Moral Leadership, Disarmament and Latent Racism

Pope Benedict said the following today:

In a clear reference to Iran, he said: "Concerning the international crises linked to nuclear power, may an honourable solution be found for all parties, through serious and honest negotiations."

In another part of the speech, the Pope defended Israel's right to exist, a passage which appeared to be an indirect criticism of statements by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President, that the Jewish state should be eliminated.

But he also called for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

He said: "May the international community, which re-affirms Israel's just right to exist in peace, assist the Palestinian people to overcome the precarious conditions in which they live and to build their future, moving towards the constitution of a state that is truly their own."

Traditional Disarmament
The current approach to disarmament by the US is based on racism, a plague that the US has wrestled with since its inception.

During the era of SALT treaties with the Soviet Union, the negotiation was based on mutual respect. The Soviets were enemies, but they were responsible human beings and the goal was a strategic reduction in nuclear arms on both sides.

Similarly, the NPT treaty signed by many non-nuclear nations was based on respect and help with nuclear research. The use of nuclear weapons against smaller states was never an issue.

Single Superpower and the Racist Appeal
After the US becomes a single superpower, natural and inevitable hubris come in and the new policy becomes: “We can build nuclear arsenals and threaten to use them, no one else can or should.”

This logic-defying approach to disarming others at the point of a bayonet needs a premise for it to be rational: that the white man and the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Israel are rational and human, while others are sub-human, irresponsible and unreliable.

The history of the last two centuries belies this basic premise. So, it had to be propagated by the wink-wink nod-nod racism propagated by the highest officials of the US. Just as they propagated slavery and segregation. “Muslims love death. Ahmedinejad is irrational. blah blah. Saddam is evil. Osama is the incarnation of Satan. blah blah. wink wink. They can be killed, they are not equals. We shoot at them, we are liberators – they shoot at us – they are terrorists”

Disarming other nations will NOT work unless it is a mutual disarmament. Asking others not to build nuclear weapons while INCREASING our arsenal and threatening to use it is nothing but the insanity of a drunken bully. It cannot be sold. It cannot be accepted. And the media, citizens and the academics of the US are complicit.

American Racism Bites Back
Give me freedom or give me death! This was not only the slogan of a certain American pioneer but of all people around the world – especially in this information age when the world is but a village. This is the cry of the Palestinian and the cry of the Iraqi and the cry of every patriotic under occupation. People have given more sacrifices for freedom around the world than the Americans ever did in gaining their independence from the British.

This latent racism that is now growing unchecked is coming back to bite the USA. I travel over the world and it sickens me to see people cheering any misfortune of the US, from Latin America to China to the Middle East to India to Africa.

It sickens me to see how a country founded on equality and the greatest principles of the Protestant Reformation is now being chided by the Catholic pope, and there is NO answer, just bombs.

Others Should Step Up

It will take two centuries, perhaps never, for the US to gain its moral leadership that it has so miserably lost in the last 10 years. Until that happens, internal US conditions will deteriorate, for the US economy was built on the backs of the people of the world, and the money of the world, coming to a land of freedom. It was not God's gift to a superior race – it was the labour of Chinese, European, African and Russian farmers, labourers and scientists, mixed with the capital and the savings of the world that led to this citadel of freedom and liberty being what it is.

Sadly, it is time for others to take the moral leadership now. A leader leads morally, never by force. Once the leader becomes the butt of ridicule, the game is over.