by Mickey Z.
 It would be nice to believe that the U.S./British invasion of Iraq may have
been horribly mishandled but the motivation behind it was sincere. After
all, it's a timeless classic: toss out a depot and introduce democracy.
However, even the most perfunctory glance at previous U.S./British ventures
would promptly expose the lies. An excellent example is post-WWII Greece.
Before the (so-called) Good War, Greece was a right-wing monarchy and
dictatorship, but German occupation gave birth to a civil war. The National
Liberation Front (EAM), an extremely popular left-wing group, and the
People's Liberation Army, the guerilla resistance wing of EAM, gained the
support of the masses and were largely responsible for Greece being
relatively Nazi-free by the time the British army arrived in late 1944.
Viewing EAM's early support by the Greek Communist Party and its tendency
towards unrealistic slogans like education for the illiterate and welcoming
women as soldiers as a precursor of what post-war Greece may be like, a
British army of intervention promptly stepped in to restore the right-wing
dictatorship.
In response to the inevitable jailing and repression of regime opponents and
trade union leaders, a left-wing guerilla movement sprang forth. By the fall
of 1946, this friction led to civil war. Great Britain, no longer able to
extend itself globally, was unable to handle the rebellion and called on the
U.S. for help. "Thus it was," explains author William Blum, "that the
historic task of preserving all that is decent and good in Western
Civilization passed into the hands of the United States."
The U.S enthusiastically took on the task of ferreting out communist
traitors (despite the fact that the Greek rebels were not receiving any aid
from the Soviet Union) by setting the standard for its Cold War
interventions: it sent military advisors and weapons to Greece. "In the last
five months of 1947," writes Howard Zinn, "74,000 tons of military equipment
were sent by the United States to the right-wing government in Athens,
including artillery, dive bombers, and stocks of napalm. Two hundred and
fifty army officers, headed by General James Van Fleet, advised the Greek
army in the field." Foreshadowing the tenor of future U.S. entanglements,
Van Fleet advised the Greek authorities to forcibly remove Greek citizens
from their homes in an effort to isolate the guerillas and drain their
popular support.
By 1949, the civil war was over. With the leftist rebels defeated and
"outside influences" removed, Greece was free to not only maintain its high
levels of poverty and illiteracy in peace, but it could now do so with the
help of investment capital from Esso, Dow Chemical, and Chrysler.
Two decades later, within the context of a slightly warmer Cold War, the
U.S. had to intervene yet again in the domestic affairs of Greece. When
liberal Prime Minister George Papandreou was elected in 1964, it did not sit
well in Washington. Things went from bad to worse when Greece further
annoyed its superpower benefactor by squabbling with Turkey over Cyprus, and
then objecting to U.S. plans to partition the island. Democrat Lyndon
Johnson summoned the Greek ambassador for a brief-and very
instructive-lesson on how America handles its affairs. "Fuck your parliament
and your constitution," said LBJ. "America is an elephant, Cyprus is a flea.
If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked
by the elephant's trunk, whacked good...We pay a lot of good American
dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me a
talk about democracy, parliament, and constitutions, he, his parliament, and
his constitution may not last very long."
Within a year, the Greek Royal Court was able to unseat Papandreou. It was
later revealed that CIA Chief-in-Station in Athens, John Maury, had helped
King Constantine in 1965 in the toppling of the Papandreou government. As
new elections became inevitable, however, the CIA threw its considerable
weight behind Colonel George Papadopoulos who had been on the Agency payroll
for 15 years. Before that, he served as a captain in Nazi Security
Battalions during the German occupation of Greece. The elephant most
certainly did whack the flea in early 1967 when Papadopoulos seized control
in a coup. Parliamentary democracy was abolished, while torture, oppression,
and political murder became standard policy.
One year after the coup, the Papadopoulos military junta dutifully
contributed $549,000 to the Nixon-Agnew election campaign. When the U.S.
Senate called for an investigation to discern whether or not the CIA
originally funneled this money to the junta, the investigation was swiftly
cancelled...at the direct request of certain Mr. Kissinger.
The moral of this story: Iraqis hoping for democracy shouldn't hold their
breath.
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.
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