ABC News Finds South Africa's Opinion Relevant, Ignores US History of Intervention
ABC News reports on protesters in South Africa condemning US intervention in Venezuela and calling for Maduro's release. A refreshing glimpse, perhaps, into how the rest of the world views Washington's 'democracy promotion' efforts. What the report conveniently skips is the long, documented history of US-backed coups and destabilization campaigns across Latin America, from the 1973 overthrow of
Allende in Chile to the 2002 attempted coup against Chávez in Venezuela, which the US effectively endorsed. This isn't just 'intervention'; it's a pattern of systemic undermining of sovereign nations, often for resource control or ideological alignment, that South Africans, with their own history of fighting apartheid (which the US also supported for decades), are acutely aware of. One might
wonder why ABC News highlights foreign criticism of US foreign policy only when it's safely distant, rather than connecting it to decades of covert operations detailed in US government archives (try the National Security Archive for a start). Is it merely a 'human interest' piece, or a subtle acknowledgment that Uncle Sam's 'help' often looks suspiciously like empire-building to anyone not living
in the Beltway? It's almost as if the 'international community' isn't just Western Europe and Canada, but actual global populations with inconvenient memories.