Across the globe, Marquette graduates are making important contributions to the world around us. Far away in the Asian nation of Georgia, Marquette alumnus John Tefft is currently serving as the United States Ambassador. As the ambassador to a foreign nation, Tefft acts as the personal representative of the President of the United States. Promoting United States foreign policy in Georgia, ensuring all United States Embassy work follows that policy, and educating the government in Washington on Georgian issues are all part of Ambassador Tefft’s position.

Tefft’s career began when he graduated from Marquette with a bachelors degree, and went on to earn a master’s degree in history from Georgetown University. His career in Foreign Services began in 1972, and he has since served in numerous posts around the world. Tefft was not new to his role as ambassador when he was appointed to Georgia. Prior to his July 2004 appointment, he had served the United States for three years as Ambassador to Lithuania. Before his service as Lithuanian Ambassador, he spent extensive time serving the United States in Europe and Asia. Tefft witnessed the breakdown of the Soviet Union while employed as the United States’ Deputy Director of the Office of Soviet Union Affairs. Afterwards, he continued to work in Russia as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

Tefft’s extensive knowledge of Russia became increasingly important this past August, when fighting broke out between Georgian and Russian troops in the disputed Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The majority of international governing bodies, including NATO and the European Union, consider both South Ossetia and Abkhazia to be within Georgian territory. However, the territories have been defiant to Georgian rule since the country’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and both regions are recognized as independent states by Russia and Nicaragua. Though Russia has recently signed a ceasefire and removed its troops from Georgian soil, its actions were perceived by many around the world as attempt to regain both territories. Press releases from Tefft’s embassy reiterate the United States’ strong support of Georgian territorial integrity.

Despite the ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian troops, Tefft’s recent days have been far from calm. Last week, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and other NATO permanent representatives traveled to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to speak with Georgian elected officials about the country’s bid to become a NATO member. Georgia, with the support of the United States, has been seeking NATO membership throughout Tefft’s tenure as Ambassador, and has set this year, 2008, as it’s target year for membership.

This visit highlights a culmination of over two years of US Foreign Mission work to ensure Georgia presents itself as a suitable candidate for NATO membership. Of greatest concern has been fulfilling NATO’s requirement that Georgian military and government be under democratic control. Tefft called evidence of a fully democratic nation a “critical part of Georgia’s establishing that it is in fact a good candidate to be a member of NATO and to contribute to NATO.” Consequently, the United State’s embassy has become involved voter-education campaigns and agreed to participate in a parallel vote tally to ensure fair results for Georgia’s recent parliamentary and presidential elections.

Although he expresses his full support for peaceful and democratic rule in Georgia, Tefft recently reiterated that the majority of the responsibility lies with Georgians.
“Fundamentally the future of Georgian democracy depends on both sides, the opposition and the party in power, being able to find out and resolve these problems themselves,” he said.
Thus the challenges continue for Tefft and the nation of Georgia. Yet despite the difficult challenges and high stakes of his position as an Ambassador, Tefft declares, “I have high hopes for myself and my team at the Embassy in helping Georgia build a democratic nation.”

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A brutal Islamic dictatorship kills its own people. Nearly a half a million people dead, millions more displaced. Are we talking about Iraq? While it may sound like it, we are actually talking about Darfur. The calls for an end to violence in this war-torn nation have been ceaseless for over a year now, ever since the Bush administration called it a genocide.

Groups like Save Darfur and the Darfur Action Coalition along with 170 other organizations and celebrities nationwide are petitioning the international community to act, to take the moral high ground and to send “peacekeepers” to end the civil war.

There’s even a student group (the Marquette Darfur Action Coalition) working right now on campus to pressure the administration to divest from the region. Our very own democratic congresswoman from the fourth district, Gwen Moore even joined in the fun, protesting in front of the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C. (until she was arrested for unlawful assembly).

Are misinformed college students and uneducated anti-war celebrities really the right people to head up a save Darfur campaign, though? What are the goals even? Divestment seems like a good idea since it puts targeted economic pressure on unethical profiteering.

Divestment will ultimately not work, though. A few universities and charities deciding not to buy things from multinational corporations will barely make a dent in their profits. Even if the entire nation divested from Sudan, other countries would pick up the slack.

The only other option to ending the violence is military involvement. It is slightly ironic, though, that the same antiwar “peace advocates” derailing “American Imperialism” and calling for a pull-out in Iraq want the United States to war in Darfur for the same muddled objectives and unclear goals that we went in to Iraq for.

Let’s look at the precedent. In 1993, The United States tried to end the bloodshed in Somalia. The situation quickly deteriorated and after the black hawk down incident, we had to pull out. After over a decade of civil war, today Somalia is again embroiled in conflict as radical Islamic factions try to overtake the country. Should we intervene there? Or how about in the ongoing genocide in Chechnya or Kurdistan or in the half dozen or so African states now engaged in war? The U.S. cannot engage itself in every humanitarian crisis in the world.

Even if the United States were to “intervene” it would be nearly impossible to secure the peace. Imagine a region the size of California, covered in sand. Tanks would sink into the dessert while aerial strikes would be ineffectual against roving militia on horseback. Ground troops would be the only option. But are we really willing or even capable of sending tens of thousands of American soldiers to Africa?

But wait, the difference here is that the mission would be multilateral. The great moral authority that is the U.N. will swoop down and save the downtrodden of the earth in a flurry of blue helmets. The idea is absurdly simple-minded.

The rest of the world doesn’t care about Darfur. Europe may pay lip service to the problem, but neither France nor any of the European Union countries are interested in sending any real military might. And let’s not forget that two of the five United Nations Security Council members, China and Russia, get vast amounts of oil from the same corrupt Sudanese government murdering its own people. Any U.N. vote would be immediately vetoed.

The situation in Darfur is far more complex than the sound bites and liberal propaganda would have you believe. The fact there is genocide going on is unquestionable. But there is also civil war and a host of other issues. Instead of focusing our energies on Darfur, we should concentrate on a conflict that we are already engaged in and actually have the ability to win. Instead of “Save Darfur,” how about “Save Iraq?”

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It is accepted as common knowledge that the Global War on Terror is erroneous and has resulted in disaster. Yet, this isn’t necessarily true. You see, reasonable men can disagree about wither going into Iraq was a good or bad decision, but one shouldn’t deny the positive outcomes. If we never mentioned the large number of positive results in Iraq, we risk belittling the reason that more than 3,000 servicemen and women have died. While the War on Terror has not been perfect, there have been innumerable beneficial consequences. Let’s take a step back and consider some facts.

The Kurdish people in Iraq’s northern third were being systematically dominated by the Hussein regime. In March 1988, Saddam gassed the Kurdish city of Halabja killing five thousand civilians – including women and children. In subsequent days, many more thousands were killed. The U.S. led invasion of Iraq in early 2003 liberated the Kurdish people from Saddam’s brutal regime. Consequently, the Kurdish people have increased their own civil rights and have experienced an unprecedented economic boom and democratic political stability.

Not one coalition soldier has been killed in the large region and much appreciation was given to the U.S. for this. Funded by the Kurdistan Regional Government, www.theotheriraq.com shows videos of Kurds literally thanking America for toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime. Americans are cheered there as liberators, no occupiers. Last week, on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Major General Benjamin Mixon, the Army’s commanding officer in Northern Iraq, said there were only between 60 and 70 American troops in Kurdistan, “there’s no need for American forces up there.”

Women in Iraq and Afghanistan have been liberated, too. Ian Klaus, a professor who taught in Kurdistan, tells of this phenomenon on the KRG-funded Web site: “I teach classes where there are as many women as there are men. Where women are no more hesitant or just as likely to raise their hands and offer an opinion as are the men.”

Surely this never would have happened in Iraq under Saddam Husein’s regime.

So, when liberals say that the War in Iraq has been the worst U.S. policy ever, it leads me to wonder where their values are. Their inability to concede any positives about Iraq shows that their hateful partisanship overrides any desire they have for a peaceful Iraq.

Are our country’s policies and goals so flimsy that when we have a rough spell in a place like Iraq, we simply pull out? I certainly hope not. Places like Kurdistan may pay the ultimate price for our politician’s weak intestinal fortitude and selfish attempts too grab more power.

Many people say that knowing what we know now, they would not have supported the invasion of Iraq. World they say that to the 19-year-old woman in Kurdistan who is sitting in class for the first time?

Popularity: 4% [?]