Go back to your ranch Cowboy!

Just today I read an article in the paper in which someone wrote in expressing his concern that Katrina might do what Pearl Harbour did to America, but in reverse, turning America inwards and setting it on the path towards isolationism. One of the reasons was that Americans felt that despite their generosity to the world and how they have always helped other countries in need, when it was their own sorry asses deep in water (literally), they did not get any support or sympathy from the international community.

I cannot decide which is more laughable, the fact that many Americans think that their nation is the great benefactor of the world or that they are so well-liked by the international community that other countries would rush and fall over themselves to aid America. There was a time really when America was the great benefactor of the world, when they entered the Second World War and decisively tilted the scales against the Facists. The generosity of the Marshall Plan in rebuilding the European economies in the postwar period was also unparallel though we also need to contextualize this to the even bigger picture that a recovering and rebuilding Europe provided the vast market for the rise of global corporate America as well. There was also the fear that without external aid, desperate citizens in Western Europe might turn to communism. So seen in that context, the Marshall Plan was not a purely altruistic act like the fable of a Buddhist monk cutting off his own flesh to feed a starving tiger and its cub. It is more like the man who reaches into the river to save a drowning person with one of his hands in the pocket where the wallet is.

At least the America of yesterday did make a mighty effort to appear decent and in more ways than one did contribute to the development of many countries back then. However, today's America is like a school bully. Theodore Roosevelt, one of America's President in the 19th Century said "Speak softly but carry a big stick". The America from the 1980s onwards has gone one step further. Not only did it carry a big stick that it shows little hesitation to brandish, it can't help ranting like a madman too. The American government like to sing those songs about democracy and human rights and yet they do not hesitate to support despotic states which commit crimes against humanity when it suit their purpose. Let's not forget that the Talibans and the Mujahadeen like Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda were supplied and trained by Americans and so was Saddam Hussein's regime. America intervened and put up a good front about protecting freedom in countries where their intervention brought them substantive benefits or protected their interests, for example in the Middle East. Yet they turned a blind eye to all the atrocities in Africa when it would have taken them less resources than say in Iraq to prevent genocide and other crimes against humanity. Of all the developed countries in the UN, America contributed the least as a percentage of its GDP in foreign aid and it used its influence in the IMF and World Bank to arm-twist and push its agenda in developing countries. Of course, the typical fat white and loud American did not know any of these and could not comprehend why so many people hate them and "their way of life" as Bush likes to say. People don't hate other people's way of life or the fact that they have democracy. People hate other people for the harm that is done to them.

The writer of the article was worried that if America decided to impose isolationism on itself, the world would be worse off. I don't think that would happen. Washington has spent many years building up their international clout and with the fall of the USSR, America no longer has another power to balance it. If the Vietnam debacle and all its backlash could not make America retreat from the international stage, a puny hurricane would not. (Call me callous but Katrina is really nothing compared to the Tsunami that hit Sumatra or the earthquake that killed tens of thousands in Iran on the same day in 2003). Bush is also not the type who would give up his imperial ambitions for the blacks dying in New Orleans (remember that Bush is quite an extreme neo conservative, from a rightist party and a Texan). Even if America does retreat from the international stage, is it necessarily a bad thing? America is perhaps the greatest obstacle to a new world order taking shape, an order of multi-polared power and an international community that wants multilateralism and consensus rather than the unilateralism that America exhibits. In history, all empires have their expiry dates and America's is already long due.