The President has at his disposal the resources of the greatest country in history by any measure of material wealth, technology, imagination, creativity and ingenuity to address the evil de jour, yet he chooses to follow in the footsteps of Caesar taking care of the Gaul problem, 50 B.C. Have 2000 years since of enlightenment been nothing more than a rehearsal for just another base exercise in the thrill of power? If the President's folly were stripped of the cloak of patriotism that it's paraded in, I'm sure the American people would want no part of this conquest.
My president speaks of the Iraqi problem in the jive of a street tough. His interest in pursuing solutions founded on the ideals brokered through centuries of the better angels of our nature stays as uncurious as a Yale cheerleader with a 100-megawatt bullhorn, while his high-fiving Secretaries look at the world as if it's a college football gridiron.
Domination is a lust unwanted by Americans. We don't seek it. We don't see ourselves as the new Rome. It's not what makes us warm and erotic all over, and so our leader sells imperialism to us as an increase in our individual security and freedom; otherwise, natural American decency would be unmoved by his urgings. As freethinking people, the instinct Americans prefer for security and peace is to cultivate alliances and world consensus and then lead with the ingenuity and wisdom cherished by our founders.
The US stands at the road's fork of an epic change in the meaning of international power. We can because we are good and because we are undefeatable, carve the path of fellowship or instead hack a path of mad and unnecessary military adventures.
With this untethered invasion and occupation, and with other military incursions in the wings, my country becomes a mutant Godzilla quashing everything in its path. I can hear the chorus: "Flee, it is American!" After this vain sham, the evildoers won't need to blow us up; we'll have started doing it to ourselves.
I believe Americans care too much for the sanctity of their country's principles to become The White House occupant's rah-rah gallery. To cheer along en mass for the mother of all cheerleaders will set our beacon of freedom back two generations. Because our leaders have the power to make and win this war, they also have the power to unmake and win this war. The greater victory and the harder is the latter. Let us fight and win the right battle.
October 2, 2002