By Zhong Sheng, People’s Daily
Multiple U.S. media organizations recently revealed, upon extensive investigations, that the drone strike launched by the U.S. military at the end of August against a purported planned attack at the Kabul airport killed 10 civilians, not terrorists.
The Afghan War launched by the U.S. has torn Afghanistan apart in the past 20 years, taking the lives of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Still and all, the U.S. military was abusing its power to hurt the Afghanistan people at the last minute before returning home. The practice of the U.S. military in Afghanistan once again proved that the U.S. is the biggest saboteur of world peace and the largest source of chaos for the world.
The U.S. does not have a long history as a country, but its history of war is truly “glorious.” In the 240-plus years since its founding, only 16 years passed without a war. According to statistics, 201, or over 80 percent of the 248 armed conflicts in 153 regions from the end of World War II in 1945 to 2001, were initiated by the U.S. Since the World War II, the U.S. has established nearly 800 military bases in some 70 countries worldwide, and almost all the U.S. Presidents had initiated or joined external wars. American historian Paul Atwood said that the U.S. history is one of “constant wars of aggression and imperial expansion.”
Washington views wars as a tool to transform other countries and export its ideologies and believes that wars can help it achieve the so-called “Pax Americana.” However, the wars it launched brought only turbulence to the world.
American writer William Henry Blum said in his book America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy that since the end of World War II, the U.S. has endeavored to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected, grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries, and attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.
The U.S. has opened many Pandora’s boxes around the world. The emergence of the “Islamic State” and the growing number of terrorist organizations in Afghanistan were both related to the wars launched by the U.S.. From Afghanistan to Iraq and Syria to Libya, massive facts have proved that it would be chaotic wherever the evil hand of the U.S. reaches.
The U.S. considers itself a “lighthouse country for democracy,” However the wars it launched have led to severe humanitarian crises.
Since 2001, about 335,000 civilians have died from U.S.-initiated wars. Besides, the U.S. has launched over 90,000 airstrikes in the recent two decades in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, killing as many as 48,000 civilians.
A former U.S. soldier and a drone pilot said in a testimony for a UN expert committee that U.S. drone strikes were purely killing for the sake of killing. In the shocking incident happened in the Iraqi city of Haditha in 2005, the U.S. military indiscriminately shot and killed 24 Iraqi civilians following the killing of one U.S. soldier.
The U.S. is to blame for the major humanitarian crisis in today’s Afghanistan and also is responsible for turning Syria from a food exporter into a country suffering from famines.
The U.S. tells the world it is a protector of the rule-based international order. However it is indeed the biggest saboteur of international rules and orders. For a long time, the U.S. has believed that its strong military allows it to do whatever it wants in the world.
As long as it protects the U.S. hegemony, be it setting up military alliances, provoking military conflicts, or withdrawing from arm control treaties, the U.S. is always selective and utilitarian when it comes to the international system with the UN at the core and the international order based on the international law.
Worshipping military power, the U.S. is provoking troubles and bullying others everywhere, which mirrors its outdated unilateral thinking. Peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefits are a trend of the times, and multi-polarization and democratization of international relations are unstoppable. The American hegemony and power politics will finally be abandoned by history.
(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy and international affairs.)
