This piece is a corollary to my earlier published article titled “Endless-Immoral Wars”, where it was stated that “ The U.S. does not fight for the independent underdog, and it does not fight for liberty. A country or even a political party that attempts to be independent of the U.S. militarism, or to truly promote private property rights in a way that costs the U.S. state some measure of power or profit quickly finds itself a target of its wrath. Ukraine and Israel are current boutique wars of choice, connected to and very much like those the U.S. government pursued for profit and show in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere. Such boutique wars feed and satisfy the military-industrial-congressional enablers and facilitate control over domestic resources and liberty. They promote endless state borrowing. They allow the state to scratch an itch, just as a snake sheds its skin to grow.”
U.S’ presidents since Roosevelt have pursued his “big stick” foreign policy agenda. In the slightly less than a hundred years from 1898 to 1994, the U.S. government has intervened successfully to change governments in Latin America, alone, at least 41 times. The US has since the Second World War and especially after the fall of the Wall in ‘89, pursued foreign policy initiatives that are seen as escalation, rather than diplomatic discourse, in potentially serious geopolitical situations. Overall, while the United States engaged in 46 military interventions from 1948–1991; however, from 1992–2017 that number increased fourfold to 188. In more than 80 countries worldwide, the US manages over 750 military facilities. With such spatial arrangement of military capabilities, it has and continues to influence major and minor conflicts – most recently in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Pakistan fell into SEATO and CENTO traps which ultimately led to most deleterious participation in so-called Jihad against the former USSR(1979-1989) and then in the USA/ NATO/Allies’ invasion of Afghanistan(2001-2021). In the late 1970s and ’80s, the U.S. managed billions of dollars from KSA to so termed ‘Afghan Mujahideen’ who fought the Soviet’s 10-year invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s with the operational control of Pakistan prime Intelligence agency ISI. While those fighters eventually expelled Russian influence, they later fought each other for dominance. In the ensuing power struggle, a cadre of those rebels (including Osama Bin Laden) ultimately fused into the Taliban, al-Qaeda – and that led to controversial 9/11 attacks inside the USA paving the way to invade Afghanistan. Once again Pakistan was coerced to play the old role in reverse order this time with disastrous backlash which has got Pakistan embroiled inextricably in a cobweb of internal and external threats. The 2001 U.S’ invasion subsequently paved the way for incursion and complete destruction of resource rich and economically stable Muslim countries in the Middle East. Since 9/11, America has expended over $8 trillion on wars with “enemies” and “friends” in the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen define the former; and Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan the latter. However, thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians become victim and perish in America’s foreign policy interventions, under false justification of “nation-building” and bringing ‘democracy’ in the targeted countries. The sane minds among American veterans opine that irrespective of America’s decades-long failed foreign policy initiatives in the region, there are those who remain cautious about further meddling in the Middle East. The CIA and MI6 engineered overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian leader Mohammed Mosaddegh, followed by repeated regime changes in Afghanistan, Central Asian Republics, other countries of South Asia including Pakistan from the 1950s till to date, which is too well known and established. The hypocrisy related to spreading democracy is a big bluff as mostly popularly elected representatives are replaced by autocratic rulers, fake aristocrats, monarchs and ‘Democracy Hustlers’.
Former American Congressman Ron Paul stated in 2008: “Terrorists “don’t come here and attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there.” Nevertheless, The ‘Immoral Wars’ continue ceaselessly. Even though Western meddling in the affairs of Ukraine was bête noire for Russia, the U.S. helped engineer a coup to overthrow the democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014; who had announced that he would sign an economic agreement with Russia instead of the E.U. The complete destruction of Gaza and mass killing of innocent Palestinian Muslims with direct involvement of US and allies continues unabated with UNO and ICC as bystanders. The world has been enduring US ‘hammer versus nailhead approach’ with over reliance on destabilizing sanctions and military force rather than diplomacy, intelligence gathering, economic statecraft, and the powers of persuasion.
Be that as it may, the weaker states find themselves suffering from such high-handedness by a Super Power that is now beginning to get challenged by two main competitors like China and Russia and their SCO/BRI, CSTO and BRICS like alliances. Pakistan has remained the major victim of US’ interventionism in every aspect i.e,. politics, economy and security; perhaps the worst hurt example of ‘Economic Hit-men’. What Pakistan is passing through today has its roots in the short-sighted grand decisions taken in 1979 and 2001 under American duress and carrot and stick policy. 'Once bitten twice shy', the only way out is to acknowledge the past strategic blunders, and join the right blocs for long overdue politico-economic and security stability.
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