Trump campaigned as a peacemaker. He claimed that if he was the President instead of Biden, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine. He also claimed that he could bring peace between the two nations in one day. Campaign advertisements for Trump implied that Hamas would have never attacked Israel if he was the President. Trump supporters were telling us that the conflicts we have in the world were because Biden a weak President.
Trump's first 100 days, or less, proved all of that campaign rhetoric to be false. But what we didn't expect was for Trump to join the list of leaders who were looking to expand their own borders by infringing on the borders of other nations.
One of the charities we, and by we I mean the wife because she is the CFO of the house, is Doctors Without Borders (a.k.a., Médecins Sans Frontières, click here for the website ). Without borders tells you the size of the neighborhood in which these doctors make house calls. They sometimes risk their lives to provide for people's needs regardless of the nation in which they reside provided that the doctors can get there. Borders are not an obstacle to provide compassionate care. Governments might be, but not borders
Therefore, we should celebrate and support the brave men and women who leave their homes and countries to practice their skills in saving lives and alleviating suffering. We should celebrate and support them in ignoring borders to care for people in need.
However, what we often end up doing is to support politicians who, like the doctors from Doctors Without Border, ignore borders. But those politicians do so not in order to show compassion, but to steal from others and take control over them. We can see the threat that some politicians pose to their neighbors when looking at China's desired ends for Taiwan and Hong Kong or when looking at Trump's actions to annex Canada and Greenland. We can also see politicians using violence and imposing horrific suffering on people who are their neighbors when we see Russia and Israel coldheartedly attacking civilians who are on the other side of their borders.
What is the goal of the above mentioned desires and violence? It is for governments to take what was originally not theirs. It is for politicians to ignore the borders of their respective nation to possess what they currently do not have. And they do so with little to no concern to the harm they do to others.
In short, our conflicts and wars that we currently have, whether they are fought on the battlefield or in a nation's economy, are because the aggressors don't want to share power and wealth with their neighbors, with those outside of their borders.
Those politicians who ignore borders in order to take from others are the opposite of doctors who ignore borders to help and heal victims, many of whom are victims of the politicians who ignore borders.
Those of us who live in nations that are, or recently have been in our case, democracies, have a responsibility here. We have a responsibility here because our leaders were chosen by our votes and our speaking out on their behalf. And so we are partially responsible for their choices. Even when our favorite candidates are not elected, we have a responsibility to reign in our elected officials when they ignore borders in order to take from others. And for nations like the U.S. and Israel, people are protesting the threats and use of violence that their leaders are directing at their neighbors.
As for when we see politicians from other nations, like from Russia, ignoring borders, we need to demand that our leaders do what they can to make those other politicians respect the borders of their victims. Here, despite his rhetoric against Russia, Trump has not acted against Russia like he has against Canada. That is despite that, or perhaps because, Ukraine is now to Russia what the Palestinian Territories are to Israel. For both Putin and Netanyahu want to annex the lands that belong to others for themselves regardless of the human costs that are paid by their targets and the moral costs they pay themselves. There can be no guaranteed peace deal between Russia and Ukraine or between Israel and the Palestinians because for Russia and the Israeli government, peace is an obstacle to what they want.
For both Putin and Netanyahu, and we can include Palestinian terrorists here too, by attacking their neighbors, they have given themselves a choice between experiencing moral suicide and/or military defeat. Here we might ask what does a leader, a government or a nation gain if it is morally dead. And that moral death acts as karma and is indicated by how one treats one's neighbors
Doctors Without Borders are good, politicians without borders are not. When politicians don't respect borders, their actions eventually threaten all of us. Here it would be good to remind ourselves of part of what the Russell-Einstein Manifesto said:
'Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war'
The above quote does not let the U.S. off the hook for its economic war against Canada. Why? It is because, again, our conflicts and wars that we currently have, whether they are fought on the battlefield or in a nation's economy, are because the aggressors don't want to share power and wealth with their neighbors, with those outside of their borders.
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