American Independence Day: A Holiday of Freedom or a Commemoration of Domination?

Every year, the United States celebrates what it calls Independence Day on July 4th as the birth of freedom and democracy. However, for millions of people around the world, this date evokes a long history of wars, military interventions, coups, and economic sanctions that have left deep scars on entire nations and peoples.

While Washington celebrates freedom slogans, history reminds it that its own establishment was linked to territorial expansion at the expense of indigenous peoples in North America, accompanied by wars, forced displacement, and massacres that led to the destruction of entire communities. Since then, the policy of power has not stopped accompanying the rise of the United States to its position as the world's greatest power.

From Vietnam to Iraq, from Afghanistan to Latin America, and from covert coups to military bases spread across continents, American policy has left its marks on the paths of countries and peoples that have paid a heavy price for their security, stability, and sovereignty. In the Middle East, many believe that American interventions have not ended conflicts but rather contributed to complicating and reproducing them, while unconditional support for Washington's allies, such as Israel, has continued despite international accusations of serious violations of international law, war crimes, genocide, and ethnic cleansing.

Moreover, American influence is not limited to military force, as it has extended to the global economy through sanctions and financial dominance, granting Washington an exceptional ability to influence decisions of sovereign nations and making the economy a pressure tool no less impactful than armed force.

Those knowledgeable about and experts in American politics believe that discussions about a "rules-based international order" lose much of their credibility when these rules are applied selectively, whereby some countries are condemned while others are protected, and human rights slogans are raised in some cases while ignored in others that do not align with American strategic interests.

Thus, many do not view July 4th as a global holiday of freedom but rather as an occasion that recalls the history of a superpower that shaped the international system through the force of arms, exploitation, political and economic influence, and the plundering of the wealth and stability of nations. While Americans see this day as a memory of independence, others view it as a reminder of a long history of interventions that changed the fate of nations, ignited conflicts, and solidified power imbalances that the world continues to experience today.

The question remains open: Is celebrating the slogan of freedom sufficient, or does freedom acquire its true meaning when the sovereignty of all peoples is respected and international law is applied to all without exception?