Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Hillary Clinton: A Very Ugly American
04 Nov 2009
🖨️ Print Article
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford


Having forced Pakistan to launch a civil war to protect American interests, the U.S. dispatches Hillary Clinton to rub salt in Pakistani wounds. The Anti-Diplomat lectures the locals on tax collection and helping the poor while her government daily violates the country's sovereignty. “Americans believe they are the only nation that deserves to have a sense of dignity – and so they relentlessly strip away the dignity of others.”

Hillary Clinton: A Very Ugly American

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“The Obama administration drapes itself in the ancient, bloody shrouds of 'just wars' and 'necessary wars.'”

If there ever was a country wholly unfit to play the role of global overseer, it is the United States, a nation utterly unequipped to treat other peoples with even the most elemental respect. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strode the Pakistani stage last week, insulting her hosts at every possible opportunity, the very picture of the Ugly American.

Clinton lectured Pakistani businessmen on the laxity of tax collection in their country, and feigned concern for the plight of the poor. It was as if she were a U.S. politician making the rounds of American television talk shows, rather than a visiting diplomat – a foreigner in someone else’s house.

Clinton all but spat upon the hospitality of the host country, a Muslim nation of 176 million for whom hospitality is a cultural obligation. When confronted on her eagerness to critique Pakistani society, Clinton proclaimed that the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan had to be “a two-way street.” But of course, no such street has ever existed between Americans and Pakistanis – and everyone in Pakistan knows it. No Pakistani is touring the United States, commanding U.S. media coverage while pontificating on American corporate greed, economic inequality, or racial injustice. And no Pakistani has the power to demand that Americans plunge the United States into civil war.  Yet that is precisely what the Americans demand from Pakistanis – that they make war on each other, to please the United States.

“Muslim fundamentalist jihad in Afghanistan had three fathers: the United States, Saudi Arabia, and U.S.-backed Pakistani governments.”

The Obama administration drapes itself in the ancient, bloody shrouds of “just wars” and
“necessary wars,” insanely believing it can reinvent history for Pakistanis just as history is routinely revised for the consumption of ultra-gullible Americans. But Pakistanis remember that the U.S. has always supported military regimes that served American global purposes, not the interests of the Pakistani people. They are intimately aware that Muslim fundamentalist jihad in Afghanistan had three fathers: the United States, Saudi Arabia, and U.S.-backed Pakistani governments. And they now see the current Pakistani government and military again bending to America’s will, toy soldiers for foreigners, who hardly protest when U.S. drone aircraft rain down death on Pakistani targets.

Americans believe they are the only nation that deserves to have a sense of dignity – and so they relentlessly strip away the dignity of others. Worse, imperial Americans like Hillary Clinton have not the least sense of loyalty to their dark servants. Even as Pakistani generals ordered their soldiers to kill their own countrymen at United States insistence, Secretary Clinton declared that she believed some Pakistani government officials are aware of where Al Qaeda is hiding, and won't tell.

The British were far better at running empires than the Americans. At least the Brits praised their colonial servants like Gunga Din, who sacrificed their lives for the white man’s sake. Imperial barbarians like Hillary Clinton publicly kick their Gunga Dins, the Pakistani generals, in the backside, and then wonder why the United States is so hated. And that’s one reason why the American empire is doomed.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

 


More Stories


  •  Black Agenda Radio for Week of November 30, 2020
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of November 30, 2020
    01 Dec 2020
    Racist Imperialism Killed Millions in Congo
  •  Half of Brazil’s Black “Quilombos” Denied State Recognition
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Half of Brazil’s Black “Quilombos” Denied State Recognition
    01 Dec 2020
    The autonomous settlements established by Black and indigenous Brazilians to escape slavery and ongoing oppression number between 3,000 and 5,000, “but the Brazilian government only recognizes abou
  •  Racism and Violence Against Blacks Endemic to US
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Racism and Violence Against Blacks Endemic to US
    01 Dec 2020
    Critical Race Theory holds that racism is endemic to US society, while Afropessimism and Social Death “suggests that, regardless of what Black bodies do, [they] will experience gratuitous violence,
  •  Racist Imperialism Killed Millions in Congo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Racist Imperialism Killed Millions in Congo
    01 Dec 2020
    “More than 5.4 million died in the DRC as a direct or indirect consequence of the ongoing racist, neocolonial policy imposed on the Congolese population in an attempt to dismantle the Congo,” said
  • Biden, the Emcee at the Billionaires’ Ball
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Biden, the Emcee at the Billionaires’ Ball
    26 Nov 2020
    The Lords of Capital use periods of crisis to devour the less-rich and reshape the political economy to their further advantage, so that the Joe Bidens of the world jump higher and come quicker whe
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us