U.S. Past Actions & Hubris – Exacting a Steep Price Now (#31)

After the fall of the former U.S.S.R., the United States became the sole undisputed super power, ‘The Heavy Weight Champion of the World’, for a decade or more. And, except for a few remaining, ideologically opposed hardcore socialist and communist regimes, most of the World was pleased and relieved at the development, as most trusted America a lot more than the other alternatives. 

Unfortunately the United States, through sheer hubris, has wilfully squandered that global trust in the intervening years.

The professed need for safeguarding and furthering ‘American Interests’ became the catchall for ignoring international law, pre-emptively bombing and invading countries, at times on trumped up charges (Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMDs), or in the name of its own security concerns (at times legitimate), indulging in illegal covert operations, torture and illegal detainment, against its own and accepted international laws, eroded the confidence the World had in the sole super power being trustworthy.

The continuing imprisonment of prisoners at Guantanamo, a lot of them held indefinitely without being charged, for years, has crushed any claim to the championing of justice for all, and the democratic principles of individual freedom and rights that the U.S. preaches around the World. Most of us had not only bought into those principles wholeheartedly, but had accepted the United States as the undisputed leader of the free World. 

But, its increasing disregard for its own much vaunted value standards (political, democratic and human) is now exacting a heavy price, as its internal and external actions strip away its moral standing in the World, allowing lesser and opposing powers to openly challenge its geopolitical power, and more importantly throw back in its face the consistent and flagrant flaunting of international law, and human rights violations, as it appeals to these nations to do its bidding, on the basis of those same values. The Edward Snowden case is bringing to the fore America’s much diminished status as a moral nation, above reproach on issues of fundamental human rights, a super power ‘In Line With The Will of Heaven’.  

America, the long standing holder of legitimate moral high ground, is being pushed back and taunted by some of the most oppressive regimes today, namely Russia and China, as they use the evidence of its past and current indiscretions against it in the Snowden case. Its willingness to take and stay on the lower moral ground, when it suits its purposes, is exacting a heavy price and a serious loss of face internationally. Both China and Russia outright refused all requests to cooperate in the Snowden case, as they found themselves in a rare advantageous moral position, and in fact forced the United States to rapidly back off and take a much more conciliatory stance, chastising it for the presumption to lecture, demand and threaten.

This incident, and its current and past transgressions, has set a number of very unfortunate precedents for the United States, which the challengers to its preeminent position will exploit. And for those who believed in America’s fundamental goodness being an inherent part of its greatness, the beacon continues to dim, as its feet of clay become more apparent.