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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (166257)	7/31/2001 12:59:59 AM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Bush just says no Friday, July 27, 2001 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GERM WARFARE, nuclear missiles, small arms sales and global warming are worldwide problems solvable only by multinational treaties. Yet, in a string of actions, the White House unwisely has refused to join international efforts to curb such threats. The reasons range from defensible to ludicrous. But the end result is that President Bush has isolated himself in a diplomatic corner. His message: The world's No. 1 power wants to go it alone. By far the biggest blunder is Bush's refusal to curb global warming. The United States produces 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases as a by-product of the planet's biggest economy. Restrictions on U.S. industry carry a double-edged outcome: They could clean the world's atmosphere, but also slow economic growth on a huge scale. These large stakes should compel the White House to negotiate terms that would cut such pollution and safeguard American industry. Instead, Bush is walking away just as his representatives did at the latest round of talks over the Kyoto Protocol. With the United States on the sidelines, Japan, Canada and Australia won concessions to soften the economic costs of cutting emissions. A loose set of sanctions was adopted to woo other skeptical countries. Environmentalists endorsed the final product as a supportable compromise. Though the White House has pledged to come up with a substitute for the Kyoto pact, the damage is already done. A mistrustful, unwilling White House has backed away from a worldwide movement to control environmental damage. Kyoto isn't the only troubling sign. American negotiators watered down a United Nations' agreement to stem small arms sales that fuel dozens of brushfire wars around the globe. Think of child soldiers, guerrilla armies and the flood tide of refugees in central Africa, Colombia and Southeast Asia as problems exacerbated by handheld automatic weapons. The humane answer would be an international crackdown on arms traffickers. Incredibly, the United States opposed tough regulations as a possible hindrance to gun ownership back home. The most recent retreat from the international stage was a treaty limiting germ warfare. American negotiators claimed that foreign governments could misuse inspections to harass U.S. laboratories or steal industrial secrets. But 55 other signatory nations claimed the fears were overrated and could be handled in the future. In place of providing leadership to solve common problems, President Bush is doing the reverse. He is abdicating his global role and inviting anti- American sentiment.