Starting yesterday, we have started getting a couple of newspapers delivered home. The idea is to slow down the rate at which information hits us. On social media, its a relentless barrage of information ! Very little gets processed and the retention is even lesser.
I was just going through my screenshots and realised that so many tweets that I saved thinking I will write about the topic are just clogging up space on my phone. I havent written about them at all and now they are no longer relevant.
In today’s Times of India, there was a detailed article about the ongoing Ukraine war. The following infographic caught my attention –
Just read the fine print – A total of 267 billion Euros has been given to Ukraine as aid which is approx 285 billion USD. Just the US has given 114 billion Euros to Ukraine. Converting that into USD it would be approx 122 billion USD.
Now see the infographic below –
Poor African countries where America is “supposedly” sending humanitarian aid in the form of medicines and food grains, receive a pittance against Ukraine, that went into a war with Russia. Am not getting into who provoked who and whether Russia invaded Ukraine or the other way around, but with all the advances we have made in diplomacy, we seem to have failed to make the world a better place !
Toothless United Nations
For the longest time now, the UN is just an albatross around the world’s neck. We feed it and keep it alive, but it does nothing more than setup elaborate agendas about climate change and human rights violation around the world, with no action seen on the ground. A bunch of observers came to Kashmir when the elections happened …. but remember, the UN had just allowed the Kashmir issue to fester as everyone kept playing WORDLY (the word puzzle game) with Pakistan.
I am racking my brains and diligently doing Google searches on ANY conflict that has been brought to a resolution by the UN, through its intervention and the result is a big ZERO. Yeah, they conducted elections in Cambodia in 1979, but they also recognized Pol Pot’s Khmer Govt as representing Cambodia in the UN 🙄. There are ofcourse allegations that the US supported the deadly Khmer Rouge almost till 1993.
Back to the Ukraine war…. what has the UN done till now? Except wringing their hands and tut tutting POTUS, Putin and other European leaders on how they should be behaving.
The Arms Lobby
Make no mistake, the world is run by three lobbies – Arms, Pharma and Energy (read Oil and Gas). If war equipment gets stockpiled it makes no money. How can the arms manufacturers make money? Create conflicts and wars somewhere in the world and supply arms to that conflict.
While the right hand keeps waving a “peace” flag, the left hand is raking in the billions….
If the Ukraine-Russia war ends, there will be another war started somewhere else. If Israel-Palestine conflict ends, two other nations will end up in a conflict. Brace yourselves, as these lobbies will do anything in their pursuit of money. It will be too late when they realise that they can’t eat money :(.
Closing with a Utopian Thought – What if these 285 billion dollars had been used towards rejuvenating the soil around the world, removing all harmful pesticides from the food chain ? or finding a way to rid the planet of single use plastic ? or getting people educated or skilled ? …. Wouldn’t the world have been a better place?