EDITORIAL - Not too many years ago the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics had expanded across Asia, gobbled up Eastern Europe and had footholds in Africa, South America and the Caribbean. Before the advent of World War II our English cousins used to boast that the sun never set on the British Empire, while a couple of eons earlier Ozymandias, through his mouthpiece, Percy Shelley, crowed, "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."

All that?s left of Ozy?s works is sand. The British Empire is reduced to one small island that is having trouble holding on to Scotland and may soon be devoured by the European Union. And the Soviet Union is only a memory.

All of which ought to say something to this country?s so-called neoconservatives who dream of Empire America.

And what it ought to say is this: That even the world?s sole super power can stretch itself too thin, can bite off more than it can chew and can get too big for its britches. And can wind up like its predecessors in the dustbin of history.

We are thin already, with divisions on wartime footing in Iraq and Afghanistan, large contingents in Japan, South Korea and Germany and dribs and drabs of our armed forces scattered here and there and elsewhere around the world.

But that doesn?t seem to bother the neocons who, with their new and temporary allies in the black caucus, would like to send some thousands of troops over to settle the internecine warfare going on in Liberia. Why, for God?s sake? What is our interest there?

This done, however, the question inevitably will become, ?Where next?? Peace keepers in the Holy Land? Is the time coming when we must invade Cuba. Or send troops into the Philippines to chase down the rebels there or settle rebellions in South America or Timor or various other places around the world where American interests do not lie?.

Is there to be a Pax Americana? Is that what the neocons dream of? I think with some of them maybe it is. As long as it is someone else?s blood and life that are expended.

There are times when it is in America?s interests to send troops abroad to fight or to deter aggression . But it is not in America?s interest to mix into every internal or international squabble. Neither is it for America to determine what kind of government another nation should have. It is not for America to be the unpopular, unwanted bully of a big brother to the rest of the world. Temporarily it may make some neocons feel big and important. In the long run it will cost us lives, money, friends, allies and international respect.

How eager do you think Tony Blair will be to support us the next time around?

I hate to sound like Pat Buchanan, but the idea of spending American lives and treasure to force nations and peoples to live up to our ideas of what?s good for them is not good for the president, regardless of who he may be, or this nation.

It may appeal to the neocon elitists, but if the average American comes to the conclusion that this nation?s elected leaders have secret dreams of empire that mean risking wars and the lives of their sons and daughters for reasons that are not in the easily discernable best interests of their country, they will throw them out at their first opportunity.

I hope George W. Bush understands this.