The strategy of the U.S. (on behalf of the transnational elite) has changed from installing puppet dictators[1] to a more sophisticated and less obvious strategy of installing so-called “democracies” instead.
True democracy is not their aim of course, just a colorable appearance of same along with a colorable appearance of the protection of minorities within it. And the “Friends of Syria”, the opposition group they created to oppose the Syrian Government and lead a new Syria [2] isn’t an opposition that’s been up to that appearance task, so now the U.S. is working on creating a new one[3] .
This process is part of what William Robinson calls the U.S.’s new policy of “promoting polyarchy” (see his 1996 book of the same title) and by the “U.S.” he means not the United States “acting on behalf of a ‘US’ elite, but playing a leadership role on behalf of an emergent transnational elite”.
Robinson wittily defines “promoting polyarchy” as the promotion of “low-intensity democracies” and notes that: ‘the U.S. exercised its domination in the post-World War II years chiefly through coercive domination, or the promotion of authoritarian arrangements in the Third World. The emergence of “democracy promotion” as a new instrument in the 1980’s represented the beginnings of a shift – still underway – in the method through which the core regions of the capitalist world system exercise their domination over peripheral and semi-peripheral regions, from coercive to consensual mechanisms.’ In other words, doing the same thing only with another, more palatable, democratic face for the 21st Century.
And that’s why they’ve instigated these ‘April Spring’ uprisings, toward that very end:
– “The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects . . . The U.S. money for Syrian opposition figures began flowing under President George W. Bush . . in 2005. The financial backing has continued under President Obama . . .” Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syrian-opposition-groups-cables-released-by-wikileaks-show/2011/04/14/AF1p9hwD_story.html
– From a New York Times front page story on 4/15/11 entitled
“U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Opposition”:
“[A]s American officials and others look back at the uprisings of the Arab Spring, they are seeing that the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections.”
Address : http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html
– See also the English review of a French book entitled “American Arabesque: the Role of the US in the Revolts in the Arab Streets”, not yet available in English, here: http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/09/10/smoking-gun-us-role-in-arab-spring/ along with a partial list of the book’s references contributed in a comment to the review.
– And see Part B here: http://www.whatnewsshouldbe.org/lies-weve-been-told/kony-2012-and-the-creation-manipulation-of-protest-movements.
The U.S. wants (as can be seen by its actions, despite its words to the contrary) non-secular “democracies” with the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremists playing chief roles to flourish, since they’re capitalists through and through & very happy to play ball and have economies completely acceptable to the transnational elite (not the 99 percent), witness Egypt (again see Part B here: http://www.whatnewsshouldbe.org/lies-weve-been-told/kony-2012-and-the-creation-manipulation-of-protest-movements.).
***So, democracy promotion DOES INDEED motivate US foreign policy***, just the hollow kind of democracy. Setting up fake democracies is a more sophisticated, savvy, and less blatant way to dominate – as Robinson says “from coercive to consensual mechanisms” and the US (on behalf of the transnational elite) together with its media and corporate partners like Google, needs a more sophisticated way to deal with this threat described by Google’s “Chief of Ideas”:
‘more than 50 percent of the world’s population is under the age of thirty and the vast majority of those are characterized as “at risk” either socially, economically, or both – an oversupply of young people susceptible to recruitment by the ideological groups closest to them in identity or proximity.’ (see that same link again, at Part B, http://www.whatnewsshouldbe.org/lies-weve-been-told/kony-2012-and-the-creation-manipulation-of-protest-movements).
Our opposition to a more sophisticated domination strategy has to be more sophisticated and savvy too, starting with a clearer understanding of this new strategy.
- [1]
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions
to begin your reading if you weren’t aware that the U.S. did this.↩
- [2] See this excerpt of a NY Times article: “But as representatives of 60 countries and international organizations converged on Tunisia on Friday in search of a strategy . . . The need to build a united opposition will be the focus of intense discussions at what has been billed as the inaugural meeting of the Friends of Syria. Fostering some semblance of a unified protest movement, possibly under the umbrella of an exile alliance called the Syrian National Council, will be a theme hovering in the background. . . “They will have a seat at the table as a representative of the Syrian people,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And we think it’s important to have Syrians represented. And the consensus opinion by the Arab League and all the others who are working and planning this conference is that the S.N.C. is a credible representative.”
Source: After a Year, Deep Divisions Hobble Syria’s Opposition
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/world/middleeast/syrian-opposition-is-hobbled-by-deep-divisions.html?ref=global-home - [3] From the NY Times:
CLINTON SEEKS NEW SYRIAN OPPOSITION:
“Hundreds of opposition figures are gathering in Doha, Qatar, next week to try to form such a group — ostensibly under the auspices of the Arab League but really pushed there by the United States. Mrs. Clinton said she had been heavily involved in planning the meeting, including recommending individuals and organizations to include in any new leadership structure. “We’ve made it clear that the S.N.C. can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition,” Mrs. Clinton said, referring to the Syrian National Council. It can participate, she added, “but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard.” . . . “They are hoping that some new body will emerge that they can work with, that they can recognize and that they can insert inside,” said Amr al-Azm, a Syrian academic in the United States who has long been a critic of the council.
Source: As Fighting Rages in Syria, Clinton Calls for New Opposition Movement – NYTimes.com
Address : http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/world/middleeast/syrian-air-raids-increase-as-battle-for-strategic-areas-intensifies-rebels-say.html?ref=global-home&pagewanted=printFrom The Washington Post:
U.S. LOOKS TO BUILD ALTERNATIVE SYRIAN OPPOSITION LEADERSHIP:
The Obama administration has spent the past several months in secret diplomatic negotiations aimed at building a new Syrian opposition leadership structure . . . Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made official what had been the increasingly obvious U.S. disenchantment with the Syrian National Council, the exile-led organization that the administration has backed for most of the past year as the leading opposition group. . . The SNC, Clinton said, should no longer be considered the “visible leader” of the opposition. . . . a senior U.S. official said that “the new group will have a “political outreach function,” to build “basic credibility” among Syrian fence-sitters and regime supporters . . .”
Source: U.S. looks to build alternative Syrian opposition leadership – The Washington Post
Address : http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-looks-to-build-alternative-syrian-opposition-leadership/2012/10/31/ccfc7a40-2388-11e2-8448-81b1ce7d6978_print.html↩