US policy driven by greed and hubris

Most Americans have realized that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are unwinnable, that their leaders lie to them regularly and most have also soured on Barack Obama’s promise of change, but they appear helpless to change things. The liberal intellectuals’ appeal for adherence to the rule of law, American values (whatever that may mean) and the Constitution fall on deaf ears because decision-makers in the US have never been constrained by such niceties. After all, they know they are in clear violation of both US and international laws in pursuit of their militaristic agendas globally. There is even concern that intelligence agencies –” the CIA, National Intelligence Directorate et al –” do not provide accurate information untainted by political considerations but this is virtually impossible. By their very nature, intelligence agencies give the worst possible interpretation to every event. A person buying a kitchen knife is automatically presumed to want to kill somebody. Suspicion is embedded in intelligence agents’ genes.

At the global level, this has assumed farcical proportions. One segment of the US establishment –” National Security Advisor, General (retired) Jim Jones, and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, for instance –” claims that al-Qaeda is no longer a threat. The CIA, the Pentagon and leading hawks in the military contradict this by asserting that al-Qaeda is a serious threat. Who is right?

On the available evidence, Obama seems to have bought into the second narrative primarily because he is a slave of the establishment. Despite his election by a wide margin and the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, Obama is a prisoner of the military-industrial complex that is dominated by the Zionist cabal. Thus, Obama, a black man, must do what the white establishment orders him to do. His dithering and refusal to follow through on campaign promises has already cost him support of the liberals, the young and the idealists. He will never get the support of the racist rightwing that is fuming that a black man sleeps in the White House. For them, his natural place is in the kitchen or doing White House laundry for a White master! Obama is clearly heading for a one-term presidency; he has only himself to blame.

The US agenda, however, is driven by fear. The ignorant American masses have been led to believe that dark forces seek to destroy the US and that extreme measures are justified in confronting these. Instead of allowing this “other” to harm the US, they want to take the war to them –” in Afghanistan, Iraq and now spreading rapidly into Iran and Pakistan. The specter of 9/11 is constantly invoked to ensure people realize they are under threat and that extreme measures must be taken abroad to keep the war from reaching the pleasant shores of the United States. Kill them there before they kill us here, is the message. This is what justifies US aerial bombing of wedding parties and remote villages in Afghanistan blowing hundreds of children and women to pieces. It is the same fear that is invoked to justify drone attacks in Pakistan that has killed thousands of people even if the Americans claim they are only meant to kill militants and terrorists. After each attack, it is claimed that dozens of ‘suspected militants’ have been killed. As long as the word ‘militant’ is used, this justifies every conceivable crime under the Sun. America’s purity of intentions is never questioned. If family members of the victims are angered by such barbarism, then they too must be eliminated. Each act of savagery increases hatred for the US; a few more militants, or ‘terrorists’, to use CNN and Fox News’s favorite cliché, join the ranks of American haters.

Some Americans have realized, but regrettably not enough, that the presence of US military forces globally acts as a trigger for hatred and resistance. Some even realize that the US has acted illegally in invading Iraq and Afghanistan and that pushing these wars into Iran, Pakistan and Somalia is only making matters worse but there is the constant refrain from officials and the pliant media that America cannot cut and run. The US must win otherwise its vital interests would be threatened. Victory, however, is never defined. The fact is the US military on its own has never won a single war in its entire history unless one considers decimation of the native population in the US and the conquest in 1983 of tiny Grenada with its 110,000 population sunbathing on the beaches as victories! The US lost in Vietnam; it is on the verge of defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan and if it indulges in the folly of attacking Iran, as the Zionist cabal is pushing, it is unlikely to survive even as a state. If wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have bankrupted the US, war with Iran would destroy the very fabric of American society and indeed much of the Western economic and political order with it. Like the Soviet Union, the US, too, would disintegrate. It may still fall apart even without attacking Iran but that folly would hasten the day.

The US faces a stark choice: change course or perish. On the available evidence, the US establishment is unable to adjust to the new reality. Blinded by greed, it is heading, Lemming-fashion, over the cliff into the sea. Few would lament the demise of this greedy and ruthless military power.