Uncle Sam is hanging by the skin of his teeth to the idea of world domination. As the evil shadow of his empire recedes from many corners and spheres of our blighted globe, he is fighting back in his blood-soaked crooked ways: fuelling more violence and chaos, deceiving allies and adversaries, and telling big fat lies. Meanwhile, our national media continues to offer itself as a mouthpiece for imperial propaganda.
Surely, it is time to bring some balance to how we cover the world.
The doddering Uncle Sam obviously wants to take us all to the grave with him. Shaken by the decimation of its proxies in Syria by Russian airstrikes, the US first dropped 50 tons of ammunition for the terrorists it says are moderate. Then, going back on the ever-changing withdrawal timetable in Afghanistan, Puppet Obama announced that the US would keep more troops in Afghanistan for longer, urging his NATO allies to do likewise.
While Kerry pretended to discuss Syria in Vienna, deceiving friends and foes in the garb of diplomacy, Obama went on to order ground troops into the sovereign territory of Syria and announce another 100 million dollars for the so-called opposition there, bringing the declared support to subversive groups in the country to $500 million. Wizard Kerry then proceeded to meet leaders of Central Asian states, muttering a spell to turn them blind to the terrorists the US is nurturing in Afghanistan for advancing its objectives in the region.
There’s nothing new about the ugly chaos and violence that the US and its allies and vassals are engineering in Syria and Afghanistan, or Yemen and Ukraine, these days. Over the years we’ve seen it destroy so many beautiful countries and peaceful societies on one pretext or the other. Similarly, diplomacy has been, in the imperial dictionary, another name for deception and arm-twisting. What’s new about today is the forceful resistance on both counts. And that’s what’s bringing Uncle Sam’s hideous house down.
Russia is leading the resistance, not only with its military might but also with skillful diplomacy, in the true sense of the word. President Putin is the hero who pointed out the naked ugliness of the emperor and took the raging bull by its horns. He is not alone, of course. He actually rides the anti-imperialist wave that is sweeping the planet; from disaffected populations in the bastions of the empire to power wielders in states like China, Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela, Iran, Bolivia and Pakistan among others.
The uni-polar world is collapsing before our eyes. What remains to be seen is whether this uneasy bi-polarity will eventually give way to a multi-polar world at peace with itself. And how long would it take for the US to accept an end to its hegemony; for Uncle Sam to finally die, the skin of his teeth and all. That would bring relief not only to people in poor and dark places but also to people in the US and EU who must pay for endless wars with their taxes and civil liberties.
These are no ordinary days. Francis Fukuyama who declared in 1992 that history had ended, and all those second-string so-called intellectuals who parroted and promoted his wishful thinking as academic discourse in imperial and enslaved capitals, they all were, of course, lying. History’s march never ended. Till there is a human being alive, how could it? In fact, lately, it has been more alive than it has been in a long time.
This is written on the wall in big bold letters but our western-oriented urban elite that runs the affairs of our national media, and much of everything else in the country, can’t seem to read it. Is there no room in our media for anything other than the imperial narrative? Why do we hear only one side of the story? Where is it written that we view the world through thoroughly discredited western news sources?
It is no longer a secret that the bulk of western mainstream media is the propaganda organ of the empire, preparing the ground for its wars and so-called diplomacy. One doesn’t have to rely on some conspiracy theory to see that. Just follow the hysteria created by the leading lights and icons of western journalism over the last few years, and it is hard not to notice the synchronicity between the media hype and the wars of the empire that followed. So should our national media trust them so blindly on Syria, Afghanistan and everything else happening in the world?
Pick up any newspaper and you’ll find that the coverage of international events invariably relies on western mainstream news sources. Even if we accept them as credible, though there is too much evidence that they are not, does it make sense to black out the other side?
When talking about Syria, for instance, don’t we need to know the Russian perspective, or of the Syrian government? Shouldn’t we be balancing our news on Syria with inputs from the Russian news agency Tass as well? After all, there is a world beyond Reuters and AFP.
Even if non-western news sources are as propagandist as their western counterparts, a critical appraisal of different perspectives is necessary to arrive at a balanced view of events. Does it make sense to buy the imperial narrative hook, line and sinker? At a time when the world is clearly divided, and those resisting the empire are articulating another vision of the world in terms of ideas and on the ground in war zones, is it even professional journalism to black out one side completely?
It’s a pity that those who are supposed to move and shake things around here are themselves stuck in a slavish status-quo ordered by the empire. They are happy repeating whatever discredited western news sources say about world affairs as if it was not only the last word but also the only one. As discerning audiences in the west turn to alternative news sources for information, our media continues to regurgitate the imperial narrative as if history ended in 1992.