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statement of ideals are inspiring but the reality is far away........

Since Australia has mortgaged its future to this nation [the USA] it is worth debating the matter.

The preambles to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as statement of ideals are inspiring but the reality is far from these ideals. It is true that the Americans fought a civil war partly based on abolition of slavery but three quarters of a century after landmark civil rights legislation, only one percent of CEOs are black. Anyone who has lived in Washington metropolitan area and travelled on the red line of the metro can attest to the racial divide. Travelling from the affluent suburbs of Bethesda to the city, the clientele is predominantly white. The train loops through the city and back into the poorer suburbs of Maryland where the passengers are mostly black and visibly poorer.

 

By Barry Trembath

 

America’s actions post World War II were impressive. The Marshall plan and similar actions in relation to Japan were instrumental in converting the vanquished enemy into staunch allies. The Bretton Woods Institutions, The United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund have benefited the world (but then I am biased having spent seventeen years of my life working for the World Bank). Each have their critics, but there are few among the developing nations that have benefited from their programs that would not agree. The more advanced countries have been able to borrow money from the World Bank on similar terms as to wealthier nations. The less developed have qualified for highly concessional credits or even grants. Similarly, IMF support has saved many nations from bankruptcy.

Yet these institutions are not perfect and still bear some of the stains from their inception:

The United Nations: The General Assembly is representative but the Security Council with the victors of World War as permanent members is not; it is dated and there seems no way of rectifying the situation.

Similarly, the World Bank is hampered by the unwritten rule that the president should be American. Efforts have been made to correct this with a Korean American and an Indian American occupying the posts for two of the last three appointments. But in the process the brilliant Nigerian Ngozi Oconjo Iweala lost out to the detriment of the Bank. Also, the World Bank has become more bureaucratic and overly concerned with reputational risk. Reviewing recent project documents of the World Bank and China led Asia infrastructure Bank, the latter’s approach is more in keeping with present day norms.

IMF: This institution must be respected for its rigour but it has faced many criticisms too numerous to list here. I side with Joseph Stiglitz the Nobel Prise winning economist and former chief economist of the World Bank who maintained that conditionality “was reflecting the interests and ideology of the Western financial community.”

Post war the Kennedy’s (sons of wealth) grew into the job. As Jeffrey Sachs pointed out in Pearls & Irritations, John Kennedy, having stood up to most of his cabinet and the generals who favoured nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis, in his short presidency was a peace maker. Some people say that Robert Kennedy was even more so and Edward Kennedy after the events of Chappaquiddick redeemed himself in later life. Those who deserve honourable mention are Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton (for their efforts attempting to achieve “Peace in the Middle East”), George Mitchell and John Kerry for his work on the JPOA and current environmental credentials.

Perhaps, the greatest criticisms of the USA are of its self-appointed responsibilities as the world’s policeman. While this may have had had some positive consequences, the overwhelming view is that this has been detrimental to international stability. The US has been at war for ninety four percent of time since independence and involved in the de-stabilisation and overthrow of governments that do not share its version of democracy. Possibly, the most egregious demonstration of this is in relation to the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq. During the Iran-Iraq war, American hatred of Iran, emanating from the Iranian revolution was such that Rumsfeld and Cheney (who later became key proponents of war with Iraq) backed Saddam Hussein on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, possibly based on incorrect advice from American Ambassador April Glaspie, the USS expelled Saddam from Kuwait but left troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. The continued presence of American troops on Saudi land then led to the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the second Iraq war with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and instability in Iraq which has lasted to the present.

Vietnam is another instance of the US’s straying far from its own borders this time drawn in by Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies, an unfortunate precedent since Australia has been drawn into later wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Ukraine. Again, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost this time both American, Australian and Vietnamese before America realised its folly and retreated in disarray.

While considering America’s actions on the international stage they must be condemned for continued support to Israel despite its actions towards Palestine in the land that it occupies (largely because of the influential Jewish lobby) and towards Cuba because of the influential Cuban lobby in Florida.

One often hears that Fraklin Roosevelt was one of the greatest American presidents and that is probably true. But let us not forget that the New Deal was in response to the Great Depression, which originated in America and had disastrous effects internationally including Australia. In later years there have been several financial meltdowns each originating in the US and resulting from inadequate regulation. The exceptions are the Asian financial crisis and the oil crises originating in Arab states. Currently, Australia and most of the world are experiencing inflation which can be largely blamed on the Ukraine War precipitated by the US.

Associated with the self-appointed role as the World’s policeman, according to Al Jazeera, America controls more than 750 bases in eighty countries and spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined. Global US military deployment data published in the Conflict Management and Peace Science Journal, indicate that the US had around 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries as of 2020. In Australia according to the same source, there are seven bases and 1,085 troops. It seems we are already a US dominion.

The claims that the US is morally bankrupt have credence. The country is polarised between hard right extremists on the one hand (characterised by the events of January 6, 2021) and others who claim to be liberal but in practice are not so liberal. It is difficult to say which version of America, Australia is signing up with. According to Gun Violence Archive (GVA), 2021 became the worst year for mass shootings since GVA began tracking them in 2013, with 690 shootings across 44 states and Washington, DC. The continued lack of action on gun control despite the daily reports of mass shootings based on the flimsy excuse of the second amendment is appalling. Lobbying by the National Rifle association is largely responsible. Opponents to gun control take the second amendment out of context; it actually states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

In conclusion, it must be acknowledged that the high moral stature that the US adopts is unfounded in recent years. More to the point Australia does not know which version of the United States it will be dealing with. Even, the better versions are not attractive.

 

READ MORE:

https://johnmenadue.com/the-united-states-of-america/

 

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them and us.....

 

BY Kenny Stancil

 

President Joe Biden claims that the United States is leading "democracies" in a fight against "autocracies" to establish a peaceful international order, but his administration approved weapons sales to nearly three-fifths of the world's authoritarian countries in 2022.

That's according to a new analysis conducted by Security Policy Reform Institute co-founder Stephen Semler and published Thursday [May 2023] in The Intercept.

The U.S. has been the world's largest arms dealer since the end of the Cold War. Data released in March showed that the U.S. accounted for 40% of global weapons exports from 2018 to 2022.

As Semler explained:

In general, these exports are funded through grants or sales. There are two pathways for the latter category: foreign military sales and direct commercial sales.

The U.S. government acts as an intermediary for FMS acquisitions: It buys the materiel from a company first and then delivers the goods to the foreign recipient. DCS acquisitions are more straightforward: They're the result of an agreement between a U.S. company and a foreign government. Both categories of sales require the government's approval.

Country-level data for last year's DCS authorizations was released in late April through the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. FMS figures for fiscal year 2022 were released earlier this year through the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency. According to their data, a total of 142 countries and territories bought weapons from the U.S. in 2022, for a total of $85 billion in bilateral sales.

To determine how many of those governments were democratic and how many were autocratic, Semler relied on data from the Varieties of Democracy project at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, which uses a classification system called Regimes of the World.

"Of the 84 countries codified as autocracies under the Regimes of the World system in 2022, the United States sold weapons to at least 48, or 57%, of them," Semler wrote. "The 'at least' qualifier is necessary because several factors frustrate the accurate tracking of U.S. weapons sales. The State Department's report of commercial arms sales during the fiscal year makes prodigious use of 'various' in its recipients category; as a result, the specific recipients for nearly $11 billion in weapons sales are not disclosed."

"The Regimes of the World system is just one of the several indices that measure democracy worldwide, but running the same analysis with other popular indices produces similar results," Semler observed. "For example, Freedom House listed 195 countries and for each one labeled whether it qualified as an electoral democracy in its annual Freedom in the World report. Of the 85 countries Freedom House did not designate as an electoral democracy, the United States sold weapons to 49, or 58%, of them in fiscal year 2022."

Despite the White House's lofty rhetoric, it is actively bolstering the military power of a majority of the world's authoritarian countries, from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to dozens of others, including some overlooked by researchers at the University of Gothenburg.

For instance, the Varieties of Democracy project characterizes Israel as a "liberal democracy" even though human rights groups around the world have condemned it as a decidedly anti-democratic apartheid state. Washington, meanwhile, showers Israel with $3.8 billion in military support each year, resources that the government uses to violently dispossess and frequently kill Palestinians at will.

As Semler put it Saturday in his "Speaking Security" newsletter, "These findings fly in the face of Biden's preferred framing of international politics as a "battle between democracies and autocracies."

The president's narrative "lends itself more to a self-righteous foreign policy than an honest or productive one," Semler argued. "Dividing the world between democratic and autocratic countries—in the spirit of 'with us or against us'—makes conflict more likely and has had a chilling effect on calls for diplomacy and détente. It's also harder to cooperate with the international community while insisting you're locked in an existential fight with roughly half of them."

 

READ MORE:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-sells-weapons-to-majority-of-authoritarian-countries

 

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a crooked world cop.....

 

BY Veniamin Popov

 

The global world order is on the verge of a radical transformation.

The Western powers 30 years ago saw in the collapse of the Soviet Union, which resulted from its internal weaknesses and mistakes, an unprecedented opportunity to dominate the world by way of deterring possible competitors by any means.

Perhaps one of the most important features of the current times is this truth dawning on the countries of the so-called Global South: they understand that the instruments of this deterrence have been “demonization, isolation, interference, political sabotage, development of provocations and crises, sanctions, flagrant violations of international law, including overt military invasions.”

These words were recently spoken by the President of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki.

This US strategy, which was designed to confirm and strengthen Washington’s hegemony, has failed and is rejected by the absolute majority of the world’s population. This notion was clearly expressed by the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram on May 30 of this year.

US President Joe Biden’s ideas of dividing all countries into democratic and authoritarian camps are increasingly showing their artificiality and incapacity. The most striking recent example has been the decisive victory of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey’s presidential elections this May. All this despite the American media noting “the dreadful state of the Turkish economy as well as February’s earthquakes, which took an estimated 50,000 lives and caused tens of thousands of injuries,” which should have led to Erdoğan’s “crushing defeat.” In this regard the observer of the New York Times Bret Stephens arrives, with surprise, at the conclusion, that “there are things people care about more than their paychecks.”

More and more developing countries are openly rebelling against the dictates of the West. Take, for example, Tunisia, a small Mediterranean country facing considerable economic difficulties. In October 2022, an agreement in principle was reached with the International Monetary Fund on an almost two-billion dollar aid package. Negotiations with the IMF have stalled for several months due to demands to restructure government agencies and abolish subsidies for essential goods. President of Tunisia Kais Saied, in order to avoid a “foreign dictate,” proposed taxing the richest citizens, i.e. taking excess money from wealthy people and distributing it to the poor.

The solidarity mechanism of developing countries is starting to work more actively: the African Export-Import Bank has allocated a loan of half a billion dollars to Tunisia.

Washington exerted enormous pressure on the Arab states, demanding that they not allow the return of Syria to the League of Arab States. Nevertheless, the normalization of relations with Damascus is steadily gaining traction.

The Arab states, like other countries of the Arab South, understand that they should defend their security and their interests themselves without regard to Washington – hence the reconciliation of Iran and Saudi Arabia and the beginning of discussions on security systems in the Gulf without the United States.

The most obvious example of a more independent role of the states of the Global South is their refusal to join the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the West. It is noteworthy that not a single Muslim-majority country, despite Washington’s pressure, has agreed to support the restrictive measures of the Western powers against Moscow. Since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Russia’s trade with China, India, Brazil, Iran and many other developing countries has grown noticeably.

The recent meeting of OPEC+ once again demonstrated that the pressure of the West does not bring the expected results: they failed to put Russia and Saudi Arabia at odds. Moreover, it was decided to maintain the level of oil production until the end of 2024.

In a survey conducted in 2022 by the Arab Research Center in Doha, 78% of respondents in 14 Arab countries said that the United States is the biggest source of threats and instability in the region.

At the same time, the majority calls the USA “a hypocritical imperial power that pays only lip service to human rights and democracy.”

The Egyptian press reported that as part of the movement towards a multipolar world, a number of non-aligned states decided to create their own association, the Transactional-25 (T25): they decided to remain neutral in relation to Ukraine and not enter into an alliance with either the United States, China, or Russia, and they emphasize that they give priority to their own national interests and worries.

The most prominent members of the T25 are Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.

The non-aligned countries have limited confidence in the institutions of the post-1945 US-led international order, such as the IMF. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is promoting his “peace club” to end the war in Ukraine, to show the growing importance of non-aligned countries. India also wants to use its G20 presidency this year to promote the agenda of the Global South.

However, perhaps the best new trends in the modern world order are manifested in the desire of many developing countries to join BRICS or to agree with this association on joint actions. At the same time, the most attractive idea is the de-dollarization of the modern world, i.e. the transition to international trade settlements in national currencies. The idea of creating a new joint currency is being discussed more and more actively among the members of BRICS.

Almost every day now brings new evidence of a more independent policy of developing countries. Recently, the 42nd ASEAN Summit, held in Indonesia, emphasized the region’s intention not to become a mediator in settling tensions between the US and China: the summit’s decision to resist Washington’s pressure aimed at containing China in the Indo-Pacific region means that ASEAN will not be a pawn in US geopolitics.

Sober-minded voices are also beginning to sound more energetically in Western Europe: the head of the French National Rally, Marine Le Pen, said that Crimea certainly belongs to Russia, and the Swiss Parliament voted against sending weapons to the Kiev regime.

There is no doubt that in the near future we will all witness new positive changes in the balance of power on the world stage: there is no doubt that Russia’s successes in its special military operation in Ukraine will accelerate this process.

 

Veniamin Popov, Director of the Center for the Partnership of Civilizations at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Candidate of Historical Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

 

READ MORE:

https://journal-neo.org/2023/06/17/the-end-of-the-unipolar-world/

 

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