U.S. addiction to hegemony biggest threat to world peace, order

BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- To maintain its hegemony and global primacy, the United States has long been fanning tensions and creating chaos around the world.

Addicted to exercising raw military power and intoxicated with the immense political and economic gains from conflict instigation and arbitrary intervention, the United States, analysts and observers say, has become the greatest threat to world peace and stability.

ADDICTED TO WAR

In remarks made in April 2019, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said the United States has been at peace for only 16 of its 242 years as a nation, calling the country "the most warlike nation in the history of the world."

From directly launching wars, backing proxy wars, stirring up inter-state hostilities to engineering "color revolutions," the United States has been involved in most of the major warfares or military conflicts since WWII.

These wars and conflicts have devastated the invaded countries, killed millions of civilians, and displaced tens of millions.

The unfolding Russia-Ukraine conflict is just the latest of many examples in which the United States seeks its own geopolitical interests by stirring up confrontations in other countries or regions.

William Jones, Washington bureau chief of the U.S. publication Executive Intelligence Review, has said that Russia's main concern about NATO eastward expansion has never been heeded by the United States, "which is only interested in maintaining its hegemonic status in Europe, and which has been steadily retreating from that collaborative policy which the West committed itself to after the Cold War."

In a dialogue with the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board on April 1, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called on the United States not to make the Russia-Ukraine conflict "a battle of democracies against autocracies."

"You have to be very careful not to define the problem with Ukraine in such a way that automatically, China is already on the wrong side," Lee said, adding that the U.S.-China relationship is one of the things which will be complicated by the conflict.

"If you say democracies versus autocracies - plural - that already defines China into the wrong camp, and makes things even more difficult," he added.

SANCTIONS WREAKING HAVOC

The United States has kept fueling the fire after the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out, pumping weapons into Ukraine and pushing its allies to impose sweeping sanctions against Russia.

On March 29, when the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine made progress, U.S. treasury officials announced more sanctions against Russian economy and supply chains.

A major exporter of some of the world's most essential commodities as Russia is, massive U.S. economic sanctions have shocked the trade in commodities, disrupted global supply chains and thus weighed heavily on the fragile post-pandemic recovery of the global economy.

The international community is paying the prices of these unilateral sanctions, and Europe is among those who bear the brunt of the spillover effect, with energy bills and commodity prices soaring for households.

Meanwhile, poorer countries in northern Africa, Asia and the Middle East risk suffering significant food insecurity as the conflict is poised to drive up already soaring food prices in much of the globe.

While answering a question from a press conference in Brussels in late March, U.S. President Joe Biden admitted that sanctions against Russia have taken a toll on a large number of countries, with many of them having to face food shortages.

"We did talk about food shortages...and it is going to be real," said Biden. "The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia, it is imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well."

HUMAN RIGHTS PREACHER OR DESTROYER?

"Human rights," "democracy" or "common values" are common rhetorics the United States uses to justify its aggression and intervention.

However, they are all lies in the face of multiple human tragedies that it fuels, facilitates and reaps from.

Iran's crude oil exports were slashed by more than 80 percent due to U.S.-imposed sanctions from 2017 to late 2020, which has dealt a heavy blow to the country's economy and inflicted misery on the Iranian people.

On June 23, 2021, the UN General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution for the 29th consecutive year to call on the United States to end embargo on Cuba and start dialogue to improve bilateral ties with the country.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the United States continues to impose the embargo and sanctions against Cuba in the face of COVID-19, causing huge losses to the Cuban economy and society, and the Cuban people are suffering from the harm caused by this extremely inhumane act.

Meanwhile, a 2019 study by the U.S.-based Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) found that as many as 40,000 people may have died in Venezuela from 2017 to 2018 as a result of U.S. sanctions.

"The sanctions are depriving Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, medical equipment, food and other essential imports," said Mark Weisbrot, CEPR co-director and co-author of the study. "This is illegal under U.S. and international law, and treaties that the U.S. has signed."

When the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, it immediately froze billions of U.S. dollars in foreign exchange reserves at the Afghan Central Bank, causing the Afghan economy to be on the brink of collapse and making life worse for the people.

In January, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that millions of Afghans were on the brink of death, urging the United States and the World Bank to unfreeze the country's assets.