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Elsewhere in this issue we carry an article in which US Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the United States of America was not responsible for the catastrophe that is Libya today. He said America was not responsible for the broken country that Iraq is today. No, America is not to blame. Former president Bush led the destruction of Iraq following the invasion of that country, claiming its leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Bush was supported by then British prime minister Tony Blair who “sexed up” evidence of the existence of these weapons which Hussein could easily deploy against the world in a matter of minutes.

Saddam Hussein was later executed after he was dethroned. To date not a single weapon has been found. A recent inquiry in Britain all but concluded that Blair was a liar. We know nothing will happen to him. He won’t have to face the International Criminal Court for genocide or crimes against humanity. But that is besides the point.

The point is that up to now he insists it was right to remove Hussein from power, damn the consequences. It was correct to have him hanged like a dog. In short, the destruction of Iraq following the murder of its leader is not his problem. The Iraq people must shoulder responsibility for the invasion of their country.

Former South African president Thabo Mbeki saved Zimbabwe from a similar fate when Blair was plotting an invasion of the country. He was told to keep away.

You would think given the tragic events of Libya and Iraq America and Britain have learnt something, that their meddlesome policies in pursuit of natural resources are making the world a most dangerous place to live, what with the growth and spread of militant groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda. But no, they are busy arming “moderate rebels” to topple President Bashir Al-Assad in Syria. It is a cauldron moving precipitously towards a catastrophe.

“The United States of America is not responsible for what happened in Libya, nor is it responsible for what is happening in Iraq today,” Secretary of State John Kerry declared with a straight face at a news conference recently in Cairo, Egypt.

All this caught our attention because we have excitable people or political parties in this country who have been seduced by the Americans and British about so-called democracy and human rights. These have recently been joined by the outgoing French Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Laurent Delahousse, who has turned himself into an opposition activist. Together with the American Ambassador Harry Thomas Jnr, they have forsaken their diplomatic roles and turned into politicians actively campaigning for regime change.

There is a prize. They are desperate to be the ones who oversaw the fall of President Mugabe from power. Desperately so.

What people, however, tend to miss is that when things turn nasty, European nations as a collective and their American cousins will quickly withdraw their citizens to safety while they leave you the natives to slaughter each other. They will not risk their lives for the cause of democracy and human rights which they make so much noise about when the situation is peaceful.

But as the statement by John Kerry demonstrates, when the country breaks down and it’s dog eat dog, they will not only leave you to kill each other; they will deny responsibility for the outcome even when they killed your leader in broad daylight. Libya and Iraq are living testimonies to the callousness and moral bankruptcy of these masters of mass deception. This should serve as a salutary lesson to those who are paid and sponsored to be purveyors of chaos and destruction in their own countries in the name of democracy and rule of law.

Today Libya and Iraq have been laid to waste. Afghanistan is no better. Instead of peace, democracy and rule of law, Americans are sucking the oil, selling more weapons and taking all the reconstruction contracts to make more money from victims of their treachery.

The truth is that there are few countries where the Americans have intervened and the natives enjoy peace, very few if any. Their legacy of ashes is everywhere in the Middle East and Latin America. Somalia is a disaster. But they are not done yet, and that’s a grave warning to Zimbabweans. The peace we enjoy costs sacrifice. We should cherish and preserve it at all costs.