IS AMERICA CHANGING?

America is changing and how. President Obama tells the UN, “those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone.” This transformation of character from a war mongering nation to an ordinary nation is too gross to miss. An American citizen could be pardoned for asking, ‘what’s wrong with America, why is it behaving like a sheep’. But to the rest of the world, nobody seems to be hiding a wide grin anymore. Was this expected? Osama would agree.

The president’s statement shy's from confessing that the entire task of policing the world which was self undertaken by America has really backfired. It creates an impression that America at the request of the League of Nations was policing the world. It had no interest of its own, what so ever. In case anybody feels so, to their information, there could be nothing farther from the truth. American interest in the Gulf is primarily oil. Oil for its big cars and big industries. To keep its huge economy rolling it had to have a full leg inside the oil barrel. American interest in other parts of the world is to protect its economy. Japan and South Africa are great allies and an important trade partners. South East Asia up to Australia is buyers of American products and also trade partners. UK is a dear friend and a source of funds to prop up its economy. America has valuable assets to protect in the form of the stability of all these countries and therefore it has to maintain a military presence across the globe. Till a decade ago it feared the USSR to topple its economy by distracting some of its allies. Now it fears China. Sadly it failed to realize that power which has fear at its base cannot last very long. Rome collapsed.

America lost on two fronts. On the external front to overcome disruption in oil supply, it created the famous brand called ‘axis of evil’ and launched a 24 hours bombing spectacle. These events hurt innocent people who were trapped inside the war zone and created an endless list of enemies. On the internal front the fear of loss and economic failure spurted people to transcend the ethical line on subprime mortgage. The day it was discovered, the fall of the global financial system started. People inside the USA as well as in other countries were shocked at the extent of mal-intent that was allowed to perpetrate. The US citizens lost confidence in their own self. The world citizen lost faith in America. Both these crises set every other country and its entire people against America and all that it stood for. But proud and powerful as it was, it took some time to bend and stand to its knees. Which it has! Speaking for myself, I would like to forgive America for all its past follies provided it vacates Afghanistan and forgives Osama Bin Laden. Osama’s act of 9/11 should be seen as retaliation against American destructive activities and not as an affront. America should learn and start with a clean slate. Forgiveness begets forgiveness, love begets love. It should realize that if it does not adopt this now, it will be forced in time to do so by nature, nobody needs to lift a finger against them.

West being the west as we all know, it is very improbable that America will quit Afghanistan on its own and will have to be kicked out. But before that happens, the good man Barak Obama, who psychologically and philosophically belong to the west as much as chicken butter masala belongs to England, would be liquidated. His type of attitude and thinking will not be tolerated for too long by the brash and impractical American. Lets’ wait and watch.