Talk:Banana Wars

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2018 and 8 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Entran5820, Emtrum7658.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ewhit1996.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 15:16, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Armed forces used
Could someone with appropriate sources or knowledge indicate more precisely in which interventions which armed forces were or were not used? --Smug Irony (talk) 21:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Mexican Revolution
The vinculation between (the US involvement in) the Mexican Revolution and Banana Wars has to be sourced (and explained). Otherwise, the intervention in Mexico should be aside from the rest, as it appears to be a mere chronological coincidence. Salut, -- IANVS (talk | cont) 18:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Spanish-American War
Sources are needed to establish the relation between the Spanish-American War as part the Banana Wars, aside from the fact that the former changed the caribbean geopolitical landscape. If no further relation is established through sources, the Spanish American War should be trated as context. Salut, -- IANVS (talk | cont) 18:59, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Wrong chronology
The occupation of the Port of Veracruz cannot be taken as part of the Banana Wars since the military action was to blockade a shipment of weapons to usurper Victoriano Huerta. Besides, the Americans forces were later repelled from the North and withdraw from the Port. All this was in the context of the Mexican Revolution.--189.216.127.251 (talk) 20:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Wrong page suggestion
The top of the page says "For the 1934–1935 Banana war against U.S. monopolies and Central American countries see Union of Banana Exporting Countries." The linked page doesn't have any information on that topic. 140.247.237.133 (talk)
 * That text was the result of vandalism back in 2009. Fixed now. 89.150.160.26 (talk) 21:26, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Expression "Banana Wars"
A neologism. Langley coined that expression in the 1980s. It did not exist before him it seems. This whole page is basically a summary of Langley's book. Terribly one-sided.--Lubiesque (talk) 15:20, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * That's odd. My dad was a Marine and served in Nicaragua c. 1930 and he referred to it as the banana war when I was a kid in the 50s. Now I know that won't work as a ref, but ... did Langley "coin" the term. or just use it in print? Vsmith (talk) 22:08, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Even if Langley was the first to use that term in print, his book was published in 1983. That's more than 30 years ago.  Google indicates that it's lapsed into general usage, notably by |by the United States Marine Corps History Division.  I honestly don't see any one-sidedness or controversy.  --Lockley (talk) 04:35, 15 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, it’s also nearly 50 years after the inception of the Good Neighbors policy that this expression is first used by a historian (Langley). I was rather amazed yesterday when I stumbled upon this article and discovered that “Banana Wars” could mean something else that those international trade disputes about tropical produces you read about. A word search in Gilderhusrt’s book (2000) on US-Latin America relations since 1898 shows only one occurrence (“Historian Lester D. Langley used ‘Banana Wars’ (...)”. In an article titled Banana Wars and the Multiplicity of Conflicts in Commodity Chains, Kees Jansen (2006), writes: “Early uses of the ‘Banana War’ metaphor refer to USA intervention in the Caribbean and Mexico (Langley) or the fight between banana companies in Honduras over the right to control supply from contract farmers (Carías 1991).”


 * Clearly, the expression is closely associated with Langley and only appeared well after that era of intervention ended (leaving possible Marines uses aside). Since this article (unfortunately) uses that expression, the Langley link should be mentioned (doesn't need to be what I wrote yesterday) otherwise readers will be led to believe that it’s been in general use since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. --Lubiesque (talk) 14:49, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Langley doesn't even have an article in Wikipedia. "Banana Wars" is an absurdly Americocentric phrase and the whole article is demeaningly shallow in considering the countries as individual polities and the impact of the occupations on the lives, economies, and cultures of the small countries victimized. I'm of Haïtian descent and I think this article should be flagged for NPOV. There is nothing presented of Central American or Hispaniolian ideas about the bAnAnA wArS. Pascalulu88 (talk) 18:30, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

I went through USMC boot camp at Parris Island in the fall of 1976. Every recruit was taught the term "Banana Wars" as part of the official curriculum to denote the involvement of the USMC in Central America/Carribbean in the 1920s/1930s. This was in printed training materials and so forth. Very common well understood term in the USMC (at least) at that time throughout the ranks. I was shocked to have stumbled across this article claiming the term was invented in 1983 by some guy who obviously picked it up from Marines former or otherwise during his research. FWIW, I left the Corps in 1980. 2607:FB90:F21:6E4A:4417:4566:BCD3:CDC8 (talk) 01:29, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * that's helpful, thank you. I took another look and found the term in the title of an article ("King of the Banana Wars") in the Marine Corps Gazette of June 1960, partly visible here.  Here's a reference in print in Congressional testimony from 1953.  We're safe claiming that Langley popularized the term but he certainly didn't invent it, so that lead is incorrect.  I'll change it.  --Lockley (talk) 02:15, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Rubbish. There is no evidence that Langley’s book caused an uptick in usage; Goo-goo books ngrams suggest the dead opposite. Qwirkle (talk) 15:54, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No it doesn't (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=banana+wars). It suggests Langley was part of an upward trend but merely a part. I've reverted for now. Removing the history of the term entirely is not the way to do this in any case. I do agree it is necessary to downplay him however as it is now this paragraph exaggerates his involvement. Invasive Spices (talk) 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * …anf yet:the singular use suggests otherwise, no? This was a normal part of Jarhoovian vocabulary before Langley’s birth. 18:29, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Your edit summary is not correct. I am not the author of that text and was unaware of this naming controversy until now. Invasive Spices (talk) 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * There is absolutely nothing “incorrect” about it. By reverting to a version which you agree is inaccurate, with a rather dubious tag as minor, you have claimed it. Qwirkle (talk) 21:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello. You just reverted a cited statement about Langley popularizing the term "Banana Wars". That is not meant to promote Langley, as you seem to believe. It was to concisely correct the inaccurate claim, in the article as of 02:15, 17 March 2017 (UTC), that he'd invented the term. It's relevant and useful to point out something about the history of the term. That cited statement is correct. Your edits here, your sweeping deletion, and your treatment of here are hard to square with good faith. Do you have some? --Lockley (talk) 23:58, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Then take it to ANI, where someone might ask you to explain how a common phrase, used quite unremarkably decades before, e.g. in Leon Uris’s Battle Cry (Page 9, IMS) in 1950-effin’-3, somehow needed explaining. This has nothing to do with a cited statement. Where, exactly, do you claim this source states that “Langley popularized the term” more than, say a massmarket best seller? Qwirkle (talk) 00:28, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Qwirkle you have spent an interesting amount of time putting this information/claim here but have made no effort to do so on the page. Also as of now there is a missing ref (:0) you have removed. Invasive Spices (talk) 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Gentle Reader, ask yourself why this person feels that such information belongs on the page. Personally, I think Wikipedia already has enough trivia on on, but YMMV. also ask yourself why this person is using loaded language- “claim” about a fact which can be confirmed in under two minutes time. Qwirkle (talk) 17:34, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

O'Daniel and Van Fleet et al.
Not clear what their involvement in the Banana wars was. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 02:31, 4 April 2016 (UTC)


 * A person who happens to have served in a particular post in, for example, Panama, is not a veteran of the Banana Wars, I don't think. We're looking for service during a period of hostilities. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 14:47, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

“U.S. motivations for the conflicts were largely economic and militaristic.”
I am unsure of what, if anything, exactly, is being attempted to convey by the word “militaristic” here. Qwirkle (talk) 02:59, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Qwirkle's edits
Qwirkle, you're deleting cited material wholesale. Even if your flurry of sloppy deletions here was constructive -- and it's not -- you've been disruptive and insulting. When fairly approached to show good-faith cooperation your first response was, "Then take it to ANI," showing an eagerness to waste editors' time not only here on a retail basis but wholesale. Your [|talk page] is blank because you've concealed multiple complaints about disruptive behavior and section blanking on other articles, the same thing you're doing here. I'm reverting all your changes to the article. You've been fairly asked by two editors to slow down, stop, discuss your edits, and you've refused. --Lockley (talk) 19:18, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * That history suggests the only solution is a block. Invasive Spices (talk) 23 December 2021 (UTC)