September 11, 2001 - terrorists destroy the World Trade Center using airplanes. Bush declares Osama Bin Laden as *THE* person responsible behind that heinous act. In going after Osama we remove the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. We don't get Osama.

Bush declares that Saddam Hussein is thumbing his nose at the United Nations and has Weapons of Mass Destruction that present a security problem to the United States. We thumb our nose at the United Nations and remove the regime in Iraq. We can't find Hussein. We can't find Weapons of Mass Destruction.

But - Rah! Rah! - we won the battles.

Iraq is demonstrating for forming their own government but we don't want them to form a Shiite government like Iran. Don't those silly Iraqis know that we now own their country and that the government they have will be what we say they have? That's Democracy American-style. (Remember "Might Makes Right" - it worked for Hitler. It will work for Bush.) They can have their country back when we're done milking it for oil and anything else of interest.

The problem is simply the United States of America has never suffered the humiliation of being conquered. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we conquered the Native Americans with tremendous prejudice and humiliation but I'm talking our current Nation. We're one of the very few modern nations that has never been conquered. No wonder our arrogance is off the scale. We haven't learned to live with other nations. We think the world revolves around us.

But let's look at the big picture. Our Government is making big issues out of security - interior and exterior. We have a new Department of Homeland Security and a new foreign policy against terrorism that states, in part, we will strike pro-actively if we perceive a threat to our National Security. Also, we are concerned about terrorists getting Weapons of Mass Destruction (WoMD). Let's focus on those last two notions.

It makes sense, right? If another country is harboring terrorists and those terrorists may be a threat to our country we can go in and eliminate them. And we can eradicate the government that harbors them as well. Makes sense - security-wise.

And certainly if a terrorist group or a hostile nation is developing WoMD we should be able to protect ourselves and pre-emptively strike them down. Makes sense - security-wise.

Of course there a "But...".

But what if all countries adopted that mentality? Which country has the most WoMD. We do - by far. We have them all - nuclear, biological, chemical. We have them; we sell them. Which country therefore poses the biggest threat to the National Security of every other nation on the entire planet? We do - by far. Because if we don't like a nation, we can take them out.

And now that we've shown the world who is the Alpha Male Country, our government in their infinite wisdom is starting up nuclear weapons development and testing. What is this garbage? What a slap in the face to every human on this planet. We could use that nuclear money for so much more - like education, medicine, science. Heck, even a tax break.

We've shown the world that we're Big and Bad. Do we have to act like it? It's doubtful that the rest of the world will ever join together to stop us but never count it out.