Empire of Jingoistic Lies

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 10 Apr 2023

Bishnu Pathak – TRANSCEND Media Service

8 Apr 2023 – The Empire of Lies is to discuss how the United States and its military alliance created, encircle, attack, and destroy its potential rivals or Governments and leaders abusing their (including NATO) powers, proxy politics, and victor-centric justice. Before any kind of action against the rivals, the US spreads the jingoistic propaganda itself and even through NATO. NATO is a constituent of a collective, defensive, and rich countries’ alliance that mostly functions under control or leadership of the USA.

The main objective of NATO is to guarantee the security and freedom of its member countries by political-military triumphalist means. NATO remains the major security mechanism of the intercontinental community and expression of its shared democratic values nato.usmission.gov/about-nato/

Among the 31 members of NATO, 28 countries are from Europe, one country in Eurasia, and only two in North America (Dixit, May 18, 2022). Finland has been NATO’s newest member of April 4, 2023, upon depositing its instrument of agreement to the North Atlantic Treaty with the United States of America at NATO Headquarters in Brussels (www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_213448.htm). Sweden including six others are the aspiring members of NATO. America successfully dominates the entire Europe in which the US had long been adopting politico-strategic objectives to isolate Russia.

NATO was formed in 1949 with 12 founding members as US, UK, France, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Iceland, Denmark, and Canada (Bevans, 1968). It has added new members nine times as of April 2023, when Greece and Turkey became NATO’s first two new members in February 1952 since its creation (www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/declassified_181434.htm). Similarly, West Germany joined NATO in May 1955 and Spain in 1982 (Barany, 2003).

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 called the end of the Cold War I and after the unification of Germany, some former Warsaw Pact and post-Soviet states such as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic (Warsaw Pact countries) initiated discussions about their joining to NATO and formally joined in 1999 (Paquette, 2000 & www.nato.int/docu/presskit/010219/004gb.pdf) amid much debate within NATO members where Russia was a disagree on the decision.

The post-Cold War I membership action plan of NATO seven Central and Eastern Soviet Bloc Baltic countries such as Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (Inotal, Autumn 2009) joined NATO before Istanbul Summit 2004 (Peter, September 3, 2014) and Romania in March 2004 (NATO, March 2, 2022). Two Albania and Croatia joined NATO in April 2009, Montenegro in June 2017, and North Macedonia in March 2020 (NATO, May 14, 2022).

On May 18, 2022, Finland and Sweden submitted an official application to join NATO (Henley, 2022 & May 18, 2022). Additional nine countries are the aspiring members of NATO. They are: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Malta, Moldova, Ukraine, and Serbia (NATO, May 14, 2022, George & Teigen, January 9, 2009). NATO invited Bosnia-Herzegovina to join it in April 2010 (NATO, May 14, 2022). There is also a debate about Ireland, Moldova, and Serbia in European Countries joining NATO (Lynch, February 11, 2013, Sanchez, January 9, 2013, & UPI November 26, 2013). The US and NATO jointly launched offensive activities against their rival groups in post-Cold War I.

In June 2017, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted legislation reinstating membership in NATO. In 2019, Ukraine entered into force amending its Constitution. In September 2020, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved a new National Security Strategy for Ukraine’s distinctive partnership with NATO (NATO, March 11, 2022). In response, the Russia- Ukraine conflict started in February 2022 regarding Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. NATO has increased its presence in the Black Sea and stepped up maritime cooperation with Ukraine and Georgia (NATO, March 11, 2022). Russia strongly demands to disband NATO in the post-Cold War era. NATO is developed as a US geopolitical and complex superiority body.

On February 24, 2022, the Russian military formally invaded Ukraine accusing Ukraine of being the government of neo-Nazis that being prosecuted the ethnic Russian minority living in Ukraine, but an informal war had begun in 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimea. Russia felt a threat, hostile actions, and isolated and marginalized nation because of the NATO’s presence in the Baltic region, missile defense threats, enlargement, and encirclement of it since the early 2000s. Earlier, NATO had promised Russia that its force would not expand in the post-Cold War I period and Russia strongly demanded Georgia and Ukraine would not join NATO (NATO, January 27, 2022).

So far, more than 42,000 Ukrainians are extrajudicially killed in the Ukraine-Russia war. A total of 59,000 have been injured along with 15,000 Ukrainians missing. Fourteen million Ukrainian are displaced and 140,000 buildings are destroyed. Roughly, 411 billion US dollars’ worth of public-private buildings is damaged (Reuters, April 5, 2023).

Thousands of Ukrainian have since died that invasion created Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II (Keane & Blake, March 14, 2022). Vladimir Putin initiated the biggest war in Europe since World War II justifying that western-leaning cum-modern Ukraine was a continuous threat to Russia where Russia could not feel “safe, develop, and exist” (Kirby, May 9, 2022).

The US is formally assisting in the Ukrain-Russia war. It has been supporting Ukraine by collecting information, spying, and providing necessary information through state-of-the-art digital, satellite technology, and war instruments. Also, new war skills and tactics are being used in this war. That is why Russia felt difficult to surrender to Ukraine.

So the most pressing US strategic-tactical aim of NATO is to directly confront Russia for soaring oil and gas prices and indirectly harm Germany. In addition to generating profits and stock-market achievements for US oil companies, higher energy demands, and prices take the steam out of the German economy. In a century, the US will have overwhelmed Germany for the third time, each time increasing its control over the German economy to make more dependent it on the US (Michael, February 28, 2022). To keep Germany under the US’s control, the largest in terms of military officials is stationed in Ramstein Air Base comprising 9,200 personnel (Department of Defense, 2016).

Before the attack, the US was pushing Ukraine not to compromise and intimidate the Russian forces. The US President agitated Ukrainians through jingoistic mediaism stating that the US has already sent large numbers of troops and arms and ammunition to help Ukraine. He further claimed more numbers of troops and weapons are coming. When Russia invaded war with Ukraine and the Ukrainians suffered and were victimized a lot, the US did not fulfill its prior promises, similar to proxy warfare statements.

In this war, the US had three objectives: to sell large numbers of weapons and ammunition from its war industries, to weaken Russia directly involving the US and NATO, and to increase the prices of oil, gas, and war instruments and sell them in Europe. The US succeeded to achieve all the targeted objectives in this Ukraine-Russia war. The UK had been deeply involved in training to forces of Ukraine before the war started (Chatham House, May 20, 2022). There has been a lot of disinformation and cyber warfare that occurred during the Ukriane-Russia war.

US President Biden has constantly been demanding for over a year to Germany that it needs to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for low-priced gas supplying in its industry and housing but turns to buying much higher-priced US supplying petroleum products. The US tried hard to stop the construction of the pipeline, but Russia completed itself last September (Michael, February 28, 2022). Nord Stream 2 is a 1,200km long pipeline under the Baltic Sea in which gas supplies from Russia to Germany which were completed in September 2021 by Russia itself.

On September 26, 2022, news of damage to three blasts at the Nord Streams 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines. Russian officials naturally placed the blame on the West and convened a UN Security Council session to discuss the matter (Vakulenko, September 30, 2022). Nord Streams 1 and 2 were dangerous enough as per the views of NATO and Washington and acted accordingly (Hersh, February 8, 2023).

Before its approval of it, the gas pipeline has been put on hold owing to the Ukraine-Russia war (Ukraine-Russia War, February 2022). Nord Stream 2 was halted under the pressure of the US stating a National Security threat to entire Europe from Russia. The US wants retaliation against Germany as the incumbent President Frank-Walter Steinmeier canceled 1 billion Euro in new port facilities for US tanker ships to unload natural gas for Germany and Europe to use after the retirement of Angela Markel.

Even during the Cold War I period, the US adopted several Truman, Kennedy, Carter, Regan, and Bush doctrines. Among them, Regan and Bush had been the most influential US Presidents to launch anti-Communist resistance groups (Pach, March 2006) throughout world history which later declared Regan-Bush doctrines.

For this specific purpose, the US adopted to embrace change regimes, proxy conflicts or wars, artificial intelligence, espionage, disinformation, and clandestine or suspicious activities within the land and beyond to collapse the communist regimes and satellite communism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US appeared as the world’s sole superpower that continuously intervened through its army in Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and others as it wishes.

Against the seven months long Iraqi military occupation in Kuwait, the US-led coalition, principal NATO members (Gause, Undated) intervened in Kuwait called Gulf War in February 1991 and succeeded to drive out the Iraqi forces (Freedman & Karsh, 1991). As per Shia and Kurdish demands, the coalition intervened and created no-fly zones that subsequently granted autonomy to the Kurds (Romano, 2010).

Twelve years later, the US-led forces invaded Iraq in March 2003 (Congressional Research Service, June 5, 2020) again which lasted for 22 days. The invaded forces captured the capital city of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, after the six-day-long Battle at Baghdad (Hornick, November 18, 2010).

The coalition partners such as US President Bush and UK PM Tony Blair purposively aimed to disarm Iraq through mass destruction and to end terrorism supported by Saddam Hussein in the name to make free Iraqi people (The White House, March 22, 2003, & 2001).

However, the UN Inspection Team had neither found evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction nor supported testimonies of terrorism by Saddam Hussein (SC/7777, June 5, 2003). Eminent Chip Pitts comments, “The American empire sits, naked, exposed, and somewhat battered, in Iraq’s hot desert sun. Whereas American power had largely been seen before as benevolent, cooperative, and based on shared values and institutions, George W. Bush’s misadventure in Iraq has changed that for at least a generation and perhaps forever” (Pitts, August 11, 2006).

President Bush’s administration had made a total of 935 false speeches in two years having Iraq’s alleged threat to the US (News, January 23, 2008). The CIA was involved in the 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein, but it failed (Association of Former Intelligence Officers, May 19, 2003).

While lethal weapons and weapons of mass destruction did not find, the United States and NATO accepted the fact that the issue was an unintentional mistake. They dismissed the facts of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, inhuman tortures of children and Iraqi people, destruction of public and private properties, and infrastructures there. The truth is that people often advocate for victim justice and the International Criminal Court. But, history has witnessed that the US is on the side of the victors’ justice further victimizing and suffering the victims.

Against the September 11, 2001 attacks (Smith & Zeigler, 2017), the Bush Administration combined US-led (including NATO) launched the global War on Terror with the purpose to depose the Taliban Government in Afghanistan with a suspicious of protecting al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (CBS News, September 12, 2021). The War on Terror aimed to dismantle international counterterrorism and other extreme institutions or groups.

The War on Terror represented a new phase of international-political relations in the world and it has given sharp consequences for human security, human rights, justice, governance, development cooperation, and international law. The war on terror was sharply criticized even by US senior security personnel such as four-star retired General Richard B. Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many others (Ambinder, May 20, 2010).

On May 23, 2012, US President Barrack Obama avoided the use of the term announcing the Global War on Terror was over (The Washington Times, August 6, 2009). Even though, Obama ordered a surge in US forces to Afghanistan deploying an additional 30,000 troops to fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban insurgency in December 2009 (Mount, September 21, 2012). The US and NATO war on terror continued until 2021. The war in Afghanistan became the longest war in US history lasting 19 years and 10 months whereas the Vietnam War lasted for 19 years and five months with a cost of US $ 2 trillion (Ojeda, August 15, 2021).

The research of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University conducted in 2021 criticized the war on terror questioning its morality, efficiency, and cost. The several post-9/11 wars participated in the war on terror (war against terror) have caused 38 million people displaced in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines, but only 26.7 million people have returned home (Vine, et al, August 19, 2021). The research estimated those wars caused the killings of 897,000 to 929,000 people including US military members, allied fighters, opposition fighters, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian aid workers (Kimball, September 1, 2021).

Those wars also included over 364,000 civilians which cost the US $8 trillion (Crawford, September 1, 2021, and Crawford & Lutz, September 1, 2021). Over 2,400 US military, 18 CIA operatives, and over 1,800 civilian contractors were killed in the Afghan War (DeLuca & Straight, September 21, 2021).

On August 15, 2021, Former Senior US Army Officer and Senator Richard Ojeda criticized through a tweet, “2 trillion dollars to train and equip the Afghan military over the past 20 years…. It was about military contractors and corporations raking in profits. I am numb. I am sure everyone who spent years there feels the same!” (Ojeda, August 15, 2021).

What about the costs for the future care of veterans? If the US had spent such 2 trillion dollars in the name of humanitarianism for the Afghan people, those people neither go against the US nor the Taliban have reoccupied Afghanistan before the US and NATO military alliance left Kabul in 2021. As long as the US citizens are there, they will continuously ask a question with the regimes, ‘Why had the Government spent a large amount of money for such an unsuccessful war in Afghanistan in the name of freedom?

Libya is mostly a desert and oil-rich country that had been ruled for the 42-year (1969-2011) by the mercurial Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. He was extrajudicially killed in October 2011 following an armed rebellion assisted, promoted, and protected by the Western military intervention (Libya Crisis, March 15, 2021). Wounded Gaddafi was killed by a bullet after a failed attempt to escape from the insurgents and the NATO forces.

A group carrying Gaddafi and his loyalists was destroyed by a French fighter jet (NEWS Africa, May 23, 2022). He had been charged with violence, instability, and no authority in full control in Libya (BBC News, August 15, 2018). President Reagan intended to kill Gaddafi branding him the “mad dog of the Middle East” (Asser, October 21, 2011).

Cross-party Foreign Affairs Committee, ‘House of Commons’ of the Parliament of the United Kingdom conducted an in-depth investigation and released its report on September 6, 2016 (HC119, September 6, 2016). The report strongly condemned the British’ government’s role in the Libya intervention detailing how NATO’s 2011 war in Libya was based on lies.

The report further stated that Gaddafi was not going to massacre civilians, but Western bombing made Islamist extremism worse (Norton, September 16, 2016). The report highlighted how France’s motives had been to overthrow Gaddafi’s rule to increase its share of Libya’s oil production, reinforce French influence in Africa, and recover President Sarkozy’s position at home. It further stated how Islamic extremists had an excessive influence on the uprising but that was largely ignored by the West (Dewan, September 14, 2016).

Opposing the US military intervention in Libya, US Libertarian Party’s statement said, “President Obama’s decision to order military attacks on Libya is only surprising to those who think he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. He has now ordered bombing strikes in six different countries, adding Libya to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen”. Ralph Nader, a former Green Party presidential candidate stated President Obama was a war criminal and called for his impeachment. Similarly, Congressman Dennis Kucinich talked of impeachment. Michael Moore vented his anger on the subject of US hypocrisy (Avlon, March 23, 2011).

At the end of the Cold War I and post-Cold War I periods, the US had already initiated the proliferation of war industries through foreign military intervention. The war industry is the principal income of the US and then oil-and-gas companies, drug manufacturers, share markets, and cigarette productions respectively. This means producing much more wars in the world pretending to the democratic establishment, human rights compliance, war on terror, identity respect (autonomy), protection of the minority, assistance, and others.

US military warfare and intervention have almost failed worldwide ranging from Vietnam to Cuba and Venezuela to Afghanistan while the dissidents adopted a guerilla warfare defense policy of ‘assembling the parts into a whole for action and ‘dispersing the whole into parts’ after the completion of the action. Since then, the US has succeeded in establishing its puppet governments in many countries waging war against dissident forces, either to prove its superiority and control of resources or for the flourishing of the arms industry.

In 1945, the US discovered that the Japanese had hidden large quantities of gold bullion and other pearls in Manila, the Philippines. President Truman ordered to secret loot of all of them and decided to mobilize those riches as an action fund to fight against global communism by bribing political and military leaders and manipulating elections in foreign countries for more than fifty years (Seagrave & Seagrave, 2003).

When US military General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Japan in September 1945 as a Supreme Commander of the Tokyo Tribunal and met with Shogun Hirohito, Hirohito asked him how much booty he had collected from the conquered countries including Manila. Hirohito put forward the concept of a project named Golden Lily (Gold Warriors) or America’s secret recovery of Yamashita treasure (Seagrave & Seagrave, 2003). The Golden Lily had been used by Emperor Hirohito to bribe MacArthur, and he later lived a life of luxury after his retirement against meager US Army salary. Moreover, the Golden Lily worked in close cooperation with the new premier, Yamato named Prince Higashi-Kuni a Class A category perpetrator. The Tokyo Tribunal ironically ensured the victor’s justice, further limiting the victim’s justice. Thus, the Tribunal appeared as a sword in a judge’s toupee. History has witnessed that the USA has never been a true friend of the poor and weak above-mentioned countries including Nepal.

Meanwhile, NATO has also distributed one and a half times more membership in three decades of post-Cold War I. Such proliferation of such membership is itself an example of the imposition of fear psychology. The ‘divide and rule’ and ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ are the core policies of the empire of lies (US and NATO expanders) around the world.

The US, in practice, never favored conflict transformation by peaceful means and informal-formal indirect (mediation and facilitation) and informal-formal direct (official) dialogue as it achieves one of the largest incomes through selling the weapons, trading war-related instruments, watching war industry through US military invented, developed, and controlled internet system and artificial intelligence, and earning money through copyright jurisdiction in all dimensions.

On the fifth day of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) was ratified by Nepal which Nepal voted in favor of the UN resolution against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But, Nepal lies between two emerging superpowers, i.e., China and India, but both are still neutral in the case of the Ukraine-Russia war.

US Air Force aircraft landed at Kathmandu International Airport for the third time in a year within 20 days of MCC approval. Nepalis have doubted whether the war tools to encircle China for the autonomous Tibet were brought on board. In its 26 days of MCC ratification, Nepal voted at the UNGA against the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine again. Those all happened during PM Sher Bahadur Deuba’s tenure.

A three-day official visit of a four US Congressional Delegation, headed by Senator Kristen Gillibrand arrived in Nepal less than two months after MCC endorsement. Less than three months after the MCC approval, the US Under Secretary Uzra Zeya came to Nepal for three days (May 20-22, 2022) for an official visit to understand Tibetan refugees residing in Nepal for along. This means that the Deuba government has come closer to US satellite ruling ignoring Nepal is sandwiched between two giant emerging superpowers, i.e., China and India.

On the other hand, Nepal’s border with China is 1,414 km long. There are potentially advanced Cold War II because of the US-India and China informal and formal conflicts on the course to control the weak, poor, small, landlocked, and underdeveloped country of Nepal. The common Nepali has a view that the US granted MCC for Nepal may not be sole economic cooperation and assistance alone as the US has a history of an empire of jingoistic lies. The common character of an empire of lies headed by the US is, “does not do what it says; does not say what it does”. Nepal has a fear psychology with US-provided development cooperation assuming that such cooperation appears as a sword in a judge’s toupee to secede Tibet from China and balance (watch) India manipulating Nepal’s territory, power, and politics.

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Prof. Bishnu Pathak was a former Senior Commissioner at the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP), Nepal who has been a Noble Peace prize nominee 2013-2019 for his noble finding of Peace-Conflict Lifecycle similar to the ecosystem. A Board Member of the TRANSCEND Peace University holds a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary Conflict Transformation and Human Rights in two decades. Arduous Dr. Pathak who is an author of over 100 international paper-book publications has been used as references in more than 100 countries across the globe. Immense versatile personality Dr. Pathak’s publications belong to Human Rights, Human Security, Peace, Conflict Transformation, and Transitional Justices among others. He can be reached at ciedpnp@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 10 Apr 2023.

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3 Responses to “Empire of Jingoistic Lies”

1. Arun Roye says:

   17 Apr 2023 at 16:13

   Whereas, I am in agreement with much of the contents in the article, I am afraid I have to differ with the last few lines in conclusion. My say:-
   A. EU is a declining grouping. They do not have the resources to get into a conflict on their own. Hence the aspect of collective security. France is the exception. It is not part of the collective military alliance, insofar as pure security issues. It chose to have its own military deterrence.
   2. Germany is the largest economy in EU, but has been forced to toe the US line, because it is in dire straits insofar as energy is concerned. The current Govt is barely hanging on. Yes it is decoupling from China, with a strong nudge from US.
   3. For US, Tibet is a pawn. It shall keep that issue alive until Taiwan issue is alive.
   4. As for India, China is purely a bilateral matter. We shall resolve the issue ourselves, one way or the other. It will take time, but it shall happen. Otherwise both shall have to bite dust.
   5. As for Nepal, India has never coveted any part of Nepal, or for that matter any other neighbours territory or governance. The lipulekh issue is merely a matter of mapping and interpretation. So rest assured. Afterall India walked away after providing for independence for Bangla Desh.
   6. Finally, Indian politicians do not have any idea of the responsibilities of a superpower, and this fact alone shall keep India from becoming a superpower in forseeable future. Godwilling, we should only aspire to being capable enough to develope and emacipate our poverty stricken people, and if we have any surplus THEREAFTER, put it to good use for benefit those of our neighbours who need some assistance.

2. Kedar Neupane says:

   22 Apr 2023 at 14:19

   Good analysis but mirrors old spectrum with missing elements related to contexts and the way forward. May not help guide future policy direction in a changed world geopolitical environment.

3. Kedar NEUPANE says:

   23 Apr 2023 at 03:24

   Thank you for your sharing your analytical piece on modern-day “the empire” builder’s global reach which is excellent. My observation challenged me to say that I am not so sure about all the references quoted are unbiased and reported facts accurately because it misses out references on to Russia’s attempts to normalize relationships with the Western powers before invading Ukraine (in a world of the multi-polarized environment) and Ukraine’s historical relationships with Russia and others, and omission of Turkey’s delayed acknowledgment in EU membership and secondary role in NATO affairs and the reasons behind it.
   In the case of Nepal, there is always an exaggeration of the importance of Nepal’s role in global affairs (as if Nepal is a major strategic player in world affairs and as a connecting bridge between the emerging superpowers without highlighting Nepal’s own internal weaknesses and failures in managing national/internal affairs by simply blaming others and over-emphasizing nationalistic self-praise in the changed world.

   My apology for this early morning coffee-time insane thinking. Of course, the faultline is I am not an academic but a practitioner. You do not have to agree with me on anything. Just sharing a little different outlook only. It would have been better if the piece contained some guides on the way forward based on academic analysis of the past events and adventures of the Western attempts to continuously influence even in this century while the world is anxiously in search of a new global world order for peace and prosperity of people. I really enjoyed reading it thoroughly, however.