CITY NOTES
The Maduro kidnapping, if you think about it, has to be an old man’s doing. It’s such a blast from the past. I mean, it takes us back to the days when battles were decided by single combat between the two generals. Then came the whole army fighting the other. Then instead of having just one winner-take-all battle, you had a series of battles in a war.
So Trump, who’s old enough to remember those older, simpler times, just kidnapped Venezuela’s President and declared victory. We are beginning to see the possibilities. Remember the rumpus that the Americans would rescue Imran Khan? Send a helicopter to Adiala Jail. Well, it seems they were true. Or at least based on what Trump was capable of.
In fact, it sheds a new light on the threat the USA is said to have made, which persuaded President Musharraf to not just sell the Taliban down the river but also adopt the Global War on Terror as ‘Pakistan’s own war’ and bomb the country back into the Stone Age. So if Imran went unrescued, it was because Trump had forgotten his friend.
The drug connection is something of a complication. Maduro is supposed to have sold drugs. One can visualize his rather portly presence outside the Presidential Palace in Caracas, talking out of the side of his mouth, peddling the good stuff. Imran is not accused of that. In fact, the very opposite. Did Trump not order his rescue because he was Maduro’s best customer?
It’s funny how drugs came up. A DPharm student at a private university jumped off the roof of her hostel and survived. Another girl at the same university had been more successful a few days earlier. It seems that the DPharm course is tough… Listen, I’m in favour of high academic standards, but I’m not in favour of driving young people to suicide.
By the way, that’s one of the common reasons for suicide by young people: failure ib exams. Next, among a slightly older age group, is failure in love. Of course, not all young men whose proposals get turned down kill themselves. Some of them kill the girl. Or throw acid on her face. Neither of these reasons make older people commit suicide. They do so because of economic failure. They not only off themselves, but their children too.
However, I’m sure the woman in Minneapolis that got killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis was not looking to be killed. She was just interrupting their raid. Of course, some people say she shouldn’t have interfered. Well, maybe she shouldn’t have.
Still, while Trump wages a war against intruders, Israeli settlers intruding in the West Bank are encouraged. They’re a really hard bunch. First, someone shot Saeed El-Amour in the legs in August. Then in December they stole his crutches.
But Trump is looking at Greenland. For settlers, it seems, crutches, but Presidents want a whole great big island. But Secretary of State Marco Rubio says it won’t be stolen or kidnapped or stolen, but bought. Again, an old-man thing. The last time the USA bought territory was in 1867, when it bought Alaska from Russia for $15 million (which would be about $132 million nowadays). I doubt if the USA woul get Greenland so cheap.
The main reason Russia made the sale is because it was afraid that the British would take it from Canada, which abuts Alaska. Russia had just come off the Crimean War, in which the British had bashed it. Who threatens Denmark now that they would sell? Trump would have us believe Russia and China would like to take over. The main problem is that while Russia hadn’t given any self-government to Alaska, Denmark has given self-government to Greenland. And so far, the Greenlanders are vocal about not wanting to be American.
Of course, it might be easier to buy it now. Back in 1867, the USA had to put up gold dollars. Now, whatever sum is agreed, it just prints the notes. If that is how things are, you’ve got a lot of countries that would volunteer to be sold, either entirely or in part. Pakistan wouldn’t mind having its debt taken over, provided no takeover is thought to mean that the government couldn’t borrow more.
I’ll give you a simple formula: Trump wouldn’t want Greenland if the population had been Black. And he wouldn’t want any part of Pakistan where the population isn’t white.
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