After World War II, "there have long been two faces of U.S. foreign policy" according to Jeffrey D. Sachs, author of "Common Wealth - Economics for A Crowded Planet". Great acts of U.S. cooperative leadership include the establishment of UN, the IMF and World Bank, an open global trading system, the Marshall Plan, the eradication of small-pox etc., nuclear arms control, the internet, and the elimination of ozone-depleting chemicals.
Notorious act of U.S. unilateralism include CIA-led overthrows of several governments (Iran, Guyana, Guatemala, South Vietnam, Chile), countless assassinations of foreign officials, and several disastrous unilateral acts of war (in Central America, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria). Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were both once on CIA payroll. U.S. versus Soviet Union stand off occurred in October 1962 in response to the failed CIA-led invasion of Cuba the year before. Soviet Union backed off partly after U. S. agreed to remove its tactical weapons in Turkey. Also Khrushchev praised the following speech by Kennedy in June 1963.
"So, let us not be blind to our differences-but also let us direct attention to our common interests. If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity. We all inhibit this planet. We all breath the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal. Our problems are man-made; therefore they can be solved by man. And a man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings".
Kennedy's assassination in November 1963 is still an unresolved mystery.
Nagindas Khajuria
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