Opinion Editorials, September 2014

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All of us, Americans and non-Americans alike, should welcome BRICS’ siding with Russia to restore some semblance of power-balance in all three aspects which depict cohesion or fragmentation in the world: socially, ideologically and militarily.  Not wishing for any nation to exercise undue power or influence over the rest, but precisely in order to curb any such nation from misusing that influence and power, we must cling to the hope America’s attempt for world hegemony will soon come to an end. 
 
And we, Americans, must welcome the chance to be in the front lines of that diplomatic battle, for only when such rebalancing takes place will Americans’ wellbeing return to be the raison d’etre for a government in Washington which has completely gone astray.  A government which has for too long identified itself with a fascist elite force-marching the citizenry, blind-folded, towards a socio-economic state of inequality, a predatory, warmongering foreign policy, and an in-your-face constant lie that proclaims it to be working on behalf of the people, under the auspices of a mythical, non-existing democracy.    
 
Soon, we would hope, it will be all over but the shouting and, whether we like it or not, the neocon dream of a millennial empire, just like Hitler’s dream of eight decades ago, should quickly become a memory; and US’ opportunity to emerge as catalyst for a new, and just, world order will turn out to be another unfulfilled dream.  Irrefutably, the US had its run, as the Soviet Union faded into oblivion, to become the world’s mother hen, refuge and hope for an entire planet seeking peace and brotherhood… a true look-up-to arbiter and facilitator for universal social justice, able to bridge barriers imposed by economic ideologies, religions or even traditionally-encrusted geopolitical preferences and prejudices.  But we blew that chance. 
 
Such lofty endeavor in our part would have required leadership and wisdom from statesmen this nation has not been able to breed for more than two generations; left instead with truly pyrrhic substitutes in the likes of an empty-headed Ronald Reagan, two aristo-simpleton Bushes, a self-promoting hypocrite, Bill Clinton, and a sad-sack, inept (if well-meaning), Barack Obama… all surrounded with political entourages that also lacked (lack) the wisdom-leadership combo required to properly guide a nation… much less be able to tackle the problems constantly surfacing in our diverse planet.
 
Just like Don Quixote fighting ghostly windmills, this errant US knight in his delirium of power has been battling, and continues to battle, ghosts of his own creation now turning real in the near horizon of a new La Mancha: the terrorist playground of the Middle East which Americans hope will remain offshore even when reminded of Bin Laden’s loud and clear message of the September 11th vengeful attack.  
 
The United States and Britain, separately or together, have been whoring in much of the Middle East for almost three-quarters of a century giving free rein to their geopolitical experimentations in nation/boundaries creation, regime change and the co-sacking – with local partners – of the region’s resources (mostly petroleum).  Apparently, in their raping and power-exercising escapades, both Americans and Brits paid little attention to the fetuses they were leaving behind; fetuses which have come to term during the past three generations, doing so with the added progenial multiplier effect, now transformed in myriad cells of hate, in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, linked or unlinked, who might be viewed as avenging heroes by many in the Arab and Persian worlds, while most Westerners view them as vile terrorists.  Unlike true and tried organizations with point-specific goals, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, the Al Qaeda spiders, and now ISIS, do promulgate a different type of fight in their quest to succeed against what they feel is an intruding, irritating, blasphemous West led by the United States.
 
And just as America took a chance for over six decades in the creation and defense of Israel, to an unfair exclusion of Palestinian rights, it is also taking a chance in coercive and encroaching actions against Russia via sanctions that the BRICS will never buy.  And that’s likely to bring failure for the sanctioned punishment.    
 
America blew its chance “for glory” with its neocon imperial designs and an unworkable predatory foreign policy; so that in the near term, as international economic reform becomes a fact of life, it will take a constant reminder from the BRICS that the world needs a large round table where problems may be discussed and solutions reached, and not a throne for America’s head of state from where he can proclaim edicts.  Forget about the G-7, now becoming a passé organization in the forthcoming economic phase; the G-20 taking the new prominent role where the BRICS will command equal voice and status to that of the United States. 
 
The hard core group of Western nations led by the US, when Japan is taken out, barely represents 10 percent of the world’s population and a similar percentage of its natural resources.  It would stand to reason that long-in-coming economic reform would have to take place, as well as a shift and accommodation in power throughout the world.
 
It makes little sense for the US to continue considering itself policeman and custodian of the world; or for Americans to have to pay for faux-prestige of power elite oligarchs and their star-studded hellhounds at the Pentagon.
 
Overwhelmingly, Americans should welcome with open arms sharing the dubious, and costly, distinction of hegemony with the rest of the world; and maybe, just maybe, the BRICS can help make that reality happen… and soon.

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