There is this tradition in the US foreign policy that you punch the bully in the face, once you are sure that he is securely bound and beaten to a pulp, the way George W. Bush displayed the amazing US sense of justice as expressed by the show trial of Saddam Hussein – that travesty that resulted in the public murder of the former Iraq strongman.

There was hope that the MDC-T would be propped up by the GPA-created inclusive government, that way paving way for the anticipated demise of Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF, and the subsequent punching of Mugabe in the face, possibly by humiliating the African revolutionary leader through an ICC trial – all based on media trumped up charges, or dragging a few of his comrades for public humiliation the way Nazis are hunted down for crimes deemed unforgivable by the Western alliance.

Now the MDC-T has literally been sunk by Morgan Tsvangirai's absolute failure to prove any depth in policy and capacity to lead the executive (acknowledged by Christopher Dell), by the most apparent and indefensible corruption in MDC-T RUN urban councils, by infighting over the leadership of the party itself, by a sweet drinking team of cabinet ministers and members of Parliament so entrapped in the sweetness of power that they would rather be killed than go for an election before enjoying five years of power, and of course by the incriminating and crucifying WikiLeaks revelations that have proven to every Zimbabwean that the MDC-T is no more than a US political project crafted solely to defend Western hegemony over the natural resources of Zimbabwe.

When the US talks of "stability" having been brought about by the inclusion of the MDC formations into an inclusive Government with ZANU PF, what they are talking about is that magic word that was used after Saddam Hussein crushed the Shiite and Kurdish uprising after the Gulf War – slaughters that the US media and government described as "necessary to ensure stability".

This was a stability of the graveyard, in preparation for Washington's plan to replace Saddam Hussein by another strongman from the military.

The US did not want a Shiite-Kurdish uprising to topple Saddam Hussein and create a government out of the control of Washington's grip, most probably in alliance with the most hated Iranians.

So after driving Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait the US watched him slaughter the Shiites and Kurds because they wanted him to crush that side of the politics of Iraq while they had a plan to crush Saddam Hussein himself – replacing him with an equally ruthless tyrant but with a less tainted name and image.

So with the stability of the graveyard in place, Washington turned to the next plan: economic strangulation.

The population of Iraq was to be held hostage to induce the military to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and this was explained by Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist.

Friedman explained that if Iraqis suffered sufficient pain, some general was likely to take over, "and then Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron fisted Iraq junta without Saddam Hussein," a desired return to the happy days when Saddam's "iron fist held Iraq together," much to the satisfaction of American allies, Turkey and Saudi Arabia – and of course to the super power patron itself.

The illegally imposed Western economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, together with the travel sanctions imposed on the ZANU PF leadership; were initially put in place with the hope that some of the affected people would turn against Robert Mugabe and overthrow him, and hope was all on the military.

Simba Makoni and Dumiso Dabengwa are about the only notable figures to have turned their backs on ZANU PF, but not a single military character was attracted to their cause – at least not openly enough to have caused any problems for ZANU PF.

The Western elites celebrated the departure of the two former Politburo members but the joy was short-lived as there was no sign of a Mugabe overthrow of any kind even for the most optimistic Western propaganda machinery.

Instead the Generals vowed to defend the gains of Zimbabwe's independence as achieved over the years by the ZANU PF Government – making it very clear that the military was not going to salute anyone installed by Western backing. That position still stands unnegotiable and Morgan Tsvangirai thinks it is an undemocratic posture, obliviously believing that his willingness to front the interests of former slave masters and colonisers must be saluted by those who crushed colonialism in the first place.

The West realised that sanctions were not going to create any rebellion from the Zimbabwean military and the focus was shifted to a wishful mass revolt that was deemed to prop up Tsvangirai to the leadership of the country.

The US and the UK sponsored several failed "mass stay aways" and "Final push marches" that were largely ignored by the generality of Zimbabweans, and ZANU PF hardly moved a finger in thwarting these.

Then the shift was moved to influencing voting patterns and as such sanctions were kept in place to force people to vote with their stomachs. Even this failed to produce a popular vote for the MDC-T in the March 2008 harmonised election, although it managed to take away ZANU PF's majority seats in Parliament, tying up the party with the MDC-T on 100 seats apiece.

It is this achievement on the part of the MDC-T that creates the hope in the West that the illegally imposed sanctions can be maintained in the hope that the embargo will one day collapse ZANU PF to its knees.

On the other hand ZANU PF has held on to its popular mass empowerment policies, beginning with what knived the British baby, the MDC in 2000. Then ZANU PF simply turned the tables on the newly launched British political project by embarking on the fast track land reform program, and though credited with a fine run that resulted in 57 seats, the MDC was soundly defeated by ZANU PF.

Now ZANU PF has embarked on the empowerment of indigenous Zimbabweans in business and all economic spheres and again that policy is pulling the rug under the feet of Morgan Tsvangirai – a man who was misled into believing that any economic gains that were to be made during the tenure the inclusive Government would be credited to him and his party.

The diamond boom has created dilemmas for Tsvangirai and Tendai Biti. They know the glory of the dividends of diamond trading would perhaps partly prop their party if they supported such trading, but they are also aware that the diamond industry at Marange excludes their Western masters and as such cannot be celebrated. So they are forced to rubbish the diamond industry as nothing more than "blood diamond" trading and even Zimbabwe's tobacco has already been dubbed "blood tobacco" in Europe.

So ZANU PF will take the credit for every cent coming from Marange, and naturally the sharp increase in tobacco production in the last two years is a plus for ZANU PF's land reform program.

So the MDC-T is left to eulogise the greatness of Western aid and to shout that every handout from the Western NGOs curtsey of Morgan Tsvangirai and his "party of excellence". That in fact is true, and the people are well aware that they are being lured like little fish to the nets, and this is not going to work as planned by the MDC-T makers.

When the Gulf War started people in the South were not too pleased the same way they stand opposed to the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe today.

The Times of India observed that the West seeks "a regional Yalta where the powerful nations agree among themselves to a share of Arab spoils"; the conduct of the Western powers "has revealed the seamiest sides of Western civilisation: its unrestricted appetite for dominance, its morbid fascination for hi-tech military might, its insensitivity to ‘alien' cultures, its appalling jingoism.....".

A leading monthly publication in Malaysia condemned "the most cowardly war ever fought on this planet," while a Brazilian leading editor wrote, "What is being practised in the Gulf is pure barbarism – ironically, committed in the name of civilisation. Bush is responsible for Saddam ......Both, with their inflexibility, consider only the cold logic of geopolitical interests and show an absolute scorn for human life".

Today the South views sanctions on Zimbabwe as an absolute scorn for human life, and they are justified when one looks at how the economy of Zimbabwe was strangled to chalking levels by the West in the last decade.

The AU, NAM, SADC, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Iran, Venezuela and many other countries have all called for the lifting of the illegal sanctions imposed by the West on Zimbabwe.

But the Western powers want their own populations to see things differently, to see Zimbabwe as a country deprived of democracy and to see Zimbabweans as a hopelessly oppressed people.

When the US led 27 of its allies to the Gulf War, or more accurately the Gulf Slaughter; the reality of a confrontation where one side massacres the other from a safe distance, wrecking the civilian society – the people in the West were called upon to admire "the stark and vivid definition of principle.....backed into (George Bush Snr) during his years at Andover and Yale, that honour and duty compels you to punch the bully in the face" – the words of a White House reporter who had earlier on leaked a document on "third world threats".

The document concluded that "in cases where the US confronts much weaker enemies," – Noams Chomsky holds that these are the only ones it makes sense for the US to fight – "our challenge will be not simply to defeat them, but to defeat them decisively and rapidly."

Any other course for the US would be "embarrassing" and might "undercut political support".

Bush's punching of Saddam Hussein's face was applauded by the US second biggest paper as "spiritual and intellectual" triumph in the Gulf.

The Washington Post's E.J Dionne went on to write, "Martial values that had fallen into disrepute were revitalised," and "Presidential authority, under assault since Vietnam, was strengthened."

The Boston Globe was in euphoric over-exuberance hailing the "victory for the psyche" and the new "sense of nationhood and projected power" under the leadership of a man who was "one tough son of a bitch," a man with "the guts to risk all for a cause" and a "burning sense of duty," who showed "the depth and steely core of his convictions," and his faith that "we are a select people, with a righteous mission in this earth," then the latest in a line of "noble minded missionaries" going back to hero Teddy Roosevelt – who may be recalled, was going to "show those Dagos that that they will have to behave decently" and to teach proper lessons to the "wild and ignorant people" standing in the way of "the dominant races."

All quotes are borrowed from the book "World Orders, Old and New" (page 12) by Noam Chomsky.

Thomas Oliphant of the Globe Washington lauded "the magnitude of Bush's triumph" and he proudly wrote, "Bush's leadership has transformed the Vietnam syndrome into a Gulf Syndrome, where ‘Out Now!' is now a slogan directed at aggressors, not at us."

Most Western right wing intellectuals reflexively adopt the standard doctrine that the US was the injured party in Vietnam, the same way they hold that the invading Westerners in Iraq and Afghanistan today are the wronged party. These intellectuals, alongside Western media, always want to create this make believe rhetoric that the West was defending itself from the Vietnamese aggressors, and that they are doing the same with the Iraq and Afghan "aggressors".

Oliphant hailed Bush's Gulf War attacks saying that the US now raised high "the worthy and demanding standard that aggression must be opposed, in exceptional cases by force," though oddly the US will never march to Tel Aviv, and all others are forbidden to march into Washington.

So it is Zimbabwe that is the aggressor for taking control of its resources from Western capitalists and of course this is why the only election that will ever be credible in Zimbabwe is one that will bring Morgan Tsvangirai to power. We are told "Mugabe and ZANU PF cannot win an election in Zimbabwe" and this is by definition, and not by the will of the people of Zimbabwe.

Whenever ZANU PF is coming out confident as is happening now in the run up to Election 2011, we are told all of a sudden that Zimbabwe is headed for disaster, and that there is no such thing as rule of law in Zimbabwe – that the MDC are delicately holding "democracy" on behalf of "suffering Zimbabweans" and that this infant is in danger of being consumed by the monstrous ZANU PF.

The nightmare of Election 2011 is that it comes on the backdrop of the new public knowledge that the US have a very low regard for Tsvangirai, a man described in the WikiLeaks document as a "flawed figure", and also that the same US acknowledged in the same document that President Robert Mugabe is a "brilliant politician".

No one really wants to back a "flawed figure" in a race against a "brilliant politician" and Morgan Tsvangirai's massive shortcomings are matters of great concern to his handlers who have also publicly declared that in the unlikely event of Tsvangirai ever winning the right to form a government in Zimbabwe, the man would need "massive handholding".

Zimbabweans know better than voting for a man being massively handled by the US and their Western allies. The US has no illusions about this. This explains the hoopla from the West about elections in 2011 and why they should not be held. The horse is running scared and the rider wants the race called off.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwafawarova.com or visit www.rwafawarova.com

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