Editor,
I would like to point out a Sunday morning comment about our president's absence at the United Nation's Global Conference on Sustainable Development. The conference is dedicated to the environment and world poverty.
"Although his father attended Rio 10 years ago, U.S. president George W. Bush is not going to the Johannesburg summit this month. Multilateral initiatives are not his thing." [CNN, 8/25/02]
During the 2000 election, people asked what difference there would be with Bush or Gore in the White House. Gore would have gone to the conference. Issues such as world poverty and the environment are not priorities of the Bush administration. Bush is increasing our military spending, pounding his chest with war plans for Iraq, but most sadly, taking time out for a month long vacation in the midst of this tumultuous time in the world. Few people question the fact he is using this period, at taxpayer expense, to visit states like New Mexico to raise millions of dollars for Republican candidates.
Related to the conference, CNN adds, "If the U.S. doesn't play a major role at the summit, who will? With the trickiest part of the agenda yet to be agreed, there's hope that Europe - with its strong environmental tradition - will give things a push."
We are missing an opportunity to be a world leader in this area. We are allowing power to shift to Europe. Increasingly, European nations are distancing themselves from the U.S. in the War on Terror. They view Bush as a simple - and uneducated -cowboy.
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Currently, there are a dozen military hot spots around the world. Earlier Sunday, news reports noted U.S. concern about Russia's bombing of Georgia. We have military action of significance all around us. None of these are going away quickly. At the heart of each of these conflicts are basic issues of poverty, employment and basic human needs.
Rather than building more bombs, rather than taking time out for vacation or fund raising, we need a president willing to take a world leadership position that addresses the root of these problems. The U.S. can feed the world or destroy it. I ask readers to decide which side they are on.
We face a critical juncture in our nation's - and the world's - evolution. I urge every American to follow the activities at the Johannesburg conference. See what Bush missed at http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/.
Scott Goold
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