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Sunday, February 23, 2003

Americans not inclined to examine the course of events, much less to study history, should take a look around in the next few weeks in case anyone ever asks them to explain the factors leading to World War III.

The once-promising European Union grew fateful fissures over the U.S.-led Iraq showdown, France and Germany breaking away from England and Spain to join the howling opposition to Washington's infamous "coalition of the willing." The new American policy of pre-emption aggravated historic allies (see Turkey, France, et. al) and irreversibly polarized Europe on the issue of what to do about the already severely constrained psychotic Saddam Hussein. Arab nations, galvanized by video of U.S. fighters carpet-bombing Baghdad, could not prevent Islamic fundamentalists from churning out homicidal/suicidal West-despising terrorists. North Korean megalomaniac Kim Jung-Il, spooked by the spreading paranoia, played his only card, firing a nuke resulting in catastrophe and chaos in the Far East.

Uh-huh. Something like that.

I wasn't going to mention the World War III scenario today until I talked with Bob Hopkins and asked him, simply and probably stupidly, if he was afraid. Hopkins, you see, landed five times on South Pacific beaches during World War II and went to war again during the Korean War.

"No; I'm not afraid of anything," he said. "So far, Hussein is only a problem to his own people. Not even our own CIA will tell you he's a threat to the United States, and as for his links to al-Qaida, Britain has been trying like hell to prove that and can't."

Hopkins is 81, lives in West Middlesex, Mercer County, with his wife, Alice, and travels the planet via the Internet every day, reading the papers in Moscow and the European capitals when he gets done with many of America's great newspapers.

"You're not afraid," I said, "even if Bush pulls the trigger?"

"Then I'm afraid," he said, "afraid it will create the conditions for World War III."

Funny he should say that.

This was in the week that President Bush spoke so very dismissively of hundreds of thousands of war protesters around the globe, comparing them to a focus group. Had they been demonstrating in favor of an Iraq attack, he'd have claimed a mandate. You don't have to coax Junior into thinking he has a mandate. A simple Supreme Court majority will do.

Bush's dismissive attitude on a variety of critical subjects is partly what allows me to describe Bob Hopkins as a collapsed Republican.

"Suits me fine," he said. "I never changed my registration, and I used to be very active in county Republican politics. An area chairman. Ran three Lincoln Day dinners. But this administration ..."

It's unnerving to hear a war hero sigh the sigh of people who don't know where to start.

He tries the Kyoto Treaty. Forgets the World Court. Wonders only if Iraq became a Bush priority to camouflage a tanking economy from an atypically jittery electorate. Knows full well that Bush will ultimately ignore the United Nations Security Council if a second "serious consequences" resolution against Iraq is vetoed, if for no other reason than to cancel his own embarrassment at having 150,000 troops already deployed suddenly back off.

"I was in the hospital in Erie during Desert Storm," Hopkins said. "When I heard what we did there, let them retreat without going on to Baghdad, I nearly had another heart attack. Years later I got to talk with [Desert Storm commander Gen. Norman] Schwarz-kopf at a dinner in Chicago. I asked him why they did what they did. Why they didn't go on to Baghdad. He said, 'We would have had to feed them.' "

Even if "Desert Storm II: The Wrath of Shrub" went splendidly, with no repercussions, even if the United States invaded tomorrow and got out by Memorial Day, we'll have to feed them for a long time, not to mention set up a government, a political infrastructure, a security system. No one in the administration is mentioning the cost -- no one has a clue.

Maybe instead of hosting the president of Spain this weekend at his Texas ranch, instead of preaching to the choir, Bush should visit France or Germany to show respect for dissent. Oh, I forgot. That would be wimpy.