February 10, 2003 - Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Former China Country Director Peter J. Foley says President Bush, tragically, has America's global priorities wrong

Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Headlines: Peace Corps Headlines - 2003: 02 February 2003 Peace Corps Headlines: February 10, 2003 - Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Former China Country Director Peter J. Foley says President Bush, tragically, has America's global priorities wrong

By Admin1 (admin) on Monday, February 17, 2003 - 1:58 am: Edit Post

Former China Country Director Peter J. Foley says President Bush, tragically, has America's global priorities wrong





Read and comment on this op-ed piece from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune where Former China Country Director Peter J. Foley says that President Bush, tragically, has America's global priorities wrong and that the checks and balances the American political system are not working. Congress has all but given over its constitutional war powers to President Bush. International opinion is trying to check Bush. Read the op-ed at:

President Bush, tragically, has America's global priorities wrong*

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President Bush, tragically, has America's global priorities wrong

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As is oft said, the genius of the American political system is its constitutional checks and balances. The check to a president's war powers is the Congress of the United States. This check on President Bush's power to wage war on Iraq has been diminished with the election of a Republican majority in both houses. But more serious, the check of the opposition party, the Democratic Party, has been eroded because of political fears of Democratic congresspersons of seeming out of touch with the national fervor to combat terrorism after 9/11. In short, to appear to oppose Bush is tantamount to being unpatriotic.

There is a check that is not part of our system that may be our salvation: international opinion. The statements in the last few weeks of two of the world's moral leaders, Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II, may apply some brakes to the frightening Bush military juggernaut clanking toward Baghdad. Nelson Mandela's warning that Bush will create a holocaust with his war on Iraq should be taken seriously.

Of immediate concern to those of us who travel a great deal and see other parts of the world firsthand -- as opposed to through the very distorted lens of American television -- is this administration's almost total preoccupation with Iraq. And yet Iraq is not equal to the magnitude of dangerous situations brewing between India and Pakistan or the self-proclaimed nuclear development of weapons of mass destruction in North Korea. Moreover, the Bush administration has failed to articulate its military and political objectives once Iraq has been defeated.

I have not mentioned al-Qaida, truly the greatest immediate threat facing us. The al-Qaida strategy is predictable: wait for Bush to start his war and then strike the United States. The Bush administration is trying frantically to link Iraq directly with the terrorists that were responsible for the World Trade Center inferno. Ignored is that Saddam Hussein's secular brand of autocracy is anathema to al-Qaida's brand of fundamentalist, radical Islam. Colin Powell, as he himself predicted, did not produce a smoking gun. The order of magnitude of a threat from Saddam Hussein that Colin Powell served up probably will not be enough to convince either the United Nations or the majority of American people that an immediate invasion of Iraq is necessary.

The terrorist who made the anthrax that terrorized our Congress, the post office and many work places is still at large. Osama Bin Laden is still at large. Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Taliban, is still at large. And Kim Jong Il is thumbing his nose in our face and in the process gravely threatening the peace and stability of North Asia.

In the meantime, parts of the world that we should be very much engaged in are suffering neglect -- serious neglect. There is no doubt that a nuclear war between India and Pakistan is a war waiting to happen. Only incredible restraint on the part of the Indian government thus far has prevented such a war. In South America very serious economic situations have arisen. Argentina is bankrupt. Venezuela is in economic, political and social turmoil. Israel and the Palestinian territories are splattered with the blood of hundreds of innocent women and children with no end to the violence in sight.

Are the billions we are spending preparing for war with Iraq money well spent? Is the political capital we are spending trying to convince the rest of the world we are right in defying international law and invading a sovereign country without a U.N. mandate worthwhile? Is the pouring down the drain the last bucket of goodwill in the Arab world with the portrayal of Americans as bullies who care not what the rest of the world thinks and feels worth it?

Nelson Mandela has called President Bush arrogant. Our checks and balances are not working. Congress has all but given over its constitutional war powers to President Bush. International opinion is trying to check Bush.

Yet, there is probably only one way left to tip the balance back to peace and reason: American public opinion that turns to outrage.


Peter J. Foley, Ed.D., served as the Peace Corps Country Director in China 2001-2002. He now resides in Sarasota.
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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - China; COS - Iraq; Speaking Out; Special Interests - Country Directors

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