The elites’ guide to ‘rogue states’

It’s definitely not good news nowadays for any country to be classified a ‘Rogue State’ by the US-led hegemonic Western Powers, for it will not only cost you billions in cash and economic hardship, but millions of lives as well.

That continues to be the between-the-lines message to the world from US hardliners with their ‘you’re either with us or against us’ rhetoric. A decade ago Iraq was branded a ‘rogue state’; today, moderate estimates speak of an Iraqi death toll of 500,000 since the 2003 invasion and civil war. 

Lying your way into global power

Iraq is clearly the most famous rogue state, if we are to believe the two Bushes, especially the junior George, who rammed into that country in 2003, all but destroying it, maiming its people and proud 3,000-year-old heritage.  All based on an outright lie: the infamous ‘weapons of mass destruction’ they were accused of hiding, but that were never found.

In those days of hysterical mainstream media warmongering George W., Tony Blair and their henchmen had their way, bombing the country to smithereens. A decade on, we learn from a report just published in the Public Library of Science Medicine Journal that, based on household samplings, an estimated 500,000 men, women and children have been killed since the invasion.

A moderate estimate, since others go significantly higher. Take The Lancet, one of the world’s oldest medical journals, which published two peer-reviewed studies, the latest in 2006 putting the figure in excess of 650,000. Or ORB (Opinion Research Business) an independent polling agency in London, which in 2007 published a study estimating total Iraqi war fatalities between 2003 and 2007 at over 1.2 million.

All because Bush, Blair and their allies got it all “wrong” about Saddam’s WMD’s:  “We never found ‘em,” said George W., who then went on to joke about the whole affair during a White House dinner in March 2004.

Clearly, blatant genocide and war crimes committed by the West’s top leaders in broad daylight over which nobody seems to be responsible. No one was ever made accountable; no one ever bothered to apologize to Iraq or to the world.

I guess they’ve all been too busy going after and ‘smokin’ out’ other rogue states like Syria, where the civil war against the legal government of Bashar Assad that is being waged by US, UK, French, Saudi and Israeli-backed/trained/financed terrorists (including Al-Qaeda offshoot Al-Nusra Front) has already cost over 120,000 Syrian deaths, mostly civilian. 

Then there was Libya in 2011, where interim ‘democratic’ government estimates speak of as many as 30,000 dead, including the execution of Muammar Gaddafi and many of his family members and government officials. God only knows how many were actually shot, bombed, and lynched like Gaddafi by the NATO-backed ‘freedom fighters’ there.

Add to this the impossible-to-calculate number of dead, maimed and murdered during the Western Powers’-engineered ‘Arab Spring’ throughout the Arab World over the past three years, plus the decades-long Palestinian tragedy at the hands of their Israeli-run Concentration Camp Kommandants, and we’re talking about many millions of deaths which begin to echo the so, so oft-repeated ‘6 million’ figure.

So be careful, world!  Make sure your country’s not branded a ‘rogue state’, because if it is, then you’re in for a lot of trouble!

What isn’t a ‘rogue state’

First of all, the term – more importantly, the concept - was made popular during the Clinton Administration. It was formally introduced by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in 1994 when then-National Security Advisor Anthony Lake published a report in CFR journal Foreign Affairs, claiming "the reality of recalcitrant and outlaw states that not only choose to remain outside the family [of democratic nations] but also assault its basic values.” 

In typical self-righteous US-ranting, he then went on to label North Korea, Cuba, Iraq, Libya and Iran as rogue states. That initial list grew with time to include Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Serbia, Montenegro, Venezuela… all backed by PsyWar name-calling like ‘Axis of Evil’, ‘Outposts of Tyranny’ and ‘Terrorist States’.

But, to understand what a rogue state is, we first need to understand what a rogue state is not in today’s ‘world according to the US/UK/EU/Israel’.

Let’s begin by describing the four things that every country must do in order not to be branded a rogue state by the global hegemons:

1) General behavior: Every nation must maintain unconditional and unflinching alignment to the present ‘world order’ controlled and promoted by the global powers that are embedded deep inside key Western military powers, notably the US. 

If a nation heeds, obeys, acclaims, pays tribute and is subservient to the on-going economic, financial, political, historical and cultural world outlook and order, and remains passive whilst the global powers prepare the coming ‘new world order’ – whether under the guise of ‘the Western democracies’, or ‘globalization’, or ‘the international community’ or, soon-to-come, ‘World Government’ – then you’re OK. 

If, however, a nation dares defy any aspect of this, it will soon find itself slipping fast into ‘rogue state mode’. That’s what happened to Saddam in 1990 after he invaded Kuwait without first getting the proper ‘green light’ from the US; that’s what happened to Argentina’s pro-US military junta in 1982 when General Galtieri tried to take back the Falkland Islands from Britain without Washington’s OK.

2) Specific behavior: Then, every nation must maintain unconditional alignment to specific US/UK/EU/Israel-dictated ‘special interests’ involving the country and its region. This naturally varies from country to country and fluctuates as specific interests of the hegemon evolve.  Some examples:

• Egypt: Total alignment to Israel and its geopolitical interests. That was quite a historical somersault for Gamal Nasser’s country to make, considering that for decades Egypt spearheaded Arab opposition to the West’s imposing of Israel on Palestinian territory. Hosni Mubarak was their man who for 32 years kept Egypt ‘on course’ until…  Until he stupidly breached condition No. 3 (see below).

• Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain: Keep the oil flowing, be nice to our oil companies and to Israel, and your leaders can do whatever else they like (see 4, below).

• Argentina: Never, ever launch a proper investigation into the country’s decades-old mostly illegitimate – even illegal - public debt rooted in the 1976-1983 US-backed military regime. 

Because if Argentina were to do that it could then declare huge chunks of it as ‘odious debt’ suing the mega-bankers in US/EU courts. Such table-turning would make Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorganChase, HSBC, the IMF/WorldBank/FED and vulture funds really angry. One other thing: now that your 30-year-old ‘democracy’ has destroyed Argentina’s armed forces and sunk the country into unprecedented decadence, don’t even think of making a policy U-turn. Keep all of this going and your leaders too can do whatever else they like. (see 4, below)

3) Internal control & credibility: However, if a nation’s leadership ‘behaves nicely’, yet cannot control its own population and maintain domestic credibility, then like it or not, we’re going to have to replace you.  And if you don’t like it, well, they will just ‘make you an offer you can’t

a. Hosni Mubarak of Egypt: When the Tahrir Square uprising began he proved unable to maintain order and credibility. It turned out that 32 years is just too long stay in power even with US money and support, so out the window he went. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Egypt in March 2011 to “make sure Egypt gets the kind of democracy that we want to see,” Muslim Brotherhood president Morsi was not what she had in mind, so he too went out the window thanks to a US-backed military coup.

Aren’t military coups supposed to be done by undemocratic SOB’s?  Yes, but as President Franklin Roosevelt once famously said of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, “he may be an SOB, but he’s our SOB!”

b. Fernando de La Rúa of Argentina: Elected in 1999, he was 110 percent compliant with (1) and (2) above, however he was most inept in the way he bled the country so it would pay its pound of flesh to international mega-bankers. His internal credibility and grip collapsed and Fernando was forced to escape aboard his chopper from the roof of the Casa Rosada presidential palace into oblivion, as his police killed and beat up protesters on the Plaza de Mayo square below. 

Twelve years on, with Argentina’s ‘democracy’ about to celebrate its 30th anniversary, its present political managers are again losing grip: a new bout of ‘spares and replacements’ are thus needed, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they have been identified and are being positioned to become Argentina’s soon-to-come ‘new’ government. Just make sure that they too continue being ‘serial debt payers’ to the global mega-bankers as president Cristina Kirchner recently described her and her husband’s more-than-10-year tenure in power.

4) Corruption galore: The global powers’ message to all national political leaders: as long as you fully perform and comply with (1), (2) and (3) above, you can sink your grubby hands into all the money you want. The message is clear: perform as we need you to perform on the above key issues, and we don’t really care if you steal millions, hundreds of millions or even billions from your own people, whether by imposing endemic poverty on the local population or as outright theft.

CitiCorp, Rockefeller, Rothschild, Soros, Goldman Sachs, US Treasury, the IMF & World Bank couldn’t care less if Mubarak, Berlusconi, Rajoy, Fujimori, Menem, Calderón, Lula and Kirchner steal from their own people. If they can get away with it whilst maintaining their local credibility and grip, it’s just not an issue. If anything it’s an added asset for the elite, because should such local leaders ‘misbehave’, they can then be easily blackmailed out of power.  

That, in a nutshell, is how the global powers exert control over whole countries and regions by ensuring their chosen local ‘managers’ are placed at the helm of national governments to do the elites’ dirty work for them. As long as these leaders ‘behave and perform properly’ they can stay on for decades just like Hosni Mubarak. 

If they misbehave or their ‘useful lives’ expire, they’re then quickly shown the exit and shoved out the door. When their crimes and thefts are publicly exposed their own local populations will do the kicking-out for them. 

Saddam was so useful during the eight-year war of attrition against Iran in the ’80s (Iran was Ronald Reagan’s original rogue state), even Don Rumsfeld shook Saddam’s hand and gave him chemical WMD’s to use against Iran’s Ayatollahs. After Kuwait, however, Ronnie’s Veep – the Elder Bush – gave Saddam quite a thrashing, but he didn’t learn his lesson. So Baby Bush taught him good in 2003.

Sure, it’s not all that simple: each country has its own characteristics, its own problems, its own usefulness for the global powers. In fact, each country is a testing ground and a learning ground, the lessons of which are later put to good use in other countries and regions.

So, nations of the world: you’ve been warned. When walking amongst fierce beasts, make sure you do so quietly, cautiously and discreetly.

Be not too defiant lest you too are branded a ‘rogue state’… Then you’ll be in real trouble! 

Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV commentator in Argentina. www.asalbuchi.com.ar

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.