Ghana-US military pact; the geopolitical narrative

Monkeys, they say, play by sizes. When it comes of issues of international relations, nations come to the table as sovereign but what actually determines who gets what at the end of the say, boils down to socio-economic muscle and not how long a nation has been independent or a republic.

Indeed, this is a reality which uncompromising nationalists of emerging nations always find difficult to come to terms with.

Ghana has always been touted NON-ALIGNED which therefore puts us on the fence when it comes to the world’s two power blocks, namely the Western Democracies and what used to be the Warsaw Pact which represented the interest of then Soviet-led group of Socialist states. Even during the cold war, Ghana, with its declared policy of NON-ALIGNMENT, still dealt with the Soviet bloc while developing a cold shoulder towards the West.

Ghana’s romance with the Soviet bloc actually led to the Soviets having a foothold in our affairs to the point where a nuclear reactor was built on our soil. Indeed, our first president the Great Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, according to records, was on his way to Hanoi-Vietnam to intervene in a dispute on behalf of the Soviet bloc, when he was overthrown.

But along the way, Ghana somehow drifted into the circles of the West which resulted in some economic interventions in our national development: and the key national asset of Volta River Authority comes into sharp focus here.

Unipolar world

Now, with the demise of the Soviet Union resulting in a UNI-POLAR WORLD with America as the leader, the mantra of non-alignment rings a bell only on paper but in reality, it simply does not exist. At present, and since the days of various structural adjustment programmes, our economic policy has always been tied to the West. Our nation’s annual budgets have always been taken to Washington for approval before it becomes a workable document.

In the area of fiscal discipline, we have had to fall on these Western-based Brenton-wood Institutions for direction, without which we always end up making a mess of our already messy situation. Our budgets have had to be supported by these Western Institutions before we can break even.

Determinants of sovereignty

So the point is; in reality, Ghana is a sovereign nation which has to be accorded every diplomatic courtesy at the negotiation table. But the fact also remains that a country like Ghana sitting on a negotiation table to strike a deal, be it economic, social, military etc., the actual determinant as to who gets what, is purely financial muscle, and never about when one achieved independent status.

You are a sovereign nation and therefore demanding to have equal share of the cake when sitting at a dinner table with America but you cannot clean your gutters. You claim to be sovereign and therefore demanding to be put on the same scale in matters of security by way of fighting global terrorism but you are incapable of curbing the menace of Fulani herdsmen brandishing sticks.

At the UN Security Council, for example; democratic tenets demands that every nation possess a VETO POWER but this privilege has been limited to just a few. The rationale behind this seemingly undemocratic concept is simple: the one that pays the piper dictates the tune.

Economic muscle

Now, when Slobodan Milosevic and his military strongman Radovan Karadzic went on genocidal rampage during the Bosnia War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] intervened in 1995 with Operation Deliberate Force commanded by General Wesley Clark, targeting the positions of the Army of the Republic of Serpska, which ended the war. The war was brought to an end after the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Paris on 14 December 1995. Peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio and were finalized on 21 November 1995.

This brief recollection of historical records is just to point out what a group consisting of nations with both financial muscle and a common-resolve can do. But when it comes to our side of the world here in Africa, the OAU existed only in name for decades, until it suddenly metamorphosed into AU, with absolutely no laid-down prerequisites for prospective membership. Even the AU Headquarters in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia, was a gift from the Chinese government.

Indeed, just a single company like Facebook, has an annual income turnover which is about thrice Ghana’s GDP, and yet, we expect to be given the same size of meat when we sit at the dinner table with America? Just a single Aircraft Carrier of the US Naval fleet can destroy our entire military infrastructure within a matter of seconds, yet, we think we can sit on the negotiation table with them a make empty noise about sovereignty?

Recently, when there was an outbreak of meningitis in Ghana, we had to rash to Switzerland and kept wake at the offices of suppliers of vaccines. As we speak, hundreds of Ghanaians are refugees in Togo for the past 7years due to civil disturbances which erupted in parts of the northern region.

Hundreds of our compatriots, who were sent to Brazil in 2014 to watch the Football World Cup Tournament, are still in that country as refugees just because they could no longer cope with the intensity of ‘dumsor’ at the time. Millions of your citizens are domiciled, illegally, in America and other western nations as economic refugees. Even the actual number of Ghana’s population has never been clear, let alone, accounting for its citizens across the globe. On the contray, America places premium on the life of its citizens and each of them is accounted for, irrespective of where he/she lives on this planet. Even the mortal remains of an American citizen, abroad, is so treasured and every step is taken to send it back home for burial on American soil.

Thousands of your youth are perishing in the waters of the Mediterranean in rickety rubber dinghies in desperate attempt to escape excruciating poverty which has been occasioned by fantastically corrupt political class with no vision.

Accountability

We live in a country where, when plain thieves are brought before the law to answer to their crimes, some wayward political leaders will invade our poor neighbourhoods, recruit impoverished unemployed youth, inject them with all kinds of hallucinating concoctions and bus them to the precincts of the law courts to create chaos.

We live in a country where there is this sad practice of top officials and appointees of the erstwhile NDC government have sent all their children to America and other Western Nations to acquire the best of academic pursuits but turn round to bitterly oppose FREE SHS, and also, go to our poor neighborhoods and recruit uneducated and impoverished youth, offer them pittance; and take them on demonstrations against America, and also, bus them to precincts of our law courts to engage in ignorance-induced madness when plain thieves who have looted billions of dollars from state coffers are being made to account for their crimes, in essence, is tantamount to serious Human Rights violations which must be looked into by the relevant State Agencies, concerned civil society groups and other non-governmental organizations.

Self-acclaimed Marxists

But with all these self-inflicted calamities, we still expect to be given the same share of the cake, when we sit at the negotiation table with a big guy as America. In Ghana, we have this group of unrepentant self-acclaimed Marxists whose sole desire is to see Ghana breaking diplomatic ties with America while walking hand-in-glove with the likes of Cuba and North Korea. For these people, the reality of contemporary geopolitics must give way to blind-folded cacophony of evaporated Marxism.

Ghana has entered a military pact with the Americans and these followers of a dead ideology are on rampage throwing dust into the eyes of Ghanaians, forgetting that WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR NOSE FIXED ON THE AROMA FROM THE KITCHEN OF A BENEFACTOR,YOUR AUTHORITY AS AN INDEPENDENT PERSON BECOMES TOTALLY FEEBLE. Ghana has entered a military pact with America, and no American soldier is going to go on rampage on our streets opening fire on innocent people.

The assertion that wherever America establishes a military base comes under attack from terrorists is a palpable falsity and those who doubt me should not go to any of these developed countries but right here in Djibouti on the African continent and see for yourselves, how this base has actually transformed the local economy.

Today, those that brought terrorist, including a personal driver of Osama Bin-Laden, into Ghana under the cover of darkness, issued them with permanent resident papers and got them wives to marry, are now opposing a transparent agreement with capable hands in the fight against terrorism. What an ironically ironical ironic irony!!!

Indeed, it is real economic independence that actually determines the real independence of a nation and not the empty shouts of SOVEREIGNTY by unrepentant ideologues of a dead and buried political belief.