The United States Is at It Again: Compiling an Enemies List
The United States Is at It Again: Compiling an Enemies List
Written by Philip Giraldi 3/22/2109
Many
American still long for the good old days when men were still manly and
President George W. Bush was able to announce that there was a “new
sheriff in town” pledged to wipe terrorism from the face of the earth.
“You’re either with us or against us,” he growled and he backed up his
warning of lethal retribution with an enemies list that he called the
“axis of evil.”
The axis of evil identified in those days in the 2002 State of the Union Address consisted
of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Iraq, which had not yet been invaded and
conquered by the American war machine, was number one on the list, with
Saddam allegedly brandishing weapons of mass destruction deliverable by
the feared transatlantic gliders that could easily strike the United
States. Bush explained that “Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility
toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to
develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade.
This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of
its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead
children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections,
then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to
hide from the civilized world.”
North Korea meanwhile was
described as “A regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass
destruction, while starving its citizens” while Iran “aggressively
pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress
the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.”
The phrase “axis of evil” proved so enticing that Undersecretary of State John Bolton used it two months later in a speech entitled
“Beyond the Axis of Evil.” He included three more countries – Cuba,
Libya and Syria because they were “state sponsors of terrorism that are
pursuing or who have the potential to pursue weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) or have the capability to do so in violation of their
treaty obligations.” The nice thing about an Axis of Evil List is that
you can make up the criteria as you go along so you can always add more
evildoers.
Iraq was removed from the playing field in March
2003 while Libya had to wait for President Barack Obama and Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton to be dealt with, but North Korea, Cuba, Syria
and Iran are still around. Nevertheless, the idea of an enemies list
continues to intrigue policy makers since it would be impossible to
maintain the crippling burden of the military industrial complex without
a simple expression that would convey to the public that there were bad
actors out there waiting to pounce but for the magnificent efforts
being made by Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and
Raytheon to defend freedom.
The Administration of President
Donald Trump, not to be outdone by its predecessors, has recently come
up with two enemies lists. The first one was coined by the irrepressible
John Bolton, who is now National Security Adviser. He has come up with
the “troika of tyranny” to describe Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, where he sees “…the
dangers of poisonous ideologies without control, and the dangers of
domination and suppression… I am here to convey a clear message from the
President of the United States about our policy towards these three
regimes. Under this administration, we will no longer appease the
dictators and despots near our coasts in this hemisphere. The troika of
tyranny in this hemisphere — Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — has finally
found its rival.”
Bolton also demonstrated that he has a light touch,
adding “These tyrants fancy themselves strongmen and revolutionaries,
icons and luminaries. In reality, they are clownish, pitiful figures
more akin to Larry, Curly, and Moe. The three stooges of socialism are
true believers, but they worship a false God.”
Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo has apparently also been looking at Venezuela and not
liking what he is seeing. On his recent road trip to the Middle East he told reporters that
“It is time to begin the orderly transition to a new government [in
Caracas].” He declared that “The Maduro regime is illegitimate and the
United States will work diligently to restore a real democracy to that
country. We are very hopeful we can be a force for good to allow the
region to come together to deliver that.” “Force for good” is another
key soundbite used by Pompeo. In his Cairo speech on January 10th, he
described the United States as a “force for good” in the entire Middle
East.
Bolton might have thought “troika of tyranny” was a hands
down winner, but he was actually upstaged by the dour Vice President
Mike Pence who declared to
a gathering of US Ambassadors that “Beyond our global competitors, the
United States faces a ‘wolf pack of rogue states.’ No shared ideology or
objective unites our competitors and adversaries except this one: They
seek to overturn the international order that the United States has
upheld for more than half a century.” The states Pence identified were
North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Of the five, only
North Korea can even plausibly be considered as a possible threat to the
United States.
As wolves are actually very social animals the
metaphor provided by Pence does not hold together very well. But Pence,
Bolton and Pompeo are all talking about the same thing, which is the
continued existence of some governments that are reluctant to fall in
line with Washington’s demands. They have to be banished from polite
discourse by declaring them “rogue” or “tyrannical” or “evil.” Other
nations with far worse human rights records – to include Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan, Israel and Egypt – are given a pass as long as they stay
aligned with the US on policy.
So useful “lists” are all about
what Washington wants the world to believe about itself and its
adversaries. Put competitors on a list and condemn them to eternal
denigration whenever their names come up. And, as Pence observes, it is
all done to prevent the overturning of the “international order.”
However, his is a curious conceit as it is the United States and some of
its allies, through their repeated and illegal interventions in foreign
countries, that have established something like international disorder.
Who is really doing what to whom is pretty much dependent on which side
of the fence one is standing on.
Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation.
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The main problem today is the red/green alliance (communism and Islam joined). China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and all socialist/communist Latin countries (Cuba, Venezuela, etc). Islam, China, and Russia all have a presence down there and plan on destabilizing north America with hordes of third world “refugees” the same way they did with Western Europe. This is all by design.