But kdog, nobody forced any of them to be in Bali. You and I have been around, and we both know how brutal the authorities in other countries can sometimes behave, if they're of the mind to do so. When you travel or live abroad, you don't flout the laws and customs of the host country, and thus given them reason to be a$$holes.

I mean, what did the Dutch ever do to prepare Indonesia for eventual self-rule, or the British in Malaysia and Singapore, or the French in Indochina?

One word: NOTHING.

Actually, they did worse than nothing. Rather, they re-invaded those regions militarily after the Second World War, in a bloody but ultimately fruitless attempt to regain their former roles as colonial overlords. And when they finally failed, they tried to do the next best thing, and left cooperative strongmen and compliant dictators in their wake.

As far as our country's own colonial oversight in the Philippines is concerned, I frankly marvel that the Filipinos have somehow managed to come as far as they have, given that we propped up the corrupt dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos for 20 years.

So, if we as Americans want to look for fault in explaining why countries such as Indonesia are the way they are today, we best start by looking directly in the mirror. We helped to first create and then support the very political conditions under which corruption and draconian rule can only flourish.

Further, I have personal experience with our country's support of the horridly brutal Suharto regime in Indonesia, having been part of a special legislative committee investigating a rather shady character named Sukarnan Sukamto Sia, who basically fronted the regime's money-laundering operations in the islands and speculated heavily in the Honolulu real estate market.

When our special legislative committee was exploring back in 1990 how the Sukamto Corp. managed to get hold of the title to the 10-acre property upon which we planned to build our convention center, we subpoenaed him. Shortly thereafter, we were visited by Sukamto Sia, his attorney and representatives of Pres. George H.W. Bush's State Department, who duly informed us that the United States was granting him diplomatic immunity, so he wouldn't be complying with our subpoena or cooperating with our probe. He just sat there in front of us the whole time, smiling and gloating.

(Sukamto Sia eventually fell into very serious disfavor after his sugar daddy Suharto was ousted in 1998, and he's now a citizen of Singapore. He was eventually arrested in Los Angeles by the U.S. Justice Dept. for his shenanigans, and was convicted in U.S. federal court here in Honolulu of bankruptcy and wire fraud in March 2002. He was deported after serving three years' imprisonment.)

As I said, what's happened in Bali is indeed very sad. But frankly, most if not all of it was very much avoidable, had certain people only shown sufficient due deference to local laws and customs, and not behaved like 1920s white colonials in thinking that the rules are only for the locals, and somehow don't apply to them.