Western “Values”

It has been suggested by some haughty, arrogant westerners that Russia should adhere to or adopt “western values.” What exactly are western values? Let’s take a good look. Since 1961, over eight million people from the Third World have died directly at the hands of the US military or indirectly via US-backed and funded regimes.

Photo: Western “Values”

Source: Casualties in the Third World: Loss of life caused by American invasions or by US-backed and funded regimes since 1960.

Earlier in imperialist colonialist history, around 10 million Congolese died as a result of Belgian forced labor and mass murder in the early 20th century. Tens of millions perished in famines that were avoidable or enforced in British-ruled India. Up to a million Algerians died in their war for independence. Many more examples of brutal, murderous colonialism can be cited.

The US has come to see itself as the savior of the world and the supreme arbitrator of each and every nation's future. Nations not prepared to bend to US will are classified as "rogue states" and threatened with brutal, inhuman sanctions and ultimately deadly brute force is utilized. We have barely entered the 21st century and now find the planet returning to a century earlier with the exercise of naked imperialism, all in the name of some supposed western moral values.

The Iraqi resistance has demonstrated that people of different races and cultures do not want to be ruled or dictated to by a foreign power from the other side of the world. Meanwhile, the revelations of widespread criminal behavior by American and British troops are a sad illustration of the fact that purported western moral values are a total farce and a charade, and that western moralizing is nothing short of utter hypocrisy and duplicity.

As the Berlin Wall came down in the late 1980s, some people in Eastern Europe thought of it as an event to celebrate. The United States invaded and bombed Panama only weeks after the Berlin Wall fell. Concurrently the US was also intervening in the elections in Nicaragua to defeat the Sandinistas. When Albania and Bulgaria elected governments not acceptable to Washington, Washington just stepped in and overthrew those governments. Soon came the bombing of the people of Iraq for 40 horrible and merciless days for no good or honest reason. The US was soon off again attacking Somalia for more bombing, mayhem and killing. After that came the dismantling of Yugoslavia.

The empire bombed the people of Yugoslavia for 78 days and nights. Again, for no good or honest reason. Then we have Afghanistan. In all likelihood, they have now killed more innocent civilians in that unfortunate country than were killed on Sept. 11, with more to come as people continue to die from bombing wounds, cluster-bomb landmines, and depleted-uranium toxicity which will continue to devastate the environment and future generations yet unborn. After all these years, they still insist on keeping a stranglehold on Cuba. This is only a partial list!

President Bush has taken the United States back to the archaic dark days of the turn of the last century and will probably go on record as one of the worst US presidents in history. Bush administration officials possess no understanding of history or the regions and peoples they seek to dominate and plunder. Despite record low approval ratings, President Bush has inoculated Americans against any thought that their country is engaging in imperialism. But those outside of his reign of disinformation see his actions for exactly what they are: imperialism. The United States and Britain have always professed the highest motives in seeking to dominate other peoples. However, imperialism has never given birth to democracy, but only to endless wars conducted with a savagery that reveals the utter falsity of US commitment to western civilization or democracy. The imperial mindset sees the people it seeks to civilize or democratize as inferior and this ultimately leads to countless and incessant outrages against these hapless peoples.

Exceedingly pompous Tony Blair was quoted as saying, "And this is not just about security or military tactics -- it is about hearts and minds. It's about inspiring people, persuading them, showing them what our values at their best stand for. And just to state it in these terms underlines how much we have to do."

After 1945, the west decided to adopt fascist methods. Nuremberg only punished a handful of the guilty, most Nazi war criminals ended up free with US help. In 1946, more than 1,000 Nazi scientists were secretly brought to the US. Nazi war criminals became the architects of US policies at home and abroad. Mores and values have deteriorated rapidly in the West in the last several decades as revolutions in technology and society progressed. In Western societies, only the corporate elitist accepted point of view has access to broadcast media, the publishing industry or university faculties. Western values are peddled as superior to all others. Why?

Here we have a few more recent examples of western values:

An American Marine excitedly exclaimed, "It's a sniper's dream, you can go anywhere and there so many ways to fire at the enemy without him knowing where you are."

"Sometimes a guy will go down, and I'll let him scream a bit to destroy the morale of his buddies. Then I'll use a second shot."

"To take a bad guy out," he explains, "is an incomparable 'adrenaline rush.'" He brags of having "24 confirmed kills.”

There’s the case of Army Private Matt Guckenheimer, just returned after a tour of service in Afghanistan who revealed what was supposed to be a secret order from his superiors. "We were told there were no friendly forces," Guckenheimer said. "If there was anybody there, they were the enemy. We were told specifically that if there were women and children to kill them." American soldiers were specifically told to kill women and children on the specific orders of their superiors.

A home movie taken in secret from a rooftop in Basra in southern Iraq shows British soldiers pulling four Iraqi boys in their early teens into their army base after a riot and beating them with batons, then punching and kicking them repeatedly on the body and head and between the legs. Within the space of one minute, some 42 blows are rained on the four teens who did not even have on shoes. One soldier is seen kicking a dead Iraqi in the face. The unidentified cameraman can be heard laughing and urging his colleagues on with vulgarities. The Brits on the home movie are just as gung-ho and turned-on torturers of detainees as the soldiers at Abu Ghraib were. Of course the warped, deviant, perverted abuses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are already legendary.

"They're fighting for our freedom." No crime is too unthinkable or great, it would appear, to ensure American “freedoms” and western values. The imperialists are dedicated to securing control and domination of the world’s resources and markets. All freedom loving people in the world need to struggle to defeat imperialism and give their support to all those nations and peoples who are resisting the empire and standing up to and defeating the most brutal military power in the world. Freedom loving people need to be educated and enlightened about who their enemies are: those who are sending workers to kill or be killed for this ever insatiable empire, an empire in which they have absolutely no stake, an empire which abuses and represses them and keeps them under thumb in a vacuum of deception, an empire which fails to provide for their basic needs and rights as human beings solely for the benefit and enrichment of corporate elitists.

With a policy of adherence to international law, friendly and honest dialogue and discussion, Russia can safely reject western values in favor of those the Russian people and nation already possess and will develop as they see fit for the future of Russia and all freedom loving people everywhere. Russia can well do without the inhuman lawless brutality inherent in western values. Drawing upon the legacy of courage, heroism, patriotism and sacrifice during the Great Patriotic War and the technological wonders and superiority of the Russian space program, everything is possible to ensure a bright future for Russia.

Lisa KARPOVA

PRAVDA.Ru

USA/CANADA