Uncle Sam — Friend or foe?

And the horrendous crisis management in Afghanistan — one of the world’s seats of conflicts and internal tensions — where it seems probable that the crisis will deepen no matter what Washington does in the short term, has reignited the debate on whether the world’s champion of democracy understands global and regional politics and the role she should play, particularly given the fact that the Americans do not seem to realise that gunboat diplomacy is a dangerous option in the age of nuclear weapons.
Today the Afghans, a sizeable number of whom believe that there was no attempt to contextual conflict resolution, know only too well that everything will not go swimmingly — democracy, stability and peace will not come sooner than the third millennium.
That President Barack Obama, reputed to be the only president in history alongside JF. Kennedy to have box office appeal, lacks clarity of vision over Afghanistan, is hardly reassuring. He is only expected to make an announcement on further troop deployment on his return from a week long visit to Asia, where China is reportedly mulling plans to challenge the US dollar as the globe’s key transaction, investment and reserve currency.
With the election chaos in Afghanistan, which saw the results of the first round declared null and void after reported irregularities and widespread fraud, the USA’s role in Afghanistan and many other regions, where it has more-often-than-not failed miserably has once again been brought under the microscope.
The leading opposition presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from the run-off election claiming that there was no scope for free and universal elections. And instead of insisting on a fresh election superintended by international monitors, the Americans who went to war in Afghanistan with their allies to ostensibly combat international terrorism, controversially endorsed incumbent president Hamid Karzai who had been declared winner by the partisan electoral commission appointed by Karzai whose legitimacy is now questionable. And that has blotted the USA’s copybook.
Since then, public opinion pressure has been inexorably rising in both the UK and USA for immediate troop withdrawal amid questions over Karzai’s suitability to rule Afghanistan, where the war is claiming lives faster than anyone could have ever predicted and humiliations lurk in the wings for Washington and London. Many in Britain and the USA also fear that their nearest and dearest serving in Afghanistan could soon add to the grim statistic of the war dead.
Recognising Karzai, their protégé, as the legitimate leader of Afghanistan, was a present to their critics who are asking whether the two countries are in Afghanistan to prop up a corrupt government or as a genuine pre-emptive measure to secure their own territories from terrorism. It has also raised questions over the depth of the Americans’ sincerity and commitment to the democratisation of the world.
The emerging consensus in both the UK and USA is that Karzai who stands accused of corruption and dishonesty, a huge democratic deficit and being slow with political reform, is not a credible partner.
In Afghanistan, where the Western powers are batting a sticky wicket political corruption is not only tolerated, but it has also become accepted as part of the political system giving credence to the argument that the corruption that gnaws at democratic polities is rooted in flawed elections.
But that the Americans who should be the leading light in the fight for democracy are in bed with someone accused of immoral political behaviour is hardly surprising. That is if we have learned anything about American history, political culture and process.
It was the Russian historian, Alexei Pushkov who, in the 1990s observed that many dictatorial and fascist regimes can claim to be among US friends in the past 50 years.
Among the most infamous names he listed Somoza, Pinochet, Zia al-Haq and Ferdinand Marcos. And this is something the Americans should look back at with shame. The world’s worst kept secret is that these men ran some of the most odious regimes, which ignored all values and international norms in their political behaviour.
That is probably why the USA’s see-through claims that their friendships with other countries are based on their observance of human rights are an object of ridicule.
Clearly, the ulterior motive for such alliances was, is and will forever be safeguarding strategic and economic interests. This is as American as apple pie.
Indeed, history is strewn with countless examples where the USA’s so-called strategic interests took precedence over everything else.
And there is little reason to believe that the American policy is going to be any better in the future than in the past. Thus the USA widely seen as an ally and defender of democracy is doing little to develop world democracy through its remarkably inconsistent policy.
Let me make useful reference to the West’s current open rehabilitation of Libyan strongman, Muammar Gadaffi out of economic necessity than conviction. The eccentric, if maverick, Gadaffi was only a decade ago portrayed as what the Philippino refer to as a hydra — a many-headed beast and sponsor of international terrorism.
This earned him and his country the hostility and even hatred of the West. Those who have got a memory like an elephant will remember that just over a decade ago, 1986 to be exact; Libya was heavily bombarded by the Americans.
But the man who not so long ago was a thorn in the Western governments’ flesh is now on the British and American governments’ Christmas card lists.
I am not by any stretch of imagination suggesting that Gadaffi must wear the sackcloth and ashes forever. Nonetheless, the question of what has changed begs an answer.
It has been argued that elections are supposed to be the heart of democracy as they are the means by which citizens have a direct say on who rules over them. But since 1969 when he usurped power in a military coup, we have never heard of elections in Libya.
But then again, Libya is not just another African country. It is a country eyed by investors for its oil and gas resources at a time Europe is desperate to reduce its dependence on Russia.
And that is precisely why Gadaffi’s previously unforgivable sins are now lost in the mist of time and the British government had to prevail over the Scottish government to release the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Bassel Ali Al-Megrahi as a sweetener for the deals they were on the cusp of signing with the Libyans.
Gadaffi’s own son, who is increasingly exerting his influence in Libyan politics, reportedly confirmed this.
Of course, as would be expected, there was an official denial from the British government that the release of the Lockerbie bomber had anything to do with any deals. But it did little to shift the balance of perception in favour of Gordon Brown’s government.
Gadaffi, one of the African leaders who believe in the tragic notion that bullets change governments faster than votes, is not the only odd darling of the West in Africa where a number of leaders have allegedly fallen to international spy intrigues masterminded by the USA.
Yoweri Museveni’s regime in Uganda is not one of the most autocratic in the world. But it is by no means open, democratic or responsive.
His is what well-known Peruvian writer-turned politician Mario Vargas Llosa once referred to as the “perfect dictatorship”.
Llosa defined this as even a cruder dictatorship because it employs a technique that effectively uses intellectuals for its own ends, skillfully keeping them in submission by appointments to well paid, high public posts without demanding flattery and instead allow them to take a critical stand. Yet he remains in the West’s good books.

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