Have you ever wondered why—
· In the post WW2 popular movies and novels, all mischievous and malevolent inhabitants of other planets and galaxies (‘Aliens’) attack only the United States of America (the US), especially the richest cities of New York and Los Angeles!
Whereas, there is evidence of just one attack (9/11 WTC attack in NY) on the US soil by a non-US citizen, in the post WW2 period.
· Mostly, agents of the US secret services (or in few cases agents of the UK secret service) assume the responsibility of saving the earth from an imminent destruction (‘Apocalypse’) and always achieve the task successfully!
Whereas, there is overwhelming evidence of multiple failures of the US secret services. For example, they failed to prevent assassination of President Kennedy (1963); attack on WTC (2001); Capitol riots (2021); assassination attempt on Trump (2024). They also failed miserably in Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Maldives, Ukraine, etc. There are many instances of the US secret services or armed forces failing to prevent a major conflict or coup. In fact, the US is the only state to have used atomic weapon in the history of mankind.
· A vast majority of US citizens truly believe in supremacy and superiority of their country?
Whereas the fact is that a significant proportion of the US population is unhealthy, unemployable, financially insecure, and indebted. The country is being basically pushed by brilliant immigrants, lured from developing countries, through attractive scholarships, and promises of liberty, equality, inclusion etc. Without the promise of DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion), half their universities could become unviable, making higher education even more inaccessible for a large majority of the local population.
To joke, the US is the boy, who is a poor cricket player but owns the only bat available to the team. He is entitled to play as the captain.
The short point is that the programs like USAID (mostly a disguise to bribe foreign governments and think tanks enjoying significant influence on their respective governments), DEI, NATO financing, birthright citizenship, generous contributions towards the IMF, UN and Red Cross etc., have earned the US a wider acceptability. The world has ignored all its misadventures, atrocities, and exploitations including Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
If President Trump and his advisors want to end these programs, throw out cheap labor and brilliant students, weaken USD, alienate trusted and old-time allies like Canada & Germany, push the allies like India away and closer to the opposite camp (Russia and China), and risk the presence and security of the US resources scattered all across the world they ought to have a full proof plan that is still not known to us.
Who knows, maybe they are just testing the waters by bluffing the world and do not intend to carry out much of their threats. Maybe they would tactically unroll most of their actions taken in the past two months, changing the nomenclatures of programs like USAID.
Notwithstanding, one thing is very clear that the US economy is weakening and MAGA is a much longer project than Mr. Trump's presidential tenure. …more on this next week.