Monday, January 2, 2017

Politics of pride and prejudices.

Worth reading the article in the NEWYORKER. Given below is my own quick perception after reading the article.
In 2003, many predicted the outcome of the Bush-Blair adventure, largely based on the deep personal pride and prejudice of the junior Bush. When the history of the last fifty years is written the Reagan-Thatcher combine and the Bush-Blair combine of American-Anglo power nexus brought the world where it is : A mess of economy and the spread of politics of pride, prejudices and hatred. And the mistrust that undermine freedom, rights and democracy everywhere.
Many scholars and activists warned against the war.  But Bush-Blair combine was so preoccupied with defiant arrogance of Saddam and now history is clear about the Bushful adventure that backfired so badly that US economy itself is in a mess today. The ability of the USA to attract the best of talents and brains all around the world has reduced significantly. Without the advantage of the 'brain-power', 'technology' and 'science', the USA may not be able to keep its  role as the leading powerful nation of the wold. The more it resorts to protectionism after forced opening the markets of so many countries in the global south,  the more it will get isolated in the world and less will it become a global destination for the best of talents and entrepreneurs. The more paranoid it becomes the less will it be its sphere of influence. The USA acquired a preeminence with its soft-power , rather than hard power. In fact, apart from selling arms and supporting proxy war. the USA never managed to win a war of its own. While its soft power united the people of the world to make its truly a 'united' states, its hard power of bombs and bombing alienated people in so many nations and the bully image of the USA did not help to get good will that it aspired. And the Bush junior was a bully to the core, in his attitude, word and deeds. He fought war to prove to settle a personal score with an tyrant that it created. The war was neither for freedom, nor for democracy and never was for peace.

People across the world were opposed to the war. But he never cared. I was actively involved in the antiwar campaign that resulted in the largest mobilization of people across the world. Millions of people all over the world marched. I too join the march and wrote how the war will destabilize the region and will result in untold miseries of death and destruction. The entire was based on a false rationale derived the big lie of weapons of mass destruction. They never found it. The US war-military-weapon industry manufactured the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. And they made mess out of it.
The fact of the matter is that US never won a war of its own anywhere in the last so many years. They never actually fought war on the ground during both the First and Second World War, though derived immense political economy profit from both. The US role in the Second World War simply killing thousand by dropping the atom bomb in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and not fighting a real war on the ground. In Vietnam, they simply failed and had to take a humiliating retreat and after so much of death and destruction.
They created Taliban as religious extremist antidote to communist USSR. In the process, they made a complete mess in Afghanistan and Pakistan and eventually giving rise to virulent forms of violent Islamist extremist politics and it different manifestation.
Somehow many of the US establishment leaders live in a make believe world of power, weapons and self-fulfilling grandeur. It is a country of migrants which began with smell of the blood of 'Red Indian' community ; a country without the depth of history and civilization. Many of its leaders are less interested in learning from history and more interested in geography of power and economy. Result is evident. A country often gets the President it deserves. And Donald Trump is all set bring the Trump 'Tower' to the White House'. Though he is a product and protagonist of the American Business establishment, he is paradoxically there as he is outside the traditional 'political elite establishment. So vote for him was partly a vote against the establishment. Interestingly the enthusiasm about Obama was also that he was outsider to the political establishment. The charm of Obama was that he was fresh, young and came outside the traditional Washington DC establishment.' Though both Obama and Trump come from diametrically opposite political, cultural and ideological spectrum, both of them came from the traditional power-establishment. And this must be the first time in the recent history that a businessman is going to do business of governance in the White House.
Saddam was indeed a dictator and he was indeed nurtured by the US power-establishment to fight a proxy war against Iran from the 1977. A he was a war-hardened demagogue and dictator, fully supported by the US for more than a decade. And the reason for removing him and killing was not necessarily due to his authoritarian tendencies. Bush at that time claimed the he was bombing Iraq to bring 'freedom and democracy'. That was twelve years ago and now Saddam must be laughing in his grave!!!

While the connection between the war to depose Saddam and the election of 2016 is indirect, it is etched in history.
NEWYORKER.COM|BY JOHN CASSIDY

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