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It's not just Trump – to much of the world, the US is a bully whoever is in charge
Even the most loved former presidents initiated aggression in other countries
3 Nov 2020 00.00 GMTLast modified on Tue 3 Nov 2020 00.02 GMT
Our American friends are worried about their president. They are telling us – even in what may be his final months in office – that Donald Trump is sick, that he is a fascist, that he is a grotesque parody of a proper US president.
As a long-suffering citizen of a world run by US presidents, may I remind them that he is not very different from the other presidents that I and the rest of the non-American world have suffered for the past half century. Americans say they are better people than Trump. In solidarity, one might be tempted to say that, yes, sure, we are also better people than Trump. But one is compelled to add that although those former presidents might have had better syntax than Trump, worn better-fitted suits, had finer dance moves, weren’t proud “pussy grabbers”, or cunning tax dodgers, being a world-class bully has always been a part of the job.
The US has always elected a bully, nurtured him and asked him to go out in the world and do the presidential thing: fight the evil that is the rest of us. At the same time they have expected their president to be nice at home, have mercy on their Thanksgiving turkey and keep talking about the American dream and affordable healthcare.
Abroad, US presidents have wrought havoc, invaded and destroyed places whose names they could never pronounce, hosted murderous dictators from around the world at Camp David and found even more bloodthirsty ones to replace them.
Trump has just brought all that bullying home.
The first US president that I heard of as a child was Nixon, who was kicked out after Watergate. But during his presidency, he watched over the massacre of Bangladeshi people, kept promising to intervene but in the end couldn’t be bothered. Jimmy Carter seemed like a nice man, a reluctant bully, perhaps. One might have first heard that blasted term “human rights” during his time, but in Pakistan, where I live, a military dictator hanged an elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, during his presidency. In return, Carter offered General Zia ul-Haq millions of dollars in aid to win him over, which the dictator rejected, calling it peanuts – the joke being that Carter was a peanut farmer.
Then came that sage Ronald Reagan, who started dishing out serious money to play out his cowboy fantasies across the globe. “Leader of the free world” he called himself. And to make the world freer, he bankrolled dictators like Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Zia in Pakistan.
When Reagan started funding the mujahideen in Afghanistan, I was 11; now my son has graduated from university, and a third generation of poor US kids is still fighting and negotiating in the same country. And a fourth generation of Afghans is growing up in refugee camps and women are wondering if, when the US finally succeed in their peace talks, they will have a country to live in.
George Bush Sr lit up the Baghdad skyline with his fireworks. He took money from one despot to liberate another and in between tried to fund Iraqi rebels before leaving them at the mercy of a third despot, Saddam Hussein. Didn’t we love Bill Clinton? Wasn’t he the antithesis of Trump, suave, a charmer, the kind of person you could have a beer with? When Clinton faced impeachment for his relations with Monica Lewinsky, he launched some cruise missiles over Afghanistan and Sudan as a distraction.
Americans must have loved George W Bush because they elected him twice. He believed that instigating a war with Afghanistan was something a US president was required to do. But then he realised that his predecessors hadn’t left much to destroy. In search of target-rich areas he lighted on Iraq, manufactured a pretext for war, set up prisons in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, then declared victory and went home leaving behind millions to die. Even mild-mannered US presidents have been mass murderers on the world stage. Because that’s what the job entails.
Barack Obama was one of the most loved president of recent times, the kind of man who you could actually imagine have a beer with. He left the killings to algorithms and drones, while his foreign policy left Libya annihilated. By the end of his tenure, the US was dropping the equivalent of nearly three bombs an hour every single day. (In 2009, he won the Nobel peace prize for his good intentions.)
Americans are the world’s biggest entertainers, but seem to get bored easily and in their fabled innocence go around the world destroying places in order to save them. At home they keep telling themselves that it’s time to make a choice but, in reality, what choices do they have?
Trump makes the US look bad, makes the US look too white, makes the US speak bad English, makes the US look ill-mannered, greedy, overweight. But as far as many of us around the world are concerned, even if he loses, it’s not a sign that the US is about to change; it really just heralds a bit of a makeover.
The US needs a lean mascot, someone who wears better suits, who is not as overtly racist. US presidents are like the boss who goes to work terrorising his employees but comes home to spread sunshine and love. Deal with Trump by all means, lock the door and throw away the key. Elect the person you believe will save the US soul – but don’t send him out into the world to save us.
www.theguardian.com
Even the most loved former presidents initiated aggression in other countries
3 Nov 2020 00.00 GMTLast modified on Tue 3 Nov 2020 00.02 GMT
Our American friends are worried about their president. They are telling us – even in what may be his final months in office – that Donald Trump is sick, that he is a fascist, that he is a grotesque parody of a proper US president.
As a long-suffering citizen of a world run by US presidents, may I remind them that he is not very different from the other presidents that I and the rest of the non-American world have suffered for the past half century. Americans say they are better people than Trump. In solidarity, one might be tempted to say that, yes, sure, we are also better people than Trump. But one is compelled to add that although those former presidents might have had better syntax than Trump, worn better-fitted suits, had finer dance moves, weren’t proud “pussy grabbers”, or cunning tax dodgers, being a world-class bully has always been a part of the job.
The US has always elected a bully, nurtured him and asked him to go out in the world and do the presidential thing: fight the evil that is the rest of us. At the same time they have expected their president to be nice at home, have mercy on their Thanksgiving turkey and keep talking about the American dream and affordable healthcare.
Abroad, US presidents have wrought havoc, invaded and destroyed places whose names they could never pronounce, hosted murderous dictators from around the world at Camp David and found even more bloodthirsty ones to replace them.
Trump has just brought all that bullying home.
The first US president that I heard of as a child was Nixon, who was kicked out after Watergate. But during his presidency, he watched over the massacre of Bangladeshi people, kept promising to intervene but in the end couldn’t be bothered. Jimmy Carter seemed like a nice man, a reluctant bully, perhaps. One might have first heard that blasted term “human rights” during his time, but in Pakistan, where I live, a military dictator hanged an elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, during his presidency. In return, Carter offered General Zia ul-Haq millions of dollars in aid to win him over, which the dictator rejected, calling it peanuts – the joke being that Carter was a peanut farmer.
Then came that sage Ronald Reagan, who started dishing out serious money to play out his cowboy fantasies across the globe. “Leader of the free world” he called himself. And to make the world freer, he bankrolled dictators like Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Zia in Pakistan.
When Reagan started funding the mujahideen in Afghanistan, I was 11; now my son has graduated from university, and a third generation of poor US kids is still fighting and negotiating in the same country. And a fourth generation of Afghans is growing up in refugee camps and women are wondering if, when the US finally succeed in their peace talks, they will have a country to live in.
George Bush Sr lit up the Baghdad skyline with his fireworks. He took money from one despot to liberate another and in between tried to fund Iraqi rebels before leaving them at the mercy of a third despot, Saddam Hussein. Didn’t we love Bill Clinton? Wasn’t he the antithesis of Trump, suave, a charmer, the kind of person you could have a beer with? When Clinton faced impeachment for his relations with Monica Lewinsky, he launched some cruise missiles over Afghanistan and Sudan as a distraction.
Americans must have loved George W Bush because they elected him twice. He believed that instigating a war with Afghanistan was something a US president was required to do. But then he realised that his predecessors hadn’t left much to destroy. In search of target-rich areas he lighted on Iraq, manufactured a pretext for war, set up prisons in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, then declared victory and went home leaving behind millions to die. Even mild-mannered US presidents have been mass murderers on the world stage. Because that’s what the job entails.
Barack Obama was one of the most loved president of recent times, the kind of man who you could actually imagine have a beer with. He left the killings to algorithms and drones, while his foreign policy left Libya annihilated. By the end of his tenure, the US was dropping the equivalent of nearly three bombs an hour every single day. (In 2009, he won the Nobel peace prize for his good intentions.)
Americans are the world’s biggest entertainers, but seem to get bored easily and in their fabled innocence go around the world destroying places in order to save them. At home they keep telling themselves that it’s time to make a choice but, in reality, what choices do they have?
Trump makes the US look bad, makes the US look too white, makes the US speak bad English, makes the US look ill-mannered, greedy, overweight. But as far as many of us around the world are concerned, even if he loses, it’s not a sign that the US is about to change; it really just heralds a bit of a makeover.
The US needs a lean mascot, someone who wears better suits, who is not as overtly racist. US presidents are like the boss who goes to work terrorising his employees but comes home to spread sunshine and love. Deal with Trump by all means, lock the door and throw away the key. Elect the person you believe will save the US soul – but don’t send him out into the world to save us.
The rest of the world has had it with US presidents, Trump or otherwise | Mohammed Hanif
No matter who’s in the White House, their task is the same: fight the evil that is all of us who aren’t American, says novelist Mohammed Hanif
