.
There is one thing our
leaders seem to have forgotten in their war of words and brinkmanship, their
clash of egos and their refusal to compromise and that is millions, maybe even
billions of people will have to bear the brunt of the hardship for whatever
they do.
Here in America we are
still struggling to get over a terrorist attack on 9-11, two of the longest and
most ill-conceived wars in our history and five years of Obama and his policy
of intellectual constipation as a better alternative than truth.
Now that political
partisanship as mastered by the president has effectively paralyzed our
government and there is really very little more damage that can be done to the
national reputation there is a danger of
detachment by the two political leaders that spells danger to the millions
they represent and the millions more they could harm.
We pretty much recognize
that Putin is going to do whatever he thinks will contribute to the
resurrection of a Russian Empire as that seems to be his destiny. Whether such an Empire will embrace the brutal
Communism of Lenin and Stalin remains to be seen.
Here in the colonies we
seem to have forgotten a lot about the history of the world and I suppose when
your own history is barely 500 years old, it would be hard to relate to people
and places dating back 5,000 years or more.
Well consider this. When the Soviet Union
collapsed and we tried to impose our cherished system of Democracy on the
people freed from the yoke of Communism did it ever occur to us we might be
making a mistake?
Of course not.
Our Constitutional principles
of individual freedom and equal opportunity should be enjoyed by everyone. But can it be? People fled to America to be free. But what about the people who never left their
homeland? People like the Russians,
Muslims, Asians and others.
I traveled to Russia
during the conversion from Communism to chaos and it did not take me long to
realize our freedoms and our opportunities were alien to a civilization that
lived under the rule of Czars for over 1,000 years before the iron-fist control imposed by Communism.
None of the average
Russians I reached out to had a clue what democracy meant and the thought of
electing their leaders had never happened in thousands of years. In fact, many of the people who grew up under
Communism and were cared for from cradle to grave felt being cared for was far
more important than how much wealth could be accumulated.
In other words, they
didn't deny Americans to be who were are but seemed to be asking why can't you
respect us for who we are.
We seem to forget it has
taken us 500 years to master our own destiny.
The first half were spent under the same English, French or Spanish
systems our ancestors fled and the last 238 years have been spent trying to
figure out how to make democracy work.
Think about it, just 150
years ago we were ending the Civil War that threatened to destroy our fledgling experiment
in democracy so we have really only been at it, the art of governing the people
in peace, for 150 years.
When you think about the American
wars, riots against wars, abuses by businesses, corruption by governments, lack
of civil rights, etc., since the Civil War ended one wonders if we have even reached
a state of maturity yet as far as our form of governing.
In truth, we don't really
know what is best for ourselves, we are a work in progress, and we sure don't
know what is best for the rest of the world.
If we do not recognize the history and respect the expectations of
people in other countries then we should not impose our will and ways on them.
Of course every human
being should enjoy individual freedom and have equal opportunity but that
certainly does not happen overnight, not even over hundreds of years. And that might not even be what the people
want.
Obama and Putin are trying
to impose on the Ukrainian and Crimean people what they see is best for those
people. I already wrote that Crimea was
far more a part of Russia
and the Ukraine more a part
of Europe.
At the same time, Russia's most valuable asset, oil and gas, are
dependent on a series of pipelines running across the Ukraine to the Black Sea and Europe. They have a right to expect them to be
protected just as we have protected our oil and gas interests in many countries
in the Middle East.
No one's hands are clean
and conscious is clear when it comes to wealth and power and those in power
must be accommodated if anyone wants to share in their wealth. Every time we try to change the balance of
the world things get bad, economies are disrupted, people lose their jobs, savings
and sanity and the rich, well they just keep getting richer.
Iran, Iraq,
Syria, Kuwait and on
and on are proof of the folly of wealth-driven foreign policy. With the United
States and Russia two of the most wealthy
nations on Earth in terms of natural resources and economic wealth, maybe it is
time to reconsider whether our foreign policy should be dictated by economic
incentives or concerns for the needs of the people.
If so I expect a far
different outcome than what we have today.
.
