Abu Hena :
It was an exhilarating finish to the most thrilling presidential debate in decades; the most watched and highest rated in American history. Hillary Clinton appeared on the stage backed by a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas while Donald Trump showed his ‘dangerous impulse’ and ‘cynical pandering’ rather than thoughtful politics. His brazen refusal to disclose his tax returns, his shady business deals and questionable charitable operations, numerous complaints of frauds, bankruptcies, inexperience in national security, terming global warming as a ‘hoax’ and savage mockery of those who challenge him – all summed up to doing ‘hokey- pokey’, meaning ‘nonsense’. His gestures bore resemblance to a shaker song from Kentucky :” I put my right hand in, I put my right hand out, I give my right hand a shake, and I turn it all around.” He started with a frown and growl, sniffled constantly and sipped water frequently to ease his dry mouth and flared up when rebuked for calling the former Miss Universe “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping”. Hillary Clinton came out victorious with a punch and beat him by 35 points (67% to 27%).
American voters were angry, disenchanted and bored with his silly efforts to project himself as the” smart man” for not paying taxes as the government squanders it and were amused when he said that he has the best temperament to be the president. Despite his lack of experience even in the lowest rung of public office he made attempts to offer change at a time when the United States cannot afford to trust a novice and an unscrupulous person with a job which carries with it the highest responsibility. Clinton has been at the apex of the government that rescued the world from economic woe.
The Obama administration in which she played a vital role, upheld the progressive values and faith in government initiatives such as fiscal stimuli. The American people have endorsed what is now the main contention of the Democrats: that the party of the center-left is best qualified to cope with the downturn. Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton helped America overcome the toxic memories of the previous years. Hillary is an incumbent when Trump is an insurgent who has hijacked a political party and has deprived the GOP of its rightful leadership.
The Secretary who served as New York’s Senator and was the First Lady has an international standing hard to match. On the other side, Trump’s Scottish golf venture was ridiculed as “Birdie or Bogie” in The Economist, Nov.8,2008, for building a wall against a crashing sea. The local councilors ruled him out of bounds. But to the ire of the conservationists, he got the project approved by manipulation as a “goose management scheme”.
No wonder he calls climate change a ‘Chinese hoax’. He is more likely to diminish the U.S. President’s profile than enhance it. Trump was totally eclipsed altogether by Secretary Clinton in the first presidential debate. He looked depressingly ‘miserable’ alongside his contender.
This election has huge implications for the United States and is fraught with immense impact on the world at large. That worries the world all the more. Donald Trump, who has been in business for 30 years has become an alienated man estranged from himself. Now if he articulates about his concept of heaven, he will wander around open-mouthed in his heaven of Trump Tower, golf courses and busted casinos and tax evasions.
The impersonal nexus of his relationships which makes profit and loss the ultimate evaluative criteria of human worth mediates al hisl relationships. That’s the reason he cannot compromise with the U.S policy of defending South Korea and Japan, funding NATO ,the UN the World Bank, IMF,WTO which are all American creations. He is ignorant of the facts of American history which he has never even guessed.
He does not know that the defeat of the Axis powers in the WWII has resulted in the sudden push towards globalization and America stands at the center of this revolution, as the maker of the modern world. Since then the United States became the driving force for freedom and democracy to help any country wishing to join the democratic world. Because of this unique responsibility there is no place on earth that is not touched by the United States. It is the American leadership which has brought people, languages, ideas and values together in an era of globalization.
Donald Trump cannot be expected to comprehend this vision. He is ignorant of the fact that during the post war era Soviet Russia occupied the Eastern European countries, divided Germany and built the Berlin Wall and fought the proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Indo-China.
The idea was to spread communism all over the world. NATO was developed to establish a military counterweight to a Soviet military presence in Europe. That threat of Soviet expansionism is still there. The U.S.S.R. and the U.S. freed Korea from Japan in 1945 with North protected by the Soviets and South protected by the U.S. An attack by North Korea in 1950 led to the Korean War . American and United Nations forces pushed the North Koreans far into the refuge of the Peoples Republic of China. An armistice signed in 1953 divided Korea along the 51st parallel. But the North Korean dictators who have developed nuclear weapons still continue to threaten South Korea’s independence and American security.
In North Korea, a form of “Stone Age Communism” exists to this day. Japan’s history should not be unknown to anyone who aspires to be the president of the United States. After the defeat in the Second World War, the U.S. forced a fundamental democratization of the country. It no longer has a standing armed force at its disposal. Japan regained its full sovereignty in 1952. The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security was signed with USA in 1960 and the country’s constitution allows it to raise only self-defense forces. Raising of a regular army is under discussion.
And why TPP? Throughout the Obama presidency United States has reassured all its Asian allies that America has both the means and the will to remain the dominant military power in the Asia-Pacific region. President himself set the tone in a landmark speech in 2011, firmly asserting that “the United States is a Pacific power and we are here to stay.
“Since then the U.S. has transferred more of its navy to the region and President Obama has frequently visited the region to bolster the ASEAN and the TPP which brings together 12 nations including Japan and US but excludes China. On a recent visit to Washington D.C. the Singapore prime minister Hsien Loong called the TPP a “litmus test of U.S. credibility and seriousness of purpose” in Asia. He pointed out that its implications go well beyond trade, extending to the credibility of American security guarantees to the Asian allies. In the situation President’s signature foreign policy initiative -‘the pivot of Asia’ may face problems in the face of current maelstrom of American politics. During the Cuban missile crisis Soviet Russia brought the world to the brink of a nuclear war.
At present there are as many as five theatres of war -South China Sea, Jammu and Kashmir, Ukraine, ISIS and Syria. Russia is the main actor in all the conflict zones. China’s current role on the international stage underlines its growing presence in the Asia Pacific region, South Asia, Middle East and Africa which signals a challenge to the world order which has been created and maintained by the United States and its allies since the end of the WWII. Donald Trump has openly declared that Russia’s strongman Vladimir Putin is his idol, friend and philosopher. If Putin succeeds in his most sinister ‘grand design’ and Donald Trump and his Slovenian wife Melania Trump get an entry into the White House that will spell the end of the world. The behavior of Russia in the last few weeks has echoes of some of the ugliest moments of the Cold War and Putin reveled in his new role as the great disrupter of American plans around the world.
It was an exhilarating finish to the most thrilling presidential debate in decades; the most watched and highest rated in American history. Hillary Clinton appeared on the stage backed by a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas while Donald Trump showed his ‘dangerous impulse’ and ‘cynical pandering’ rather than thoughtful politics. His brazen refusal to disclose his tax returns, his shady business deals and questionable charitable operations, numerous complaints of frauds, bankruptcies, inexperience in national security, terming global warming as a ‘hoax’ and savage mockery of those who challenge him – all summed up to doing ‘hokey- pokey’, meaning ‘nonsense’. His gestures bore resemblance to a shaker song from Kentucky :” I put my right hand in, I put my right hand out, I give my right hand a shake, and I turn it all around.” He started with a frown and growl, sniffled constantly and sipped water frequently to ease his dry mouth and flared up when rebuked for calling the former Miss Universe “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping”. Hillary Clinton came out victorious with a punch and beat him by 35 points (67% to 27%).
American voters were angry, disenchanted and bored with his silly efforts to project himself as the” smart man” for not paying taxes as the government squanders it and were amused when he said that he has the best temperament to be the president. Despite his lack of experience even in the lowest rung of public office he made attempts to offer change at a time when the United States cannot afford to trust a novice and an unscrupulous person with a job which carries with it the highest responsibility. Clinton has been at the apex of the government that rescued the world from economic woe.
The Obama administration in which she played a vital role, upheld the progressive values and faith in government initiatives such as fiscal stimuli. The American people have endorsed what is now the main contention of the Democrats: that the party of the center-left is best qualified to cope with the downturn. Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton helped America overcome the toxic memories of the previous years. Hillary is an incumbent when Trump is an insurgent who has hijacked a political party and has deprived the GOP of its rightful leadership.
The Secretary who served as New York’s Senator and was the First Lady has an international standing hard to match. On the other side, Trump’s Scottish golf venture was ridiculed as “Birdie or Bogie” in The Economist, Nov.8,2008, for building a wall against a crashing sea. The local councilors ruled him out of bounds. But to the ire of the conservationists, he got the project approved by manipulation as a “goose management scheme”.
No wonder he calls climate change a ‘Chinese hoax’. He is more likely to diminish the U.S. President’s profile than enhance it. Trump was totally eclipsed altogether by Secretary Clinton in the first presidential debate. He looked depressingly ‘miserable’ alongside his contender.
This election has huge implications for the United States and is fraught with immense impact on the world at large. That worries the world all the more. Donald Trump, who has been in business for 30 years has become an alienated man estranged from himself. Now if he articulates about his concept of heaven, he will wander around open-mouthed in his heaven of Trump Tower, golf courses and busted casinos and tax evasions.
The impersonal nexus of his relationships which makes profit and loss the ultimate evaluative criteria of human worth mediates al hisl relationships. That’s the reason he cannot compromise with the U.S policy of defending South Korea and Japan, funding NATO ,the UN the World Bank, IMF,WTO which are all American creations. He is ignorant of the facts of American history which he has never even guessed.
He does not know that the defeat of the Axis powers in the WWII has resulted in the sudden push towards globalization and America stands at the center of this revolution, as the maker of the modern world. Since then the United States became the driving force for freedom and democracy to help any country wishing to join the democratic world. Because of this unique responsibility there is no place on earth that is not touched by the United States. It is the American leadership which has brought people, languages, ideas and values together in an era of globalization.
Donald Trump cannot be expected to comprehend this vision. He is ignorant of the fact that during the post war era Soviet Russia occupied the Eastern European countries, divided Germany and built the Berlin Wall and fought the proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Indo-China.
The idea was to spread communism all over the world. NATO was developed to establish a military counterweight to a Soviet military presence in Europe. That threat of Soviet expansionism is still there. The U.S.S.R. and the U.S. freed Korea from Japan in 1945 with North protected by the Soviets and South protected by the U.S. An attack by North Korea in 1950 led to the Korean War . American and United Nations forces pushed the North Koreans far into the refuge of the Peoples Republic of China. An armistice signed in 1953 divided Korea along the 51st parallel. But the North Korean dictators who have developed nuclear weapons still continue to threaten South Korea’s independence and American security.
In North Korea, a form of “Stone Age Communism” exists to this day. Japan’s history should not be unknown to anyone who aspires to be the president of the United States. After the defeat in the Second World War, the U.S. forced a fundamental democratization of the country. It no longer has a standing armed force at its disposal. Japan regained its full sovereignty in 1952. The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security was signed with USA in 1960 and the country’s constitution allows it to raise only self-defense forces. Raising of a regular army is under discussion.
And why TPP? Throughout the Obama presidency United States has reassured all its Asian allies that America has both the means and the will to remain the dominant military power in the Asia-Pacific region. President himself set the tone in a landmark speech in 2011, firmly asserting that “the United States is a Pacific power and we are here to stay.
“Since then the U.S. has transferred more of its navy to the region and President Obama has frequently visited the region to bolster the ASEAN and the TPP which brings together 12 nations including Japan and US but excludes China. On a recent visit to Washington D.C. the Singapore prime minister Hsien Loong called the TPP a “litmus test of U.S. credibility and seriousness of purpose” in Asia. He pointed out that its implications go well beyond trade, extending to the credibility of American security guarantees to the Asian allies. In the situation President’s signature foreign policy initiative -‘the pivot of Asia’ may face problems in the face of current maelstrom of American politics. During the Cuban missile crisis Soviet Russia brought the world to the brink of a nuclear war.
At present there are as many as five theatres of war -South China Sea, Jammu and Kashmir, Ukraine, ISIS and Syria. Russia is the main actor in all the conflict zones. China’s current role on the international stage underlines its growing presence in the Asia Pacific region, South Asia, Middle East and Africa which signals a challenge to the world order which has been created and maintained by the United States and its allies since the end of the WWII. Donald Trump has openly declared that Russia’s strongman Vladimir Putin is his idol, friend and philosopher. If Putin succeeds in his most sinister ‘grand design’ and Donald Trump and his Slovenian wife Melania Trump get an entry into the White House that will spell the end of the world. The behavior of Russia in the last few weeks has echoes of some of the ugliest moments of the Cold War and Putin reveled in his new role as the great disrupter of American plans around the world.
[Writer was elected MP in the 7th and 8th parliaments of Bangladesh. He is a retired civil servant, an author and columnist]
