The erosion of democracy

Year 2024 is the year of election not just for Pakistan or the US but some 64 countries in the world plus the EU. Just like a lot of sources of information haven’t created informed citizens, similarly, a lot of ballot boxes don’t mean democratic growth. The opposite might be the case.

The United States has just approved a $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Let us focus on Ukraine and Israel only. Ever since Biden has been the president, Americans have been struggling with paying their bills. The American people owe a whopping $1.13 trillion to credit card companies, which means that they had been paying their bills using their credit cards and didn’t have enough income to pay their credit card bills. I am just saying that $95 billion dollars would have saved many American homes and provided a relief to many Americans from the stupendous 27% interest that they have to pay on their credit card debt.

But the US congress decided that supporting Ukraine and Israel was better for the interest of the American people somehow. Take a look at the language that US Senator Chuck Schumer used in support of this aid: “Our allies around the world have been watching Congress for the last six months…” What about the American people who have been watching for the last almost 4 years? And it is the American people who voted for these charlatans not the global allies.

Biden made the case that the legislation would “strengthen our national security”. Supporting Israel has always weakened American security. This is not a matter of opinion but rather a strong case made by America’s leading intellectuals such as John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, Normal Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, and so forth. The support for Israeli genocide and previous acts of aggression has only resulted in more anger at America and less credibility of the American moral values.

The aid package for Ukraine and Israel is quite interesting in one aspect. Ukraine is fighting against Russia’s hegemonic designs. That is a conflict in the Russian backyard. Nobody has come up with a convincing answer as to why it should be America’s business. Imagine if Russia started providing weapons to Cuba and convinced it to take Florida back from the United States by using Russian money and weapons.

Israel on the other hand is the Russia in the Palestinian region. And I say this just to differentiate between the aggressor and the victim. Because while Ukraine once belonged to the Soviet Union, Palestine never belonged to the Jews and the Zionists. So, the US aid is for a victim in one case and an aggressor in the other. And the most crucial difference is that Israel is an American made and American supported aggressor in the region. It is not some independent aggressor that operates without the help of American politics, which is in firm control of the Israeli lobbies. I cannot think of a better example to explain the Orwellian concepts called ‘doublespeak’ and ‘doublethink’. America has more moral responsibility for stopping Israel than stopping Russia.

Leading American columnists and media pundits have slowly started making noise about how Biden should make the Ukraine and Israel aid package the centerpiece of his upcoming presidential campaign. Americans would be asked to cast their vote based on this issue. I fail to understand how this even passes as a democratic system.

About 40% of Americans know that Israeli lobbies control American foreign policy in the Middle Eastern region. That statistic is from 2 decades ago. The younger generation inside America believes that even more. Yet, that didn’t stop their elected representatives from passing this aid bill with an overwhelming majority. But there is another statistic to know about too. Steven Rosen, a former AIPAC official, once bragged to Newyorker’s Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a napkin in front of him and saying, “In 24 hours, we could have the signatures of 70 senators on this napkin”.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2024.

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