“The fundamental weakness of Western civilisation"

From Print Edition

“The fundamental weakness of Western civilisation,” wrote Wilfred Smith in 1956 “is its inability to recognise that it shares the planet not with inferiors but with equals. Unless the West learns to treat others with fundamental respect, it will have failed to come to terms with the twentieth century”.

Chairman House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Dana Rohrabacher introduced ‘the Pakistan Terrorism Accountability Act 2012’ in Congress. It asked the US government to provide $50 million to the family of each American citizen killed ‘as a result of actions of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency or support provided by the ISI to other organisations or individuals, including the Haqqani Network’. This amount, the bill suggests, should be deducted from Washington’s hand-outs to Pakistan.

This mindset epitomises that of Washington and mirrors that of Stalin who said: ‘A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic’. An American soldier’s life is a tragedy worth millions; an Afghan civilian’s varies from $210, as paid by the British to $2000 paid by the Americans. The families of murdered Pakistani soldiers and civilians do not even merit an apology. The brutal murder of millions of civilians is mere statistic.

Frederick Douglass was an American statesman, writer and orator par excellence. After escaping from the brutal clutches of slavery, he joined the abolitionist movement. He wrote these timeless words in 1852: ‘What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July (what to a Pakistani is your war on terror)? I answer – a day that reveals to him, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your sermons and solemnity are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy; a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

Go where you may, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival’.

Despite this all prevailing sentiment, there was a profound sense of optimism about the future of international politics in the early post Cold War years. President Clinton captured that mood when he told the UN General Assembly in September 1993: ‘It is clear that we live at a turning point in human history. The Cold War is over; the world is no longer divided into two armed and angry camps. It is a moment of miracles’. It was soon after that the moment of miracles succumbed to hubris and arrogance. In the same Clinton era, Madeleine Albright pompously called America ‘the indispensable nation’. This arrogant mindset was reflected in Dick Cheney’s words that ‘the American way of life is non-negotiable’.

With this smug display of narcissistic self-righteousness, Washington dismissed and absolved itself of the ever increasing misgivings and negative sentiments about its global policies, particularly those affecting the Muslim world. A stark dichotomy was its propping up tailor-made rulers and democratic processes in client states. Its standard policy was and continues to be, of befriending oppressors and alienating masses. The unjust and brutal concept of pre-emptive strikes also came into vogue. This culminated in imperialistic occupations and the murder of millions.

The New World Order was heralded by the Latin motto ‘Novus Ordo Seclorum’ – ‘a New Order of the Ages’. Its blue-print was laid out in The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) document. Its architects, amongst others, were Elliott Abrams, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Pearle, John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz. This cabal of neocons changed the world forever.

President Bush’s manoeuvred entry into the White House, with the above named cabal as his core team, was a preamble to create conditions for the US march to global dominance. A justification like ‘another Pearl Harbour type event’ (PNAC document – page 51) was needed to realise the New Order. Sept 11 was as perfect as it was convenient for the neocon brigade. The central aim was to secure the energy rich Central Asia and Middle East. Washington’s realm of foreign policy gave way to occupations and managed chaos.

Zbigniew Brzezinski has been the foreign policy czar of five US presidents. Today he is dubbed as Obama’s Rasputin. He is also credited with playing a crucial part in arming and supporting Afghan mujahedeen against the Russians. On November 17, 2008, he spoke to a gathering of British elite. The venue was Chatham House, home to the Royal Institute of International Affairs and also thought to be behind the creation of the Bilderberg Group, an elite cabal which uses its power and influence to impose its policies on nations throughout the world. He made these chilling remarks in his speech: ‘In early times, it was easier to control a million people than to kill a million people. Today, it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people. It is easier to kill than to control’.

Brzezinski’s 1997 book, ‘The Grand Chessboard – American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives’ laying out a plan for global conquest became the PNAC document’s blueprint. It called for global domination, managed through constant conflict and destruction of challengers. Washington’s perpetual foreign policy paradigm of ‘managed chaos’ has been propagated by Brzezinski. The servile line toed by us in the post 9/11 years has helped greatly in precipitating this managed chaos. We, smug in the role of pre-paid expendables, still haggle about the rate that we expect for each Nato container passing through our soil. As Montaigne put it, ‘My reason is not framed to bend or stoop, my knees are’.

In his book, ‘The True Believer’, Eric Hoffer writes that, ‘Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket’. Washington’s occupations and interventions have started and culminated as rackets. This premise was best described by Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, the most decorated American officer of his time. He asserts in his booklet aptly titled ‘War is a racket’: ‘I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, Wall Street and the bankers.

‘In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts; I operated on three continents’. General Butler retired in October 1931. Had he been around in uniform today he would have needed a voluminous book rather than his booklet of 1935 to encapsulate all of Washington’s rackets.

Managed chaos Part – I – Mir Adnan Aziz

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-111278-Managed-chaos-Part---I