www.upi.com From the National Desk Published 3/1/2003 10:06 AM View printer-friendly version

New York Times

Nothing so far has shamed President Bush into adopting a more aggressive policy toward the threat of global warming. He has been denounced by mainstream scientists, deserted by his progressive friends in industry and sued by seven states. Still he clings stubbornly to a voluntary policy aimed at merely slowing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, despite an overwhelming body of evidence that only binding targets and a firm timetable will do the job.

Now there is fresh criticism from sources Mr. Bush may find harder to ignore. Last week Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, Mr. Bush's most loyal ally in the debate over Iraq, gently but firmly rebuked the president for abandoning the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global climate change and for succumbing to the insupportable notion that fighting global warming will impede economic growth. ...

The prime minister's approach is everything Mr. Bush's is not. It conveys a sense of urgency, calls for common sacrifice and offers a coherent vision of how to get from here to there. It is, in short, a recipe for the leadership that until not too long ago the world had been looking to America to provide. -0-

Washington Times

President Bush's Wednesday night speech on his vision for the post-war Middle East revealed an American president fully seized of a classic Wilsonian passion to nurture -- nay, force -- democratic government on a troubled world. It also revealed a president coldly determined to disarm rogue states of their weapons of mass destruction.

In the chancelleries of Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea and other rogue states, policy planners will surely be studying closely the president's words: "Across the world we are hunting down the killers ... And we are opposing the greatest danger in the war on terror -- outlaw regimes arming with weapons of mass destruction. ... The passing of Saddam Hussein's regime will deprive terrorists networks of a wealthy patron ... And other regimes will be given a clear warning that support for terror will not be tolerated." Whether those words induce change or defiance in the threatened states, the next year or two are likely to be over-brimming with international high drama, change -- and possibly conflict.

For any American president, the threatened release of such military violence can only be justified -- both internally in his conscience, and externally by the public -- if it is premised on a high moral cause. And it is in President Bush's speech that we saw last Wednesday one of the highest American presidential expressions of belief in the universality and imminence of Democracy: "It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life ... freedom and democracy will always and everywhere have greater appeal than the slogans of hatred and the tactics of terror." ...

President Bush is not a man for whom words are particularly friendly or an end in themselves; he uses them only for the truth of the matter stated. But he may be our most stubborn, determined and action-oriented president since Andy Jackson. Intellectuals talk breezily about democracy, and then talk about something else. We suspect that having said these words this week, President Bush intends to go about the practical business of trying to implement them. It will be stunning if he succeeds, a bloody mess if he fails, and not many alternatives in between. -0-

Washington Post

U.S. OFFICIALS long sought to play down the danger that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez poses by pointing out that his acts rarely matched his words. Mr. Chavez, who was elected president after promising a socialist revolution for Venezuela's poor majority, might talk about confiscating property, supporting leftist guerrillas in neighboring Colombia or admiring Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein, but in practice he mostly remained within democratic boundaries.

Yet now the gap between Mr. Chavez's inflammatory rhetoric and his actions is narrowing. Having survived a strike by his opposition, Mr. Chavez has proclaimed 2003 the "year of the offensive"; so far he has taken steps to bring the economy under state control, eliminate independent media and decapitate the opposition. ...

Spain recently joined with the United States, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Portugal to support a negotiated political solution to the crisis through the mediation of Cesar Gaviria, the secretary general of the Organization of American States and a former president of Colombia. The opposition, which at times has supported anti-democratic means of ousting Mr. Chavez, now endorses Mr. Gaviria's proposal for a new presidential election or a referendum on Mr. Chavez's recall. The current constitution would allow for a referendum to be held as early as August; that may be the easiest and best way out. But Mr. Chavez knows he would very likely lose a fair vote, and he will likely do everything possible to prevent it. That's why it is essential that the Bush administration join with the "group of friends" to insist that Mr. Chavez release his political prisoners, stop his revolutionary "offensive" and commit to a decisive vote. It may be democracy's last chance. -0-

Boston Globe

Saddam Hussein's last-minute acquiescence to the UN inspectors' demand that he begin destroying more than 120 Samoud 2 surface-to-surface missiles falls far short of compliance with the UN Security Council's terms for full and complete disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Conversely, if Saddam refused to destroy his Samoud 2 missiles, that act of defiance by itself would not justify the use of military force to disarm the Iraqi dictator.

The Samoud 2 missiles are proscribed weapons because in test firings they traveled beyond the limit of 150 kilometers, or 93 miles, permitted in the UN cease-fire resolutions that Saddam accepted in 1991. The sound reason for limiting the range of Saddam's missiles was to protect Iraq's neighbors from a serial aggressor.

Spokesmen for Saddam have a point -- however technical -- when they complain that the missiles were tested without warheads or guidance systems. Their argument is that the Samouds' range might not have exceeded 150 kilometers if they had been carrying the extra weight of warheads and guidance systems, which they would carry if fired in a combat situation.

More important, the missiles are not weapons of mass destruction, even if they may qualify as potential delivery systems for such weapons within a short range.

This distinction is worth making because the core of the case for forcing Saddam either to comply with the Security Council's demands or be disarmed by force rests upon the danger of allowing this particular mass murderer, with his history of cruelty against his own people and recklessness, to hoard stores of anthrax, botulinum toxin, VX nerve gas, Sarin, and mustard gas. ...

It is because of this threat -- not his Samoud 2 missiles -- that Saddam must be disarmed. In the report he will present in public next week, the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, laments that Saddam's response to his disarmament obligations has been ''very limited.'' If Saddam is to be disarmed without a war, he will have to open his underground tunnels and bunkers to the weapons inspectors and lead them to his instruments of mass murder so they can be destroyed, much as the inspectors are planning to destroy his short-range missiles. -0-

Rocky Mountain News

Terrorists and the rogue states that support them will stop at nothing to take innocent lives and destroy democracy. This is a lesson our nation and the world learned on Sept. 11, 2001. It is also why the work the United States does to secure nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Russia is the first line of defense preventing such weapons from falling into the hands of the terrorists and states that would harm us.

This security imperative is embedded in the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, an act of the U.S. Congress, that over the past decade has evolved to include a wide range of nonproliferation, disarmament and demilitarization projects in Russia. It was reaffirmed by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in two U.S.-Russian summits and the G8 communiques last year.

But as Rocky Mountain News reporter Ann Imse has shown us in her revealing three-part series on the public health disaster at Mayak, the former Soviet nuclear weapons production facility, such efforts are unlikely to succeed unless the Kremlin moves out of the woods of autocracy instead of deeper into them. ...

Mayak is a grim microcosm of totalitarian socialism's many failures. Which is why, in poll after poll, Russians continue to value democratic ideals and practices. They know truth, as symbolized in the gold- crowned tooth of Mayak worker Gennady Krasnov, is easier found wherever liberty flourishes. -0- (Compiled by United Press International)

www.aberdeennews.com Posted on Fri, Feb. 28, 2003 Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush announced Friday that Roland Bullen is his choice to be the next U.S. ambassador to Guyana.

Bullen is deputy executive director of the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Previously, he served as deputy chief of mission in Bridgetown, Barbados, and served in U.S. embassies in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Belize, Costa Rica and Venezuela.

His new position must be confirmed by the Senate.

news.ft.com By Richard Lapper Published: February 28 2003 4:00 | Last Updated: February 28 2003 4:00

The US could have helped "avert or at least temper" the crises in Argentina and Venezuela, according to a report published today by a Washington-based Latin American think-tank.

Although it welcomes the advances on the trade front, the Inter-American Dialogue says that Latin Americans believe the US has "lost interest in the region" and sharply criticises the Bush administration's record there.

IAD says US policymakers must give greater priority to "full-blown crises" that could take "years to resolve".

washingtontimes.com James Morrison

News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.

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     Indian Ambassador Lalit Mansingh denounced India's nuclear rival Pakistan in a recent speech for failing to stop terrorists from creeping into Pakistan's remote western mountainous region bordering Afghanistan.      "In short, terrorism is back in business in Pakistan," Mr. Mansingh told the Woman's National Democratic Club.      Mr. Mansingh blamed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for allowing remnants of Afghanistan's brutal Taliban government and al Qaeda terrorists to find refuge in Pakistan's tribal areas.      Gen. Musharraf last year promised to prevent Pakistan from becoming a haven for terrorists and to end the cross-border infiltration of militants into Indian-controlled Kashmir.      "Musharraf has gone back on every single commitment he made last year," Mr. Mansingh said.      The ambassador noted that Pakistan had "nurtured the Taliban and fostered the growth of al Qaeda" in Afghanistan before the United States crushed the regime and scattered the terrorists' base.      "It comes as no surprise to us that Osama bin Laden and his gang of terrorists have found a welcome sanctuary in the rugged mountains of western Pakistan," Mr. Mansingh said.      "Two of the four provinces of Pakistan that adjoin Afghanistan are today led by governments that are openly supportive of bin Laden and al Qaeda."      On Iraq, Mr. Mansingh said India supports the goals of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, which requires Saddam Hussein to disclose and dismantle his weapons of mass destruction.      "The issue of foremost concern to the people of the United States today is Iraq," he said.      "Naturally," he added, "it is our hope that the crisis can still be resolved peacefully and that whatever further action is contemplated against Iraq will be undertaken with the authority of the United Nations."      Mr. Mansingh said India is worried about the economic consequences of a war in Iraq.      "In calculating the costs of war, one must not ignore its potential impact on the stability and economy of the region and, indeed, on the well-being and security of the long-suffering Iraqi people," he said.      "India has special concerns arising from the presence of millions of our expatriates who live and work in the Gulf region, from threat to the security of oil supplies and [from the] volatility that could follow military action."            Maisto to OAS      John Maisto, former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and now a Latin America specialist at the National Security Council, is expected to be nominated to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, an administration source said.      Mr. Maisto would replace Roger Noriega, who is awaiting Senate confirmation on his nomination to the post of assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.      Mr. Maisto's pending nomination has upset conservatives who see him as soft on leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. As ambassador to Venezuela, Mr. Maisto privately assured members of Congress that Mr. Chavez should not be taken seriously.      "Now look at Venezuela," the administration source said, referring to the recent widespread protests against Mr. Chavez that crippled the country's vital oil industry.            New embassy in Kenya      The United States next week will dedicate a new embassy in Kenya, four and a half years after the old one was destroyed in a terrorist bombing claimed by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.      The embassy, which has operated out of temporary quarters, said yesterday that three top State Department officials will attend a flag-raising ceremony at the new diplomatic complex in Gigiri, a suburb of the capital, Nairobi.      Grant S. Green Jr., undersecretary for management, will preside over the ceremony. He will be accompanied by Charles E. Williams, director of overseas buildings operations, and Walter H. Kansteiner III, assistant secretary of state for African affairs.      The new diplomatic complex will include a memorial to the 12 Americans and 201 Kenyans killed in the Aug. 7, 1998, bombing at the old embassy in downtown Nairobi. The massive blast injured 5,000 others.      A bomb on the same day damaged the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania and killed 11 Tanzanians.

To contact James Morrison, call 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison@washingtontimes.com.

news.pacificnews.org Commentary, Andrew Reding, Pacific News Service, Feb 24, 2003

The deaths of more than 23 people in Bolivia during protests and riots is but one sign of forces that threaten to tear apart Latin America, writes PNS Associate Editor Andrew Reding. Yet Washington's policies toward the region are making things worse, not better.

While Washington focuses almost all its attention on a country half a world away, the Americas are falling apart. The recent slaughter of police and civilian protesters by Bolivian troops is but the latest in a long string of warning signals. And misguided U.S. policies are squarely to blame.

Bolivia is in some ways a microcosm of what ails the region. Latin America has by far the highest degree of inequality of any region of the world. One reason is that the poor -- mainly indigenous and Afro-American populations -- continue to be without meaningful access to basic services, including education. Absent domestic and foreign public investment to equalize opportunities, market forces tend to accentuate the gap between rich and poor rather than spread prosperity throughout the society.

In Bolivia, most of the Aymara population remains barely literate and bound to the land. As it has for centuries, it continues to cultivate the coca plant. Traditionally, coca leaves were merely chewed for the mild high they gave the consumer. Today, however, the leaves fetch a much better price from traffickers who process them into cocaine for the U.S. market.

As in Colombia and other Andean countries, the United States has responded with aerial eradication of coca crops. It is arguable whether this has any impact on the availability of cocaine in the U.S. What is unarguable is that it is robbing the poor of their livelihood. No other crop will fetch anywhere near the price.

While offering negligible levels of direct foreign assistance, the United States is indirectly putting a budget squeeze on La Paz, through conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund. The attempt by President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada to meet those constraints by raising taxes triggered the recent violence, and has caused much of the middle class, including striking police officers, to join coca farmers in protests demanding his ouster.

Compounding the damage was the White House statement following the La Paz massacre, reaffirming President Bush's "strong support" for the discredited president. That support is in sharp contrast to the administration's condemnations of President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela following similar shootings of demonstrators.

To Latin American eyes, Bush's inconsistent behavior is a sign of acute partisanship: Sánchez de Lozada's ties are with the elite, whereas Chávez is a populist who appeals to the poor. Bush is seen as trying to export a born-again Reaganite ideology that favors the wealthy over the poor to Latin America, where the gap between rich and poor is already explosive.

The explosion has already occurred in Colombia, which is torn by civil war, and in neighboring Venezuela, which is on the edge of civil war. Tensions are festering in Argentina, which suffered an economic collapse after the Bush administration made a deliberate decision not to extend the sort of lifeline President Clinton had earlier offered to rescue Mexico. Argentina had been the United States' most loyal ally under President Carlos Menem in the 1990s; now, after being betrayed by Washington, Argentines have become stridently anti-American.

A comparable shift is underway in Brazil, where voters recently elected socialist Lula da Silva -- a longtime critic of U.S. policies in the region and the world -- to the presidency in a landslide. Brazilians are frustrated by the failure of U.S.-led globalization and market liberalization policies to alleviate poverty. And they are angry about protectionist Bush administration trade policies that discriminate against Brazilian steel and citrus exports.

Even Bush's much-touted personal friendship with Mexican President Vicente Fox is fraying. The Mexican foreign minister recently resigned over the failure to secure a deal on migration. Fox is now suing the United States at the International Court of Justice to stop the execution of Mexican nationals, and his normally conservative National Action Party is proposing to change the country's official name from "United States of Mexico" to just plain "Mexico" -- symbolizing its exasperation with its northern neighbor and NAFTA partner.

When even conservative Mexicans begin questioning their relationship with the United States, it should act as a wake-up call at the White House. Current policies are fomenting rather than alleviating Latin America's socioeconomic pressures. This is not only undermining plans for hemispheric economic integration, but fanning the flames of anti-Americanism in the United States' own backyard, undermining the goal of ensuring "homeland security."

Reding (areding@earthlink.net) is senior fellow for hemispheric affairs at the World Policy Institute in New York