[Dedicated to the memory of those innocent Iraqis who are already dead and will die in the unilaterally-decided US-led unjust war against Iraq.]

Many years ago, I saw a film called Jaws , directed by the then young director, Steven Spielberg. At that time it was an exciting film to see. Many years later, rethinking the film and particularly the mechanical shark featured in the film, I began to wonder how close that was to the character of the US.

Here was a representation of an animal that was a ferocious eating machine. It hunted, attacked and killed its victim without a conscience.

While that is not what a real shark will do just for fun or for an audience wanting to be entertained, the Hollywood representation of it is in a sense what the US has grown up to be today, a terror without a conscience. In Jaws , the essential nature of the US was captured pretty accurately. In fact, many films after that which portrayed the beast truly reflect the US. Perhaps is it some sort of an unconscious representation!

How else can o­ne even begin to understand the US? How else can you explain its behaviour in the global context? Americans have written about their guiding values. In o­ne trajectory, Americans (read Anglo-Saxon Americans) like to claim that rationalism, empiricism and individualism are their foundational values.

Can o­ne say any rationalism in their collective behaviour? Here is a country that mouths, beats its breast and broadcast to the world, 'life, individual liberty and democracy' every opportunity it can get. They like us to perceive them as a personification of those principles.

Should we? This same country spends an incredible amount o­n its war machinery. For the year 2000, US military spending stood at US$343 billion. This was 69 percent greater than that of the next five highest nations combined. Russia, which has the second largest military budget, spends less than o­ne-sixth what the United States does. Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, and Syria spend US$14.4 billion combined; Iran accounts for 52 percent of this total. Does this not look a little strange promoting a culture of liberty and democracy while maintaining an aggressive militaristic culture? Where is there rationalism in this?

Biggest guzzlers

Consider again this nation that is so concerned about life, liberty and democracy across the world in terms of its consumption behaviour. The amount of energy used by o­ne American is equivalent to that used by three Japanese, six Mexicans, 14 Chinese, 38 Indians, 168 Bangladeshi, and 531 Ethiopians.

A person in the US causes 100 times more damage to the global environment than a person in a poor country. Where is the rationalism in this? In fact, recent estimates indicate that at least four additional planets would be needed if each of the planet's six billion inhabitants consumed at the level of the average American. The US is that much unsustainable and dangerous to all life o­n earth.

This brings us to a number of questions. What is that that makes it tick as a collective entity? The above values of rationalism, individualism, liberty and democracy? Or, the values that are presented in another trajectory, namely fairness, compassion, honesty, justice, winning and patriotism?

What are its real core values? What drives an amoral America? What really animates this conscience-less nation?

Not certainly all that which it claims for global consumption. There is also a classic Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in the American character. Individual and collective America are at disjunction with each other, with the dominant collective Hyde dominating the global context, making "American exceptionalism", representing the Freudian id, its principle of engagement.

The twin pillars that govern the behaviour of this collective amoral beast are centered o­n the ideas, practices and institutions that promote "marketing" and "militarism". Both are based o­n the reality of aggression, ranging from "soft" to "hard". They form the real core. The gentler, funnier side that we see their sitcoms or their Academy Award nights are really a marginal America in terms of the decisions and direction the US takes in a global context.

The "angry" US today behaves as though there was no history before Sept 11. It seems to say "How could they do this to us? We are innocent".

Pre-Sept II

Are they? There is a definite history before Sept 11, o­ne in which the US played the role of the big white shark, doing what it wanted to do and as it pleased. Nothing in that history show any semblance of respect for the kind of values it likes to be identified with or project. William Blum in his book, Rogue State (referring to the US), notes that from "1945 to the end of the century, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair".

Against this collective violence of the US, the individual dictator Saddam Hussein seems rather innocent. A few cases would illustrate what the US really stands for and what animates it.

After Congo in Africa became independent from Belgium, Patrice Lumumba was democratrically elected to power and became its first prime minister. He leaned to the Soviet Union for help.

In the midst of the Cold War, that was too much for the US. And, never mind democracy. According to a memo relating a National Security Council (NSC) meeting in 1960, former US president Dwight Eisenhower ordered the assassination of Lumumba. He was to be eliminated by the use of a vial of poison to be injected into something Lumumba might eat. Though this was not what actually killed him (it was the agents of the Belgium government), it simply goes to show the Beast at work.

Lumumba was killed in January 1961. The Belgium government many years later apologised for its role in the killing of Lumumba. The US of course thought that it was their right to eliminate leaders whom they did not like. They, of course, continue to think so.

In the 1960s, Chile was experimenting with a dynamic form of socialism quite different from the Soviet or the Chinese model. It involved the election of a Marxist leader, Dr Salvador Allende to power.

That was again too much for the US. Everything that it built and promoted as communist approach to politics as part of its Cold War policy was crushed by Allende and development of Chilean socialism: Not o­nly was he elected but he also upheld the constitution and was increasingly becoming popular.

If Allende had been with us today not o­nly would he have given us a model of "Third World parliamentary socialism" but also would have been there to oppose the Iraq war!

The minute Allende started to become popular, the US "market" and "military" forces started to take over. From the 1960s to the early 1970s, John F Kennedy, and his brother, Robert Kennedy, and later Richard Nixon were all involved in making sure Allende's rule came to end. CIA, American corporation, ITT, World Bank and IMF, all played a crucial role in this conspiracy. In 1973, in a military coup by the US-supported Gen Pinochet, Allende was killed and there was a "regime change", supposedly for liberty and democracy.

What happened? Gen Pinochet who came to power in 1973 killed over 3,000 people and tortured a thousand more. In the midst of this, then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger assured Pinochet that "In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here.We wish your government well."

This was the same Pinochet who left his well-guarded 'hideout' at the beautiful Andean foothills in Chile for treatment and was arrested in London in 1998, about 25 years after the coup, o­n a warrant from a Spanish magistrate alleging his systematic use of torture.

The American presidents or the American institutions or the corporations that stood behind these tortures and deaths escaped that humiliation as they always do. Their modus operandi is to work with locals so that they are not implicated. If they are, they deny it vehemently. If enough evidence is there to prove their involvement, they protect their institutions by deflecting scrutiny to individuals or technical matters. An extremely smart beast.

Courting injustice

Fidel Castro in Cuba is a constant embarrassment for the US. Unable to do anything directly with this small nation, the US has made sure no other socialist society came into existence in the region.

Thus, in the late 1970s, the US was yet again interfering in the affairs of another Marxist government in Latin America. The Sandinistas, under the leadership of Daniel Ortega came to power in 1978 after overthrowing Somoza dictatorship in Nicaraqua. They were thrown out of power in 1990. How that happened is instructional in understanding the nature of US behaviour in the global context.

Under then US President Ronald Reagan, the initial stage to sabotage the Sandinista government was both diplomatic and economic. Later, the fight was through Washington's proxy army, the Contras, whom the US administration lovingly called "the freedom fighter"! This was army grouped by the people who had terrorised the Nicaraguan people under the dictator Somoza.

The US refused to allow the Sandinista to rule peacefully and concentrate o­n the development of their country. Not o­nly did it train and supply the Contra rebels, but it showed contempt for international law by having the US navy lay mines outside Nicaraguan ports and assist attacks o­n harbours, oil installations and naval bases.

Nicaragua brought the US before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The 1986 Nicaragua vs US case, the ICJ commented that the US Congress was entitled to criticise the Sandinista human rights record but not seek to improve it by mining Nicaraguan harbours, destroying oil refineries and sending the Contras as surrogate soldiers!

The critical point here was that the "right of humanitarian intervention" arises in an emergency to stop the continued crimes against humanity but not for bad human rights record. In effect, the "right of humanitarian intervention" is not really the "right of ideological intervention", which is what the US is guilty of.

How did the US respond? The US argued at first that the court had no jurisdiction. When that argument was lost, it ungraciously walked out, announcing that it would not be bound by any decision that did not suit the interests of America. Then it withdrew its agreement under the optional clause, so that it could not be forced before the court again. (The optional clause makes States, unconditionally or with certain reservations, accept the jurisdiction of the Court for all legal disputes as compulsory.) Thus, when an international instrument is not in its favour it withdraws or sabotages it, something it has done to the UN today.

The US is really unconcerned about all this even as it quite successfully projects the values such as fairness, compassion, honesty or justice as the reason for its global mission. That is the power of the "American Lie". And, the danger of the "American Dream" to the world.

Tomorrow:

Part II - The American Nightmare

Dr M NADARAJAH is a sociologist by profession. He is the deputy coordinator of Bangkok-based Asian Communication Network (ACN) and works o­n sustainable development issues.