By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

The US, which is undoubtedly the most hated regime around the world for its policy of state terrorism and interference in the affairs of other countries, has along with its threats against North Korea and unwarranted military presence in East Asia, has stepped up its meddling in Southeast Asia.
At a time when Washington claims with little evidence growing Russian interference in the West’s political affairs from Europe to North America, the fact cannot be denied that the chief meddler in the affairs of world countries, since World War 2, is the US, either directly through military intervention or through its notorious spying network the CIA, which has engineered coups to overthrow popularly elected governments.
Southeast Asia is no exception to American designs. A network of US-backed propagandists, posing as journalists, businessmen, industrialists, politicians, and even tourists, are operating in the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, and in Indonesia.
If US interference in the Philippines goes back to the beginning of the 20th century and the seizure of this land from Spain during the war of 1898-1902, the meddling in Myanmar and the Muslim countries of Malaysia and Indonesia, has dramatically increased of late, and at times, through the American proxy, the Wahhabi regime of Saudi Arabia.
The US uses pressure on the said countries through American-funded media to transform, direct and determine their future. This is more manifest in the Philippines, where there is intense political pressure on Manila to cooperate in confronting Beijing over the South China Sea.
The US has also attempted to use Saudi-funded terrorism in the southern Philippines through so-called Muslim Jihadist groups like Abu Sayyaf. The use of terrorism as both a pressure point against Southeast Asian states and as a pretext for a US military presence is a tactic the US is attempting to reuse everywhere from Indonesia and Malaysia, to southern Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar.
The US has also stepped up its meddling in Thailand and Cambodia. Like in the Philippines, US agents in these two countries pose as proponents of democracy and as human rights advocates. The aim is to target and weaken independent institutions, particularly the military and the monarchy of Thailand.
In Cambodia, US meddling involves funding of the entire opposition, hosting them in Washington and creating a media network to skew public perception in favour of this foreign enterprise and the interests that propel it.
The government of Cambodia recently expelled the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the US. It has also tightened laws regarding foreign-owned and foreign-funded media organisations. Opposition members who have openly and for years flaunted their foreign sponsorship are now being arrested and tried while their political parties are being disbanded.
While the US accuses Russia of buying Facebook and Google ads, it is openly engaged in overthrowing elected governments around the world and destabilizing them. In Southeast Asia, these efforts are often interlinked, with US-funded organisations in one country supporting and helping to amplify the activities of another next door.
Myanmar, where the regime is engaged in the genocide of Rohingya Muslims, presents the American Empire’s Success Story. Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) political party’s ascension to power is an example of where exactly US ambitions will lead if unchecked.
The regime in Myanmar which is clearly disinterested in either democracy or human rights, considering the burgeoning Rohingya crisis, has allowed the US to operate freely on its soil.
Myanmar is being run by a regime handcrafted by US money and interference. It is a regime being pressured to turn its back on neighbouring China in favour of US plans. It is a regime currently creating a humanitarian crisis that has opened the door to US-Saudi funded terrorism, a potentially larger conflict leading to permanent US military presence in a nation that directly borders China.
If left unchecked, the US will transform Southeast Asia into either client states, or failed states. In either case, it wants to create a front across Southeast Asia against Beijing that will complicate China’s rise both in the Asia Pacific region and on the global stage.
In view of these facts, governments in Southeast Asia should do some urgent soul-searching and adopt the best possible ways to protect their sovereignty, stability, and independence from the devilish designs of US meddling and state-sponsored terrorism.