WHO

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U.S. Foreign Policy


With his “America First” policy, Trump has decimated our stance as a world leader into a more isolationist policy not seen since 1940 and how did that turn out?

There are responsibilities that go with being the richest nation in the world. We do need to give Americans the first consideration. But that does not absovle us from our foreign policy stance over the past 60+ years. NATO was created immediately after WW2 to create a strong bond between the Western European Countries with the U.S. in defense of those countries. An alliance born of necessity. Trump certainly has no inkly of history as he is right now seeking to destroy that alliance. Why? Because he does not want to pay America’s part in that organization. In 1950 there we 12 countries that were a part of NATO. Today there are 32.

At stake is the peace of all Europe while Russia wars with Ukraine. Trump took office and cut Ukraine off from our assistance. And yet, Ukraine is still taking the fight to Russia. If Russia could defeat Ukraine, it would have already done so. That simple statement should show that each sovereign nation in the world has the God given right to self-determination.

But why is Trump still cow-towing to Putin? He is a despot, a man who thinks nothing of killing his own people. But also a man so in fear of his own life that he isolates himself again possible assasination by his own people. Trump either does not see or does not care that Putin is trying to revive, as much as possible, the old Soviet Union of which he was a part and still longs for those days.

Morality dictates that all free countries of Europe and the U.S. have a responsibility to assist the Ukrainian people against a warring nation, Russia. Right now Europe is doing its best by upping their ante so that they are now giving 5% of their budget to their military. In an ironic twist of history, Germany now has troops based in Lithuania, a country where Jews were eradicated by the German Nazi regime. But ask the average Lithuanian how they feel about the German present and they will tell you how happy they are there. (Atlantic, January 2026, pp. 56-65)

Past administrations have accepted that as a world leader, America has a responsibility to the rest of the world to help where help is needed. Organization such as the World Health Organization (WHO), several UN organizations, and food assistance to Africa have lost American monies they desperately need. Our counties is fast becoming the parriah of the Western World. The Trump’s “don’t care” policy toward the rest of the world is exasperating. We are responsible.

And finally Trump’s ploy to gain Greenland is dumb by any standard. Right now the U.S. can already do almost anything it pleases in Greenland by a treaty signed many many decades ago. We do not need to do anything more.

The world sees Trump as his really is. A playground bully, who, when he does not get his own way will use force to accomplish such. These policies must change or by 2029, the U.S. will have far fewer allies than it did in 2024.

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We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us.


That title is a quote actually. It came from a comic strip many years ago called “Pogo.”

The COVID-19 is new but neither unknown nor unpredicted. Corona is a cousin to the MERS and SARS epidemic. This is what the NIH had to say about these three: “NIAID COVID-19 research efforts build on earlier research on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which also are caused by coronaviruses. MERS is a viral respiratory disease that was first reported in Saudi Arabia in September 2012 and has since spread to 27 countries, according to the World Health Organization. Some people infected with MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV) develop severe acute respiratory illness, including fever, cough, and shortness of breath. From its emergence through January 2020, WHO confirmed 2,519 MERS cases and 866 deaths (about 1 in 3). Among all reported cases in people, about 80% have occurred in Saudi Arabia. Only two people in the United States have tested positive for MERS-CoV, both of whom recovered. They were healthcare providers who lived in Saudi Arabia, where they likely were infected before traveling to the U.S., according to the CDC”

And so who is at fault in the U.S. for its spread here? We all are! People blamed when AIDS was first identified and called it a “gay disease” when in fact it originated from heterosexual people in Africa. People panicked when Ebola came to our shores in 2014. It was quickly dealt with and forgotten.

And there is the key word, “forgotten.” In history we say, those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Hopefully this pandemic will put a stop to that sort of thinking where disease is concerned.

COVID-19 may have been unavoidable but the extent that it has spread was very avoidable. Epidemiologists study this very thing and long ago identified the means of disease transmission. The two most common sources of virulent disease are bats and mosquitoes. When in the 1960s the United Nations set out to eradicate malaria it issued a postage stamp with the picture of a mosquito on it.

How we get and distribute our food and water is very well defined. A very large portion of the world’s population drinks disease laden water. As we now know in China “we markets” are popular but are also a breading ground from the spread of diseases, more than just COVID-19.

China has pledged to shut down these wet markets but its follow through is what will really matter. And China is not the only country with wet markets. They are popular all over Asia and other parts of the world as well.

The wealthy nations of the world can no longer afford to stand by and watch disease spread in 3rd world countries and say, “that is their problem.” It should be obvious now that it is a universal problem. Disease knows no borders and moves via ignorance and complacency.

Our hedge against the spread of disease is the World Health Organization (WHO) and “doctors without borders.” Both organizations are underfunded and undermanned. Getting nations to buy in to a standard for food and water will be difficult but not impossible. But it has to happen.

SARS, MERS and COVID-19 all happened in a 17-year period. This should be warning enough that highly infectious diseases are on the rise and unless we learn from these disease and act, we will see and cousin of COVID-19 arise that will be more virulent and much more deadly. Must we go through this again?