International meddling not just the providence of ‘bad guys’

Russia and China are portrayed as evil empires on the world stage, says Greg Barns

THE

hypocrisy of Washington and its satellites like Canberra when it comes to foreign relations is nothing new. But the manufactured outrage over Russia and China is something else.

Politicians and their allies in the media and the defence and security circles are reinventing the Cold War. In Washington this is in the form of anger at Russian meddling — or so it is alleged — in the US electoral process. In Canberra Russia is also in the gun, but more prominently China. Both are portrayed as evil empires while the US and Australia are the model global citizens. It really is sickening.

As former FBI director Robert Mueller, now the Special Counsel investigating Russian links to the 2016 presidential election, goes about his business charging Trump campaign operatives and excoriating social media for allowing Moscow-backed groups to run material on social media, the Pentagon and the US security establishment and its agents (including Canberra) are meddling in the domestic affairs of nations across the globe.

In fact, here is a short history lesson to put it in perspective. Dov Levin, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie-Mellon University, published data earlier this year showing that the US from 1946-2000 interfered in the electoral processes of other countries 81 times. You name the continent, the US was involved — including Australia, where the CIA decided the Whitlam government was far too independent of Washington, and had to be destabilised.

Meddling in foreign elections has been a daily business for the CIA and its fellow deep state operatives since 2000. In fact, it has been up to its neck in it in not only the Middle East, but in Russia’s backyard. In the Ukraine, the Obama Administration overtly organised a coup against the Moscow-friendly government. Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute described it this way: “Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the Obama administration, openly boasted about the expenditure of some $5 billion to assist ‘pro-democracy’ forces in Ukraine since 1991. Although such funding was not inherently hostile to the duly elected government of proRussian president Victor Yanukovych, it did strengthen the anti-Yanukovych factions that took to the streets during the 2013-2014 political crisis in that country. When demonstrators tried to unseat Yanukovych, Nuland and her colleagues engaged in even more blatant meddling. A leaked telephone call between Nuland and then US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt revealed their attempt to select the personnel for a successor government. Other political leaders reinforced such efforts. John McCain, for example, showed up in Kiev to urge on the demonstrators in their bid to

unseat the elected government before the expiration of its term in 2016,” Carpenter wrote on Huffington Post on January 31.

In Australia, it is rare to find the media and politicians complaining about Washington influence in our affairs. China and to a lesser extent Russia are the forces of darkness. If political parties take money from a Chinese company that is the subject of breathless paranoid denunciation. If Chinese interests buy Australian assets — the Port of Darwin, for example — that sparks outrage.

But you will not hear a peep out of the Australian media and their friends in Canberra about US interests in Australia buying influence. Yet the Washington influence, through official channels like the US Embassy and unofficial means such as US corporate interests, continues to play an outsized role in Australia. Why do you think our politicians and most of the media are so in thrall of US foreign policy and US trade policy? Because we are willing puppets. Remember we host Pine Gap.

And do we ever hear the Australian media and political class complaining about the role Israeli interests play in propping up our shameful support for the apartheid state? Former foreign minister Bob Carr rightly exposed and complained about the Israel lobby and its outsized influence in Canberra.

As the release by WikiLeaks of diplomatic cables in 2010 showed, Australian politicians are clearly selling out to the US and Israel routinely. Former Defence Department secretary Paul Barratt noted at the time the cables showed “the United States and Israel can go about their affairs confident that Australia will never press them on any issue, and on most occasions will refrain from critical comment. Why would any country put itself in this situation, even with its friends?”

So when you read headlines about Russia and China being dastardly forces that are seeking to undermine democracies, bear in mind that Australia and its colonial master the United States are capital H hypocrites.

Greg Barns is a human rights lawyer. He has advised state and federal Liberal governments.