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I visited the Japanese cellphone company DoCoMo in Tokyo 10 days ago. A robot made by Honda gave me part of the tour, even bowing in perfect Japanese fashion. Unfortunately, it didn't quite bow low enough to shine my shoes and call me by my preferred name, 'Memsahib'. Still, I was deeply gratified by the respect this little wind up 'yella fella' was showing me. Too bad we can't apply some of our own technological know-how to programming those disrespectful Muslimoids in a similar, bootlicking manner. Instead, we're forced to resort to torture to get the simplest of commands across to the 1.3 billion non-humans responsible for 9/11; a point I bellowed out to the DoCoMo and Honda execs, who, like all folks who don't speak American, eventually understand when you blast them long enough with ear shattering pigeon English punctuated with a few well-aimed jabs between the eyes. My visit there coincided with yet another suicide bomb attack against U.S. forces in Iraq. After my thirteenth flask of sake, (half of which I lovingly poured into my lap so the slant-eyed little lovebot I hired for the night could lap some up for herself) I could not help thinking in my newly discovered zen frame of mind: Why are the Japanese making robots into humans, while Muslim suicide squads are making humans into robots?
The answer (which came as I was bent over hacking into the tiny porcelain squat toilet several hours later) has to do in part with the interaction between culture and natural resources. It's like this: The oil that was meant for civilized countries like America and semi-civilized ones like Japan and Europe, somehow ended up in the desert where mongrel savage tribes of suicide bombers could dredge it up with their knuckles. Countries such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China have relatively few natural resources like oil. As a result, in the modern age, their first instinct is to look inward and recognize they'll never be anything but second class white people, assess their weaknesses (small penises and stunted growth), try to learn as much as they can from foreigners (the proper way to bow and open the door for them) and then beat them at their own game. In order to beat the Westerners, they have even set aside many of their historical animosities (whatever those might be) so they can invest in each other's countries and get all the benefits of earning almost enough to feed the children they would have otherwise tossed into a crocodile- infested river.
The Arab world, alas, has been cursed with our oil. For decades, too many Arab countries have opted to drill a sand dune for economic growth rather than killing their own people —so now we in the West are responsible for keeping their populations down. And rather than applauding us for our ever innovative techniques, they get all bent out of shape over a few, stupid pictures. Arab countries barely trade with one another, and unlike Korea and Japan, rarely invent or patent anything. Some deluded mullahs will try to tell you that their 'civilization' introduced astronomy and mathematics to the backwards West, even when you show them photographic proof that George Washington did, but what do you expect from a bunch of bulging eyed zealouts spreading hate from Mosque Central. But rather than looking inward and realizing their inferiority, assessing their mental development deficits, absorbing the best in modern knowledge that their little camel bladder pouches of money can buy and then trying to beat the West at its own game, the whiney-baby Arab world in too many cases has cut itself off, blamed the enduring Palestine conflict or colonialism for delaying reform, or found dignity in Pyrrhic victories like Falluja. You'd think after Abu Ghraib, they'd give up on the notion of dignity, but nooo, they just keep harping on about something that isn't even in their limited and primitive vocabulary. You'd think they'd be grateful for having a pair of clean underwear to wear over their heads - a courtesy, it should be remembered, denied to them by that insane torturer, Saddam Hussein.
To be sure, there are exceptions. Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Dubai, Morocco and Tunisia are all engaged in real experiments with modernization, but the bigger states are really lost. A week ago we were treated again to absurd Saudi allegations that "Zionists" were behind the latest bombing in Saudi Arabia, because, said Saudi officials, "Zionists" clearly benefit from these acts. Of course, it's not absurd for America to blame Iraq for 9/11 despite all the evidence to the contrary, because Americans are never absurd (jab yourself between the eyes and repeat).
The Bush team has made a mess in Iraq, (they should have nuked it from the get-go, or at least annexed it to Israel) but the pathologies of the Arab world have also contributed — and the sheer delight that some Arab media take in seeing Iraq go up in flames. The sheer delight of 'coalition' MP's torturing Iraqi detainees is a whole different thing, so don't even go there. It's time for the Arab world to grow up and behave like civilized American beings — to stop dancing on burning American jeeps and claiming that this is some victory for Islam and leave the dancing to us.
One thing about countries like Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and Japan, they may not have deserts but they sure know the difference between the boot and the whip — between victories that come from educating your population to innovate suitably subservient robots and "victories" that come from a one-night stand by suicidal maniacs like 9/11. Notice how I don't go on about that, unlike some turban wearing fanatics with explosives strapped on to them, who just can't shut up about a big, electric fence in a country they have no claim to, separating them from their livelihoods, and forcing them into poverty and starvation and denying themselves the opportunity to innovate non-explosive, dancing robots. Notice, too, how I love run-on sentences.
As I said, the Bush team has made a mess in Iraq. And I know that Abu Ghraib will be a lasting stain on the Pentagon leadership, easily mopped up with a blusteringly incoherent op-ed piec that not so subtly hints at the inferiority of the Arabs, praises Asians for their cheerfully mindless, apolitical worker-bee tendencies and draws imaginary parallels between Iraq and 9/11. But here's what else I know from visiting Iraq: There were a million acts of kindness, generosity and good will (see pictures) extended by individual U.S. soldiers this past year — acts motivated purely by a desire to give Iraqis the best chance they've ever had at decent government and a better future with or without German Shepherds and sadistic she-male whip-kitten guards wearing rubber gloves. After a few well aimed shocks and dog bites, there are plenty of Iraqis and Arabs who know that.
Yes, we Americans need to look in a mirror and ask why we've become so radioactive, not to mention, fat, poorly dressed and plug-ugly stupid. But the Arabs need to look in a mirror too and see that they have to at least, shave. "They are using our mistakes to avoid their own necessity to change, reform and modernize," says an unnamed source at Abu Ghraib while prodding supine, sobbing inmates splayed out in a pool of their own blood.
But you know what? Despite everything, we still have a chance to produce a decent outcome in Iraq, if we get our eye back on the ball and show them once and for all, who's boss. Of course, if we do fail, it won't be our fault. But for the Arabs, it will be a huge lost opportunity to be almost white people, (like the clever Chinese looking ones over in Jhapanistan) toiling in an American run gulag for another decade. Too bad so few of them have the courage to stand up and say that. I guess it must be another one of those "Zionist" plots.
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