Responding to Clinton Barb, Sanders Blasts US Imperialism in Latin America

'The key issue here was whether the United States should go around overthrowing small Latin American countries,' says Bernie Sanders

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/03/10/responding-clinton-barb-sanders-blasts-us-imperialism-latin-america

Hillary Clinton's interventionist record in Latin America is being called into question after Wednesday night's Democratic presidential debate saw her and rival Bernie Sanders sparring over the U.S.'s role in the region.

"Is Hillary Clinton a credible voice for condemning support for despots and human rights abusers?"
—Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

When asked about his past support for Latin American leaders Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Fidel Castro in Cuba, and to explain "the difference between the socialism that you profess and the socialism in Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela," Sanders declared:

What that was about was saying that the United States was wrong to try to invade Cuba, that the United States was wrong trying to support people to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, that the United States was wrong trying to overthrow in 1954, the government -- democratically elected government of Guatemala.

Throughout the history of our relationship with Latin America we've operated under the so-called Monroe Doctrine, and that said the United States had the right do anything that they wanted to do in Latin America. So I actually went to Nicaragua and I very shortly opposed the Reagan administration's efforts to overthrow that government. And I strongly opposed earlier Henry Kissinger and the -- to overthrow the government of Salvador Allende in Chile.

I think the United States should be working with governments around the world, not get involved in regime change. And all of these actions, by the way, in Latin America, brought forth a lot of very strong anti-American sentiments.

[...] The key issue here was whether the United States should go around overthrowing small Latin American countries.

Clinton, on the other hand, "was at her all-out reactionary best, expressing contempt for the likes of Cuba and refusing to acknowledge her support for policies that have sown discord in the hemisphere," according to a TeleSUR analysis.

For the former secretary of state, the key issue was Sanders' past support for political revolutions in Latin America.

"I just want to add one thing to the question you were asking Senator Sanders," she said. "I think in that same interview, he praised what he called the revolution of values in Cuba and talked about how people were working for the common good, not for themselves."

"I just couldn't disagree more," Clinton continued. "You know, if the values are that you oppress people, you disappear people, you imprison people or even kill people for expressing their opinions, for expressing freedom of speech, that is not the kind of revolution of values that I ever want to see anywhere."

In a series of intermittently sarcastic tweets Wednesday night, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill blasted Clinton and her supporters for taking a revisionist view of Latin American foreign policy.