'Trump'eting and 'Singh'ing

Donald Trump loves America so much that he wants Libya. And China too if he could get past the noodles and fake Rolexes. There was a time when many wanted Donald Trump. Today, in his respectable avatar as a “serious” Republican candidate, he is making rather outrageous comments. No, I don’t have a problem when he says, “this country is a laughing stock throughout the world”, for he assumes that the United States has got the power and ought to use it not to better itself but to get the better of others.

It is his rather facile attitude that makes one wonder what all the fuss is about Sarah Palin.


On Libya

“Look at Libya. Look at this mess. We go in, we don't go in, he shouldn't be removed, we don't want to remove him, we don't want to touch him, but he should be removed. Nobody knows what they're doing on Kadhafi. I'd do one thing. Either I'd go in and take the oil or I don't go in at all. In the old days, when you have a war and you win, that nation is yours."

I am tempted to at least accept his upfront stance. Nobody asked the American administration to go to Libya in the first place. If anyone has to do anything to or with Col. Muammar Gaddafi it is the other political leaders and how the people decide to act. He is pummelling them, but the situation would have been not as bad without outside interference.

Trump has inadvertently revealed that it is all about oil and not to save the poor citizens. Talking about the old days, he need not go very far back in time to figure out that the US went to war with countries it had no skirmishes with. It just landed up there when two other countries or two factions within a country were fighting, or of course to look for weapons of mass destruction or to find a man in a cave or a caveman. None of these qualify as victories because the local people have been most affected. And none of these nations belongs to America even after the ‘win’.


On China

“If you look at what China is doing, they're stealing our jobs, they're taking our money. They're then loaning our money back. It's amazing. They're making all of our products. They are also manipulating the currency that makes it almost impossible for our companies to compete with China.”

China is, undoubtedly, a canny competitor. But the jobs have not been stolen. It was the US that decided to outsource jobs to get cheap labour. If China is manipulating currency and doing a trade yo-yo, then it is merely using sharp business tactics. The US economy has suffered due to the jugglery of its own companies and the policies of the government. Naturally, foreign investors will move to where they get returns. China is not taking American money, unless Americans are choosing to invest there.

And what American products are being made by China? They manufacture cheap stuff of their own or imitations of Swiss watches, German gadgets, Italian mosaic work and even Indian artefacts. Ever heard about Chinese American apple pie? Or Apple?

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Another case of putting the carriage under the horse is Indian PM, Manmohan Singh.

On five things he’d like to achieve with relations to Pakistan:

“Five would be too much. Well, if I can succeed in normalizing relations between India and Pakistan, as they should prevail between two normal states, I will consider my job well done.”

He cannot mention five things and then he wants normalcy. What is normal about these two countries individually, anyway? How would he define it when there are separatist movements all around? What is the yardstick for normal states to be considered normal vis-à-vis each other?

Such obfuscation is not new, but it would have been way better had he mentioned five specific things, even if he said cricket or sweets or films or exchange of camels, because he would certainly not talk about defence issues, Jammu and Kashmir, nuclearisation, prisoners, infiltration, Headley, Rana, Kasab, Raw, ISI. Nope.

So, how do we achieve this normal state between two normal states when the real issues are not addressed? I understand that on a flight to Kazakhstan, where the query was posed, it might not be prudent to go into details, but we have been in denial or employ dithering tactics.

And dear Mr. Prime Minister, this is about India and not you and how “well done” your job is. Is it at stake or is it steak?