The West, and particularly the United States, may yet be oblivious, but the challenge to its status in the (for want of a better phrase) Global South has nothing to do with the military show put on in Beijing on August 31 at the 10-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization or the joint appearance of the three autocratic leaders Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi and I Jinping, or Xi's talk of peace while ramping up their combined war potential.
It has far more to do with the hypocrisy and double standards long established in the West and now doubled down or tripled by Donald Trump.
Outsiders’ concern about Russia's blatant invasion of sovereign Ukraine does not stand alone. Their concern includes not only Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's evident war crimes and mass slaughter in Gaza, to which the US has given tacit agreement, but against decades of the West in supporting Israel's creeping colonization of the West Bank and general racist dominance by some seven million Jews over seven million Palestinians.
In recent times, several European countries and Australia have attempted some amends, offering to recognize Palestinian statehood, but have done almost nothing to bring it about. It remains to be seen where a Palestinian state could even be established given the way the Israeli Defense Force has made the rubble bounce in Gaza and how settlers have appropriated Palestinian land in the West Bank. The Palestinians are left paying the price for past European treatment of Jews while modern Israel is often seen in the West as “like us” – quasi-European in contrast to the Arabic-speaking, mostly Muslim “natives.”
The Europeans have made scant effort to clean up the mess they created 100 years ago in their selfish carve-up of the former Ottoman lands of the Middle east and domination of Iran.
As for the US, the recent conference in Washington on what to do about Gaza and its two million people featured proposals for ethnic cleansing which seemed to mirror America's own past history of wiping out or at least taking the lands and livelihoods of the indigenous population.
This time, the military and information superiority of the Israel-US axis may yet prove that their domination of the region, not just of Palestine, is secure for a long time to come, regardless of protests from elsewhere and in the face of general Arab division, dislike of Russia and concerns about Turkish ambitions.
Israel’s murders date back at least to the murders in the 1940s of well-meaning diplomats Lord Moyne and Count Bernadotte by gangs which included two future Israeli prime ministers, Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin. Meanwhile across the Atlantic, Trump has taken a leaf from the Israeli book of assassinations as a normal political weapon, ordering the sinking of a Venezuelan vessel in international waters, accusing it of carrying a narcotics cargo without boarding it or inspecting it and killing 11 people in violation of international law.
From what is known so far, the killing of the 11 occupants of the vessel included no arrests, no evidence, just cold-blooded murder. Yet so far, no Western governments have seen fit to protest this outrageous breach of both the Law of the Sea and presumably of America's own laws, nor did anyone condemn drone killings by former US President Barack Obama’s administration. The laws that the West long proclaimed are shown to be merely decoration.
If Trump were in earnest about drugs, he would be sending his forces to Wall Street, Hollywood and multiple locations in between where drug use is commonplace. This is a demand, not supply-driven business as can be seen by the simple facts that users are willing pay high prices for drugs which are mostly very cheap to produce. Hence the trade. But don’t expect US leaders to understand that they are the problem, not the cartels which profit from US habits.
The Caribbean murders, and many equally disturbing domestic issues, highlight how the rule of law is rotting from the top in the United States. Meanwhile, the Trump family has been giving an exhibition of how to profit from funny-money cybercoins. But who cares about the old adage “Bad Money Drives Out Good?” Certainly not the Wall Street gangs who have taken to cyber currencies with delight, so long as they get out first.
Unsurprisingly, the Global South is not too impressed with Trump’s antics and much as its leaders may have few warm feelings for Xi and even fewer for Putin, the gap has narrowed dramatically as western hypocrisies catch up with it.
Reads like the musings of a Hamas’ useful idiot.
Nicely done and to the point, and yet even here in Blue California the AIPAC buck rules our Congress people who continue to send more munitions to fund Bibi's Genocide.