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Yahoo!Leaders Worldwide Scramble to Follow American Lead
In the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, government leaders and warlords in conflict zones worldwide seemed to be falling over themselves to pledge peace.
FRED WOLFF
The President of Sudan declared an end to hostilities in Darfur. “We are modern, or at least we live in a modern world, near modern countries like the U.S. And like the U.S., we understand that blood cannot be the path to benefit, whereas peace can be.”
In the Congo, where 45,000 people continue to die every month, dwarfing the toll in Darfur, reactions were more muted. “If the strongest country on earth can face not getting everything that it wants, I guess we can too,” said Laurent Kabila, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo. “Now that the U.S. is facing its responsibilities in Iraq, what if Americans start doing that here in the Congo? We’d better clean up our act.”
In Sri Lanka, Somalia, Columbia, the Kashmir, Chad, and elsewhere, fighters on all sides of the conflicts there pledged to take the U.S. withdrawal to heart. “We cannot continue this way,” said one tribal leader in Somalia, who wished to remain anonymous. “The time has come to learn foreign policy just like the Americans.”
In Belgium, Walloons and Flems promised to cooperate. “We’ve been idiots, like pinheads from outer space,” said Filip Dewinter, leader of the secessionist Vlaams Belang. “If America is a real country, so is Belgium. They’ve shown us how to behave.”
International Policy - fake NYTimes
Seriously, you are far too much focused on the US. Besides your wonderfull optimism and the lough I had the only positiv thing about your project is that it makes people think, talk and discuss.
The problem I am having is that all you propose is not focusing on the cause of everything, but on the visible effects. The problem we are having on our planet is not just an US problem, it is a problem within the political structure of our planet.
Politics are helplessly lost in the competition between national states. All they are aiming for is to get the financial market pumping as much money as possibile into their country -that is also what their voters want. Like in game theory we are in a prisoner´s dilemma. (e.g. If one country lowers taxes to attract the capital then another counrty will lower the taxes even more -I mean taxes the capital has to pay, not taxes the people have to pay).
The only way to get out of this dilemma is to change the rules of the game which is played. We must implement worldwide justice laws. And we can only do that (in my opinion) in a federal world state.
Wether this is the right way I am not sure (I am still to young to judge), but in the future we must definitely be deciding global issues on global politics level (not like now with G8 or G20 or whatever institution without any sovereignty), therefore I ask you to support the unpa-campaign: unpacampaign.org/
Sorry, but I had to tell you this.
So if you really want to change the world:
1st change the people (what you did)
2nd change our political system (what in my opinion you did not even think about)
ps: India and china together make up 35% of the world´s population -wake up america.
Comment on November 13, 2008 06:05 am