America Prosecutes the World
By Margaret Kimberley
June 18, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" - "BAR"
- On May 27, 2015, the Swiss government
arrested seven men in Geneva at the behest of the United States. The
individuals were officials from the Fédération Internationale de
Football Association (FIFA) the body which governs international
soccer.
The United States Justice Department charged these
FIFA officials with corruption in awarding soccer World Cup sites.
The existence of bribery in awarding international sporting events
such as the World Cup and Olympic games has been an open secret for
many years. It was the American claim of jurisdiction to carry out
these prosecutions which caught the world by surprise.
It seemed odd that the Justice Department would
take an interest in a sport that this country generally ignores.
There are obviously ulterior motives in this case, the latest
example of a country determined to exert control over the rest of
the world in every possible way.
The Justice Department asserts that it has
jurisdiction in this case because American banks were used as part
of the bribery schemes. That technically does give the United States
standing, but this supposedly good case makes for very bad law.
Russian president Vladimir Putin was on target with
his assessment. “This is yet another obvious attempt to extend
their [United States] jurisdiction to other states.”
America is claiming
jurisdiction over other states and any human beings it chooses
anywhere in the world. There are individuals sitting in United
States prisons who are not American citizens or residents and whose
alleged crime did not take place in or against this country.
Mahdi Hashi was a Somali-born British citizen until 2012. In
that year an accusation of terrorist involvement led the U.K. to act
in concert with the United States and strip him of citizenship. He
was then arrested in Djibouti with two other men while en route to
Yemen and rendered to New York.
Hashi was indicted and convicted of giving
“material support to terrorism.” That charge can be made in an
American court because of Hashi’s alleged involvement with al
Shabaab, classified as a terrorist group by the United States
government. What is “material support?” It is anything the
government wants it to be and the charge can be made against anyone,
particularly against a stateless person who is without legal
protection.
The war on terrorism is the ruse for prosecuting
cases like Hashi’s and supposed concerns about financial corruption
are the stated reason for going after FIFA. The true goal of the
United States in these and other instances is to end democracy as it
ought to be practiced. Nearly every policy enacted by our government
is meant to diminish the rights of individuals and other nations and
to increase the power of the American state and corporations.
The Drug Enforcement Agency can take money and
property without due process through civil forfeiture. The National
Security Agency has records of every email and every phone call made
in the United States. Journalists and whistle blowers have no
protection and are prosecuted under one hundred year-old espionage
statutes. The text of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been
kept secret even from members of congress. They are allowed to read
the legislation only in a secure location but can’t have copies of
the text or even their own notes. There isn’t a pretense of
democracy left if members of Congress are prevented from seeing
legislation they are asked to approve.
Graft and corruption aren’t priorities for the
Justice Department if big banks are the criminals in question.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch has her job in part because she made
a career of letting the most powerful criminals in the world
go free. HSBC and Citigroup got away with paying fines for their
malfeasance but not one individual who concocted a
ruinous financial scheme was rounded up like the FIFA officials
were.
There is always a political motive for these
attacks on the rights of group and individual sovereignty. One of
the goals of the FIFA crackdown is an attempt to damage Russia and
perhaps even take their 2018 World Cup and give it to another
country. Despite all protestations to the contrary, it is likely
that the outcome of these criminal cases will be another effort to
curtail any Russian influence, even in the world of sports. The
United States and other western nations are obsessed with Russia,
which has withstood sanctions, western meddling in Ukraine, and the
attempt to destroy it as a leading energy producer.
The timing of the arrests also ended the effort to
expel Israel from FIFA because of its treatment of
Palestinian players. The arrests and the effort to unseat Joseph
“Sepp” Blatter from the FIFA presidency stopped this movement that
had gained powerful momentum. The justice Department killed many
birds with one stone. The United States bullies the world, protects
Israel and continues war by other means against Russia.
The United States will continue behaving like a
mafia boss if the international community cowers in fear. But that
day is ending. The house of cards will fall, as the enemies America
has chosen work closer together. The next BRICS and Shanghai
Cooperation Organization summit will be held in Russia in July. They
may take the World Cup from Russia but they can’t stop the monster
they created. Then we will see who prosecutes whom.
Margaret Kimberley's
Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted
elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at
http://freedomrider.blogspot.com.
Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail
at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.