Saturday, August 31, 2013

USA, if you are not the policeman of the world, why should we hold so mindboggling many of your “In God We Trust” dollars?

My father, arriving as a polish prisoner on the first train to Auschwitz on June 14 1940, number 245, was liberated by the Americans from Buchenwald, April 14, 1945. So I might certainly be biased, in favor of the United States acting as the policeman for the world. At least biased in favor of the United States I believe existed, and still hope and pray for that exists. (So I guess I just confessed that I might not be the so "radical of the middle" on all issues.)

And that is why I keep on warning about that if the United States reneges on being the policeman for the world, or becomes ashamed of its strength, then the world might renege on trusting the US to such an extent as to hold a mind-boggling amount of its dollars, backed by a "In God We Trust". Approximately China holds $1.3 trillion, Japan $1.1 trillion and the rest of the world $3.1 trillion. And so you see, there might be quite a lot of subconscious quid pro quo involved here.

PS. Obama ended his September 10 speech saying “America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.”

And frankly, to act only when only “modest effort and risk” is required, is not what has made America so great, at least not in the eyes of this small human being, who much owes his existence to the huge and brave sacrifices of America.

PS. It is also absolutely clear that Putin, when ending his Op-ed in the New York with “we must not forget that God created us all equal”, after referring to “big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy”, has exclusively those who are governing the countries mind, those who so often shamelessly hide behind the skirts of sovereignty; and not for a second, not even remotely, is Putin thinking about the citizens who are governed, those who were the prime concern of America's founders.


And so, if "America is not the world’s policeman"...should Europe declare a state of emergency?


And please, if as a policeman, one one occasion, for your own reasons, want or need to restrict the punishment to something symbolic, is not that it is only symbolic, sort of the last thing you would want to say? 

And this is not the first time I have raised the issue of the dollar and America's military strength... and will to exercise it. Here in a letter in Washington Post

Oh, and just in case. I am not talking about a war against Syria, but a war against the use of chemical weapons.

And to fight and punish the use of banned chemical weapons, requires a willing, and, hopefully a strong, firm and good policeman, with a great sense of justice.

Or, are we telling our mostly dead grandfathers, their Geneva Protocol prohibiting chemical weapons was pure nonsense? Do we now want it repealed? I pray not.

And America, please do not confuse war with servicing as a police. A police detains when there are infractions… he does not build nations.

And if the United States is not willing to be the policeman of the world, to help enforce laws they have also agreed with, would the world have to pray for some vigilantes to do that?

Surely all human rights criminals who hide behind the skirts of sovereignty, must be celebrating the USA not wanting to be the policeman of the world! 

And in reference to the case of Syria, below I quote from “Questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask” by Max Fisher, The Washington Post, September 1, 2013 "What’s the big deal with chemical weapons?" 

"War is going to happen. It just is. But the reason that the world got together in 1925 for the Geneva Convention to ban chemical weapons is because this stuff is really, really good at killing civilians but not actually very good at the conventional aim of warfare, which is to defeat the other side. You might say that they’re maybe 30 percent a battlefield weapon and 70 percent a tool of terror. In a world without that norm against chemical weapons, a military might fire off some sarin gas because it wants that battlefield advantage, even if it ends up causing unintended and massive suffering among civilians, maybe including its own. And if a military believes its adversary is probably going to use chemical weapons, it has a strong incentive to use them itself. After all, they’re fighting to the death.

So both sides of any conflict, not to mention civilians everywhere, are better off if neither of them uses chemical weapons. But that requires believing that your opponent will never use them, no matter what. And the only way to do that, short of removing them from the planet entirely, is for everyone to just agree in advance to never use them and to really mean it. That becomes much harder if the norm is weakened because someone like Assad got away with it. It becomes a bit easier if everyone believes using chemical weapons will cost you a few inbound U.S. cruise missiles."