I don’t think it’s the US government’s job/responsibility to fund the eradication of disease throughout the world. Working to reduce AIDS in Uganda (and every other disease everywhere else) is certainly a noble thing to do, but I don’t think we’re necessarily obliged to do that.
I do think it’s the US government’s job to prohibit its citizens from affirmatively killing other innocent human beings.
I don’t think there’s an inconsistency there.
I think the frustrating thing that I find is that the US is big on collective action when it comes to arming and funding wars, if we want to start retreating from that way of engaging the world too then I guess I understand it. But the idea that the United States will just have an infinite amount of power to just act upon the world with no negative consequences is the most insane part of the strategy Trump has embarked upon.
I was not in love with the neoliberal consensus, I think the UN and the myriad international agreements and treaties were imperfect at best, but it at least used to mean something and the US at least pretended to follow it. I could of course back it up to Reagan or LBJ or Nixon or some of the wild stuff we've done in the past, but I think the presidents of my adult life tell the story well of how we gave up on international law.
Bush-torture, Iraq, Guantanamo, NSA surveillance, FISA,
Obama- drone strikes/kill lists, triple tapping weddings and funerals, JSOC expansion/consolidation of executive actions, allowing? ordering? his own CIA spy on the Senate investigating, not doing much of anything to re-set and roll back expansion of executive power, not doing anything to reign in settlement construction or make support for Israel contingent on compliance with international law
Trump- undoing the one achievement of the Iran treaty, continuing with drone strikes, giving Israel carte blanche, threatening nuclear war here and there as a treat
Biden- accepted total blame for two decades Afghanistan policy and pulled troops out, but literally everything else was pretty much a total disaster--China, Israel/Gaza, Saudi, Ukraine, Iran, Japan (Nippon steel deal), Korea, all absolute failures of any sort of coherent policy, toothless and impotent
The United States is losing the ability to even craft international agreements because everyone understands that we are an unreliable partner that will blow up pretty much anything depending upon which way the wind blows and we won't actually abide by any international constraint or agreement if we don't think it suits are own short term interest or just want to play domestic politics with it even if it doesn't even make sense to change policy.
We are watching an empire die.
