A FEW THOUGHTS

I just realized that Newsweek reporter Christopher Dickey is right about three things in his article “What Would Jesus Do in Gaza” where he discusses what he assumes is Obamas lack of effort to resolve the crisis in the Middle East. The three things are: 1. Obama is not the messiah. 2. Obama did not mention Gaza in his Peace prize acceptance speech. 3. The conflict on Gaza is for many the core question of peace among Arabs and Jews. I could be the first to stand together with Christopher Dickey in his wishes for settlement, stability and peace in that region. That IS the core reason for many of the problems we experience in the world today. I will even say that I missed Gaza in that speech myself. I will not argue with the importance of this matter or other matters in his article. What I do have trouble with is the angle of this. What Mr. Dickey seems to be doing is comparing Obama to a mix of the messiah and World Police. He started his article stating that Obama is not the messiah, so what is he?

He is certainly not World Police. I think that job is taken by a part-time worker called UN. Many global citizens has claimed that the U.S. wrongly have claimed the role as World Police several times. And sometimes they seem to go very up in that role, even though they dont get any extra paycheck for it. Some presidents have probably seen a paycheck in the future and navigated with that in mind. Anyway, it would be very wrong for any president of the U.S. to take on this role as he is just………….the president of One country. A large country yes. And the best armed country. And here is the dilemma. U.S.A is the best armed country in the world and have the largest set of troops ready to be dispatched to every part of the world where there is injustice. Does that make them a better or more suited cop? Does that give them the right to take on the role as World Police? Do we want the police man with the biggest gun to be the chief of police? Dirty Harry? So this creates a number of question in my head as I of course do not believe Newsweek to be ambiguous. 

The only clear reply I can come to on this matter is the following:
Our Newsweek reporter C.D. actually do think that President Obama is a mix of messiah and the world police (with G. Bush as former chief of police), and unfortunately a lot of people think the same thing. World Police from being Commander in Chief for the biggest gun in the world and messiah from the grace and panache of his speeches. Let me make my statement very clear: U.S. does not have a bigger responsibility for fixing problems in the Middle East than other countries in the word, for better or worse. It is not the U.S. duty or right. It is, however, the U.S. right and duty to act upon injustice as a fellow global citizen. And I must say that often U.S. responds very rapidly and efficient but that is from having decisiveness and large balls, not collecting an extra paycheck for being world police. It is just as must the duty of ANY other country in the world to respond to the conflicts on Gaza strip, especially their own politicians and the Israeli.

I thing this post is 33% request to European leaders to grow determination and …., 33% request to President Obama to maybe tone down the world police role (good speeches I will allow), and 33% invitation for the leaders of the Middle East to get of their … and act. The last 1% I think goes out to Newsweek for a nice and bold, but maybe a bit ambiguous, article. But I will keep my subscription for now.