With the COVID-19 wreaking havoc around the world, the U.S. military, though hit hard by the virus, remains super busy.
On June 9, a U.S. C-40 military transport aircraft flew over the west coast of Taiwan. It was a severe violation of international law and the basic norms governing international relations and an attempt made by the U.S. military to test China’s resolve in safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and development interests.
U.S. media reported on June 5 that President Donald Trump had demanded the Pentagon to withdraw nearly 10,000 American troops from Germany by September. The next day, Poland’s prime minister expressed the hope that some of the American troops from Germany could be re-stationed in Poland. The move was generally seen as a warning to Germany and a step to strengthen the eastern wing of NATO, which will escalate the bloc’s confrontation against Russia.
American military media reported on June 2 that the U.S. Air Force had deployed F-35 fighter jets to the Middle East for the third time in a year, along with about 2,000 marines as the “crisis response force”. Military officials made a tough statement that this force, boasting land and air combat and logistic support capabilities, would be able to handle all sorts of combat needs in the Middle East.
The U.S. military has been busy sowing discords around China, strengthening encirclement against Russia, and intimidating Iran and Syria. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), COVID-19 has spread to dozens of U.S. military vessels and more than one hundred military bases. As of June 17, more than 8,000 active-duty American service members have been infected against the backdrop of over 2 million infections and more than 110,000 deaths across the country. Being hit so hard by the pandemic, American politicians are still busy making trouble around the world instead of focusing on getting its own house in order.
In May, an American helicopter dropped several thermal balloons in the countryside of Shaddadi, south of Hasaka in Syria, which caused a big fire that burnt down many civilian houses and destroyed more than 200 dunams (more than 50 acres) of wheat crops. The wheat burnt by the American helicopter was what the local villagers lived on.
Haven’t the U.S. been repeating inhuman behaviors like this? Just at its doorstep, the U.S. directed a new version of “Bay of Pigs invasion” in Venezuela, stepped up sanctions against Cuba, and deported illegal Latin American immigrants regardless of the risk of spreading the COVID-19. These moves have further laid bare its combined character of a bandit and a rogue.
Many illegal Latin American immigrants live in dire conditions in the U.S. are highly prone to coronavirus infection. After declaring a public health emergency, the U.S. deported many of these immigrants as “threats to American public health”. It threatened to impose visa sanctions on and halt assistance to the Latin American countries that refused to accept their nationals. The problem is that these deported immigrants were neither placed under enough quarantine nor given any virus test before they were sent away, thus bringing considerable risks to the pandemic prevention and control in their home countries. The fact that Latin America has become a new “epicenter” of COVID-19 is closely linked to the accelerated deportation of more illegal immigrants by the U.S. government.
Analysts explained that sending immigrants away is much simpler and cheaper than quarantining and treating them for the U.S.. Such an act of pushing risks to other countries shows a total absence of responsibility by the U.S. and highlights its unilateral position. The pandemic proves once again that humanity lives in a community of shared future. At a time when solidarity and cooperation were needed most by the international community, the U.S. chose to go against the trend and aggravated the disaster. The deep-rooted reason is that the so-called “America first” is essentially a policy to have the whole world at America’s beck and call, so American capitalists can rake in profits at will and take advantage of other countries’ woes to maintain the hegemony of America. Between protecting capitalists’ interests and saving ordinary American lives, American politicians do not even bother to don a veil of hypocrisy. As a result, the failure in containing the pandemic in the U.S. is more of an outcome caused by human than nature. People around the world, including ordinary Americans, are the victims of the actions by American politicians, whose hands are drenched in the blood of countless lives.
By Chen Zhuo
