestrated, they have not only continued to do so since and will likely perform more in the future.
This is not to mention the other countless atrocities committed under its flag.