World 101: The Price of Super Arrogance

Less than 24 hours ago, four commercial airliners taking off from various parts of the US were commandeered for a series of suicide attacks on 'major symbols of American power': the World Trade Centre and Federal Reserve Building in New York, and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. The most severe of the attacks resulted in the collapse of both 110-storey high towers of the World Trade Centre resulting in untold loss of lives. The sad loss of innocent lives does not hide the fact that the missions were well coordinated and executed. The attacks happened within hours of each other early yesterday morning as office workers were going to work.

Taking a cold objective look at the news pictures of a plane flying straight into one of the WTC towers, one cannot but see an uncanny similarity with the precision bombing so proudly displayed in recent years by the US and its allies in Yugoslavia and the Middle East. In fact, the same cold objectivity and awareness of some recent histories had the Americans warning themselves that such a thing was waiting to happen. And despite President Bush's instruction to the FBI to conduct a 'full investigation' I am afraid that one important but very basic lesson will be missed: that there is a price to be paid for super arrogance.

For no country in modern times has been attacked as such. There is no reason to unless some people somewhere had been so insulted or humiliated as to be willing to sacrifice and take so many lives of non-combatants merely to register their displeasure at the conduct of a nation's government.

To understand what extreme arrogance we are talking about one need to imagine which nation in only the last few years would fit the following descriptions:

- One that condemns other countries for selling arms and providing military support to others while enjoying more than 40% market share of the more than $15 billion annual arms market;

- One with 5% of world population but contributing 30% of its pollutants that arrogantly walks out of environmental management meetings (Kyoto Protocol) because reducing the harm it makes does not serve its national interest;

- One that deems it a right for it to have spy planes flying within a couple of hundred miles of another's shores and thousand of miles from home while it deems the same action by others as hostile. And has the gall to demand immediate release of its aircrew without considering the fact that they were involved in a midair collision that took the life of one of the other's pilots, and landed in that country's soil in a clearly unfriendly act. And top it off with an insulting $34,000 compensation for all the troubles it created (a US spy plane emergency landed in China);

- One that claim that a potential 'yellow peril' competitor cannot be trusted at the same time as it unilaterally attempts to abrogate a series of nuclear arms treaties just when its older rival is at its lowest ebb, hoping to attempt a replay of an old cold war strategy of engaging the upcoming competitor in an impoverishing arms race it could ill afford;

- One that played a distinguish part in engineering a 'divide and manipulate' state of affairs in the Middle East by creating countries that did not exist before and supporting whichever that happen to serve its purposes while it lasts. Until one of them occupied a smaller oil rich neighbor. Then in the name of the free world, it undertook a mother of all wars to guarantee that the oil fields will remain well carved for easy manipulation;

- One that celebrated so much its thorough annihilation of its opposite in Iraq in a one sided mismatch that the nation made management gurus out of its generals. It still deem it its right to enforce an embargo against the other and to bomb selected sites at its sole discretion whenever it wishes (first Iraq war of 1990);

- One that so arrogantly displayed its military prowess for the world to see in those videos of precision bombings in Iraq and Yugoslavia only to brush off the bombing of the embassy of a third country friendly to one of the attacked nations as only a mistake. And one that it thought can be made up by a few million greenbacks;

- One when its people demonstrate in front of its guests do so in the virtuous names of justice, freedom and human rights but ascribed the same thing that happened after it bombed someone else's embassy to possible acts coordinated by the agrieved government (US planes bombed Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia by 'accident');

- One which obviously found it too shameful to exercise its veto rights on UN resolutions condemning an ally it supported financially and militarily for occupying the land of others but which arrogantly thinks that it is the only country eminently qualified to manage any 'final negotiated settlement' of the problem;

- One which tells the ally that took 600 Palestinian lives within a year (at an exchange rate of 4 for 1 of its own) to 'exercise restraint' but tells the other side to 'stop its suicide attacks' when 90% of the latter's dead were stone throwing demonstrators and not suicide bombers killed by the security forces of the first;

- One which claims to support the 'one country' principle of a large country while thinking it prudent not to be involved in influencing a peaceful integration but worthwhile making distinctly clear military sales and commitments to one side (Taiwan);

- One which supported a corrupt government when it suited its purposes during the cold war but only to have a global institution it has tremendous influence to dictate terms for assistance that was so well represented by the arms folded 'do as we say' arrogance of the IMF head a few years ago in Indonesia;

- One that arrogantly thinks it has the moral authority to preach human rights to others by hoping to force others in the UN to make annual declarations about its perceived lack of such in others. While only slightly more than a hundred years ago (only a short time in world history) its forefathers had almost wiped out entire peoples whose land they took by force and deceit;

- One whose seemingly virtuous declaration of independence was really only meant for an uncolored subset of its people up till recent times. Well manifested by the cases where it tried to make an espionage accusation stick to one of its own national, and where some that were suppose to 'protect and to serve' pumped half a dozen bullets into a man taking out his wallet in New York City but walked free because the victims were colored by their skins while the perpetrators were not;

- One whose vice president had the cowboy arrogance to accept another country's invitation to a regional head of country meeting (APEC) only to walk out of the welcoming dinner. But before publicly humiliating its Malaysian host in front of all its distinguished guests and with the whole world watching. All in the name of 'reformasi'.

Many perhaps understood something from Deng Xiaoping's reminder to the Chinese that for the sake of the long-term development of their country, they should be ready to accept some short-term humiliation. But more important was what he did not say which was implied by Zhou Enlai when he said that Americans have no sense of history. And although it may suit the Americans well to forget things quickly and to continue to ride rough-shod over others time and again, many other people of the world do not suffer from similar memory lapses. And they will remember insults and humiliation for a long time. Just waiting for the right moment for payback.

And unless the Americans practice what it preaches and that includes its own 'reformasi', it will continue to earn the scorn of many. Not a few of which will be glad to pay to make them pay for their super arrogance.

Additional Notes:
- US refused to sign the land mine treaty banning use of land mines
- US refused to submit its own citizens to the International Court of Justice but expects everyone else to
- The moment Bush Jr. was elected president the US insisted that South Korea should terminate discussions on possible peace and re-union with North Korea supposedly because North Korea 'cannot be trusted'. South Korean Kim Dae Jung travelled to Washington the first weeks of his election to 'convince' him that talking peace makes sense.