by
John Pilger

Recently
by John Pilger: Welcome
to the Violent World of Mr. Hopey Changey

What is the
world’s most powerful and violent “ism”? The question
will summon the usual demons such as Islamism, now that communism
has left the stage. The answer, wrote Harold Pinter, is only “superficially
recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged”, because
only one ideology claims to be non-ideological, neither left nor
right, the supreme way. This is liberalism.

In his 1859
essay On Liberty, to which modern liberals pay homage, John Stuart
Mill described the power of empire. “Despotism is a legitimate
mode of government in dealing with barbarians,” he wrote, “provided
the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually
effecting that end.” The “barbarians” were large
sections of humanity of whom “implicit obedience” was
required. The French liberal Alexis de Tocqueville also believed
in the bloody conquest of others as “a triumph of Christianity
and civilisation” that was “clearly preordained in the
sight of Providence”.

“It’s
a nice and convenient myth that liberals are the peacemakers and
conservatives the warmongers,” wrote the historian Hywel Williams
in 2001, “but the imperialism of the liberal way may be more
dangerous because of its openended nature – its conviction that
it represents a superior form of life [while denying its] selfrighteous
fanaticism.” He had in mind a speech by Tony Blair in the aftermath
of the 11 September 2001 attacks, in which Blair promised to “reorder
this world around us” according to his “moral values”.
At least a million dead later – in Iraq alone – this tribune of
liberalism is today employed by the tyranny in Kazakhstan for a
fee of $13m.

Blair’s crimes
are not unusual. Since 1945, more than a third of the membership
of the United Nations – 69 countries – have suffered some or all
of the following. They have been invaded, their governments overthrown,
their popular movements suppressed, their elections subverted and
their people bombed. The historian Mark Curtis estimates the death
toll in the millions. This has been principally the project of the
liberal flame carrier, the United States, whose celebrated “progressive”
president John F Kennedy, according to new research, authorised
the bombing of Moscow during the Cuban crisis in 1962. “If
we have to use force,” said Madeleine Albright, US secretary
of state in the liberal administration of Bill Clinton, “it
is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand
tall. We see further into the future.” How succinctly she defines
modern, violent liberalism.

Syria is an
enduring project. This is a leaked joint US-UK intelligence file:

“In order to
facilitate the action of liberative [sic] forces… a special effort
should be made to eliminate certain key individuals [and] to proceed
with internal disturbances in Syria. CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6)
will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main [sic] incidents
within Syria, working through contacts with individuals… a necessary
degree of fear… frontier and [staged] border clashes [will] provide
a pretext for intervention… the CIA and SIS should use… capabilities
in both psychological and action fields to augment tension.”

That was written
in 1957, though it might have come from a recent report by the Royal
United Services Institute, A Collision Course for Intervention,
whose author says, with witty understatement: “It is highly
likely that some western special forces and intelligence sources
have been in Syria for a considerable time.” And so a world
war beckons in Syria and Iran.

Israel, the
violent creation of the west, already occupies part of Syria. This
is not news: Israelis take picnics to the Golan Heights and watch
a civil war directed by western intelligence from Turkey and bankrolled
and armed by the medievalists in Saudi Arabia. Having stolen most
of Palestine, attacked Lebanon, starved the people of Gaza and built
an illegal nuclear arsenal, Israel is exempt from the current disinformation
campaign aimed at installing western clients in Damascus and Tehran.

On 21 July,
the Guardian commentator Jonathan Freedland warned that “the
west will not stay aloof for long… Both the US and Israel are
also anxiously eyeing Syria’s supply of chemical and nuclear weapons,
now said to be unlocked and on the move, fearing Assad may choose
to go down in a lethal blaze of glory.” Said by whom? The usual
“experts” and spooks.

Like them,
Freedland desires “a revolution without the full-blown intervention
required in Libya”. According to its own records, Nato launched
9,700 “strike sorties” against Libya, of which more than
a third were aimed at civilian targets. They included missiles with
uranium warheads. Look at the photographs of the rubble of Misurata
and Sirte, and the mass graves identified by the Red Cross. Read
the Unicef report on the children killed, “most [of them] under
the age of ten”. Like the destruction of the Iraqi city of
Fallujah, these crimes were not news, because news as disinformation
is a fully integrated weapon of attack.

On 14 July,
the Libyan Observatory for Human Rights, which opposed the Gaddafi
regime, reported, “The human rights situation in Libya now
is far worse than under Gaddafi.” Ethnic cleansing is rife.
According to Amnesty, the entire population of the town of Tawargha
“are still barred from returning [while] their homes have been
looted and burned down”.

In Anglo-American
scholarship, influential theorists known as “liberal realists”
have long taught that liberal imperialists – a term they never use
– are the world’s peacebrokers and crisis managers, rather than
the cause of a crisis. They have taken the humanity out of the study
of nations and congealed it with a jargon that serves warmongering
power. Laying out whole nations for autopsy, they have identified
“failed states” (nations difficult to exploit) and “rogue
states” (nations resistant to western dominance). Whether or
not the regime is a democracy or dictatorship is irrelevant. The
same is true of those contracted to do the dirty work. In the Middle
East, from Nasser’s time to Syria today, western liberalism’s collaborators
have been Islamists, lately al-Qaeda, while long-discredited notions
of democracy and human rights serve as rhetorical cover for conquest,
“as required”. Plus ça change.

September
7, 2012

John
Pilger was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He has been
a war correspondent, filmmaker and playwright. Based in London,
he has written from many countries and has twice won British journalism’s
highest award, that of “Journalist of the Year,” for his
work in Vietnam and Cambodia. His latest book is Freedom
Next Time: Resisting the Empire.

Copyright
© John Pilger 2012

John
Pilger Archives