H. L. D. Mahindapala

The crimes committed by the Caucasian West against humanity throughout their history, held together mainly by the common Christian ideology, demonstrate incontrovertibly that they do not have the moral right to dictate human rights commandments to the rest. Their engagements in innumerable wars of colonialism, racism, capitalism, communism, fascism, religion, greed to grab resources, adventurism — you name it ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” make them stand out as the most obscene violators of human rights more than any other civilized community in recorded history. And to boot they have had the advantage of using the most advanced technology in warfare which gave them the power to kill and destroy their ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-enemy combatantsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, along with civilian non-combatants on a mass scale indiscriminately. No other civilization had weapons of mass destruction and the Caucasian West has used them unconscionably and repeatedly to shorten their costly wars to bring home their boys early by targeting millions of Germans and Japanese civilians with either carpet bombing as in Dresden or dropping atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the last stages of the World War II.

In this blame game, only those who come with clean hands have the moral right and the integrity to sit in judgment over others accused of violating human rights. What justice can be expected from a mother/father who sits in judgment over the son accused of committing crimes? So, on any credible and acceptable scale of justice, the crimes the West had committed ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” and continue to commit — deny them the right to claim any moral authority or superiority in passing judgment on human rights issues. However, despite their dismal record, they have managed to be accepted, particularly in the servile quarters beholden to their funding like the NGOs, as the most righteous defenders of human rights. Of course, it cannot be denied that they had refined some of the fundamental traditional values as seen in Tom PaineƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Rights of Man which were further refined by the French Revolution and finally enshrined as human rights in the UN Charter. Subsequently, human rights became the secular religion of the 20th century without its commandments coming down from the heavens above.

More than the moral value itƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s the cash value that made it the most fashionable mantra which is now on the lips of every NGO hack who assumes that he/she is entitled to use R2P ostensibly on the pretext of protecting people. In reality, however, it is to them the best meal ticket to five-star hotels or as a pass to join cocktail parties of Western embassies. That is all there is to it, as seen in the case of Sri Lanka where the NGO pundits, after raking in millions, failed to contribute one whit to either a lasting negotiated settlement or a viable formula to end the longest running war in Asia — 33 years, give or take a few days from the day war was declared in the Vadukoddai Resolution on May 14, 1976 to May 18, 2009.

So the values espoused by the Caucasian West and their local agents in NGOs do not elevate them above the rest of humanity plagued by political violence, most of which were either caused by the West, or perpetuated by Western ideologies, funds, and agents. At best their sound bites on humanitarian values, propagated through BBC, CNN, TIME etc., place them on the pedestal of sophisticated barbarians who pretend to rule by a higher morality when in reality they happen to be the criminal originators and perpetrators of political evil that plague cotemporary conflict zones.

For instance, the French and the British rushed to Colombo in the last phase of the Vadukoddai War invoking R2P and then, without any compunction, rushed from Colombo to bomb Afghanistan, Libya, Congo and Ivory Coast. They are, of course, as pointed out by Bernard Shaw, men of principles: they support their kings on loyal principles and cut their heads off on republican principles. They do everything on principles that are only convenient to them. The perversity of their morality is not only in their hypocrisy and double standards but also in the cruelty to the helpless people who become the victims of their partisan morality which they use for their convenience.

Human history has never seen such disingenuous moral monsters like those who come from the Caucasian West. The West, by and large, defend their violence claiming that it was done for the good of the rest. The colonial violence was to civilize the natives. The capitalist oppression was to increase the wealth of nations as a reward for their entrepreneurial skills, including exploiting the poor. The dictatorship of the proletariat was to distribute wealth to the poor who ended up in Soviet gulags, or in the streets of Moscow without a piece of bread. The drum beat of fascism was to make the world a better place without the Jews who were demonized as the root of all evil in Christendom. Hitler was merely the last embodiment of this Church-sponsored anti-Semitic ideology. Going further back, the Western elite responded in the Middle Ages to go on the Crusade to save Christianity from the infidel Muslims in the east. Now they call it the clash of civilizations. They also stood by the burning cross of the Ku-Klux Klan to preserve the purity of white America by lynching the blacks without even a trial. The Holy Men ran the Inquisition and burnt the witches and tortured the men to cleanse the minds of anti-Christ heretics.

The British invented the concentration camps in the Boer War to keep their enemies locked up. The British also castrated Mau Maus in Kenya and ObamaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s grandfather narrowly escaped this inhuman horror. Obama would never have seen the light of day if the British got their cutters anywhere near the vitals of his grandpa. So should Obama join hands with the British as he does now or press for compensation on behalf of the Kenyans who lost more than their human rights to cruel knives of the British? Right now some Kenyans are suing the British government asking for compensation. Will Obama back them or back off?

All told the enormity of the collective crimes of the West makes Genghis Khan, who came from the East, look like a Gandhi. The West has got away with all the crimes they have committed against humanity by posing as saintly champions of human rights. The NGOs, their hired agents abroad, have reinforced this myth by (1) glorifying their Western donors who maintain their expensive life style and (2) vilifying the Afro-Asian countries in which they operate. Their joint propaganda has succeeded in letting the villains of the West off the hook.

Not a single NGO in Sri Lanka, for instance, has asked for the head of Bush, Brown and Blair for the crimes committed during their watch. Not a single Western leader has been taken to trial for the crimes committed against the rest of the world though other South European, Afro-Asian leaders have been put on trial for far lesser crimes. After World War II the world was plagued with mini wars, running from Vietnam to Nicaragua, all of which were financed with direct or indirect involvement of Western forces. How come in these wars only the small fry were taken to trial and punished and not a single big fish of the West was ever caught? Is it because of their purity or hypocrisy?

Their methodology to claim moral superiority has a clear pattern:

1. They invoke the highest principles for committing the vilest acts against humanity. In the colonial period they invoked the Christian principles of civilizing the heathen barbarians. In the post-colonial period they invoke the secular principles of human rights.

2. Their propaganda machines demonize their victims as evil barbarians and enemies of civilization who must be dealt with in the most brutal manner conceivable to preserve and protect the supremacy of the white masters using human rights to keep the natives down to control their natural resources.

3. Then they carry out surgical military operations for regime change in the hope of turning these hostile states to client states. This is new face of neo-colonialism. They donƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢t occupy territory for long periods. They do a hit-and-run operation after installing their clients in power.

4. There is no difference in the military operations of the old and new colonialists: they methodically torture, castrate, sexually abuse, burn land, massacre males, particularly youth, ethnically cleanse territory, change traditional demography with indentured labor, draw arbitrary borders, destroy the indigenous cultures and icons, to make sure that their politico-economic interests are served fully. The only difference, if any, is that they invoke the doctrine of R2P or UN Resolutions. The UN sanctioned move to throw a naval cordon to bloc vital supplies to Iraq killed 600,000 children who were deprived of essential medical supplies and food, according to UNHCR.

5. They hide the evidence of violations of human rights as long as they can until pressure builds up (as seen in the case of Kenyans demanding the exposure of crimes committed against the Kenyan Mau Maus during the colonial period) to reveal the documents hidden in their archives.

6. The neo-colonialists hire NGO coolies to focus on allegations of human rights violations in conflict zones to give the upper hand to Western interventionists to push their neo-colonial pursuits. This diversionary tactic also makes the NGOs and their Western masters look like the sympathetic champions of human rights.

7. Next they publish reports on the violations of other nations to cover-up and divert attention from their massive violations of human rights committed by neo-colonial regimes..

8. When finally the proverbial hits the fan they apologize publicly to preempt any punitive measures or paying of compensation to their helpless victims

9. West have no compunction in turning a blind eye to fascist, tyrannical dictators oppressing their own people as long as they serve their politico-economic interests. (e.g., Hosni Mubarak.)

10. To avoid accusations of violating IHL they use other tyrannical regimes for rendition ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” the new methodology used for extracting evidence from suspected enemies of America in Egyptian and other cells designed for torture.

11. They use their veto power at the UN, or refuse to sign Rome Treaty to protect Westerners who are guilty of committing international humanitarian law. It is reported that Henry Kissinger, NixonƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Secretary of State, is reluctant to move out of USA fearing that he will be arraigned for violations of human rights in Chile, Vietnam etc.,

In other words they use every trick in the trade to make them look morally superior to the rest of the world, while using every known tactic to avoid facing the consequences of human rights arising from their neo-colonial violations of human rights. They pretend that they alone are not culpable as the other nations engaged in fighting their designated ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-enemy combatantsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ even though in Afghanistan, for instance, the death rate of civilians has spiked by 10 per cent killing — 2700 last year, according to Staffan de Mistura, UN representative in Afghanistan. (BBC interview with Zeina Bedawi, March 10, 2011).

Who was held accountable for the Vietnamese children who were running naked in the streets burning with the scalding napalm dropped by American planes? Are we to assume that the American generals and Commanders-in Chief are not tainted because they fought these wars with tulips and roses and not with bombs and bullets?

Take the example of the human rights record documented annually by the State Department. When has this morally upright State Department ever accused the Americans of violating human rights? Who has ever threatened to cut off aid to America for violations of IHL? When will America look inward into its own innards and learn lessons from its heinous crimes before pointing fingers at the rest of the world?

How valid is this act of pointing a finger at the rest of the world when the other four fingers are pointing directly at America? When will America and the West as a whole have the courage to be moral according to its own professed values, let alone in the eyes of the rest of the world?