Rastafari Speaks - West sworn to rule of force

By Reason Wafawarova in Sydney, Australia
November 29, 2007
The Herald

SINCE the United States took over global imperial dominance from Britain at the end of World War II, the then new-look US-led Western alliance adopted the Rule of Law slogan as a weapon to give imperialism a semblance of legitimacy whenever the imperial ruling elite found it expedient to meddle in the internal affairs of countries they perceive to be standing in the way of the flow of imperial global capital.

Basically, these are often countries whose policies reduce or stop Western access to natural resources within their own borders as well as refusing to use their own people as a source of cheap labour for imperial investors.

One needs only to look at the sloganeering and slandering propaganda dished out by the US before the invasion of Cuba, Grenada, Panama, Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Libya, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan, all after the declaration of the American century at the end of World War II. All these countries basically embarked on a path of social policies geared towards ensuring that the resources within their borders would be exploited for the benefit of their own peoples, be it through the nationalisation of major industries by Cuba, the socialist policies of Maurice Bishop in Grenada, Salvador Allende’s socialist policies in Chile or Muammar Gadaffi’s role in propping up the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut oil production, to coerce meaningful behaviour from the greedy imperialists.

Each time any of these countries is under Western attack, the underlying propaganda line is always the same — that the leader of that country is a "mad dictator" who does not respect the rule of law, especially property rights. President Mugabe only became a "ruthless dictator" after he repossessed white-held farms for redistribution to Zimbabwe’s landless rightful owners.

This land is actually regarded as the property whose "owners’ rights" were violated by the Government — and that despite that this is land acquired through fraudulent treaties like the meaningless Moffat Treaty that claimed that King Lobengula had promised "not to sell, cede or alienate" any part of his territory, "without the previous knowledge and sanction of the British High Commissioner for South Africa." It only takes a perfect fool to believe that any African in the 1880s, not least an African king, would even comprehend that land, just like air and the sky, could be sold, ceded or alienated.

Now, President Mugabe is under fire for being a "lawless dictator" for another move to increase shareholding for indigenous Zimbabweans in the mining sector. Again, the charge is that he is violating property rights — rights acquired through the 1888 Rudd Concession obtained by Rudd’s deception and a ludicrous claim that King Lobengula had given a 100 percent monopoly of all present-day Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth to Cecil John Rhodes and his British South African Company in exchange for a paltry 100 pounds a month.

These are the same British settlers whose colleagues were later to sign another "concession" in Persia, now Iran, claiming that the Persian King had agreed to sign a concession covering 500 000 square miles of potential oil land in exchange for 20 000 pounds cash and a paltry 16 percent of the profits. This was in 1913.

When Dr Mossadeq, an Iranian nationalist, took power and nationalised BP’s oil fields in 1951, the British government fumed and called him a dictator who did not respect the rule of law.

The American CIA engineered a coup and in 1953 overthrew Dr Mossadeq and replaced him with the Shah, who later became the US strongman in the Middle East courtesy of Washington’s support, pretty much the same way Morgan Tsvangirai keeps saying he wants to be reintegrated into the "world system" by the Americans and their allies after President Mugabe is removed. A highly unachievable feat judging by what has been happening in Zimbabwe over the last eight years. The quisling Shah had to be kicked out by popular revolt in 1979 because the Americans made him a military strongman for their own ends in the Middle East — all at the expense of his own people who hardly benefited anything from the looting of their oil by Exxon and BP, the American and British oil companies.

Morgan Tsvangirai is an aspiring Shah who should know better that the imperialist forces propping his insidious party, albeit faction, have no intentions of improving the welfare of ordinary Zimbabweans or even protecting their human rights.

They are only committed to the slogan of the rule of law, human rights and democracy for their own purposes and ends. In fact, as Noam Chomsky argues, all imperialists regard the rule of law as a slogan to be used for three major purposes.

Firstly, it is a slogan to pacify the domestic populations in the imperialists’ own backyards and that is why the law punishes more of poor people than it ever does those controlling the means of production.

Secondly, it is a slogan so effectively used to denounce the official enemies of the US-led imperial alliance — the way Col Gaddafi was denounced in the 1980s, the way Commandante Castro has been denounced since 1959, and the way President Mugabe has been denounced since 1999.

Thirdly, it is the last resort in dealing with problems where all other covert means have proved ineffective and Chile’s Allende easily comes to mind, so does Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Grenada’s Maurice Bishop.

This is the extent to which the US-led imperial alliance is committed to the rule of law; otherwise, apart from these three concerns, all imperialists are sworn to the Rule of Force.

This force comes in various forms. It might be economic force often executed by the ruthless power of economic sanctions or political force executed by perfidious and slandering propaganda unleashed by the Western media and their diplomatic spokespersons.

In the event that these forms of aggression fail to yield the intended result, then military force has always been an option and there are more than 30 examples where this has been applied by the US alone since 1945.

The killing of 250 American marines by one massive bomb in Lebanon in 1983 as well as that of 18 American troopers in Somalia 10 years later, has somewhat made the imperialists think twice before unleashing their military might on non-compliant governments. Iraq and Afghanistan are just a replica of the Vietnam Syndrome and 3 800 plus deaths of American soldiers in just four years, might just be another cause for concern in the continued use of military force by imperial powers. Such a high number of casualties comes with a heavy political price as virtually all the leaders who accompanied George W. Bush into Iraq in 2003 would testify, from the Spanish leader, to Britain’s Tony Blair, and now Australia’s John Howard. Of course, Bush himself is bound to leave office with his entire Republican administration for exactly the same problem.

This development will mean that the imperialist club might have to rely more on surrogates — the likes of Israel in the Middle East. When the US bombed Libya in 1986, the only country to declare wholehearted and enthusiastic support for the attack was Israel. In fact, the Israelis issued an editorial in the country’s most influential newspaper, Ha’aretz, where they welcomed America "to the club" and boasted about their exploits in dealing with "the two-legged animals" in reference to Palestinians and they expressed utmost happiness that in Washington, the Americans were now dealing with the "mad dog", a reference to Col Gadaffi.

The editorial actually stated that "Here . . . the Arabs only understand one language, over there (in Washington) they say they dealt with Gadaffi in the only language he understands, that of force…"

Israel has been executing the military force duties for the US-led Western alliance since the hijack state was formed some 40 years ago. The imperial alliance is desperate to create many more such surrogates in all corners of the globe, and this is the reason why Afghanistan has not known peace since the Cold War days. The US is desperate to surround China with its surrogate states, just like they would want a reinforcement of Israel in the Middle East through the creation of another surrogate state in Iraq after Saddam Hussein went renegade.

In Africa, the US is trying to use the concept of their military base, Africom, to create at least one or more surrogate states, especially in West Africa and the Horn of Africa — all for their strategic imperial control of the continent’s resources as well as the monitoring of the African Moslem community.

In Zimbabwe, the self-destroying MDC was meant to be propped as a surrogate regime in order to make Zimbabwe the surrogate state for imperial interests in Southern Africa and the current negotiations between the MDC and Zanu-PF are indeed the least the West would want to hear from their disintegrating political project. They want Zanu-PF dead and buried and a surrogate put in place and this can only come through Western-induced regime change, and not mediation for a free and fair election, which, of course, the MDC can never win.

It is in this vein that reports of proposals for US military bases in Southern African countries should be taken seriously and Sadc must reassert its power and influence to dissuade member states from agreeing to this proposal. It is a proposal meant to create an Israel among us and should be treated just as such. Indeed, the proposals elsewhere in Africa should equally get cautious treatment, if not outright resistance, because history has shown us what America means by protecting her interests in various parts of the world. Those who shelter a lioness to protect her interests in their village should not cry foul when all livestock, and eventually themselves, end up in the belly.

It is in this line of argument that the illegal regime change agenda should be viewed, wherever it is applied by the West. Zimbabweans should know better than to have an American-created regime, even if that regime was only "partnering" Britain, the US and other Western allies.

If the Western rulers were indeed worried about the rule of law and the menace of terrorism, they would not have helped Israel to found itself on the principles of terror: for its existence, Israel founded itself on the murderous expulsion of 750 000 Palestinians. The "terrorists" that Israel and the US want to put to death today, are often the sons and daughters of those same dispossessed Palestinians.

Israel’s evolution has seen the increasing use of state terror and the pious noises from the West about "terrorism" are just meant to cover up for the imperial ambitions to create more ruthless surrogate outposts for Western domination across the world.

This writer asserts that Africa should go to the EU-Africa Summit next month with the full knowledge of who they are dealing with and African leaders owe it to posterity to ensure that the continent is protected from the marauding forces of imperial capital.

This writer has no doubt that Zimbabwe is more than clear on what lies ahead and all it needs is solidarity from fellow Africans at best, and mere non-interference at worst.

Together we will overcome. It’s homeland or death for Africa!

Reason Wafawarova is a Zimbabwean political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@ yahoo.co.uk