Sam Vaknin’s third criterion for a semi-failed state is that other countries regard it with derision, fear and abhorrence. This, like Americans’ attitude towards government, is hard to measure objectively. My personal experience, in talking to New Zealanders and other immigrants willing to talk about attitudes in their home country – is that most foreigners are quick to make a distinction between Americans and the US government. Also in most cases, negative feelings about the US government fall well short of “derision, fear, and abhorrence.”
Nevertheless there seems to be universal disapproval of the US wars in the Middle East, which everyone I encounter views as an America’s attempt to dominate global oil resources. To many Kiwis’ dismay, the New Zealand government joined the October 2002 invasion of Afghanistan. We currently have a 140 member reconstruction team stationed there, as well as 67 “Special Forces” (members of the New Zealand SAS, modeled after the British SAS).
Fortunately, by March 2003, the New Zealand antiwar movement was large and vocal enough to keep this country out of the “Coalition of the Willing” that invaded Iraq. (Canada also refused to join.)
Harsh Condemnation for US War Crimes
In general, people tend to be less critical of the wars themselves than of the blatant war crimes the US government has committed in the prosecution of these wars – and their military support for the Israel occupation of Palestine:
1. The harsh, indefinite detention of so-called “terrorists” in Guatanamo, without adequate legal representation or regard for UN and Red Cross conventions regarding humane treatment of prisoners of war.
2. The use of torture in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other Afghan and Iraqi prisons.
3. The repeated and callous targeting of civilian populations by ground forces, bombers, and drones.
4. The use of “extraordinary rendition” – the CIA kidnapping of civilians on European soil to be transported to totalitarian regimes that engage in torture.
5. Continued US support ($2.77 billion in military aid in 2010) for the brutal and illegal (under UN convention) Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Only Refugees Express Derision, Fear, and Abhorrence
I only encounter frank “derision, fear, and abhorrence” in refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan – or from other countries affected by US military or economic “intervention.” This could include replacing (through military aggression or covert CIA economic sabotage or "terrorism”) a democratically elected government with a puppet dictator, active suppression of a popular movement to overthrow a dictator, or devastation of a third world economy via predatory IMF and World Bank lending practices or the wholesale dumping of cheap US agricultural surpluses.
List of countries where democratic governments and popular movements were destroyed by the US government:
- Iran 1953
- Vietnam 1954-1975
- Guatemala 1954, 1993
- Democratic Republic of the Congo 1960
- Iraq 1963, 1968, 1973
- Brazil 1964
- Indonesia 1965
- Ghana 1966
- Chile 1973
- Afghanistan 1973
- Argentina 1976
- Iran 1980
- Nicaragua 1981-1990
- El Salvador 1980-1992
- Cambodia 9980-95
- Angola 1980-90
- Philippines 1986
- Serbia 2000
- Haiti 2004
- Palestinian Authority 2006-2011
- Somalia 2006-2007
Predatory US Economic Policy
This topic is far too complex to do justice in a short essay. Economist Michael Hudson wrote an excellent article in Counterpunch in 2009 regarding the destructive role the IMF plays in the developing world: http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson04062009.html
I also highly recommend John Perkins’ 2004 book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
The following are excellent articles regarding the role of predatory US trade practices in creating famine in Haiti and Africa:
http://www.tradeobservatory.org/library.cfm?RefID=37655
http://humanrights.change.org/blog/view/what_bill_clintons_mea_culpa_should_mean
To be continued with a discussion of Vaknin’s last two criteria for a semi-failed state and implications for activists.
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