U.S., biggest saboteur of post-WWII global peace (Part 1)

"In the early 21st century, if any power sought world domination, coercing others and flouting rules, it was the United States," said an opinion piece by The New York Times in October 2020.

Since the declaration of independence in 1776, the United States has been bent on expanding its territory and influence. Since the end of World War II, the United States has spared no effort to chase and maintain global hegemony. Capitalizing on its absolute superiority in the sectors of military, economy, science and technology, and culture, the United States frequently interfered in other countries' internal affairs, and bullied, plundered and controlled other countries under the banner of "freedom, democracy and human rights."

In the post-war era, successive U.S. administrations have pursued hegemonistic strategies. From the Truman Doctrine, also known as the policy of containment, to foreign policies of recent U.S. administrations, including Barack Obama's "smart power" strategy, Donald Trump's "America First" policy, and Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" plan, the ultimate purpose is always to secure U.S. hegemony.

The United States has hyped tensions all around the world by launching wars, provoking confrontations, and overthrowing foreign governments with armed forces, bringing warfare and turmoil to many countries and regions; by upholding so-called "American exceptionalism," the country has wantonly employed double standards with no regard to international laws and rules, as it has severely obstructed international cooperation by making use of international organizations, accords, and agreements to fit in with its needs but abandoning those going against its interests; by rigging the international finance system, the United States has grabbed enormous wealth while turning a blind eye to greed and speculation, giving rise to the global financial crisis; blatantly imposing long-arm jurisdiction, the country has initiated trade disputes with many others and stopped at nothing to crack down those it sees as opponents; and it has also tried manipulating the international public opinions, while exporting its values and launching cultural invasions in other countries.

It is the biggest saboteur of international rules and order, and the source of growing uncertainty and instability in the world. America's hegemonism and power politics have undermined world order, threatened human peace, and caused serious consequences for the world, thus becoming the biggest challenge for the progress of human society and civilization, as well as peaceful development.

A BELLIGERENT NATION

The United States has always been a belligerent nation. After announcing its independence on July 4, 1776, in its history of more than 240 years, the country has not been at war for less than 20 years.

Dakota Wood, senior research fellow for defense programs in the Heritage Foundation's Center for National Defense, noted in October 2018 that in "every 15 years or so," the United States would get involved in a conflict.

To maintain its hegemony, the United States has blatantly violated the principles of the United Nations (UN) Charter and the norms of international law many times.

Relying on its military strength, the United States has interfered in other countries' domestic affairs and created conflicts by waging wars, implementing containment strategies and plotting so-called "peaceful evolutions" and "color revolutions," severely threatening world peace.

Since World War II, the United States has waged or participated in wars in Korean Peninsula, Vietnam, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and other places, which not only killed many soldiers, but also caused extremely serious civilian casualties and property losses, resulting in terrible humanitarian disasters.

In 2003, despite widespread opposition from the international community, the United States launched the Iraq War on unwarranted charges, which has killed 180,000 to 200,000 Iraqi civilians, according to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. The coalition forces also used depleted uranium and white phosphorus munitions in Iraq, which seriously endangered the local environment and people's health.

According to a report released in March 2021 by Code Pink, a U.S. anti-war group, the United States and its allies have consistently bombed other countries over the past 20 years, dropping an average of more than 40 bombs a day. In late February 2021, just over a month after the Biden administration took office, the U.S. military launched air strikes against eastern Syria, drawing strong condemnation from many sides.

Behind the U.S. military's indiscriminate bombings overseas is the country's continuously high military spending.

"In 2020, U.S. military expenditure reached an estimated 778 billion U.S. dollars, representing an increase of 4.4 percent over 2019," said the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in a report published in April.

"As the world's largest military spender, the United States accounted for 39 percent of total military expenditure in 2020. This was the third consecutive year of growth in U.S. military spending," it said.

Stephen Walt, Harvard University professor of international relations, wrote on the website of Foreign Policy magazine: "Endless campaigns abroad unleash a host of political forces -- militarism, secrecy, enhanced executive authority, xenophobia, faux patriotism, demagoguery, etc. -- all of them contrary to the civic virtues on which a healthy democracy depends."

According to an article published by The Center for American Progress, a U.S. public policy research and advocacy organization, earlier this year, America's defense budget today is higher, when adjusted for inflation, than what it spent at the peak of the Cold War, and is currently more than the defense budgets of the next 10 largest countries in the world combined while consuming more than half of the total discretionary budget of the entire federal government. However, "no matter how much the United States spends on defense, it cannot buy perfect security," the article argued.

"WAR ON TERROR"

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan under the banner of anti-terrorism. Biden announced on April 14 that the U.S. troops would be completely withdrawn from Afghanistan before Sept. 11, and on July 8 advanced the deadline to Aug. 31.

The United States claimed to have fought extremism and brought stability to the war-torn country, but failed on both fronts, said former Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, anti-terrorism has become the focus of America's national security and foreign policy. Since then, with double standards and the Cold War mentality, the United States has carried out the "War on Terror" across the world in the name of "national security" and "defending freedom," divided countries into different camps, and even overthrown the governments of other countries under the guise of fighting terrorism.

U.S.-led anti-terrorism operations have become a tool to maintain its hegemony and promote the so-called American democracy and values overseas, hurting many civilians, worsening the refugee issue, throwing affected regions into chaos, and making security threats spill over.

Apart from the so-called "anti-terrorism" operations, the United States has also grossly trampled on the human rights and freedom of other countries, as evidenced by the shocking scandals of prisoner abuses by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Since 2001, "contrary to what most Americans believe, the war on terror is not winding down -- it has spread to more than 40 percent of the world's countries," the U.S. Smithsonian Magazine wrote in an article published in early 2019.

According to a report released in November 2019 by the Costs of War project based at U.S. Brown University, between 770,000 and 801,000 people have died in post-9/11 wars.

The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) has long engaged in anti-China separatist, radical and violent activities inside and outside China, causing huge casualties and property losses to the Chinese people, and was added to the sanctions list under the UN Security Council Resolution 1267, of which the United States was a co-sponsor.

In recent years, the ETIM has been on the move in Afghanistan, Syria and other places, plotting and carrying out a series of violent terrorist activities, including the car bomb attack against the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan in 2016.

However, the United States unilaterally removed the ETIM from its list of terrorist organizations in late 2020, claiming that for more than a decade, there had been no reliable evidence that the ETIM continued to exist. Such a move has clearly revealed the United States's sinister intention to contain China with terrorism.

The United States has also cultivated many anti-government forces around the world, many of which later became terrorist organizations and perpetrators of terrorist activities worldwide.

For example, after the Cuban Revolution, the United States sheltered several armed groups opposing the Cuban government, and even allowed them to set up training camps in southern Florida. In October 1976, a Cuban passenger airliner exploded over Barbados, killing all 73 people on board. Luis Posada Carriles, originally from Cuba and in exile in the United States, was suspected of causing the crash and was wanted by Cuba, but the U.S. government always refused to extradite him to Cuba.

In the 1980s, the United States strongly supported Nicaraguan anti-government guerrillas. Stansfield Turner, former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, once testified before Congress: "I think many of the guerrilla actions are terrorist in nature and are terrorist acts supported by the United States, which is irrefutable."

More ironically, the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in the name of anti-terrorism, but has in fact nurtured terrorism. During the Cold War, the United States used Afghanistan as a pawn against the Soviet Union, providing large amounts of weapons and money for extremist groups, including Osama bin Laden's forces, to encourage them to fight the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, the United States immediately abandoned those useless "friends," making Afghanistan a haven for global terrorism and extremism.

Code Pink's co-founder Medea Benjamin and the group's researcher Nicholas Davis wrote in an article that if the Biden administration continues to accumulate more lies and atrocities on the basis of previous administrations, "it will not be able to regain the world's respect for American leadership, nor will it win the American public's support for its foreign policy."