Western Reality Is a Disguised Dictatorship Without Democracy

In the opinion polls of all of the major Western powers, a great majority of people all oppose the United States carrying out military strikes on Syria, but this seems to have little effect on the U.S. government. This highlights the hypocritical characteristics of the Western democratic model. Only the intervention of the Russian government and overwhelming public opposition from outside the West was able to prevent the U.S. from taking military action against Syria.

Under normal circumstances, the United States and European countries are able to make their citizens give support to important war policies via relatively covert means, such as offering funding for politicians who favor war. Actions that publicly reject public opinion, be they direct refusals, starting military coups or invasions, are usually directed against developing countries. There are many such examples, some of which are even more brazen.

In 1973, Chile’s democratically-elected President Allende was overthrown and murdered by an American-supported coup d’état. Thousands of people were executed or brutally tortured. In 1953, Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mosaddegh was overthrown by a coup. Officials of the U.S. CIA admitted this coup was connected to their organization. In Indonesia in 1965, more than 500,000 people were killed by the army in an American-backed campaign. This campaign’s purpose was to establish the Suharto dictatorship. This year, Egypt’s democratically-elected President Morsi was overthrown in a military coup. His Muslim Brotherhood had won five elections in the space of two years. Over 1,000 civilians were killed by the Egyptian army, which has received American financial aid for many years.

However, at the moment, a new set of circumstances has emerged in developed economies. Military strikes on Syria would have been the ninth significant foreign military operation carried out by the United States in the past 15 years’ time. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gave rise to catastrophic consequences. Soldiers sacrificed; the pressure to cut social spending to subsidize military operations rose. Increasingly clear evidence indicates the government is carrying out systematic deception to obstruct opposing opinions. Under the influence of these factors, public opinion opposing such operations in the West has moved one step forward. Many opinion polls in all of the Western countries indicate this.

The results of the opinion poll released on Sept. 3 by The Washington Post show that 59 percent of American respondents oppose carrying out cruise missile attacks on Syria. The ratio of supporters was 36 percent. Another 70 percent of the American people opposed arming the Syrian opposition faction. In England, the results of a BBC opinion poll show that 71 percent of people support Parliament’s vetoing participation in military strikes on Syria. The ratio of opponents was only 20 percent. In France, 64 percent of the people oppose military action against Syria. Considering that a great majority of the people oppose military strikes on Syria, what features of Western democracy does the American government’s determination to advance show?

The American government’s policy has its origins in the following simple facts. American companies are steadily losing the advantage in peaceful economic competition with developing countries, especially China. However, the U.S. still has an enormous military advantage. Therefore, the American government’s strategy is to shift the conflict from the economic domain to the military domain, thus bringing about 15 years of prolonged war. Western public opinion opposing strikes on Syria is an obstacle; consequently, it has been directly overruled.

The people in developed nations are in the process of realizing a fact that developing countries have clearly understood for a long time, namely that the “democracy” asserted by developed countries is hypocritical. The facts show that if the American people back the government’s policies, the U.S. government calls this “democracy.” Yet if the American people oppose government policy, the U.S. government will not proceed in accordance with the will of the people. The opinions of most of the American people have been overruled. Even though they have not been strafed by machine guns as in Egypt and Chile, they have been ignored all the same.

This opinion has been expressed before, but it is absolutely true. The reality that exists in the West is a corporate dictatorship, without the slightest amount of democracy, disguised as a democracy. The overwhelming majority of people opposing attacks on Syria implies that this time, the camouflage is hiding something unusual.

Author John Ross is the former director (deputy mayor) for Economic and Business Policy for the City of London and a senior research fellow at Renmin University of China’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies. This article was translated by Yi Wen.