Johann Hari: Is the US about to treat the rest of the world better? Maybe...
American foreign policy is subject to structural pressure that has not dissolved
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Independent Minds
The tears are finally drying – the tears of the Bush years, and the tears of awe at the sight of a black President of the United States. So what now? The cliché of the day is that Barack Obama will inevitably disappoint the hopes of a watching world, but the truth is more subtle than that. If we want to see how Obama will affect us all – for good or bad – we need to trace the deep structural factors that underlie United States foreign policy. A useful case study of these pressures is about to flicker on to our news pages for a moment – from the top of the world.
Bolivia is the poorest country in Latin America, and its lofty slums 13,000 feet above sea level seem a world away from the high theatre of the inauguration. But if we look at this country closely, we can explain one of the great paradoxes of the United States – that it has incubated a triumphant civil rights movement at home, yet thwarted civil rights movements abroad. Bolivia shows us in stark detail the contradictions facing a black President of the American empire.
The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has a story strikingly similar to Obama's. In 2006, he became the first indigenous president of his country – and a symbol of the potential of democracy. When the Spanish arrived in Bolivia in the 16th century, they enslaved the indigenous people and worked millions to death. As recently as the 1950s, an indigenous person wasn't even allowed to walk through the centre of La Paz, where the presidential palace and city cathedral stand. They were (and are) routinely compared to monkeys and apes.
Morales was born to a poor potato-farmer in the mountains, and grew up scavenging for discarded orange peel or banana skins to eat. Of his seven siblings, four died in infancy. Throughout his adult life, it was taken for granted that the country would be ruled by the white minority; the "Indians" were too "child-like" to manage a country.
Given that the US is constitutionally a democracy and its presidents say they are committed to spreading democracy across the world, you would expect them to welcome the democratic rise of Morales. But wait. Bolivia has massive reserves of natural gas – a geo-strategic asset, and one that rakes in billions for American corporations. Here is where the complications set in.
Before Morales, the white elite was happy to allow American companies to simply take the gas and leave the Bolivian people with short change: just 18 per cent of the royalties. Indeed, they handed almost the entire country to US interests, while skimming a small percentage for themselves. In 1999, an American company, Bechtel, was handed the water supply – and water rates for the poor majority doubled.
Morales ran for election against this agenda. He said that Bolivia's resources should be used for the benefit of millions of bitterly poor Bolivians, not a tiny number of super-rich Americans. He kept his promise. Now Bolivia keeps 82 per cent of the vast gas royalties – and he has used the money to increase health spending by 300 per cent, and to build the country's first pension system. He is one of the most popular leaders in the democratic world. I have seen this pink tide rising through the barrios and favelas across South America. Millions of people are seeing doctors and schools for the first time in their lives.
I suspect that a majority of the American people – who are good and decent – would be pleased and support this process if they were told about it honestly. But how did the US government (and much of the media) react? George Bush fulminated that "democracy is being eroded in Bolivia", and a recent US ambassador to the country compared Morales to Osama bin Laden. Why? To them, you are a democrat if you give your resources to US corporations, and you are a dictator if you give them to your own people. The will of the Bolivian people is irrelevant.
For these reasons, the US has been moving to trash Morales. By an odd quirk of fate, almost all of Bolivia's gas supplies are in the east of the country – where the richest, whitest part of the population lives. So the US government has been funding and fuelling the hard-right separatist movements that want these regions to break away. Then the whites would happily hand the gas to US companies like in the good ol' days – and Morales would be left without resources. The interference became so severe that last September Morales had to expel the US ambassador for "conspiring against democracy". This weekend, Morales is holding a referendum on a new constitution for the country which will entrench the rights of indigenous people.
Enter Obama – and his paradoxes. He is obviously a person of good will and good sense, but he is operating in a system subject to many undemocratic pressures. Bolivia illustrates the tension. The rise of Morales reminds us of the America the world loves: its yes-we-can openness and civil rights movements. Yet the presence of gas reminds us of the America the world hates: the desire to establish "full spectrum dominance" over the world's resources, whatever the pesky natives think.
Which America will Obama embody? The answer is both – at first. Morales has welcomed him as "a brother", and Obama has made it clear he wants a dialogue, rather than the abuse of the Bush years. Yet who is Obama's Bolivia adviser? A lawyer called Greg Craig, who represents Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada – the hard-right former president of Bolivia who imposed some of the most extreme privatisations of the 1980s, and is now wanted on charges of genocide. Craig's legal team says Morales is (yes) leading "an offensive against democracy".
The structural pressures within the US system that drove hostility to a democratic civil rights leader like Morales have not dissolved in the cold Washington air. The US is still dependent on foreign fossil fuels to keep its lights on, and US corporations still buy senators from both parties. Obama will still be swayed by those factors.
But while this is a reason to be frustrated, it isn't a reason to be cynical. Why? Because while he will be swayed by those factors, he will also subtly erode them over time. Obama has made energy independence – a massive transition away from foreign oil and gas, and towards the wind, sun and waves – the centre of his governing programme. If the US is no longer addicted to Bolivian gas, then its governments will be much less inclined to topple anybody else who wants to control it. (If they're off oil, they'll be much less invested in the Saudi tyranny and petro-wars in the Middle East too.)
Obama also says he wants to peel back the distorting effect of corporate money on the US political system. He is already less slathered in corporate cash than any president since the 1920s. The further he pushes it back, the more breathing space democratic movements like Morales's have to control their own resources.
But we will see. If you want to know if Obama is really altering the tectonic forces that drive American power, keep an eye on the rooftop of the world.
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Comments
Anyone who expects anything from America is going to be bitterly disappointed. Unless, that is, they are expecting to be nuked.
equivalent to Jesus is going to be disappointed. He is as much a prisoner to the string pullers as any other American president. After a little polishing up the image of usa plc. normal service will be resumed. Nothing subtle going on here.
YANKEES do not care _one_iota_ about the lives of anyone, anywhere, except their own people. America has armed and supplied Israel in the Gaza conflict, killing 1300 people (13 Israelis died) - and Obama has said he supports Israel.
The Iraq and Afghan wars were launched by a criminal sack of shit, Tony Blair - and have been continued by a neocon yankee-loving tub of lard, Gordon Brown. Both these men should face War Crimes Trials, and I would be pleased to see them both HANG.
I hope that answers your questions.
The root problem is that most British people are poorly-educated morons. They aren't equipped mentally to make decisions about complicated things - they just believed what they were told by the Government. And by the journalists of The Independent, by the way - John Rentoul still believes the Iraq War was right, so if you want to complain, complain to him? And that living piece of scum, Bruce Anderson. And Johann Hari supported the war for the first year or two, as well - although he made a very late rethink on it later (when it was too late and all the people were dead).
It's no longer about countries, or political parties. If it was, then why was a so-called "socialist" Tony Blair licking the arse of an ultra-right-wing madman like George Bush? Why is Gordon Brown still licking yankee arse? Why does Britain have a Foreign Secretary who fulfils the policy agenda of Henry Kissinger? The reason is a filthy alliance of Neo-Conservative "New World Order" maniacs. See how often Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have demanded a "New World Order" in their public speeches?? Henry Kissinger wrote an article in this newspapers, YESTERDAY, once again demanding a "New World Order". It's a pro-Zionist, NeoConservative grouping that acts according to its own agenda and holds no allegiance to traditional political groupings or national borders.
Some countries stood up to these lies. France, Germany and Russia all refused to take part in this filthy war. When Tony Blair came here to Moscow to persuade Putin to join the war, he was THROWN OUT of Putin's office in less than three minutes. He waited in a corridor for another 40 minutes, to make it look as though he'd been in discussion, and not been thrown out... the tv cameras were waiting outside, of course.
You claim Britain is a "democracy". But both the two major parties supported the war. There's no policy difference between them at all. They are both enthusiastic New World Order thugs.
Frankly much of this is the reason I have left my country forever and now live in Moscow, Russia - from where I am writing. I would never, ever, move back to that stinking place.
Taleban: Evil... umm The Taleban was created alongside Al Qaeda by the CIA channelings funds and weapons through Pakistans ISI, you say they are evil but they were created by America....
Again, Saddam was America's catspaw, he was armed by the US, kept in power by the US, his role as tool was to fight Iran for America, it was American VX gas used on the Iranians and Kurds but like the other tools America creates, they lose their usefulness, Saddam was tolerated right up to the point that he decided to sell his oil in Euros and within weeks he was gone...
You claim you are a Jew and you adulate over the US but President Bush's family were partially responsible alongside a lot of other rich Americans in putting Hitler into power in the first place, his great grandfather was the financial "go-between" from the American side to Hitler, can you not see a pattern here? America installs dictators, controlled tyrants for its own uses, you know nothing and just spout on how wonderful the US is when in reality it is one of the most evilly motivated countries this planet has seen.
Your obvious racism against Muslims tells me all, I have been extensively to the Middle East and from my own observances, I can say that Muslims are a peaceful people unless attacked and then will fight like dervishes, this we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are a secular people and quite willing for the rest of the world to go about its business as long as the world doesn't try and change them, this again we have seen in action. Yes their ways seem archaic but its THEIR country they are doing it in and we have no rights to inflict our ways onto theirs.
Yet my child has to have jewish ways inflicted on her, why does she care what happened 70 years ago? Britain fought WWII on the behalf of the Jews so why does my child need to be indoctrinated on very doubtful issues on something that happened the best part of a hundred years ago, its not Muslims that are doing the oppressing, it is Zionism and the cry-wolf of anti-semitism that is fuelling tension, what was Jewish gratituide for Britain fighting the Nazi's... oh yes, killing British soldiers in brutal acts of terrorism, justified under the mantra "victim here, we can do what we like..."
If he can make progress in areas where he has broad public support and deal with righting some agreed wrongs: Guantanamoe, then the middle East (he is being cautious about making any statements there that could turn public opinion against him before he gets going). Then , probably in his second term, at best, he might have the clout necessary to clean up the 'back yard'.
Tillthen the best we could hope for, I believe, is some more more reasonable trade deals quietly agreed to as being in US interests and talks opening the way for when public opinion can be shifted.
More would be lovely though.
Anyone who believes the USA will ever fail to support the Zionist thugs is day-dreaming. It will never happen.
Why do militant Zionists always lump all Arabs into the the one category? The notion that Palestinian refugees should accept their expulsion and dispossession at the hands of the Israelis and simply move to another 'Arab' country is utterly absurd and immoral.
Incidentally, in the current climate it's inevitable that a thread about U.S. foreign policy, even if specifically referring to Bolivia, will end up with some discussion about U.S./U.K. complicity in Israel's latest war crimes.
While I'm here, it's still worth mentioning, as others have, the role of laptop bombardiers like Johann Hari in helping to create the frenzied atmosphere in which britain's decision to join the attack on Iraq became possible. He may have recanted since but I do hope people like him feel some element of responsibility for that disaster.
When Saddam invaded Kuweit Arafat kissed him and the so called "Palestinians" (Arabs in Israel) supported him. Now can someone tell me why Arabs from Palestine (a region, never a country) deserve an independent country and Arabs from Kuweit don't? And how about the Kurds? Their county is under occupation by Arab Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, countries that want Israel to be replaced by a (another...) Arab country, but don't give the Kurds their independence. And how about other poeples under Arab rule, whos land are under occupation: Berbers and Copts in North Africa, etc. etc... Arabs: Back to Arabia!
Of course what we know from precedent is what will happen to Obama if he does resist too hard, like JFK who waded in against the Military-Industrial complex, I suspect that if Obama proves too irksome to the power elite in the US and elsewhere, that he will be wellstoned.
America needs something desperately, a leader that is willing to turn away from trying to incompetently rule the world and turn their gaze and vision onto the land of the US itself, the American people need to see investment, this may call for protectionist policies, it may force corporations to pay a fair wage when moving jobs back to the US, from the roads and bridges, the very infrastructure of America has been robbed from and neglected and the nation is crumbling.
For this to happen though, will require something earth-shattering, the indictment of Bush, Cheney and others complicit in this act for matter of treason, for allowing a foreign power to gain so much control, root out the corruption with fire and treat it like a canker, nail Bush and Cheney to the wall for their acts against everything American and when the world sees justice being done, corruption being dealt with, when the American people see this also, it will restore a lot of faith in that land.
Chavez and Morales have set out to establish "socialist" system using Castro's Cuba as a template.
With the energy resources these countries have they have gone towards using the revenues to improve
the infrstructure of their countries and improve the social conditions of their people.
It is and has been the U.S policy to keep these countries resources (and revenues derived from them) under U.S corporate control.
U.S Corporate interests outweigh any Civil Rights issues. It has been true in the U.S itself and Obama's election (or anyone else's)
would not have happened if he had said that he was going to put civil rights ahead of the interests of Corporations or financiers.
In the past the U.S engineered the downfall of "Socialist" governments (e.g Chile and Allende) and Cuba still remains an outcast in U.S eyes.
There is an on going attempt to discredit Chavez and Morales and to create divisions in the region (U.S support of Colombia) but
the U.S does not have the same clout it had in the past as the Venezuelan Petro-dollars and Bolivian "Gas-dollars" make these countries
hard to manipulate. Bush labeled these leaders as "terrorist".
And it gets worse for the U.S
Brazil's (the powerhouse economy in the region) president Lula da Silva has indicated leanings towards Venezuelan/Bolivian models.
Lula announced his support for Evo Morales in his recent campaign for Bolivia's presidency,
http://www.opendemocracy.net/democr
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.a
The only thing that could start that ball rolling would be for the members of the previous administration to be handed over to the International Court of Justice, and we know that is not going to happen. Anymore than we shall be seeing that sanctimonious hypocrite Blair, together with his aiders and abettors, sitting behind them.
Is there anything that can be done?
If you don't like the British and this newspaper why don't you p**s off and make your quasi religious
and childlike comments on newspapers who are more to your liking.I skip over your comments - if you have read you have read them all - it is the volume of them.
This GIYUS ploy off throwing discussions off course by repeating the same phrases with no reference to the Article and ruining them is getting annoying.
Do not reply to this as I am not entering into any further discussion with you
James Sen - SYDNEY,AUSTRALIA
Chris Kazanas
Gaza but has been going on for much longer in S. America.
Read Ernesto Guevara who saw things there first hand. He was executed on CIA orders for trying to change things by revolution......back to Gaza?
This article is littered with the unsubstantiated pro-bama corporate propaganda we have come to expect from these sort of outlets...
"The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has a story strikingly similar to Obama's."
"Obama also says he wants to peel back the distorting effect of corporate money on the US political system. He is already less slathered in corporate cash than any president since the 1920s."
"(Obama)...is obviously a person of good will and good sense"
Get the real story on Obama from a truly 'independent' news source...
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/vie
Chomsky on Obama...
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/vie
I think the sooner America forgets its 'international responsibilities' the better it will be for the world.
This is a man who once said that the Taliban is a danger to the USA. This is man who thinks that Bin Laden is still wondering around the caves of Pakistan with his kidney machine stirring it. This is a man who want to increase the size of the US military, who wants to push more troops into Afghanistan and who has already bombed Pakistan inside two days.
He is a marxist puppet. They have put him there to fool the masses into thinking there are going to be changes. He plays for the same team as the Bushes and Clintons. How much he is aware of who is pulling his strings is irrelevant.
Anyway, thanks for summary of the situation and an interesting perspective. Keep your thumbs crossed for a brighter future. Ciao // Max.