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Rabat - In the American presidential race for 2016 the rhetoric used by both Republican and Democratic candidates is toughening.
For many analysts, there is a goal for the recent sharpening of this dialogue. They argue that the electoral rhetoric used by Republicans and Democrats is aimed at diverting public attention from the severe structural failures of the American economic system and their impact on the social condition of the population. The central theme for the coming campaign seems thus to have been decided upon consensually among the contenders. Foreign policy and issues specifically concerning countries many Americans would have difficulty locating on a map will be the focus of the campaigns. However, this is nothing new to American politics. The theme will unsurprisingly be Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Al Qaida, and ISIS. The consensus requires that contestants not mention that the explosive situation in this part of the world is essentially of the making of the United States itself.
One of the primary themes will be Russia and how to stifle it through economic sanctions, bar it from competition for global affairs, and drive it from international diplomacy. Candidates and would-be candidates for 2016 have reverted to Cold War rhetoric in which they revive the fear of threats targeting the internal security and stability of the U.S, a leitmotif to boost the arms industry and to ensure total and unquestioning submission to “Uncle Sam,” -- two conditions which could conceivably reinvigorate the economy. The path to a new witch hunt is being paved. It would not be surprising if a candidate called for the support of concentration camps for Mexicans, Chinese, Russians, and Muslims. The call has already been made by conservatives to expel them and close doors to their products while keeping the immigrants’ origin countries open to US exports.
The arguments driving this focus on foreign policy, insist these analysts, are the same as they were decades ago: the superiority of the West is at risk, democracy is under attack, international law and human rights are violated. These analysts find fault with these arguments, which they say are a stark misrepresentation of reality. Paradoxically, they point out, it is no secret to anyone that the U.S. has been undermining democratic states and democratically elected governments in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. It has pushed legitimate governments out of office by staging public protests and placed its puppets in power instead. It has invaded a country on fake evidence. It has been involved in more illegal aggressions than any other country in the world. It is placing its heavy weapons in sensitive sites that threaten Russia in a breach of its own commitments to international agreements.
Human rights are violated; capital punishment is still practiced; the police kill in one month more minority citizens than their counterparts have killed in decades in Australia, the UK, and France together, and scores of individuals have been held in imprisonment without due process for more than a decade. U.S. officers have been involved in torture. The privacy of citizens has been systematically violated for years. Heads of states of allied countries have been spied on systematically, as well. One percent of the population owns more than forty percent of the wealth of the country. The media is concentrated in too few hands to allow for real freedom of speech or access to diverse sources of information. Only information cleared by official security agencies is published. The rates of all types of crime are higher than anywhere else in the world. Presidents and other elected officers are elected by less than twenty-five percent of registered voters.
These analyses present the U.S. as a poor case study of democracy, a system operating on double standards supporting the occupation by force of the lands of others and turning a blind eye to their daily crimes against civilian populations and their inability—or unwillingness—to ensure social, economic, and political equality for all citizens regardless of the color of their skin, their origin, or religion.
They conclude that the world is much more at risk of a new global conflict than it was in 1962 because of the U.S. and the hegemonic nature of its foreign policy and not because of Russia or China, which hardly have any troops outside their own frontiers. The U.S., they say, has been moving its strategic missiles closer to Russia for years and is expecting it not to react. NATO, which according to these analysts is but an army of the U.S. in Europe, is getting closer and closer to the Russian border, and they expect Russia to watch and not react. American military units with lethal capabilities that can wipe out the whole region from existence are stationed in the Gulf; they control Iraq, fly its drones all over the region, and are putting pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear energy projects while they protect the mass destructive atomic capabilities of Israel.
Regardless of what these analyses are worth, what I have difficulty understanding is why at all they keep gaining currency among those very populations that have been targeted by so many programs and different forms of communication strategies to change their perceptions of the U.S. foreign policy in their region. How has so much money been spent for an objective failed so dramatically? How has so much energy and intelligence missed the whole point? Why, despite all these efforts and huge budgets, populations differentiate between the US as a state and a government and as a people, having no trust in the former and no support for or sympathy with its policies while showing friendship and loyalty to the latter. It is an equation American political offices—if decisions are incumbent to them, that is—have to stop and take some time to work out if only to ensure better returns for their investments. If such decisions are made elsewhere, something will have to be done if not for the relevance of the strategies, then only for their efficiency and efficacy.
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