US Pivot Toward Asia Trips in MalaysiaTony Cartalucci Wall Street and Londons hegemonic ambitions in Asia, centered around installing proxy regimes across Southeast Asia and using the supranational ASEAN bloc to encircle and contain China, suffered a serious blow this week when Western-proxy and Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahims party lost in general elections. While Anwar Ibrahims opposition party, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) or Peoples Alliance, attempted to run on an anti-corruption platform, its campaign instead resembled verbatim attempts by the West to subvert governments politically around the world, including most recently in Venezuela, and in Russia in 2012. Just as in Russia where so-called independent election monitor GOLOS turned out to be fully funded by the US State Department through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Malaysias so-called election monitor, the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, is likewise funded directly by the US through NED. Despite this, Western media outlets, in pursuit of promoting the Western-backed Peoples Alliance, has repeatedly referred to Merdeka as independent. The BBC in its article, Malaysia election sees record turnout, lays out the well-rehearsed cries of stolen elections used by the West to undermine the legitimacy of polls it fears its proxy candidates may lose with the US-funded Merdeka Center cited in attempts to bolster these claims. Their foreign funding and compromised objectivity is never mentioned (emphasis added): Allegations of election fraud surfaced before the election. Some of those who voted in advance told BBC News that indelible ink supposed to last for days easily washed off. The indelible ink can be washed off easily, with just water, in a few seconds, one voter, Lo, told BBC News from Skudai. Another voter wrote: Marked with indelible ink and voted at 10:00. Have already cleaned off the ink by 12:00. If I was also registered under a different name and ID number at a neighbouring constituency, I would be able to vote again before 17:00! The opposition has also accused the government of funding flights for supporters to key states, which the government denies. Independent pollster Merdeka Center has received unconfirmed reports of foreign nationals being given IDs and allowed to vote. The ties between Anwar Ibrahims Peoples Alliance and the US State Department dont end with the Merdeka Center, but continue into the oppositions street movement, Bersih. Claiming to fight for clean and fair elections, Bersih in reality is a vehicle designed to mobilize street protests on behalf of Anwars opposition party. Bersihs alleged leader, Ambiga Sreenevasan, has admitted herself that her organization has received cash directly from the United States via the National Endowment for Democracys National Democratic Institute (NDI), and convicted criminal George Soros Open Society. The Malaysian Insider reported on June 27, 2011 that Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevassan: admitted to Bersih receiving some money from two US organisations the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Open Society Institute (OSI) for other projects, which she stressed were unrelated to the July 9 march. A visit to the NDI website revealed indeed that funding and training had been provided by the US organization before NDI took down the information and replaced it with a more benign version purged entirely of any mention of Bersih. For funding Ambiga claims is innocuous, the NDIs rushed obfuscation of any ties to her organization suggests something far more sinister at play. Photo: NDIs website before taking down any mention to Malaysias Bersih movement. (click image to enlarge) The substantial, yet carefully obfuscated support the West has lent Anwar should be of no surprise to those familiar with Anwars history. That Anwar Ibrahim himself was Chairman of the Development Committee of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1998, held lecturing positions at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, was a consultant to the World Bank, and a panelist at the Neo-Con lined National Endowment for Democracys Democracy Award and a panelist at a NED donation ceremony the very same US organization funding and supporting Bersih and so-called independent election monitor Merdeka paints a picture of an opposition running for office in Malaysia, not for the Malaysian people, but clearly for the corporate financier interests of Wall Street and London. Photo: Taken from the US National Endowment for Democracys 2007 Democracy Award event held in Washington D.C., Anwar Ibrahim can be seen to the far left and participated as a panelist. It is no surprise that NED is now subsidizing his bid to worm his way back into power in Malaysia. (click image to enlarge) As Bersih predictably mobilizes in the streets on behalf of Anwars opposition party in the wake of their collective failure during Malaysias 2013 general elections, it is important for Malaysians to understand the true nature of the Western organizations funding their attempts to politically undermine the ruling party and divide Malaysians against each other, and exactly why this is being done in the greater context of US hegemony in Asia. Anwar Bersihs US State Department Backers The US State Departments NED and NDI are most certainly not benevolent promoters of democracy and freedom. A quick look at NEDs board of directors reveals a milieu of corporate-fascists and warmongers: Some select members include: The average Malaysian, disenfranchised with the ruling government as they may be, cannot possibly believe these people are funding and propping up clearly disingenuous NGOs in direct support of a compromised Anwar Ibrahim, for the best interests of Malaysia. The end game for the US with an Anwar Ibrahim/Peoples Alliance-led government, is a Malaysia that capitulates to both US free trade schemes and US foreign policy. In Malaysias case, this will leave the extensive economic independence achieved since escaping out from under British rule, gutted, while the nations resources are steered away from domestic development and toward a proxy confrontation with China, just as is already being done in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. Image: Lemuel Gulliver on the island of Lilliput, having been overtaken while asleep by ropes and stakes by the diminutive but numerous Lilliputians. Western corporate-financier interests envision organizing Southeast Asia into a supranational bloc, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), to use the smaller nations as a combined front to tie down China in a similar manner. Unlike in the story Gullivers Travels, China may well break free of its binds and stomp the Lilliputian leaders flat for their belligerence. The present world order serves the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it. And it is poorly suited to the needs of a Chinese dictatorship trying to maintain power at home and increase its clout abroad. Chinese leaders chafe at the constraints on them and worry that they must change the rules of the international system before the international system changes them. Here, Kagan openly admits that the world order, or the international order, is simply American-run global hegemony, dictated by US interests. These interests, it should be kept in mind, are not those of the American people, but of the immense corporate-financier interests of the Anglo-American establishment. Kagan continues (emphasis added): In truth, the debate over whether we should or should not contain China is a bit silly. We are already containing China not always consciously and not entirely successfully, but enough to annoy Chinese leaders and be an obstacle to their ambitions. When the Chinese used military maneuvers and ballistic-missile tests last March to intimidate Taiwanese voters, the United States responded by sending the Seventh Fleet. By this show of force, the U.S. demonstrated to Taiwan, Japan, and the rest of our Asian allies that our role as their defender in the region had not diminished as much as they might have feared. Thus, in response to a single Chinese exercise of muscle, the links of containment became visible and were tightened. The new China hands insist that the United States needs to explain to the Chinese that its goal is merely, as [Robert] Zoellick writes, to avoid the domination of East Asia by any power or group of powers hostile to the United States. Our treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Australia, and our naval and military forces in the region, aim only at regional stability, not aggressive encirclement. But the Chinese understand U.S. interests perfectly well, perhaps better than we do. While they welcome the U.S. presence as a check on Japan, the nation they fear most, they can see clearly that Americas military and diplomatic efforts in the region severely limit their own ability to become the regions hegemon. According to Thomas J. Christensen, who spent several months interviewing Chinese military and civilian government analysts, Chinese leaders worry that they will play Gulliver to Southeast Asias Lilliputians, with the United States supplying the rope and stakes. What Kagan is talking about is maintaining American preeminence across all of Asia and producing a strategy of tension to divide and limit the power of any single player vis-a-vis Wall Street and Londons hegemony. Kagan would continue (emphasis added): The changes in the external and internal behavior of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s resulted at least in part from an American strategy that might be called integration through containment and pressure for change. Such a strategy needs to be applied to China today. As long as China maintains its present form of government, it cannot be peacefully integrated into the international order. For Chinas current leaders, it is too risky to play by our rules yet our unwillingness to force them to play by our rules is too risky for the health of the international order. The United States cannot and should not be willing to upset the international order in the mistaken belief that accommodation is the best way to avoid a confrontation with China. We should hold the line instead and work for political change in Beijing. That means strengthening our military capabilities in the region, improving our security ties with friends and allies, and making clear that we will respond, with force if necessary, when China uses military intimidation or aggression to achieve its regional ambitions. It also means not trading with the Chinese military or doing business with firms the military owns or operates. And it means imposing stiff sanctions when we catch China engaging in nuclear proliferation. Kagans talk of responding to Chinas expansion is clearly manifested today in a series of proxy conflicts growing between US-backed Japan, and the US-backed Philippines, and to a lesser extent between North and South Korea, and even beginning to show in Myanmar. The governments of these nations have capitulated to US interests and their eagerness to play the role of Americas proxies in the region, even at their own cost, is not a surprise. To expand this, however, the US fully plans on integrating Southeast Asia, installing proxy regimes, and likewise turning their resources and people against China. In 2011, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled the capstone to Kagans 1997 conspiracy. She published in Foreign Policy magazine, a piece titled, Americas Pacific Century where she explicitly states: In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise in the Asia-Pacific region. To sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values, are clearly hegemonic statements, and indicates that the US goal for substantially increased investment, including buying off NGOs and opposition parties in Malaysia, seeks to directly serve US leadership, interests, and values, not within US borders, but outside them, and specifically across all of Asia. Clinton continues: At a time when the region is building a more mature security and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity, U.S. commitment there is essential. It will help build that architecture and pay dividends for continued American leadership well into this century, just as our post-World War II commitment to building a comprehensive and lasting transatlantic network of institutions and relationships has paid off many times over and continues to do so. The architecture referred to is the supranational ASEAN bloc and again Clinton confirms that the US commitment to this process is designed not to lift up Asia, but to maintain its own hegemony across the region, and around the world. Clinton then openly admits that the US seeks to exploit Asias economic growth: Harnessing Asias growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests and a key priority for President Obama. Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology. Our economic recovery at home will depend on exports and the ability of American firms to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia. Of course, the purpose of an economy is to meet the needs of those who live within it. The Asian economy therefore ought to serve the needs and interests of Asians not a hegemonic empire on the other side of the Pacific. Clintons piece could easily double as a declaration by Englands King George and his intentions toward emptying out the New World. And no empire is complete without establishing a permanent military garrison on newly claimed territory. Clinton explains (emphasis added): With this in mind, our work will proceed along six key lines of action: strengthening bilateral security alliances; deepening our working relationships with emerging powers, including with China; engaging with regional multilateral institutions; expanding trade and investment; forging a broad-based military presence; and advancing democracy and human rights. And of course, by advancing democracy and human rights, Clinton means the continuation of funding faux-NGOs that disingenuously leverage human rights and democracy promotion to politically undermine targeted governments in pursuit of installing more obedient proxy regimes. The piece is lengthy, and while a lot of readers may be tempted to gloss over some of the uglier, overtly imperial aspects of Clintons statement, the proof of Americas true intentions in Asia can be seen clearly manifested today, with the intentional encouragement of provocations between North and South Korea, an expanding confrontation between China and US proxies, Japan and the Philippines, and with mobs taking to the streets in Malaysia in hopes of overturning an election US-proxy Anwar Ibrahim had no chance of winning. Clean and Fair Elections? While the battle cry for Anwar Ibrahim, his Peoples Alliance, and Bersih have been clean and fair elections, in reality, allegations of fraud began long before the elections even started. This was not because Anwars opposition party had evidence of such fraud instead, this was to implant the idea into peoples minds long before the elections, deeply enough to justify claims of stolen elections no matter how the polls eventually turned out. At one point during the elections, before ballots were even counted, Anwar Ibrahim declared victory a move that analysts across the region noted was provocative, dangerous, and incredibly irresponsible. Again, there could not have been any evidence that Anwar won, because ballots had not yet been counted. It was again a move meant to manipulate the public and set the stage for contesting Anwars inevitable loss in the streets with mobs and chaos in typical Western-backed color revolution style. One must seriously ask themselves, considering Anwars foreign backers, those backers own stated intentions for Asia, and Anwars irresponsible, baseless claims before, during, and after the elections what is clean and fair about any of this? Anwar Ibrahim is a fraud, an overt proxy of foreign interests. His satellite NGOs, including the insidious Bersih movement openly funded by foreign corporate-financier interests, and the equally insidious polling NGO Merdeka who portrays itself as independent despite being funded directly by a foreign government, are likewise frauds drawing in well-intentioned people through slick marketing, just as cigarette companies do. And like cigarette companies who sell what is for millions essentially a slow, painful, humiliating death sentence that will leave one broken financially and spiritually before ultimately outright killing them, Anwars US-backed opposition is also selling Malaysia a slow, painful, humiliating death. Unfortunately, also like cigarettes, well-intentioned but impressionable people have not gathered all of the facts, and have instead have based their support on only the marketing, gimmicks, slogans, and tricks of a well-oiled, manipulative political machine. For that folly, Malaysia may pay a heavy price one day but for Anwar and his opposition party today, they have lost the elections, and the cheap veneer of Americas democracy promotion racket is quickly peeling away. For now, America has tripped in mid-pivot toward its hegemonic agenda in Asia, with Malaysias ruling government providing a model for other nations in the region to follow, should they be interested in sovereignty and independent progress no matter how flawed or slow it may be. Tony Cartaluccis articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 