FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse. The Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. Superman, who made his fashion statement in red worn inside out, and, Bruce Willis, who saved this planet from Armageddon. Roy Rogers who generally beat up the Indians. Man on the moon, Internet, Al Capone. Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, seats of learning. Broadway and Hollywood. Mcdonald’s, Microsoft, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Presley, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, the amazing Smithsonian and the inane World Wrestling Federation and its brutes. Abe Lincoln and Roosevelt. America even gave us the Nixon-Kissinger duo. And finally, the present rulers George Bush and his neo-con Cabal.
The world’s El Dorado, the dream destination of practically every man, woman and the young. The place where the elite send their children to study at the Ivy League institutions; others go for their holidays. More want to go to the US than those who want to leave. The list of what the US has given the rest of the world is endless; the power of its soft power has been immense and it has fashioned the 20th century more or less according to its own will. Yet today more people in the world are either simply afraid of the US or others hate it. US troops are seen as occupiers and not as liberators. Obviously there is a huge disconnect somewhere.
The might of the US is not to be judged in terms of its military might alone or its economic clout. The might of the US can be gauged from the fact that it is the only country in the world today that can make its domestic laws applicable globally, ignore international laws when it desires, abrogate treaties at will, bomb and invade other countries and then walk out when bored. In judging American actions in pursuit of its interests, we should also study US behaviour in Latin America, parts of SE Asia and Middle East, Okinawa or wherever they have been in control.
What an awful lot of tragedies have resulted when powerful human beings in charge of powerful nations have presumed that they have been ordained with the mandate to correct the world and a world to suit their requirements. Rudyard Kipling wrote the “The White Man’s Burden” exhorting the US to occupy the Philippines at the end of the 19th century.
Till September 11, 2001, terrorism and its problems were something that only poor nations with oppressive governments faced and not an American problem whose people lived happily in a “cittie upon a hill.” After September 11, 2001, it became solely America’s problem as democracy was being threatened and the rest of the world would simply have to wait.
Source: The Hindustan Times, November 8, 2005
Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse. The Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. Superman, who made his fashion statement in red worn inside out, and, Bruce Willis, who saved this planet from Armageddon. Roy Rogers who generally beat up the Indians. Man on the moon, Internet, Al Capone. Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, seats of learning. Broadway and Hollywood. Mcdonald’s, Microsoft, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Presley, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, the amazing Smithsonian and the inane World Wrestling Federation and its brutes. Abe Lincoln and Roosevelt. America even gave us the Nixon-Kissinger duo. And finally, the present rulers George Bush and his neo-con Cabal.
The world’s El Dorado, the dream destination of practically every man, woman and the young. The place where the elite send their children to study at the Ivy League institutions; others go for their holidays. More want to go to the US than those who want to leave. The list of what the US has given the rest of the world is endless; the power of its soft power has been immense and it has fashioned the 20th century more or less according to its own will. Yet today more people in the world are either simply afraid of the US or others hate it. US troops are seen as occupiers and not as liberators. Obviously there is a huge disconnect somewhere.
The might of the US is not to be judged in terms of its military might alone or its economic clout. The might of the US can be gauged from the fact that it is the only country in the world today that can make its domestic laws applicable globally, ignore international laws when it desires, abrogate treaties at will, bomb and invade other countries and then walk out when bored. In judging American actions in pursuit of its interests, we should also study US behaviour in Latin America, parts of SE Asia and Middle East, Okinawa or wherever they have been in control.
What an awful lot of tragedies have resulted when powerful human beings in charge of powerful nations have presumed that they have been ordained with the mandate to correct the world and a world to suit their requirements. Rudyard Kipling wrote the “The White Man’s Burden” exhorting the US to occupy the Philippines at the end of the 19th century.
Till September 11, 2001, terrorism and its problems were something that only poor nations with oppressive governments faced and not an American problem whose people lived happily in a “cittie upon a hill.” After September 11, 2001, it became solely America’s problem as democracy was being threatened and the rest of the world would simply have to wait.
Source: The Hindustan Times, November 8, 2005
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