Gang Violence? Or Geopolitical Blowback from Decades of US Intervention?
📰 THE STORY: ABC News presents a photo gallery highlighting police efforts against 'gangs' in Haiti and Guatemala, along with a state of emergency in the latter, while vaguely mentioning political prisoner releases in Venezuela and Chilean wildfires. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: In 2004, the US orchestrated the second overthrow of democratically elected Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, using international pressure and security forces. This destabilized the nation, installing an unelected government and creating a power vacuum that facilitated the rise of the very gangs now battling police. In Guatemala, the US-backed 1954 coup against democratically elected Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán for the United Fruit Company initiated decades of brutal civil war and
state-sponsored violence that birthed powerful criminal networks, many with ties to former military elements trained and funded by the US. Double Standard: When powerful governments use force to control rebellious populations, as in the US intervention in Latin America or Israeli actions in Palestine, it's framed as 'stability operations' or 'self-defense.' When the inevitable chaos and 'gang
violence' erupt years later due to those interventions, it's blamed solely on the affected nations' own 'failure,' never on the initial foreign interference. The term 'gang' effectively depoliticizes the complex socio-economic and historical roots of the violence, making it an internal problem rather than a symptom of imperial meddling. Follow the Money: The US has consistently provided military