Power Politics: Foundation of United States policy

Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and it becomes abundantly clear that public opinion can easily be manipulated in the United States, even to the point of bigotry.
In targeting and executing the US’ most wanted terrorist, Obama tactfully intended to create a dramatic start to the years ahead, positioning himself favourably for re-election come Election 2012.
When cornered by unpopularity, it is a tradition of US political leaders to either instil hell’s fear in the populace, or to whip up jingoistic emotions by rallying Americans against a perceived enemy.
It used to be the Great Satan from Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and now it is the Evil Islamists that are determined to exterminate Westerners for their “goodness” as George W. Bush famously reasoned.
Robert Brenner explained a bit about the chauvinism often shown by some US presidents, among whom Obama is an easy count. In the journal “Why Bush went to war,” Robert Brenner wrote:
“The American State is obsessed with building up and projecting military-political power, because power, and its expression, is available to it in no other manner or form. The US State builds its military strength, in a way, to compensate for its loss of economic power – even though so doing will undoubtedly contribute to further relative economic decline and, in the end, political-military power disintegration .”
When the United States and its Western allies failed to assert their economic power so that they could arm-twist Kimberly Process Scheme members to ban the sale of Zimbabwean diamonds, what then happened is the elephant embarrassingly failed to trash on the ant, and the United States could not watch Zimbabwe defeating it at an international forum by successfully fighting for a consensus certification of its diamonds by the KPS.
In a brazen show of naked bully power, the United States decided to deforce the Kimberly Process by unilaterally declaring economic sanctions against two major diamond mining companies in Zimbabwe, Mbada and Marange Resources.
The idea here was to showcase political power where economic power was evidently thwarted.
Given that the US absence in the diamond market is an economic non-event where India and China are at play, the recent move by the US to add the two Zimbabwean diamond mining companies to the sanctions list is obviously delirious, but that is hardly the point.
What Obama wants to achieve by this vacuous act is a show of political power where military power is not an option.
It is an attempt to silence the Zimbabwe victory at the KP – an attempt to recast the defeat of the US and its Western allies as a non-event at the worst, or a reversible setback at its best.
The move is not different from the ferocious rhetoric about endless declarations of economic sanctions against Iran, together with the ever increasing threats of war.
The idea is to portray the US and its allies as powerful players capable of dismantling their enemies indomitably.
The downing of the US’ most sophisticated drone by the Iranians is serious indictment on the military supremacy of the US, and undoubtedly the embarrassment will not do well to Obama’s reputation.
One would explain the threats repeatedly shouted at Syria in a similar way.
Wherever and whenever practically achievable, these threats are carried out, especially when the target happens to be a defenceless small state like was Gaddafi’s Libya, or Maurice Bishop’s Grenada, or Pathos Lao’s Laos.
It would be foolhardy for the United States to even think of launching a military attack on China or Russia; perhaps for similar reasons they fear to attack Iran and Syria simultaneously. Simply put, the United States is scared of states that can defend themselves, while the empire has an unquenchable obsession with attacking small and defenceless states. The US enjoys such might victories like descending on a 100 000 populated Grenada with 12 000 special military troopers to mercilessly thwart a handful of police officers in a country that did not even have an army.
The dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden was watched live by Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton and a bunch of US military personnel via a satellite link – all of it looking like a Hollywood scene. Soon after the callous murder of Osama, Obama launched his presidential campaign right on the spot. He walked magnificently under the cover of huge and numerous cameras to the East Room podium. He then said:
“Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”
The beaming of the statement was phenomenal. The declining Obama, at 46 per cent approval ratings, suddenly found himself being watched by a record 56.5 million live viewers on nine networks, with his approval ratings shooting to 57 per cent the following day. At the time writing this piece, Obama has 25 percent approval rating from the US voters and 43 percent disapproval, giving him a Presidential Approval Index of -18, according to the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. A slight majority of 53 percent of Democrats still approve of his leadership.
Being watched by 56.5 million viewers was a perfect figure for launching his Election 2012 presidential campaign, apart from the current setback caused by a combusting economy.
Most critics of Obama accuse the man of being arrogant, disdainful and solitary, apart from the anti-war groups and rights activists that see him as a warmonger escalating the Bush Wars and even starting his own, and as an arrogant violator of civil liberties.
After killing Osama, Obama turned himself into a perfect leader for a country at war. The oration genius was at his unctuous best stealing the 9/11 imagery from the Bush legacy. Wearing a grief stricken face, Obama opined:
“And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts…….”
Just like in the sermons of Osama, Obama ended his speech on an appealing religious note:
“Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: ‘one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’ Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.”
This was coming from a person who had just commanded the drone killing of 66 villagers in Pakistan barely two years earlier on.
Of course these poor villagers do not compare with United States citizens, because they are poverty stricken lesser peoples with no dinner tables over which they can miss their dead, with kids too dire in poverty and sadness to warrant talk of embracing love.
The Western mainstream media very easily switched over from celebrating the overrated royal wedding in London to exalting a lawless revenge killing mission that took the life of an unarmed and surrendering criminal.
It is like the way the Western media triumphantly reported the magnificent killing of Muammar Gaddafi in cold blood, after his motorcade was bomb attacked by an American drone, before the escaping occupants were rounded up by US special commandos,(who were not meant to be there) fronting rag tag Libyan rebels.
Just as much as the royal wedding in London was designed to rebrand the increasingly irrelevant English monarchy, the killing of Osama did the same for Obama.
Before this deed, global opinion was rising against the triumvirate US, France and the UK for an ill-timed attack on a Gaddafi residence that killed one of his sons and a 12 month old grandson.
All the hype was quickly set aside as Obama pointed the screaming world to the never to be seen picture of a dead Osama bin Laden. We were all eloquently informed by Obama that the image of a head blasted Osama was too ghastly to be shown to any decent person, and that was the end of the story. To kill it all, we were informed Osama’s body had already been buried at sea “according to Islamic law.”
Obama must have been relieved to see cheering crowds in Washington DC and New York. Bizarrely, the Pakistan Prime Minister queued on the White House phone alongside European leaders and some of their puppets from the developing world, profusely offering heartfelt congratulations to Obama.
Suddenly Obama was a darling of the liberals, most of whom fell over each other gushing over the technical aspects of the great triumph, particularly so impressed by the wondrous performance of the Navy Seals.
Professor Gary Wills, who was before this deed a known public critic of Obama’s record on civil liberties; was instantly converted to an Obama praise singer.
He energetically lectured that Obama was not “flaccid or feckless on national defence and military action,” as alleged by his Republican opponents, and therefore, it was crucial that, while admiring the “superb things done by our Navy Seals . . . we should keep somewhere in the back of our minds a remembrance that the one ultimately pulling the trigger in both Seal actions was the President of the United States.”
For sure it was the United States president that ultimately bombed down Gaddafi’s motorcade before getting him callously murdered by US armed Libyan rebels in gross violation of international law.
It is the same US president that continues to wantonly bomb hapless villagers in Pakistan and Afghanistan in two illegal wars today, at least by Professor Wills’ logic. Another mild critic of Obama, Maureen Dowd, was in raptures showering Obama with legendary compliments:
“No wonder the President’s top generals call him “a Cool Hand Luke.” If we could have seen everything unfolding in real time, it would have had the same dramatic effect as the intercutting in the President’s favourite movie, The Godfather, when Michael Corleone calmly acts as godfather at his nephew’s baptism at church, even as his lieutenants carry out the gory hits he has ordered on rival mobsters.
Just substitute “Leave the copter, take the corpse” for “Leave the gun, take the cannoli’.”
She concluded, “Morally and operationally, this was counterterrorism at its finest. We have nothing to apologise for.”
Among Obama’s admirers were George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld – a triumvirate of murderous thugs all undoubtedly top class candidates for The Hague’s ICC, only if this court was not only meant to persecute and torment hapless Africans, the only people ever tried at this discredited centre of travesty.
As we mark this Unity Day for Zimbabwe we must remember always to be vigilant. Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!!