Arrogance

 

Image courtesy Vanguard News

Unbridled arrogance, gentle reader, has always been a feature of modern American culture.

I saw it first hand in 1970, and it was one of the reasons they "lost" Vietnam. 

Vietnam wasn't theirs to lose in the first place, of course, but that is a minor detail.

They fought what the Vietnamese call the "American War" without any understanding of the country or respect for its inhabitants. 

They weren't prepared to listen to anyone, especially the commonwealth forces who successfully defeated the communists in Malaysia.

Perhaps the best account of this from an Australian perspective was documented in 1985 by Hugh Lunn. His Vietnam, a Reporter's War is a great read, and his observations are exactly as I remember them. (959.704332)

Trump, displaying this arrogance, has attempted, using executive order, to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. He can only change what the USA calls it, of course, because it's a stretch of international water whose naming rights are shared by the USA, Mexico and Cuba.

The executive order changes (through the US agency Geographic Names Information System) what it is called in the USA, but there is an international body (The International Hydrographic Organisation) which standardizes what it is called worldwide.

Trump has no jurisdiction over the IHO.

I sincerely doubt he has ever heard of it....