Matthew Ehret
To the degree that techno-feudal wind-up dolls continue to promote "democracy" while demanding that the world remain firmly under the heel of a unipolar hegemon, then no "democracy summit" will be worth anything.
The consequence of many decades of terrible ideas has now begun to impose its full weight upon the unipolar ship of state which has found itself careening towards a self-induced maelstrom. The captains managing this ship would have been able to easily foresee this tragic plunge long ago, had they not chosen to get drunk on hegemony amidst the cultish age of consumerism and hedonistic myopia that transformed our society 50 years ago. These empty shells of statesmen who have arisen to prominence within the post-truth age have proven themselves so detached from any semblance of humility or self-awareness that President Joe Biden has found no embarrassment in championing a World Democracy Summit this December 9-10th.
Besides the fact that this 'democracy summit' has undemocratically chosen to not invite nearly half of the nations of earth, including China and Russia, Biden appears to be incapable of recognizing the slightest bit of hypocrisy in declaring the USA the leader of the free and democratic rules-based international order. The fact is that no nation has done more work to undermine democracies, spread war and murder over the past 70 years than the USA- and only4 a very shallow zombie, living in a self-congratulatory echo chamber, would miss that fact.
Sadly, as recent developments surrounding the lemminglike race for shutting down fossil fuels ( amidst a dire energy crisis threatening millions of lives), and pushing military confrontation with Russia and China, the west is in no shortage of shallow zombies living in self-congratulatory echo chambers.
75 Years Bombing for Democratic Values
As it currently stands, the legacy of wanton murder and chaos caused by American military action has resulted in 201 induced armed conflicts (out of a total 248 on record) since the start of the Cold War. This represents a staggering 81% of all military conflicts recorded since WWII with 90% of the deaths occurring among innocent civilians!
1945 is a fair starting point as it was the end of the last war that could be justified in a rational manner (even though no good argument can be made that Wall Street or London bankers had to fund fascism before and during the war itself, but that's a tale for another location).
After this bloodbath, the USA completely lost any claim to a moral high ground, as Franklin Roosevelt's beautiful vision for global development in cooperation with Russia and China was sabotaged. At this tragic moment, FDR's enemies promptly swept into controlling positions of Washington and a new Anglo-American recolonization of the world began under the pretext of 'stopping godless communism'. Nuclear bombs which Roosevelt would never have permitted be used- especially on a defeated nation as Japan was - were quickly dropped by a racist little man who wasn't even trusted enough to be briefed of their existence while vice-president.
Under this new age of Cold War bipolarism, the dark arts of hybrid warfare, CIA/MI6-coordinated assassinations and coups were honed. Prominent nations targeted early on by this devil's pact included Greece (1947), Syria (1949), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Laos (1960), Dominican Republic (1961), Congo (1961, 1965), South Vietnam (1963), Brazil (1964), Bolivia (1971), Chile (1973) and Argentina (1976) (to name but a few).
The Korean War promptly led to the deaths of over 3 million civilians and even more refugees with the nation's infrastructure in total disarray. Later, the Vietnam war resulted in the deaths of at least two million civilians, 1.1 million North Vietnamese soldiers, 300 thousand South Vietnamese soldiers, and 58 thousand American troops (1).
It is difficult to estimate the loss of lives, direct and indirect by America's interventions between 1945-present. In the latter category, one may include the revival of fascist networks in Europe via Operation Gladio, in Latin America via Operation Condor, and the creation of radical Islamic terror outfits under Brzezinski's Operation Cyclone.
The assassinations conducted on nationalist statesmen seeking to defend their people from evil was not reserved for poor countries but also included leading moral figures within western governments. Among this grouping are found UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, Industrialist Enrico Mattei, President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy. The latter would certainly have been elected president in 1968 had an assassin's bullet not shot him in the back of the neck at close range.
Lest we forget that imperial warfare is not isolated to bomb dropping, coup running, or color revolutions, but as John Perkins demonstrated in his Confessions of an Economic Hitman (2004), the worst form of warfare has always been economic in nature. It has long been understood that more damage can be done by the stroke of an economist's pen than a thousand paramilitary groups.
Is it due in any measure to the "freedom loving" USA or its 'rules-based' liberal allies that this post-WWII mess is being cleaned up? On closer inspection, we find just the opposite, as it is rather the combined efforts of "authoritarian" Russia and China that hope for a world of peaceful cooperation and democracy has finally arisen.
China and Russia Step In
For the first time in decades, infrastructure projects tied to the BRI are arising within Southwest Asia. Railroads connecting Iraq to Iran ( with the Shalamcheh-Basra rail) are being built, the CPEC corridor has transformed millions of lives in Pakistan, and have opened up new branchpoints that can easily extend development into Afghanistan and beyond. Through Russian and Chinese diplomacy, Syria is being re-admitted into the Arab League, and discussions are underway to extend a Southern BRI connection through Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey as part of a broader reconstruction program.
Even a new alternative financial economic architecture has been carefully built up over the past 7 years outside of the IMF/World Bank sphere of influence. This alternative system is de-dollarizing at a fast pace, and emitting long term, low interest loans without usurious conditionalities for genuine development.
While the Anglo-American deep state was busy obsessing over steering a color revolution to oust a democratically elected president within the USA itself between 2016-2020, Russia and China were busy launching a grand strategy of diplomatic brilliance across the global south. By 2020, over 135 nations had signed memoranda of understanding to join the New Silk Road, with 17 Arab, 17 Ibero-American, and 50 African nations jumping on board the life raft.
Their formula used by Russia and China is simple although a modern liberal couldn't understand it: 1) Provide unwavering support for sovereignty of each participating nation, 2) Promote absolute non-interventionism militarily into another state, and 3) Encourage long term economic planning in order to harmonize all interests into a community of shared interest.
If the American population were more aware of their own history, they would quickly see that this outlook is entirely compatible with a tradition which the west once embodied in saner times.
Real progressive democrats like Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy died defending this non-zero sum paradigm of win-win cooperation globally.
These figures understood, as automatons dominant among the enlightened rules based techno-crowd today cannot conceive, that the only viable foundation upon which democratic ideals can be nurtured is when each participating state is respected as a sovereign nation. Upon being respected as a sovereign nation, each member can be trusted to act according to its true self-interest. Upon acting upon its true self-interest, the uplifting of living standards and universal needs for peace, security, freedom from want, and goals for economic betterment can be advanced. When these ideals are advanced, faith in the goodness of humanity can blossom on solid foundations and cooperation across cultural, ethnic, national and religious divides can unite the members of each nation into a family. This was the meaning of President John Quincy Adams' foreign policy outlook when he envisioned a " community of principle".
To the degree that techno-feudal wind-up dolls continue to promote "democracy" while demanding that the world remain firmly under the heel of a unipolar hegemon, then no "democracy summit" will be worth anything.
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The author can be reached at matthewehret.substack.com
Note
(1) Estimates published by the Vietnamese government in 1995