December
22, 2023
Many
readers of Antiwar.com have wondered why they have seen no new articles from me
in more than 6 weeks. The answer is that
I was battling heart and other health issues that nearly took my life. At one point, my principal cardiologist told
my wife that I was unlikely to make it out of the hospital. Subsequently, I spent 3 weeks in the
Intensive Care Unit trying to prove him wrong.
Fortunately, I survived the crisis and am now on the road to (a slow)
recovery.
All
of this was taking place as the war between Israel and Hamas continued to
rage. Instead of joining the emerging
global call for a ceasefire to prevent further bloodshed, the Biden
administration echoed the Israeli government’s position that Hamas was a
terrorist group rather than a revolutionary movement and that it was entirely
responsible for the latest armed conflict. Worse, U.S. officials embraced the
idea that Israel could do virtually anything in the name of self-defense. Even when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
government launched a massive offensive in Gaza that has killed thousands of
civilians (including more than 3,000 Palestinian children), Washington’s
support of Israel’s conduct has not wavered.
U.S. weapons have continued to flow to that country in large quantities.
The
United States has thereby become a facilitator of additional civilian
casualties. Washington’s veto of a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire
guarantees that the conflict will continue indefinitely, with an ever-growing
body count.
The
Biden administration has played a similar unhelpful role with respect to the
war between Russia and Ukraine. U.S.
leaders were blind to Moscow’s position that Ukraine as a NATO member or NATO
military asset posed an intolerable (indeed, existential) threat to Russia’s
security. Acceptance of the Kremlin’s
insistence on a neutral Ukraine would likely have prevented the ongoing war
that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Instead
of promoting negotiations that might bring the bloodshed to an end, the United
States and other NATO members have encouraged (pressured?) Kiev to continue a
war that has almost no prospect of a Ukrainian victory. Washington and its allies have supplied
Volodymr Zelensky’s corrupt, authoritarian regime with a tsunami of
increasingly lethal weapons, but the conflict is now clearly a meat grinding
stalemate. Once again, the United States
has helped create and sustain a tragedy.
Those
two episodes are merely the latest examples of the destructive role of U.S.
imperialism. One especially negative legacy has been Washington’s attempt to
export democracy to the Muslim world through regime-change wars. Those missions have generated widespread
instability throughout the region, leading to or exacerbating civil conflicts
and general disorders. According to one
credible study, the violence and disruptions have claimed some 3.6 million
lives since 9-11.
One
example of the fruits of U.S. policy has been the situation in Libya after
Washington and key NATO allies helped overthrow Muamar Qaddafi. The level of human tragedy in post-Qaddafi
Libya has been horrifying. The country quickly became an arena of chaos as a
multitude of militias vied for power, displacing more than a million residents.
There were even credible reports of open‐air slave markets for immigrants from Sub‐Saharan Africa.
U.S.
policies also have produced massive refugee crises. At the time of the withdrawal of U.S. troops
from Afghanistan in August 2021, the BBC reported that there were more than 3.5
million internally displaced refugees and an additional 2.2 million people who
had fled the country entirely. The situation in Iraq following the U.S.
invasion and occupation is equally appalling.
Some 9.2 million people were internally displaced or had left the
country by 2021, according to a study by the Watson Institute at Brown
University. The multi-year, U.S.-supported effort to unseat Syrian dictator
Bashar al-Assad has resulted in hideous carnage, as well as the displacement of
innocent people throughout Syria. In addition to the more than 300,000 Syrians
who have perished in the fighting since 2011, some 6.8 million are refugees.
My
own brush with death underscored to me just how precious life is. It is maddening to see that U.S. leaders
clearly do not share that view.
Washington’s behavior confirms an attitude of indifference to the human
suffering, especially the wave of casualties, that U.S. policies have
caused. Americans and all decent people
should view U.S. leaders with horror and disgust.
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