Despite ongoing TV reports of international disapproval of our military action in Iraq, the reality of our position didn't hit me until I finally traveled for myself.
During spring break, I went with the Penn State Catholic Campus Ministry on a mission trip to Tijuana, Mexico. Fewer than 20 minutes after we pulled out of San Diego's palm tree-lined and paved highways, we were climbing bumpy dirt roads on hills so steep we would have even left them undeveloped in my mountainous hometown of Pittsburgh.
While we were there to help with the construction of a dental clinic at a local church, after a morning of painting, this pasty-white Pennsylvanian was exhausted from the sun. I sat down to rest, when a young boy playing on the nearby swing set spotted the idle foreigner and was kind enough to make friends with me.
Despite my horrible mangling of the Spanish language, I learned his name was Sergio and he was 11 years old. As we sat on the ground playing tick-tack-toe, I asked him to teach me some words. He'd hastily stop to draw out the words for "wood" and "rock" in Spanish and get back to our games.
After a half hour of my Spanish lessons, I asked him if he wanted to learn English. He got rather serious and said "No." Teasingly, I asked why not. He stopped what he was doing and cleared a smooth spot in the dirt where he drew a squiggly box and wrote "USA," saying, "That's your country." He then drew another box and said, "Iraq."
With his hands, he mimicked something flying from the USA box to the Iraq box and exploding. "Bombas," he said, clear enough for even this gringa to get it.
It's one thing to read newspaper articles about other countries not supporting America, and another, slightly more jaw dropping to hear it in person.
Admittedly, Sergio's refusal to learn English because of U.S. action in Iraq is about as effective at influencing government opinion as our flaunting "freedom fries" at the French.
Either way, we're running out of time for a policy change regarding the war; it will most likely be over before we know it.
"The course of this war is clear," U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told CNN on Sunday. "The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. It's over. It will not be there in a relatively reasonably predictable period of time."
The American people concur; two-thirds of the nation feels this conflict will be over in less than three months, according to a CNN report last week.
The true difficulties will come after the "victory" has been secured, when we begin reconstruction. Rebuilding international opinion of our country is our biggest project on the horizon, which will be even more important to our long term security than cleaning up in the Middle East.
Without the support of the U.N. or many other countries, we started this war. We are dropping bombs on Iraq as some of the largest protests at home and worldwide take place.
While we are able to "liberate" Afghanistan and we will win this conflict and the next and probably the one after that -- eventually we will fail. I do not doubt that we will not have enough money or bombs or patriotic citizens ready to serve. However, we will not be able to do whatever we please wherever we please in a world that does not like us.
I seriously doubt that 11-year-old Sergio was very informed in global politics, but he didn't like our government. Other countries don't necessarily need a reason to dislike us either, only an opportunity to show it.
As a recent opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper Haartez said, "The temptation to gnaw at the puissance of a wounded superpower have overcome even the universal interest in stripping a tyrant like Saddam Hussein of his ability to strike."
Even if the entire world would like to unite behind us, this war serves as an even better excuse to whittle away at the power of the global giant.
While I do not doubt that we will persevere through this encounter, how many can we withstand without the rest of the world disliking us?
While one boy's boycott of the English language certainly poses no threat, what happens when countries made up of people who feel this way act accordingly? As of Sunday, news reports said Russia has allegedly sold antitank missiles, night vision goggles and jamming gear to Iraq despite U.S. protests and an arms embargo.
We can't bomb everyone we fear. There needs to be a better, peaceful way to repair the world. No matter how justified our causes are, in our future actions, this country would do well to more seriously mind international opinion.
