Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Gunboat Diplomacy to suit Donald Trump

Until now, I didn't care much about the way that Donald Trump conducted his business because I didn't think he would be much different from those in his line of business, in the milieu in which they all operate, in the time period in which we all live. But something has changed.

Now that Donald Trump has given a 4,000-word foreign policy speech – all of which sound insincere except for nine of them – I wonder about his business practices. Actually, the words are only 3, and they are repeated three times: keep the oil, keep the oil, keep the oil. This was enough for me to start worrying how Trump conducts business; apparently the only way he knows how. If he wants to be President of the United States, I can only surmise it is because the country has the military he is eying to conduct foreign policy the way that gunboat diplomacy was handled in the nineteenth century.

What tells you he is being “sarcastic” about everything, which he is by sheer habit, yet is dead serious about wanting to take and keep the oil that belongs to others – is the passage in which he tells of the relationship he has with wealth, whether it is his own or that of others. Here is what he says in this regard: “we would have had the benefits of the oil, which I wanted to use to help take care of the wounded soldiers and families of those who died … This proposal would have left soldiers in place to guard our assets. In the old days when we won a war, to the victor belonged the spoils”.

Being sarcastic about everything means he has only one obsession, to grab as much wealth as he can by hook or by crook. This must have been the motto by which he lived and built his business; which is what makes him great in his own eyes. So now, he wants to inflict that same pathology on a world that will most certainly fight back. And because Trump will have taken the initiative in the name of America using America's military to infringe on the possessions of others, the world will, in effect, fight back against America.

In suggesting that “our current strategy of nation-building and regime change is a proven failure,” he asserts that he would not have invaded Iraq as did George W. Bush; or bombed Libya as did Barack Obama. But he recognizes that parts of the Middle East and North Africa are in turmoil at this time, and so he adds: “We cannot let this evil continue, nor can we allow the hateful ideology reside or spread within our own countries.” This means he intends to do something about it. What would it be?

Before answering that question, Trump delves into a little history: “Ronald Reagan touted the superiority of freedom over communism, and called the USSR the Evil Empire … Yet, when Obama delivered his address in Cairo, no such moral courage could be found. Instead of condemning the oppression of women and gays in many Muslim nations, the violations of human rights and the financing of terrorism, Obama tried to draw an equivalency between our human rights record and theirs”.

So that's the answer to the above question. Donald Trump wants to go to the heart of the Arab and Muslim world, and tell the people over there they are evil. He'll condemn them because they oppress women and gays, violate human rights, and finance terrorism. And he'll warn them against drawing an equivalency between their human rights record and that of America.

This done, he'll ask his hosts to join America in the war against ISIS while “Western” political teachers, human rights experts and financial wizards will be going into every corner of their lands where they'll teach their kids how to mass murder other kids in schools and movie theaters the way they do in America. They'll instruct their nutcases how to kill women and sell their flesh as pork meat the way they do in Canada … not to forget eating someone alive on the bus. And they'll show the Arab young men how to burn the brides that show up with inadequate dowry the way they do in India. And Trump will instruct the Arabs and the Muslims they should label this system: healthy democracy.

Of course, that's not going to happen free of charge. It will be made clear to everyone that America will have to get its honorarium (the spoils) the way things used to happen in the old days. And he'll tell the Arabs and the Muslims that the honorarium which makes him drool day and night, is oil, oil, oil. They'll have to deliver or else … and they’ll have to remain aware all the time that American gunboats are stationed all around them.

Now you know why he wants to be commander in chief.