MYTH: Tony Blair is trying to snooker W. into agreeing to fight global warming and to make this a top priority, even though global warming isn’t a big threat

 

Behind their brave common front on Iraq shown the world by Tony Blair and George W. Bush in Washington last week, the British prime minister is orchestrating an aggressive campaign to force the president to retreat on climate change. Blair and the other European leaders are aiming at next month's G8 industrial summit in Scotland as the last good chance to get the United States to back the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gases. (Robert Novak, “Blair Turns Up Global Warming Heat,” Chicago Sun-Times, 6/13/05)

 

Blair is working behind friend Bush's back trying to turn him on Kyoto. Blair secretly has lobbied U.S. senators, and British officials are collaborating with American environmentalist advocates. Lord May of Oxford, president of the British Royal Society, was able to persuade science academies from 10 other countries (including the United States) to demand ''prompt action'' on global warming. Congress is closer than ever to enacting fossil fuel restrictions. (Novak)

 

We're not sure what motivated Tony Blair's visit this week to the White House; he came to town with a losing hand--and played it. The British Prime Minister wants President Bush to commit the U.S. to billions in debt relief to the world's poorest countries through a mechanism called the International Finance Facility, which the Administration rightfully considers a nonstarter. Mr. Blair also wants the U.S. to sign on to his views on global warming. This is tilting at windmills in more ways than the Prime Minister may realize. (Editorial, “The Copenhagen Solution,” Wall Street Journal, 6/11/05)

 

REALITY

Global warming most certainly is occurring and to suggest otherwise is feckless. The Bush administration should step alongside the rest of the world and recognize this as a real problem. While it is not outside the realm of possibility that some of the warming that the earth is currently experiencing is perfectly natural and a part of the earth’s lifecycle, it is completely naïve to believe that our increased use of carbon-based fuels (which emit green house gasses) such gas-guzzling SUVs and coal-burning plants are not speeding up the global warming process.

 

The Sierra Club’s website features a wealth of information about the existence and persistence of global warming. In particular they have a report on the effect that SUVs have on global warming. This report cites that “America's cars and light trucks alone produce nearly 20 percent of U.S. CO2 pollution.” As America’s cars get bigger and bigger, the amount of CO2 they produce also goes up. This means there is even more CO2 being spewed into the atmosphere, which will in turn increase the greenhouse effect and lead to even more global warming.

 

Even the Bush Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) admits that global warming is a very real and dangerous problem that the world must face. A recent EPA report states that: 

[R]ising global temperatures are expected to raise sea level, and change precipitation and other local climate conditions. Changing regional climate could alter forests, crop yields, and water supplies. It could also affect human health, animals, and many types of ecosystems. Deserts may expand into existing rangelands, and features of some of our National Parks may be permanently altered.

 

So why would Republicans and the Bush Administration spit in the face of science and risk global catastrophe to perpetuate the use of energy sources that help support despotic Middle Eastern regimes, many of which support terrorism. Gee, could it because the Enron, Halliburton administration is bought and paid for by the oil industry? Remember the Halliburton contracts in Iraq? Remember the Enron contributions to Bush-Cheney?

The longer the right denies the realities global warming, the worst the problem will become. And the more people like the inhabitants of the island nation of Tuvalu, who have been determined to be the first nation that will fall victim to rising sea levels, will suffer. Tony Blair and the rest of the G8 leaders ought to be commended for trying to corral the United States to take steps to reduce greenhouse emissions and to take the global warming threat seriously.

 

MYTH: The United States should not help developing third-world countries by offering them debt relief

 

The British Prime Minister wants President Bush to commit the U.S. to billions in debt relief to the world's poorest countries through a mechanism called the International Finance Facility, which the Administration rightfully considers a nonstarter. (Editorial, “The Copenhagen Solution,” Wall Street Journal, 6/11/05)

 

But the world is not perfect, and the financial resources available for any such project are not infinite. Mr. Blair wants to see the annual development budget of the richest countries boosted to about 0.7% of GDP. We have our doubts on that score--what the developing world needs is better governance, not aid. (Editorial)

 

Right now, the USA gives about $19 billion a year to help poor countries all over the world, far more than any other nation. America's also fighting a brutal war against terrorists, while most other countries sit it out. Our cost for that is enormous. So anyone who tells you that we are not doing our part to make the world a better place is a deceiver. There is no question that America's image in much of the world is bad. That's caused by a dishonest press, combined with President Bush's passive public relations stance. For whatever reason, the president is not very engaged in winning hearts and minds. (Bill O’Reilly, “Giving Money to Poor Africans,” Fox News, 6/8/05)

 

REALITY

Why should the United States help poor, third-world nations get out of their bottomless amounts of debt they have amassed over the years from loans granted by international organizations, such as the World Bank and the IMF, to help them fight poverty. Despite all of these loans and all the “help” from these organizations and various governments around the world, many of these countries still find themselves with large populations and suffering from abject poverty and disease. But it is the countries’ own faults right? Wrong.

 

Now, in fairness to some of the debt-relief critics, the presence of debt is not the sole reason many of the African nations that are scheduled to receive debt relief are in their current states of poverty. For many debt-ridden countries, their corrupt governments are the real source of their failures. The World Bank has proven that in countries where the Bank has forced corruption to decrease, such in Indonesia, or where the country has been blessed with honest, smart leaders, such as Uganda, poverty-reduction efforts have been more successful. The other major obstacle for many African nations is the HIV/AIDS crisis. With a vast portion of the working-age adult population being stricken or killed from this virus, the productivity of these nations is greatly diminished. Families that once were able to grow their own food, struggle to do so, because their able-bodied adult children and offspring are dying or too sick to tend the fields. African nations getting a firm grasp on the HIV/AIDS epidemic would go a long ways towards improving these countries’ standard-of-living and lifting their populations out of poverty.

 

Regardless of these obstacles, the United States absolutely must step up and help these African nations with debt relief. To put the U.S.’ current development spending in context, consider these numbers: the US spent $7 billion from 2001-2003 on payments to the families of 9/11 victims, in an effort to save the airlines from lawsuits; in 2005 the US will spend $32 billion on homeland security; the US has spent nearly $270 billion on the Iraq quagmire; independent of the Iraq money, the US will spend roughly $500 billion on defense in 2005; and the Bush tax cuts will rob the US Treasury of over $200 billion in revenue in 2005 alone. Compare all of these huge numbers to the amount of money that the US spends on development every year--$15 billion ($3.2 billion to Africa), or roughly 0.16% of its annual GDP. That’s it. 22 other countries give a larger percentage of their GDP than the US does. It is estimated that 1 billion people in this world are so poor that every day they have to fight for their very survival, whether because of disease or hunger. Another 1.5 billion may not have to worry about dying tomorrow, but still suffer from levels of poverty that most Americans could never comprehend. That means 2.5 billion people, or 40% of the planet, suffer from extreme levels of poverty. So how much money does the United States give each poor person per year? $6 per year—that is $0.50/month and a little over $0.01/day. Wow, aren’t we generous? Aside from the moral imperative, which is in fact paramount, and not naive, it is in our national interest to reduce human suffering around the world. Poverty, disease, and despair are fertile breeding grounds for tyrants and terrorists. The costs of inaction tomorrow will far exceed the costs of intelligent work today

 

The United States has to step up to the plate and do a better job of helping those people in the world who, unfortunately, have a hard time helping themselves. It’s the least we can do. And if the US doesn’t step up to the plate? W. and Condi can expect to be paid a visit by Bono.

 

MYTH: The treatment of “enemy combatants” by U.S. military personnel at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay is a fine example of the United States military’s treatment of prisoners of war

 

The "Blame America First" crowd is wielding the whip. The target: Camp Delta, the U.S. Military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Spurred by a false story in Newsweek and then Amnesty International's unsupported charge that it is the "gulag of our times," Guantanamo and the people it houses have become the left's latest "cause celeb." Kofi Annan, Old Europe's old leaders, Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and most of the so-called mainstream media have now declared that the facility must be closed. (Oliver North, “Unilateral Self-Flagellation: Media Makes the U.S. Look Like the Bad Guys,” Human Events, 6/13/05)

 

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., thinks that the United States' detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world." Biden told ABC's "This Week" that "we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners. Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we don't, let go." Biden wants Congress to appoint a commission to study Guantanamo, but the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee seems to have no clue what the practical consequences of his suggestion would be. (Linda Chavez, “Sen. Biden is Clueless About Guantanamo,” Human Events, 6/8/05)

 

We captured more than 10,000 people in Afghanistan. Roughly 750 ended up at Gitmo — exactly because we had reason to keep them. The number now is down to 500, as cases are constantly reviewed. Unfortunately, the release process isn’t perfect…. (Rich Lowry, “Close Gitmo?” Town Hall, 6/14/05)

 

Without Miranda warnings and all the rest of it, Gitmo defendants would very likely escape criminal charges on procedural grounds. Indeed, under our legal system, they would have reason to sue the U.S. government for unlawful imprisonment. In the Gitmo panic, the U.S. is taking a step toward becoming the first country in world history to prove itself incapable of the elemental act of self-defense of simply detaining its enemies. (Lowry)

 

REALITY

Sen. Durbin (D-IL) entered the following description of what is actually happening to the inmates at Camp X-Ray into the Congressional Record on Wed, June 15:

 

Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and

foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

 

Is this how the American people want their military behave and treat prisoners of war? (Of course the prisoners held at Camp X-Ray are not POWs, but enemy combatants. This allows the U.S. to conduct their incarceration and interrogation of these prisoners outside the bounds of the Geneva Convention. POWs have rights; enemy combatants do not—convenient, huh? I wonder what will happen when U.S. troops start to be held as “enemy combatants”?) Your debunker has been to Phnom Penh and seen the remnants of Pol Pot’s torturous regime. Just viewing the empty interrogation rooms of Tuol Sleng, the high school turned torture camp, and imagining the horrors that took place in them was enough to feel that certain rules and regulations as they pertain to the treatment of prisoners should be upheld, especially by the United States. We do not equate the United States with  the Khmer Rouge, Nazi Germany, or Stalin's Soviet Union. These brutal regimes tortured and killed their own citizens, and committed unimaginable atrocities. It is because we are not like them that we oppose the methods being used at Gitmo, and it is essential that voices raise those objections in a free society.

 

The litany of offenses committed by the US at Gitmo is immense. In addition to the torture cited above by Sen. Durbin, other well-known conduct breaches include the fact that many combatants have been held for years without having access to legal representation or even having been charged with a crime and the fact there are supposedly videos of torture perpetuated by U.S. military forces that the U.S. government fails to release. Think Abu Ghraib in real-time.

 

What it all comes down to is the question of the role the United States wants to play in the world. Obviously the current incarnation of the U.S. wants to be the king of the world. The Bush administration wants to determine which treaties are worth adhering to, which countries have the right to remain sovereign, and which prisoners of war are worthy enough to be POWs and thus be treated according to the Geneva Convention (oops, I guess Abu Ghraib proved that even POWs do not get treated according to the Geneva Convention by the U.S. military). But if we truly want to be leaders in this ever-increasing global society, we have to act like it. A good way to start this effort would be to transition the enemy combatants to POW status and treat them like people. Charge them, prosecute them if necessary, but give them the human decency that the we expect our own soldiers to receive if captured during a time of war.

 

Burying our heads in the sand and pretending Camp X-Ray is the way modern warfare should be conducted is not the answer to anything.