"The US is lying to itself"

Geopolitics: "The U.S. is lying to itself"
Monroe Doctrine: cartoon by Granger from 2012 © Granger

by Urs P. Gasche / 28.01.2022 U.S. Professor of Politics Peter Beinart says, "Spheres of influence of great powers are a reality around the globe."
[This article published on 1/28/2022 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.infosperber.ch/politik/geopolitik-die-usa-beluegen-sich-selber/]

The U.S. would not accept that Ukraine was part of Russia's sphere of influence, he said. U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said verbatim in December 2021:

"No country has the right to dictate to another country with whom it will ally. No country has the right to a zone of influence. This concept should be relegated to the dustbin of history ... We advocate Ukraine's accession to NATO."

Many media uncritically spread Nato's point of view that all countries, including Ukraine and Georgia, have the right to join Nato. Firstly, this is wrong, because unanimity of all thirty NATO countries is needed for accession. Secondly, zones of influence of the great powers are still a reality today.

Relegating them to the dustbin of history is a respectable wish, writes Peter Beinart in the New York Times. Beinart is a professor of political science at City University in New York and editor of the left-wing U.S. magazine "Jewish Currents. He counters Blinken with reality:

"In its own hemisphere, the U.S. has upheld the principle of the zone of influence for nearly 200 years. This has been so ever since President James Monroe declared in a message to the U.S. Congress in 1823 that the United States should 'regard any attempt by a foreign power to gain influence anywhere in our hemisphere as a danger to peace and security.'"

This policy has gone by the name of the "Monroe Doctrine" ever since. Anyone listening to Secretary of State Blinken now might think that the U.S. has abandoned this Monroe Doctrine, Beinart says. This is not the case, however. As recently as 2018, President Trump's Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that the Monroe Doctrine was "as relevant today as it was when it was announced." A year later, Trump's national security adviser John Bolton reiterated, "The Monroe Doctrine lives on."

Cuba as a prime example

However, today the U.S. would no longer defend its sphere of influence in Central America and the Caribbean with soldiers, nor would the CIA simply overthrow leftist governments. As late as 1983, U.S. troops occupied the Caribbean island of Grenada on flimsy pretexts because the non-aligned government there did not approve. In 1989, the U.S. attacked Panama with 24,000 troops and overthrew President Manuel Noriega there.

Today, the U.S. achieves its goals with economic coercion and boycotts against governments that collude with hostile governments, Beinart explains. He recalls the decades-old embargo against Cuba. Officially, the economic boycott is meant to force Cuba toward democracy, but even most democratic countries see it as political bullying, he says.

Last year, the UN General Assembly condemned the U.S. embargo against Cuba by a vote of 184 to 2, he said. "Human Rights Watch" had denounced the embargo because it "imposes arbitrary hardships on the Cuban people."

The Biden administration would no longer make much mention of the Monroe Doctrine, but it continues to show muscle to countries in Central and South America. The embargo on Cuba would remain in place and Venezuela, whose autocratic government has flirted with enemies of the United States, would be barred from international trade. The U.S. would even starve Venezuela's population unless it overthrew its government.

Beinart quotes historian Erika Pani, who studies her country's relations with the U.S. in Mexico:

"Mexico's governments have always known that they were not free internationally. When you live right next to an elephant, you know it's better not to provoke it."

In terms of foreign policy, he said, governments could express their own opinions, but under no circumstances could they enter into a military alliance with an adversary of the United States. It would be inconceivable, he said, for Mexico to invite troops from Russia or China onto its territory.

Mexico is separated from the United States by a very long border, much like Ukraine is separated from Russia.

"Geopolitics is a brutal fact".

Ukraine, he said, could conduct an independent foreign policy similar to Mexico. But alliances with Russia's adversaries should not be envisioned. As long as Russia does not receive guarantees of this, at least tacit ones, Russia will continue to try to destabilize Ukraine, he said. This is because an unstable Ukraine is most likely to promise that NATO will not absorb the country, he said.

The political scientist recommends that the U.S. government ensure that Ukraine remains (or becomes) a free society domestically, but refrain from accepting Ukraine into the Western military alliance. The U.S. government, he said, should recognize the "brutal fact" of spheres of influence. Washington cannot continue to claim that "only brutal tyrants like Putin want to influence neighboring countries." Because the U.S. would be "lying to itself" by doing so.

Only if the U.S. respected Russia's sphere of influence would it be guaranteed "that Russian influence would not destroy Ukraine and that Europe would not be drawn into a war."

"Fears of encirclement have contributed to the emergence of wars"

Under the title "There are zones of influence that limit countries' ability to form alliances," the NZZ published a great interview with Herfried Münkler, formerly a professor of political science at Berlin's Humboldt University. On Ukraine, Münkler stated:

"One can state that the Russians have something like fears of encirclement. These have always played a significant role in the emergence of wars. One remedy is buffer zones. They serve a certain stability and create flexibility in negotiations between great powers."

A foreign policy neutral Ukraine, provided with security guarantees, would be possible. Under the title "Neutrality as a guarantor of freedom and independence - Ukraine can learn from Finland's experience," NZZ chief economist Peter A. Fischer wrote on January 22, 2022:

"Thanks to the strict neutrality and reconciliation policy of the Finnish presidents ... the Finns managed to continue to live independently and freely according to Western ideas and to integrate themselves economically more and more with the rest of the West ... Instead of being directed by Moscow or even getting involved in armed conflicts, Finland was able to concentrate on catching up economically. While the Finns were among the poorest in Europe at the end of World War II, along with the Russians, Poles, Portuguese and Spaniards, they subsequently developed as dynamically as Germany thanks to their policy of neutrality."

Ulrich Schmid, professor of Russian culture and society at the University of St. Gallen, sees it differently: Putin's role model, he says, is Otto von Bismarck. He wants to redefine the world order and have a say everywhere (interview in the Tages-Anzeiger of January 16, 2022).

And Christof Münger, head of the foreign affairs department at the "Tages-Anzeiger," adopts NATO's wording in an editorial of January 15, 2022: "NATO must not and will not allow itself to be dictated to as to whom it will accept and whom it will not ... Putin does not fear NATO, but democracy."

No more Cuban missile crisis?

However, if it is no longer a problem when great powers extend their military alliances and military bases to the borders of other great powers, today Cuba is also likely to invite Russia to install a military base with missiles in the Caribbean state and, at the same time, gain another large source of revenue. If the U.S. has indeed thrown the Monroe Doctrine on the dustbin of history, it will no longer object to it. In 1962 it was different: when Fidel Castro invited the Soviet Union to install medium-range missiles in Cuba, the U.S. threatened war and the dangerous Cuban Missile Crisis ensued.

None. The author holds a master's degree in international relations from IUHEI in Geneva.
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Infosperber on 8.3.2014: Military interventions by Russia and the USA
Infosperber on 8/13/2017: Regime change in Venezuela? Old US tradition
Infosperber on 7/25/2018: meddling in other countries? USA vs. Russia/USSR
Infosperber on 4.9.2021: Ukraine - "an unworthy and dangerous partner of the USA"
Infosperber on 6.12.2021: Ukraine: It takes two to tango

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Democracy danger
by Bernhard Trautvetter
[This article published in Jan 2022 is translated from the German on the Internet, Ossietzky - Demokratiegefährder]




Ossietzky - Demokratiegefährder

Die aktu­el­le Sor­ge vie­ler Men­schen vor einer Über­wa­chung und vor der Repres­si­on demo­kra­ti­schen Enga­...




The current concern of many people about surveillance and repression of democratic engagement has a long history in Germany. The best-known form of persecution, especially of left-wing activities in the Federal Republic of Germany, was the so-called Radikalenerlass (Radical Decree) of January 28, 1972, which marks its 50th anniversary this month. It was a reaction of the federal and state governments of its time to the left-wing development resulting from the student and youth movement after 1968. The discrimination and stigmatization of mainly left-wing criticism of power relations, especially of communists, who were labeled "enemies of the constitution" and banned from their professions, intimidated an entire generation of critical citizens.

In a press release that has not yet been published, those affected criticize the coalition agreement of the new federal government, which takes up the undemocratic practice of that time and explicitly wants to continue it: "We, those affected by the occupational ban policy in the wake of the Radical Decree of 1972, have noted with horror that the coalition agreement of the new traffic light coalition contains passages that give rise to fears of a revival of precisely this occupational ban policy. For example, right at the beginning of the coalition paper it literally says: 'In order to ensure the integrity of the civil service, we will ensure that enemies of the constitution can be removed from the service more quickly than before'. And later, under the heading 'Internal Security', it is specified: 'We will expand the security screening of applicants, which has proven its worth in other areas, and thus strengthen the resilience of the security authorities against anti-democratic influences'. Honestly, not even the attempt is made to justify this measure with the actually threatening right-wing infiltration attempts of the police and the Bundeswehr. Instead, 'right-wing extremism, Islamism, conspiracy ideologies and left-wing extremism' are equated in the clumsiest extremism-theoretical manner. (...) As at that time, the legally completely undefined term 'enemy of the constitution' is used. Of all things, the domestic intelligence service, which is deeply involved in the right-wing scene, is to be allowed to suggest who should be considered an 'enemy of the constitution' and treated accordingly. This amounts to a suicide of democracy and the rule of law."

The January 28, 1972, resolution of the heads of government of the German states and Chancellor Willy Brandt, also called the Radical Decree, was entitled "Principles on the Question of Anti-Constitutional Forces in the Public Service," and it regulated:

In the federal and state governments, "only those may be appointed to civil service who can guarantee that they will at all times stand up for the free democratic basic order as defined in the Basic Law; civil servants are obliged to actively support the preservation of this basic order both inside and outside the service. (...)
Each individual case must be examined and decided on its own merits. The following principles are to be used as a basis:
An applicant who develops anti-constitutional activities will not be hired into the civil service.
If an applicant belongs to an organization that pursues anti-constitutional goals, this membership gives rise to doubts as to whether he or she will stand up for the free and democratic basic order at all times. As a rule, these doubts justify a rejection of the application for employment."

In 1978, the editor-in-chief of DIE ZEIT called the occupational bans a "perversion of the Basic Law." This assessment was accurate, given the far-reaching impact of the Radical Decree on direct victims and the multitude of intimidated people. To illustrate this, here are statistical data on this from the Berlin Senate in an answer (published in October 2020) to a question from the Left Party:

"In the period from 1972 to 1991, around 3.5 million applicants or candidates for the civil service throughout Germany were subjected to a security check by the offices for the protection of the constitution by regular inquiry (...). In approximately 11,000 cases, proceedings were initiated, and approximately 1,250 applicants were not hired. During the same period, approximately 260 employees who were already civil servants or employees were dismissed from the civil service. Most affected by these measures were teachers (about 80 percent) and university lecturers (about 10 percent), but also judicial employees (about 5 percent), postal and railroad employees, administrative employees, officers, secretaries, social pedagogues, librarians, doctors, nurses, bath attendants, laboratory assistants."

According to the above list, almost exclusively members and sympathizers of the DKP and its subsidiary organizations, as well as so-called K-groups (e.g., KBW, KPD), but occasionally also members of the SPD and members of the Sozialistischer Hochschulbund were removed from public service or preparatory service because of "anti-constitutional activities."

The trials and scandals associated with the occupational bans continue to endanger democracy to this day. A particularly scandalous example of this is the Berufsverbotsprozess against the anti-fascist and peace activist Silvia Gingold, in the course of which the court included a Verfassungsschutz finding (VS of Hesse - AZ of 7.10.16 L13-257-S-530. 005-30/16), according to which the VVN, to which Silvia Gingold belongs as the daughter of resistance fighters, refers to the communist understanding of fascism, as revealed by the fact that it understands the oath of the prisoners of Buchenwald concentration camp at the end of their torment as a mission until today.

The central passage of the oath of Buchenwald is: "We will cease the struggle only when even the last guilty person stands before the judges of the nations! The destruction of Nazism with its roots is our slogan. The building of a new world of peace and freedom is our goal."

In 2017, the then chairwoman of the Education and Science Union said about the reappraisal of the Berufsverbote and the resistance against the dismantling of democracy, which also took place with this: "The issue is not settled even today. Several cases in the recent past prove that we need this debate." In view of the current political and social discussion to refer again to an extremism clause, the importance of "dealing with a part of suppressed history and present for political education, civil society commitment and democracy development becomes clear." The GEW chairwoman emphasized that there were occupational bans on educators worldwide: "Our solidarity is not only with our colleagues in Germany, who to this day suffer from the effects of the occupational ban policy because of their democratic commitment and/or are subjected to unconstitutional snooping on their views. Also in view of international developments, we criticize occupational bans and state repression against oppositional democratic forces. We stand in solidarity with the thousands of teachers and university employees from Turkey who are experiencing massive attacks against their civil liberties and are affected by arrests, dismissals, occupational bans and other repression."

Willy Brandt retrospectively called the occupational bans a mistake. But to this day, authorities persecute democrats under the guise of defending democracy - and in reality endanger what they claim to protect. Even in the 1920s, the commitment against this is still in the tradition of Carl von Ossietzky, who warned against the authoritarian and militaristic state and the growing power of the Nazis in the Weimar Republic. Every development that threatens democracy must be stopped and reversed, otherwise there is a threat of the authoritarian state, which can lead to fascism and, as history teaches us, to warlike violence.

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