Are you gloating at the American political “turbulence” or ashamed?
A London reporter writes in WSJ that the assassination attempt on Trump, coming after Biden’s “stumbles” during the recent presidential debate, has pushed the superpower to enter “an unusually turbulent and unpredictable period, prompting allies to question its reliability and foes to gloat.”
As a foe of US imperialist foreign policy, not of “America” (my husband is American and my children, like so many other children in the US, are hyphenated Americans), I am not gloating at the sorry spectacle the US election “turbulence” is parading before the world. Rather, I am ashamed. And more importantly, I am aghast at US obliviousness that any gloating that may be taking place, especially in the Global South, is entirely of its own making.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence,” Biden said. It is well known, however, that the US believes there is a place for “this kind of violence” other than in America. The United States, often through the CIA, has been involved in various coups and assassinations in the Global South. These actions have had profound and lasting impacts on the region.
Let’s count some of them. I’ll start with Venezuela, because, just as in America, the country is undergoing presidential elections there currently, and a CNN headline in World/Americas (July 14, 2024) links the US elections and the Venezuelan elections thus: Why a fair election in Venezuela could change the fate of millions of migrants — and Joe Biden.
CNN writes that the political crisis in Venezuela that produced millions of migrants was caused by “a crash in the price of oil — a key export for Venezuela — combined with chronic corruption and mismanagement at the hands of government officials.” Today, the conventional wisdom in US media is that Nicolás Maduro (United Socialist Party) faces an uphill election battle “after leading Venezuela into crisis.” The US actively supports Venezuelan Western-leaning opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González and wishes to “ease” Maduro and his cohorts out under the banner of “democracy and the rule of law” — i.e., “fair elections.”
By “fair elections” CNN means elections as influenced by US foreign policy. In 2019, The US supported efforts to oust Maduro, including backing opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
In contrast to the above, Al Mayadeen coverage of the Venezuelan elections explains that the United Nations has sent four of its electoral experts to Venezuela to compile a report on the voting there and that Maduro signed in June a document with several candidates to respect the outcome of the election.
The Al Mayadeen report goes on to say, “The Venezuelan people trust President Maduro because he belongs to the school of thought and principles of the late President Hugo Chavez and represents a symbol of continuity in the Bolivarian Revolution… It is noteworthy that Maduro’s 2018 reelection was rejected as ‘illegitimate’ by most Western countries.”
And shockingly: “Last week, a Colombian paramilitary group announced in a video that Venezuela’s far-right reached out to them requesting they assassinate Maduro. The incumbent president had previously accused the United States and the Venezuelan opposition of seeking to manipulate the results of the election and destabilize the country.”
US foreign policy has no problem with instigating political violence (aka terrorism if we are to speak plainly) in the Global South. In Bolivia in 2019, the resignation of President Evo Morales was followed by U.S. involvement in the political upheaval that led to his departure. A couple of weeks ago, Bolivia weathered a coup attempt and US media is speculating as to “Why Bolivia Descended Into Yet Another Coup Attempt.”
Well, here are clues as to possibly why:
— In Guatemala (1954): The CIA orchestrated a coup to overthrow President Jacobo Árbenz, who had implemented land reforms that threatened U.S. business interests.
— In Brazil (1964): The U.S. supported a military coup that overthrew President João Goulart, who was perceived as leaning towards communism.
— In Chile (1973): The U.S. supported the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, which ousted democratically elected President Salvador Allende.
— In Congo (1960): The CIA was involved in the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who was seen as a threat to Western interests.
The list of US involvement in such political violence goes on to include Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Korea. The U.S. justified these actions as necessary to combat the spread of communism and protect American interests, but they had significant and often devastating impacts on the affected countries.
Needless to say, when it comes to the Middle East, American hubris, double standards, and meddling for purely selfish reasons know no bounds and have been an unmitigated disaster for people there.
- In the West Bank and Gaza in 2006, the Bush administration and its allies undid the results of democratic elections that ushered a Hamas government.
— In Iran in 1953, the CIA, along with British intelligence, orchestrated a coup to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized the oil industry.
— In Iraq in 1963, the CIA played a role in the coup that brought the Ba’ath Party to power, which eventually led to Saddam Hussein’s rise. The US provided lists of suspected communists to the Ba’athists, who then executed many of them. In 2003, the US-led invasion of Iraq resulted in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein leading to regime change.
— In Libya in 2011, the US, along with NATO allies, played a crucial role in the military intervention in Libya, which led to the overthrow and death of Muammar Gaddafi.
— In Syria in 1949: The CIA supported a coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of President Shukri al-Quwatli. This was primarily to secure American and Western oil interests. Today, US involvement in internal Syrian politics include hostilities against Iranian-backed militia groups supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime, without explicit congressional authorization or any clear military objective beyond deterring future attacks.
In the meantime, U.S. taxpayers continue to pay for the hundreds of U.S. military bases scattered around the world, many of them unwelcome, and the double standard the US exercises in and outside America is appalling.
For fear of inciting more violence in the US, for example, Democrats are no longer allowed to talk about Trump as “posing an existential threat to democracy.” On the other hand, in accepting Israel’s Jewish supremacist narrative that Palestinian armed struggle for liberation poses an existential threat to Jews (i.e. it is antisemitic and not liberationist in nature), the US incites Israeli violence against Palestinians and provides Israel with the wherewithal to commit genocide against them in Gaza.
A glimmer of hope may be on the horizon, however. What’s happening in Palestine and the Ukraine is challenging the unipolar dominance of the United States and significantly influencing the shift towards a multipolar world order.
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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher, and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.
