Trump Administration National Security Adviser, John Bolton stated, that "we are not afraid to use the word Monroe Doctrine" in terms of a country in the US hemisphere which it considers part of it's back yard and a place where it feels the right to impose governments that it considers compliant to US economic and national security interests. An interesting op-ed piece appeared in the American Conservative (yes, I am quoting American Conservative) on the many abuses of the Monroe Doctrine applied to double standards in American foreign policy: "The Monroe Doctrine is one of the most frequently misunderstood and misrepresented aspects of the history of U.S. foreign policy. Bolton is not alone in warping it beyond all recognition into a blanket license to interfere in the internal affairs of our neighbors, but as National Security Advisor his misrepresentation is more significant and dangerous. Whether this interference is justified in terms of creating a “democratic hemisphere” or not is beside the point. There is no honest interpretation of Monroe’s 1823 statement that endorses the idea that the U.S. should intervene in neighboring countries to change their governments. Monroe was responding to contemporary counter-revolutionary invasions in Europe backed by the Holy Alliance, and he spelled out very clearly that any European attempt to take their counter-revolutionary program to the newly independent states of Latin America would be viewed as a potential threat to America: The real reason why the Trump administration covers for and arms despots in Egypt and Saudi Arabia while denouncing authoritarian rulers in Venezuela and Iran is that they are continuing the bad practice of whitewashing, ignoring, and enabling abuses by our clients while cynically using human rights and humanitarian crises to justify meddling in the affairs of states that are not aligned with Washington. That’s bad for the causes of promoting human rights and humanitarian relief, and because it is so obviously two-faced the administration’s criticisms of regime abuses in these cases are difficult to take seriously." https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-many-hawkish-abuses-of-the-monroe-doctrine/ We should at least take Bolton at his word that regime change as justified by invoking the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well at the heart of American foreign policy in the Trump Administration.
Bolton should be locked up in Guantanamo Bay so he can spend the rest of his days reminded of what an outrageous authoritarian he is.
Yeah, we only fought the Spanish and Portugese to enforce it. Other than that it's really just a piece of paper like the Constitution.
