News Gloss

Imperial cliché

It's really sad when a reasonable phrase is turned into a "talking point" for state terror.

Take "challenges facing US foreign policy". This means "how does the US keep its boot firmly on the necks of people who don't like it?" If you do a google search on this phrase, you'll get dozens of foreign poicy apologists, organized as 'think-tanks' like the "Council on Foreign Relations" and "Inter-American Dialogue".

Pat Robertson recently offered a glimpse of US foreign policy: kill, invade and keep the oil flowing. Oh, I'm paraphrasing. The real quote is much better:

We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.

To distract from this peek behind the curtain, the Foreign Policy spin-doctors immediately started operating on Chavez. Michael Shifter of Inter-American Dialogue:

The challenge for U.S. policy is to contest the validity of Chavez's claims and his grandiose but wrongheaded designs. Policy alternatives need to be devised that come to grips with harsh realities but do not jettison modern Western values.

Western values such as the killing of half a million people in Central America in the 1980's? Or the western values of selling Bolivia's water to private Western interests for profit? Or the Western Values of attacking any country that embarks on social spending?

posted by Greg Bryant @ 4:04 PM