Ken Mufuka
5 January 2004
column
BY the time you read this, Christmas will be over and we will be looking into the fourth year of what we call here the American century. It is therefore time to reflect and take stock of the earth shaking events that have taken place among us, and how American influence will affect even the farthest parts of the earth.
The idea, now called the Bush doctrine, started in 1991, in brief among young Republicans, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz (now Deputy Defense Secretary) and Richard Pearle, an advisor on security matters. In typical American fashion, they wanted to change the Middle East equation by making bold strokes in that area which would lead to regime changes in Iran, Syria and Iraq.
Also in typical imperialist fashion, they surmised that such earth shaking changes would benefit the world and the Middle East itself. In this week's TIME magazine, three American soldiers feature on the front page as the Persons of the Year because they epitomise this vision of American power in the world.
In the short term, the US has achieved monumental advantages for the Western world and for the people of Iraq. They have exposed the lie in the Middle East that dictators work for Arab people and that their leadership has their blessings.
Mass graves, containing no less than 500 000 Iraqis murdered and victimised by their former dictator and huge amounts of cash amounting to millions of US dollars have been found in the possession of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, proving that they used Iraq oil money as a personal bank.
The US has also exposed the huge amounts of foreign debts, US$120bn, incurred on behalf of Iraq but used for the personal aggrandisement of the rulers. There has been jubilation in the streets of Baghdad at the capture of this most wicked dictator.
Temporarily the US has secured the second largest oil market for the west and this will stabilise prices for a long time to come, while putting billions of dollars in Vice-President Cheney's oil company, Halliburton and Brown and Associates.
The Middle-East dictators are quaking in their boots. The US has proven that it can effect a regime change in any of these countries whenever it so desires. Brother Muammar Gaddafi of Libya has learned this lesson, decided to disarm and allow American oil companies back into Libya. Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have been scrambling to please the Americans and have been handing over information on suspected terrorists travelling thro-ugh their countries.
But all these are temporary successes on the part of the US because what it wants is a complete change in the cultures and lifestyles of these people and a remaking of their economies and religions to suit American hegemonic tastes.
For instance Syria, after co-operating in hunting down anti-American suspects in its country, desired a favourite son relationship with the US. Instead, the US Congress has passed a Syria Accountability Act. Syria must now account for its actions to the US Secretary of State who will then report and certify to Congress that certain actions have been satisfactorily taken by Syria.
This is very similar to the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1984 that is credited as having laid down the last straw on the apartheid regime. The Saudi Arabians have not escaped the wrath of the US Congress either. The US government has demanded co-operation on security, banking information and movement of persons in and out of Saudi Arabia. Jordan is now being accused of harbouring fleeing Iraqi suspects and is being threatened with unspecified actions.
The crux of the matter is that the US has been studying the syllabi of the Muslim Madrassas (religious schools) and has decided that their content is inadequate for preparing kids for a technological future because of its over emphasis on religion. The second issue is that the US has decided that the protection and relationship between the Middle-East states and the Muslim religion creates hostility towards other religions and therefore contradicts the UN charter on freedom of worship. Thirdly, the US has decided that the regimes of the Middle East are useless and worthless precisely because they represent nobody but cabals of self-seeking dictators.
Democracy is the cure. There is a huge debate on whether the US should continue to support Egypt with a US$2bn subsidy or cut it off. In Afghanistan and Iraq the Americans have forced their surrogate governments to employ women in high positions and to liberate them culturally.
You will see that if all these were achieved, the US might become a truly liberating force in the world. But the weakness of these programmes is that they unify both the conservative Muslims and the self-seeking dictators. Both are losers if such far- reaching changes are effected.
The cry then, by these two groups, is that the US is undermining the Muslim way of life and secularising the Arab nations. There is a lot of truth in that because Americans want a separation of church and state. The great question of the day is: Who has a right to make these decisions, the US or the Arabs themselves?
The answer here is simple. The treacherous Arab dictators like Saddam Hussein would never give up power voluntarily and it is incumbent on a great nation like the US to force regime change. The real weakness of the American position is that all the governments mentioned above, with the exception of Syria, have been puppets of the US. They committed great crimes in the name of capitalism.
The Shah of Iran (1952-1979) was a creature of the West par excellence; his suits were tailored in Paris, and his cooks were Frenchmen. The US Central Intelligence trained his secret police and even his wife Queen Farah was French.
So what is new under the earth?
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