Duterte of the Philippines

Well, here’s a guy who evidently campaigned well in his country and won the top leadership post by democratic means. It tells you what kind of an electorate resides in that nation. Reflections upon the voter are fair game for the type of leader who is at the helm.

Duterte ran as a law and order candidate and especially excoriated drug dealers. He openly told his constituents to kill a drug dealer because they were ruining the nation. And so they did. Worse, so did the national police and local police. If they encountered a drug dealer while on patrol they took extreme measures to arrest them and maybe shoot them if they resisted.

Carnage on the streets and in the jungles of the Philippines. Hundreds are now dead. And the citizenry took up the cause. People are shocked within the country. How could this be happening in a nation of constitutional law and justice?

Outside the country people are looking askance at the Philippines as well.

Duterte continues on his mission of embarrassment in other venues and with other issues as well. He openly claims that Obama should have done something to quell the violence in Syria. He thinks America should have done something militarily to stop the killing by Assad’s forces, yet he evidently doesn’t understand sovereignty of nations. Assad and Syria – however bad they are, have the power to handle their own problems. America can only enter when others agree to police the rogue nation under authority of the UN or other international peace accords. America cannot act alone. This gives each nation its own legitimacy.

And the United Nations has protected the Philippines for decades. Evidently Duterte was asleep in school when such lessons were taught. And he wants to pull out of the UN? Of course he says now that he was joking. He was not. He does not like the UN or its ‘meddling’ in international affairs. He doesn’t want someone telling him about human rights and all the rest. He especially disavows any loyalty to President Obama or the USA. Never mind it was our soldiers and loved ones who fought for their country and protected them during World War II. And continues to protect them today and provides aid and trade to build continuing prosperity within its borders.

How rude and unworthy Duterte is.

But you know what? He reminds me of someone rash and bold that is now running for the presidency of the USA. Yes, that would be Donald Trump. A know nothing. A poorly educated person. A self-aggrandizer and egotist who sees the world only from his own personal point of view. None other. No other reaching out and understanding world views. No basis for diplomacy. Just ‘you’re hired’ or ‘you’re fired.’ Such mentality. Such embarrassment.

It is this Duterte/Trump parallel that most Americans are afraid of. How easy the democratic scales can be turned to elect a misfit to an important role.

Assad is another but was he elected or appointed or manipulated to power? And Putin and other troubled souls who seem to bring problems to the world’s door step rather than solutions. Worse, they create the problems.

Such wanton destruction of truth and fact these people foist on the rest of us. And the work we must all engage in to undo such travesties.

Peace is such a better alternative. Why not work hard for that outcome? Because it is too hard? Or they do not see their own personal reward in it? Oh Please!

September 13, 2016