The Empire’s Message

Hypocrisy is a main element in current imperial policy; decisive and innovative, we could say. The old empires did not talk things over when it came down to threatening and destroying entire towns.

But humanity has evolved and methods of mass communication have been revolutionized. Today you can see the facts for yourself. Wars are no longer for extending control, but for spreading democracy; it also takes a greater effort for society to accept a war. This is what the 20th century has shown us and what the 21st century has improved.

For less than two years, rumors spread about FARC’s liberation of Ingrid Betancourt. Those of us who worked with the information were very attentive in the presence of negotiations involving a guest of the French government in the jungles of Colombia. At the time, she had been reunited or should have been reunited with Raúl Reyes in his camp.

A few days later, the Colombian government attacked the guerilla leader’s base in Ecuadorian territory and set the region on the brink of a war.

The Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez then labeled Colombia as the Israel of Latin America. Washington had nothing to do with the unanimous sentence that that Colombian military attack generated.

Six days ago Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that a signed agreement between Iran, Brazil and Turkey made the world a more dangerous place.

To strengthen Clinton’s theory, the Colombia of the Middle East (Israel) attacked and massacred at least 19 civilians that were traveling on a ship loaded with humanitarian aid for the blocked off population of the Gaza Strip.

The ship had a Turkish flag and Tel Aviv did not even have the tact to attack it within its territorial limits. The attack was made in international waters in order to assure that the provocation had been made clear.

If it were not for the cultural impunity with which the means of ruling communication operate, this system would have been exhausted a long time ago.

It tires us to listen and learn about the serious threats to world peace that governments like Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela or the newest, Brazil, represent.

Nevertheless, real actions practically do not mean anything. The actions that truly put global security at risk are always brought to practice by the empire and its allies and we never find out about its dangers.

While the Axis of Evil continues threatening humanity without knowing military actions, the defenders of democracy assassinated hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Vietnamese, so many other Palestinians and a similar number of Colombians; also tens of thousands of Afghans, hundreds of Pakistanis and at least as many Lebanese. As soon as it occurs to them, they will bomb Somalia or Yemen.

Once in a while, a declaration of sincerity incredibly escapes from one of the representatives of the imperial power. Then, for ten or fifteen seconds the hypocrisy doesn’t count.

The past week, the president of Germany, Horst Köhler visited the troops of his country in Afghanistan and upon his return offered an interview at the state radio station, Deutschland Radio. There he deemed that “the majority of Germans are beginning to understand that a country as powerful as ours, with an orientation towards exports and with certain dependencies, must know that if needed, it is necessary to defend our interests with military force.”

Fifteen seconds of sincerity cost him the office. The imperial power ought to say that it is necessary to invade and kill for democracy and not for the purpose of defending its economic interests. If any of its representatives would dare to tell the truth, they should be excluded from power.

All of those wars have histories of cruelty and genocide. But they continue making us believe that those who threaten us are Ahmadinejad or Chavez.

It is necessary to say that indeed it is possible for Iran to attribute to an armed conflict. However, they have been provoked by Washington in the past when they helped Saddam Hussein try to topple the Islamic revolution in the ‘80s.

The liberation of Ingrid Betancourt was a symbolic gesture of transcendence by the Colombian guerillas in the face of possible negotiations. But it never came to be because Alvaro Uribe’s government assassinated the main negotiator.

This was never labeled as a threat to the peace in the region by Clinton or anyone like her.

The agreement between Iran, Brazil and Turkey would open an interesting framework for discussing a different deal with Iran. This would be much closer to the negotiation needed than the unhealthy stubbornness of refusing to sit down to talk with Tehran.

But how does it come to be that Turkey sits to negotiate with Iran without Washington‘s support?

Three days after Clinton’s verbal reprimand, her country’s main ally militarily attacked a Turkish ship in international waters.

Did it occur to anyone that Washington can label this attack as an action that makes the world more dangerous?

For this sick empire that sickens us all with its almost perfect cultural arsenal, the signature of a political agreement is more threatening and dangerous than a military attack against a group of pacifists armed with plastic chairs and ten thousand tons of humanitarian aid.

Hours later, Israel says that it doesn’t need to ask forgiveness for defending itself.

The message should be very clear: the empire wants war and nothing else; and the war cannot run risks of stopping, not in the Middle East, not in Colombia, or the Korean peninsula and not in another dark region of the planet (as George W. Bush liked to say).

Peace can make the world a much more dangerous place for the empire. That is why it should save itself no matter what the cost.