Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Race to Destruction
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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The US-organized war was in support of such figures as King Paul and
Queen Frederika, whose background was in the fascist movements,
along with outright Nazi collaborators such as the Minister of Interior of
the US-backed regime. The US succeeded in crushing labor unions and
the former anti-Nazi resistance based among the peasantry and working
classes and led by Greek Communists, eliminating even mild socialists
with blatant interference in the political process, and creating a society
in which US corporations and the Greek business elites prospered while
much of the working population was forced to emigrate to survive.
Twenty years later, the US supported the first fascist restoration in
Europe (also, the first government headed by a CIA agent, Colonel
Papadopoulos, who was the liaison between the CIA and its Greek
counterpart, virtually a subsidiary). This was shortly after President
Lyndon Johnson had delivered an important lesson in political science,
more enlightening than many weighty tomes, to the Greek Ambassador.
When the Ambassador objected to US plans to partition the independent
Republic of Cyprus between Greece and Turkey, saying that “no Greek
parliament could accept such a plan,” Johnson responded:
Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an
elephant, Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fellows
continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the
elephant’s trunk, whacked good . . . If your Prime Minister gives
me talk about democracy, parliament and constitution, he, his
parliament and his constitution may not last very long.
For good measure, he added: “maybe Greece should rethink the
value of a parliament which could not take the right decision,” where
“right” has its usual meaning. Greece was “whacked good” shortly after
under the US-backed fascist regime, and the second flea, Cyprus,