[Vision2020] US Foreign Policy & War Crimes In Darfur: US Machiavellian Calculations

Sun Aug 24 16:44:08 PDT 2008

Great post, Levi!

US foreign policy continues to be focused rather blatantly on pursuing our
national interests of military and
economic/ideological hegemony, rather than on even handed application of the
ostensible idealistic goals of
democracy: opposing all dictatorships, consistently condemning and fighting
"terror," and allowing the citizens
of nations to freely choose their own government, even if the government
does not conform to the US
economic/ideological agenda.  Consider that Iraq's current so called
"sovereign" government is not free to make
decisions that oppose primary goals of US Middle East policy.

When respect for democracy and human rights has not been favorable
towards the US global power agenda, the
US has in some cases undermined democracy, supported human rights abusing
dictators, and turned away from mass
atrocities, such as US ally Indonesia's slaughter in East Timor in the 1970s
(info on this at URLs below):

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/indonesia/index.html

http://www.uiowa.edu/~cyberlaw/lem02/chomsky1.html
--------------------
Saudi Arabia is a human rights abusing dictatorship, that treats women like
cattle, suppress free speech
and political organization, and engages in torture.  Yet the US offers
military aid and limits its condemnations
of Saudi human rights abuses, with the US media rarely reporting on this
situation.

A supporter of this "bias" might argue the Saudi dictatorship is better than

what might replace it if there truly free elections, or if we invaded to
overthrow the dictatorship, given that
elections might install a more hard line Islamic regime, disrupt the oil
supplies from the world's largest
holder of high quality accessible oil, and jeopardize the close to a
trillion dollars of investment from Saudi
Arabia in the the US economy.

The US CIA supported coup against the democratically elected government of
Allende in Chile, is a
glaring and well documented example of the US undermining democracy, in
complicity with Pinochet in
horrendous and large scale human rights abuses.  Info on the facts in this
case at URL below:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB110/index.htm
-----------
The US involvement in the military coup against Allende in Chile, and the
unspeakable atrocities
committed by the dictator Pinochet, is one of the darkest hours in US
foreign policy.

At that time, the logic of the cold war dictated support for brutal
dictators as long as they
were on board with the US anti-Soviet power block.  "Our" dictators were a
means to contain a greater evil:
allowing the Soviets to expand their global hegemony.  Now the so called
"war on terror" is a primary righteous
ideological justification for US exercise of military power to pursue US
global hegemony; yet it is clear that US
government opposition to "terrorists" and "terror" is
blatantly inconsistent, given the "terror" in Darfur, as one
profound example.

It was well known that after the breakup of the Soviet Union a new boogieman
would be required to mobilize the
US citizenry and the US Congress to continue to pursue US global military
economic/ideological hegemony.

Consider the quite true point made in military think tank analysis presented
by the Project for a New American
Century (an effort supported by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and other
notable Bush administration power
brokers) that a "new Pearl Harbor" was needed to justify certain military
actions undertaken since 9/11.  This
point was made prior to 9/11.  They got their wish.

Saddam was pure evil incarnate, and had to be overthrown (using lies about
WMDs and ties to Bin Laden and
Al Qaeda as scare tactics), and just happened to be sitting on the world's
third largest reserves of high quality
oil.  Iraq shared a border with the biggest threat of an anti-US emerging
Islamic superpower, Iran, while being
situated to position the US military to protect the oil reserves of the
whole Middle East, the largest easily accessible
high quality oil resource in the world (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait,
UAE).

Meanwhile, the US has turned away from the horrors of genocide in the Darfur
region in Sudan.

This inconsistency can be explained in part by the importance of Sudan to
the US global game of
economic/ideological hegemony, including the cozy economic relationship of
the US with another human
rights abusing dictatorship, China.  China has oil interests in Sudan, and
sells the Sudanese military hardware.
Intervening in Darfur is not worth the damage to relations with China.  And
apart from this, is not a critical area for US
intervention for resources or containment of other nations.  Iraq was/is a
much bigger prize.  Also, the US military is
now stretched thin with Iraq and Afghanistan and other commitments, so
another military intervention would be difficult,
even if the US wanted to stop the Darfur atrocities.  Still, where is the
consistent outrage from the US government?
And the daily media reports on the Darfur atrocities?

How many citizens in the US know that the International Criminal Court just
last month indicted Sudan's president
Omar al-Bashir for war crimes?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/14/sudan.warcrimes1

Quote below from URL above:

The international criminal court (ICC) today filed 10 charges of war crimes
against Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir,
for allegedly leading a campaign of murder, rape and mass deportation in
Darfur.
----------------
We daily hear reports in our news media from Iraq and Afghanistan
regarding attacks from the Iraq insurgents or the Taliban, portrayed as
"terrorists."  How often does our news
media or the US government emphasize the atrocities in Darfur as a major
example of "terrorism" committed by
"terrorists?"

Underneath the public relations propaganda of our government regarding the
spread of democracy as an idealistic goal,
and the condemnation of "terror" around the world, often lies Machiavellian
calculations
that marginalize condemnation of or direct action against some of the worst
examples of "terrorism," "terrorists," and
dictatorships, because these cases are not convenient for the pursuit of US
military economic/ideological hegemony.

The US public appears quite malleable to the cynical manipulations of the
propaganda.

Ted Moffett

On 8/22/08, Levi Cavener <lcavener at vandals.uidaho.edu> wrote:

>
> "We, the United States, once held the moral high ground. Nations around
>
>
> the world respected us, not for our military threat capabilities, but for
>
> our words and deeds."
>
>
> Remind me just what nations have respected the United States because of our words and deeds and not the threat
> of the United States bullying sovereign nations into getting our way.  Perhaps the Japanese respect us because
>
> of the westernization process that we forced on them following their defeat in WWII, and not because they fear
> losing entire cities by nuclear weapons.  Maybe Cuba respects us because we attempted to bring democracy back
>
> to their nation after their revolution, and not because we try to assassinate
> their leader or threaten nuclear annihilation when they don't play by our rules.  Perhaps Nicaraguans enjoy
> our government trying to undermine their sovereignty by financing US friendly contra groups in the hope a
>
> revolution would occur that would bring a more US friendly government - Well at least we know Iran certainly was
> excited to buy weapons from us to use and pay for the Nicaraguan cause at the same time.  Maybe Vietnam
>
> was excited to know that we don't respect their nation's sovereignty and are more than happy to
> involve ourselves in foreign affairs that we are otherwise not involved in when we feel its appropriate.  Maybe
>
> Mexico really wanted to give away a substantial part of its land to our country, and it had nothing to do with
> our country using its military to get what we wanted.  The Philippines of course realize now that they just
>
> weren't yet prepared to govern themselves after the Spanish American war and now respect us for looking
> after their true interests. Surely Hawaiians appreciate and wanted to be part of
> the United States - it had absolutely nothing to do US marines on the islands making sure US interests were
>
> protected.  Maybe the Native American nations truly wanted to become a part of the USA and were not offended
> at all by the US violating treaty after treaty that we signed with them or using our military and violence
>
> to insure compliance. And we all know how much the Middle East loves it when we involve ourselves...
>  Yes I guess now I can truly see why nations respect us for our words and deeds notbecause we like to use
> our military to get what we want.
>
>
> Please Don't get me wrong or take this out proportion- the US has done a lot of good in the world too.
> But when it comes down to looking at the US track record it seems to me that the type of "respect" the
>
> US gets from the world's nations is the same type of "respect" I gave to bullies in school.
>
>
> ~Esto Perpetua
>
> Levi Cavener
>
>
> ------------------------------
> > To: lfalen at turbonet.com; sunilramalingam at hotmail.com;
> vision2020 at moscow.com
> > From: thansen at moscow.com
> > Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:49:01 +0000
> > Subject: Re: [Vision2020] being fair and even
> >
> > Roger -
> >
> > It is not so much what "they" would do, as much as it is what our allies
> > (what few there are) would consider us to be.
> >
> > We, the United States, once held the moral high ground. Nations around
> > the world respected us, not for our military threat capabilities, but for
>
> > our words and deeds. Nations eagerly supported us because we, as I had
> > learned in twenty years of military service, led by example.
> >
> > We said what we meant and we meant what we said. We walked the walk.
> > Enforcing standards of duty, responsibility, and (above all else)
> > accountability was the yardstick we applied both at home and abroad. We
> > placed diplomacy ahead of military response.
> >
> > Recently, the Department of Defense and Congress have attempted to regain
>
> > a small portion of that moral high ground that the current administration
>
> > has forsaken. The Department of Defense defined acceptable human
> > intelligence gathering techniques and delineated methods of unacceptable
> > torture. The Army accepted DoD's and established its own policies
> > (policies adopted by Congress) concerning these definitions and
> > unacceptable torture practices and published them in FM 2-22.3 (Human
> > Intelligence Collector Operations), a manual I have posted to the Viz on
> > three prior occasions. This manual specifically identifies waterboarding
> > as an unacceptable torture practice.
> >
> > If you cannot accept the letter of this policy, perhaps you can
> understand
> > its spirit.
> >
> > Seeya at Farmers' Market, Moscow.
> >
> > Tom Hansen
> > Moscow, Idaho
> >
> >
> >
>
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