The Doing Nothing Option

I am watching a BBC 4 documentary series "Corridors of Power, Should America Police the World?" 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0020xmq/corridors-of-power-should-america-police-the-world

It is a very hard watch. The Guardian review says "it’s a damning indictment of a superpower that intervenes in global atrocities only when it suits its own interests. It leaves you rinsed in hopelessness and disgust". So far I have watched the Nazi death camps, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda & Kosovo, the latter four I remember only too well. I haven't yet watched Sudan & Syria, which are also within my lifetime memory. 

The series is unflinching in the footage shown & the commentary of the people involved. America in particular comes out of it extremely badly, but so does Europe & the UK. I remember seeing the footage at the time & being utterly horrified at what we, in the so called "developed world," were allowing to happen. Doing nothing became a political art form.

The repeated lesson is that there is no limit to what man is capable of doing to man. And is is overwhelmingly man. Women are repeatedly victims of rape, injury & death.

 

The unforgivable reality is that I am living through almost exactly the same thing again. Politicians & Governments, knowing even more that the public does, yet not meaningfully intervening because of self interest & "diplomacy". (That really should be a dirty word). They have not learned that doing nothing makes things worse. 

It sickens me to see footage of Sudan, the West Bank & Gaza, Ukraine, the DRC, Somalia, Myanmar.....Death, suffering & destruction on an industrial scale. Yet we have NATO. We have the United Nations. We have international law & codes of conduct in the International Courts of Justice. We have the Convention of Human Rights. 

What good is all of that if single countries have a veto? There is no point of having law if we do not effectively enforce it. There is no point if decision making is skewed by national interest in resources like fossil fuels, rare earths... Natural resources drive human survival, global power generation, and modern technology. 

At least Ed Milliband has now announced measures to sanction what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians. Although politicians are still not naming it as Genocide. Canada & France are doing the same. The foreign ministers of Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Britain also issued a joint statement on the two-state solution.

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretary-oral-statement-on-israel-palestine  

Self interest rules. Never mind a bit of "collateral damage". Especially if that collateral damage is in a less developed country in Africa or the Middle East for example. It was clear from the documentary that there was underlying racism in the decision making.

Today all of this is much worse because we have a president of the USA who makes no secret of the fact that he wants to make as much money as possible for himself, his family & his wealthy mates. He is not acting for the good of America or the world. He is a money & power grasping narcissist who is systematically destroying democracy.

He does nothing that does not further his own ends.