A colleague of mine who had been closely monitoring the gathering storm rushed to the school campus shouting that "The war is on!"

He had learnt about it on the TV news that morning.

Everyone was excited.

Most of us then thought very highly of the gallantry the United States had displayed in liberating Kuwait from the ravages of Iraq and the despotic Saddam Hussein.

During the lunch break around a stove in the office we chattered away about how soon Iraqi forces might crumble under the US carpet bombing and laser-guided bombs.

We were a little disappointed that for some reasons there was no live telecast of the real-time war (as some TV people had promised earlier).

As the military had placed curbs on the media, the only images we had of the battlefield were filmed by planes dropping precision bombs.

But the underlying sentiment was unmistakably one of euphoria and gratification.

In the post-Cold War era no other country had the wherewithal and moral courage to take upon itself the task of righting wrong of this magnitude.

In our vehemence we somehow failed to pay enough attention to the fact that by invading Kuwait, Iraq was then controlling 24 per cent of global oil reserves.

The world has changed greatly. When Bush Jr. execrated the "axis of evil" and vowed to eradicate President Saddam Hussein in a fresh crusade, public opinion in China responded quite differently.

The developments over the past 10 years had sensitized everyone to the intricasies of diplomacy and the primacy of national interests.

In other words, the gaping discrepancy between what one claims to be and what one actually is.

This is also because the US had showed less interest in invoking International Law and conjuring up an effective smoke screen in the run-up to the war.

Of course we should not blame the US for this oversight. It is infinitely more difficult to do this than it was ten years ago.

Some US newsmagazines frankly discuss the exigencies of US economy.

The US way of life, some insinuated, can only be sustained when the major oilfields are safeguarded.

A refrain underlying the current US fighting talk is, if the rest of the international community fail to reach consensus in sanctioning the use of force, they could afford to go it alone.

Some European countries have attempted to show some defiance, but it would not make much difference as far as the war is concerned.

The September 11 event had triggered an avalanche of international sympathy towards the American people, but their government is squandering this pool of goodwill.

Instead of spending more time and energy in investigating who actually launched the suicide and anthrax attacks, they resorted to an easier, and apparently more profitable, solution.

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