America Watch

Nepali Times issue #219 29 October – 4 November 2004.

Back in November 2004 ahead of the American presidential race between George W Bush and John Kerry in which the former won in a controversial outcome, we wrote that non-Americans should also be allowed to vote given that foreign, economic, trade and environmental policies of the United States affects the whole world. Twenty years later and as we head into the 2024 race between Trump and Harris, the editorial might as well have been written today given the climate crisis and the US support for Israel's wars.

Excerpts from the editorial in issue #219 29 October – 4 November 2004:

From America's unilateral global war on terror to global warming, we all end up paying for its greed, thirst, self-indulgence and supremacy. Why is it that powers, whether global or regional, are so ham-handed? There is a serious lack of subtlety, a chronic reliance on arm-twisting, to get things done. Bullying is counter-productive, even to ultimately get your own way. Yet they never learn from mistakes and bamboozle their way with petty-minded insensitivity, alienating even friends.

We in Nepal have always felt insulated from the rest of the world. But in a globalised economy, who rules in Washington has a direct impact on our tourism, on how fast our glaciers melt, whether our garments get tariff-free entry into markets, and it becomes a matter of life or death for our citizens when they are slaughtered in Iraq to punish America.

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