Sunday, February 25, 2007

How would a world without the US look like? Some British people set up an interesting 'We love the US' movie, full of bold assumptions about a world without America.

Starting off with the second world war, the authors come up with surprising insights of their lack of historical education. The nuclear bomb (wasn't it the US you first build it and deployed two of them to kill hundred thousands of civilians?) proliferates through the islamic world, with Saddam Hussein (neither known as religious person nor capable of becoming Iraqs leader without substantial support of the US).

If I try to 'Imagine a world without America', it certainly looks different. For instance, large areas in South America and Africa would not be owned by American individuals and companies, South American torturers would not have certificates of the 'School of Americas', where they learned how to torture and terrorise citizens.

Over a hundred countries would not have American military bases, and Afghani and Iraqi kids wouldn't suffer from the remainders of DU ammunition and daisy-cutter bombs. We wouldn't mind to remember September 11th 1973, the day that the democratically elected Chilean President Allende was replaced by CIA backed Pinochet in a bloody coup.

We still would have cars, though. I wonder how many anti-German resentments have survived in the UK to forget about Gottfried Daimler (inventor of the car), Karl Benz (inventor of the combustion engine in cars) and Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel (inventor of the Diesel engine).

Speculations like 'What if there was no America', 'What if Hitler had won the war', 'What if Saddam had weapons of mass destruction' are in my humble opinion quite useless. They seem to me like a desperate approach mostly from conservative thinkers to justify an unjust world, and distract from the unjust methods that founded national and individual wealth in the Western World.

I'd rather want to know why the US doesn't have to repay the damages it caused in Iraq. Though the American President forgot to declare the war, it was a clear act of unprovoked aggression. But while protesters against American foreign policy are treated like criminals, war criminals like Dick Cheney receive a reception worthy of a king. How much did this visit cost the Australian tax payer, and will they ever be asked if they want to be linked with politicians that are responsible for the killing of hundred thousands of innocent lifes?