Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) The misimpressions of the cover of good intentions

The misimpressions of the cover of good intentions
Reason Wafawarova
Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:31:00 +0000

THE understanding of human affairs is no easy task and the challenge of discernment on matters relating to international relations is probably the biggest problem with the majority of the people across the world today.

If one takes a look at the multitudinous approach adopted by Western media whenever they want to create an impression over the activities of countries they view as threatening Western interests, then reality dawns that the world is being misled by misimpressions that are disguised as news and intellectual opinion.

It is unfortunate that nature does not provide each of us the capacity to detect and dismantle barriers erected by doctrinal systems, which adopt a wide range of devices that flow from the concentration of power. In international affairs the concentration of power, till of late, has been concentrated in Washington and the last eighteen years of US’s mono-power status has been most telling.



The quest to control political behaviour and economic patterns across the world is the sole objective driving U.S. foreign policy and central to this objective is the inevitable need to meddle into the internal affairs of other nation states. It is common knowledge that Washington has more respect for its foreign policy than it has for international law, just like it is apparent that the US almost only recognizes the relevance of the United Nations when the White House intends to abuse the Security Council in punishing perceived foes.



To this end intervention and other military action is often disguised in the doctrine of good intentions just as we saw in July, when the Security Council was meant to endorse ruinous sanctions on Zimbabwe in the name of freeing Zimbabwean people from “a ruthless dictatorship”.



It was good intentions that were preached before the invasion of Grenada in 1982, it was good intentions preached before the invasion of the Dominican Republic, the bombing of Laos in 1958, the sponsoring of Contras in Nicaragua, the invasion of Panama, the sponsoring of the overthrow of Salvado Allende in 1973 and most recently the invasion of Iraq in 2003.



Samuel Huntington, a Harvard Professor of the Science of Government explained very well how good intentions are used in implementing US foreign policy. In 1981, when the incoming Reagan administration was cranking up the Cold War, Huntington explained very well the role of the Soviet threat.



He said, “You may have to sell (intervention and other military action) in such a way as to create the misimpression that it is the Soviet Union that you are fighting.”



He wrote further, “That is what the United States has done ever since the Truman Doctrine.”



In Zimbabwe it is important for Britain and the United States to create the misimpression that it is a cruel dictatorship that they are fighting. It is very important that firebrand evangelists of the human rights regime are funded and tasked to paint the Zimbabwean government in the blackest of colours. The granting of asylum visas to Zimbabweans has been largely a very generous practice in the West more for its role in playing good politics than the merit of applicants meeting the criteria at international law.



To facilitate the marketing effort, doctrinal systems commonly portray the current enemy by its weaknesses and its diabolical nature; real, imagined or made up – it is all the same. It really matters very little whether or not the characterization has elements of truth, the reality remains that the crimes portrayed are rarely the source of the call for forceful measures against whatever target that may be standing in the way of Western interests.



If one looks at the illustration of Saddam Hussein for example – here was a completely defenseless target characterized as an awesome threat to the survival of Western citizens. He was baselessly linked to the 2001 September 11 attacks and the whole world was being coerced into the solemn admittance that Saddam Hussein was about to attack the West yet again.



This was despite the fact that in 1982, the Reagan administration dropped Saddam Hussein’s Iraq from the list of states supporting terrorism so that the United States could begin a flow of military and other aid to the murderous Hussein. The murderous Saddam-US relationship continued long after Saddam Hussein’s worst atrocities and after the end of his meaningless war with Iran, and the relationship included means to develop weapons of mass destruction.



This record is hardly obscure but it falls under the tacit agreement underlying Western foreign policy, that “it wouldn’t do to mention that particular fact,” borrowing George Orwell’s phrase.



The record that Britain reneged on the Lancaster House Agreement over the land question in Zimbabwe is hardly obscure too, but it falls under the same tacit agreement that “it wouldn’t do to mention that particular fact.” What is necessary and convenient to mention is that well-meaning white commercial farmers had their farms and properties unjustly grabbed by a ruthless dictatorship that went on to give this land to Mugabe’s cronies and unskilled landless peasants?



The fact that the opposition MDC is an investment project to regain these farms is hardly obscure but again “it wouldn’t do to mention that particular fact.” What is convenient is to suggest endlessly that the MDC is standing for democratic freedoms and liberties that suddenly disappeared from the Zimbabwean space with the disappearance of white privilege over commercial farming.

Now the opposition MDC has been notoriously obnoxious with the negotiations for a political settlement to the problems bedeviling Zimbabwe, yet even the most ridiculous barbarity showcased by the goons masquerading as Honourable Members of Parliament was celebrated as an expression of democracy in the Western media.



It is clear that the Western media stand alone in celebrating the madness captained by Tongai Matutu in the Zimbabwean Parliament on the 26th of August, with the rest of the world widely condemning the uncouth behaviour as childish and plainly stupid.



How can heckling the opening process of a Parliament to which one has just sworn to become a member ever be viewed as reasonable? What would have been reasonable was never to be part of the swearing in process itself, if the idea behind the menacing hooliganism was to prove that the process at hand was illegitimate. But who is known to operate on reason from the MDC?



For the West it is necessary to create misimpressions not only about the targeted “Great Satans” or “axis of evil” but also about the West’s own nobility. In this context gross aggression and terror must be portrayed as self defence and dedication to such inspiring visions as democratization of the “uncivilized world”.



The devastating sanctions on Zimbabwe have been understated as “mere travel bans” on targeted individuals although publicly owned companies are inexplicably part of this list. The sanctions are portrayed as international pressure to uphold human rights and also as a dedication to the freedom and happiness of Zimbabweans by the British and U.S. governments. What crass contradiction of terms. Britain dedicated to the happiness of Zimbabweans!



Britain has a blatantly pathetic history of criminal conduct in India, China, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, just to mention a few places and the British historians have sometimes vaingloriously portrayed England as a novelty in the world – a nation always in the service of others and selflessly bearing the costs of bringing peace and justice to the world. This is the context in which we are supposed to solemnly view the British funding to the opposition MDC in Zimbabwe.



The image of righteous exceptionalism is universally shared in the West. The constant theme is the dedication to bring democracy and freedom to a suffering world.



The standard story in scholarship and in the media is the oscillation of Western foreign policy between two conflicting tendencies. One is the U.S.’s Wilsonian idealism, which is based on the doctrine of noble intentions and the other is sober realism, which says that there is need to realize the limitations of good intentions. For the West those are the only options. .



Arno Mayer, a US historian, observed that since 1947, the United States has always been a major perpetrator of “state terror” and other “rogue actions,” causing untold harm, “always in the name of democracy, liberty and justice.”



Whatever the glorious rhetoric about Western democracy it takes a lot of blunt arrogance not to recognize the elements of truth in Mayer’s assertion when one looks at Iraq, Afghanistan and even Zimbabwe.



The United States has a documented history of fighting independent nationalism because to them it is a viral infection that can make the world ungovernable by Western powers. It is a virus that needs to be extirpated as was done in Chile on September 11, 1973.



General Pinochet rode on US subversion to lead his forces in overthrowing Allende’s democratic socialism and in the process demolishing the then Latin America’s oldest and most vibrant democracy.



Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe has tried and failed to emulate General Pinochet in taking advantage of US-led Western subversion in the economy of Zimbabwe. Riding on this subversion to effect an illegal, undemocratic and sanctions-induced regime change has clearly failed and this is why Tsvangirai is considering pursuing his mission from within the ruling structures of the country.



The West is now portraying President Robert Mugabe as anti-West and that is very deliberate. It is meant to set him against the generality of the Western population and this is the brush that has been used to paint the political character of Arthur Mutambara as well.



This is the same brush used to paint Muslims and the Arab world. In fact Western citizens are literally instructed to believe that Mugabe hates the Western people, that Arabs hate Westerners, and that the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan is to bring democracy there. Equally the mission in Zimbabwe is to bring freedom and happiness there.



In September 2004, a Pentagon advisory panel, the Defence Science Board (DSB) wrote this, “Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies......when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.”



The report concluded, “American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering.”



President Robert Mugabe can speak for himself but by observing his utterances over the West one can clearly see that he does not hate Western freedoms and Western people but he has deep resentment for Western foreign policy.



The assertion that the man is anti-West can only be described as self-serving rhetoric meant to incite hatred and nothing more.



Against the backdrop of the unfolding disaster in Iraq, the tragedy of Pinochet in Chile and even the tragedy of British sponsored Idi Amin in Uganda it is most advisable for Zimbabweans to be wary of an uncritical faith in the doctrine of good intentions.

Zimbabwe, together we can be one. It is homeland or death and together we will overcome.

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on

wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or
reason@rwafawarova.com or visit
www.rwafawarova.com

Labels: INTERNATIONAL MEDIA, NEOCOLONIALISM

posted by MrK @ 4:05 PM