American Psycho…
Posted on April 29th, 2015
I remember a time when the USA were our best friends. The world was divided in 2, we were on the lucky side of the map and the US made sure we’d stay that way. It wasn’t so long ago, when I was a child in the 1970’s. Oh, they were not as white as snow, they had their lot of shames and failures (Watergate, Vietnam anyone?) but still, they were our friends, and they had all the cool gadgets before us, and their way of life seemed to be paving the way for a better world.
It wasn’t so long ago, but it might just as well have been a thousand years. I was watching some insightful videos on YouTube when I fell upon this.
You can watch it if you’re not afraid of losing your good mood. I sure did lose mine! To spare you the effort, I’m gonna sum it up gently.
It’s basically a speech about the US’ foreign policy, at the renowned Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The man speaking is George Friedman, a kind of “influential” political counselor who runs a private intelligence corporation and has the ears of Washington’s intelligentsia.
Mr. Friedman coming believes the European Union to be a kind of hippie fantasy, deemed to fail as there will be more wars across the European continent. “There is no Europe”, he says, before adding that the US “no longer has a relationship with Europe”. Well, why not after all? We sure have our fare share of euro skeptics in the EU. What’s more interesting is how Mr. Friedman advises his compatriots to take advantage of our so-called divisions. To him, only two European countries represent a real threat for the US: Germany, because of its economic power, and Russia, because of its territorial ambitions and military force. So the plan is basically to turn Eastern European nations against Western European nations, by using the former’s’ fear of the USSR in order to make sure they’ll choose the “strong” American ally over the “weak” Western Europeans. Make friends in the East, piss Russia off, screw the Germans. That’s the plan.
Ooops! Wait, did I just write “USSR”? Yep, I did. Because this is where Mr. Friedman wants us, stuck in the Cold War forever, having to chose a side between Russia and the USA instead of following what I’d call the European Dream, a dream based not only on individual freedom and liberalism, but also on a strong determination to put an end to war, forever. This was the original motive behind the EU, let us not forget this: a long-term, if not eternal peace between European nations. This dream is Mr. Friedman’s nightmare.
But wait! There’s more!
How about that one: “We get to invade people and they don’t get to invade us, it’s a very nice thing”. Fear shouldn´t be the base of any actions and this what they are … afraid! Because they always have the intention to dominate others for their financial advantages war business and oil reserves . . .
How nice indeed, huh?
And don’t you dare thinking that “invading” means, nor should mean, bringing democracy (you know, the vacuum-cleaner Mr. Bush tried to sell us in 2003). According to Mr. Friedman, this has been the mistake of the US from the beginning, because it’s a “young and stupid” country! “The spoiling attack is not intended to defeat the enemy but to throw them off balance”. Having thrown “the enemy” off balance, Americans try to build democracies when they should “just go back home”… and let chaos devastate a country in the process!
Long gone, the days when Americans so vividly condemned European imperialism, back when we had colonies. Mr. Friedman condones a “cynical” and “immoral” (and those are his words!) course of action when it comes to his country’s foreign policy. Mr. Friedman says that it is in the US’ best interest to keep its fellow nations “at each other’s throat”.
And last but not least, Mr. Friedman adds that “we need to admit that we [the USA] have an empire”.
Do they, now?
And all this with a smile, a very malicious, constant smile, you should watch a minute of the video if only for that smile! He sure finds it funny, all that stuff he says. But the joke’s on us, that is everyone else but the Americans.
So who’s that guy? He sure isn’t much educated for a so-called expert (after failing to find a name at first, he finally decides that Pontius Pilate was a Palestinian puppet-king, when he was in fact a Roman prefect sent to administrate a colony). But OK, he isn’t President Obama. He has no official mandate to say what he says. But he’s a man of influence, one of the most reputed intelligence expert in his country. You can be assured that his words don’t fall into deaf ears. He may not be an official, his words may not represent the thoughts of each and every American citizen, but they certainly reflect a state of mind in contemporary America. And I mean, damn! We’re planning TTIP with those guys! And this is what they think of us?! This is what they want to do with us?!
So that whole thing made me sad, because I’d rather build an “empire of peace” with the US. We are, after all, not so different. We do, after all, share a similar cultural background. Nevertheless, when I hear what I’ve heard today, I feel more confident in building a trustful relationship with other, much more different partners, such as Japan, Korea or India!
Still, the American Dream lives on in people’s minds. Strangely, many dream of moving to the US rather that the UE. And with this in mind, many still favor the American educational system over the European one. Well, call me an optimistic but I think peaceful coexistence and mutual assistance have more of a future than neo-imperialism and warmongering.
I know which of those values I want my kids to cherish. Do you?
