Remember the Maine

Background sounds: NPR, "All Things Considered"

American arrogance. It has served us well (rarely), and it has served us badly (for example, right now).

I was listening to the news today (not Fox, I mean real news) and heard that people were showing up in droves for anti-war rallies worldwide. I would have liked to have gone to one, but I don't have a drove, so I went to work instead.

The brashness, conceit and sheer hubris of the Bush administration never ceases to amaze me. They honestly believe that "We, the People" will eat up everything they feed us as if it were Manna.

Dubya comes right out and says that Iraq's missiles may have ranges of "hundreds of miles," yet he still insists that Iraq is a danger to the United States.

The real danger, as I see it, is the wrath of the rest of the world. One would hope that most reasonable world leaders understand that Bush is not going to be here forever, probably not even for longer than his first term, and will be willing to bide their time until some reasonable (i.e. mature and relatively sane) individual is elected to replace him.

We ignore world opinion at our own peril. Might, they say, does not make right. Might makes bullies, and that is what we look like to the rest of the world right now.

In the event of "real" war, that is, war with opponents who are not absolutely crippled (as Iraq is), we could certainly hold our own. Even without the use of nuclear (or even nuke-you-lar) weaponry, we would be victorious in most scenaria. Unless ...

Unless we were up against the rest of the world.

Consider the size of the United States armed forces. Not the materiel, the vehicles, the smart weapons; I am talking about the actual numbers of soldiers, sailors, airmen and pilots, Marines and Special Forces. Even if every eligible man and woman were drafted, we would be outnumbered by the armies of North Korea and China combined. A long, drawn-out land war could potentially wipe out a generation of Americans.

In the event of such a war, I truly doubt that the continental U.S. would be overrun and conquered. The battlefields would be elsewhere. We could certainly lose our position as the Superpower of the World, however. We could even - bear in mind, this is sheer speculation - suffer such an economic defeat that we would be relegated to second-rate status.

Imagine: nobody buying our exports. Embargoed by the United Nations for our belligerence, imports limited. We are a nation of immense wealth and natural resources, but our wealth would be severely strained by such events.

What would we do then? Surround the U.N. headquarters in NYC and arrest all of the ambassadors? Surely, by the time sanctions were imposed, the Headquarters would have moved its operations out of the U.S.; Canada is one possibility, but that would just invite a U.S. invasion of our too-often-ignored good neighbor. No, I would think the Hague or somewhere in the Low Countries would be more likely for a new location.

And then, of course, the United States government - instrumental in the formation of the World Court, glad to send international villains to be judged there - now claims disdain for it. Why now? Could it be because they are afraid that they themselves will end up before it, facing charges of Crimes Against Humanity?

There was a saying at the time of the Spanish-American War: "Remember the Maine." Unfortunately, as we now know, the Maine was not destroyed by the Spanish, but by a simple accident.

So, as our pResident does his best to march us like lemmings to the brink, I say "Remember the Maine."