From Dr A. Grech

How far and to what extent the US interferes in everybody else’s affairs is only a matter of degree and, like the allegation of miracles, remains shrouded in mystery and mystique. It is almost like a mathematical principle that you know is there but cannot find the proof for it. The latest indication comes from the European Parliament, whose delegation to the US on its next trans-Atlantic visit is mandated to ask Congress about allegations that the Irish anti-Lisbon Treaty campaign was funded by America. If true, this is a serious allegation, but like other serious allegations it may never be proved.

There is certainly reason for concern. Why did the former US diplomat speak the way he did before the referendum? John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, was in Dublin to deliver a speech on trans-Atlantic relations a week before the vote. He warned that the treaty could “undercut Nato”, something that would be a “huge mistake”. According to Bolton, if the EU had its own military capability people would think Nato redundant and that Europeans “can take care of their own defence”. That Nato is more of an excuse for American hegemony than a defence shield has always been accepted as a fact in real politics. It should not come as a surprise then that Americans get out of their country only to learn how much the rest of the world hates them. Simple: everybody hates bullies.

France’s Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet, addressing a pro-European rally in Lyon at the weekend, was very clear: “Europe has powerful enemies on the other side of the Atlantic gifted with considerable financial means.” He was putting the blame for the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty on the shoulders of the neo-conservatives in the United States. “The role of the American neo-cons was very important in the victory of the ‘no’”.

The European Parliament’s delegation to the US will ask Congress about the serious allegations. But neither the EU Parliamentary commission nor anyone else who should investigate will ever tell us the truth.

It would appear that a certain Declan Ganley – an Irish businessman with US interests who ran the prominent No-vote lobby, the Libertas group – admitted loaning it e200,000 of his own money. Under Irish rules, donations must be capped at e6,348. The idea that Mr Ganley fronted a US plot to kill the Lisbon Treaty emerged when Irish media reported that his US firm, Rivada Networks, had a e200 million communications equipment contract with the Pentagon.

Then, at the opening meeting of the plenary session in Brussels, the French leader of the Green group in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, said: “The Irish press revealed that there possibly exists a link between the financers of the No campaign in Ireland and the Pentagon as well as the CIA ... If proved true, this would clearly show that there are forces in the US willing to pay people to destabilize a strong and autonomous Europe.”

American leaders like to portray the United States as a beacon of freedom and democracy, lighting the way for the rest of the world. This is of course a lie. In “Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy” Noam Chomsky exposes the deceit.

At the basis of American foreign policy is the intention to spread democracy throughout the world. Chomsky concedes that, rhetorically at least, this has been the nation’s goal since Woodrow Wilson, but the words are utterly at odds with American deeds. In its many foreign interventions, Washington has acted to frustrate the will of the people, often by supporting those engaged in the most frightening violence. The United States has overthrown democratic governments in Iran, Chile, Guatemala “and a long list of others”. Elsewhere it has paid lip service to procedural democracy while doing all it could to rig the outcome. There is, Chomsky says, a “rational consistency” to this inconsistency between words and actions. The record shows that the United States does indeed back democracy abroad – “if and only if it is consistent with strategic and economic interests.”

It must be admitted though that this is not the interest of the American people, but of the corporate elite that dominates the country and its policy making. For, as Chomsky says, the United States is not a democracy, if that word is reserved for a society where the people’s will is done.

Alfred Grech

GOZO