A few years shy of two centuries ago,a slave-holding president named Monroe
declared that no other power shall interfere
in the affairs of states of this Hemisphere.
His doctrine was not then deemed imperious
as his powers to enforce it were hardly serious:
The Royal Navy held primacy over the seas,
invaded the Falklands, did what they pleased.
It seems Monroe’s words were meant to constrain
not so much Britain but, rather, France and Spain
in their quest to retain their colonies. How ironic,
then, that the U.S. itself would grow Napoleonic.
Chileans and Argentines were rightly suspicious
of this “line in the sea” that was mostly fictitious.
And Dominicans felt the force of its text when
President Grant sought to use it to annex them.
The doctrine’s true gist would become well known
as Uncle Sam’s fist would land blow after blow on
unfriendly navies across faraway waters —
“Only in our sphere shall we not abide slaughter.”
Today, Monroe’s doctine of no interdiction
in American interests is in contradistinction
in American interests is in contradistinction
to how the U.S. conducts its own foreign policy,
adventurous wherever it damn well wants to be.
Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia,
Panama, Cuba, Chile and Grenada,
Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil,
involved in them all,
ignoring them still.
Doctrine indeed.
Yeh, I have to put a drop of this ol’ Red-Eye in my eye three times a day. This is the elixir Doc Smith told me to buy. The blessed nectar of the farm-a-co-logical gods, or so he says. Pretty damn tiny bottle though. If I reckon right, this bottle is like $1500 an ounce. So it better be good. I do need my shootin’ eye.
I may have to do some bounty-huntin’ to pay for this bottle, barkeep, but you know me… my credit’s always been good here right? What’s your name again? Lloyd, was it?