Economic Leverage Quotes
Most American policy makers have believed that food should not by used as a weapon on moral and humitarian grounds. Butz was an ultra-conservative who were among the few that were willing to use food to achieve political opbjectives even it it meant starving people in other countries.
This is an excellent example of the delusion that many Southerners functioned under regarding the importance of cotton to the economy of the nation. There were New York merchants and some New England ship owners who profited from the export of cotton, but cotton contributed very little to the economy of the North and the Midwest while it was essential to the South representing a huge percentage of their output. Industrialization was growing all over the country except in the South where slavery and cotton both held it back. When the South finally decided on war, they did not realize that the North would be able to embargo their cotton exports nor did they realize how little the rest of the country needed the cotton industry It was another great example of political hubris.
In the Chinese Civil War, the Communist forces under Chairman Mao had ousted the Kuomintang forces from the mainland. Most of the Kuomintang army retreated to Formosa and established Nationalist China. But an entire Kuomintang army moved into Burma without any consent of the Burmese. In effect, they had invaded. The Kuomintang army was stronger than the entire Burmese army and in effect controlled whatever part of the country they wished to. Further, they were growing opium poppies and were deep in the illegal international drug trade. Burma asked the UN to pressure Chaing Kai Chek and the nationalists on Formosa to transport the army out of Burma and to Formosa. However, the American conservatives were staunch allies of the Nationalists and blocked any efforts to pressure them to do anything which they did not wish to do. So the US official policy was that the Nationalist troops should be withdrawn but there was little pressure behind the policy. Thein, observed that solution could be easy of the United States so wished it. Finally, the troops were withdrawn and Burma was free.
