Hi y'all,

I stayed away from Flames for a day after I posted, because of, I have to admit, trepidation about how it would be received. As I said in the post, it feels dangerous these days to speak out contrary to the passions of the stampeding herd, and I anticipated the possibility of getting trampled.

I'm happy to see that my fears were, for the most part, ungrounded. Thank you all for your kind feedback.

A couple of the replies suggest that I wasn't entirely clear.

When I talked about the Zone as a microcosm of the outside world, I was referring to the passionate pro-war fever in America, the atmosphere now that any failure to march in lockstep would be perceived as traitorous. I wasn't talking about the literal war.

When I talked about Pyrrhic victories, I was taking the long view. We've done OK in Afghanistan, and I expect that we'll prevail in Iraq...sooner or later, easily or bloodily. But if it's not a walk in the park, it's certain that the consequences will be as damaging to America as was the Viet Nam War (whose goal was also "regime change").

A factor in my deliberations was this single bland sentence in Bush's recently-released global strategy:

Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.

Since any other nation is a potential adversary, and indeed many of our current friends were once adversaries, this is nothing less than a declaration that every other country shall remain forever second-rate. America will never again have allies, only subordinates. Do American Rightists think that they have a monopoly on rabid nationalism? Do they really think that there will be no reaction?

Is this a declaration of the establishment of a 21st Century kind of empire?

And is it dangerous hubris? Will we drive Russia and Europe closer together, and motivate them to rearm while it may still be possible to challenge America? Will we motivate India, China, and Japan to bury their myriad hatchets and band together into a modern Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere?

Sheesh, look at that. What started as a simple acknowledgment turned into another essay. I guess the well hasn't run dry yet. Flames is not the right place to discuss this; it belongs on Current Events. If anybody wants to pursue it, let's pursue it there.

Thanks again, everybody.

--Robert