by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
White privilege appears to extend to whole nations. A harsh, but more equal standard would dictate: “If it can be said that Muammar Gaddafi deserved to be butchered like an animal, then the leaders of G-8 and G-20 and G whatever should also face the same fate.”
Freedom Rider: Despots of the West
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“The American president and his friends are allowed to go on an endless killing spree in the name of humanitarianism.”
The facts cannot be in dispute. The powerful nations of the west are now the worst terrorists on earth. Iraq is a ruin thanks to the United States and the United Kingdom, and sadly, George W. Bush and Tony Blair were not the last of their blood thirsty kind. The people of Afghanistan and Pakistan live in fear of death from drones and Iranians are being pushed further into economic despair by the machinations of the so-called leaders of the so-called democracies.
Now it is Barack Obama, David Cameron and French president Nicolas Sarkozy who wage war on the rest of the world. It was bad enough that they joined together to destroy Libya under the guise of being noble humanitarians, but Cameron and Sarkozy actually showed up in the rubble like two hyenas scavenging over a dead body. Their presence should have been seen for the ghoulish affront that it was, but the absence of derision spoke volumes about who does and does not get immunity in the court of world opinion.
Now this axis of evil have their sights set on Syria and Iran, and are so determined to undertake regime change that they will even risk the security of their supposed allies. Nations like Greece and Spain who struggle under the debt created by the last financial bubble are dependent on Iranian oil. No matter. The United States and the European Union have been pressuring all western nations into going along with sanctions and boycotts because of the plans for regime change in Iran which have been orchestrated by Obama and his cronies.
“Nations like Greece and Spain who struggle under the debt created by the last financial bubble are dependent on Iranian oil.”
While the International Criminal Court can only manage to prosecute a few African dictators, the American president and his friends are allowed to go on an endless killing spree in the name of humanitarianism. The worst terrorists on the planet walk around freely when they ought to be sneaking around like other common criminals.
Idealistic Americans are constantly asked to boycott corporations or even countries that are said to deviate from the norms of civilized behavior. It is time to add to the list of the despised and ostracized, and Obama and company should be at the very top.
Should peace loving people buy French wine or travel to London for the theater? If we are exhorted to purchase fair trade coffee and boycott corporations which produce genetically modified foods, should we not also punish nations which wage endless wars of aggression?
There are endless reports about honor killings, genital mutilation, or child labor as long as those crimes are committed in non-white countries. Leaders of white nations are rarely taken to task for their atrocities, namely waging war against thousands of human beings. Barack Obama may be a black man, but he wouldn’t be president of the United States if he hadn’t assured rich and powerful white people that he wouldn’t act like one. In effect, he is as white as the rest of the heads of state he is in league with.
But it isn’t just racism which silences millions of people who ought to be outraged by the conduct of the west. Those people have been fooled into thinking that they live in truly democratic countries. Yes, they are able to vote in elections and to freely speak out against their leaders, but they are still powerless. They were powerless to stop the destruction of the world’s economy by a small clique of wealthy individuals and corporations. They are powerless to stop their leaders from killing people in Libya or Somalia or Afghanistan or anywhere else they may choose to attack.
“Leaders of white nations are rarely taken to task for their atrocities, namely waging war against thousands of human beings.”
They are in fact under the rule of a kind of despotism. The façade is one of freedom and prosperity, but their despots wreak havoc on a massive scale, creating poverty and war and making life miserable for millions.
The average person in New York or London would scoff at the notion that they live in anything less than the most perfect systems in world history. They would take umbrage if told that their politicians were not among the best, the most worthy of respect and adulation from the masses.
It shouldn’t matter who does or doesn’t get their nose out of joint when they are told the truth. The United Nations can’t stop these evil doers, the people, for the most part, aren’t interested enough to call them out for their actions. If it can be said that Muammar Gaddafi deserved to be butchered like an animal, then the leaders of G-8 and G-20 and G whatever should also face the same fate. After all, when it was convenient for them, Gaddafi survived under their largesse. If he was an evil dictator, then his former supporters were no better.
Of course, they will never pay a price for their actions. Their countries are white, and rich, and powerful, so their atrocities aren’t even considered as such. The leaders of the NATO and G-8 nations will meet in Chicago in May and plot taking over Syria and Iran or forcing their people to suffer through austerity measures. Anyone who protests their presence runs the risk of being treated like a criminal, while the biggest crooks will get the royal treatment. Chicago may be the perfect place for these meetings. Al Capone would be proud.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
This week’s featured authors are Alyosha Goldstein and Simón Ventura Trujillo. Goldstein is Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico. Trujillo is Assistant Professor in the…
The ongoing conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region has been fueled by support from the United States. It is yet another proxy war which has brough great suffering to thousands of people.
Had it been fully implemented the Hawkins-Humphrey full employment bill would have been a boon to U.S. workers. Any talk of reviving it is now moot, as the industrial economy of the 1970s has been…
The U.S. mined a million tons of guano on a Haitian island without paying a cent to the Haitian authorities. Other countries have sold the product for hundreds of millions of dollars.
The late Nehanda Abiodun was an African American revolutionary who exemplified the movement to end national oppression and the criminalization of a people.
