Aby The Liberal

Aby June 4th, 2007

In the last few years America rapidly dropped from its position of strength in the world, most notably its political and military dominance over the world. It has turned from a political superpower to one of the most hated or disliked nation around the world, even among its long time allies like France and Germany. One one side American apologists would quickly put the blame on Bush while the other side would claim how Bush saved America from the threats like WMDs in Iraq (which never existed in the first place, except in their vivid imaginations). The fact is United States has made itself loathed around the world because of the decades of pursuing its narrow self interests which are guided by an inflated sense of self importance and obsession over religious beliefs. What are the political implications of these and is United States still the military superpower it claims?

Before the Iraq war of 2003, America failed dismally in trying to get the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to pass the resolution in support of an invasion of Iraq. France, Russia and China were against the move which was an embarrassment for the US who got used to a “Yes Sir!” response from weak third world countries and did not expect anyone to refuse, even in the UNSC. Of course right after that, France became an ‘evil country’ and there were many anti-French movements in US which appeared overnight. The high handedness of Putin and human rights violations of China came into sharp focus of US media. Ironically there was a blatant and total ignorance of the fact that US scores worse than both Russia and China in the human rights. It also scores worse in democracy and free speech rights than France. After the political defeat against getting UNSC members to agree with US, it formed a coalition of countries, none of which are of any military significance in the world except United Kingdom.

A young girl victim of American bombings in Baghdad, 2003: More than 40% of victims of America’s military power globally, were children under the age of 15

Anyway, US went on to the war with Iraq despite its political defeat and is yet to make the victory call after the unending war which continues till today. What the US did was destroy and carpet bomb most of Iraq to stone age, pull out a retired old Saddam from a hole and is still battling amateurs in their 20s carrying 50 year old Kalashnikov rifles and hand grenades. Any country with a decent military like Spain, France, Germany, Russia, China or India would have been able to do what US did in Iraq. Yet it is still an unending battle between the highly trained US forces and amateur Iraqi insurgents. In fact the situation is so embarrassing that Bush is trying to gain some political mileage by throwing the blame on Iran and making the Iranians a scapegoat out of it.

“We have relationships with reporters that have helped us turn some intelligence failure stories into intelligence success stories. Some responses to the media can be handled in a … phone call.”
– CIA Report, 2003

Even with militarily not-so-powerful countries like Vietnam and Korea, USA could not win a war despite all the help from its NATO allies. The only victory the US forces these days is from its Public Relations (PR) department. The PR department of the US military and the CIA is the only place where military and intelligence failures turned into victory. The latest PR victory claim is that the US won the Cold War despite the fact that Russia got bored and went for a hibernation, only to emerge fresh and energised a few years down the line with the recent missile tests on March, 2007.

George Bush (president of USA) blew the goodwill and sympathy of the world which the US had after the World Trade Center attacks of 11 September, 2001. He successfully turned America into a despised country around the world with his excesses, globally. Today Americans are at risk in virtually every country in the world and US has to often issue thousands of notifications to its citizens around the world to ensure their safety. George Bush needs a large private army to visit even countries which are politically neutral to USA. Despite all these protection and safety handouts Americans often become the victims of hate, loathing and mockery around the world. America’s claims of being a superpower is a time frozen attitude of the days when it was a nuclear power. Now any country with decent military capabilities like Russia, China, India, Britain or France is capable of handling USA militarily due to their nuclear and conventional warfare capability, economic power and ideological support of many countries around the world.

• World Politics , America , Military
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