Pressure is mounting for Syria to end their decades-long occupation of Lebanon.  Since 1976, over 3 million people in Lebanon have had their freedoms largely restrained by thousands of occupying Syrian troops.  President Bush, with support from Russia, France, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, recently used hard words to pressure Syria to end their unjust occupation.  The UN previously passed a resolution calling for their withdrawal. 

            Syria agreed to withdraw some troops after Lebanese demonstrators vehemently protested the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.  The protesters also coaxed the entire Lebanese government (backed by Syria) to resign en masse.

            America is not impressed.  Bush declared, “The free world is in agreement that Damascus’ authority over the political affairs of its neighbor must end”.  White House spokesperson Scott McClellan added to his strict rhetoric saying, “We’ve seen words.  What we want to see is action that moves in that direction.  Syria needs to quit interfering in Lebanon.  The Lebanese people are standing up in the streets of Lebanon and saying we want to reclaim our sovereignty and independence free from outside interference”. 

            Elsewhere, America is working hard to improve the conditions of oppressed people.  Recently, Iraq’s liberation from decades of mistreatment has resulted in the outward appearance that most Iraqi’s are happy for their new freedom, even if they are not excited about the destruction and loss of life that came with it.

            In the Gulf War of 1991, George Bush senior, with international support, made the decision to nip-in-the-bud Iraq’s imperialistic aims before they engulfed any more nations besides neighboring Kuwait.

            No matter what our motivations, America has done right by helping oppressed people shed their oppressors.

            But our history is checkered and sometimes largely untold.  We have wrongs that persist to this day that are worth discussing in depth.  At our hands, nations have lost their autonomy, governments, and peace of mind.  These nations, like Syria and Iraq, have been occupied or oppressed for many generations and it is not too late to correct it.  However, it starts with dialogue!

            For example, I never knew that American marines invaded and assisted a coup against native rule in Hawaii in 1893.  American sugar planters living in Hawaii, in an effort to force annexation to the U.S., designed the coup.  The efforts for annexation aspired for two goals. 

            First, they hoped, by becoming part of the U.S., to avoid the import tariff (Hawaii was a sovereign nation at the time) when their sugar was exported to America as well as ascertain a U.S. subsidy given to all U.S. producers of sugar. 

            Second, they intended to largely eliminate the natives from holding any government positions, something they had accomplished years earlier in 1887 during another coup only to have the natives, led by Queen Liliuokalani, attempt to eliminate white control of the government.  Queen Liliuokalani (Lili for short) only partly succeeded in winning control of the government back for the natives.  Her attempt at redemption occurred in 1891, two years before the American military overthrow, and probably led to the timing of the 1893 revolt by the Americans.

            Only weeks after the 1893 coup, congress failed in an attempt to annex Hawaii.  President Cleveland, suspicious of misconduct, commissioned an investigation that found the American sugar planters had acted improperly and did not represent the majority of Hawaiians.  The commission declared an exchange where Queen Lili reclaimed her position and the American’s received amnesty for their crimes of treason against the Hawaiian Government.  The new white-controlled Hawaiian government, being independent and not loyal to any government but themselves, refused the order and declared Hawaii a separate republic a short time later.  In their new constitution, there was a standing provision for annexation, which passed after President Cleveland left office and political breezes changed in Washington.  Hawaii became a state in 1898.  The only problem- it was a great injustice to the people, the Hawaiians.  Queen Lili lost her country and America was to thank for it.

            But times have changed dramatically since 1893, thank God!  American imperialism is long dead and the world now has international laws such as the United Nations Charter to discourage such devastating wrongs.  Indeed, America, in an amazing change of face, leads the effort today to stop what we ourselves did just a short time ago to Queen Lili and many other nations the world over such as Columbia, the Philippines, and many other Native American nations.  And it is right that we do so.

            The issue of Hawaii is discussed not to root up old hat that matters not.  Instead, it does matter because the injustice continues today.  Queen Lili, her descendents, and her people still have not won their country back.  Sometimes life is not fair, but it is in America’s hands today.  We have the power to right the wrong against them just like we have the military and political power to liberate Syria, Iraq, and Kuwait. 

            This situation would be dramatically different were the power to undo it not in our grasp, but it is, even with such an unlikely event that we would give Hawaii back to the natives.  There is a population of 1.3 million, mostly non-native, living there today that require consideration.

            Also, to use wisdom in deciding our collective future, we must understand our past.  So it is important to have dialogue about little-known facts such as Queen Lili’s story and others like it.  Without knowing these stories, we are flying blind.

            Very recently, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to allow the Native Hawaiians federal recognition as a sovereign nation.  If passed, this would be a great step in the right direction.  But it does not, in any significant way, give back what was taken, the land and the right to govern it.  Without the land it is means far less. 

            Of course, maybe Lili’s people don’t want their land and way of life back.  Maybe they like the economic and military safety net of the U.S.  After all, Hawaii’s location is strategically important and Japan was threatening to invade them in 1897, one year before their annexation.  Again, a dialogue is necessary to understand these things.  Silence in not golden. 

            I propose some questions:  What do the Native Hawaiian’s want today?  Do they powerfully resent their occupation or are they comfortable with it?  Does federal recognition offer them their redemption?  How do Hawaiian descendants feel today about what happened to their ancestors in the 1890’s? 

            Research shows that the Hawaiians were overwhelmingly against annexation.  George T. Curtis, a constitutional expert during the annexation, wrote a paper called “Grave Obstacles to Hawaiian Annexation” in which he opposed it.  He argued because no evidence suggested the people of Hawaii, the Natives, supported annexation, the constitution did not allow for it.  The annexed government has to be legitimate, he argued.  Author Charles Nordhoff , Communistic Societies in the United States (1875), was quoted by the Boston Daily Globe as saying, “The citizens of Hawaii have a right to consider whether they shall give their country away”.  Today we know they never got it.

            Let’s get some of these questions answered through a national dialogue.  I want to know and America should understand their perspective.  It is the least we can do for a conquered people.

     While speaking to a co-worker named James who was ex-military about America’s fifty-year involvement in North Korea, I quickly learned that I was ignorant of some of the facts about Korea’s revolution.  I could never understand, although I never bothered to research it, why our military was in so many places around the world.  I know America plays the world’s police, but why?  Since James spent a tour of duty in Korea in 1965, he easily responded that South Korea was not strong enough to repel North Korea. He added, they asked us to help them and we have never left their side.  Simple enough I thought.

            Our break ended before I could make an important comparison.  He may have explained the big picture, but that did not change my concern that we have meddled in Korea long enough to create some serious resentments.  Moreover, I am afraid we have done this in other places too, but let’s focus on Korea for now.  Today’s world environment of hatred of Americans (and the West) is rooted in experiences like the Korean civil war.

            That is just what it was, a civil war.  We once had a civil war and no foreign power tipped the scales because they thought one side was better than the other was.  Imagine this.  In 1860 America, during our Civil War, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, or some other well-meaning nation show up with far greater forces than either the Union or the Confederates could handle and weighed in and won the war, easily.  And they did it without even using all their weapons and might.  They held back but they still tipped the war in their favor.  How does that suit your feelings?  How might you react to another country winning our internal wars?

            Although I did not ask, I am certain James would have agreed with me that if they joined the union, ok, but if they joined the South, not ok.  For most, it would depend on which side the foreign power supported.  If it was theirs, they would love it, but if it weren’t I can’t imagine the anger.  Picture Japan coming to the aid of the Confederates and repelling the North, and I can just feel all the pissed-off New Yorkers.

            They would say ‘why in the hell are these people doing interfering in our war.  What is their motivation?  They need to butt out and take care of their own countries reform (Civil War movies would never look the same)’.  This might be the kind of rhetoric you would hear by the defeated side.  Some insightful people even on the winning side might feel this way, too.

            In hindsight, many more people would agree that the interfering powers should have kept their business to themselves because of the resentments, on both sides, that would ensue in coming years, decades, and generations.  This resentment, depending on which side the invaders fought for, how many homes they destroyed, and the volume of killed women, children, and men killed, could have reached enormous proportions.

            In the end, our ability to have a revolution over slavery would have been thwarted by some other country.  That is how it was and is in Korea and Vietnam.

            Either way you might perceive it, there are resentments and hatreds that result from this, period.  The worse part is; America has interference stories like this all over the world, including inside our very own borders.  Examples include Columbia, Hawaii, Cuba, and several hundred Indian tribes, among others.

            Interestingly, I am not necessarily against all these actions, but I do recognize their impact.  North Korea wants to have a revolution in civil war in order to reform the government.  Most of their people are for it.  But they can’t because of us.  Now they have nuclear weapons.  That is a recipe for disaster.  Over fifty years of holding them at gunpoint because we believe (and I agree) that the South is far more righteous of a people and should win their civil war.  We must accept the resentment from North Korea and their people.  Their leader, Kim Il Sung, said during the Korean War in 1950 that their “primary enemy was the American soldiers”.  Nothing has changed.

            And we have ruffled feathers in other countries in many other ways.  For example, the American’s along with the Spanish combined to exterminate a large number of Indian tribes of North America and the Caribbean.  Intentional or not, that is what resulted with our forces involved.  America itself invaded, removed, genocide, and successfully assaulted Native culture.  The most well-known of which was when we killed tens of millions of buffalo (perhaps the animal icon of America next to the bald eagle) in order to starve into submission several Indian tribes.  It worked, the Native people gave up their land and way of life, except I am certain resentments still linger, not to mention what God might think.  A few years ago, our courts granted a Sioux tribe $100 million dollars for our illegal taking of the Black Hills from them during the late 19th century.  They declined the money because they wanted their country back.  Who could blame them?   

            The building of the Panama Canal is another example.  America deliberately staged a military coup in Columbia when Columbia wanted too much money for the rights to the Canal.  We established a new nation called Panama.  We had the assistance of the Panamanians on “the isthmus” (Panama) but that does not stop the resentments from Columbians.  They lost part of their country by our interference!  Later we gave them 25 million dollars for it but somehow I do not think that did the trick to stop their justified resentments toward us.

            Unfortunately, the list goes on.

            I agree with James, my co-worker; I am glad some foreign country like Japan did not enter our civil war on the side of the revolutionaries (the South).  I do not like slavery.