In this post, I will lay the groundwork to build the rest of my argument on. Since I will be judging US’ actions, this groundwork will form the basis to do so.
As our former president famously said, the world might be a global village, but the US cannot claim to be its headman.
I agree. But then long back I talked of a basic inconsistency. Those who point out that the US is not the headman are also those who are loudest in pointing out cases where the US does not act like the headman. If the US is not the global headman, surely it no longer makes sense to accuse it of showing double standards on terrorism? Surely you cannot claim that the US did not bother about terrorism when it was hurting India and is only concerned when it hurts Americans?
Surely you cannot accuse it of showing “double standards” in its dealings with Iraq vis-a-vis North Korea? To accuse it of “double standards” implies that the US is obliged to follow the standard of impartiality in its dealings with various countries. Iraq and North Korea are not subjects of the US. There is no golden rule which says that because the US is going to attack Iraq, it must attack North Korea for the same offence, because, – I am repeating this – the US is not the world’s policeman.
If the US is not the headman of the global village, it is a private citizen of the world. A private citizen acts in his own interests. He may act selfishly or he may act altruistically, but it makes no sense to accuse him of partiality in either case.
A surprising number of accusations against the US falls apart when you accept that it is a private citizen. You can no longer sneer that it is concerned about Arab c?untries and ignoring sub-Saharan Africa, only because the Arab countries have oil and not Africa. The response to that can only be “Of course!”.
Even a private citizen acting in self-interest has to follow some ethics, and I will be asking the question whether the US is acting ethically in later parts. But the basic point remains. The US is a private citizen, and I will be evaluating its actions on that basis.
The issue is complicated by the fact that the world is an anarchy, in the literal sense (An-archy i.e., no government). The UN is not the government of the world.