United States President Joe Biden hosts two-day Democracy Summit

“On December 9-10, 2021, President Biden hosted the first of two Summits in Support of Democracy, in which leaders of government, civil society and the private sector came together in our common efforts to develop a positive agenda for democratic renewal and to confront the greatest threats together. facing democracies today, ”the statement on the website of the US Department of State says.

At the final meeting of the summit, Biden said that the promises that the participants of the event made not only to themselves, but also to each other, allegedly not only would strengthen democracy in these countries "through opposing autocracies, fighting corruption and promoting human rights for all", but also will help create "fertile soil for the flourishing of democracy around the world."

“We stand ready to work with all those who share these values ​​to shape the norms that will shape our progress in the 21st century ... so that future generations continue to reap the benefits of freedom and democracy as we do,” Biden said.

At the same time, a senior US administration official said that the American leader had come up with a proposal for "democratic renewal," which is "a set of policy and foreign aid initiatives."

The White House clarified that such measures are intended "to build on the efforts that the US government is already making to protect and strengthen democracy, human rights, and fight corruption around the world."

It is planned to allocate about $ 424 million for the initiative.

“And this is an amount that can be increased in the next budget cycles,” the Biden administration said.

In addition, the US intends to form an Election Integrity Coalition to “defend free and fair” electoral procedures.

“This will be the first of its kind multilateral partnership that will unite the observer community, government authorities, international organizations and, on the basis of a collective effort, develop common standards for ensuring the safety and reliability of the electoral process,” explained a US administration official.

  • US President Joe Biden during the Summit for Democracy

  • Reuters

  • © Leah Millis

Moscow responded to Washington's initiatives.

From the point of view of the vice-speaker of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation Konstantin Kosachev, in fact, we are talking about creating a "fund for interference in the internal affairs" of disloyal states.

“It's all about the introduction of a very simple thought into the world's minds: whoever is against a unipolar world is against democracy.

The rigging is rather primitive, but it fulfills an important ideological mission to camouflage the geopolitical causes of the current crises into values, ”he wrote on his Facebook page.

"As opposed to rivals"

The Summit in Support of Democracy, to which Washington invited more than a hundred states and territories, as well as leaders of "various democratic countries of the world", was held in a virtual format.

Russia, China, most of the Middle East and a number of other states were not invited.

At the same time, the list of invitees included the region of Kosovo, unrecognized by Serbia, and Taiwan, which China considers one of its provinces.

Among the speakers at the summit were the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, as well as the ex-presidential candidate of Belarus Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

According to Biden, the purpose of this meeting is "to set a positive agenda for democratic renewal around the world."

According to analysts, the summit, organized by Washington, has nothing to do with democracy.

“This is only a camouflage of the geopolitical interests and goals of the United States, the gathering of allies against their opponents - primarily Russia and China.

At this meeting, there was a wide variety of countries and territories that the United States wants to consolidate and form a new bloc system on their basis as opposed to rivals, "said Konstantin Blokhin, a leading researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in a conversation with RT.

He also noted that Biden's initiative for "democratic renewal" is intended to cover up possible US interference in the affairs of other countries that do not intend to follow Washington's dictates.

"The American authorities cannot justify such interference, for example, one of its true reasons - the struggle for resources, they need to come up with something more" sublime ", otherwise they will look like an aggressor," says Blokhin.

In turn, the expert of the International Institute for Humanitarian and Political Research, Vladimir Bruter, commenting on Biden's plans to finance the "democratic renewal", noted that on a global scale $ 424 million is an insignificant amount, but Washington will also use this money to interfere in the affairs of sovereign states.

“However, this is enough for the United States to create a network of“ fifth columns ”that will report on the situation in countries unfriendly to Washington.

This is an attempt to buy some of the local political elites, which the Americans have done actively before.

And the amount of $ 424 million shows how low the American authorities estimate these figures, "Bruter said in an interview with RT.

In addition, he said, Biden's idea of ​​creating a Coalition for Election Integrity does not stand up to criticism, given that the United States failed to adequately conduct its own electoral process last year, as a result of which many Americans expressed disagreement with Biden's victory.

  • Demonstration in the United States against the results of the presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden

  • Reuters

  • © Stephanie Keith

"The White House calls honest only such electoral processes as a result of which politicians loyal to the United States come to power," the expert stated.

As for Biden's numerous statements about creating "fertile soil for the flourishing of democracy throughout the world," they, according to Bruter, are not supported by anything.

“When the United States calls itself the highest democracy, and everyone else calls itself the countries striving for it, as well as autocracies and dictatorships, this is nothing more than a flood of words.

Democracy in the United States itself is very sad.

In practice, there are much more restrictions there than in other countries, which is only covered by the bombastic statements of the White House, ”the analyst believes.

"Only for loyalists"

It is worth noting that the day before, against the backdrop of the summit in support of democracy, in which Great Britain also participated, the High Court of London upheld Washington's appeal and allowed the extradition of the founder of the WikiLeaks project, Julian Assange, to the United States.

Commenting on this decision, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the West marked the end of the summit and human rights day in such a way "worthily".

“This shameful verdict in the political case against the journalist and public figure is another manifestation of the cannibalistic worldview of the Anglo-Saxon tandem,” she said.

We will remind, the prosecution of Assange began in 2010 - after the Pentagon's classified materials were published on the WikiLeaks website, testifying to the war crimes of the US army in the Middle East.

In particular, information was released about the shooting of civilians by a United States military helicopter in Baghdad in 2007, as well as about a large number of civilian casualties due to the negligent actions of the American air force.

As Vladimir Bruter noted, the satisfaction of Washington's appeal by the London court not in favor of Assange shows what Western democracy really is.

“It seems to exist to some extent only for those loyal to the United States.

Those who try to oppose the American system are declared enemies.

For some reason, democratic norms do not apply to them, ”the expert emphasized.

In such conditions, Bruter believes, the United States has no right to impose its model of so-called democracy on others.

“For the United States, democracy is nothing more than a beautiful interior that they are trying to sell to everyone.

They don't really make any sense of it, ”the analyst concluded.