2006/11/14
Histórias do intervencionismo
Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, by Murray N. Rothbard
"(...) In February 1895, a rebellion for Cuban independence broke out against Spain. The original U.S. response was to try to end the threat of revolutionary war to American property interests by siding with Spanish rule modified by autonomy to the Cubans to pacify their desires for independence.
Here was the harbinger of U.S. foreign policy ever since: to try to maneuver in Third
World countries to sponsor "third force" or "moderate" interests which do not really exist. The
great proponent of this policy was the millionaire sugar grower in Cuba, Edwin F. Atkins, a close
friend of fellow-Bostonian Richard Olney, and a partner of J.P. Morgan and Company.
By the fall of 1895, Olney concluded that Spain could not win, and that, in view of the "large and
important commerce between the two countries" and the "large amounts of American capital" in
Cuba, the U.S. should execute a 180-degree shift and back the rebels, even unto recognizing
Cuban independence. The fact that such recognition would certainly lead to war with Spain did
not seem worth noting. The road to war with Spain had begun, a road that would reach its logical
conclusion three years later.
Ardently backing the pro-war course was Edwin F. Atkins, and August Belmont, on behalf of the
Rothschild banking interests. The House' of Rothschild, which had been long-time financiers to
Spain, refused to extend any further credit to Spain, and instead under-wrote Cuban
Revolutionary bond issues, and even assumed full obligation for the unsubscribed balance.
During the conquest of Cuba in the Spanish-American War, the United States also took the
occasion to expand its power greatly in Asia, seizing first the port of Manila and then all of the
Philippines, after which it spent several years crushing the revolutionary forces of the Philippine
independence movement."
