How The "Beacon" Of Democracy Is A Threat To Global Democracy
This article is an attempt at highlighting the United States' blatant hypocrisy when it comes to maintaining democracy while they, themselves, have been meddlers in the democratic processes globally.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey admitted in a 2018 Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham that the U.S. has interfered in foreign elections, stating it was done “for a very good cause” and “in the interests of democracy,” citing examples like Greece and Italy post-World War II to prevent communist takeovers.
This fundamentally raises some questions. How can the United States of America decide what’s for a good cause and what isn’t? What authority does the U.S possess in determining what actions maintain the interests of democracy and what actions don’t?
This supremacist mentality of the American political institutions, who’ve been running the country for decades since WW2, has led to such huge levels of interference in the electoral processes of other countries.
The CIA is infamous for conducting such operations. The Cold War is frankly something that has messed with the development of so many countries that it has probably had a larger long-term effect on countries more than the 2 World Wars did.
To ensure countries had leaders who swore their loyalty to the American interests—they interfered with the interests of other countries for their personal gain. The dirty politics that the U.S has been playing throughout the globe over the last 75 years has also been extremely influential in shaping ideologies and the way societies think.
A huge reason as to free-marketism being as popular as it is, is due to America’s blatant demonization of leftist ideologies—in Communism and Socialism. These foreign interference projects they conducted with the help of their ‘powerful’ intelligence agency helped them attain the two things every corrupt leader wants unconditionally—power and wealth.
It gave America power over the internal politics of over half of the globe while ensuring that they had their companies funneling off resources and profits from these very countries—all while hindering those respective countries’ national development.
Allende’s Chile, Arbenz’s Guatemala, Castro’s Cuba, Morales’ Bolivia are all examples of America’s involvement in sabotaging the development of these nations in the name of acting “for a very good cause” and it’s truly a trend that needs to stop.
The Cold War has left an everlasting impact on American political discourse. There is and always has been a radical demonization of communism/socialism and it stems from this period.
Essentially, one common feature of these two philosophies is how it emphasized on economic self-sufficiency—which proved to be an obstacle to America’s neocolonial tendencies due to its restrictive stance on foreign trade.
When there are arguments on the ‘good’ presidents in US history, it’s an argument that I consider extremely pointless, irrelevant and ignorant because the nature of US politics has always been portraying itself as something it clearly is not.
To simplify—the United States did not and could not tolerate countries especially in and around their own region adopting policies that were centralized to their respective national interests and did not agree to US interference in their internal economic operations.
Which is blatant hypocrisy. A country that tries to preach democratic values, tolerance and human rights has consistently stepped out of their jurisdiction to fund/influence elections and coups in other countries because of ideological differences.
How Ruining Livelihoods Became A Livelihood
Largest economy in the world, home to all types of technologies, modernization etc. and yet a country that operates purely on the basis of greed and profit. This is not a demonization of the entire population of America. In fact, they’ve extremely nice people like any other country does.
But, the trend of American politics i.e. the supremacism and the neocolonialism is setting an extremely dangerous precedent with regards to the maintenance of global order. There needs to be a larger, collective, overarching voice against America’s misuse of its economic expansiveness for power and exploitation.
American interference in foreign elections isn’t one of those random conspiracy theories anymore. It’s (almost) an accepted fact in today’s geopolitical discourse. A political scientist, who is a professor at the University of Hong Kong, estimated in his book that the USA has interfered in almost 81 elections from 1946-2000.
A standard example of it is Salvador Allende’s tenure as Chilean President. A staunch socialist in his reforms and was very popular after the supposed implementation of it. That was until ‘someone’ heavily interfered in Allende’s policies due to the difference in ideological orientation.
America’s strive towards their unipolarity meant imposing their economic and political interests on other countries—to control them indirectly, as a direct consequence of what we call neocolonialism.
And, that’s exactly what happened in Chile. A President who was popular and wanted to make genuine initiatives towards improving the condition of Chile’s working class was overthrown by the military with the support of the CIA because he was a socialist. The question is—where is the good cause, here?
There was a plethora of criticism among the American populace during the 2016 Presidential Election where most suspected Russian involvement in the electoral procedures, but there lies the hypocrisy of American politics.
They’ve been exploiting countries for decades to suit their economic and political interests and it has gone unnoticed for far too long. Self-proclaimed as the “beacon of democracy” yet the exact opposite when it comes to truly espousing those values.
Allende’s policies brought incredible growth, a new hope for the working class, technological upgradation and stability but that wasn’t the only part the Americans didn’t like.
Him, being a socialist, naturally wanted to nationalize the key industries—like the copper mines, which American companies used to exploit prior to Allende’s entry into office. This resistance to Allende’s government wasn’t newfound for the US government led by Nixon at that time.
The CIA were actively trying to prevent Allende from gaining power during the election phase itself. They’re known to have spent millions of dollars funding his opposition candidates, anti-Allende propaganda through print and advertising etc.
Not just that, they implemented economic blockades targeted at Chile, cut off funding to Chile and tried their absolute best to sabotage Allende’s economic policies. The USA has never been a well-wisher of countries and beyond that, it’s been a saboteur.
Chile isn’t/wasn’t an exceptional case. Cuba, Iran, Italy are all examples of the USA significantly interfering in their electoral procedures to assume indirect control over their resource allocation and political functioning.
America’s expansive economy is definitely also a consequence of the incredible amounts of looting that they’ve indulged in throughout the world—especially the Global South countries. Giving them conditional loans, funding antigovernmental operations and eventually, using their favored corporates to be controlling/extracting the main resources in these countries.
No country possesses the right to be interfering in the electoral procedures of another country, to be exploiting countries this way but the United States has absolutely got to take accountability for its neocolonial actions considering the emergence of multipolarity in today’s geopolitical context.
As we very evidently know, neocolonialism is not dead—it persists and it’s expanding, not ending. The Soviets/Russians and the French also possess a ‘superb’ record of interfering in the electoral procedures of other nations, as expected.
The French, particularly, have indulged in these exact same activities that America has, except they’ve been more concentrated in the African continent. The gruesome murder of Patrice Lumumba, the coup that overthrew Thomas Sankara etc. are examples of the absolute cruelty that the French has imposed over the continent for economic benefits and control.
It is nothing but an extension of the persisting neocolonialism in today’s world. If we, as a human race, values equitable development and values the need for the Global South to develop itself and be self-reliant, then it’s time to build stronger international institutions and eradicate neocolonialism. There’s no other way out.
What Next?
We’ve been trying to fight neocolonialism for decades. But, right now—the world is plagued by greed. The same world that unanimously criticizes slavery is turning an absolute blind eye to the blatant exploitation of the Global South happening in today’s world.
It’s time to change, and I’ll tell you what I think is the fundamental problem—countries control the institutions rather than the institutions controlling the countries. Today, institutions like the UN and the ICC don’t lack expertise or basis in their rulings/agendas.
What they lack is control, the ability to implement these decisions in a way that countries will obey them, will abide by them. It’s impractical, would require massive amounts of introspection, realization and a moral rejuvenation from the existing global powers but it’s necessary.
Countries like the US, UK, Russia etc. have the right to veto decisions made on the basis of voting in the UN assembly, which seems particularly unfair and only elevates their cause of working on issues for the sole purpose of personal benefit.
It’s also a major reason as to why there’s almost a consensus on the fact that what’s happening in Gaza is a blatant act of genocide and ethnic cleansing, yet there’s no action the UN can take on it since the USA keeps vetoing decisions that go against Israel because Israel provides the United States autonomy in the Middle East.
Today, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues warrants or deems someone guilty of a crime, the judges are sanctioned and punished by these countries which absolutely nullifies any supposed value the judgement possesses, as can be seen in the case where the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and the judges were sanctioned by Donald Trump.
Either we focus on a global order where countries can’t impose their interests onto each other (which is practically impossible with countries like USA) or we have much more powerful international institutions that has unanimous support as a governing body.
Because, the current global order or set of multipolar countries are filled with pure economic and profit incentives. There’s a significant lack of moral basis in their actions—as evidenced by the response to what’s happening in Palestine and Sudan.
The USA is just the best example of this. It doesn’t mean they’re the only threat to equitable development and a just global order. It’s time to advocate for change on a systematic level. We can’t turn a blind eye to the USA using countries like tools for their economic benefit. Neocolonialism affects people beyond what people perceive of its effects and Africa is the biggest example of it.
“Neo-colonialism is also the worst form of imperialism. For those who run it neo-colonialism means power without responsibility, and for those who suffer under it it means exploitation without recompense” - Kwame Nkrumah