The rogue superpower

Reason Wafawarova

Wed, 18 Jun 2008

WHENEVER one is faced with the images of the US State Department spokespersons giving commentary on political events in Zimbabwe, Sudan, Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan or East Timor, there is always this omnifarious pretence that gives the impression that the United States is holding the royal rod over all mortals on this planet.

To this end the voracious occupation of Iraq is meant to be misrepresented by the eloquent lies that often come under the guise of the straight faces of the likes Condoleeza Rice, Sean McCormac, or any other White House representative tasked with the onerous duty of misinforming the world.

The US leadership wants the world to believe that the quadrennial electoral extravaganza that characterise the competition for power among the elite politicians aspiring to run the empire is the abridgement of democracy.

Those who chose to see this happiness as vanity founded on the exploitation of weaker nations and on the shedding of the innocent blood of many nationalities are readily described as people who “hate our freedoms”.

If condemnation of the US’ sabre-rattling foreign policy happens to come from a head of state from any part of the world then the country that hosts such a maverick leader is summarily labelled “a rogue state”. Once labelled a rogue state, the subsequent punishment is all very predictable. A country labelled a rogue state by the United States of America is by definition, a rogue state in as far as the Western rulership community is concerned. Having been defined as such the country is then brutally isolated, economically strangled, vigorously defamed through the powerful Western media houses and its downfall is then squarely blamed on the “evil nature” of its leadership.

The pillaging ruin of sanctions on the generality of populations has been well documented in countries like Cuba, North Korea, Iraq, Chile, Panama, Nicaragua, Sudan and currently in Zimbabwe but in all these cases the suffering of the people has been wrongfully but conveniently attributed to the shortcomings of the incumbent governments.

Western Foreign Ministers or their equivalent often lead the blame crusade and these people will never walk alone as they are assured of raucous support from dodgy and greedy civic groups as well as from the prejudiced Western media. The domineering interference by Western countries is often legitimised by the tacit support of lapdog politicians from the local population – politicians leading puppet political parties that are, for all intents and purposes, often mere extensions of Washington DC.

The Western media does not tire to tell the whole world that Zimbabwe was once the “jewel of Southern Africa”.

What they do not want to say openly is that this was the case until the IMF came in with the Washington Consensus, otherwise known as the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme – a poisonous doctrine that ordered the privatisation of all essential services and a ruthless reduction of the workforce.

The West conspicuously evade the glaring truth that the “jewel” was immediately hammered to pieces by themselves in ruthless retaliation to the land reclamation programme of 2000 – a policy that left colonial land beneficiaries facing the justice of returning stolen property to its rightful owners.

Now that the Western machinery has shattered the “jewel of Southern Africa” it is time to turn around and misrepresent the facts by merely repeating a lie with a straight face. It is comforting and obviously convenient to pretend that whatever has happened to Zimbabwe is all Mugabe’s fault.

The very people who openly and violently attack any gesture of cooperation with Zimbabwe from any part of this world; arguing that such a gesture is tantamount to “propping up the regime” are the same people wailing loud, and shamelessly banging drums of altruism in a disgustingly puerile posturing in pretence of humanitarianism.

Is it not ironic that the very people who have suffered directly as a result of the campaign for the economic strangulation of Zimbabwe did not matter when there were fuel shortages, food shortages and other ills but they suddenly shoot up to the top of the Aid Priority List when there is an election in Zimbabwe?

The United States may vow that their team of diplomats will fight it out in Zimbabwe the way James McGee has been doing so far, but whatever their resolve, it has become increasingly clear that the generality of the world, Americans included; are now aware of the imperialist machinations of the empire.

It may be comforting for Western politicians to pretend that “our enemies hate our civilisation and our freedoms” as George Bush is fond of saying, but it is hardly wise to ignore the real world, which conveys different lessons.

Bush is not the first American leader to ask, “Why do they hate us?” In 1958, President Eisenhower described to his staff that, “the campaign of hatred against us in the Arab world is not by the governments but by the people.”

His National Security Council outlined to him that this was because the US supported corrupt and oppressive governments and was “opposing political or economic progress” because of its interest in controlling the oil resources in the region. Needless to say, this same argument still stands today.

The world has just been watching the growing anger of the people of Pakistan over the US support for Musharraf’s military regime and even now the anger against the US has not ended.

The people of Iraq are not the grateful lot that is running out of superlatives to thank Americans for freeing their country from a dictatorship as the Western media may hopelessly try to portray.

The majority of Iraqis have a growing anger against the US just like do the Afghanis and the Iranians, not to mention the bitter Cubans. It is a disservice for the West to believe that these people “hate us” and “hate our freedoms.” On the contrary, what we are seeing are attitudes of people who like the Americans and who admire much about the United States, particularly its riches and wealth. What these people hate is the official American foreign policy that deny them the right to develop their own riches and the right to the happiness and freedom to which they, like the Americans, aspire.

The resentment, anger, and frustration of the oppressed people of this world have a resonance among the diversity of nationalities. It is an anger that makes much of the world regard Washington as a terrorist regime.

In recent years the US has backed the actions of Colombia, Central America, Panama, Turkey and Israel, to name but a few – actions that meet official US definitions of terrorism, as America applies the term to perceived enemies.

In 1999, Samuel Huntington wrote in the journal, Foreign Affairs, “While the US regularly denounces various countries as ‘rogue states,’ in the eyes of many countries it is becoming the rogue super power …..the single greatest external threat to their societies.”

This is a shared perception among many nationalities and it is not only naïve but also dangerous for the Western ruling elite to pretend that such perceptions can be changed by the fact that, on September 11, 2001, for the first time, a Western country was subjected on home soil, to a horrendous terrorist attack of a kind all too familiar to victims of Western military power.

September 11 elicited harsh condemnation throughout the world and there was an outpouring of sympathy for the innocent victims – but all came with qualifications. An international Gallup Poll in late September 2001 found that there was very little support for a military attack by the United States in Afghanistan.

Not surprisingly, the least support came from Latin America, the region with the most experience of US brutal interventions. In Mexico, only 2 percent of the respondents supported the attack.

The US backing for Israel’s genocide in Palestine, the unwelcome occupation of Iraq and the too familiar “provocative engagement” over Iran are all factors fuelling another “campaign of hatred” by the Arab world.

It is now forty-one years of crucial US support for Israel’s terror campaign in Palestine and the US still has the temerity to label other nations rogue states.

It is clear to all involved that one way of lessening Israeli-Palestinian tensions would be to stop increasing such tensions, as the US does, by not only refusing to join the long-standing international consensus that calls for recognition of the right of all states in the region to live in peace and security, including a Palestinian state in the currently occupied territories, but also by providing the crucial economic, military, diplomatic and ideological support for Israel’s unremitting efforts to render such an outcome unattainable.

Washington’s current shameless justifications for invading Iraq have less credibility than when George Bush senior was welcoming Saddam Hussein as an ally and a trading partner, well after he had unleashed his terror on Iranians and the Kurds – the Hajabja gassing, the al-Anfal massacres and others. At the time Saddam Hussein was being backed by Washington and London, he was more dangerous than at the time Bush junior decided to capture and hang him summarily.

When the US invaded Iraq in 2001, no one, including Donald Rumsfeld, could realistically guess the possible cost and consequences. Now, five years later, the US has a shattered image internationally, has lost more than 4000 troops and faces an internal threat through the apparent prescription for an endless war.

George W. Bush is on record saying, “There is no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the homeland.” That’s true, save that George Bush is not after securing freedom but oil resources.

Bush has also said that the Iraqi war is “a war for our children and our children’s children” while McCain holds that America will be in Iraq for the next “hundred years.”

With a super power that decides to occupy a weaker state endlessly and goes on to brag about it with impunity, this world cannot expect to live without terrorism. US arrogance and sometimes brutality, is creating swamps of resistance and from such swamps will rise a swarm of mosquitoes, with an awesome capacity for destruction.

If only the US could use its resources to address the roots of the so-called “campaign of hatred” or in honest trade with developing countries and the rest of the world, then this world would be a much better place to live.

In the US we have a rogue super power that leads a cunning and brutal gang of allies bent on exploiting the whole world to further what they believe is a super right of Western prosperity and freedoms.

The provocative campaign for regime change by the US diplomats stationed in Harare is not motivated by ethics or human charity. These are not the qualities that will get one to earn a diplomatic posting from the likes of Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice – a crowd that is driven by power politics.

Rather James McGee and his lieutenants are driven by the ideology of imperial supremacy and a resolve to bring Zimbabwe under the domineering rule of the US.

Currently the US sees in Zimbabwe a suffocating government and McGee wants to make history in the circles of the empire – a history of bringing down one of the most powerful stumbling blocks of the 21st century.

The back of President Mugabe is the current premier trophy that has, for the past eight years, continued to be evasive and frustratingly elusive for imperialist foot soldiers like James McGee.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the people of Zimbabwe choosing whoever they feel should be their leader and President Mugabe would not have called for an election if he believed otherwise. However, there is everything inherently wrong when such a choice is usurped by the power of Western wealth and the politics of regime change.

If the United States are serious about free and fare elections in Zimbabwe then they must stop funding instability in the country and they must also lift all forms of sanctions on Zimbabwe and that way live Zimbabweans to chose their own destiny without the influence of sanctions-induced economic suffering.

Needless to say, the US and their Western allies must stop funding the opposition MDC-T just like they criminalize foreign funding of political parties in their own countries.

Zimbabwe we are one. Together we will overcome. It’s homeland