So much for "it's a manufactured crisis"..

[Dill]

(04-01-2019, 11:32 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Great post, Dill.  Thanks for refreshing some history that I had forgotten about.

However, how can we expect to change a culture of the "survival of the fittest"?  Even if we wipe out the peasants current oppressors, another one will materialize to take it's place.  It's not unlike the US or Russia trying to settle anything in the Middle East.  People have been living a certain way for thousands of years, you can't just expect to change their culture by putting in cardboard leadership.

Thanks, Sunset.

As for changing culture, we have kind of done that already--for the worse--by supporting the bad guys.

Supporting good guys did improve the country for a decade or so. Guatemala is a developing country, with a low rate of literacy. That is a problem we could help fix.

I must say that the CICIG was making progress against corruption in the country. If the U.S., with the U.N., really threw their weight behind anti-corruption reform we would see positive results.  It would take a generation of peace to change the culture back to what it was before paramilitary hit squads, government massacres, and drug gangs.

I didn't get into El Salvador and Honduras, but the problem of insecurity is interconnected here. It can't be fixed in one country but not another. 

We need Mexico's help too. But it is unlikely any of these countries will take us seriously if our solution is to cut aid to force them to "take care of their own house."  In Guatemala that will mean a return of dictatorship to hold power and death squads to pacify the countryside--and genocide, and a surge in refugees.