humanitarian imperialism

[Dennis Breslin]

Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> 
> >Maybe it is a surprise to you, but no 'military intervention' by
> >imperialists was ever undertaken for the purpose of saving some oppressed
> >people's lives, nor will be in the future, for all their rhetoric --
> >period.
> 
> I was just reading chunks of Eric Thomas Chester's book, Covert
> Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee, and the
> CIA last night, because it's got some stuff on Irving Howe &
> Dissent's relation to the U.S. imperial project (further grist for
> the anti-Dissent mill <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/Dissent.html>).
> The IRC was founded in the 1930s by socialists, after World War II it
> morphed into a imperial partner of the CIA. It used lots of
> humanitarian rhetoric to get liberals and social democrats to sign
> onto the Cold War in the 1950s. The wife of an IRC bigwig, Joseph
> Buttinger - another socialist turned Cold Warrior - gave bundles of
> money to keep Dissent afloat in the 1950s, and Buttinger himself was
> deeply involved in U.S. Vietnam policy in the 1950s. He wrote an
> article for the magazine in 1959, in Chester's words, that presented
> "a glowing picture of the Diem regime, while ignoring its many
> faults. Rather than provide its readers with an account of U.S.
> policy in Vietnam by a critical observer with expert insight, the
> editors of Dissent published a detailed defense of official actions
> by a participant in the very events being analyzed, a participant
> with intimate, albeit covert, ties to the intelligence community."
> 
> The relevant point here is that the the CIA used the IRC to get
> liberals and social democrats who might otherwise have objected to
> U.S. Vietnam policy in the 1950s and early 1960s to sign on. And
> their rhetorical strategy was to emphasize humanitarian concerns,
> specifically refugees and medical aid. Rhetoric and strategy have
> hardly changed over the last 40 years, though the liberals and social
> democrats are a lot easier to woo than they used to be - and
> sometimes they're the most enthusiastic interveners.
> 
> Doug

For what its worth, kids, seems like folks in the old socialist
crowd sought out and or used the CIA for their own practical,
political, ideological interests.  Not a terribly novel or new
twist eh?  I mean really, the story is too easily told about how
the CIA is the force that sucked otherwise ideologically pure types
into the dark side.