Hopes for 2017
A New Year should bring hopes of decisions by governing and other influential bodies which will improve lives and avoid conflict. Perhaps the most hope comes from the election of Donald Trump as US President and the end of the regime run by an Obama who failed so badly to support political systems based on what have become known as western values. His attempt to “capture” opponents of those values simply by recognising their views revealed the paucity of his understanding of history and the need for western leaders to explain the virtues of those values as well as at times being prepared to fight in their defence and, in the case of the President, even outside the USA as a leader supporting values whose overturn would be threatening. Obama seems now to be spending the latter days of his presidency by exacerbating his errors rather than ameliorating them. His claim that he could have won a third presidency if the US Constitution had allowed it is but one example. Another is the US treatment of Israel in the Security Council, involving the abandonment of the long standing veto by the US. Worse than this is the report that Obama is considering declaring that the “women of the century” should include Jane Fonda, the American actress who not only supported North Vietnam in the Vietnam war with the US but falsely accused US airman of telling lies about being tortured when captured. John Kerry, appointed Secretary of State by Obama, was also an opponent of that war that was supported by the Soviet Union and China and in which Australia was an active participant.
