New Entry

HOME | About Us | Communities | Contact Us | Contribute | Search | Links |

GLOBAL DIALOG PROJECT |

NEWS | QUOTES | INTEGRITYMETER | FREEDOM | HUMOR |

LINKS:FOREIGN MEDIA | How They See Us - and Why Should We Care? William Pfaff: Bush's crash course in nationalism - Pfaff in the IHT speaks of "He and his entourage think that pressure, punishment and displeasure - no Texas ranch invitations for the miscreant national leaders - will eventually force them back into line. . This conviction suggests that the Bush government leaders don't understand the history of the Cold War alliances. NATO prospered because American leadership was light and consensual, and everyone supported the cause. Soviet alliance leadership was oppressive, intolerant, exploitative and accompanied by military intimidation. It had little popular support in the Warsaw Pact countries. The system eventually collapsed, to much rejoicing. . Why? Nations with authentic national cultures don't put up with domination when the people don't accept the ideas of the dominator. When his power weakens there is nothing to hold the system together. . Washington has effectively if uncomprehendingly been trying to turn the trans-Atlantic alliance from consent and consensus into a system of intimidation and pressure." Democracy . . .hmn, This Democracy Weekly Trust (Kaduna) OPINION May 17, 2003 Posted to the web May 19, 2003 by Abubakar Gimba "I have a fast diminishing faith in western democracy, especially the current American-promoted George Bush dynasty brand. A democracy that is arrogant, coercive, deceptive, intimidatory and with a hidden agenda towards Islam (and just wait, before long, it could come into collision with other religions too which dare to question the moral principles of America's global pursuit), cannot be one that I could ever be enamoured of." "Then came the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington by those who had deep-seated grouses against the US (and its style of salesmanship across the world). And a new face of the chief priest of democracy was unveiled. We are left to redefine democracy from the actions of the US. The chief advocate of freedom and rights could not stand the Talibans of Afghanistan's Islamic way of life, nor Osama bin Laden's vituperative (freedom of expression exercised) language against western-style America-denominated democracy. Instead of using the rule of law to fish out perpetrators of the deadly violence against the US, the Americans chose to employ the rule of raw (force) to wreak havoc on Afghanistan, and declared a near open war on Islam. The US, the world's greatest democracy and its chief advocate, turned law on its head in pursuit of its perceived enemies, largely Islam and demanded with brazen arrogance that the accused prove their innocence, without the US proving or providing evidences for the crimes of the accused. Where there were evidences, they were manufactured by the US itself without attempting to or giving any independent observer a chance to prove the authenticity of the evidences. The US is always the accuser, the prosecutor, the judge and the executioner. And its cases are made to look genuine (propaganda) in the international arena, where it controls the media such as the National Television Network of American government, the so-called CNN; and it reasons little but coerces much. American democracy has turned from evangelism of talking to Tom Hawk cruise missile coercion. This is the story of Iraq. American democracy has bared its fangs with the ferocity of a beast, ostensibly in pursuit of the beauty of the damsel of democracy. So much violence. So much bloodletting. So much destruction. So many hardships for the people of Iraq. All in the name of western democracy. Democracy is no longer sold through the media of the niceties of salesmanship, but through the nasty brinkmanship with missile-loaded war- ships. The elephant has gone on rampage. We hear the slogans of democracy, yet what we see are rains of missiles on Afghanistan and Iraq in all their ferocity. We see dead bodies, blood, maimed children, orphans, widows and infrastructural destruction. We see catastrophe unleashed in the name of democracy, in the name of regime change. This manner of American regime change makes our numerous military coups look like the work of angels of mercy. America's regime change is far worse than the worst military coup I have ever heard of. Within the spate of four weeks, America committed more atrocities on the Iraqi people than all the twenty odd years' tyranny of Saddam Hussein. And the reasons under which America found the pretext to conquer and colonise Iraq are prevalent with the Americans themselves: killing innocent people, possessing weapons of mass destruction, use of chemical weapons (even if not used against Americans), muzzling dissent (see how the US is muzzling Muslims and Arabs and other nationals from smaller countries: xenophobia and Islamophobia have been raised to a state policy and supporting extremist Islamic groups. No. The Bush administration has turned democracy into a whimsical concept, with no fixed goal-posts of principles and drained of morality. From the recent American actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, the contemptuous sidelining of the United Nations, the intolerant attitude towards France and all countries that refused to endorse its foreign adventurism, democracy the type of which the U.S. wants us to buy is stuffed with shocking double standards."