FLIGHT 370 EXPOSES U.S. ARROGANCE

The handling of the missing Flight 370 has resulted in serious criticism of the Malaysia government. The American news media has handled this aspect of the story abominably—a clear demonstration of American arrogance. Perhaps what appears to be unforgivable arrogance is a result of ignorance of the nature of the clash between the third world and us and the media could solve by a little bit of understanding how they perceive us.

To bring the discussion into our own back yard, reference the example of the relationship between Arizona and New York.  Most of us do not see those two states as being fundamentally different in terms of people and in terms of the way they govern themselves—people are people and we are governed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. However, no one is surprised at the reaction one gets if a person from New York says to a person from Arizona, “You should have a 65 mile per hour speed limit on Federal Highways.” We could add any number of comments about how they should do things. Now add this comment to this suggestion, “You are so primitive in the way you do this or that.”

Kuala Lumpur authorities are handling the investigation with the resources they have available with the information their radar and air-traffic control system provided to them. To point out that they could not determine height (azimuth) with their military radar is to point out that they do not have modern radar. It is like saying they should have speed guns in Arizona. Once that is said, it makes no difference if they do or do not; the damage is done.

The pilot had built a sophisticated flight simulator, which authorities were investigating and our new commentators are saying to them, “You ‘should have’ restore his deleted computer files.” Yes, they “should have”; they know that. Our news commentator should know that takes time; even in the great United States, that takes time. It is wrong to imply that they are slow or force them to admit they lack investigative capabilities to do that. Once that is implied, the insult has been made. They may not have a large bevy of sophisticated trained, experienced computer engineers on the police force with the ability to do that—that cost lots of money. How better to point out that we are a rich nation and they are not? It may seem anachronistic to have one of the most sophisticated aircraft in the world flying where they “only” have unsophisticated radar.

We are long on arrogance but short on understanding of most of the world. The sad truth is that while this is true, we do not seem to realize it.

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