President James Monroe would probably have been appalled to see how his policy of protecting the peoples of the Americas from European colonizers mutated into a self-issued license to intervene into other nations’ affairs.
In a recent comment, US National Security Advisor John Bolton bragged that the current White House administration is “not afraid to use the phrase ‘Monroe Doctrine.’” He was of course referring to the 1823 policy of President Monroe, who extended US protection to any part of the Americas facing colonization by European nations.
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Its meaning has apparently been twisted over the years, however, along with the way the US sees its role in the world. When Ronald Reagan supported murdering dictators in Latin America and sent the CIA after democratically elected leftist leaders, he was said to be following the Monroe Doctrine. Arguably, it has since gone global, with the US claiming it to be its unalienable right to meddle in any nation anywhere in the world for no better reason than protecting its national interests, be it Syria or Venezuela.
RT’s Murad Gazdiev explores how a once benevolent idea turned into a justification for imperialist policy.
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