American Exceptionalism Part III: Strive for a Better America

This is the final part of a three-part post. This post begins with a continuation of a non-comprehensive list of American shortcomings.

3. Continued mistreatment of immigrants

The last two points I will share in this post contain a common thread: hypocrisy. In this case, the hypocrisy comes as America simultaneously claims to be a nation of immigrants and mistreats and dehumanizes whoever happens to be the current wave. In the past this has been variously Eastern Europeans, Catholics, and East Asians. Now it is Latinos. At almost no point in the history of the nation that prides itself on being a nation of immigrants (which it only is because it wiped out nearly the entire native population, as chronicled in the previous point) has there been a time when the current wave of immigrants has been welcomed with open arms. This hypocrisy needs to be addressed because it is very much in existence today.

4. Failed meddlings in other countries’ business

While most Americans are at least aware of the first two issues, and possibly the third, even if they push them to the corners of their minds, this is an important issue that I am afraid many people are ignorant of. The CIA has confirmed involvement in 7 coup d’etats in other countries between 1953 and 1973. Here is a chart and a map chronicling these overthrows:[i]

Year	Country	Leader	How Leader Came to Power	Succeeded By
1953	Iran	Mohammed Mosaddegh	Democratically elected	Dictatorial Shah
1954	Guatemala	Jacobo Arbenz	Democratically elected	Military junta
1960	Congo	Patrice Lumumba	Democratically elected	Dictator
1961	Dominican Republic	Rafael Trujillo	Military power	US-directed elections
1963	South Vietnam	Ngo Dinh Diem	Democratically elected	Military junta
1964	Brazil	João Goulart	Democratically elected	Military junta
1973	Chile	Salvador Allende	Democratically elected	Military dictatorship

The 7 officially confirmed CIA-assisted coups

This, again, is only the list of countries the CIA has officially admitted involvement in. This list does not count, for example, the many failed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba or the (illegal) arming of the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s. Some of these stories, however, are even more disturbing upon an investigation of the details.

Iran

This story is incredibly important as it explains why Iran hates us so much, and probably deserves its own blog post considering its import to current foreign policy. Here are the basics: Mohammed Mosaddegh was elected Prime Minister of Iran in 1951. At the time, BP (British Petroleum) was a major presence in Iran (along with other foreign oil companies), drilling Iran’s oil and making its own profit. Mosaddegh made the mistake of nationalizing Iran’s oil in order to keep Iran’s wealth in Iran, upon which the British MI6 asked their American counterparts to get rid of the popular Mosaddegh. They complied, returning power back to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah (monarch). The Shah was pro-US and was a ruthless dictator to his own people. The US continued to prop the Shah up until his dictatorial regime came crashing down in the revolution of 1979 (depicted in the movie Argo). One of the main reasons Iran hates the US is that the CIA overthrew their incredibly popular leader and replaced him with a ruthless dictator.

Guatemala

Jacobo Arbenz was elected President of Guatemala after a revolution that overthrew a US-supported dictator. At the time, United Fruit Company, an American corporation, owned large portions of Guatemalan land and underpaid Guatemalan workers, to the point where United Fruit made twice as much money as the government of Guatemala. Arbenz instituted land reforms, which hurt United Fruit and benefited Guatemalan businesses, thus prompting United Fruit to ask the American government to support a coup. Although Arbenz’s reforms helped most of his own people, the American corporation was successful in its lobbying and the CIA overthrew Arbenz and installed a military government instead. Today the United Fruit Company is known as Chiquita International.

Congo

After being terrorized first by King Leopold II of Belgium from 1885 to 1908, and then by Belgian parliament from 1908 to 1960, Congo finally overthrew its colonial overlords and gained independence. The Congo Free State, as it was called under Leopold’s singlehanded rule, could also easily be the topic of its own blog post, but to make an extremely long and sad story short, the King of Belgium ran the Congo as his own personal colony for 23 years, during which he made ridiculous sums of money by using the native population as slave labor. During those 23 years the population of the territory decreased by half. When he was finally forced out of power, Leopold had to give it up to the country of which he was king. Upon gaining independence, the Congolese elected Patrice Lumumba, an extremely popular Prime Minister. After being rejected by the American government, Lumumba sought help for his fledgling nation from the other great world power: the Soviet Union. Because of this, the CIA helped overthrow Lumumba and eventually installed Joseph Mobutu, a corrupt dictator.[ii]

These are just a few of the times the American government has stepped in to ostensibly “spread the cause of democracy” and utterly failed to do so. In addition to the overthrows of multiple popular, democratically elected officials, almost every venture into the Middle East, driven largely by the American dependence on oil, has been a complete failure, only increasing by steps the hatred most in the region feel (I would argue that it is a justified hatred) for the United States.

I will grant Ben Carson this: if the only events taught in APUSH were those I just outlined and other similarly terrible things, ISIS might actually seem like a viable alternative to what could be construed as a 250-year terrorist regime. There needs to be a balance of the good and the bad. To me the biggest good is this: America is a work in progress. There have been positive events as well, and I believe those are important to teach, but the idea that this country can be improved is what makes living here worth it. It is what makes learning about the negative aspects of America’s history important. We can avoid repeating some of the same mistakes, but only if we acknowledge that they happened. America was not created perfect—the Constitution’s 27 amendments alone can attest to that. I believe, however, that it is better now than it has been at most points in our history. Sometimes we take a “one step forward, one step back” approach, but things are getting better. I think awareness of continued racial strife is growing, and change follows awareness—not always as fast as we want, but eventually. If APUSH is taught well, it should leave students not wanting to join ISIS, but rather desiring to make their country better. I will conclude with a poignant excerpt from President Obama’s speech on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, commemorating the 50^th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday”:

What could be more American than what happened in this place? What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of America than plain and humble people -- the unsung, the downtrodden, the dreamers not of high station, not born to wealth or privilege, not of one religious tradition but many -- coming together to shape their country's course?

What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this; what greater form of patriotism is there; than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?[iii]

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[i] http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/20/mapped-the-7-governments-the-u-s-has-overthrown/

[ii] Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible gives an inside look at these events and is an incredibly powerful work of historical fiction.

[iii] The complete text of the speech can be found at this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-reifowitz/the-selma-speech-obamas-a_b_6846610.html and this is the video of the speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SoG4KZOvRc