US Leaders Denied Voters' Oversight of Foreign Policy, then Provoked Russia's Criminal Invasion of Ukraine
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Cites for some facts are in Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise: 1875–1900 Origin of US War in Viet Nam, First Edition Revised (2021) See briandroesch.com
US Leaders Denied Voters' Oversight of Foreign Policy, then Provoked Russia's Criminal Invasion of Ukraine
On some important matters after World War II, US leaders cut voters out of the voters’ role of debating and deciding the general direction of foreign policy. This breach of democracy proved costly on Viet Nam in the 1960s, on a series of coups, and on Ukraine in 2022.
General direction of policy. In the years after 1945, US leaders attempted to seize control of Viet Nam to resume hidden “Colonial Relationships.” On Ukraine from 1991 onward, US leaders had peace at hand with the fall of the Soviet Union, but attempted to extend NATO into Ukraine on Russia’s borders. This was perceived as a threat, much like the 1962 Cuban missile crisis close to the US was perceived as a threat.[i]
State Department Report, November 1943, cover page
Russian Federation Sphere of Influence.
Credit. Documentary film
Свобода чи смерть, Freedom or Death 4:20
Rule. In US democracy, the voting public is supposed to decide the general direction of foreign policy. This proper role of US voters is spotlighted by Russell Mead. He is a Senior Fellow in the Council on Foreign Relations:[ii]
And while American foreign policy is studied in great detail by professionals and scholars, it must ultimately be debated and decided by tens of millions of voters. . . .
Omitting that role of US voters, some US foreign policy leaders in the 1940s set up a system in which US leaders would attack Viet Nam in the 1960s to re-establish “Colonial Relationships.” And, they would do over 40 coups, invasions, and destabilizations during 1945–2022. They drafted 682 reports setting up that system of resource control by force. But these leaders agreed that “The matter is strictly confidential, because the whole plan would be ‘ditched’ if it became generally known that the State Department is working in collaboration with any outside group.”[iii]
That system—resource control by force, rather than fair trade by diplomacy—marked an egregious change from US ideals. For, the US touted itself as a beacon of freedom. Such a change was a basic, general direction of policy. That was precisely the type of policy that all US voters should have debated.
Riding on this shift in power away from the public, US leaders in the 1950s failed to inform the public of the major, 1943 planning report titled, “The Future Status of Indo-China as an Example of Postwar Colonial Relationships.” This paper recommended seizing Viet Nam, but said it would require “a long and disastrous period of repression.”[iv]
That meant the US leaders were planning to attack Viet Nam—the real reason for the 1960s US-Viet Nam War.
With that report unknown among the general public, US leaders further failed to inform them of thousands of earth-shaking State Department consular reports, showing that US corporations had operated in Viet Nam during the 1870s–1950s, enabled by French invasion force.[v]
Consul report, p. 1, 1921.
This report is a sample of thousands
Voters had no way of knowing of those reports. Thus, voters had no way of knowing the real reason for the 1960s war. This deprived the nation of a voter debate on the real question: Should the US attempt to seize Viet Nam to continue the 1870s–1940s period of US and French corporations stealing, or should the US admit that Viet Nam had long suffered under 60-plus years of US colonial thefts and the people were fighting back?
Instead of telling the people of the thefts by US corporations, US leaders falsely blamed communists.
If public debate had occurred based on those true facts, it is highly likely the US-Viet Nam War in the 1960s would not have occurred. Two reasons stand out for this conclusion. First, when the public did learn of some lies by the leaders about the war, protests grew large, and the leaders had to withdraw from Viet Nam. Second, the US leaders’ attack on Viet Nam amounted to an invasion for resource control by force, but millions of Americans had recently fought in World War II AGAINST invasions by Germany and Japan to seize resource control by force. If the truth had been known, it is highly likely that US voters would have overwhelmingly rejected the US leaders’ wish to invade for resource control by force.
Not shackled by the facts, US leaders did the following coups for resource control by force, during and immediately after the 1960–75 war. [vi]
1960 Congo [Zaire] coup.
1962 Dominican Republic coup.
7–18–1962 Peru coup.
1963. Coups: Argentina and Guatemala in March; Ecuador in July 1963; Dominican Republic in September, Honduras in October.
Haiti coup during JFK’s presidency.
1964 Brazil coup.
1964 Bolivia coup.
1964 British Guyana force out. cooperativeresearch.org.
1968 Brazil coup.
1971 Bolivia coup.
1973 Chile coup.
1975 East Timor invasion coup.
1976 Thailand coup.
Those coups and the attack on Viet Nam became so harmful to the populations of countries subjected to them, that Bertrand Russell wrote in 1967 in a book titled, War Crimes in Vietnam:[vii]
. . . the system which has taken control of the United States and perverted its industrial life into a grotesque arsenal for a world empire. It is the vast military machine, the great industrial combines, and their intelligence agencies which are regarded by the people of three whole continents as their main enemy in life and the source of their misery and hunger.
By 1971, some government lies on Viet Nam appeared, when the top-secret Pentagon Papers were leaked to The New York Times by ex-Marine Daniel Ellsberg. The Times published them because they showed the government had lied to the public about prospects that the Viet Nam War would be lost.
The importance of the public receiving the truth, so it can decide the general direction of foreign policy, was the basis for the US Supreme Court decision upholding publication of the Pentagon Papers. The Papers were said to be “an official study of how the United States went to war in Indo-China.” The court upheld the publication because the public needed the truth, not falsehoods from government. In a concurring opinion, Justice Hugo Black wrote that “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”[viii]
Although the US Supreme Court had just ruled on the importance of government providing truth to voters, US leaders failed to inform the public about the series of coups and destabilizations after the war. (And, they never informed the public of the early colonial activity in Viet Nam, which was not covered by the Pentagon Papers.) Whenever a coup was discovered, the public became accustomed to saying, “They did it,” meaning the government did it. By this time, many in the public assumed that the public had no role in the general direction of foreign policy.
Cutting out US Voters Affected the Causes of the Russian Attack on Ukraine
On conflict about Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe, the US public has continued to assume it has no role in guiding the general direction of foreign policy. But since 1991, a general question on Ukraine has existed that the public could have debated and decided, to guide US leaders: With the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, should US leaders have followed the policy of US leaders at that time who said no extension of NATO was needed because no real threat existed, and various views of Russia on Ukraine could be pursued diplomatically?
In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Part of the reason was that President Putin of Russia is a thug and is trying to seize Ukraine to enhance Russia’s position as a world power. But part of the reason is not related to Russia’s leader, as Professor Paul D’Anieri (a top US scholar on the two countries) explains:[ix]
Conflict between Ukraine and Russia is based on profound normative disagreements and conflicts of interest, and therefore does not depend on mistakes by leaders on whom we can easily pin blame.
D’Anieri further explains about Ukraine:
Russia sees the two as “not just neighbors but brothers who will always hold the best feelings; who share a common history, culture, and religion; and who are united by close economic cooperation, strong kinship, and human relations.” [x]
Perceived threat from NATO When the Soviet Union folded in 1991, much of the basis of the Cold War in US-USSR competition ended, so a real chance presented itself for an enduring peace. For:
(a) USSR ceased to exist,
(b) Warsaw Pact ceased to exist,
(c) Russia was much weaker,
(d) those matters reduced the probability of Russia invading European countries, which had been dominated by the USSR,
(e) US and NATO forces, not extending east of Germany, were not a real threat to Russia, and
(f) negotiations over the statue of Ukraine would have taken into account Ukraine wishes for links to the West and for links to Russia, as well as the beliefs in Russia that Ukraine was a “brother” and that Russia, to be a world power, needed to keep a close relation with Ukraine.
(g) When East and West Germany united after the 1991 fall of the USSR, US leaders told Russia that that NATO would not be extended eastward from Germany.
But a few years later, US and NATO leaders extended to Russia’s borders in the Baltic region and said Ukraine “will” join NATO. That was different than the US had said; it appeared militaristic to Russia. Being on Russia’s border, it was seen as similar to Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962 having threatened the US.
If the US leaders had not broken the public’s role of oversight of general foreign policy, voters could have discussed the general question: Should voters reject US leaders’ aggressive wishes to extend NATO to Russia’s borders?
Is Ukraine Independent or a “Brother” with Russia? While Ukraine had some economic and military ties with Russia, Ukraine’s people voted overwhelmingly for independence in 1991. For centuries Ukraine has had distinct culture features of its own, such as in literature and the vernacular language of its farm people. And, it had many separate historical events. Its western half was under the Polish Empire for centuries, while the eastern third was under the Russian empire. Ukraine’s famed Cossack warriors, a different group from Russia’s Cossacks, lived in relative freedom, in exchange for battling the Ottoman Empire on behalf of the Polish government. These matters are discussed in the prior newsletter at: https://briandroesch.substack.com/p/ukraine-a-sovereign-nation-
NATO extension without US public debate. US leaders acted to extend NATO to Russia’s borders without allowing voters to debate the general direction of policy. The basic question was: After the USSR collapsed, Russia was not much of a threat to invade Europe, so why did NATO need to extend to Russia’s borders?
Conclusion. In view of the US leaders’ track record of the wrongful, “Colonial Relationships” attack on Viet Nam, and the wrongful coups for resource control, the US public should have been able to exercise its supervisory role over the general direction of post-Cold War relations with Russia and Ukraine. Instead, US leaders with their policy of resource control by force did not inform voters. Indeed, peace was achieved when the Cold War was won by the US. But now there is war.
On Ukraine, Russia, the US colonial attack on Viet Nam, and coups, the elimination of the public from its supervisory role on the general direction of policy has damaged world peace. US leaders don’t mention their own breach of the public’s role on foreign policy. They don’t tell the truth on the Viet Nam War. Instead, the erroneous claim that that war was because of a communist threat is used to gain support for their claim that recent wars are against terrorists, rather than patriots who, like in Viet Nam, oppose the US leaders’ wars for resource control by force.
[i] Council on Foreign Relations (1946). CFR Territorial Group, “The Future Status of Indo-China As An Example Of Postwar Colonial Relationships, T-B69,” The war and peace studies of the Council on Foreign Relations, 1939-1945. New York: The Harold Pratt House.
[ii] Mead, W. (2004). Power, Terror, Peace, and War : America’s Grand Strategy in a World at Risk. NY: Vintage Books. A Council on Foreign Relations Book; Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, p. 6.
[iii] Ditched. Grose, P. (1996). Continuing the Inquiry : the Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1996. NY: Council on Foreign Relations, p. 23; Wala, M. (1994). The Council on Foreign Relations and American foreign policy in the early Cold War. Providence: Bergahn Books, p. 31. Others agree not to share. Schulzinger, R. (1984). The wise men of foreign affairs: The history of the Council on Foreign Relations. NY: Columbia University Press, pp. 61–62. Not shared with public. Shoup, L. & Minter, William (1977). Imperial brain trust : The Council on Foreign Relations and United States foreign policy. New York: Monthly Review Press., p. 119.
[iv] CFR Territorial Group, “The Future Status of Indo-China As An Example Of Postwar Colonial Relationships, T-B69,”, pp. 1–2, 4.
[v] United States Consulate (1957). Despatches from United States consuls in Saigon, 1886–1906. Washington: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, Reel 1, chronological, unnumbered.
United States. Department of State. (1971). Records of the Department of State relating to internal affairs of France, 1919–1929. (National Archives micro-film publications: M560). Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, Reels 150–152.
[vi] Coups. Roesch, B. (2021). Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise: 1875–1900 Origin of US War in Viet Nam, First Edition Revised. Voter Knowledge Press, Appendix III. Colby, G. & Dennett, Charlotte (1995). Thy will be done : The conquest of the Amazon : Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the age of oil (1st ed.). NY: HarperCollins, pp. 14–15, 397, 411–412, p. 449, 472, 537–38, 624–40, 697, 703. 1964 Brazil coup. Chomsky, N., Barsamian, David, & Naiman, Arthur (2011). How the World Works (Real Story Series). Berkeley, CA: Soft Skull Press : Distributed by Group West, p. 26. 1964 British Guyana force out. cooperativeresearch.org. 1975 East Timor invasion coup. Goodman, A. (2007, October 1) Amy Goodman on East Timor. Youtube video, 00:10–00:26; Chomsky, N. (2011, April 27). Noam Chomsky on East Timor Part 1. Youtube video, 01:25–02:45.
1976 Thailand coup. Low, D. (1996). The egalitarian moment : Asia and Africa, 1950–1980 (Wiles lectures ; 1994). Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 77–78.
[vii] System regarded as source. Russell, B. (1967). War Crimes in Vietnam. London: Allen & Unwin, p. 120.
[viii] The Pentagon Papers, Justices Black and Douglas on “inform the people.” New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), espec. 717 (Black, J., concurring). Ellsberg, Secrets, pp. 256–257, 289, 383, Kindle locations 4928–4935,5515, 7192.
[ix] D'Anieri. (2019). Ukraine and Russia : from civilized divorce to uncivil war. Cambridge University Press, p. 2.
[x] D'Anieri, Ukraine and Russia, pp. 67–69, 147, 193–95.