8-19-05,10:25am

Today when we look at the outrages perpetrated by the Bush administration, its sins of commission – the disastrous Iraq war and the assault on the rule of law at home and abroad –come immediately to mind. For good reason: The mounting casualty count and continuing revelations about killings, torture and mistreatment of captives are daily reminders of the military and moral debacle into which George W. Bush has led this nation.

Yet, when the history of the period is written and the awful legacy of this presidency assessed, it may be that what the United States failed to do under Bush’s leadership that will loom as the larger disservice to this country and to the world.

The failure of this administration to act in cases in which it is in the power and in the interest of the United States to act is consistent and broad. Its indifference ranges across topics and areas of the world, and includes both urgent local crises and long-term global problems.

The administration’s halting, delayed reaction to last year’s tsunami – and the President’s lackadaisical response and miniscule initial offer of aid – are more characteristic of his administration’s true instincts in the face of incalculable and preventable human suffering than its belated actions after severe embarrassment and cajoling by the UN and the rest of the world.

The inertial scenario is now repeating itself with even more tragic consequences in Niger. Eight months ago, the international aid organizations, the United Nations and the government of Niger warned of an impending humanitarian catastrophe if aid was not forthcoming rapidly. Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, is suffering from drought and locust infestation. The UN asked for $16 million to avert disaster. The world, including the United States, turned a deaf ear.

The result is that now 3.5 million people, including 800,000 children, are in danger of dying. Finally, some aid is flowing after CNN and other media have shown the horrid consequences of the famine – the emaciated bodies of dying children. But many who could have been saved by a timely response will not make it. And the cost now of saving the lives of sick and severely malnourished children and adults is much higher than it would have been six months ago, which explains why this weekend the United Nations appealed for another $80 million in aid.

To be sure, in the case of Niger there is plenty of blame to go around. The nations of Europe have a greater historical responsibility – a continent they colonized and looted – than does the United States. They failed to act; even Tony Blair neglected to sound the alarm at this summer’s G-8 meeting, which focused on aid to Africa. The rich Arab countries could have helped their fellow Muslims in Niger as a matter of religious duty and human solidarity; $16 million or even $80 million would hardly put a dent in the net worth of many a Saudi potentate or Gulf state prince. But they did nothing.

Still, the United States, the sole superpower whose leaders unblushingly refer to this country as “the leader of the free world” and “the indispensable nation,” cannot shirk its responsibility. Not in a human catastrophe that could result in the deaths of 1,000 times more people than 9/11, one in which vigorous action by the United States could save hundreds of millions of people.

Power has its privileges, but indispensability has its responsibilities. When it comes to matters of war, this administration has hardly been reluctant to take the lead and even to try to drag others along. Not on Niger.

How hard would it be, even today, for George W. Bush to call his Cabinet together, to assign the Secretaries of State and Defense a simple mission: Save as many lives in Niger as humanly possible? What does $80 million represent to the United States, which soon will have spent $200 billion on the war in Iraq, in other words, $80 million 2,500 times, mainly to destroy rather than save lives?

It would be the right thing to do. For an administration that trumpets its moral clarity, what could show greater moral clarity than to strive to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of children? And, there is no doubt that U.S. leadership would make a great difference. Only the United States, in particular the U.S. military, has the kind of logistical and transport capabilities required at this late stage of the crisis.

It would be, moreover, a chance for this country to work hand-in-hand with the international community and to begin to repair its image in the world. What might be the impact in the Islamic world of watching as the United States spent its money and applied its energy in order to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Muslims? A trillion dollars of propaganda could not purchase so much good will. Yet, so far, President Bush has not ventured from the comfort of his ranch and stepped up to offer the solidarity and the assistance of the United States, notwithstanding devastating televised images of starving children.

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The Niger crisis is a microcosm of this administration’s indifference to calamities it perceives –erroneously in this increasingly interconnected world – are happening to other people. Despite all the hype and spin, the Bush administration’s response to an even larger catastrophe happening on the African continent – AIDS – also has been a study in inadequacy. The funds so far donated by the United States to fight the scourge of HIV-AIDS are much less than its share would have to be, to save millions of lives. The United States under Bush – and under Clinton as well – has failed to lead on the problem of our times. And, on more than one occasion, the misguided moralism of the right-wingers in the Republican Party, who now control the White House and the Congress, has helped make matters worse.

If this administration has failed miserably to address AIDS, the holocaust of the early 21st century, the biggest sin of omission by the Bush administration, in the view of future generations, may turn out to be its recalcitrance, obstructionism and advocacy of inaction on the question of global warming.

In the face of an almost universal consensus among scientists and world leaders – not least among them Bush’s leading supporter, Tony Blair – that global warming is a critical threat to the environment that must be addressed now, this administration has done nothing but delay and dissemble. Or worse than nothing; it has attempted to systematically undermine any and all effective international agreements.

This country consumes one quarter of the world’s non-renewable resources and spews out 21 percent of the planet’s carbon dioxide emissions. Yet our government refuses to do anything to curb pollution of the atmosphere or to conserve scarce resources. Instead, we give big tax breaks to the owners of the least fuel-efficient vehicles and to the oil companies, opt out of international agreements to curb emissions, and work to water down the language of environmental resolutions coming out of multilateral meetings.



Why do they hate us? The resistance of the United States, specifically of this blood and oil-soaked administration, to effectively combat global warming harms the whole world and dooms international efforts to fight the problem of climate change to insignificance. Taking a pass on global warming is one more way in which George W. Bush has managed to generate global resentment against the United States and ultimately may prove to be this administration’s greatest crime against humanity