"US defeat" predicted...NOT "advocated"

William Hawkins needs to learn that there is a world of difference between “advocating” and predicting.

Leftists, liberals and progressives are not, as he implies in his op-ed titled “Advocating a global U.S. defeat” (July 6, 2006).

What many on the left, some in the middle and even some on the right are ‘predicting’ that the Bush Administration’s US foreign policy actions will inevitably lead to a number of conflicts and worsen threats that ‘will’ result in decline in US power if not a resounding US defeat in war. Aspirations of global empire, combined with several other eminent factors related to unregulated hyper-globalization (free trade of dual use technologies, lack of standard enforceable global operating procedures regarding control of WMD, pandemics, international crime, genocide or currency flows).

China is on the accent economically, politically and militarily. Other nations hostile to US policy, especially those with large volumes of oil, oil needs and/or US currency, will unite “to shape world events to …[their] advantage” just as Hawkins suggest we do. Does he really expect them not to?
The solution isn’t a perpetual race for global dominance in an increasingly unregulated global environment of unprecedented dangers (WMD proliferation, terrorism, pandemics, climate change, international crime, economic instability...) with every nation relying on its “strength” to fend for itself.
Real security against these inevitable catastrophic threats rests in the creation and enforcement of international standards that promote and enforce “liberty and justice for all” people and nations. That’s when American’s will begin to see the overwhelming advantages in international cooperation versus our aspirations of empire.
Time is NOT on our side. It would be most wise and prudent to work globally for a true federation of nation states before the more horrific consequences of global chaos set in. This is precisely what our nation’s founding fathers did 230 years ago when they realized a confederation of states was inadequate to deal with larger threats (The British) or even the local problems between states (currency differences, border disputes, water rights…).

The greatest example of a predictable US empire failure is its intention to win a global war against a local tactic. The US cannot be the world’s policeman (Genocide in Darfur, Nukes in Iran, WMD in Iraq, Missiles in N. Korea, Bird flu in China…) yet the world vitally needs an adequate and capable policing force.
Russia’s recent declaration to hunt down and kill terrorists anywhere in the world after the abduction and murder of their 4 soldiers in Iraq demonstrates this quite clearly. What will happen when their special operations forces run into our FBI al Qaeda implants? Why can Israel capture and detain thousands of Palestinian political leaders and civilians but their enemies can’t even capture and detain one soldier. This global free for all in war/policing strategy bound for Armageddon.
The question Americans must answer. Do we want to aspire to be an empire (think Rome) or work for a more realistic security and protection of freedoms (think founding fathers).
There is a world of difference between prediction and advocacy. Hawkins ‘solution’ of empire is actually advocating for our inevitable defeat. This is a reliable prediction.