title: What a Wonderful World – US Saviour Complex
text: Bruno Guigue 21st Century WirePurveyor of platitudes, the West portrays itself as the epitome of universal values . A paragon of democracy, this champion of human rights always deploys its presumed virtues in support of its hegemonic ambitions. Like the Fairy Godmother, doing her best to match her morals with her interests, she veils her ambitions with the cloak of Law and Justice. Thus, the  Free World  goes about bombing foreign nations for the sake of  democracy , preferably in oil or mineral-rich territories. By combining a simple creed with capitalist greed, it is acting as if it can convert its economic supremacy into moral privilege.The rest of the world is not fooled by these tactics, but who cares? The  Free World  is always right because it represents the  good fight  and for as long as it is the most powerful, it will not be contradicted. The inherent barbarism that it projects onto others is the counter to its self-proclaimed monopoly on  civilization .Sanctified by the holy order of  right to intervene , a marriage of the GI sandbags with the Kouchner-style bag of rice, the West, vassalized by Washington, believes wholeheartedly that they can save the world by subjugating it to the pitiless ravages demanded by the financial vultures and military industrial complex.This supremacist enterprise was not born yesterday. It was midwived in the historical period dear to Fernand Braudel, that of the emergence of the  world economy. Driven by its superior technological advances, since the Renaissance, the western world has propelled itself towards the conquest of our planet earth. Patiently, the west has appropriated other cultures, other worlds, and twisted them into its own image, enforcing obeissance and imitation, eliminating all those who would not conform. Its certitude is untroubled by its own hypocrisy, the West perceives itself as a metaphor for this world. The West wanted to expand from being a part of the world into being the  whole.  In the same way today, we see countries comprising 10% of the world s population portraying themselves as the  International Community. Over the last three centuries, colonial conquest has demonstrated the West s desire to expand its influence beyond its own boundaries, under the banner of bringing  civilization  to the under-developed. This global domination project was temporarily derailed by the uprising of the colonized peoples in the 20th Century, but it made a triumphant return with its North American branch of hegemony.America, the  Far West   discovered  by Christopher Columbus in search of the  Far East , inherited the  Old Continent  penchant for imperialism and rapacious carpet-baggery. The US converted its lack of history into the promise of a   better future , emerging suddenly from Anglo-Saxon puritanism, the US magnified the globalist  for profit  ethos. Paid for with the blood of the American-Indian genocide, America was born, the newly minted metaphor for the world.It is not certain that this change was for the better. Colonial empires collapsed under the weight of their archaic structures, while US hegemony maintains itself through modern technology channels, from Google to drone warfare. Suddenly the US was the most supple and resilient. What imbues it with flexibility also ensures its longevity. From the white pith helmet of the european colonial overlords to the digital screens of US cyber warfare, a revolution took place. The US substituted a shock-colonization, dismantled after bloody decolonization conflict, with a multi-faceted hegemonic enterprise. Taking over from the classic colonial three  M s, the  made in the US  NGOs replaced the Christian missionary complex,  merchants  became multi-nationals and the  soldiers  converted to cyber supremacy.Emboldened by the die-hard spirit of  born again  Midwesterners, the American empire is projecting its devastating Manichaeism upon the rest of the world. Dreaming with its eyes wide open, the US envisages a definitive alliance between good and evil, the indestructible pillar upon which to build a straightforward ethnocentrism. The  law  is on their side as it  embodies the core values of  democracy, human rights and market economy .  Obviously, this is a crude ideology, a fraudulent mask for its own sordid interests, but it is effective. Its efficacy is proven by the popular consensus that the  US won the second world war, capitalism works, Cuba is a tropical gulag, Assad is worse than Hitler and that North Korea is a threat to the world. This process of self-beatification, bestows upon the North-American-Empire zealots, the right to track down all  Evil  in the world. No scruples will impede its saviour frenzy, it is the very incarnation of such an  exceptional civilization , that it must cleanse the world of barbarism by all means at its disposal. That is why modern imperialism functions as a court of  universal  law, a judge, that rewards or punishes where it sees fit. Before this elevated  moral  jurisdiction, the CIA represents the prosecution, the Pentagon is the secular chamber, the US President is the high court judge, a  deus ex machina , invoking divine justice, the lightning strike, upon the  Axis of Evil  and any other sinners circulating in the court of the  Empire of Good .This tendency for the US to see itself as the moral compass for the world is central to this structure and is unperturbed by the rapid turn-around of Presidents in the White House, a new tenant changes nothing. Washington s  crusade  against the  barbarians  conceals the unbridled greed of the Military Industrial Complex and the iron claw of the deep state. From Harry Truman to Donald Trump with Barack Obama inbetween, from Korea to Vietnam to Syria, Indonesia, Angola, Mozambique, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, South Africa, Serbia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Libya, death is the cure, by proxy or directly, for all those who oppose the saviour s kingdom of universal justice. Philanthropic America  always harnesses the local labour force to carry out its dirty work.  Franco, Hitler and Mussolini (until 1939), Chiang Kai Shek, Somoza, Syngman Rhee, Ngo Dinh Diem, Salazar, Batista, Mobutu, Marcos, Trujillo, Pik Botha, Duvalier, Suharto, Papadopoulos, Castelo Branco, Videla, Pinochet, Stroessner, Reza Shah Pahlevi, Zia Ul Haqq, Bin Laden, Uribe, King Salman, Nethanyahu, Ukrainian Nazis and the  moderate terrorists  in the Middle East have been of invaluable service to Empire.Undisputed leader of the  Free World,  America claims to embody  civilization  while obliterating entire populations with nuclear weapons, napalm or a rain of cruise missiles. Sometimes it chooses a slow death for its prey, with Agent Orange, depleted uranium, or with punitive embargoes on medicines and humanitarian aid.While America is never short of sychophants praising their  services to Humanity , the evidence is irrefutable, that the collapse of this Empire would be a cause for celebration.Translation by Vanessa Beeley for 21st Century Wire*** Bruno Guigue is a French author and political analyst born in Toulouse 1962. Professor of philosophy and lecturer in international relations for highter education. The author of 5 books including  Aux origines du conflit Isra lo-Arabe, l invisible remords de l Occident (L Harmattan, 2002).SUPPORT 21WIRE  SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV