It's time to demand more from leaders

Lately, President Bush has lost not one but two confidants. Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales, his trusted underlings, have flown the coop to greener pastures.

There is no doubt in my mind that very soon they will be in positions to make millions of dollars.

And as the reader can see, I say "make," not "earn." Neither has earned a single cent in all the time he spent working for this president, who, coincidently, has also not earned his salary.

It would have been cheaper for Americans to let him play cowboy in Crawford than president in Washington.

And my sincere hope is to see him back in Texas for good, where he can do little harm to anyone except himself. He has done enough harm to the world, and it's about time for him to stop even if he still has one more year to go in his tenure.

I don't give two hoots about any of his underlings or how much income they can finagle for their services to special interests while in government. I do, however, dislike the idea of continuing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a former president for doing a lousy job that has undermined the health, wealth and security of the United States.

The United States is in disarray, with its citizens disunited and turned against each other along religious, social or political criteria. Its economy is in tatters, plagued by mushrooming public and private debts, deficit spending, loss of industries and a decaying infrastructure. No one should be surprised at this state of affairs, for they are the hallmarks of post-World War II Republican Party rule.

As usual, Democrats will change much of that, and they will try to fix what the Republicans screw up but, unfortunately, the Republicans will come back to screw it up again. American economic recessions more often than not result from and follow Republican governments.

But putting all these issues aside, it is imperative in this globalized world to elect an American leadership that is well versed in international affairs, a leadership that has an understanding of world history, geography, politics and perhaps a foreign language or two. Americans must expect and demand more from their leaders than the current mediocrity.

President Bush will be forever linked to his failures and thus will fade away, because Americans do not like to be reminded of failures. He can't change that, but he can prevent more humiliation for the institution of the presidency.

First, Bush must not blame Iran for his screw-up in Iraq, nor use that as an excuse to involve the U.S. in another war. Political vacuums cannot exist, and the illegal invasion of Iraq created a political vacuum that Iran is much better suited to fill than the United States.
A little knowledge of power politics and the region's history would have been enough to put the brakes on any Middle Eastern adventure. Another policy of containment might need to be developed with a number of actors in the region, something the new president can figure out and develop.

Second, the president needs to stop, in word and in deed, his newfound support of dictatorships. Dictatorships breed radicalism in all its forms, and by supporting them, he will undermine his successor's ability to maneuver.

Third, he should tell the American people that he is sorry for letting them down, then follow that by keeping silent and spending as much time as he can in Crawford.

On a trip away from America, I realized: How safe is my country

Going overseas provides American travelers with unique opportunities to view other peoples, cultures and societies. It also gives them a chance to put their development and themselves in a larger global context.

A recent trip overseas has made me appreciate aspects of American life that most Americans take for granted. And I am not talking about the bounty of food or jobs or the quality of life that a sizable number of Americans enjoy.

I am referring to policies relating to health and safety that are missing from the lives of most people in the world.

I have come to appreciate those painted lanes on the streets and the lights that regulate traffic flow. I now have no complaints about no-left-turn signs that limit congestion and slowdowns.

I heartily appreciate all government attempts to reduce pollution by forcing manufacturers to install gadgets, be they filters or catalytic converters. One doesn't appreciate these policies until being caught at midday in downtown Shanghai, Cairo or Lima, where neither buses nor the majority of cars have any emission control mechanisms.

In these environments, a white shirt turns dark in minutes from the soot and smoke belched by these mechanical marvels. Worse, longtime exposure to these pollutants is sure to send thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, to hospitals every year.

I have come to appreciate the nutrition labels and expiration dates on food containers. Around the globe, thousands, if not millions, become sick or die annually after consuming foods without expiration dates.

When traveling, the warning not to drink the water must be taken seriously. In the United States, we take the availability of clean drinking water for granted. This is not the case in much of the world, where water is far from safe. Much of this is due to the absence or enforcement of policies that prohibit the introduction of dangerous bacteria into the water by humans.

Most developing countries are in dire need of public administrative techniques. It is an issue of how to do things and organize matters in ways that facilitate change and evaluation.

In Lima, for example, there is no public transportation system. Anyone who can afford to buy an old truck or bus can transport people. No special skill training is required to get a taxi license.
I have seen the highest mountain roads without guard rails where tiny mistakes by drivers can send buses full of people to their doom.

Maybe the Peruvian government doesn't have the funds to pay for a public transportation system, but it certainly could ensure that those who are transporting people do so safely and in viable vehicles. And it doesn't cost much to put barriers on dangerous mountain roads.
Shantytowns throughout the developing world spring up unhindered. They are a disgrace to any society and should not be permitted to exist. However, if they must exist, they should be regulated and established in areas that provide necessary services.

There are ways the United States and other developed countries can help. Institutions of higher learning are the best vehicle for providing that assistance. They are the key to training foreign students in the necessary skills to run societies, not governments.

Public administration should be the primary field of education, with heavy doses of internships to enable students to get hands-on experiences with city and state agencies. More important is providing them with the ability to identify problems before they happen and to develop policies and procedures that deal with any that emerge. It is not easy, but the return is phenomenal.

Indeed, spending $10 million — the cost of one military aircraft — on training kids from Zambia, Peru or Egypt on how to run their societies is far more valuable.

Finally, America is an excellent source of training for most needed policies, except homeland security. After passing through some of the security procedures at U.S. airports, my suggestion is not to teach the American way because it is not only awful but, as indicated by the long lines, quite inefficient and useless.

Libya's nonsense fools West

In a recent interview with the Al-Jazeera network, Col. Moammar Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam Gadhafi admitted that Libya engaged in the physical torture of five Bulgarian female nurses and one Palestinian doctor.

They were accused of intentionally infecting 400 Libyan children in the city of Benghazi with HIV. It now appears that their interrogators threatened to kill them, raped the nurses and subjected the doctor to electric shock.

The resulting coerced confession was used by Gadhafi's kangaroo court to sentence them to death. And were it not for the outrage displayed by two European countries and others in the world, six innocent people would have been murdered.

I don't think any sane person can believe the nonsense spewed by Gadhafi's regime. The problem is rat-infested hospitals, lack of decent medical care and a huge army of unqualified personnel.

To rid himself of a mushrooming problem, Gadhafi agreed to hand the accused to Bulgaria, where Libya claimed they would serve the sentences imposed on them by his court. Also as a condition for their release, the nurses and doctor gave up any rights to sue the Libyan government or demand any form of compensation for their treatment.
In return, the Gaddafi Foundation was supposed to monetarily compensate the families of the infected children.

Lost in all this is what exactly happened to the poor children and how they got infected with that awful disease. Naturally, the regime of the Libyan dictator cannot be blamed because it is immune from doing wrong. And if the nurses didn't do it, then who did? The Libyan dictatorship resents this kind of serious probing into its wrongdoings, and most probably we will never know what went on.

I blame the leaders of the so-called civilized world. This is what bothers me most about them. How can they praise such a foul regime? And how can they turn a blind eye to the atrocities and uncivilized behavior this monstrosity continues to perpetrate? This is a nasty, selfish and ignorant dictatorship that has brought misery to the lives of millions in Libya, the Middle East and the world. And for them to throw him a lifeline so he can continue his abuse of everything decent is an indication of the bankruptcy of their civilization.

The new French president wants to sell him nuclear reactors, and President Bush is re-establishing relations with Libya. The British are desperately trying to entice him to buy their missiles. Is the house of cards collapsing, and is Western society showing its true colors?
Dictatorship and mismanagement are eating away at the heart of the Middle East. People are angry at their regimes and are beginning to associate them with their Western benefactors.

It now seems that Bush's plan of bringing democracy to the Middle East has gone the way of the dodo. Replacing it is "the devil that we know is better than one we get to know."

But few realize that this posture is increasing the hold of dictatorships on the region, which in turn is giving rise to radicalism. More important, these dictators don't give two hoots about America or Western society. Their sole interest is keeping their absolute power. And if push comes to shove, they will covertly promote terrorism to ensure the West continues to back their objectives.

The shame in all this is the fact that the West has failed in its quest to free the Arabs of dictators, and now the Arab dictators have succeeded in imposing their dictatorship on the West.

Debates highlight the slim pickings

I had an opportunity to watch the most recent debate among the candidates for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, and I was far from impressed. Of interest to me were their discussions on the economy, China and Iraq.

However, for some inexplicable reason, they were either unwilling or unable to think beyond the Bush era. This administration is perhaps one of the most miserable governments in American history. It is incumbent upon these candidates to be innovative in formulating new strategies that would dampen the impact of the current effete policies.

None of them articulated a vision of a new future.

Within the past decade, the world has radically changed and a new equilibrium has emerged. It is a new world characterized by globalization, a decline in American power, a fundamental shift in U.S. industrial output and the emergence of China as a huge industrial power.

I find it difficult to believe these guys and "the gal" when they promise to bring back manufacturing jobs that will never return to the United States. And while the idea of forcing China to stop playing with its currency rate might sound good, it will not change the balance of economic power much.

The fact is, a Chinese worker gets seven cents an hour, which translates into 70 cents for a 10-hour workday. No matter how much the yuan is worth, the gap between what American and Chinese workers earn will not narrow any time soon.

Additionally, China is practicing a predatory form of 18th-century capitalism that is oblivious to the needs and interests of other nation-states, the environment or the Earth's natural resources.

Indeed, China reminds me of the Borg on the television show "Start Trek: The Next Generation" or aliens whose sole purpose is to suck a planet barren and go onto the next one.

And to make matters worse, rather than invest in America's infrastructure and develop new industries beyond the reach of China technology, the Bush administration has opted to spend huge sums of money on disastrous foreign adventures.

China today is America's largest creditor. Some think that this makes the Chinese vulnerable, but the reverse is also true. As long as the U.S. keeps printing money and selling bonds, it will need someone to buy them and only those with excess cash do. How can the United States confront Chinese policies when it depends so much on it for the purchase of bonds and the import of so many consumer goods?

What is good for so-called "American" multinationals is not necessarily good for the United States, for they have been the primary vehicle for the outsourcing of American industries and exporters of American jobs. To add insult to injury, they do not pay taxes and use dogmatic administrations, such as the current one, to open America's coffers for them to raid at will.

The truth is, I will never trust a politician, Democrat or Republican, who accepts money from such predators.

I was also disappointed with the candidates' responses to the questions on Iraq. Only one of them advocated unconditional withdrawal. The others never gave a straight answer and talked about "phased withdrawal" and "redeployment." Most seemed oblivious to the fact that the current instability, including the emergence of al-Qaida, is primarily due to America's presence in the country and the region.

At the end of the debate, I was left with a hollow feeling — not as bad as the one I felt in the aftermath of the Republican debates, but a hollow feeling nonetheless. It left me wishing for that knight in shinning armor to ride up and help a country in distress.

Buying arms from U.S. is a bad deal for Saudis

The announcement by the Bush administration that it intends to sell $20 billion of military hardware to Saudi Arabia over the next 10 years is not as surprising as many commentators are leading us to believe.

So what is the truth in all this? Sherlock Holmes' eternal words come to mind: "After eliminating the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth."

The first impossibility is that Saudi Arabia can defend itself. The Saudi defense forces are divided between its national guard and the regular military. The former is far better equipped and trained than the latter. However, the national guard is the primary organ for the defense of the regime, not the state. Hence, it is made up of individuals from tribes loyal to the Al-Saud family.

It is therefore evident that as long as mistrust of the regime remains, it will be unable to defend itself even if it buys 10 times the amount of weapons. Also, if history is an indicator, these new weapons will either remain crated or will be used to train U.S. military forces in the region.

During the Reagan administration, the Saudis spent billions on sophisticated Airborne Warning and Control Systems, or AWACs, and other hardware, as well as infrastructure. They certainly didn't use them, and very few Saudis even know what the inside of an AWAC looks like. American-made Saudi weapon systems were used by U.S. forces for training and later in the first Iraq war. When were they ever used by the Saudis?

This latest deal includes satellite-guided missiles and other smart bombs. Having such weapons might mean a great deal if Saudi Arabia owned satellites, but the Saudis don't, and they will have to rely on U.S. access to satellite technology. In short, the U.S. will have a say on when and where those weapons can be used, at least until the Saudis are able to put their own satellites in orbit.

The situation is much worse in the small states of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, also slated to receive new weapons. There are about 300,000 Qataris and less than a million citizens out of a population of 4 million in the UAE. To make matters worse, large chunks of the UAE military are made up of Pakistanis and other nationalities.

In the final analysis, none of these regimes, independently or combined, is any match for Iran militarily, and they will have to continue their reliance on the deterrence power of the United States. The cost will not be cheap, for that $20 billion will mushroom over 10 years to at least twice the amount in spare parts, maintenance, training, replacements, upgrades and so on.

More important, the sale will ensure the long-term presence of the U.S. in the region even if it is forced to leave Iraq next year.
If none of the above is convincing, one can regard it as the administration's departing gift to the military-industrial complex at a time when Europeans, particularly the British, are courting the Saudis in an attempt to sell them advanced Eurofighters in a multibillion-dollar deal.

The Israelis know this is a nonsense deal, and they are fully aware that it would not alter the balance of power in the region. But by not making a fuss, they would come out of the carnival without candy.
Israel will receive $9 billion in additional aid for a total of $30 billion over the next nine years. And unlike other recipients of U.S. aid, Israel can do with it what it desires without any accounting to Washington.

Going back to Sherlock, the deal is a miserable one for the Arabs because it will ensure a perpetual Saudi-Iranian conflict when there is little need for it. The Saudis are taking on President Bush's war and they will be sorry. Bush and most of America don't like them, and in the end they will gain the enmity of Iran.

Second, Saudi Arabia is America's largest creditor after China, but there are better ways to help the U.S. besides wasting money on military hardware destined to rust in a merciless desert.

Third, under the guise of balance, the increased aid to Israel will be used to make life more miserable for the Palestinians by building more settlements and expropriating more Palestinian lands.