President Bush would have Americans believe their greatest threat is Saddam Hussein. That is not the case.
The biggest threat to America’s safety lies in countries eager to become havens and breeding grounds for terrorist groups.
War and political uprisings are raging in Asia, Africa, Europe and South America. The only continent not plagued by famine, torture, war crimes, terrorism or poverty is Antarctica.
The African continent, specifically, has been scourged by decades of famine and civil war.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Angolan civil war has waged on for 27 years, with 1.5 million people killed, 130,000 people mutilated and four million others misplaced. After several failed attempts at peace, the U.N. Security Council has mediated another peace resolution.
Angola is not alone. The divided countries in Africa and around the globe suffer from poverty, disease and weak or nonexistent governments. Identical conditions facilitated the prosperity of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The conflict between the United States and Iraq is simply part of the big world picture-not the entire portrait.
The U.S. government knows this. Yet, rather than become proactive about global threats, the United States continues to react to situations that could have been diffused years ago.
For example, Americans are in a state of alert because the U.S. government failed to act in Afghanistan, left unfinished business in Iraq and overlooked North Korea.
Small fires appear insignificant until they merge into an inferno.
That is the big picture.
The United States must bring peace and economic development to war-torn countries. Otherwise, America will resort to war to fix problems that have festered until there appears to be no alternatives.
Augustine Rho for The Famuan.