According to the New York Times, Crown Prince Abdullah will ask for withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia at the end of the Iraq war.
The new president of South Korea was elected on a pledge to review the U.S. troop presence there. The Pakistanis want us out, and, after 60 years of occupation, even the Okinawans wish to be rid of us.
Nor should we resist the eviction orders, for the terrorists are only over here because we are over there.
Worldwide, the anti-American card has become a trump. Herr Gerhard Schroeder played it deftly to rescue himself from certain defeat in the German elections. And while Americans may be boycotting French wines, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin is a more celebrated figure in Old Europe than Colin L. Powell, let alone Bush.
And the staggering bill for empire has just begun to come in. Not only are Japan, Germany and Saudi Arabia unwilling to pay the cost of this war, as they did for Desert Storm, they are not in any condition to do so. Nor does the United States, staring at deficits of $300 billion to $400 billion, have the means to subsidize an empire.
The cost of invading and rebuilding Iraq has been put at $100 billion to $200 billion by Bush's former economic advisor. That was last year.
More recent estimates have soared. Will Americans pay this immense sum to reconstruct and "democratize" Iraq?
With California mulling higher taxes and firing workers to cover a $35-billion deficit, how long will taxpayers tolerate shakedowns like Ankara's demand for as much as $30 billion for U.S. troops to transit Turkey and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's demand for $15 billion in foreign aid and loan guarantees to hold our coat?
Neoconservatives assure us that once Arab peoples see our destructive power rain down on Iraq, they will line up with the winner and accept our hegemony. But if such power has not brought respect for Israel in Lebanon or on the West Bank, what guarantee is there it will make American occupiers revered or loved?
History teaches otherwise. Five years after the United States had reduced to smoldering ashes the greatest empire Asia had seen in centuries, little North Korea, which did not even exist in 1945, launched an invasion to throw the Americans off the peninsula and out of Asia. World champions never lack for challengers.
Our own history teaches us this. A dozen years after the British army had defeated our enemies in the French and Indian War, American patriots were shooting British soldiers on the Concord Road.
