Opinion Editorials, June 2013

America, the Powerful and the Powerless

By Mahboob A Khawaja 

Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, July 22, 2013

Executioners of Israeli War of Global Terror

Hans Morgenthau (Politics Among Nations, 1948) defined the concept of power as condition related to the psychology of mind.  In a nation state, leaders use their mind to transform the vested power into political acts. Late Professor Morgenthau offered proactive intuition and leadership in revitalizing the essence of real politics and search for peace and global relationships. Perhaps he never imagined that America, the most powerful in moral and intellectual history could be a nation devoid of basic precept and tenets in real world political affairs.  The political realism envisaged by Morgenthau indoctrinated the American foreign policies and relations for several decades until George W. Bush and Barrack Obama assumed the political leadership. America is not what it used be in the idealistic moral, political and intellectual historical reference point. More to state that absolute power corrupts absolute politics. Those who assumed power in recent decades and claim legitimacy on behalf of the people are fast becoming source of hatred, illegitimacy and objects for war crimes against the humanity. But what about absolute power instigated by absolute-minded maniac leaders regardless of the democratic principles? Unpredictable but paranoid and vengeful political monsters incapacitated the in-born faculties of America to be a morally and intellectually crippled and more of a redundant nation in global affairs. This was not accidental but a planned scheme of things although unknown in its short-long terms consequences over its ability to cope with the change phenomenon for a sustainable future. America became an insane – a victim of its own obsession with power and fearful of its future. All of America’s technological advanced weaponry on earth and secretive intelligence resources placed out in space are Weapons of Mass Destruction meant to be used against the people on Earth and nowhere else. Those mindless politicians claiming to have accomplished the mission in the War on Terrorism did so at the cost of ruthlessness, killings of millions of fellow mankind in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. They lacked political imagination except being men of universal hatred and fear to claim transitory success leading to their own degeneration and viciousness in political affairs.  Dreadful are becoming as abnormal frequency of violent killings, internal insecurity, drug-abuses and political mismanagement, several thousands Americans killed in global bogus wars and others wounded and crippled for life, 18-25 war veterans daily committing suicide, common Americans feel a terrible sense of helplessness and are fearful of the consequences of their leader’s triviality and viciousness against their own masses and others. America is entrapped and entrenched by dirty politics of the few.  

All the monsters of history are to be found among the absolute leaders exercising absolute power in disregard of the interests of people. Since the Washington-based major war complex orchestrated the bogus War on Terrorism, American politics in one-sided syndrome for unknown present and futuristic disasters. If America cannot deal with its own domestic problems of unusual violence, killings of the innocent, natural disasters and fear-mongering politics, how could it be helpful to others in global political domains?

What went wrong with America? The questions deserve a rational answer. Stephen. Lendman (“Eroding Freedom in America,” Information Clearing House: 5/13/2013), is a Chicago-based international peace activist, man of conscience and author of Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity (2013), spells out what went wrong in America:   

Freedom is a four-letter word. It’s fast disappearing. It’s an endangered species. Wealth, power and privilege alone matter. America’s war on terror priorities advance them….. Tyranny isn’t in the eye of the beholder. It’s escalating in plane sight. It’s just a matter of time until it’s full-blown. Washington’s bipartisan criminal class plans it…. It’s dangerous living in America at the wrong time. Supporting right over wrong is threatened. Anyone can be targeted for any reason or none at all. Guilt by accusation is policy. Diktat authority has final say…. War on terror priorities breached First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment freedoms. At issue are search and surveillance authority, indefinitely detaining citizens and non-citizens uncharged, and undermining free expression, due process, and equal protection. 

Glenn Greenwald (“The 'War on Terror' - by Design - Can Never End. The Guardian: 1/4/2013,”) shares a foresight in time and place to make us think hard about the future:  

There's no question that this "war" will continue indefinitely. There is no question that US actions are the cause of that, the gasoline that fuels the fire. The only question - and it's becoming less of a question for me all the time - is whether this endless war is the intended result of US actions or just an unwanted miscalculation. Why would anyone in the US government or its owners have any interest in putting an end to this sham bonanza of power and profit called "the war on terror"? Johnson is right that there must be an end to this war imminently, and Maddow is right that the failure to do so will render all the due-process-free and lawless killing and imprisoning and invading and bombing morally indefensible and historically unforgivable. But the notion that the US government is even entertaining putting an end to any of this is a pipe dream, and the belief that they even want to is fantasy. They're preparing for more endless war; their actions are fueling that war; and they continue to reap untold benefits from its continuation.

The mankind has realized that politics is a game of pretension and always remains problematic. Politicians need problems to get public attention and to argue being the deliverers. Most politicians are self-centered, often naïve about the real world except of their own, they are nothing except being treacherous, cynical and deceitful to their ideas and ideals and to the public interests they claim to serve. Did Obama learn anything from the past to change anything because of the knowledge, history and facts of life to know his weaknesses and strengths of vision and to change and reform his mind and behavior when facts warrant a change, be it in policy making or global interactive behavior? After all listening and learning are critical factors for the changing role of the 21^st century political leadership and so is the flexibility mechanism to be built-in for effective leadership. But there are no intelligent and proactive leaders as was Professor Morgenthau with a vision of the future to see the imperatives realistic power and emerging ONE Humanity except naïve and self-geared egomaniac full of the sensation of power using sadistic viciousness to torture and kill the mankind and destroy ecological habitats. But contrary to the brutal perceptions and actions of the US-former Europeans imperialists, the international community is informed, mature, and enjoys the moral and intellectual capacity to know and understand the facts of life and to challenge the politically imperiled insensitivity to universal accord and UNITY of the mankind against brutality of the Terrorism of Wars that unites them with a common fate more than divides them by any token of adversity and separate national identities. 

We live in One World and on One Planet Earth and America is one of the most scientifically and technologically advanced nation to encompass the globe. It cannot be ignored or misplaced by any or all as we hold certain principles and obligations in global political affairs. What happens to America will affect all on the Planet. Even though American political leaders do not THINK in rational terms, the raging wild fires in California, Colorado, Texas and Arizona, the flooding in many states, devastations by SANDY storm in New York and New Jersey coast lines, on-going tornados in Oklahoma causing massive destructions of human life and property, and lightening from the sky - all are relevant to the American politics. The planet Earth is not a dead orbiting object but a living entity providing continuous nourishment to human life and existence and to all other living beings. Its governing laws are defined by its Creator. Dead things do not sustain life in this context but livings do make the difference. When individuals and nations start acting like wild beasts in complete disregard to the accepted norms of human values and ethical principles, surely, it impacts all and everything whether we acknowledge it or not. No humans can become God or act like God - a plain fact of life.  American politics is increasingly showing perpetuated ignorance and willful arrogance in its global policies and practices. America as it appears is not heeding to warnings from God. When people and nations challenge the sanctity and limits of the Laws of God and violate all known norms and principles of human behavior, they could well become an object of unthinkable natural calamities and disasters. The Holy Bible and Al-Qura’an are full of such revelations and warnings as REMINDERS to those people who are open to listening and learning and care for accountability and the future.  These are staunch warnings to change the thinking and behaviors or else could face the ultimate consequences as it happened to all self-claiming adventurous and powerful nations of the past. America is encountering critical crises for its survival and future but this is what most American leaders are devoid of understanding the realities of the real world affairs.   

Comforting the major paradoxes of history as Arnold Toynbee (A Study of History) described warrior as dreamers devoid of moral and intellectual imagination when they come close to stagnation they jump to irrational outbursts and conclusions about the facts of life. Wrong people, glued to wrong THINKING, do the wrong things without any rational sense of time, people’s interest and history. On the recent Egyptian military coup by a General against the Commander-in Chief - elected President Morsi, Obama administration showed hypocrisy not to support an elected President over its own complacency in making of the events. Military coups will not help Egypt to rebuild a democratic nation and to foster change in overwhelmingly authoritarian Arab Middle East. Obama failed to see the interests of the global community to a peaceful approach to conflict management through dialogue and non-rhetoric belligerent statements. Be it the issue of Palestine or nuclear Iran, naïve egoism and one-sided complacency to Israel’s interest cannot further the cause of peace in the region but an America free to think on its own and defining its own policy free of the lobbyists entrapment could opt out of the political fantasy to global outreach to regain respect and reentry into global moral and intellectual consciousness. Paul Craig Roberts (“Washington is Insane.” PaulCraigRoberts.org 6/17/2013), has offered a rational context to the current problem:

In the 21st century the two hundred year-old propaganda that the American people control their government has been completely shattered. Both the Bush and Obama regimes have made it unmistakenly clear that the American people don’t even influence, much less control, the government. As far as Washington is concerned, the people are nothing but chaff in the wind….Washington’s double-speak is now obvious to the world. Not only Assad, but also the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and every US puppet state which includes all of NATO and Japan, are fully aware that Washington is again lying through its teeth. The Russians, Chinese, and Iranians are trying to avoid confrontation with Washington, as war with the modern nuclear weapons would destroy all life on planet earth….

Considering the utterly insane government ruling in Washington, if human life exists in 2020, it will be a miracle. 

Do politicians having small wisdom but big mouth and knowledge can determine the future of mankind? If history is relevant and is seen as a source of learning and warning, undeniably all those superpowers well equipped with weapons and animosity to destroy others or all have met the same fate of self annihilation. It is beyond doubts that when they challenged the sanctity of the Laws of God governing the earth and the living Universe, and invaded small and poor nations in farfetched lands, they ultimately met their own end in waiting by the natural causes such earthquakes, flooding, tornados, exploding lavas, sound blasts, lightning and lot more. There is no denying but a fact of life that this is how the Roman Empire, Nazi Germany, British, Russian (USSR) and so many others have ended up in human history. Is this is what the US Empire in its infancy waiting to endure?

One wonders, if there is a cure to a cruel mindset?  Morgenthau was a rational thinker, realist humanitarian and a teacher to define political power as the outcome of the psychology of mind. But absolute political power cannot be justified as simple favorable perversion to torture, kill the innocent mankind and destroy the universal harmony and natural habitats on the Earth. Few centuries earlier, Alexander Pope (1688-1744) ‘An Essay on Man’ envisaged this startling insight as the reminder to mankind:

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany, May 2012.

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