About this awkward business of relating to the United States … suddenly the pattern of finger-wagging has shifted. Canadians, smug and self-righteous vis-à-vis the Americans after the war in Iraq — at least that was the accusation — are now getting poked in the eye regularly for vacillating, drifting, getting a “free ride” off the Americans and generally not being enthusiastic enough about various U.S.-led military and economic schemes.

The poking is being done mainly by our business élites, who see a chance to speed up economic integration with the U.S. under the cover of fighting terrorism; by most media opinion; by departing U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci — and by President George W. Bush himself who, on a visit here a few months ago, apparently chewed out Prime Minister Paul Martin for his lack of military chutzpah and even Opposition Leader Stephen Harper for not saluting hard enough over missile defence.

Missile defence, and Canada’s refusal to endorse it, is the sticking point. And as we pick up the next chapter of the story, the question dangling is: What will Canada now give up to assuage U.S. anger?

And the answer is still: as little as possible, as long as George W. Bush is president. The plain bottom line is that, in Canada as in most other countries, cosying up to Bush is simple political suicide. Although a bare majority of Canadians were against the missile shield, according to the polls a much larger majority simply distrust Bush. Most tellingly, even the once ferociously pro-Bush Conservative party is no longer so ferocious.

What the people of Canada and the world are looking for, but not seeing, is the return of some semblance of balanced judgment in the U.S. administration after a war started under false pretenses, the justification of torture, and the trashing of civil liberties and the environment at home — all vastly unjustified even under the provocation of 9/11.

But for the politicians, there’s another reason to keep Bush at a distance, because there’s likely worse to come. If we go by the figures and the barely subdued panic of the financial analysts and commentators, Bush is galloping swiftly towards his Waterloo — and taking the rest of the world with him. The $7.7-trillion U.S. debt and half-trillion-dollar annual deficit, whipped up by his tax cuts and increased military spending, is a catastrophe ready to hatch. The U.S. dollar is already dropping and the white-knuckled financial community is watching the telltale signs of foreign banks (which hold 80 per cent of all U.S. dollars) dumping dollars for currencies that pay better. A deep drop in the U.S. dollar would cause a steep rise in interest rates and a global economic crisis.

Without raising taxes, these deficits can’t be covered. But Bush is pushing to make his cuts permanent. Making things worse, there’s the rising price of oil, and the fact that Bush has made the U.S. more dependent on Middle East oil, and made it more expensive, by encouraging its wasteful consumption. His entrenched response — drilling in Alaska’s wildlife refuge — is dramatically beside the point. Add his moves to privatize social security and to make it harder for Americans to go bankrupt (half of those who do are led to it by catastrophic medical bills) and it could all soon come home to roost. And when it does, my guess is that he won’t be much more popular at home than in the rest of the world.

So, before we flagellate ourselves at the behest of our corporate élites evoking the threat of American retribution, let’s pause to consider the full picture. Take, as an example, improved security at the Port of Halifax. This is, of course, needed, and fast. The last thing on earth we want is a bomb exploding in the U.S. that came through Halifax.

But if we’re doing it because of American displeasure, we’re duping ourselves. Most U.S. ports are not secured either. One of the raps against Bush by his critics is that, despite the big talk, he hasn’t in fact secured the homeland — ports, nuclear plants, chemical plants and other juicy potential targets are still exposed. Big business complained about the cost and inconvenience of extra security. And besides, Bush was going to destroy the terrorists and their weapons in their foreign lair. So he attacked Iraq, which had few weapons and fewer terrorists! Make sense?

We have reasons to be skittish. Terrorists are only one of them.