2003-2013: The death of interventionism

The twentieth century saw the awakening of the United States of America as a global imperialist power, following in the footsteps of its former colonial master, Great Britain and its mentor, France, in globe-trotting and drawing lines on maps, setting up bases and syphoning off resources. The first decade of the new millennium draws an end to this chapter.

2003-2013: The death of interventionism. 51319.jpeg

The First World War saw the United States of America take its first steps on the world stage, after the prelude which was the Spanish-American War of 1898. The list of American military interventions from 1917 and particularly after 1945, is as global in scope as it is long, covering the four corners of the Earth.

What did it achieve? The only time a major campaign ended in victory and had a positive outcome was when the United States of America teamed up with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the British Empire and decisively beat the racist, xenophobic and expansionist Nazi regime in the Great Patriotic War (Second World War).

Since then, the list has, by and large, been a catalogue of catastrophes. The monstrosity which is Kosovo is out of control, Iraq is out of control, Libya is a study in lawlessness - the water and electricity supply are at best intermittent - and promises to be a failed state, like Somalia and today the only stabilizing and unifying forces in Syria are those loyal to President Assad, who the USA and its allies have already chosen as an enemy.

American citizens dare not step off an aircraft in huge swathes of territory which cover a growing list of countries, where the collapse of the State, provoked by military intervention, has seen societies descend into chaos, public services owned by armed groups which make a living at the expense of the civilian population.

American interventionism is synonymous today with terrorism, with a collapse in public services, explosions on a daily basis and an absence of freedom even to go out and buy bread to place on the family dinner table. If one of the staple conditions for military intervention (but by no means a legal justification for such) is to leave a society better off, then the history of the last decade, after the disasters in Kosovo and Afghanistan, provides enough evidence to conclude that the policy has failed.

The way forward must surely be development rather than deployment and the nasty buzz-word which would argue against this is "lobbies". It is they who call the shots, it is they who decide who the next victim is to be, to sell weapons, to loan money and practise usury, it is they who feather the nests of those in the pharmaceutical, banking, energy and arms lobbies.

This being the case, our world has reached a point in which democracy per se does not exist. What does exist is a dictatorship imposed by corporatist elitist cliques representing a tiny minority of humankind which controls our resources and wealth.

Conclusion: Karl Marx was right.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru