Oppression and Domination

By Adel – PeaceMaker
December 3, 2009

Only once the occupying powers are driven out, will there be the possibility of democratic development.

The first response is that there's always a double-standard in the moral outrage about "criminals" and "terrorists". Nobody credible in the mainstream media would suggest that the US president is a terrorist or a criminal.

The United States, under the leadership of pretty much every president, has been responsible for hundreds of times more deaths than any terrorist organization that you might care to name. Bush alone must bear responsibility for the deaths of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clinton bombed Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and, of course, Somalia. Obama, fixing to send another 34 thousand troops to Afghanistan - and at $1 million dollars each, you can bet they won't be playing video games. They'll be killing people wholesale.

Surely we must be against killing. It’s a commandment from God/Allah himself. We created laws against it. We condemn it. But we don't condemn all killing. We have war memorials to commemorate the occasions of mass slaughter that punctuate our history. We're told to "support our troops", which always means "shut up and support the killing of foreigners in a war somewhere else."

The USA is the most powerful empire in world. It has bases in more than 100 countries. Its military spending alone makes up more than half of the total world military spending. Its economy is the world's largest. It controls the key international economic institutions in the world, the IMF, the World Bank, etc. It has invaded more countries and overthrown more governments than any other country in history.

From these two facts - oppression and domination - I draw two conclusions. The first is that the actions of the oppressed to alleviate their conditions are not the same as those of the dominant powers.

The second point, it is this: that the application of universal values is politically useless to understanding the world, to providing a just framework for action, and to maintaining a coherent, non-deceitful value system.

The actions of the United States are designed to strengthen and affirm the present set-up, in other words their dominance. Thus, their invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, their support for the Ethiopian dictator, the Jordanian dictator, the Egyptian dictator, the Israeli apartheid regime, etc., are about sustaining domination. They run directly counter to democracy and self-determination.

Democracy and self-determination is necessary for the full development of any nation. Weakening the forces of any imperial regimes, their allies and clients, or other imperial powers at the very least creates more autonomy for the potential of democratic maturity. Only once the occupying powers are driven out, will there be the possibility of democratic development.