Tuesday, June 19, 2018

How America Promotes "We're the Good Guys" Narrative

In a 2017 Super Bowl Sunday interview with President Donald Trump,  Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly authoritatively declared  Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s a killer.”  Trump replied with the question: “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”

Trump did something similar more recently after his Singapore Summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim JongUn.  When Fox News' Brett Baier  raised the question  in an interview about "Kim's oppression of his own people", Trump said: “Yeah, but so have a lot of other people have done some really bad things.”

American Narrative:

Both O'Reilly and Baier were essentially repeating the standard American narrative that wants the world to believe that "we (Americans) are the good guys and those opposing America are the bad guys".

Trump, an unconventional American leader, displayed rare candor in his responses.  The American  media and "research scholars", managed by the "Deep State", sharply criticized Trump and continued to parrot the standard American narrative asserting that "we're the good guys" while vilifying Vladimir Putin, Kim JongUn and other leaders and countries designated as "enemies".

Young and Barbaric:

Trump appears ready to drop all pretenses of US being "the good guys" standing for "freedom, democracy and human rights".  He is not alone in his assertion that "our country (United States) is not so innocent".  George Friedman, the founder of  Stratfor which describes itself as "American geopolitical intelligence platform", is the ultimate "Deep State" insider in America.  Friedman acknowledges that "America, like Europe in sixteenth century, is still barbaric, a description, not a moral judgment. Its culture is unformed. Its will is powerful. Its emotions drive it in different and contradictory directions."

Friedman argues that "perhaps more than for any other country, the US grand strategy is about war, and the interaction between war and economic life. The United States is historically a warlike country. The nation has been directly or indirectly at war for most of of its existence...the war of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam War and Desert Storm. And the US has been constantly at war in Afghanistan and Iraq since the beginning of this century."

More recently, the United States' interventions in the Middle East have destabilized and devastated Libya and Syria and created a major humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands have died and millions rendered homeless and trying to flee hunger and violence.

Narrative Promotion:

So how does America create and promote its "good guys" narrative in the world and demonize others? How do American image builders gloss over its past characterized by the genocide of the indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans and a history of assassinations, invasions, atrocities, proxy wars, and coups in the developing world? How do their actions escape the "terrorism" label that is liberally applied to others, particularly Muslims?  What modern image-making and promotional tools and techniques has Uncle Sam borrowed from the world of brand creation, promotion and management?

The first thing in creating a narrative is the basic story supported by effective language and vocabulary. It is fleshed out by writers, poets, musicians and artists.  The basic American narrative  goes like this:  America stands for freedom, democracy and human rights. It is a force for all that is good in the world. Those who oppose America are the "bad guys".

The narrative is then widely disseminated, promoted and incessantly repeated by Washington think tanks, book authors, major newspaper reporters and editors,  mainstream journalists, television channels and popular entertainment platforms.

Talking points are developed and shared to defend against any criticisms. Inconvenient truths are obfuscated.  Those who accept the talking points are rewarded and those who persist in criticisms are isolated and punished. Rewards come in the form of funding and access. Punishments are handed out by orchestrating attacks by peers and by denying funds and access.

Controlling the Narrative:

The United States government funds think tanks, hires consultants and directly and indirectly influences mass media and popular entertainment platforms to control and promote its "good guys" narrative and to vilify those seen as competitors.

1. Think Tanks:  Woodrow Wilson Center, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, US Institute of Peace (USIP), Rand Corporation and a several others are partially or fully funded by the US government. These are supplemented by dozens of other think tanks funded by major US corporations which have a stake in promoting a positive global image of the United States. These organizations organize conferences, publish books and "research papers" and offer scholarships to promote the American "good guys" narrative globally.  They have both resident and non-resident "scholars", including some from developing countries like Pakistan. Some of the Pakistani "scholars" working for Washington think tanks also work for major media houses in Pakistan. These "scholars" are widely quoted by the media on issues relating to US-Pakistan relations.

2. News Media:  Veteran American journalist Carl Bernstein, famous for his reporting on Watergate along with Bob Woodward, investigated CIA's use of the American media and wrote a piece describing "How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up". Here's what he said:

"Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were William Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Henry Luce of Time Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the Louisville Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the Associated Press (AP),  United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune".

3. Popular Entertainment:  It has been suggested that Hollywood has been working with the United States government for a long time.  Some have said that Hollywood is "the unofficial ministry of propaganda for the Pentagon".  Information obtained under FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) confirms that thousands of Hollywood films have received backing from the CIA and the US Department of Defense and other US agencies to promote America's "good guy" narrative. These include 24, Army Wives, Flight 93, Homeland,  Ice Road Truckers, NCIS,  Transformers, Iron Man, Terminator, etc.

Documents obtained recently under FOIA show that the relationship between the US national security establishment and American entertainment businesses is much deeper and more political than ever acknowledged.

4. Books and Literature:  Starting with the Cold War, the American CIA has infiltrated and influenced books and literature to promote the American official "good guys" narrative. "Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World's Best Writers" by Joel Whitney reveals how great writers such as Baldwin, Márquez, and Hemingway were recruited as soldiers in Cold War.

Editors of top literary magazines were used as a vehicle for this infiltration.  The first time the CIA's connections to the Paris Review and two dozen other magazines came to light was in 1966. The CIA used multiple guises to financially support young, promising writers as part of a cultural propaganda strategy with literary outposts around the world.

Summary:

The United States government has developed and aggressively controls and promotes America's standard narrative that "we are the good guys and those opposing us are the bad guys".  This narrative glosses over the history of native American genocide, enslavement of Africans and the CIA sponsored assassinations, coups and proxy wars in the developing world. In a couple of recent interviews, US President Donald Trump has acknowledged the problems with the American narrative. Nevertheless, the American narrative is promoted using a multi-pronged strategy that includes the use of think tanks, popular entertainment, books and literature and the mainstream media.


Here's a video of American journalist Mike Wallace asking Louis Farrakhan about Nigeria, calling the most populous African country "the most corrupt nation in the world": Here's Farrakhan's response: Every nation has its problems. Nigeria has serous problems. But it's only 35 years old. And America have been around for over 200 years old and it is in no position to judge others on corruption and democracy. Black people in America got the right to vote only a few decades ago. And America has blood on its hands, the blood of millions of native Americans and the blood of the Japanese who died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Let's not moralize. Let's help them.
 
https://youtu.be/DfXLC4jQZ2M 


 

41 comments:

Habibullah said...

This article has explained thoroughly how American foreign relations are maintained. In simple words it practices the principle of Might is right.Pakistan kay mashhoor mazahia shaer nay ek Qataa kaha:-“Tumhari Bhains kaisay hay kay jab laathi humari hay/Ab is laathi ki zad mein jo bhi aayay woh humara hay//Mazammat kariyon say tum humara kya bigado gay/Tumharay vote kya hotay hain jab Veto humara hay!!”

Mayraj said...

Ian Sinclair interviews Dr Florian Zollmann, a Lecturer in Journalism at Newcastle University and author of the recent book Media, Propaganda and the Politics of Intervention (Peter Lang, 2017). Zollmann starts by setting out the main findings of his study.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/ian-sinclair/propagandistic-nature-of-liberal-media-interview-with-florian-zollmann

Florian Zollmann: Leading news organisations in liberal democracies employ a double-standard when reporting on human rights violations: If countries designated to be ‘enemies’ of the West (in my study, I look at cases from the past including the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2012) conduct human rights violations, the news media highlight these abuses and report demands for action to stop human rights breaches. Such measures may entail policies with potentially serious effects for the target countries, including sanctions and military intervention. If, on the other hand, Western states or their ‘allies’ (in my study, I look at cases from the past including the US-led Coalition in Iraq in 2004 and Egypt in 2013) are the perpetrators of human rights violations that are similar or in excess of those conducted by ‘enemies’, the news media employ significantly less investigatory zeal in their reporting and virtually no measures to stop abuses are suggested.

My study shows, on the basis of an assessment of extensive quantitative and textual data, that the news media utilise different journalistic norms in terms of how they convey emotional sentiment, handle facts and evidence, use sources and perspective and classify events. These journalistic double standards, then, translate into a radically dichotomised news framing of problem definitions, responsibility of actors and policy options in response to what constitute relatively similar human rights violations: Official ‘enemies’ are depicted as pariah states, facing international condemnation and intervention. Western states and their ‘allies’ are depicted as benign forces, which may at best be criticised for using the wrong tactics and policy approaches. The dynamics of such dichotomised propaganda campaigns have had the effect that only some bloodbaths received visibility and scrutiny in the public sphere.

Fahim said...

The propagandistic nature of the liberal media: Interview with Florian Zollmann

http://truepublica.org.uk/global/jonathan-cook-the-corporate-medias-world-of-illusions/


Jonathan Cook: The corporate media’s world of illusions
https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2017/01/17/german-journalist-who-spilled-the-beans-on-cia-media-influence-has-died-at-56-of-heart-attack/


German Journalist Who Spilled the Beans on CIA Media Influence Has Died at 56 of Heart Attack
https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/10/08/non-official-cover-respected-german-journalist-blows-whistle-on-how-the-cia-controls-the-media/

“Non-Official Cover” – Respected German Journalist Blows Whistle on How the CIA Controls the Media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGqi-k213eE


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-28/top-german-journalist-admits-mainstream-media-completely-fake-we-all-lie-cia

Anonymous said...

Show me a nation which doesn't exaggerate it's own greatness and white washes it's crimes..

Riaz Haq said...

Anon: "Show me a nation which doesn't exaggerate it's own greatness and white washes it's crimes.."

None as powerful, resourceful and capable of doing damage as the United States.

Anonymous said...

https://worldjusticeproject.org/our-work/wjp-rule-law-index/wjp-rule-law-index-2017%E2%80%932018

nayyer ali said...

The US government does not have a Department of Propaganda, and does not control "narratives". The US has its pluses and minuses, but any good US history text covers the minuses quite well. I have a history degree from Stanford, and I learned all sorts of negative things about the US, including its Cold War shenanigans in Guatemala and Iran etc. Not many realize though that the US interfered quite heavily in French and Italian politics in the 1950's to block Communist parties there from entering government (they routinely won 20% of the seats in Parliamentary systems). Popular culture in all countries portray themselves as the good guys, nobody goes to the movies to be told they are bad. But in the US there are plenty of exceptions. The excellent Vietnam War documentary that aired nationwide on PBS by Ken Burns was both celebrated by critics, and was extremely critical of the lies and falsehoods and incompetence behind the Vietnam War. There are a hundred books and many movies critical of the Iraq War.
The US also has its very good points. It is the most welcoming society to outsiders and immigrants.
More importantly, in the grand sweep of human history, there were three colossal threats that blocked liberal civilization in the 20th century. The first was militarism and fascism, the second Anglo-French imperialism in Africa and Asia, and the third Communism. The US was instrumental in defeating through two world wars, diplomacy, and other means, all three, and it was the only country on Earth capable of doing so. It may have done so for self-interest, either in a narrow or an "enlightened self-interest" version, but it did do so. I infinitely prefer living within the sphere of American influence rather than the version of history in which the Nazis or the Soviets or the imperialists still hold sway.
American leaders after World War Two wanted to create a global order of liberal democratic capitalist states led by the US. If one surveys the globe, those countries that embraced that order are much better places to live than those that opposed or rejected it (North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Burma, Russia, Maoist China, most Arab countries etc etc). During the Cold War the US would sometimes have to choose between democratic systems that would put communists into power, or backing dictators that supported capitalism. In that situation, they often went with the dictator, and one can criticize those choices. But that doesnt change the big picture, democracy has expanded from less than 10 nations in 1939 to nearly 100 now. Freedom House ranks 45% of the world's nations as free and another 30% as partly free. The biggest countries that are still "Not Free" are China, Russia, Iran, and DR Congo. Turkey has backslid into "Not Free" but I think they will turn around eventually. There is also the case of Egypt, where the Arab Spring failed, but that is the fault of the Egyptians and no one else.

nayyer ali said...

"None as powerful, resourceful and capable of doing damage as the United States."
I see this mindset a lot, that because America is powerful it is no longer allowed to be a normal country that pursues its own interest, but instead must be relentlessly criticized for doing what everyone else does or would do in the same situation. Only if it becomes the willing servant of whoever is doing the criticizing can it be absolved of its sins. That's not how the world works.

Riaz Haq said...

NA: "I see this mindset a lot, that because America is powerful it is no longer allowed to be a normal country that pursues its own interest,..."

Normal country? Which normal country seeks and achieves global economic, political, military and media dominance as the United States has?

I suggest you read "The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins.

Perkins is himself a former an American "Economic Hit Man". or EHM.

Whatever little benefits that have flowed to the common people in the developing world have been an unintended side effect, not the goal of US policies.

He has used a lot of declassified documents to show how the United States relies on EHMs, Jackals (intelligence agents and covert operatives) and its massive military power to control world's natural resources and to punish anyone who gets in the way by assassinations, coups and military invasions and occupations.

Perkins gives specific examples of US actions in Latin America and Asia to back up his assertions.

Perkins also explains how the US EHM system has come home to roost in the form of the use of money for political manipulation in Washington and debt bondage in the wider debt-fueled economy.

The 2008 financial meltdown was just one symptom of it. The mounting student debt is another. Those who suffer the most from it are the average folks while the biggest beneficiaries are the wealthy corporations and their major shareholders.

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a post I wrote back in 2009:

Will American Capitalism Survive?

https://www.riazhaq.com/2009/02/will-capitalism-survive.html

As the modern system of capitalism faces the most serious challenge of its existence since Adam Smith, the name of John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) is being regularly invoked by economists, politicians, bankers, and the media. And with good reason. Born in Cambridge, England, in 1883, the year Karl Marx died, Keynes probably saved capitalism from itself and kept Communists at bay. Keynesian Economics advocates the use of government monetary and fiscal policy to maintain full employment with low inflation.

Keynes described Capitalism in the following words: "Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

A well-known anti-Semite, Keynes once said, "It is not agreeable to see civilization so under the ugly thumbs of its impure Jews who have all the money and the power and brains." As in the past financial crises, powerful Jews on Wall Street and in Washington are being held responsible by many as the culprits of the current economic collapse.

In response to a severe recession or possible depression, Keynes suggested: "The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up." He advocated massive spending by government to stimulate demand when all else fails.

Who was Keynes? Here is how UC Berkeley's Robert Reich described him a few years ago: "A Cambridge University don with a flair for making money, a graduate of England's exclusive Eton prep school, a collector of modern art, the darling of Virginia Woolf and her intellectually avant-garde Bloomsbury Group, the chairman of a life-insurance company, later a director of the Bank of England, married to a ballerina, John Maynard Keynes--tall, charming and self-confident--nonetheless transformed the dismal science into a revolutionary engine of social progress."

Keynes was clearly a very smart man. His ideas of modern Capitalism have created unprecedented wealth and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. And his ideas may still help save capitalism yet again. At least, that is the hope of the Obama administration and the backers of the massive stimulus package of about $800 billion recently passed by the US Congress. However, what Keynes couldn't have imagined are the new heights of avarice and wickedness of the modern political-industrial elite in America that has threatened the very foundations of the system that brought them wealth and power. During the last decade, the behavior of American capitalists and politicians has been unbelievably self-destructive.

Mayraj said...


https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is-regressing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people



America is Regressing into a Developing Nation for Most People




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRs4VcHprqI

The US Middle Class is Shrinking and Moving Towards a "Dual Economy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6P8ECW5S3A
What the ‘Dual Economy’ Model for Developing Countries Reveals About Today’s America




"In looking at the link between labor stratification and crime, Crutchfield divides jobs into two types: “primary sector” and “secondary sector.” Primary-sector jobs offer decent pay, benefits and the opportunity for promotion. Secondary-sector employment is the opposite. It offers dead-end jobs with low wages, no benefits and high levels of instability.

Crutchfield’s bottom line: Adult employment in primary-sector jobs reduces crime, while employment in secondary-sector jobs does not. This is an important fact for public officials to recognize, since much of the recent growth of the economy has been in the secondary sector -- employment many young people deride as “slave jobs.” It is also important to recognize that while crime has been declining for decades, which is surely the result of better policing as well as demographics, the overall decline masks persistent high levels of crime in some places and among some groups."
http://www.governing.com/gov-institute/funkhouser/gov-slave-jobs-crime.html
Want More Crime with That Burger?
Good jobs are proven to reduce crime, yet much of the economy's recent growth is due to dead-end jobs with low wages and no benefits.
http://www.caixabankresearch.com/en/jay-gatsbys-american-dream-between-inequality-and-social-mobility

Jay Gatsby’s American Dream: between inequality and social mobility

So why are Blacks incarcerated at such high rates as they form such large segment of post white US?
Right wants to deflect from policy failure that even the investment manager understands.

As Putnam states: Children who grow up without their biological father perform worse on standardized tests, earn lower grades, and stay in school for fewer years regardless of race and class.”

https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2015/07/19/robert-putnam-knows-the-real-reason-the-american-dream-is-fading/

Robert Putnam Knows The Real Reason the American Dream Is Fading

usind said...

So if the milk turns sour, blame the cow?

Riaz Haq said...

#Trump administration opposes #breastfeeding resolution, defends formula makers' corporate interests, intimidates sponsoring nations at the @UN affiliated World Health Assembly in #Geneva. #Ecuador #breastmilk https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/health/world-health-breastfeeding-ecuador-trump.html

A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.

Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.

----------

When that failed, they turned to threats, according to diplomats and government officials who took part in the discussions. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.

The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.

--------------

The showdown over the issue was recounted by more than a dozen participants from several countries, many of whom requested anonymity because they feared retaliation from the United States.

Health advocates scrambled to find another sponsor for the resolution, but at least a dozen countries, most of them poor nations in Africa and Latin America, backed off, citing fears of retaliation, according to officials from Uruguay, Mexico and the United States.

“We were astonished, appalled and also saddened,” said Patti Rundall, the policy director of the British advocacy group Baby Milk Action, who has attended meetings of the assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, since the late 1980s.

Riaz Haq said...

More than 16,000 men fought in the Cuba campaign, but for much of the American public, there was only one regiment that mattered. A dozen correspondents, including Stephen Crane, the novelist already famous for “The Red Badge of Courage,” chronicled the campaign across southeastern Cuba. In New York, customers flocked to Wanamaker’s department store to snatch up the “Rough Rider,” a rakish new style of hat available in a variety of materials, including nutria fur.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/opinion/sunday/spanish-american-war-power.html


Above all, the Rough Riders became instant celebrities because they embodied the public’s newfound, idealistic militarism. “Whether Fifth Avenue millionaires or Western cowboys, they fought together and died together in Cuba for the great American principles of liberty, equality and humanity,” an editorialist for The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote.

Though America’s engagement with the world would wax and wane over the subsequent decades, that same Rough Rider spirit defined the coming American century. It led millions to enlist in the fight against Germany in World War II, to join the Marines landing at Danang in 1965, to volunteer to invade Iraq in 2003. It justified the permanent expansion of the American military after World War II as a bulwark of democratic freedom in parts of the world most Americans could not locate on a map.

Sometimes, American idealism is in the right place; often it serves as window dressing for baser national designs. But good intentions don’t help Americans know what to do next. The ideals that underwrote the American century also undermine the promise of American power as a transformative force.

The Rough Riders landed in Cuba on June 22, 1898; by August, Spain was suing for peace. Along the way, the United States captured Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, where its troops next fought a three-year counterinsurgency using many of the same brutal tactics the Spanish had employed in Cuba.

-------

"When Americans think about the Spanish-American War, if we think about it at all, we imagine a short, unnecessary and largely irrelevant conflict, hatched by a cabal of hawkish imperialists and yellow-press barons. But the war, however brief, was in fact a defining moment in America’s emergence as a global power. It captured the imagination of millions and changed how everyday citizens saw their place in the world. No longer content to merely inspire freedom for the world’s oppressed, people like Colbert decided they had a personal obligation to bring freedom to them....Rarely have these efforts ended in success. America’s righteousness can be blinding; the virtue of the cause prevents the country from seeing the challenge clearly, whether it is rebuilding Cuba or defeating the Taliban. There is a lot to say for America’s commitment to use its power for the good of the world, but also a need to understand its limits — a lesson that begins with Colbert and the Rough Riders...Aside from ejecting the Spanish, it is hard to argue that the American presence made any of these places better off. But these experiences, and countless others, have done little to tarnish the belief that good intentions can justify rash decisions and disastrous outcomes. America likes to assign the blame for its “bad” wars — the Spanish-American War, Vietnam, Iraq — to devious schemers who trick the public into supporting them: William Randolph Hearst, Lyndon Johnson, neoconservatives. But that lets the public itself off the hook. Underlying all these wars is the same broadly held, deeply committed missionary zeal that drove men like Benjamin Colbert and the Rough Riders to war. Until Americans learn to balance their commitment to global justice with an awareness of the limits to military prowess, the country will continue to make these mistakes.

Seeme said...

"President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed White House officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people, according to three former officials with knowledge of the matter.
* The comments, which have not been previously reported, were part of a now-infamous meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in which Trump revealed highly classified information that exposed a source of intelligence on the Islamic State. He also said during the meeting that firing FBI Director James B. Comey the previous day had relieved “great pressure” on him.
* A memorandum summarizing the meeting was limited to all but a few officials with the highest security clearances in an attempt to keep the president’s comments from being disclosed publicly, according to the former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-told-russian-officials-in-2017-he-wasnt-concerned-about-moscows-interference-in-us-election/2019/09/27/b20a8bc8-e159-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html?fbclid=IwAR1ClGPNcxYEkE98gWw33I0mIejqmIsPeXe9oAHDIk3JiZdGCif20vwNKMU

Riaz Haq said...

American Values or Human Rights? U.S. Foreign Policy and the Fractured Myth of Virtuous Power
December 2003
DOI: 10.1046/j.0360-4918.2003.00084.x
Authors:
John Kane
15.3Griffith University

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29457664_American_Values_or_Human_Rights_US_Foreign_Policy_and_the_Fractured_Myth_of_Virtuous_Power

American exceptionalism placed American values at the center of foreign policy, fostering belief in the essential union of American virtue and power. Developing a theme of Henry Kissinger's, this article argues that in Vietnam this union was severed and undermined: America's power was defeated and its virtue assailed. Nixon offered only a pretense of reunion. Carter attempted the real thing by putting universal human rights, not American values, at the heart of foreign policy. His failure was followed by Reagan's denial of sin and reassurance of American values, though the Gulf War of his successor had a deeper impact on the national psyche. Clinton's foreign policy remained subject to the "Vietnam syndrome" and he, despite rhetorical dazzle, developed no new consensus on the disposition of American power. September 11, however, produced a sense of injured innocence in whose defense American power could again be virtuously deployed. The subsequent patriotic surge encouraged George W. Bush to revive American values in foreign policy, with potentially dangerous consequences. Yes Yes

Riaz Haq said...

By Malik Khurram Khan Dehwar

@KhurramDehwar


James Peck describes US Govt modus operandi of using civil society activism in order to achieve US foreign policy objectives in: “Ideal Illusions: How the US Govt Co-opted Human Rights" On how “priority targets” are used to ‘guide & navigate’ them toward American way”.


https://twitter.com/KhurramDehwar/status/1305756160008560640?s=20




https://youtu.be/cDIRl_eT7qo

Riaz Haq said...

The Myth of American Exceptionalism
The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans. Too bad it's not true.

By Stephen Walt


https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism/


Over the last two centuries, prominent Americans have described the United States as an "empire of liberty," a "shining city on a hill," the "last best hope of Earth," the "leader of the free world," and the "indispensable nation." These enduring tropes explain why all presidential candidates feel compelled to offer ritualistic paeans to America’s greatness and why President Barack Obama landed in hot water — most recently, from Mitt Romney — for saying that while he believed in "American exceptionalism," it was no different from "British exceptionalism," "Greek exceptionalism," or any other country’s brand of patriotic chest-thumping.

Most statements of "American exceptionalism" presume that America’s values, political system, and history are unique and worthy of universal admiration. They also imply that the United States is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage.

The only thing wrong with this self-congratulatory portrait of America’s global role is that it is mostly a myth. Although the United States possesses certain unique qualities — from high levels of religiosity to a political culture that privileges individual freedom — the conduct of U.S. foreign policy has been determined primarily by its relative power and by the inherently competitive nature of international politics. By focusing on their supposedly exceptional qualities, Americans blind themselves to the ways that they are a lot like everyone else.

This unchallenged faith in American exceptionalism makes it harder for Americans to understand why others are less enthusiastic about U.S. dominance, often alarmed by U.S. policies, and frequently irritated by what they see as U.S. hypocrisy, whether the subject is possession of nuclear weapons, conformity with international law, or America’s tendency to condemn the conduct of others while ignoring its own failings. Ironically, U.S. foreign policy would probably be more effective if Americans were less convinced of their own unique virtues and less eager to proclaim them.

What we need, in short, is a more realistic and critical assessment of America’s true character and contributions. In that spirit, I offer here the Top 5 Myths about American Exceptionalism.

Myth 1
There Is Something Exceptional About American Exceptionalism.

Whenever American leaders refer to the "unique" responsibilities of the United States, they are saying that it is different from other powers and that these differences require them to take on special burdens.

Yet there is nothing unusual about such lofty declarations; indeed, those who make them are treading a well-worn path. Most great powers have considered themselves superior to their rivals and have believed that they were advancing some greater good when they imposed their preferences on others. The British thought they were bearing the "white man’s burden," while French colonialists invoked la mission civilisatrice to justify their empire. Portugal, whose imperial activities were hardly distinguished, believed it was promoting a certain missão civilizadora. Even many of the officials of the former Soviet Union genuinely believed they were leading the world toward a socialist utopia despite the many cruelties that communist rule inflicted. Of course, the United States has by far the better claim to virtue than Stalin or his successors, but Obama was right to remind us that all countries prize their own particular qualities.

So when Americans proclaim they are exceptional and indispensable, they are simply the latest nation to sing a familiar old song. Among great powers, thinking you’re special is the norm, not the exception.

Riaz Haq said...

The Myth of American Exceptionalism
The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans. Too bad it's not true.

By Stephen Walt


https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism/


Myth 2
The United States Behaves Better Than Other Nations Do.

Declarations of American exceptionalism rest on the belief that the United States is a uniquely virtuous nation, one that loves peace, nurtures liberty, respects human rights, and embraces the rule of law. Americans like to think their country behaves much better than other states do, and certainly better than other great powers.

For starters, the United States has been one of the most expansionist powers in modern history. It began as 13 small colonies clinging to the Eastern Seaboard, but eventually expanded across North America, seizing Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California from Mexico in 1846. Along the way, it eliminated most of the native population and confined the survivors to impoverished reservations. By the mid-19th century, it had pushed Britain out of the Pacific Northwest and consolidated its hegemony over the Western Hemisphere.

The United States has fought numerous wars since then — starting several of them — and its wartime conduct has hardly been a model of restraint. The 1899-1902 conquest of the Philippines killed some 200,000 to 400,000 Filipinos, most of them civilians, and the United States and its allies did not hesitate to dispatch some 305,000 German and 330,000 Japanese civilians through aerial bombing during World War II, mostly through deliberate campaigns against enemy cities. No wonder Gen. Curtis LeMay, who directed the bombing campaign against Japan, told an aide, "If the U.S. lost the war, we would be prosecuted as war criminals." The United States dropped more than 6 million tons of bombs during the Indochina war, including tons of napalm and lethal defoliants like Agent Orange, and it is directly responsible for the deaths of many of the roughly 1 million civilians who died in that war.

More recently, the U.S.-backed Contra war in Nicaragua killed some 30,000 Nicaraguans, a percentage of their population equivalent to 2 million dead Americans. U.S. military action has led directly or indirectly to the deaths of 250,000 Muslims over the past three decades (and that’s a low-end estimate, not counting the deaths resulting from the sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s), including the more than 100,000 people who died following the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. U.S. drones and Special Forces are going after suspected terrorists in at least five countries at present and have killed an unknown number of innocent civilians in the process. Some of these actions may have been necessary to make Americans more prosperous and secure. But while Americans would undoubtedly regard such acts as indefensible if some foreign country were doing them to us, hardly any U.S. politicians have questioned these policies. Instead, Americans still wonder, "Why do they hate us?"

The United States talks a good game on human rights and international law, but it has refused to sign most human rights treaties, is not a party to the International Criminal Court, and has been all too willing to cozy up to dictators — remember our friend Hosni Mubarak? — with abysmal human rights records. If that were not enough, the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the George W. Bush administration’s reliance on waterboarding, extraordinary rendition, and preventive detention should shake America’s belief that it consistently acts in a morally superior fashion. Obama’s decision to retain many of these policies suggests they were not a temporary aberration.

The United States never conquered a vast overseas empire or caused millions to die through tyrannical blunders like China’s Great Leap Forward or Stalin’s forced collectivization.

Riaz Haq said...

The Myth of American Exceptionalism
The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans. Too bad it's not true.

By Stephen Walt


https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism/


The United States never conquered a vast overseas empire or caused millions to die through tyrannical blunders like China’s Great Leap Forward or Stalin’s forced collectivization. And given the vast power at its disposal for much of the past century, Washington could certainly have done much worse. But the record is clear: U.S. leaders have done what they thought they had to do when confronted by external dangers, and they paid scant attention to moral principles along the way. The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans; too bad it’s not true.

Myth 3
America’s Success Is Due to Its Special Genius.

The United States has enjoyed remarkable success, and Americans tend to portray their rise to world power as a direct result of the political foresight of the Founding Fathers, the virtues of the U.S. Constitution, the priority placed on individual liberty, and the creativity and hard work of the American people. In this narrative, the United States enjoys an exceptional global position today because it is, well, exceptional.

There is more than a grain of truth to this version of American history. It’s not an accident that immigrants came to America in droves in search of economic opportunity, and the "melting pot" myth facilitated the assimilation of each wave of new Americans. America’s scientific and technological achievements are fully deserving of praise and owe something to the openness and vitality of the American political order.

But America’s past success is due as much to good luck as to any uniquely American virtues. The new nation was lucky that the continent was lavishly endowed with natural resources and traversed by navigable rivers. It was lucky to have been founded far from the other great powers and even luckier that the native population was less advanced and highly susceptible to European diseases. Americans were fortunate that the European great powers were at war for much of the republic’s early history, which greatly facilitated its expansion across the continent, and its global primacy was ensured after the other great powers fought two devastating world wars. This account of America’s rise does not deny that the United States did many things right, but it also acknowledges that America’s present position owes as much to good fortune as to any special genius or "manifest destiny."

Riaz Haq said...

The Myth of American Exceptionalism
The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans. Too bad it's not true.

By Stephen Walt


https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism/


Myth 4
The United States Is Responsible for Most of the Good in the World.

Americans are fond of giving themselves credit for positive international developments. President Bill Clinton believed the United States was "indispensable to the forging of stable political relations," and the late Harvard University political scientist Samuel P. Huntington thought U.S. primacy was central "to the future of freedom, democracy, open economies, and international order in the world." Journalist Michael Hirsh has gone even further, writing in his book At War With Ourselves that America’s global role is "the greatest gift the world has received in many, many centuries, possibly all of recorded history." Scholarly works such as Tony Smith’s America’s Mission and G. John Ikenberry’s Liberal Leviathan emphasize America’s contribution to the spread of democracy and its promotion of a supposedly liberal world order. Given all the high-fives American leaders have given themselves, it is hardly surprising that most Americans see their country as an overwhelmingly positive force in world affairs.

Once again, there is something to this line of argument, just not enough to make it entirely accurate. The United States has made undeniable contributions to peace and stability in the world over the past century, including the Marshall Plan, the creation and management of the Bretton Woods system, its rhetorical support for the core principles of democracy and human rights, and its mostly stabilizing military presence in Europe and the Far East. But the belief that all good things flow from Washington’s wisdom overstates the U.S. contribution by a wide margin.

For starters, though Americans watching Saving Private Ryan or Patton may conclude that the United States played the central role in vanquishing Nazi Germany, most of the fighting was in Eastern Europe and the main burden of defeating Hitler’s war machine was borne by the Soviet Union. Similarly, though the Marshall Plan and NATO played important roles in Europe’s post-World War II success, Europeans deserve at least as much credit for rebuilding their economies, constructing a novel economic and political union, and moving beyond four centuries of sometimes bitter rivalry. Americans also tend to think they won the Cold War all by themselves, a view that ignores the contributions of other anti-Soviet adversaries and the courageous dissidents whose resistance to communist rule produced the "velvet revolutions" of 1989.

Moreover, as Godfrey Hodgson recently noted in his sympathetic but clear-eyed book, The Myth of American Exceptionalism, the spread of liberal ideals is a global phenomenon with roots in the Enlightenment, and European philosophers and political leaders did much to advance the democratic ideal. Similarly, the abolition of slavery and the long effort to improve the status of women owe more to Britain and other democracies than to the United States, where progress in both areas trailed many other countries. Nor can the United States claim a global leadership role today on gay rights, criminal justice, or economic equality — Europe’s got those areas covered.

Riaz Haq said...

The Myth of American Exceptionalism
The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans. Too bad it's not true.

By Stephen Walt


https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism/


Myth 4
The United States Is Responsible for Most of the Good in the World.

Americans are fond of giving themselves credit for positive international developments. President Bill Clinton believed the United States was "indispensable to the forging of stable political relations," and the late Harvard University political scientist Samuel P. Huntington thought U.S. primacy was central "to the future of freedom, democracy, open economies, and international order in the world." Journalist Michael Hirsh has gone even further, writing in his book At War With Ourselves that America’s global role is "the greatest gift the world has received in many, many centuries, possibly all of recorded history." Scholarly works such as Tony Smith’s America’s Mission and G. John Ikenberry’s Liberal Leviathan emphasize America’s contribution to the spread of democracy and its promotion of a supposedly liberal world order. Given all the high-fives American leaders have given themselves, it is hardly surprising that most Americans see their country as an overwhelmingly positive force in world affairs.

Once again, there is something to this line of argument, just not enough to make it entirely accurate. The United States has made undeniable contributions to peace and stability in the world over the past century, including the Marshall Plan, the creation and management of the Bretton Woods system, its rhetorical support for the core principles of democracy and human rights, and its mostly stabilizing military presence in Europe and the Far East. But the belief that all good things flow from Washington’s wisdom overstates the U.S. contribution by a wide margin.

For starters, though Americans watching Saving Private Ryan or Patton may conclude that the United States played the central role in vanquishing Nazi Germany, most of the fighting was in Eastern Europe and the main burden of defeating Hitler’s war machine was borne by the Soviet Union. Similarly, though the Marshall Plan and NATO played important roles in Europe’s post-World War II success, Europeans deserve at least as much credit for rebuilding their economies, constructing a novel economic and political union, and moving beyond four centuries of sometimes bitter rivalry. Americans also tend to think they won the Cold War all by themselves, a view that ignores the contributions of other anti-Soviet adversaries and the courageous dissidents whose resistance to communist rule produced the "velvet revolutions" of 1989.

Moreover, as Godfrey Hodgson recently noted in his sympathetic but clear-eyed book, The Myth of American Exceptionalism, the spread of liberal ideals is a global phenomenon with roots in the Enlightenment, and European philosophers and political leaders did much to advance the democratic ideal. Similarly, the abolition of slavery and the long effort to improve the status of women owe more to Britain and other democracies than to the United States, where progress in both areas trailed many other countries. Nor can the United States claim a global leadership role today on gay rights, criminal justice, or economic equality — Europe’s got those areas covered.

Riaz Haq said...

The Myth of American Exceptionalism
The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans. Too bad it's not true.

By Stephen Walt


https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism/



Finally, any honest accounting of the past half-century must acknowledge the downside of American primacy. The United States has been the major producer of greenhouse gases for most of the last hundred years and thus a principal cause of the adverse changes that are altering the global environment. The United States stood on the wrong side of the long struggle against apartheid in South Africa and backed plenty of unsavory dictatorships — including Saddam Hussein’s — when short-term strategic interests dictated. Americans may be justly proud of their role in creating and defending Israel and in combating global anti-Semitism, but its one-sided policies have also prolonged Palestinian statelessness and sustained Israel’s brutal occupation.

Bottom line: Americans take too much credit for global progress and accept too little blame for areas where U.S. policy has in fact been counterproductive. Americans are blind to their weak spots, and in ways that have real-world consequences. Remember when Pentagon planners thought U.S. troops would be greeted in Baghdad with flowers and parades? They mostly got RPGs and IEDs instead.

Myth 5
God Is on Our Side.

A crucial component of American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States has a divinely ordained mission to lead the rest of the world. Ronald Reagan told audiences that there was "some divine plan" that had placed America here, and once quoted Pope Pius XII saying, "Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind." Bush offered a similar view in 2004, saying, "We have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom." The same idea was expressed, albeit less nobly, in Otto von Bismarck’s alleged quip that "God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States."

Confidence is a valuable commodity for any country. But when a nation starts to think it enjoys the mandate of heaven and becomes convinced that it cannot fail or be led astray by scoundrels or incompetents, then reality is likely to deliver a swift rebuke. Ancient Athens, Napoleonic France, imperial Japan, and countless other countries have succumbed to this sort of hubris, and nearly always with catastrophic results.

Despite America’s many successes, the country is hardly immune from setbacks, follies, and boneheaded blunders. If you have any doubts about that, just reflect on how a decade of ill-advised tax cuts, two costly and unsuccessful wars, and a financial meltdown driven mostly by greed and corruption have managed to squander the privileged position the United States enjoyed at the end of the 20th century. Instead of assuming that God is on their side, perhaps Americans should heed Abraham Lincoln’s admonition that our greatest concern should be "whether we are on God’s side."

Given the many challenges Americans now face, from persistent unemployment to the burden of winding down two deadly wars, it’s unsurprising that they find the idea of their own exceptionalism comforting — and that their aspiring political leaders have been proclaiming it with increasing fervor. Such patriotism has its benefits, but not when it leads to a basic misunderstanding of America’s role in the world. This is exactly how bad decisions get made.

Riaz Haq said...

The Myth of American Exceptionalism
The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans. Too bad it's not true.

By Stephen Walt


https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism/

Despite America’s many successes, the country is hardly immune from setbacks, follies, and boneheaded blunders. If you have any doubts about that, just reflect on how a decade of ill-advised tax cuts, two costly and unsuccessful wars, and a financial meltdown driven mostly by greed and corruption have managed to squander the privileged position the United States enjoyed at the end of the 20th century. Instead of assuming that God is on their side, perhaps Americans should heed Abraham Lincoln’s admonition that our greatest concern should be "whether we are on God’s side."

Given the many challenges Americans now face, from persistent unemployment to the burden of winding down two deadly wars, it’s unsurprising that they find the idea of their own exceptionalism comforting — and that their aspiring political leaders have been proclaiming it with increasing fervor. Such patriotism has its benefits, but not when it leads to a basic misunderstanding of America’s role in the world. This is exactly how bad decisions get made.

America has its own special qualities, as all countries do, but it is still a state embedded in a competitive global system. It is far stronger and richer than most, and its geopolitical position is remarkably favorable. These advantages give the United States a wider range of choice in its conduct of foreign affairs, but they don’t ensure that its choices will be good ones. Far from being a unique state whose behavior is radically different from that of other great powers, the United States has behaved like all the rest, pursuing its own self-interest first and foremost, seeking to improve its relative position over time, and devoting relatively little blood or treasure to purely idealistic pursuits. Yet, just like past great powers, it has convinced itself that it is different, and better, than everyone else.

International politics is a contact sport, and even powerful states must compromise their political principles for the sake of security and prosperity. Nationalism is also a powerful force, and it inevitably highlights the country’s virtues and sugarcoats its less savory aspects. But if Americans want to be truly exceptional, they might start by viewing the whole idea of "American exceptionalism" with a much more skeptical eye.

Riaz Haq said...

HISTORY: IDEA TO REALITY: NED (National Endowment For Democracy) AT 30

https://www.ned.org/about/history/

"In the aftermath of World War II, faced with threats to our democratic allies and without any mechanism to channel political assistance, U.S. policy makers resorted to covert means, secretly sending advisers, equipment, and funds to support newspapers and parties under siege in Europe. When it was revealed in the late 1960’s that some American PVO’s were receiving covert funding from the CIA to wage the battle of ideas at international forums, the Johnson Administration concluded that such funding should cease, recommending establishment of “a public-private mechanism” to fund overseas activities openly."

-----------------
Training for media students

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/715059-training-for-media-students

Islamabad:Women Media Centre in collaboration with the National Endowment for Democracy arranged a five-day electronic media training course for young aspiring journalists on the topic ‘Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on women and media in Pakistan’ at a local hotel here, says a press release.

Riaz Haq said...

Destiny of CPEC depends on regional peace, while potential Afghan civil war serves US interests
By Aasma Wadud
Published: Jul 09, 2021 03:12 PM

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228255.shtml


War is not an event. It is an economy. Countries like the US have reaped fortunes from it, leaving both destruction and devastation behind. With US troops leaving Afghanistan, the future of the country remains uncertain. It symbolizes that Afghanistan will be abandoned and left alone to an inevitable defeat at the hands of the Taliban. Critics are forecasting a civil war, but there is another perspective that many fail to recognize: The US failed to link its evacuation of troops to sustainable peace, but was it circumstantial or intentional?

With China emerging as an economic superpower, the war economy is now obsolete. China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has given the world generally and the region precisely a new dimension where growth, development, stability, and peace are inevitable for every nation. Afghanistan has been burning like fuel for decades with the past's war economy. Sometimes directly and sometimes through proxies, the past's superpowers have manipulated its geopolitical location, culture, political and social dynamics. Sadly, in the past, war was a commodity that was bought and sold conveniently; Afghan war complemented the needs of those nations with power. With the situation still unfolding, is Afghanistan on the verge of another civil war, or will things change for the better this time?

The last G7 meeting in June 2021 aimed to develop strategies to counter China's BRI, which signifies its importance. The US has invested in India to counter China's influence in the region. But to America's surprise, India has failed to deliver what it was expected to achieve. Because of this, the US needed to find another more spontaneous and swift solution to the loss of its hegemony. With rapid US troop evacuation, Afghan civil war seems to be the apparent outcome, especially for war-dependent economies like the US and its allies. A civil war can serve the US multiple purposes, including some form of instability in the region to counter the BRI. It could sabotage the CPEC and maximize pressure on Pakistan's economy, which is essential to potentially winning the country's most-needed cooperation. Moreover, it could offer the US' struggling economy new support. In the past, time and again, Afghanistan has fallen prey to war economy ventures, but times have changed. With US troops leaving Afghanistan, Indian investment in the country is going to fall off. It has limited alternatives to defending its strategic interests in Afghanistan. Additionally, it fears a new wave of terrorism, and is concerned about the Taliban's growing presence. Finally, as the region stabilizes, Kashmir will see more prominence and limelight.

With the BRI and CPEC, peace has become the hottest commodity in the region. In many ways, the world's future economic growth depends on peace in Afghanistan. It is a fact that Afghanistan's internal dynamics remain the same, where domestic warlords are still significant. The Taliban has evolved from the roadside fighting group to a more flexible and accepting political entity. They are more diverse, with Afghan, Tajik and Uzbek representation. Furthermore, geopolitical transformation will have an impact on the whole situation. In the past, stakeholders were manipulated for war; but this time, "peace" will be the product offered and bought.

The destiny of the BRI and CPEC depend on peace in Afghanistan. China is known for positively contributing to other countries' economies, development, and growth. China will go the extra mile to ensure peace in the region, and will look to ensure a new chapter of growth and prosperity is achieved in Afghanistan.


Riaz Haq said...

Lyrics by Prince

Land of the free, home of the brave
Oops, I mean
Land of the free, home of the slave
Get down on your knees, hit me

-----------------

Welcome to America
Where you can fail at your job, get fired, rehired
And get a seven hundred billion dollar tip
Come on in, sit right down
And fill up your pockets, yeah
Mass media, information overload
Welcome to America
(The following message is brought to you by Viacom)
Distracted by the features of the iPhone
(Got an application for each of situation)
In other words, taken by a pretty face
Somebody's watching you (I see you, I see you)
Welcome to America
Hook up later at the iPad
And we can meet at my place (welcome to America)
Welcome (welcome to America)
To America
Where everything and nothing that Google says is hip
(The sales tax for the following items)
(Will be raised immediately, cigarettes)
We will not raise your taxes
Read our lips
Welcome to America (America)
Welcome to the big show (to America)
Everybody's looking for something
When there ain't no place to go (welcome to America)
Except inside America (America)
That's the only place I know (to America)
Transformation happens deep within, yes or no?
Yes
Welcome to America
One of our greatest exports was a thing called jazz
You think today's music will last?
(Dismantle all monopolies)
(Dismantle all monopolies)
Welcome to America
Welcome
Hope and change, everything takes forever
And truth is a new minority (truth)
Oh, welcome to America
Welcome to America
Today we'd like to discuss America's plan to fix the educational system
The pledge of allegiance will now read as follows
I pledge allegiance to the earth of the United States of the Universe
Welcome to America
There is no arguing with the book (when am I gonna learn something new?)
There is no arguing with the book (who's gonna teach it to me, you?)
There is no arguing with the book (what's that outside my windowsill)
There is no (could it be?) Arguing (our free will?)
You say yes, I say no, yet love flows
America can provide many opportunities
For the young female who wishes to work (for the state)
For her own advancement up from the underclass to become one
Welcome to America
Go to school to become a celebrity
(F-A-M-O-U-S) but don't be late
And everybody and they mama got a sex tape
Welcome to America
We snatch bass players, not purses
Keep playing, it gets worse
Land of the free, home of the brave
Oops, I mean
Land of the free, home of the slave
Get down on your knees, hit me
Welcome to America
Welcome to the big show
Everybody's looking for something
When there ain't no place to go (that's it y'all)
Except inside America
That's the only place I know (Chinese)
Transformation happens deep within, yes or no? (Or get down on your knees)
Source: LyricFind

Riaz Haq said...

Forbes Says the Quiet Part Out Loud About NATO | by Mitchell Peterson | May, 2022 | Medium


https://mitchellglennfrommichigan.medium.com/forbes-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-about-nato-978b1957b54d


Everybody these days is familiar with Eisenhower’s warnings regarding the military-industrial complex, and I often wonder what he’d say if he saw the state of America and the federal budget. The top marginal tax rate was freaking 91% when he was in office and the military budget was actually reduced for a few years in the 1950s. These days, the highest marginal tax rate on the richest of the rich is 37%, most billionaires and corporations pay next to nothing, and military spending will very soon surpass $1,000,000,000,000 a year.

Ike would shit himself, give a speech on the barbarity of the nation, and then get called a pansy-ass socialist and never be invited back onto mainstream television — seriously.

How the hell did Forbes write this piece? And how does America justify this level of military spending with almost third-world-level poverty and social problems domestically?

This Chris Hedges quote says it all:

The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 millionchildren who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses. No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.

It’s a death spiral. Everyone can see it. And as I said, the financial press is usually more accurate when portraying it; they just do it in their own way. It’s still propagandistic, but just a little closer to reality.

Investors are moving money around and need real information so the Financial Times does its best to call balls and strikes while the other outlets are Kim-Jong-un-level home refs and say ‘we good guys are on the right side of history and winning’ no matter how detached that might be from the Newtonian reality.

It’s wise not to expect much from any of them, but they do offer a window into the mainstream ‘Western’ consensus.

And sometimes, like Forbes, they remove the mask entirely, accidentally reveal the truth, and cheerlead the orgy of profits brought on by mass death.

Riaz Haq said...

Excerpts of McNamara, Craig. Because Our Fathers Lied (pp. 195-196). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

We sat in the front row. My kids were on either side of me. As crazy as it seems, I was prepared to climb up on the stage and tackle anyone who came near him. I wasn’t in the same condition that I’d been in as the MVP of my high school football team, but I’d been farming for the past quarter century. I felt I was strong enough. When Dad came out onstage, the auditorium fell silent. The possibility of confrontation—the awkwardness and the silent threat—was in the air like electricity before a thunderstorm. The moderator showed selected clips from The Fog of War. The clips focused on my father’s “Eleven Lessons,” first enumerated in his memoir, In Retrospect, and later used by Errol Morris as a through line for the film. The lessons are: Empathize with your enemy. Rationality alone will not save us. There’s something beyond one’s self. Maximize efficiency. Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Get the data. Belief and seeing are both often wrong. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil. Never say never. You can’t change human nature. During the conversation that followed, Mark Danner pushed my father on these lessons, attempting to draw out a comparison with Iraq. At one point, Danner asked specifically whether the lessons from the Vietnam War should be applied to America’s impending adventure in 2003. My father steadfastly refused to comment. He gave various reasons—among them that it could pose a risk to American soldiers in the field. He also said that ex-cabinet members shouldn’t comment on the jobs current cabinet members are doing. He would repeat these nonanswers to the Iraq question in numerous other interviews. For those of us who despised Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and felt the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, it was frustrating that Robert McNamara wouldn’t comment directly. It brought back painful memories of his silence after 1968. There had been such hope and such disappointment. “We human beings killed a hundred and sixty million other human beings in the twentieth century,” he said. He was almost shouting, jabbing his finger at Mark Danner. “Is that what we want in this century?” In classic fashion, Dad answered his own question. “I don’t think so!” At one point, Danner asked Dad how he dealt with reporters during difficult press conferences as secretary of defense. Dad said, “Don’t answer the question they asked. Answer the question you wish they’d asked.” Does this mean tell a lie? Growing up in his house, with his rules, I considered him to be an honest person. I’m sure I can remember him saying “Don’t tell lies” when I was a little kid. I’m sure that I passed on to my own children the same lesson. How could someone as intelligent as Dad fail to see the contradiction? Maybe his hypocrisy has to do with Lesson Number Three. That’s the one that matters most to me. I think it’s the one he most failed to live up to.

-------------
I once asked Errol what it was like to spend so much time with my father. He responded that he felt my father was thoughtful and self-doubting: a decent and magnificent man, a person he deeply respected and learned a lot from. He liked him. However, he also told me that he felt conflicted about the decisions my father made as secretary of defense. He said that he considered Dad a war criminal. I wondered, How could you feel even the most remote affection for a war criminal? In maybe the same conversation, I expressed to Errol my dismay over the run-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I told him that I considered men like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz to be evil. I felt hatred for these men—the last of whom had a career very similar to my father’s, because it also included a tenure at the World Bank.

McNamara, Craig. Because Our Fathers Lied (pp. 197-198). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Riaz Haq said...

Ben Norton
@BenjaminNorton
The US military launched at least 251 foreign interventions from 1991 to 2022.
This is according to a report from the US government's own Congressional Research Service.
I went through the data and created a map showing just how vast the meddling is: https://multipolarista.com/2022/09/13/us-251-military-interventions-1991/ https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1569800676678696960?s=20&t=YnIgUPmGWNRNOFxTpqKvCQ

Riaz Haq said...

Pentagon Orders Review of Its Overseas Social Media Campaigns
The move comes after Twitter and Facebook shut down misleading accounts that they determined were sending messages to promote U.S. foreign policy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/us/politics/pentagon-social-media.html

WASHINGTON — White House officials told the military that they were concerned about its efforts to spread pro-American messaging on social media, prompting the Pentagon to order a review of secretive operations to influence populations overseas, U.S. officials said.

The review follows a decision by Twitter and Facebook over the summer to shut down misleading accounts that they determined were sending messages about U.S. foreign policy interests abroad.

The Pentagon audit and White House concerns were first reported by The Washington Post.

Disinformation researchers said the campaigns largely fell into two camps. Most of the campaigns spread pro-American messages, including memes and slogans that praised the United States. Those programs were similar to how Beijing often spreads disinformation by seeding positive messages about life in China.

One campaign targeting Iran, however, spread divisive messages about life there. The accounts involved pushed out views that both supported and opposed the Iranian government. That disinformation effort resembled the methods used by Russia to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

For years U.S. military commands have promoted pro-American news and messages for audiences overseas, sometimes earning the scrutiny of Congress. But the decision by the social media companies to shut down some accounts associated with the military suggested that the activity had gone further.

Twitter and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, removed accounts that they said violated their terms of service by taking part in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

A report in August by Stanford University’s Internet Observatory and the social media analytics firm Graphika said those accounts were pushing pro-American messages in the Middle East and Central Asia. The two groups attributed some of the accounts taken down by Facebook and Twitter to the Trans-Regional Web Initiative, a more than 10-year-old Pentagon initiative that sends out information in support of the United States in areas where the U.S. military operates.

The postings varied widely in sophistication. Some of the more polished work was aimed at Twitter and Telegram users in Iran and pushed a wide variety of views. While most of the messages were critical of the Iranian government, researchers said others were supportive of it, the kind of activity that could potentially be designed to inflame debate and sow divisions in the country.

Riaz Haq said...

No Cold War
@NoColdWar
Former US President Jimmy Carter turns 98 today. His thoughts on US-China relations may surprise you:

"Since we normalized relations with China in 1979, the US has been in constant war. China has not been in combat with anyone."

"[The US] is the most warlike country on earth."

https://twitter.com/NoColdWar/status/1576317498693414912?s=20&t=aN53JXYT6G-wrMQYu9pn2Q

Riaz Haq said...

Steve Hanke
@steve_hanke
Prof Jeffrey Sachs said, "The most dangerous country in the world since 1950 has been the United States". The Athens Democracy Forum’s moderator immediately tried to silence Sachs. So much for FREE SPEECH at the Athens Democracy Forum.

https://twitter.com/steve_hanke/status/1584546679759327232?s=20&t=MmJf3m9JsP_y5s3xqe-rRg

Riaz Haq said...

Jeffrey Sachs, a professor of sustainable development at Columbia University, said he’s “pretty convinced” the virus came out of a “U.S. lab biotechnology,” although he added that “we don’t know for sure.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/josep-borrell-jeffrey-sachs-adviser-china-disinformation-us-covid-origin/

The latest effort by Sachs — a long-time advocate of dismantling American hegemony and embracing the rise of China — to put blame on U.S. labs has been circulated on Chinese social media, including by the Chinese embassy to France this week.


Sachs is engaged by the European Commission as a special adviser to foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to focus on “cooperation policy.”

Chinese diplomats have repeatedly accused the U.S. of developing biotechnology that transformed into the coronavirus, a claim rejected by the EU as disinformation. The World Health Organization chief last year complained that China was not transparent enough, saying there was a "premature push" to rule out the theory that the virus might have escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan.

A spokesman for the EU’s foreign policy arm sought to draw distance from Sachs.

“Jeffrey Sachs is an external unpaid adviser of the HRVP [Borrell] … The external advisers are external, independent personalities. They are not EU officials. They therefore do not speak for the HRVP, nor for the Commission. Their views are their own,” the spokesman said, stressing that Sachs’ commitment was only for 20 working hours per year.

Contradicting Sachs’ latest speculation about the coronavirus’ origin, the EU spokesman said that “a laboratory accident has been categorized as extremely unlikely” according to a WHO study.

Sachs told POLITICO the virus "quite likely emerged from a U.S.-backed laboratory research program ... A natural spillover is also possible, of course. Both hypotheses are viable at this stage."

Riaz Haq said...

Watch Professor Jeffrey Sachs describe the US as “the most violent country in the world” and then get shockingly shut down at the Athens Democracy Forum.


https://johnmenadue.com/extraordinary-intervention-by-jeffrey-sachs-at-the-athens-democracy-forum/

Sach’s argues that what matters is a country’s unique governance culture: classifying countries in political systems (“liberal democracy or not”) is oversimplifying.

He doesn’t hold back when describing the US governance culture: “A semi-democratic white-dominated hierarchical racist society that aims to preserve privilege by the elites [and founded as] a slave-owning genocidal country”. Ouch!

That’s why he argues that “the biggest mistake of president Biden was to say ‘the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies’.”

He adds: “The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises” under thunderous applause.


He says “the solution in [this world] is to speak with each other more […] Our political elites in the US do not speak with Chinese political elites except to point fingers or to yell at them. […] If we would seat down to speak with each other, we’d actually get somewhere.”

Last but not least, he destroys the myth that “democracies” are more peaceful: “the most violent country in the world in the 19th century was the most democratic, Britain. The most violent country in the world since 1950 is the US”.


And he gets shockingly shut down by the host.

Here is the full video from the Athens Democracy Forum. (Use the toggle on the red line to skip to Jeffrey Sachs, who starts at 15 minutes).

Riaz Haq said...

Columbia Economics Professor Jeffrey Sachs: “You Can Be Democratic at Home and Ruthlessly Imperial Abroad.” - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPvDrcwmmOU

Sachs said, "The most violent country in the world in the 19th century was the most democratic, or perhaps the 2nd most democratic, was Britain. You can be democratic at home and ruthlessly imperial abroad. The most violent country since 1950 has been the the United States. It's been by far involved in more wars...". That's where he was interrupted by the moderator who said, "Stop. I'm your moderator and it's enough".

Riaz Haq said...

Jeffrey Sachs: “Dangerous” U.S. Policy & “West’s False Narrative” Stoking Tensions with Russia, China

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/30/wests_false_narrative_china_russia_ukrain


We discuss Western hegemony and U.S. policy in Russia, Ukraine and China with Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose new article is headlined “The West’s False Narrative About Russia and China.” Sachs says the bipartisan U.S. approach to foreign policy is “unaccountably dangerous and wrongheaded,” and warns the U.S. is creating “a recipe for yet another war” in East Asia.

https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/h29g9k7l7fymxp39yhzwxc5f72ancr

AMY GOODMAN: What is the story that people in the West and around the world should understand about what’s happening right now with these conflicts, with Russia, with Russia and Ukraine, and with China?

JEFFREY SACHS: The main point, Amy, is that we are not using diplomacy; we are using weaponry. This sale now announced to Taiwan that you’ve been discussing this morning is just another case in point. This does not make Taiwan safer. This does not make the world safer. It certainly doesn’t make the United States safer.

This goes back a long way. I think it’s useful to start 30 years ago. The Soviet Union ended, and some American leaders got it into their head that there was now what they called the unipolar world, that the U.S. was the sole superpower, and we could run the show. The results have been disastrous. We have had now three decades of militarization of American foreign policy. A new database that Tufts is maintaining has just shown that there have been more than 100 military interventions by the United States since 1991. It’s really unbelievable.

And I have seen, in my own experience over the last 30 years working extensively in Russia, in Central Europe, in China and in other parts of the world, how the U.S. approach is a military-first, and often a military-only, approach. We arm who we want. We call for NATO enlargement, no matter what other countries say may be harmful to their security interests. We brush aside anyone else’s security interests. And when they complain, we ship more armaments to our allies in that region. We go to war when we want, where we want, whether it was Afghanistan or Iraq or the covert war against Assad in Syria, which is even today not properly understood by the American people, or the war in Libya. And we say, “We’re peace-loving. What’s wrong with Russia and China? They are so warlike. They’re out to undermine the world.” And we end up in terrible confrontations.

The war in Ukraine — just to finish the introductory view — could have been avoided and should have been avoided through diplomacy. What President Putin of Russia was saying for years was “Do not expand NATO into the Black Sea, not to Ukraine, much less to Georgia,” which if people look on the map, straight across to the eastern edge of the Black Sea. Russia said, “This will surround us. This will jeopardize our security. Let us have diplomacy.” The United States rejected all diplomacy. I tried to contact the White House at the end of 2021 — in fact, I did contact the White House and said there will be war unless the U.S. enters diplomatic talks with President Putin over this question of NATO enlargement. I was told the U.S. will never do that. That is off the table. And it was off the table. Now we have a war that’s extraordinarily dangerous.

And we are taking exactly the same tactics in East Asia that led to the war in Ukraine. We’re organizing alliances, building up weaponry, trash-talking China, having Speaker Pelosi fly to Taiwan, when the Chinese government said, “Please, lower the temperature, lower the tensions.” We say, “No, we do what we want,” and now send more arms. This is a recipe for yet another war. And to my mind, it’s terrifying.


Riaz Haq said...

U.S. Foreign Policy Veteran Says Real Danger Is Here in America - The New York Times


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/politics/richard-haass-biden-trump-foreign-policy.html


Everywhere he has gone as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard N. Haass has been asked the same question: What keeps him up at night? He has had no shortage of options over the years — Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, climate change, international terrorism, food insecurity, the global pandemic.

But as he steps down after two decades running America’s most storied private organization focused on international affairs, Mr. Haass has come to a disturbing conclusion. The most serious danger to the security of the world right now? The threat that costs him sleep? The United States itself.

“It’s us,” he said ruefully the other day.

That was never a thought this global strategist would have entertained until recently. But in his mind, the unraveling of the American political system means that for the first time in his life the internal threat has surpassed the external threat. Instead of being the most reliable anchor in a volatile world, Mr. Haass said, the United States has become the most profound source of instability and an uncertain exemplar of democracy.

Riaz Haq said...

S.L. Kanthan
@Kanthan2030
How many Americans know how propaganda works?

How many have heard of Edward Bernays? Maybe 1%.

He is the father of mass propaganda. And his techniques are still copied.

For example: This is how he increased sales of cigarettes — by inducing women to smoke and thus doubling potential customers.

And he did by using three strategies:

🔹reframing smoking as a “women’s liberation” thing.

🔹Recruiting celebrities

🔹Paying off media to glorify his stunt.

Thus, he held a women’s march for freedom and had the front-row women smoke cigarettes.

Then, he had the NY Times print it (in 1929) as a big news on the first page: “Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of “Freedom.”

By 1930, advertisements with beautiful women smoking were everywhere! Lucky brand was a good example.

The same playbook has been used over and over for decades for everything from consumer products and wars to vaccines and LGBTQ.

Edward Bernays influenced every aspect of US — from corporate marketing to military industrial complex.

But you just have to figure out the basics, and then you will see the trick everywhere.

https://twitter.com/Kanthan2030/status/1676659334431014912?s=20

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The manipulation of the American mind: Edward Bernays and the birth of public relations

https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393

“The most interesting man in the world.” “Reach out and touch someone.” “Finger-lickin’ good.” Such advertising slogans have become fixtures of American culture, and each year millions now tune into the Super Bowl as much for the ads as for the football.

While no single person can claim exclusive credit for the ascendancy of advertising in American life, no one deserves credit more than a man most of us have never heard of: Edward Bernays.

I first encountered Bernays through an article I was writing on propaganda, and it quickly became clear that he was one of the 20th century’s foremost salesmen of ideas. The fact that 20 years have elapsed since his death provides a fitting opportunity to reexamine his legacy.

Bernays pioneered public relations
Often referred to as “the father of public relations,” Bernays in 1928 published his seminal work, Propaganda, in which he argued that public relations is not a gimmick but a necessity:

How The Conversation is different: We explain without oversimplifying.
Learn more
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.

Riaz Haq said...

The west must recognise its hypocrisy
Many countries view the US and European powers as selfish, self-satisfied and insincere
By MARTIN WOLF

https://www.ft.com/content/7a2ea643-4adb-465a-9188-20363622b379


Yet another significant issue is international assistance. Developing countries have been buffeted by a series of shocks for which they were not responsible: Covid, the subsequent sharp rise in inflation, the invasion of Ukraine, the jump in prices of energy and food and then the higher interest rates. The assistance they have received during this era of shocks has been grossly inadequate. The legacy of Covid for young people, together with the overhang of debt, might even create lost decades.

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We have moved into an era of global competition tempered by the need to co-operate and the fear of conflict. The main protagonists are the US and its allies on the one hand, and China and Russia on the other. Yet the rest of the world also matters. It contains two-thirds of the global population and a number of rising powers, notably India, now the world’s most populous country.Nevertheless, relations between the US and China are clearly central. Fortunately, the administration has been trying to reduce the friction, most recently with visits to Beijing by secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen.Yellen’s objective was, she stated, “to establish and deepen relationships” with the new economic leadership team in Beijing. She stressed that this was part of an effort to stabilise the relationship, reduce the risk of misunderstandings and consider areas of co-operation. She added that “There is an important distinction between decoupling, on the one hand, and on the other hand, diversifying critical supply chains or taking targeted national security actions. We know that a decoupling of the world’s two largest economies would be disastrous for both countries and destabilising for the world. And it would be virtually impossible to undertake.”One must applaud this effort to clarify objectives, improve transparency and deepen relations. We must not stumble into hostilities with China as we have done with Russia. Better still, we need to make this relationship work in the interests of the world. Yet the west’s concerns must not be limited to relations with China. Better relations with the rest of the world also matter. This requires the west to recognise its own double standards and hypocrisy.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a dreadful violation of fundamental moral and legal principles. Many in developing countries also recognise this. But they remember, too, the long history of western countries as imperialists and invaders. Nor do they fail to realise that we care far more about fellow Europeans than about others. Too often, we have viewed grave violations of human rights and international law. Too often, we have viewed such injustices as no concern of ours. Ukraine, many feel, is no concern of theirs.Then there is trade. In an important speech delivered in April, Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, repudiated the trading order his country had taken decades to build. More recently, US trade representative Katherine Tai buried it. Her speech raises many issues. Yet what cannot be ignored is the very fact of the volte-face. Many in developing countries bought into the doctrine of trade openness. Many of them prospered as a result. Now they fear they are left high and dry.Yet another significant issue is international assistance. Developing countries have been buffeted by a series of shocks for which they were not responsible: Covid, the subsequent sharp rise in inflation, the invasion of Ukraine, the jump in prices of energy and food and then the higher interest rates. The assistance they have received during this era of shocks has been grossly inadequate. The legacy of Covid for young people, together with the overhang of debt, might even create lost decades.

Riaz Haq said...

The west must recognise its hypocrisy
Many countries view the US and European powers as selfish, self-satisfied and insincere
By MARTIN WOLF

https://www.ft.com/content/7a2ea643-4adb-465a-9188-20363622b379

This question of development assistance links with the challenge of climate. As everyone in developing countries knows, the reason the climate problem is now urgent is the historic emissions of high-income countries. The latter were able to use the atmosphere as a sink, while today’s developing countries cannot. So, today we tell them they must embark on a very different development path from our own. Needless to say, this is quite infuriating. Nevertheless, emissions must now be sharply reduced. This requires a global effort, including in many emerging and developing countries. Have we made progress on this task, in reality rather than rhetorically? The answer is “no”. Emissions have not fallen at all.If emissions are to decline rapidly, while emerging and developing countries still deliver the prosperity their populations demand, there must be a huge flow of resources towards them, not least to finance climate mitigation and the necessary adaptation to higher temperatures. In 2021, net transfers from official loans to emerging and developing countries were just $38bn. Grants were larger, but more narrowly focused.This is not even close to enough. There must be greater aid, debt relief, support for climate-related investment and new mechanisms for generating the needed resources, such as the proposal that countries with above average emissions per head compensate those with below average ones. Capital increases for multilateral banks are also vital.The high-income democracies are failing to offer adequate help in this longer-term task, just as they did over Covid. In the case of climate, the failure is to realise our responsibility for managing a problem the poor of the world did not create. This looks unfair, simply because it evidently is.We are in a competition of systems. I hope that democracy and individual freedom do ultimately win. In the long run, they have a good chance of doing so. Nevertheless, we must also remember the threats we now confront to peace, prosperity and planet. Tackling these will require deep engagement with China. But if the west is to have the influence it hopes for, it must realise that its claims to moral superiority are neither unchallengeable nor unchallenged. Many in our world view the western powers as selfish, self-satisfied and hypocritical. They are not altogether wrong. We must do far better.martin.wolf@ft.com