History-making first week for Trump:
Merits of a torture method discussed:
Who would have thought that the merits of a specific method of torture would be a big public discussion in the world’s ‘greatest democracy’ – led by the ‘highest in the land’? None other than America’s new President led the way last week in a television interview in discussing the merits of a particularly twisted kind of real torture – what is called ‘water-boarding’.
In fact, President Donald Trump, leader of a nation which prides itself not just in its Christian heritage but also in its leadership in converting the world to that religion, went much further. “Torture works,” he declared emphatically in that same interview while the interviewer took several breaths and phrased his next question cautiously, just to make sure he got the right answer from the President. The interviewer seemed to be aghast by the casual nonchalance of the President in his prescription of torture. After all, the President took pains to make it clear that, for him, it was not morality that restrained him but practicality: if his appointed defence chiefs decided to use torture, it was up to their ‘expertise’ and it was not for him to decide on their methods.
‘Water-boarding’ was originally defended by its proponents as a kind of ‘soft’ torture. But even the hawks of the Bush administration had to resort to legal contortions to attempt to circumvent constitutional sanction against forms of torture. Later, administrations of both the Republican and Democratic parties decided to drop the practice in US agencies although there are indications of a formal dependence on non-US ‘allies’ for its application on detainees (or abductees) who were of interest to the US.
Now, in his very first week as President, Trump’s definitive pronouncement on the use of torture has set the moral tone of this presidency.
In that very off-hand and simplistic declaration about his ‘personal preference’ for torture, President Trump sounded like his counterpart in The Philippines, President Rodrigo ‘Rody’ Duterte. The Filipino leader recently shook his country and the world by publicly declaring that he deliberately killed people suspected of criminal activity. And he described what were, clearly, ‘extra-judicial’ killings by him in a most casual, if defiant, manner.
If torture was the moral departure point of the latest Republican Party administration, in the very same week the US President also took what may be the first step in America’s departure as the dominant trading power in the world. In signing the executive order that formally ends the US’ role in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Trump has taken an initiative in US global trade policy that will actually reduce America’s presence in the world trading system.
The world is already aware that China is on the verge of overtaking the US in economic production, but in trade and sheer capital power the rising giant is yet to match the old giant. The problem is that the declining economic giant is not taking its decline on the world stage with equanimity. Even as Trump instinctively backs out of such ambitious global initiatives as the TPP – a deal that would have kept the US’ finger in the Asian economic pie – he does so while vowing to ‘make America great again’. If not among the nations of this world, one wonders where America’s new ‘greatness’ would show. As these columns have observed before, it would have been ideal if America was to have begun a search for a new kind of greatness – perhaps different from the rapacious and brutal neo-imperial ‘greatness’ that Washington has tried to assert in the 20th century.
Sadly, Trump seems to be leading a trend towards an inward looking ‘greatness’ or, something that is not a ‘greatness’ at all but, rather, an evasion of the presumed ‘shame’ of the loss of neo-imperial greatness.
And this focus on the purely domestic is, inevitably, at the waning of America’s historic global pre-eminence which, while being imperialistic, also glittered with some moral achievement and even greater intellectual achievement. After all, the very same nation that has been the sole user of nuclear war to date, has also steadfastly supported many a democratic initiative in the decolonising Third World and worked hard to evolve most sophisticated institutional mechanisms such as the United Nations and nuclear disarmament.
In yet another first week’s presidential action, President Trump on Friday authorised a total 90-day ban on immigration from seven West Asian (mainly Arab Muslim) countries - according to reports, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. The same presidential order reportedly will make it easier for Christians in certain countries where there is ‘persecution’ (as defined by the US) to migrate to America.
All those travelling through these ‘banned’ countries should take note that entry visas for these countries could be a disqualifier for an US visa. Previous visa records are scrutinised by most authorities issuing visas.
One of the most publicised of Trump’s election promises, the building of the wall on the Mexican border with the US was also launched by the new President last week. As was expected, the cost of the multi-billion dollar, somewhat archaic edifice, is to be met by the American tax payer (Trump himself hardly paid federal taxes) with the possibility of Mexico paying for it now lost in the hyperbole of ‘later cost recovery through taxation’.
For both countries, the civilised solution would have been a shared cost since – according to Trump himself – such a barrier would benefit both countries. But Trump’s crude ‘winner-takes-all’ posturing has now seriously damaged US relations with one of its nearest neighbour.
Those who hoped that the Washington Establishment as well as the Republican Party leadership would be able to partially ‘sanitize’ the Trump impact on the Presidency may find their hopes fading somewhat after just a week of the Trump presidency.
During the months of the United States’ presidential election campaign, perhaps more Sri Lankans regularly watched daily American TV coverage of the campaign more than ever before purely because of Donald Trump’s melodramatic performance and controversial politics. For Sri Lankans, no doubt, this monitoring will surely have been useful learning – some to see the similarities with Mahinda Rajapakse in the simplicisms, the un-caring gaffes and racism, others to understand the parallels in political cultural trends and potential for national or even global damage. Many Sri Lankans empathising with the new US leader’s simplistic concepts and arguments, and his ethno-centrism, felt encouraged to have found a fellow traveller – the same reason for some of Trump’s electoral popularity.
But is terms of real-life geo-politics, already Trump’s first week has gone beyond mere TV entertainment. America – now beginning to sound like a former colony, The Philippines – has begun letting go of Asia which leaves a vacumm and consequent uncertainty in that vast region. Mexico is steeling itself for the immediate repucussions of a wall being built on its most important border. Instability in that country may be the very outcome that Trump himself recently argued would be avoided by such a wall.
And in suddenly halting refugee entry and selectively favouring Christians over others in immigration, Christian America gives the world a wrong picture of the practice that great world faith.
Truly the world can expect more controversy from the new American leader who, despite the controversies, has, in his previous business career, shown his prowess. The world will hope that business acumen will prevail over ego and ignorance.