Different Reactions to the News

Monday 19th September

I woke on Sunday to two pieces of news and was struck by the differing reactions from World leaders.

The first was that Russia has reacted strongly to America’s (accidental) bombing of Syrian troops which killed over 60.  Russia wants the UN Security Council to discuss it and have accused America of not wanting to fight Isis and of funding the rebels who are fighting Assad, whose troops they support and were of course killed.  There is some truth in all of this, though in all probability the bombing was accidental; we hope so at least.  The American reaction was that Russia was pulling a stunt.  No real apology, no acceptance of blame – just calling Russia’s reaction a stunt.  And of course Russia is milking the situation for Political reasons too, and given their actions in Ukraine the blackest of kettles is looking for similar pots to accuse.  But amazing that the two ‘Superpowers’ have such different reactions to the tragic loss of life involved.

There was a bomb in Manhattan, thankfully nobody killed but many injured.  As of writing this there is no knowing if it is terrorist related or who was responsible.  Donald Trump goes on the offensive and repeats his mantra of ‘Making America Safe. Making America Great’.  He was warning that America was going to have to get tough, very tough to deal with this sort of thing (though as we all must know there is very little any Government can do to completely prevent terrorism of any sort, if indeed it was an act of terrorism).  One could almost hear the knees jerking in his intended audience.  Hilary Clinton was thoughtful and quietly said that we must wait until all the facts are known before we can come to any conclusion, she stressed the importance of waiting until the Police had reported before over-reacting.  A sensible response you might think and almost certainly the right one; but little good will it do her.  Against all the odds it is looking more and more like a close race, and as we all underestimated both the stupidity and the anger of our own people during the Brexit vote, maybe we are all underestimating Americans sense of frustration.  A sense of self-pity and self-righteousness is pervading the World.  So, again completely different reactions to a tragic situation.

Interesting, and of course how Politicians react to ‘news’ informs our own reactions and how we perceive things too.