- By Dr. Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi
- Sunday, 24 August 2014 00:00
US President Barack Obama speaks about the US involvement in Iraq, as well as the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, August 18, 2014. AFP
Internal Affairs
The United States of America, the so-called ‘post-cold war Reganitepower house’ of the modern era seemed to have reached it political maturity and the pinnacle of its social mobility with the election of a black man as its president in 2008. Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘dream’ of a cohesive US semed to have became a reality at the first inauguration ceremony of Obama’s presidency at the Capitol Hill precincts with all the fanfare. It was as if a president of the world has been elected to the highest job in the United States. The world was mesmerized that the Nobel Prize for peace was granted to him in anticipation of his future peace efforts. However, his second term proved his inability to bring peace to the ‘mother of all conflicts’, the Israel-Palestine issue, and the Nobel Prize lost its historical credibility, if it had not already.
The Obama administration is the machine that deployed the largest number of drone attacks without any inhibition to get the ‘US targets’ with shameless violation of international laws and national sovereignty of countries like Pakistan and Yeman. The world saw the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad in May 2011, Anwer al-Awlaki in September 2011 in Yeman and two weeks later, a U.S. citizen al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, born in Denver and killed by a drone strike in Yemen. These ‘targeted killings’ in the war agenda of the US are described as ‘lawful acts of war’- will never to be called ‘war crimes’.
Today it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the Gaza Strip has been destroyed and the Middle East is in shambles. The Obama administration and its Western allies continue to say that Israel has the ‘right to defend itself’ which is an admissible position, but these allies must also admit with the same breath and emphasis that the Palestinians too have the same right to their land and resources.Instability in the Middle East is of monumental proportions with the ISIS’ senseless killing of non Muslims, the latest being the Yezidi ethnics of Northern Iraq with their historical links to Zoroastrians (ISIS calls them devil worshipers), obviously with little knowledge of the fact that they were the first monotheists, one of the oldest world religions that humanity has known. This targeting also includes the historical Chaldean Christians of Iraq who are part of the Abrahamic family. The United States that launched the ‘war against terror’, is now more concerned about the Putin administration over MH 17, than the mess they created in Iraq.
US Interests
The world knows that some of these conflicts are related to the involvement of the US and its allies in the affairs of other countries in order to protect ‘interests’.We now have a neo-cold war with Russia in the aftermath of the fatal MH17 flight with no responsibility claimed so far.It is interesting to note that China is silently watching these developments as if it does not have a stake in such global issues. The argument is that China’s interest and strategies are different to the US and the West. Some call it ‘the Chinese way’ of dealing with issues. The US is politically irritated with what is happening in South Asia, South East Asia and the Far East. The US finds it difficult to fathom China’s ‘post Deng Xiaoping approach’ of ‘non-aggressively invasive octopus-like economic agenda’. The USA’s obstinately upfront, aggressively invasive characteristics in Asia seemed to have failed so far. The painful and shameful memory of defeat by the Vietcong’s counter terror tactics on the US army (the Rambo movie series was the Hollywood’s attempt to heal the American psyche of its ‘war crime guilt of Vietnam’ with a celluloid hero who in fact imitates the very tactics of the Vietcong guerillas) remains a clear and enduring producer of its fear psychosis.
Asia
There are three definitive power blocks in Asia: China, India and Russia in terms of population and other factors. The latter is exposing its irritability with its former satellites, now clamoring to be part of the West severing its heritage with the enormous Salvic world (Russians Belarusians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Wends or Sorbs, Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes). Cutting off this Slavic umbilical code for Russia is a definitive historical loss, hence Russia’s desperate measures are overt, but they seem politically fateful and futile.
The US is aware of this ethnic heritage and that the Putin administration in fact has been now sucked into its trap just like the ignition of the Sunni-Shi’a historical enmities in the Arab world. The senseless ISIS killer instincts can broadly be read as reaction to the ‘US interest’ in the Middle East. This is why the ‘US interest’ syndrome in the rest of the world could be likened to Ebola — it eats into body politics of a nation, a region and disrupts lives of ordinary people. It may be justified as US or West’s foreign policy, but it’s a life and death situation for thousands of people.
China’s strategy is more Taoist; it allows things as they are to form and to transform itself expressed in the paradoxical Chinese way ‘action without action’, not inaction or apathy, but watchfulness and timely intervention. It’s an attitude in the development processes in the Asian mind and a philosophical mooring. It might be a cliché for the Pentagon and CIA apparatus but it has proven validity for the large and versatile Asia. ‘US interests’ then will be problematic in Asia even though they have illegitimately secured Diego Garcia, the celebrated US military base (UK-US conspired to barter this island evicting its natives into Mauritius Islandin the Indian Ocean).
Sri Lanka
The United USA historically has had sweet and sour relations with Sri Lanka depending once again on ‘US interests’. It is true that they supported the defeat of LTTE in more than one way, but once again within the frame of an agenda of strategic interest in South Asia. Sri Lanka has had good, bad and ugly relations with the US. It is my personal opinion that some of the US citizens would not even know where Sri Lanka is geographically located. Why then is their government interested in this tiny island? The US may not be interested per se in this island nation except for the fact that it is defacto of strategic importance after Diego Garcia Island simply because of its oceanic location. They know that this island could be a location to protect their ‘interests’ in Asia and so far they have not been able to find a regime that completely complied to their demands.
They tried several times (which includes Trincomalee harbor base) to secure control. One such location is well established now in the North Western province with less or no access to any one. This base was built despite massive wave of protest by civil society groups in the early into mid 1990s. What the US wanted was a short-wave transmitting tower to be erected for the Voice of America. It is reported that there is a huge road that has been constructed at Iranawila “American Voice” premises over 150 acre location.As reported the road constructed is long enough to be a ‘tarmac’ with a concrete layer of 5 ft. in the base. This ‘tarmac’ now used as the access road is what is of concern as it has been specially constructed and there is a possibility of landing of air craft at any given moment on such a surface. There are a few Americans in charge of this place and even the security forces cannot enter as it is maintained under Ambassador Ownership and his/her diplomatic immunity debars scrutiny. Though it is said that this location is used to broadcast short waves, the countries in the region are concerned about its alleged involvement in data collection and the ‘spying methods’ that the US deployed in countries like Germany, Brazil and some other European countries.
The US footprint in Sri Lanka is well and truly cemented. Querying diplomats’ involvement in internal affairs is what Sri Lanka should be concerned about. If such measures are not in place then a repeat telecast of the US and West’s construct of ‘Arab Spring’ for so-called for democracy would be inevitable, along with a recipe for instability and internal turmoil.
However, there have also been those like Howard Wriggins (1918 – 2008) who was a US diplomat, author and academic, serving as its ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives from 1977 until 1979. His long years of interest in the academia, specifically on Sri Lanka made him a true friend.His Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation (1960) is a text much sought after both in sociology and critical studies in South Asian contexts. Sri Lanka looks forward to such people to usher honest diplomatic relations and not spies determined to do a Libya in Sri Lanka. It can be as costly as it was for US in Libya with the horror of Benghazi murder of its ambassador in 2012. Lessons must be learned by all.
There were politically naughty American and European diplomats who performed in Sri Lanka in non-mandatory styles and who were reprimanded. One such American was the first secretary of the US embassy of Sri Lanka, Kenneth Scott under the ambassadorship of John Reed, who was asked to leave the country in 1982 by the then president, J. R. Jayewardene for criticizing him about his legitimacy in contesting elections at a cocktail in Colombo. Secondly, the British diplomat David Gladstone was expelled from Sri Lanka in 1991 by the then President Ranasinghe Premadasa accusing him of interfering in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs.
Diplomats have a role to play in the country they serve. It is not disputed in this discussion, however they must not be politically motivated in their involvement and be driven by other exigencies. They must be involved in the mandated work or else get ready to face the consequences in the manner and style of Scott and Gladstone. The governments must deal with such diplomats with due procedures and not allow them to cast aspersion on sovereignty, the people and the polity. They are there to serve and not to rule.
The United States of America, the so-called ‘post-cold war Reganitepower house’ of the modern era seemed to have reached it political maturity and the pinnacle of its social mobility with the election of a black man as its president in 2008. Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘dream’ of a cohesive US semed to have became a reality at the first inauguration ceremony of Obama’s presidency at the Capitol Hill precincts with all the fanfare. It was as if a president of the world has been elected to the highest job in the United States. The world was mesmerized that the Nobel Prize for peace was granted to him in anticipation of his future peace efforts. However, his second term proved his inability to bring peace to the ‘mother of all conflicts’, the Israel-Palestine issue, and the Nobel Prize lost its historical credibility, if it had not already.
The Obama administration is the machine that deployed the largest number of drone attacks without any inhibition to get the ‘US targets’ with shameless violation of international laws and national sovereignty of countries like Pakistan and Yeman. The world saw the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad in May 2011, Anwer al-Awlaki in September 2011 in Yeman and two weeks later, a U.S. citizen al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, born in Denver and killed by a drone strike in Yemen. These ‘targeted killings’ in the war agenda of the US are described as ‘lawful acts of war’- will never to be called ‘war crimes’.
Today it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the Gaza Strip has been destroyed and the Middle East is in shambles. The Obama administration and its Western allies continue to say that Israel has the ‘right to defend itself’ which is an admissible position, but these allies must also admit with the same breath and emphasis that the Palestinians too have the same right to their land and resources.Instability in the Middle East is of monumental proportions with the ISIS’ senseless killing of non Muslims, the latest being the Yezidi ethnics of Northern Iraq with their historical links to Zoroastrians (ISIS calls them devil worshipers), obviously with little knowledge of the fact that they were the first monotheists, one of the oldest world religions that humanity has known. This targeting also includes the historical Chaldean Christians of Iraq who are part of the Abrahamic family. The United States that launched the ‘war against terror’, is now more concerned about the Putin administration over MH 17, than the mess they created in Iraq.
US Interests
The world knows that some of these conflicts are related to the involvement of the US and its allies in the affairs of other countries in order to protect ‘interests’.We now have a neo-cold war with Russia in the aftermath of the fatal MH17 flight with no responsibility claimed so far.It is interesting to note that China is silently watching these developments as if it does not have a stake in such global issues. The argument is that China’s interest and strategies are different to the US and the West. Some call it ‘the Chinese way’ of dealing with issues. The US is politically irritated with what is happening in South Asia, South East Asia and the Far East. The US finds it difficult to fathom China’s ‘post Deng Xiaoping approach’ of ‘non-aggressively invasive octopus-like economic agenda’. The USA’s obstinately upfront, aggressively invasive characteristics in Asia seemed to have failed so far. The painful and shameful memory of defeat by the Vietcong’s counter terror tactics on the US army (the Rambo movie series was the Hollywood’s attempt to heal the American psyche of its ‘war crime guilt of Vietnam’ with a celluloid hero who in fact imitates the very tactics of the Vietcong guerillas) remains a clear and enduring producer of its fear psychosis.
Asia
There are three definitive power blocks in Asia: China, India and Russia in terms of population and other factors. The latter is exposing its irritability with its former satellites, now clamoring to be part of the West severing its heritage with the enormous Salvic world (Russians Belarusians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Wends or Sorbs, Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes). Cutting off this Slavic umbilical code for Russia is a definitive historical loss, hence Russia’s desperate measures are overt, but they seem politically fateful and futile.
The US is aware of this ethnic heritage and that the Putin administration in fact has been now sucked into its trap just like the ignition of the Sunni-Shi’a historical enmities in the Arab world. The senseless ISIS killer instincts can broadly be read as reaction to the ‘US interest’ in the Middle East. This is why the ‘US interest’ syndrome in the rest of the world could be likened to Ebola — it eats into body politics of a nation, a region and disrupts lives of ordinary people. It may be justified as US or West’s foreign policy, but it’s a life and death situation for thousands of people.
China’s strategy is more Taoist; it allows things as they are to form and to transform itself expressed in the paradoxical Chinese way ‘action without action’, not inaction or apathy, but watchfulness and timely intervention. It’s an attitude in the development processes in the Asian mind and a philosophical mooring. It might be a cliché for the Pentagon and CIA apparatus but it has proven validity for the large and versatile Asia. ‘US interests’ then will be problematic in Asia even though they have illegitimately secured Diego Garcia, the celebrated US military base (UK-US conspired to barter this island evicting its natives into Mauritius Islandin the Indian Ocean).
Sri Lanka
The United USA historically has had sweet and sour relations with Sri Lanka depending once again on ‘US interests’. It is true that they supported the defeat of LTTE in more than one way, but once again within the frame of an agenda of strategic interest in South Asia. Sri Lanka has had good, bad and ugly relations with the US. It is my personal opinion that some of the US citizens would not even know where Sri Lanka is geographically located. Why then is their government interested in this tiny island? The US may not be interested per se in this island nation except for the fact that it is defacto of strategic importance after Diego Garcia Island simply because of its oceanic location. They know that this island could be a location to protect their ‘interests’ in Asia and so far they have not been able to find a regime that completely complied to their demands.
They tried several times (which includes Trincomalee harbor base) to secure control. One such location is well established now in the North Western province with less or no access to any one. This base was built despite massive wave of protest by civil society groups in the early into mid 1990s. What the US wanted was a short-wave transmitting tower to be erected for the Voice of America. It is reported that there is a huge road that has been constructed at Iranawila “American Voice” premises over 150 acre location.As reported the road constructed is long enough to be a ‘tarmac’ with a concrete layer of 5 ft. in the base. This ‘tarmac’ now used as the access road is what is of concern as it has been specially constructed and there is a possibility of landing of air craft at any given moment on such a surface. There are a few Americans in charge of this place and even the security forces cannot enter as it is maintained under Ambassador Ownership and his/her diplomatic immunity debars scrutiny. Though it is said that this location is used to broadcast short waves, the countries in the region are concerned about its alleged involvement in data collection and the ‘spying methods’ that the US deployed in countries like Germany, Brazil and some other European countries.
The US footprint in Sri Lanka is well and truly cemented. Querying diplomats’ involvement in internal affairs is what Sri Lanka should be concerned about. If such measures are not in place then a repeat telecast of the US and West’s construct of ‘Arab Spring’ for so-called for democracy would be inevitable, along with a recipe for instability and internal turmoil.
However, there have also been those like Howard Wriggins (1918 – 2008) who was a US diplomat, author and academic, serving as its ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives from 1977 until 1979. His long years of interest in the academia, specifically on Sri Lanka made him a true friend.His Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation (1960) is a text much sought after both in sociology and critical studies in South Asian contexts. Sri Lanka looks forward to such people to usher honest diplomatic relations and not spies determined to do a Libya in Sri Lanka. It can be as costly as it was for US in Libya with the horror of Benghazi murder of its ambassador in 2012. Lessons must be learned by all.
There were politically naughty American and European diplomats who performed in Sri Lanka in non-mandatory styles and who were reprimanded. One such American was the first secretary of the US embassy of Sri Lanka, Kenneth Scott under the ambassadorship of John Reed, who was asked to leave the country in 1982 by the then president, J. R. Jayewardene for criticizing him about his legitimacy in contesting elections at a cocktail in Colombo. Secondly, the British diplomat David Gladstone was expelled from Sri Lanka in 1991 by the then President Ranasinghe Premadasa accusing him of interfering in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs.
Diplomats have a role to play in the country they serve. It is not disputed in this discussion, however they must not be politically motivated in their involvement and be driven by other exigencies. They must be involved in the mandated work or else get ready to face the consequences in the manner and style of Scott and Gladstone. The governments must deal with such diplomats with due procedures and not allow them to cast aspersion on sovereignty, the people and the polity. They are there to serve and not to rule.
– See more at: http://www.nation.lk/edition/lens/item/32527-crossing-the-diplomatic-line.html#sthash.P4HrzNjV.dpuf