Imperfect America, police thyself

Since the end of the Cold War, we have essentially lived in a Pax Americana—no real global war, no durable challenger to America's economic dominance, and as of yet, no other superpower. The euro remains weak to the dollar, China remains passive even when its embassies are accidentally bombed, and American movies, television, and music spread across borders like no other culture. The fear of nuclear war, real though it may be, is no longer terribly urgent. Even if the Balkans, the Middle East, and much of Africa remain unstable, they also remain mere blips on U.S. television screens, normally at the end of the newscast.

EUGENE WONG/YH

Despite the threat of our own recession, America remains the world's police force, the unquestionable victor of the great 20th- century balance of power battle. Like the Pax Romana, the Pax Americana encompasses its share of violence, but unlike the Roman Empire, the American Empire doesn't kill solely to financially feed itself, at least not since the questionable motives that brought about the Gulf War. The frustrating thing is, America's aggressions are often random, accidental, and thus, very difficult to criticize. When the blame lies nowhere more specific than in the basic national philosophy, where is the hope for change?

Consider one random act of stupidity—the Fri., Feb. 9 sinking of the Ehime Maru, a Japanese fishing boat. A nuclear submarine, the USS Greeneville, failed keep track of this nearby craft while performing an emergency surfacing drill. Nine students and teachers were killed as a result. Accidents of this sort are, of course, nothing new; remember in 1998 when a low-flying Air Force jet clipped a ski gondola in Italy? So perhaps it should be no surprise that this tragedy is already coming to the end of its brief media lifespan.

But as the act fades away with a written statement of regret, rather than a spoken apology, by the submarine's captain, something else continues to lurk and grow in our foreign policy. It may be too subtle for us to realize now, but when military mishaps like these go on at the same time that the State Department criticizes Russia, Israel, and China for human rights violations, careless hypocrisy becomes more and more prevalent in the American modus operandi. Our lack of concern for foreign lives is not new, and while it may be a tiny reflection of the inhumanity for which we criticized the Soviets, that in no way makes it right.

How can we allow training accidents to continue to happen if our military forces are the best-equipped and best-funded of any nation? If we want to be the true leaders of the free world, attempting moral influence over Israel and Russia—countries themselves embroiled in inner war—how can we not seem to control our own firepower? America, last nation standing, will not heed outside voices, will not consider learning from its past mistakes, and will likely continue to expand the military even as recruitment reaches the sort of lows that require ads like the recently unveiled "Army of One" campaign. Training will not be made tighter, military strategy will not be more carefully considered, and thus, we may have more attacks like the Fri., Feb. 16 bombing of Iraq, which, the Navy has conceded, almost entirely missed its Iraqi air defense targets.

The past comes back not to haunt us, but still to hurt others. The failed Iraqi bombings, for example, killed one Iraqi civilian and injured nine by detonating unexploded cluster bomblets from, you guessed it, the Gulf War. It seems the New World Order, after all our fears of apocalypse, is actually a disorder—the globe as America's funhouse; our President, unchecked by Congress, free to strike randomly and savagely; and our military too overexpanded even to kill with precision.

The question is, can a conscientious reversal of the Pax Americana occur now, or are we headed towards the Pax Romana's place in history, where mistakes can never be undone? Josh Drimmer, DC '03, is an A&E editor of the Herald.

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