Phil Mirzoev's blog

Showing posts with label US Pakistan relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Pakistan relations. Show all posts

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Why the US doesn't apologize for its recent killing of Pakistani troops

Now I very often hear questions like 'why doesn't Obama apologize for killing Pakistani troops' etc. It needs some sort of short clarification. 
The question 'why Obama doesn't apologize' is basically incorrect, just because within the American state system of coordinates the value of people lives beyond its borders is ZERO in the general case - it was so, it is so and it will be so in the foreseeable future.
A much more relevant question is 'why should he apologize?'. But not the other way around just because the modern state-nations structurally are not in the habit of apologizing, and the bigger a state the less desire it has to apologize for anything. They, if you like, are intrinsically immoral. That's how the modern (as a matter of fact very obsolete) state models work (even the so called democracies): what's done by state has the benefit of presumption of being morally right - not the other way around. The value of lives and national dignity of OTHER nations in the eyes of the US are no more than a PIECE of SHIT pardon my French  - that's how things are, were and will be in the foreseeable future. I am not very happy to remind about this unfortunate reality, but that's the way it is. Only AMERICAN PEOPLE can sometimes FORCE the US semi-democratic state to recognize something or apologize, but even in those rare cases it takes sometimes decades and thousands of lives. Moreover because there are no real democratic mechanism of control by the American people of what their state is up to BEYOND national borders, the probability that Americans will force their state to apologize to some fellow human creatures in some other part of the world is ABSOLUTE ZERO. 
You may as well ask why the US don't want to apologize to Japan for nuclear bombing of its civilians in WW2, or why Israel isn't in a hurry to apologize to Palestinians for the criminal blockade and occupation, or why Russian state is in no mood to apologize to the Chechen people... or why Turkey doesn't think of apologizing to the Armenians etc etc. That's the essence of the antique 'state-nations' - even 'semi-democratic' ones amongst them. The prestige and the presumption of the morality and justifiability of what is done by a state, especially beyond its borders, is granted at a fundamental level. Such things as Nuremberg process or recognition of the massacre of Polish elites by the Soviets and such like is a HISTORICAL and very very RARE EXCEPTION, caused by a very very specific set of circumstances and overwhelming proof of the scale of the crimes. So the question is, in my view, absolutely INCORRECT. To pin one's hopes on some miracle in this sense is also unreasonable because Obama, with all due respect, is not Vaclav Havel and can never have been one - Vaclav Havel is phenomenon that is impossible in usual, steady political conditions, kind of ' a freak of nature' bound with transitional revolutionary processes.
One can with the same vain hope expect Obama to apologize to own nation on the behalf of the state for thousands upon thousands of American girls and boys uniform KILLED in the Iraqi war (an tens of thousands more mutilated for life) which was started under the 100% false excuses and grounds from the first. It is not a matter of who is president - Obama is the best imaginable president for the US for my taste, but it is a matter of the antique political SYSTEM, of its intrinsically immoral core, which is based not on pursuing fairness and justice in the context of the absolute universal value of human life, but on the primacy of 'state national interests' and the state presumption of innocence and good intentions. Hence the state FORCE defines what is moral, not the other way around. So the question is not about Obama, the question is about the structure of the US state and the continuity of state interests. Only HUGE pressure and a very specific set of external circumstances could FORCE American government to give an apology to Pakistani nation of to anyone else for that matter.
A MUCH more relevant question in my humble opinion is that HOW DARE the US in the person of its president even MENTION some kind of moral grounds and make ANY kind of moral judgements about other parts of the worlds in which it has its interests and presence (including military one). I can perfectly understand why the US state treat any other nation and people beyond its border as historical manure in deed without even bothering to reliably hide or cover the fact, but how can it be at the same time so BRAZEN as to EVER allude to some kind of MORAL grounds - that's what is completely beyond me! How can the US in those circumstances seriously believe that there is still something left of their moral authority and image - that's a real puzzle.

See also on the close themes:
'A letter to a friend: don't have illusions, there are no good governments'
Some extra about the moral political crisis in the Western semi-democracies  
How to avoid ridiculously 'freak' wars like in Iraq and Afghanistan in future?!
Yes, Bradley Manning and Assange deserve the Nobel prize possibly more than Obama does!
America refused to teach Arabs democracy, then Arabs will teach the US democracy!