Are revolutions made or do they really come. Carlyle felt that sick time gives it birth. But there is increasing evidence that the USA has been engineering revolutions by , among others, massive funding. That the Arab Spring was the result of New Age Technology like Face Book, Twitter etc., is increasingly becoming clear. Colin Tod Hunter in the Deccan Herald of 29th Nov 11, speaks of US Neo Imperialism. I agree with much of his views. I do not say that they were wholly US manufactured. There is always misgovernment and here are alawys angry people. The USA made a diabolical use of both to see that US compliant regines emeged all over the areas affected by the Arab Spring: all to control West Asian oil.
A major political event occurs and the mainstream media Tod Hunter points how the media opts for simplistic explanations. Take the so-called ‘Arab Spring’, for instance. The overriding narrative is about how Facebook and Twitter has changed that part of the world.
The premise is that widespread, spontaneous, grass-root uprisings spread within individual countries and then from one country to another, largely as a result of the use of social media technology. What we were not informed of, however, was the extent to which many of these events had been managed and preplanned.
Adds the learned writer: “In many ways, the Arab Spring is reminiscent of the earlier revolutions in Eastern Europe that occurred in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Also portrayed by the media as grass-root uprisings, many of those ‘revolutions’ were in fact destabilisation-regime change operations, funded and orchestrated by the US. Although many independently acting ordinary folk did actually become involved, they ended up being highly disillusioned with the outcome. But the west got what it wanted – pro-western governments in power.”
The U.S. has engineered revolutions spanning from the banana republics of Central America to the middle east and beyond. Though this could be cited as ample proof of U.S. potential to overthrow existing regimes, I cannot see any reason for the U.S to overthrow Mubarak, since he was loyally subordinate to Israeli demands. Mubarak made sure that the oil pipelines to Israel were well guarded and that the Rafah crossing was unavailable to the Gazans.
The reason why the American media is seeking to oversimplify the recent revolution is simple. If they dig too deep, people might actually stumble upon the truth.
A few days after 9/11, President Bush raised a plaintive question as to why ‘they’ hate us so much. He concluded that ‘they’ hate our freedom! The truth was that the Arabs hated the U.S. because it supported a string of military dictatorships that were denying basic freedoms to the people, and most of all due to America’s almost reflexive support for Israel.
But statements such as the above are in violent contradiction with what the U.S. government and the media have maintained all along, namely, spreading democracy in the middle-east.
As if this weren’t enough, many American intellectuals maintain that this saintly American urge to spread democracy abroad springs from America’s ‘exceptionalism’.
So,according to them, the U.S is, most reluctantly, pushing itself to fulfill these self-arrogated commitments.
But the fact of the matter is that there is nothing exceptional to America. Almost every hegemonic or hegemony-aspiring power has drawn water from the same old well of exceptionalism.
The Japanese fascists looked upon themselves as unique and managed to convince themselves that they were going to bring ‘earthly paradise’ to the depraved Chinese in Manchuria. Britain believed that she was having a civilising effect on India. Hitler believed that the Aryan race was equipped with the best of all worlds and hence exceptional. American exceptionalism is no different.
Excellent! I find it a very clear analysis.
Mubarak was opposed to US polcy towards Iran and Syria. Webster Tarpley, on his site, explains.
Students of our Institute are avid readers of your column and are delighted at your participation. May I request you for more frequent bloggings. Grateful to you, Sir!
Nice to read that your students are keen followers of my writing, sir. Sometimes I wonder just who reads what I write for DH because I don’t spend too much time in Banagalore/Karnataka.
I find Tod Hunter’s analysis of US Neo Imperialism simply brilliant. I have memories of Japan’s concept of Asia Co-prosperity sphere. I am reminded of their taking women prisoners and making them comfort women. An Imperialist is an Imperialist and an Imperialist always. Also remember how the South Asian countries hate the expression of Greater India.
Tod Hunter again”The covert US funding and management of the revolutions in Eastern Europe has been well documented. A series of governments were overthrown by mobilising disaffected, pro-western people financed by the US government via various foundations, such as National Endowment for Democracy, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Freedom House, the Centre for Non Violent Action and Strategies and the United States Agency for International Development.
The same has been true of the Arab Spring – a nice media friendly sound-bite denoting renewal and hope. In Egypt, US friendly Mubarak was ousted and a US friendly military junta installed. Not much change. Not much hope. The turmoil in Libya and now in Syria are spin offs from the events in Tunisia and Egypt. And it doesn’t take much to appreciate that events across that part of the world are turning out to be favourable for the US.
That’s because it has had its fingers all over the Arab Spring since before day one. While the mainstream media homed in on the role of Facebook and Twitter in the Egyptian uprising, little if anything was said about the US government’s role, through its various foundations and institutes, in actually promoting the use of social media technology among the young and encouraging political activism in the Arab world.
French-Canadian Ahmed Bensaada’s new book ‘Arabesque Americain’ documents the links, funding and main figures behind pro-democracy organisations in over a dozen Arab countries, including Egypt, Lybia, Tunisia and Syria, which were financed by the US. Indeed, he identifies the specific pro-democracy groups by name and the exact amount of US funding each received.
Hardly a series of autonomous, grass-root uprisings as the media would have us believe. Notwithstanding the genuine desires, frustrations and grievances that propelled many ordinary folk to eventually join in and take to the streets, much of the Arab Spring seems to have been backed by a US policy of destabilisation.
Arc of instability
George W Bush once stated that West Asia through to Pakistan represented an ‘arc of instability’ and that it was the US government’s mission to export freedom there and to bring stability to the region. Look no further than Pakistan to see what the US has brought.
An active US high risk campaign has been mounted to divide, weaken and control a nuclear armed country by fuelling ethnic and regional tensions and exploiting factionalism between and within the military, intelligence services and civilian government. The ongoing destabilisation of Pakistan and even possible eventual strategically managed balkanisation would serve to counter Chinese influence and fit in with US aims to assume control of the wider region, from Morocco to the borders of a compliant India.
Divide and rule has been a tactic of many an empire throughout the ages, and it is no coincidence that so many nations, usually highly strategic for US interests – Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, for example – have been destabilised, after having been weakened at the centre by the US. Of course, they are now being ‘supported’ by the US, except in the case of Syria (at least not yet).
With its ally Syria teetering on the brink, perhaps Iran was all along the ultimate goal for the US domino policy of destabilisation in the Arab world and West Asia. Oil rich and holding a key geo-political position in relation to the mineral rich central Asian republics, the US has been for some time taking aim at Iran. If its covert operations to undermine the Iranian government and ferment dissent fail, there’s always direct military intervention, and the huge build up of US military hardware in the region suggests this is becoming a distinct possibility.
Reliable polls conducted in the U.S. indicate that over 70% of the population prefers that the government solve the Iran nuclear issue by diplomacy rather than by force.. But the Obama administration seems to have different ideas, and in the process has torn to shreds article 2 of the U.N. charter which clearly states that force or threats of force is a criminal act.
Funnily enough, when Iran tries to influence the Shiite dominated government of Iraq (its neighbor), its actions are denounced as destabilization. But when the U.S. decides to invade and occupy a country thousands of miles away, it is termed as bringing order and stability to the middle east.
It is true that none of the Arab states would desire a nuclear armed Iran. Even so this scenario is second worst. The worst would be an U.S. invasion of Iran.
What is even more distressing about this situation is the sheer helplessness of the U.N. to enforce its authority in the middle east, be it regarding Iran or Iraq. Despite the fact that the International court of justice has declared that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is a criminal act, the U.S. is busy constructing the largest embassy in the world in Baghdad, replete with underground bunkers.
The fact of the matter is that the U.S is accepted as an outlaw by the U.N and the American intellectuals themselves. Many so called ‘liberal’ democrats in the U.S. oppose the Iraq war not because it was wrong to invade a distant country without any provocation. That is widely accepted as a right. Their complaint is that the war is turning out to be costly in terms of resources and marine casualties, not that it was morally wrong.
As part of ‘exporting freedom, democracy and stability’, the US is running covert operations, building bases (or massive embassy compounds) and is involved in training, arming, and funding local forces in 75 countries across the globe. Moreover, last year alone, its International Military Education and Training programme indoctrinated more than 7,000 people from 130 countries.
Countless ordinary decent folk are now living in chaos as a result of US and western interference. From North Africa through to Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and into Pakistan, the US has stoked up ethnic and political tensions and has attacked or debased the sovereignty of nation states in its attempt to secure control of the entire region. Whether it is part of the bogus ‘war on terror’, or whether it occurs under the lie of ‘humanitarianism’, US led imperialism has effectively brought an arc of tragedy to the region. And it’s a tragedy of epic proportions.
Professor sir’s point of view is something I have always believed in but never came across very often. The whole area where today there is such high instability, all courtesy ‘war on terror’ and similar excuses is very rich culturally and in terms of mineral wealth. If only Afghanistan must be taken into account, pre-soviet invasion it was not the Extremist Islamic country it is today. Since then, the Mujahideen war or the Taliban and now the War in the country, its completely making the country barren (in fact more barren). If not for these tensions and disturbances stirred because of the country’s strategic location by the super powers, it did have the potential to rise as one of the promising nations.(If some old videos of Afghanistan are to be believed). If the real motive of big brother is to ‘help’ the nation, it must root our the ethnic tensions that the country faces rather than blowing wind over the fire. Same goes for the other countries of the region. Countries that have the potential to grow bigger, but disturbed by inner dissatisfaction and external instigation.
The Big brother is definitely standing true to his title !
This blog is particularly useful for IR (American foreign policy Noe colonialism and for GS
Dec.1. 11 . Parl panel agrees on appointment of CBI head
Last Updated: Thursday, December 01, 2011, 00:50 61 0 Tags: Parliamentary panel, agrees, appointment, CBI head New Delhi: Despite sharp divisions in the Parliamentary committee scrutinising Lokpal Bill on several other issues, there was a broad agreement in it on inclusion of group C officials under the ambit of the anti-corruption ombudsman and making the selection process of the CBI Director independent of government influence.
It is understood that the committee members agreed to make the appointment process of the CBI Director Independent of government’s influence and a new selection committee was suggested to select the CBI chief.
The proposed committee would consist of the Prime Minister, the Chairman of Lokpal and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
Under the present system, recommendations for appointments are made by a CBI selection board headed by the Central Vigilance Commissioner. The Home Secretary, Secretary (Public Grievances), Cabinet Secretariat are the members.
The final selection is made by the Appointment Committee of the cabinet from the panel recommended by the CBI selection Board.
It was also decided to include group C officials under the ambit of Lokpal.
While the government version says only group A officials be included, the draft report of the committee circulated to the members recently recommended inclusion of group B members also.
Team Anna had insisted that the entire bureaucracy be included in Lokpal.
The Committee decided against the inclusion of Group D officials under the watchdog’s purview.
Today, members are learnt to be in agreement that group C officials, who consist of section officers in administration and inspector-level officials in the police hierarchy, be also included as they “fleece” the most from the common man.
The final report of the committee is likely to recommend these two changes.