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CounterPunch
September
24, 2002
The Portrait
of Uncle Sam
by LINDA S. HEARD
Like the painting of Dorian Grey, which portrayed
eternal youth and goodness before it began to reflect the contents
of Dorian's soul, the face of the once-kindly Uncle Sam is today
exposed for all to see.
The benign features of this American
symbol were already distorted when George W. Bush first took
office. They contorted with fear and paranoia after the attack
on America last year, which quickly turned to the desire for
revenge. That was the time that the US President decided to capitalise
on the world's outpouring of grief and support to further his
own geopolitical agenda.
An unsuspecting world has taken time
to take stock of this new world order. Now that it has, it is
just beginning to realise how helpless it really is, confronted
with the muscle-flexing of the world's only superpower, intent
on showing the rest of us just who is boss.
Nations around the globe are waking up
to the fact that they have no real sovereign integrity, only
the illusion of being in charge of their own destinies. To thwart
the will of American hegemony is to metaphorically sign one's
own death warrant.
The collapse of the Soviet empire has
meant that the US has no real opposition, and it knows it. Prior
to Bush junior's arrival on the scene it, at least, pretended
to defer to the wishes of the community of nations. These days
it hardly bothers putting on a token show.
Any nation or person which dares to challenge
the authority of Dubya, or his buddy Ariel Sharon, the Israeli
Prime Minister, is deemed irrelevant, as the veteran Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat discovered to his cost.
Today, Arafat sits in his besieged compound,
a prisoner; held hostage by a country which believes in punishing
the innocent when it cannot find the guilty. Ariel Sharon disavows
the Oslo Accords, imprisons an entire nation, while his uniformed
thugs murder Palestinian women and children with impunity. But
that's just fine and dandy because there is nothing anyone else
can do about it--not as long as he enjoys the seemingly unconditional
backing of the White House.
Flushed with confidence now that big
brother is firmly on his side, Ariel Sharon has informed the
US that Israel may consider going to war with Lebanon once more.
Why? All because the Lebanese government has dared to siphon
off water from its own river to irrigate the crops in the south
of its country, which means that less water flows on to Israel.
Lebanon says that it is operating well
within the constraints of international law. But, hey! Who cares
about international law these days when the only visible international
law is the dictates of the American President, the same leader
who took American people out of the jurisdiction of the new international
court in The Hague?
The US showed its disdain for international
law when it trussed up detainees in Afghanistan like chickens
with chains and blindfolds and subsequently kept them in coops,
open to the elements, without any proof of their alleged crimes
or trial. It showed further disdain for international law when
it rounded up its Arab guests and gaoled thousands of them, without
even publishing their names.
Now it's the turn of Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein. Some believe that Iran, Syria and, perhaps, even
Saudi Arabia are next on the list. The now famous Rand presentation
to the US Defence Advisory Committee ominously suggested that
'Egypt is the Prize'.
Even the United Nations are not immune
from receiving a certificate of irrelevance, if its members refuse
to play ball with American interests, as the American President
made clear during his recent speech before the General Assembly.
When that erstwhile organisation doesn't
move as fast as the Bush administration might like, or in a direction
which suits its agenda, it is accused of having no 'backbone'.
When it supports America's ambitions, the US gives it some candy.
Last year, when it supported the invasion of Afghanistan, America's
long-outstanding membership dues were paid. This year, it gets
America's re-entry into UNESCO and all the benefits which will
derive from that.
Last year, Bush spoke the words.."you
are either with the United States or with the terrorists`, and
few took that sabre-rattling rhetoric seriously. Now they all
do. Translated, it means 'do as we say or be considered as our
enemy'. Few nations are courageous enough to put themselves in
the firing line of the militarily strongest and most technologically-advanced
country in the world, and although they may mutter their objections
to this or that, they invariably give fold as soon as the US
wags its finger.
We saw evidence of this after the President's
speech at the UN. The speech contained nothing we didn't already
know about Saddam Hussein and no evidence that he has weapons
of mass destruction, ready to unleash on the rest of the world.
Instead, it was full of hypocrisy and double-standards, which
the member states chose to ignore out of cowardice. Instead of
standing up to the US, those member states were glad they could
pass the buck for any decision vis-a-vis Iraq onto the collective
body of the United Nations.
Just the day before that speech, French
President Jacques Chirac was a vehement opponent of any adventurism
in Iraq. The day after he was making conciliatory noises to the
effect that France might lend its support to a regime-change
in Iraq, provided it had the cover of the UN. Many of the Arab
leaders, once firmly behind the Arab League, which said any attack
on one is an attack on all, are now getting cold feet and look
as though they might be ready to turn a blind eye on the Iraqi
situation.
The negative stances of China and Russia,
also permanent members of the Security Counsel, altered dramatically
too and both are now predicted to support an American-sponsored
UN resolution on the return of the weapons inspectors to Baghdad...
or else. One can only speculate on what these countries have
been proffered, or rather which portion of the pie their oil
companies will receive when a puppet government is installed
in the Iraqi capital.
Nelson Mandela is one of the few respected
statesmen whose words match his true convictions. He has made
no bones about saying loudly and clearly that America's current
attitude is a threat to world peace.
The ugly face of George Bush's America
was further exposed on September 16 when after persuasion by
the Arab League Iraq finally said that it will allow the inspectors
back into the country unconditionally, the US laughs in its face.
All Bush's talk about inspectors is baloney. He isn't going to
allow Iraq to comply with UN resolutions and thwart his real
plans for the region.
While America gloats at the success of
its bullying and belligerence thus far, beneath the surface there
is a simmering cauldron of anti-US sentiment around the world,
and especially in the Arab and Moslem worlds. America certainly
had its enemies before 9-11, but as a result of its unilateral
policies concerning the environment, land mines, the now defunct
ABM Treaty, and towards the Israel-Palestine conflict, their
numbers have multiplied.
In the meantime, the American public
is kept blissfully unaware of the real reasons for its country's
unpopularity. Instead, it is hypnotised with such sound bites
as 'they (the faceless, nameless enemies) are jealous of our
freedoms' or 'they hate democracy'. They are told repeatedly
that they are the defenders of freedom and the only hope for
a better world 'for our children and our children's children'.
Ask a man on the street in Seattle or Nebraska as to why he thinks
America was attacked and he will parrot the party line while
genuinely wondering: Why us? We haven't done anything wrong.
The rest of the world's populations are
mostly confused and resentful. Many are angry at the seeming
subservience of their own governments towards the US, and Arabs,
in particular, are offended at the constant attacks by the American
media--and some politicians and pundits--on their culture, traditions,
religion and everything which makes them individual and unique.
Let's face it folks! The US dominates
the world and we are all its loyal or disloyal subjects as the
case may be.
So here we all are between a rock and
a hard place. We can either beat 'em or join 'em. The first option
isn't practical as things stand, and the alternative is abhorrent
to many, including those of us who still believe in the concept
of a just world. The solution requires a large dose of Edward
de Bono's lateral thinking or some divine intervention--provided,
of course, that God doesn't only bless America.
Linda S. Heard
welcomes feedback and can be emailed at freenewsreport@yahoo.com
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September
21 / 22, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
An Entire
Class
of Thieves
Tom Gorman
The Press & Sabra
and Shatila
Amelia Peltz
Anniversary with Life
in Palestine
Susan Martinez
By the Hand
of the Father
Ben Tripp
Advice from
a Polemicist
Adam Engel
From Above:
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Chris Clarke
The Ann Coulter Test
Tariq Ali
Doing as the
Romans Did
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Bush Victory
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Ralph Nader
Greed Without Limits
Thomas Croft
The Life of Jim Cummings
Anthony Gancarski
Concerned Citizen:
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Lessons from a Cyncial Master Jean
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Toxic Wastes
and
the New World Order
Peter Lee
Why Bush
Wants This War
Bruce Jackson
20 Questions
About Bush's
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Krystal Kyer
Greenwashing the Marketplace
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Ron Jacobs
Cheney's
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Ilija Trojanow
/ Ranjit Hoskote
Who Cares
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Jordy Cummings
How
to Silence
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Salam Rahal
The Rape
of a Nation
Richard Falk
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War with
Iraq:
It's Not Bush's Decision
Ralph Nader
How Congress
Can Fight Corporate Crime
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Senior:
Hating Saddam, Selling Him Weapons
September
18, 2002
Rep. Cynthia
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Goodbye
to All That
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Cancerous
Air
Born Under a Bad Sky
Ben Tripp
Smoking
Gun
of a Hatchet Job
Peggy Thomson
20 Years
After:
Sabra and Shatila
Thomas Mountain
September
1982
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Yet Another
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Israel's Other Voices
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