Bush foreign policy has been shameful

Does anyone else find it repugnant to hear our president recently chastise Jimmy Carter and others for an openness to meet with Hamas, Syria, Iran?

This is the same president who called Prince Bandahar of Saudi Arabia to tell him of his intent to attack Saddam Hussein at the same time Colin Powell was in front of the U.N. saying we had no present intent to attack Hussein and were laser focused on Bin Laden.

Didn't Prince Bandahar himself confirm this discussion on national TV here?

Do we remember that the majority of 9/11 terrorists were Saudi nationals?

We continually turn the other cheek when it comes to Saudi Arabia. Over many years, we have heard in the media about the Saudi role of supporting terrorist groups like al Qaeda.

In a recent interview with a local radio station, former President Carter quoted a survey done of citizens of Israel noting that 65 percent supported a dialog with Hamas.

Carter also shared that he was part of a coalition sent by the U.S. to assure a fair and democratic election in Palestine and when the Palestinian people elected 60-plus percent of the Palestine parliament from the Hamas party, our president said he would not recognize the results. How democratic of him.

The Middle East is extremely fragile.

We have not defined a comprehensive foreign policy in the Middle East that should include multinational involvement and support, dialog with all who come to the table and lay down their arms to seek peace, economic sanctions and diplomacy.

The most difficult thing we as a nation should ever do is send our men and women into battle. In Iraq we did so with poor intelligence, hastily, almost unilaterally and with no sound plan in place.

I support the men and women put in harms way. I am ashamed of our leadership for doing so in such a weak and thoughtless way.

Joe Xanthopoulos

Buffalo Grove