During the Vietnam War, Sweden was an independent country with a moral conscience, and Sweden gave sanctuary to US war protestors who refused the draft. Washington realized the cost to itself and purchased the Swedish government in order to prevent a reoccurrence of moral conscience on the part of any Western government.
In the aftermath of World War II and during the subsequent decades of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the Western nations presented themselves as the moral conscience of the world. It turns out that this was largely a hoax. The “Western nations” are merely pawns complicit in Washington’s crimes as Washington attempts to shut down all information in its pursuit of world hegemony.
Mark Weisbrot writing in Aljazeera has this to say about Washington’s use of its puppet government in Sweden to pursue Julian Assange for publishing leaked documents that reveal Washington’s mendacity and deception of other countries:
“There is a wealth of evidence that the US is very much interested in punishing Assange, and it keeps growing: on August 18, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Australia’s foreign service was aware that US authorities had been pursuing Assange for at least 18 months. And on August 24, Craig Murray, a former UK ambassador and 20-year career diplomat there, reported that his colleagues at the UK foreign office knew better than to make the unprecedented threat of invading Ecuador’s embassy, but did so under pressure from Washington.
“Like many European countries, including of course the UK, Sweden’s foreign policy is closely allied with that of the US government. This is not the first time that Sweden has collaborated with its Washington allies to violate human rights and international law. In 2001, the Swedish government turned over two Egyptians to the CIA so that they could be sent to Egypt, where they were tortured.
“Sweden’s action brought condemnation from the UN and the government was forced to pay damages to the victims; both were later cleared of any wrongdoing. Polls showed that Swedes considered this crime the worst political scandal in their country in 20 years.
“Sweden is a highly developed social democracy that has many guarantees of civil rights and liberties to its citizens. The people of Sweden should not allow their government to continue to disgrace itself in another international governmental crime—this one a pernicious attack on freedom of expression—simply because Washington wants them to do so.”
Washington or Israel–essentially the same thing–has caused the puppet government in Canada to end Canada’s diplomatic relations with Iran for no reason whatsoever. The Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird in an unusual show of ignorance, even for him, condemned Iran as a “threat to global security.” No intelligent person could possibly believe that Iran comprises a threat to global security.
Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird
Look at John Baird. He even looks like a madcap idiot. What has become of Canadians who once were an intelligent tolerant people that they put in office madmen? Baird, after being informed by his staff that Iran lacked the oomph to be a global security threat, changed his reason and insisted that he broke off diplomatic relations with Iran because of Iran’s hostility toward Israel. This brought Canada’s moronic foreign minister even louder laughter. It is Israel that has been threatening Iran with military attack and demanding that the US join in, not Iran threatening Israel with attack.
Western nations have become a caricature of hypocrisy. If Western countries weren’t armed with nuclear weapons, the larger world would be rolling in laughter.
Isn’t capitalism great? It has such a highly refined moral conscience.
Copyright © 2012 Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. Associate Editor Wall Street Journal, Columnist for Business Week, Senior Research Fellow Hoover Institution Stanford University, and William E. Simon Chair of Political Economy in the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. His home page is paulcraigroberts.org.
Right on target, as usual PCR! So sad to say. And one of the greatest reasons that we Americans have displayed such incredible ignorance, not to mention the childish responses we’ve given to those who would try to inform us, is the “history” we were taught as children. We have remained in the grip of that childhood brainwashing. In addition to active resistance that’s needed now, we must also include the fight for our children’s intellectual lives. Stand up for the teacher’s unions and keep education out of the hands of Monsanto, Weapons Manufacturers, etc.
One step would be to spread the word about Howard Zinn’s actual history. The more people who read that, the more we’ll begin to understand why the world has become what it is of late. It’s actually been like this for a long, long time, but now with immensely greater consequences to pay.
This is truly a very disturbing discussion. Hunter is a very polite speaker and is surely well above average in that department. And it is nice to see someone speaking about foreign policy address the shocking way Russia and China have thrown Iran to the wolves, and the shocking way that both the Arab states and even the Arab street seem to have also thrown Iran to the wolves; clearly Iran badly, badly, badly overestimated any anti-imperial or pro-muslim solidarity. But if Hunter’s presentation represents what passes for an alternative’ view in foreign policy establishment circles, than the foreign policy is even more wildly off base than it appears. Hunter’s take is simply an assertion that Might Makes Right is the single overriding principle of international affairs, pushing all other issues pretty much off the table. It’s easy to see that behind this seemingly un-ideological view is a very, very intense anti-Left ideology that embraces the international system’ as the sole evolutionary path for humanity. Here we see that, as usual, realism’ is a cloak for an ideology that does not want to be seen for what it is.A Might Makes Right analysis of the Iran situation’ really offers nothing new or helpful. Of course it is easy enough to point out mistakes that Iranian governments past and present have made. It would be far easier still to point out mistakes that US governments past and present have made. But the Might Makes Right establishes a Ghordian Knot analysis where only the mistakes of the weaker power matter. The stronger power, by definition, can make no mistakes. How is this helpful? It is only helpful to those who want to blame Iran for a situation that is blatantly, as blatantly as could be, NOT primarily its fault. And let us not mistake the seriousness of the situation Iran is facing. At the very least Iran is facing economic strangulation which can probably only be compared to that of Cuba, or North Korea. But unlike Cuba, it is not an island; and, unlike North Korea, it has no powerful allies. But we should recognize that the current level of propaganda and sanctions against Iran make war a virtual inevitability, and probably sooner than later. In particular, the sanctions call for the examination of Iranian shipping. This part of the sanctions is a theoretical assault on Iran’s economy and more importantly on its sovereignty that is effectively an act of war, especially if it is pursued aggressively, and indications are that the US and Nato-associated countries intend to pursue every aspect of the UNSC sanctions VERY aggressively, also adding many other sanctions that now TRULY amount not only to economic war, but also to collective punishment. The gloves are now well and truly off, and more than that, a trigger for war is in place. Already Iran has reacted strongly to the threat against its shipping, countering with a threat to stop shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. In response, it would appear that Obama has dispatched a very powerful battle fleet to the Persian Gulf.These sanctions were not just designed to pressure Iran. They were designed to establish an economic war, including collective punishment, AND to trigger a military assault. Iran is facing Hell On Earth. And FOR WHAT? Hunter could have said it, but she plainly didn’t want to put it quite this way: because Iran has not kowtowed to the Mighty Global Hegemon. Simple as that. The stuff about Israel’s fears and about nuclear weapons is a blatant smokescreen, not based on absolutely nothing, but overblown to an extreme that is truly insane. This is like taking a penny balloon, blowing it up to the size of Massachusetts, and then claiming that it is an asteroid about to hit the earth. Sure, yes, there are mutual suspicions on both sides, but they could be worked out through diplomacy, as an expert in diplomacy should certainly know. But as long as that expert assumes that Might Makes Right, and that this is virtually the only factor relevant to a realistic’ point of view, then the only policy that can be acknowledged as competent’, and not inept , is a policy that seeks a place at the feet of the Hegemon.We see such a policy in Russia. We see such a policy in China. We see such a policy in Pakistan. We see it in Egypt. We see it in Saudi Arabia. Hunter seems to be proposing that such countries should be considered models by Iran. I think it’s really quite obvious that such models may one very strong reason that Iran might consider accommodation to the Hegemon NOT to be in its interest, at least as it’s primary guiding principle.And there’s the rub. The Hegemon does not seem to be willing to accept any other attitude on the part of any supposedly sovereign country. We saw with Turkey and Brazil how extreme the Hegemon’s attitude on this can be. Think about it. Turkey and Brazil, formally at least, did exactly what the Hegemon wanted in working out a deal with Iran. But what they failed to do was to read in between the lines to gauge the Hegemon’s true intentions. There was an expectation, reminiscent of a mafia thriller, that the lesser’ countries read not just the intention of the Godfather’, but more importantly the intention behind the intention. Turkey and Brazil didn’t get it’ that they aren’t supposed to think for themselves. They are supposed to bend over backwards to please the Hegemon, even to the point of ANTICIPATING ITS WISHES. And it can be argued that the same happened between Iran and Russia and China. Perhaps Iran believed the hype from the Sino-Russian axis, about their purported intent to balance the Hegemon. We cannot entirely blame Iran for not anticipating the extreme swiftness of Russia’s volte-face, particularly. Russian went from the verge of war against the US, and a seemingly growing commitment to the Caspian Region and to the SCO, to a kind of Nato-marriage and US rapprochement that I suspect even the most well-informed observers would not have expected to happen at all, or so fast. In fact, Russia’s version of RealPolitik has been truly stunning, though this has been little observed by pundits. Just six months ago Russia was making overtures in America’s back yard that are almost certainly dead letter now. Just six months ago or so, Putin was making nuclear and military deals with Chavez. Such deals seemed to reflect a real Russian commitment to a multipolar world, but now they can’t be taken seriously at all. The argument that Russia would never in any case have been willing to deal with a Middle Power in its backyard just doesn’t wash. IF Russia had been serious about a multipolar world, it would have absolutely needed a strong Iran to counter Nato encirclement. But clearly, both Russia and China value their Western markets more than ANY other consideration.Yet Russian and Chinese flirtation with Latin America and other parts of the Global South demonstrate that the notion of what used to be called the Non-Aligned Movement is not just some pipe dream of absurd Iranian non-realists. We have also seen this movement show some considerable life in the struggle against first world’ dictated trade accords, in the conferences against racism, in the push to bring Israel under the NPT, in the rise of Alba, and the pushback against the US-backed coup in Honduras, in the efforts of Turkey and Brazil to broker peace between the US and Iran, and so on. If it’s true that the Shah was also interested in the Global South, or whatever we should call any notion that the so-called International System’ is NOT necessarily the only evolutionary process that can happen for humanity, then that’s one important area of commonality between the Shahs’ regime that I suppose Hunter would hold up as a model of realism, and the purportedly Super-Inept Islamic Republic.It now appears inevitable that we will see Iran ground to dust. Country after country has bowed to the US and Israel’s fanatical determination to crush Iran. The entire world’s population, it now seems, has some sadistic desire to see more Shock and Awe on their televisions. It seems that the final act in a tragedy is about to unfold. And, always, it is more intellectually tidy to Blame the Victim.