If the following sounds like an open
letter to Uncle Sam, so be it.
When you begin with the premise that your
neighbor is your enemy, you'll have only three options to deal with him. The
options are these: “kill him” or “keep him at bay” or “let him rule the
jungle”.
That's the assessment of Clifford D. May
who wrote: “How the United States and our allies should deal with enemies,” a
column that also came under the subtitle: “We can try to kill them, attempt to
keep them at bay or let them rule the jungle.” The column was published on
March 10, 2020 in The Washington Times.
This applies if and when you begin with
the premise that your neighbor is your enemy. But if you at any moment––however
brief that moment may be––realize that you're suffering from a serious
condition of delusional schizo-paranoia, you'll know that your neighbor is not
your enemy. You'll also realize that you've been acting so offensively, you
forced your neighbor to take measures that will protect him, his property and
his family from your erratic behavior.
And because you consider these measures to
be aimed at you personally, you think of them as being the activities of an
enemy. But you know what, my friend? You're alone in this. What you think are
your allies are no more. Yes, they were your allies at one time, but they did
what you haven't done yet. They took a good look at themselves and realized
that they were suffering from the same serious condition of delusional
schizo-paranoia as you do. Horrified at what they saw, they psyched themselves
into shedding the fear they had induced into themselves when they didn't know
better.
Your former allies, mostly in Europe and a
few in Asia, are now watching you closely. They are slowly but surely
dismantling the institutions that put them in alliance with you. And they are
doing more; they are forging new accords of friendship and cooperation with
just about everyone on the planet in recognition of the reality that we all are
the same: They and we befriend those who befriend us, and we take measures to
protect ourselves against those who would do us harm … out of malice or mental
illness.
Unless you embrace the winds of change and
join us in building the new world of peace and cooperation, such as we seek to
do, you'll remain alone. You'll continue to live in a state of self-delusion,
believing that you're surrounded by enemies that have nothing better to do than
scheme to hurt you. In return, you'll spend your time searching for ways to
kill them or keep them at bay or let them rule the jungle of your imagination.
This is the end of the letter to Uncle
Sam––if that was one––and the start of the review concerning the Clifford May
column. Because May quotes the writings of other pundits, it was necessary to
isolate what relates to his thinking and highlight it. The following are the
pertinent passages to that effect:
“German Nazis and Japanese imperialists
sought to achieve global domination. Russian Communists sought to achieve the
same goal. James Woosley referred to the Soviet Union as a large dragon we had
slain. He foresaw that we would be threatened by poisonous snakes. Vladimir
Putin did not aspire to become a member in good standing of the international community.
Nor did Communist China evolve into a strategic partner. The rulers of North
Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran pursue nuclear weapons and the means to
deliver them to targets in the United States. Non-state jihadi groups were both
mutating and proliferating. Our repeated failures to convert battlefield
victory into strategic success is a key reason for the inconclusive wars that
have sapped our energy while our rivals prospered. We should disabuse ourselves
of the notion that we live in a global village, and come to the terms with the
fact that we live in a global jungle where night and day voracious predators
stalk us”.
What is on display here is the way that
the schizo-paranoid mentality operates. The reality is that, at the time
Winston Churchill incited the Americans to turn aggressive against the Soviet
Union, the latter had not made a single move to indicate it had imperialist
tendencies. But on Churchill's bad advice, America started encircling the
Soviets anyway, prompting them to take legitimate measures to defend
themselves.
The same goes for China, North Korea and
Iran that made no military moves comparable to those of America or Israel;
moves that can be characterized as imperialist in nature. But what can be said
about these countries, is that the non-military measures America has
implemented against them, coupled with the verbal threats that everything else
was on the table, prompted them to do what they are duty-bound to do. It was to
take all necessary measures to protect their populations.
So, guess what the result has been, my
friend. If you can't guess, check what Clifford May is saying. Here it is: “Our
repeated failures to convert battlefield victory into strategic success is a
key reason for the inconclusive wars that have sapped our energy while our
rivals prospered.” What this says in plain English is that we can't walk and
chew gum at the same time, whereas our rivals were able to do so, and also kick
our asses in the process.