Balance of forces - the 'other' raw version
With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that the United States, with its fawning ally across the Atlantic led by Tony Blair launched a war that was unnecessary.

But, with each passing day, George. W. Bush is being excused, be it in his own country or outside. It shows that there is little by way of honour and credibility that goes in world affairs today. This was not the case during the Cold War, when even a charismatic US President such as John Kennedy had to face real global humiliation after a failed invasion of Cuba which is notoriously known now as the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

Now, the United States is making a valiant attempt to portray the Saddam Hussein regime as a savage one, whose removal is therefore justified. There are media tracts appearing almost on a daily basis portraying Saddam Hussein as the devil incarnate.

But, not even in the US Presidential campaign, is there any talk about the fact that Saddam Hussein was a creation of the United States, and that the US supplied him with chemical weapons during the time of his worst atrocities.

This brings us to the particular kind of hypocrisy that lies behind US foreign policy of today. It is a hypocrisy that's very relevant to us here in Sri Lanka at a time when the US has been evincing a very keen interest in the affairs of this island. From the time Christina Rocca, a top ranking US government official visited the Jaffna peninsula and raised her finger in a threatening manner and "warned'' the LTTE, it has been clear that the US is evincing extraordinary interest in the affairs of this nation.

The United States has a whole bevy of wiling partners such as Norway and Britain in furthering its agenda in this country -- but not all of these can ignore the designs of India, which is the regional power and no American lackey. Latterly, it is seen that this regional power is tilting the balance of forces towards itself as far as Sri Lankan affairs are concerned.

"Balances of forces'' itself is a term that's causing heartache in the LTTE, which has already complained that the "balance of forces'' is being hampered by the new defence pact that is being contemplated between India and the Sri Lankan government.

But it is now being said in all kinds of circles that need not bear mention here, that the Research and Intelligence Wing of India (known popularly as RAW) has outsmarted the Central Intelligence Agency and taken over the Sri Lankan agenda.

Obviously, this is not a realm that journalists are meant to comment about in the open. The political analysis on the other hand is preferred traditionally in this country as a sanitized one, in which the correct jargon is to be placed at the correct conjuncture for the article to contain the suitable kind of gravitas.

But that's another kind of peace journalism. It is the kind of journalism that's practised by bogus "doctors'' on the make, who specialize in saying nothing in the most serious kind of way -- because that's what they are paid for by their masters -- to obfuscate the issue. But "peace journalism'' was never accepted in Sri Lanka.

Thereby hangs a good tale. As Gramsci has said, the dominant ideology of the day, the one that has hegemony over a given community, is the one that prevails in the end, because all other ideologies and "isms'' are knocked out by the dominant ideology's hegemonic force.

Now, the dominant discourse during the immediate post-ceasefire period in Sri Lanka after Ranil Wickremesinghe made his pact with the LTTE, was the Western one that came direct to us via the agenda makers (need I add the CIA) in Washington, and maybe Langley Virginia. The Norwegians, the Swedish and everybody followed suit, and all the busybodies of the peace think-tanks were imported here to plant this pro-Western discourse as the hegemon of the thought process in Sri Lanka.

I remember actually being at a seminar organized by one such peace-think tank, at which one (famously bogus) peace doctor suggested that all Sri Lankan journalists should be made "peace journalists'' at the threat of ostracism from the rest of the professional community.

But, " peace journalism'' and the entire peace discourse has landed a big egg. In other words, this kind of aggressive peace pushing in fact gave "peace'' a bad name.

This column does not conceal the fact that it advocated a negotiated solution to the Sri Lankan conflict, even if it was with the sole motive of unifying Sri Lankan forces -- including the LTTE -- against the patently alien and exploitative elements (Read American, European -- what have you.)

But no such peace was possible, whether on favourable terms to the Sri Lankan government or otherwise, because the whole Western dominated peace caravan gave peace itself a bad name.

In the end, we are now contemplating the reality that the Indian dominated agenda has taken over, and that there will probably be "Sinhalathva'' ala Hinduthva government in this land -- which suggestion made in this column a few weeks ago has been quoted in the Hindustan Times by our very good friend Mr. P. K. Balachandran who can be trusted to keep his ears to the ground.

As far as the Western and American dominated peace empire is concerned we can now tell them -- without sounding as if it was tongue-in-cheek but in all seriousness - "we told you so.''

These columns and many others have been saying that NGOs were making money and making peace a game of private entrepreneurship in which they and their agendas prevailed, and any dissenting voices were shot down.

In the end it is the peaceniks who got shot down. It will be a while at least before one could arrive at the next state of dynamic equilibrium in this see-saw of opposed forces in this country. But for now, the forces of American dominated Western backed peace hegemony have been trounced, and the RAW seems to be winning, with the Indo Sri Lanka Defence pact in the background. But with it has come sounds of renewed belligerence -- that there may be war again. Which is too bad. It is another story how things might work out in the future. But at least for now, it can be said that one cannot create peace with people who give "peace'' itself a bad name.

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