London, August 19 (Pal Telegraph) - The British Empire once ruled over more than a quarter of the world's population. At its zenith, in the early twentieth century, it included over 20 percent of world's land area and ruled more than 400 million people.
It was then that the term "The sun never sets in the British Empire" was coined. The British used mercantilism to expand their empire and control their subjects. According to Dictionary.com "mercantilism is the theory and system of political economy prevailing in Europe after the decline of feudalism, based on national policies of accumulating bullion, establishing colonies and a merchant marine, and developing industry and mining to attain a favorable balance of trade". The occupied territories provided much of the human capital and raw materials.
The British did not only exploit the subjects economically but made an example of those who presented any kind of resistance. A good example to reflect the atrocities committed by the Empire is the treatment it meted to the Boer women and children in the South African War. Boers were proud of their heritage and presented fierce resistance. When after 2 years of ferocious war, the Empire seemed to have won, Boers started guerilla warfare that took another two years to end when the British army cut the supplies of ordinary Boers to starve the fighters. After resistance mellowed down and many of the fighters were killed, the British labeled the Boer women and children as "collaborators" and sent them to concentration camps.
The modus operandi adopted by the British Empire was to exploit subdivisions within the foreign territories, capture their land and resources, station troops for long periods of time and transfer wealth. This strategy worked well until the beginning of the Second World War that took its toll on the Empire and diminished its control over the occupied countries.
The story of the "American Empire" is not much different. The US government began to set its eyes on the world during the early part of the 19th century. Since then the country has slowly emerged as a new Imperialistic Empire, although such a scenario may not seem to be true on the surface.
Even before September 11th, the US government had a military presence in 140 countries. The United States now has military personnel deployed in 156 countries. It has between 700 to 800 military bases around the world totaling more than 250,000 personnel with around 845,000 different buildings and equipments covering land surface of 30 million acres.
The United States has long been involved in meddling with the affairs and influencing the domestic policies of the third world nations directly and indirectly. Some of the methods used for exercising influence over the subject nations include initially providing arms and aid, training foreign military leaders, conducting covert actions through the CIA and twisting arms through organizations like the United Nations. The procedure involves providing aid to the less developed nations through IMF and World Bank, funded by the West, that leads to the eventual inability of the poor country to repay the loan. Part of the debt is forgiven the third world countries are asked to make laws favorable to the West. These poor nations are then bound to become subordinate to the loan providing nations.
In addition to interfering in countries like Iran, Panama and a number of others, USA has been responsible for widespread killings and human rights violations in countries like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, Palestine, Afghanistan and most recently in Iraq. Burning hundreds of thousands of human beings alive in an instance, as happened in Japan, cannot be justified. To teach a lesson to a dictator, Saddam (who was initially encouraged by the US to confront Iran), bombing entire Iraqi cities and then starving millions of children, under the guise of UN embargo, can only be termed as barbaric.
Hypocrisy and double standards are quite obvious in the policies that the United States government has pursued from time to time. The policy is to dominate the world in the name of freedom, democracy and human rights. The American government support dictators like Musharraf when they suit its objectives and, on the other hand, reject the democratically elected governments, as happened in the case of Hamas, when they are not favorable to American agenda. "Either you are with us or you are our enemy" is the type of rhetoric that the leader of the "free world", President George Bush, used to threaten countries to comply by his demands. When his government killed innocents through aerial bombings, it was called "collateral damage". Unfortunately the western media too has played into the hands of the Imperialists. It is a powerful tool used to mould the opinions of the American public. The reason for this lies in the ownership and vested interests these media.
Amidst all this one thing should not be forgotten: every rise has a fall. Some nations ruled for a thousand years while others for hundreds of years. However, no matter how strong and invincible they thought they were, each one of them came and then vanished leaving behind traces and some did not even leave a mark. What happened to the Pharos, the Romans and the Persians? The United States government has been the sole world power for just a few years. This time span is nothing in the life of a nation. The country will have to base its policies on justice and respect for human life. If it really wants to be known as a real super power even after it is no more the nation's policy makers should try to create warmth for themselves in the hearts of people all around the world. Millions of people on the globe have pinned their hopes with the new US President Obama. He must not forget while making decisions that there is only one super power that has always been there and will always be there: God, Allah, Yahweh.
by Zeeshan Rahat Kureshi
The Writer is an entrepreneur, consultant, citizen journalist and a blogger. He can be reached at his blog: http://next-world-war.blogspot.com
References
* Encarta.com
* Thinkquest.org
* Asc.upenn.edu
* Dictionary.com
* Globalresearch.ca
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