Dave Barry Quotes

Such recognition is not necessary in order to enable the United States to intervene and pacify the Island.

The effects of U.S. intervention in Latin America have been overwhelming negative. They have had the effect of reinforcing brutal and unjust social systems and crushing people who are fighting for what we would actually call “American values.” In many cases, … we actually overthrew governments that had principles similar to ours and replaced those … leaders with people who detest everything the United States stands for.

The Government of the United States has always maintained that it would not intervene forcibly in the domestic affairs of the Central and South American Republics, and particularly of the island republics in the Caribbean Sea. Nevertheless, both the preceding national Administration and the present have felt no difficulty in using the army and navy of the United States for armed intervention in the affairs of some of those republics; and neither of the two great political parties in the United States has thus far shown any disposition to make an issue with either Administration on this subject.

I think that although we say we don't want to be the policeman of the world and et cetera, when 911 is dialed, it's the United States that has to answer the call.

The U.S. has intervened more often in more countries farther from its own shores than has any power in modern history.

People in Latin America... love America from afar and emulate America in some ways but also hate a lot of things that America does to them.

Roosevelt was the one who had the vision to change our policy from isolationism to world leadership. That was a terrific revolution. Our country's never been the same since.

Show me one dictatorship in the world that has not been supported by the United States government or some European governments. It almost doesn't exist. I think a dictatorship and hegemony are part of the same phenomenon.

Fiction is a very powerful tool for teaching history. The Philippines was the first Iraq, the first Vietnam, the first Afghanistan, in the sense that it was the United States' initial or baptismal experience in nation-building.

I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.

America is interested in re-arranging the region as it sees fit.

Warlords, dictators and terrorists are normally okay with the U.S., as long as they do the bidding of U.S. corporate interests.

I think the War on Terror is really absurd, especially coming from a country that is founded on terrorism.

The United States is not for democracy in Iraq, it's for setting up a puppet government.

Most governments in the United States in a hundred years have not respected the peoples of Latin America. They have sponsored coup d'etats, assassinations.

Vietnam was a lie but at least there was a political agenda. It was the domino theory. Iraq is about nothing but George Bush's ego laced with imperialist ambitions. And it was helped by your government.

And the fact that Haiti was occupied for 19 years by the United States, from 1915 to 1934.

And in Iraq we tried to implement the same policy that was so successful in Saudi Arabia, but Saddam Hussein didn't buy. When the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals.

Those strutting, heroic figures who destroyed Spanish rule were, it seemed, unable themselves to rule for any significant period of time, or to build lasting institutions. Worse, the cult of personality that grew up around them served as a precedent for the two most serious evils that were to afflict Latin America until well into the late twentieth century – popular dictatorship and caudillismo, military rule – which alternated in many countries, and even sometimes merged, with doubly tragic results. Latin America’s underdevelopment since independence, particularly as compared with the United States, has been largely ascribed to such misgovernment.

Kissinger's orchestration of political and military and diplomatic cover for apartheid in South Africa presents us with a morally repulsive record and includes the appalling consequences of the destabilization of Angola

It does not accord with the policy of the United States to acknowledge any monarchial Government erected on the ruins of any republican Government in America ...

It appears that Hawaii was taken possession of by the United States forces without the consent or wish of the government of the islands, or of anybody else so far as shown, except the United States Minister�. The provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States. Fair-minded people with the evidence before them will hardly claim that the Hawaiian Government was overthrown by the people of the islands or that the provisional government had ever existed with their consent�. By an act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority of Congress, the Government of a feeble but friendly and confiding people has been overthrown. A substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor to repair.

I helped make Mexico...safe for American oil interests. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank …. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.

In the 1920's U. S. Marines were periodically sent to Nicaragua to prevent the fiscal protectorate from revolution. The administration was accused of making war on Nicaragua:] We are not making war on Nicaragua any more than a policeman on the street is making war on passers-by.

Both Republicans and Democrats want to use our children as cannon fodder in order to police the world.