BELARUS ‘OPPOSITION’ PROTEST MARCH

The demonization of states hostile to US interests goes on, if its not Cuba or Venezuela with their irritating do-goody social reforms and health services for the poor, its China or Russia, who dare to try and compete with the US.  As for Belarus, their crime has been to be show too much interest in aligning their country with Russia, and not the ever-expanding NATO, which, in pushing up against Russia’s borders and increasingly encircling the country, subserves Washington’s designs of containing a potential regional threat to US primacy. “If you make the case for Russia in NATO, then there would be no reason for NATO.” (Alexander Haig). Hamas, et al. are accused of buying elections and intimidating the opposition, while voters are threatened by the West with sanctions and economic dislocation if they make the wrong choice at the polls. And while the government is accused of abusing its control of the state media, antigovernment media, funded by Western governments and NGO’s, flourish. They did in Yugoslavia, and do today in Belarus, where they are allowed to operate freely, some even openly advocating insurrection. Foreign-controlled media inciting uprisings in the streets wouldn’t be tolerated for a second in America. But they are expected to be tolerated by defiant leaders elsewhere, judged against a higher standard than America’s leaders ever are, or ever expect to be. Governments that seek to right historical injustices or to challenge the devastating impact of rampant globalization, are left isolated, and more easily brought down in favour of compliant regimes whose interests line up with the West’s corporate economic structure military expansionism. The fight between these wayward governments and the US led West has hardly been fair. They are no match for the  Western government’s armament of sanctions, military and economic threats, and the ability to buy politicians, NGOs and civil society.