Hardwired for global hegemony - American freedom and democracy

Hardwired for global hegemony - American democracy has become subverted by the rise of many hegemonic groups acting behind the scenes.

FOURTH of July was the 241st anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. On that historic day in 1776, 13 British colonies in North America cut their links with their oppressor and proclaimed themselves to be the independent, sovereign United States of America.

The Preamble to the Declaration of Independence contains some of the most stirring words ever penned in a political or legal document: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The eloquence of this passage distils the moral idealism of the forefathers of America’s independence and their vision and aspiration for the then new nation.

Indeed, in the decades that followed, the Declaration inspired many other similar documents around the world, including the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution. Abraham Lincoln referred to the Declaration in his quest to abolish slavery in the US.

Till today, students of public law around the world look with admiration to the American Constitution’s safeguards for liberty, its protection against state despotism and its vibrant provisions for check and balance of power.

Sadly, however, a wide chasm between theory and reality is discernible. Even in its pioneering years the “land of liberty” violated its lofty ideals.

The US expanded across North America by slaughtering the Native American population. “How the West was won” is a story penned with the blood of indigenous people.

The US wrested Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, part of Colorado and Utah from Mexico. Though professing anti-colonialism, it acquired a few colonies abroad.

Friends of America note with sadness that after World War II, the use of brute military force and “American exceptionalism” have become very pronounced.

In 2015, the US spent US$598.5bil (RM2.6 trillion) on defence, even though it is not threatened by any enemies. It maintains 800 military bases in more than 70 countries around the world.

It is the chief manufacturer and seller of weapons of mass destruction and often uses proxies to sell murderous weapons to both warring sides.

A nation born in liberty has metamorphosed into a nation with an insatiable addiction to war and the ethos of a garrison state. From the jungles of Vietnam to the deserts of Mesopotamia, America remains in constant war to pursue its hegemonic and strategic interests.

William Blum, a historian and US foreign policy critic, has calculated that since World War II the US has nuked, bombed or been militarily involved in 31 countries and has directly or indirectly killed or maimed between 15 and 20 million people, 90% of whom were innocent civilians. Pentagon records their extermination as “collateral damage”.

Nations in Asia that have suffered devastation at American hands are Afghanistan (1998 to the present), Pakistan (2003, 2006 to the present), Japan (1945), Cambodia (1969-70), Vietnam (1961-73), Laos (1964-73), China (1945-6), Korea (1950-53) and Indonesia (1958).

In the Middle East, victims of America’s “deadly export of democracy” are Iraq (1991 to the present), Iran (1987 and 2003), Kuwait (1991), Lebanon (1983-84), Syria (1983-84, 2014 to the present), Palestine (2010) and Yemen (2003, 2009, 2011 to the present).

In Africa, the US has intervened militarily in Libya (1986, 2011, 2015 to the present), Congo (1964), Sudan (1998) and Somalia (1993, 2001-8 and 2010).

In Latin America, the US has imposed its military will on Cuba (1959-61), El Salvador (1980s), Guatemala (1954, 60, 67-69), Grenada (1983), Nicaragua (1980s), Peru (1965) and Panama (1989).

Europe has not been spared. Bosnia in 1994 and 1995 and Yugoslavia in 1999 were mercilessly bombed.

What is notable is that most of the targets are people of colour, those of the Third World or Muslims. It is not just a coincidence that all the nations being bombed by the USA today happen to be Muslim.

In addition to direct military attacks, the US wages proxy wars around the world. In Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Congo (1960), South Vietnam (1963), Brazil (1964), Dominican Republic (1965), Chile (1973), Egypt (2013) and Ukraine (2014) the US armed rebels and hired mercenaries to subvert and overthrow governments that refused to tow its line.

Contrary to what Americans believe, the United States is one of the greatest destabilising forces in the world today. It is also the chief diplomatic, military and financial backer of the seven-decade-old genocide in Palestine.

To assert its impunity and sense of exceptionalism it has done such outrageous things as shooting down an Iranian civilian plane in 1988 (when a US Navy ship reportedly mistook the Airbus A300 for a much smaller and faster F-14 fighter jet), killing all 290 on board. In 1999, it bombed the embassy of China in Belgrade. US officials later claimed it was an error.

Ever since 9/11, it runs offshore torture camps. It arms and finances terrorist groups with a view to destabilising governments it does not like.

It rejects or unsigns international treaties like the Ottawa Convention (the Mine Ban Treaty); the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

All friends of America wonder why a nation so steeped in democracy and liberty has metamorphosed into such a war-mongering hegemon. The issue requires a separate and fuller examination.

What can be summarised is that American democracy has become subverted by the rise of many behind-the-scenes, hegemonic groups which have acquired such a stranglehold on foreign, financial and military policy that even the President and the Congress cannot defy them.

The CIA operatives, the foreign policy establishment, the military-industrial complex, the arms manufacturers, the oil barons, the gun lobby, the media, the Zionist pressure groups and the major banks constitute a parallel “deep state” that runs America.

This deep state has a vested interest in the manufacture and sale of horrendous weapons, the waging of continuous wars, the destabilisation of unfriendly regions, the control of oil supplies and the maintenance of existing trade mechanisms.

The power of the Constitution, the Congress and the President is more symbolic than real. The American electorate is either unaware or benumbed. Only if it learns more about this sad reality can any change be accomplished.

Reflecting On The Law Shad Saleem Faruqi

Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi is Tunku Abdul Rahman Professor of Law at Universiti Malaya. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.

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Why not abolishing wars, seeking peace in the 70 years after WW2 & inception of the UN?

Why should an organisation devoted to saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war” make it its business to authorise war?

In the 70 years since the inception of the UN, the world has unfortunately witnessed many theaters of conflict. 

SEVENTY years ago, the Charter of the United Nations solemnly proclaimed that the people of the UN were determined to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and to “establish conditions under which justice … can be maintained”.

Peaceful resolution of disputes was the over-arching ideal of the Charter. However, the Charter permitted two exceptions under which recourse to war was permissible:

> Under Article 51, a nation can defend its sovereignty against an armed attack.

> Collective use of force can be undertaken under Chapter VII of the Charter under a resolution of the UN Security Council.

In the euphoria of the establishment of the UN, these two provisions were regarded as just and fair exceptions to the prohibition on the use of force.

But with the tragic misuse of UN authorised interventions in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, one is made to wonder why an organisation devoted to saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and securing peace and justice should make it its business to authorise the revolting actions that necessarily flow from war. It is therefore timely to demand that the provision relating to collective use of force under Chapter VII be reviewed or repealed.

Spiralling wars: In the 70 years since the inception of the UN, the world has unfortunately witnessed many theatres of conflict. In a nuclear age, the savagery of war has become even worse. The grounds on which war can be waged have expanded.

Anticipatory self-defence: Some powerful nations like the US and Israel have interpreted the Charter to read into it the right of pre-emptory attack or anticipatory self-defence.

Humanitarian intervention: A new ground of “humanitarian war” without the authority of the UN has been established extra-legally by the American-European Union Alliance.

Regime change: Wars for the purpose of regime change were and are being waged in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Proxy wars: Many rich and powerful states are fomenting civil wars and supporting armed mercenary forces for the purpose of subverting the sovereignty of other states. Tragic examples are Yemen, Libya, Syria and Ukraine.

Privatising torture: Since the 90s, wars, incarceration in overseas prisons and torture have been privatised. This is a wicked way of avoiding accountability under national laws.

Terrorism: Unspeakable horrors are being committed by terrorist groups like the IS. However, it must be stated that all terrorism, whether by private groups or state actors, is an abomination. On the pretext of combating terrorism, many states are committing atrocities both within their territory and abroad.

Targeted killings: Extra-judicial assassinations of the officials of other states or national liberation movements are being carried out by drone attacks, special-forces units or covert operations.

Humans as guinea pigs: Some nations are developing, deploying and testing their new weapon systems in countries that they invade or occupy – countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Gaza whose population has become a guinea pig for testing deadly weapons.

Threat of missile attacks: Threats of missile and nuclear attacks have become standard language of foreign policy. This is a violation of international law.

Selective sanctions: In the name of human rights, sanctions are being enforced but in a very selective way by the Security Council and by individual nations against their opponents. This is despite overwhelming proof that sanctions hurt innocent civilians and cause untold misery and deprivation to the weakest members of society.

The ICC: The International Criminal Court has gone into operation. But nations like the US and Israel refuse to join it. The UN Security Council and the ICC have brought to book a few war criminals. Sadly, the work of the ICC shows a terrible ethnic bias against Africa. Mass murderers from the USA, EU and Israel remain immune.

Cold War reignited: The Cold War has become reignited and with it new theatres of conflict as in Ukraine are causing massive loss of life.

Merchants of death: The arms trade continues unabated and ignites and fuels regional wars and retards the search for political solutions to international disputes. All arms traders are merchants of death but enjoy a prestige and wealth unknown to many other professions.

Western exceptionalism: Western unilaterism is a sad reality of geopolitics today. In the last decade itself, there were full scale invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq on trumped up charges plus bombing of Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Syria. In Yemen, Libya and Syria, western proxies are in the forefront of the so called civil war.

US drones blow up “enemy combatants” in many parts of the world with sickening regularity. Despite its professed belief in democracy, Washington has a sorry record of collaborating with right-wing military officers to overthrow elected leaders who do not do Washington’s bidding. The latest victims are Morsi in Egypt in 2013 and Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2014.

On July 3, 1988 the United States shot down an Iranian Airbus killing 290 passengers. The Western world expressed only muted regret.

Genocide in Palestine: US and European complicity with Israel in the 67-year old genocide of the Palestinians is an undeniable fact. As I write, Israel continues to butcher children, women and civilians in Gaza.

Srebrenica: Dutch complicity in the massacres in Srebrenica is well documented.

Structural violence: Add to these military atrocities, the structural violence and oppressive economic systems of the West. There is a desire to consolidate an uncompromising version of corporatism that seeks total economic hegemony over Asia and Africa.

Environment: An environmental catastrophe is awaiting the world unless we take adequate measures to control the threat. Needless to say that part of the ecocide is contributed by the use and misuse of weapons of mass destruction.

In sum, it is a pretty grim situation in the world today. What can be done to bring about a more peaceful and just world? There are obviously no simple solutions. A comprehensive, holistic approach is badly needed.

Reflecting On The Law by Shad Saleem Faruqi

Shad Faruqi, Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM, is a passionate student and teacher of the law. He can be reached at prof.shad.saleem.faruqi@gmail.com. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

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