The big bully policy [Archives:2002/37/Focus]

COMMON SENSE
By Hassan Al-Haifi
Surely, these days, the United States and the world at large need much more far-sighted leadership than that projected by the Bush Administration. Apparently, we are presently under the illusions that there are directions that do not seem to be leading to any concrete end for the American people and for the rest of the world. It is clear that the people of the world will have to be wary of any stance taken by the United States, considering the awesome destructive force under its disposal. American foreign policy is important in that it determines the fate of the world. Thus, when such policy seems to follow a path of confusion and lack of positive direction, the rest of the world realizes that the world is in for a state of disarray and insecurity. The handling of major problems facing the world today need to be given the right directions that will lead to their solution rather than to their drowning in an abyss of confusion and complications that will make it the more difficult for future generations to resolve.
The last World Summit in Johannesburg has shown that real world leadership was just not there. The jeers and shouting that continuously interrupted the American Secretary of State, as he was giving his nearly empty speech is an echo of the feelings of the mass population of the world that the United States has failed in its world leadership role. Furthermore, the obvious high degree of arrogance and might makes right attitude, of which the Bush Administration has openly declared itself to be an advocate, has created more problems to the international scene than any wild fanatic could ever dream of conjuring up. Therefore, we have the majority of America’s most faithful allies wondering: “What is happening to Uncle Sam?”
Great nations are not solely measured by the amount of destructive force they have at their disposal, but by what they leave the rest of humanity with, in terms of devotion to peace and human welfare. Historical experience has shown that great nations tend to lean towards their own self-destruction, when they start to rely on their destructive capacity to dictate their will – right or wrong – and impose their mandate on the rest of humanity: “If you are not with us, then you are against us”. Thus, when a nation declares itself to be the moral conscience of the world, without any logical sequence to the course it pursues in setting the ground for such moral suasion, the world could not expect any positive trends in all the matters that are so important to the continuation of civilization and human progress. There is no future to look forward to when the superpower decides that answering the call of the war drums preached by some right wing fanatics is the sensible approach for that superpower. These fanatics are only out to serve an industrial – military complex that seeks to bleed the whole world out of its scarce and limited resources, so that the few, who run the institutions of this complex can grow fatter and richer. Judging by the recent developments in the American business community, it is obvious that the people of this military-industrial complex, who once claimed to be demi-gods, have been shown to be no more than corrupt and immoral beings, who have mislead their own shareholders and cheated them out of billions of dollars, by simply juggling their corporate books to create a false façade of wealth and opulence, throwing all accounting ethics against the wall. Their obvious intention is and will always be to further their ability to plunder the corporations they run, even when these corporations have begun to display the symptoms of decay, mismanagement and corruption.
Thus, how should America expect to see the world react to an America that is forgetting itself and the ideals by which its forefathers laid down? Without any moral and ethical spice to power, power then becomes an evil that is defied by the majority of the people of the world.
We are not sure the present American Administration fully comprehends the serious position the United States is in. Lacking a clear and definite objective to its foreign policy and with the lack of moral persuasion to support its maneuvers in the international field, there is just no proof that it – and it alone – can render itself to decide the fate of the world! This is playing into the hands of all the evil forces that drive nations, beset by the arrogance of power, into the belief that they have become possessors of divine power to which all must succumb. This is bound to displease the Al-Mighty, and this is where the ominous threat really lies. The rest is history!

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