+ Real Bad News

“As US Secretary of State Colin Powell could not help noticing, some of the countries affected were Muslim. That the US hiked its contribution despite this knowledge shows the extent of its forgiveness, Powell explained.” (The Mathematics of Giving, The Times of India, Sunday, January 09, 2005)

I really am not surprised, having questioned the US’s motives for long, but I must still admit to being furious. There isn’t an iota of honesty here, or the morality that the presidents of that country keep talking about. What has Muslim (or Eskimo, or cannibal, for that matter) got to do with giving humanitarian aid? But then, as we should know by now, that is how the “world’s greatest nation” stinks – I mean, thinks. This, coming from the one person in the administration who is widely reputed to have had half a conscience in the Iraq invasion; imagine the rest of the spooks!

If Muslim is a defining word in the Americans’ thought-and-action process that leads to giving or not giving aid, will somebody explain how Pakistan has been getting all those billions in cash and kind? Ah, and Saudi Arabia! Here, we are talking about a piddling $350 million from the US for tsunami relief, and sanctimonious crap on top of it. Well, by now most people (except those who are totally besotted with the glory of America) know, there is nothing that drives American action except strategic interests. They’ve spent $200 billion on Iraq, but then the oil will more than compensate when they have a nice shit-eating regime installed there. The tsunami concerns a few hundred thousand people who can do nothing for the US – hell, all put together, they can’t probably even buy a couple of fancy Fords coming out of Maraimalainagar.

I can kind of understand that, but that is not what makes the US a dangerous entity. It is that, combined with a breathtaking stupidity and a total lack of morality riding on their ultimate belief in their own power. Everything considered, it seems quite amazing that the American administration can’t see beyond the tip of its bright red nose. I can’t think of any country that has blundered so consistently for as long as the US has. Worse, they probably don’t think they need to take all that care – money, bombs and some simple arm-twisting can resolve almost anything. To top it all, the Bushman and the others of his ilk with blankets-worth of wool between their ears “know” that God is with the morally right people – meaning, these woolly-headed worthies. Well, to put it mildly, this God must be one deviant crazy.

One other aspect to the dangerousness: with a nation such as China, its people know it’s not worth betting on, but they can’t do anything about it; with the US, a lot of its people actually think the administration is working for the good of the world. And in case the loonies created by the US manage to get together enough to threaten the world, the moon (and probably, Mars) are getting ready for the US brains trust; meanwhile, you and I can enjoy our tsunamis.