Say Hello to New Cold War

The U.S President Barack Obama suggested NATO members to increase defense budget . How insensitive and irrational Obama happened to be that he adequately knew that the U.S was suffering from poverty and unemployment and it simply cannot afford adventurism and imperialism anymore. If US economy had strengths to bear something hefty, then shutdown of US government would never appear. Obama, during a speech in Brussels, appeared chagrined over Crimean accession to Russia, which challenged the US global authority and the very challenge appeared as a threat to US that later asked NATO counties to increase their defense budget to tackle that threat. And during his address he admitted that powerful countries happened to bully weaker ones,

    “We are confronted with the belief among some that bigger nations can bully smaller ones to get their way. That recycled maxim that might,       somehow, makes right,”

Now if Crimean accession to Russia was a Russian bully, then what was WMD hoax, which enabled US to be rubbling Iraq and to be introducing forced democracy? If Crimean accession to Russia was a Russian bully, then what was the US demand of democracy in Middle East especially in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, KSA, Syria etc? US-Russia turf war warmed up as Crimea joined Russia and the very move prickled the U.S, which was stopped by Russia from bombing Syria over Chemical Weapon Hoax.

Ron Paul, former US presidential candidate, wrote about US policy of forced democracy and dirty geopolitics

“That five billion dollars appears to have bought a revolution in Ukraine, but what do the US taxpayers get, who were forced to pay   for this interventionism? Nothing good.”

Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Def, bashed Obama by saying that “a trained ape” would have better foreign policy.

According to an Urdu expression i.e. “hum to dobey hain saman, tumhain be le dobayn gey”, one destroyed his comrades too as he got ruined in first place. The same applies on US that is suffering from bad economy and yet wanted to fuel troubles by egging new fronts and in doing so, it advised its allies, who also were suffering from economical crisis, to increase their defence budget.

Veneto, an Italian region, wanted independence from Italy since Venetons believed that,

“We pay 70 billion Euros in taxes to the Italian state and only a fraction comes back, so we’re looking at a gap of 20 billion Euros.”

Apart from Veneto, Sardinia, the second largest Island of the Mediterranean Sea and population of over 1.6m people, also wanted independence from Italy. In addition, Catalonia wanted independence from Spain as well and the reasons, alike of Veneto, were economical where 7.5m Catalonians boosted Spanish economy by fetching 1/5 of Spain’s GDP and 1/4 of taxes, thus Catalonians believed that the region will be much better off financially if they secede from Madrid. Moreover, Scotland too wanted to secede from London. Diversity between rich and poor was growing fastest in UK.

“Many countries, particularly within the Euro zone, have been cutting back hard on welfare spending in an attempt to reduce debt and balance government books as tax revenues fall because of weak growth.”

Furthermore, whereas food poverty had become a public health emergency whilst UK government kept cutting welfare funds, poverty literally has been devouring about 20 years from lives of poor in Britain.

According to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Society at a Glance 2014 highlights

“The number of people living in households without any income from work has doubled in Greece, Ireland and Spain, and risen by 20% or more in Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and the United States.   Young people are at greater risk of poverty than before the crisis: the share of 18-25 year-olds in households with incomes below half the national median has climbed in most countries – by 5 percentage points in Estonia, Spain and Turkey, by 4 points in Ireland and the UK, and by 3 points in Greece and Italy. The share of people who report that they cannot afford to buy enough food increased in 23 countries, particularly    in Greece and Hungary, but also in the United States.”

The U.S, which suffered from bad economy even it did not have money for students, should concentrate on welfare of Americans and their various monstrous issues i.e. poverty, homelessness, price hike, unemployment etc, and should have put its adventurism aside. No superpower ever lasted forever and the same historical lesson should be learnt by US, therefore, if US really wanted to earn global respect then it should have acted alike an educated and progressive gentleman, who had studied Platonism, a Hellenistic school of thought, in particularly “form of good”, which was described by Plato in “The Republic” through the simile of sun that made physical things visible and generated life on earth. Cynics, a Roman philosopher, believed that purpose of life was to live with virtue, now if politics and other things that related to politics i.e. economy, defense, foreign policy etc had been filtered through Cynicism, then world would have faced fewer problems.

By: Shahid Mehmood Khan

Footnotes:
1: Obama urges NATO to increase defence spending. 26 Mar 2014, Aljazeera.
2: Obama lashes out at Russia over Crimea during Brussels speech. 26 Mar 2014, Press TV.
3: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/25/donald-rumsfeld-trained- ape_n_5027750.html
4: 89% of Veneto residents vote for independence from Rome. 23 Mar 2014, Press TV.
5:  Push in Sardinia for online vote on independence from Italy. 26 Mar 2014, Press TV.  6:  Spanish top court rules Catalonia referendum unconstitutional. 26 Mar 2014, Press TV
7: Gap between rich and poor growing fastest in Britain. 5 Dec 2011, The Telegraph.
8: Rich-poor divide accelerating, says OECD.  15 May 2013. BBC
9: Food poverty in UK has reached level of ‘public health emergency’, warn experts. The Independent, 4 Dec 2013.
10: Rich will live life to the full 20 years longer than poor, official figures show. The Telegraph, 15 Mar 2014.
11: Urgent action needed to tackle rising inequality and social divisions. OECD
12: Report: State higher education cuts fuel student debt crisis. Aljazeera 6 Mar, 2014.

Tags: article, Cold War, New Cold War, Russia

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