{"id":93738,"date":"2019-10-10T13:07:03","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T20:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=93738"},"modified":"2019-10-10T13:11:55","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T20:11:55","slug":"yahapalana-and-the-united-states-of-america-part-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/10\/yahapalana-and-the-united-states-of-america-part-16\/","title":{"rendered":"YAHAPALANA AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Part 16"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

United States rose to prominence after World War II. USA and Russia thereafter fought a Cold War which neither won. When the Cold War with Russia ended abruptly in 1991 the USA became the world\u2019s sole super-power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the 1990s, the USA reigned supreme. The USA had the best army, air force, and navy. No other country could rival it. It became a global policeman.\u00a0 The USA divided up the globe into different \u2018combatant commands\u2019, such as the Pacific command (now Indo-Pacific Command) with each Command taking orders from a single officer. USA\u2019s powerful 7th<\/sup> Fleet dominated the Pacific Ocean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USA thought it would continue to rule the world forever, \u2018American leadership is good for the world\u2019, it said. \u00a0Instead, Russia and China are now coming into the picture, making the world multipolar.\u201d USA\u2019s powers are now decreasing in comparison. \u00a0America\u2019s military advantage vis-\u00e0-vis China and Russia is eroding admitted USA. It is the superpowers in decline that are often the most dangerous, warned analysts.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USA is no longer an admired and feared country. The notion that the USA is a shining example of democracy was always utter nonsense. No country is able to show a perfect democracy, ever, and the USA was no exception. But now it has got worse. The USA has been declared a flawed democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the 2018 edition of The Economist <\/em>Intelligence Unit\u2019s Democracy Index, the U.S. is ranked 25th out of 165 sovereign independent countries, reported the media. The Democracy Index defines a flawed democracy as a democracy where despite\u00a0free and fair elections as well as civil rights and liberties there are significant weaknesses\u201d in other democratic characteristics such as problems in institutional governance, a poor political culture, and lower levels of political participation in public life. The USA has experienced government shutdowns, low voter turnout<\/a> and a lack<\/a> of electoral reform, it said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0The United States is ranked as a flawed democracy alongside countries such as Portugal, France, Belgium, Cyprus, Israel, Taiwan, Italy, Japan, and South\u00a0Korea. This is not the first time the United States has been criticized for its current political status. A study by\u00a0Princeton University in 2014 showed<\/a> that the USA is now an oligarchy where the elite, not the average citizen, has the power and influence, said the media.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The notion of the USA as a supporter of free speech and other wonderful freedoms is now questioned. There is the example of Julian Assange of Wikileaks and US whistleblower Edward Snowden. The USA wants Assange punished for leaking secret American documents. He was arrested under a US extradition warrant kept the secret till now. TIME says Snowden wants to return to the US but does not believe he will get a fair trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USA is not as liberated and as socially advanced as it thinks it is. Roe vs Wade\u201d is still not completely accepted. Alabama recently passed the nation\u2019s most extreme abortion bill, reported TIME. It would ban abortion almost entirely in the state and make it a felony to perform an abortion.\u00a0 \u00a0There is a great discrepancy between the salaries paid to men and those paid to women for doing identical jobs in the USA. \u00a0American women have now started complaining. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is race prejudice. The African American is still discriminated against. Every black person knows that no amount of accomplishment or wealth can exempt him from racial prejudice,\u201d reported Time. They are prevented from voting at elections. Michelle Obama said in her book \u2018Becoming\u201d that it was estimated that about 400,000 African Americans in the state of Chicago were eligible to vote but were still unregistered. For those registered, racists try to figure out which polling booths to close so that they would have difficulty getting to one, added TIME. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0People will stop for a stray dog before they will stop for a black child alone in the middle of the day\u2019 said Kamala Harris. A white teenager who kills is a good kid who deserves a second chance, but a black teenager who commits the same crime should be locked up for life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is violence, shown worldwide in the numerous mass shootings in US schools and elsewhere. The justice system is not perfect.In 2018, 151 persons were cleared of convictions for crimes they did not commit. This group had served an average of 10 years in jail. In the USA despite the law, it is the prosecutor who decides. He will decide to put sex workers in jail while letting their customers off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is corruption, such as Chicago\u2019s famous cronyism, where the most lucrative city contracts are awarded to favored persons. A study of international corruption cases in 2012 found that most of the shell companies used to hide financial crimes were from America. Also that the most secretive shell companies are in America. They are very easy to set up in the US. When US Congress suggested corporate transparency legislation, it was shot down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a poverty of sorts. An entire generation of USA has come of age without having seen US prosperity, said TIME in April 2019. And there was a shared sense among them that they had been screwed\u201d. Farm bankruptcies are increasing in USA said CNN in September 2019. Certain categories of low paid workers, such as waitresses, live on tips. The management openly asks customers to tip them. That is a part of the US economic system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US economy is no longer the best in the world. It lost its lead 15 years ago. Industrial production has collapsed in the US. The US no longer leads in the manufacture of durable goods. Electric and electronic items, which were originally produced in the US, are now produced in other countries such as China. As manufacture decreased, so did the job, resulting in unemployment. Since the US now has to import these goods, there is a trade deficit as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

R&D expenditure has shrunk significantly over the last few decades, said TIME. Once the world leader in R&D the US now ranks 12th<\/sup> in government-funded R&D as a Percentage of GDP. China, on the other hand, is heavily funding basic research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0 12 American universities are listed among the best-ranked universities in the world, but secondary education is not always excellent. There was a teacher strike in Los Angeles in January 2019, due to a lack of education funding. They demanded better school funding, smaller class sizes, and higher pay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, the CIA, America\u2019s well-known spy service, had an agent right inside the Kremlin.CIA said that they had never been able to penetrate the Kremlin, but this chap came to them and offered to spy for them. This spy had access to the highest levels of the Kremlin, including access to Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s papers. He had sent secrets to Washington for decades. This spy had refused to leave Russia but was eventually taken out, due to security fears, and now lives in Washington DC. The US has lost a nearly irreplaceable asset, wept CIA. Recruiting a source with key access is extremely hard. A source in a key position may happen once a generation, if ever. The chap was probably a plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CIA has also\ntried to get birds and dolphins to spy on Russia. Dolphins were tried out to\nsee whether they could be trained to spy on Russian submarines and place\nexplosives on vessels.\nP<\/strong>igeons<\/strong> were trained <\/strong>to take pictures of a Soviet shipyard\nbuilding nuclear attack submarines<\/strong>. <\/strong>Some snapped\nperfect photos, but others flew out, with expensive cameras attached, and never\nreturned. CIA also planned to smuggle a bird into Russia where it would be\nreleased secretly in the field, tasked to fly 25 kilometers carrying a camera\nto snap pictures of radar for SA-5 missiles, and fly back. This plan did\nnot succeed either. The pigeon project was abandoned as unreliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

USA\u2018s foreign relations have been heavily criticized. USA\u2019s foreign policies and actions are completely authoritarian or even dictatorial, said Laksiri Fernando. The USA does not want a partnership, but subjugation or submission.\u00a0 USA\u2019s first target was Latin America. The USA has engaged in direct military interventions in most of the countries of Latin America,\u00a0 throughout the years making Latin America a region of political instability and economic chaos, Fernando said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the USA did not confine its attention only to Latin America. Between 1945 and 2005 the United States has attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments\u00a0and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US has caused the deaths of several million people and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair,\u00a0\u00a0 said, critics. The best-known defeat is that of Vietnam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When \u00a0the UN General assembly started its 74th<\/sup> session in September 2019, Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergey Lavrov wrote a piece to \u2018Russia in Global Affairs\u2019 magazine, (20 September 2019.) Here are some of the things he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n