Jet lag can harm the decision-making of Presidents & PM’s

I don’t know if it’s a good idea for Presidents and Prime Ministers to be travelling too often – whether on state visits, working trips, or to attend summits and other conferences. Long journeys result in "jet lag", i.e. the disruption of the body’s biological clock, mental disorientation, and the clouding of judgment.

This sort of travel weariness frequently occasions defective decision-making.

As soon as our President GMA, for instance, came home from a successful United States visit, she had to cope with the disastrous effects of Typhoon Chedeng, further clashes with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an inquiry into the terrible collision at sea of two vessels, and an ocean of other troubles. Without having had enough time to shrug off the ennui and exhaustion of jet lag, however, she’s off to Seoul in the Republic of South Korea this noon.

From Seoul, unless indignation over Japanese Ambassador Kojiro Takano’s insulting remarks prompts her to cancel or postpone her pilgrimage to Japan, she’ll hop over to Tokyo.

What’s the rationale of those two journeys, one on top of the other? Surely, "getting to know you" and the dispensing of good cheer and a feeling of neighborliness are not undertakings to be discounted. But what else can be accomplished by those meanderings? That’s the question, really.

Aside from trade and traditional friendship, of course, South Korea’s strategic importance cannot be underestimated. Nor is the current military situation. While the bellicose Communist Dear Leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, North Korea, was "shocked" and awed" by America’s rapid destruction of Saddam Insane’s Iraqi hegemony, the North Koreans are still threatening to unsheath nuclear terror. Do we doubt that Pyongyang already possesses nukes? The North Koreans have expelled international nuclear inspectors, broken the seals on thousands of fuel rods, and restarted their Yongbyon Reactor.

In this light, Seoul, South Korea, is a capital under threat – and it’s just a few miles from the demarcation line, the DMZ, separating South from North.

I’m certain that our President is in no danger, since Pyongyang is obviously eager for negotiations rather than war, but was her trip to Seoul really necessary? We understand the purpose of the sortie – with a 41-member official delegation in tow – is mainly to sign three bilateral agreements covering the areas of legal coordination, energy and finance. The appropriate Cabinet members could have done that.

True, it’s the first "state visit" by a head of state to the new South Korean President, Roh Moo-hyun. Unfortunately, President Roh has at this time so much on his plate that during their meetings he might be absent-minded. In sum, the timing of that visit, alas, is uncomfortable.

Last Saturday’s front-page article in the International Herald Tribune carried the headline: "ROH FIGHTS FOR HIS POLITICAL LIFE".

The report, datelined Seoul by IHT Correspondent Howard W. French says that "barely three months into his five-year term, President Roh Moo-hyun is already fighting for his political life." The article said Roh "spent the better part of an hour in a hastily-organized nationally-televised news conference Wednesday night, fending off allegations of corruption involving real estate and using political influence in business".

He made "an extraordinary plea for the public’s trust".

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In sum, GMA may only find poor Mr. Roh somewhat distracted – and her arrival a mite distracting to him as well.

The Herald Trib cited "recent weeks of almost unrelenting bad news for Roh." It added that "South Korea is famously a county of people in a hurry, with a cut-throat political culture. But the speed with which knives were drawn against Roh has surprised many here, no one more than Roh himself. He has recently expressed misgivings about the presidency himself, and wondered. But only rhetorically, his aides insist, whether he would be able to continue in the job."

"The nation’s functions have become paralyzed." Roh was quoted as saying "because everyone is trying to resolve things with their strength… A president cannot concede to everything. With all this strain I am beginning to think I can no longer be president."

Oh, well. Perhaps, considering Roh’s above-mentioned comments, GMA and the Korean President can commise-rate with and console each other, when they meet in the Blue House (their equivalent of Malacañang Palace).

I met and interviewed Mr. Roh last September when he was still just a candidate for the presidency and the December elections were far away. The meeting had taken place in the Shilla Palace Hotel, and had been arranged by the most influential daily newspaper, the Joong Ang Ilbo, which – ironically – has now become one of Roh’s most relentless critics. I found Roh, the anointed candidate of then President Kim Dae-jung, to be brilliant and charming, but, admittedly, I didn’t believe he could win since Kim’s popularity had miserably waned and Roh himself, a 56-year-old labor lawyer, had scant experience as a one-term member of parliament and a minor Cabinet official. He seemed a political nobato. Yet, riding on a last-minute upturn in anti-American feeling, Roh had eked out a surprising two-percent victory over his more hardline, anti-North Korean opponent.

Now, on the other hand, Roh’s updated version of his predecessor’s "sunshine policy" towards Pyongyang is, owing to Kim Jong-il’s sabre-rattlings, in tatters.

In a PR effort to make President Macapagal-Arroyo’s trips to South Korea and Japan appear more important, the Palace has announced that GMA will discuss the issue of North Korea and its threat to the security of the region with the leaders of both countries.

The President will, indeed, lay a wreath at the Korean War Memorial Monument next Wednesday, to pay tribute to the PEFTOK (Philippine Expeditionary Forces) sent to Korea to fight in 1950. This underscores the ties that bind out two countries – that of comradeship on the battlefield in the defense of freedom. (GMA must not forget that there’s another monument, near the DMZ at Panmunjon specifically dedicated to our Filipino soldiers who fought and died in the Korean War. FVR was, of course – yes, former President Ramos, a young platoon leader, a lieutenant fresh out of West Point and into the Philippine Army – in that conflict).

The war, which was triggered by North Korea’s assault on the South of June 6, 1950, and drew the People’s Republic of China into its first confrontation with the US, and other United Nations allies (including the Philippines), ended on July 27, 1953. The US lost more than 50,000 men in the fighting – meaning, 37,904 dead plus 12,939 missing in action, thereby presumed dead – and 101,368 wounded. Other UN contingents including our own lost 4,521 dead. (Among the fatalities were 537 Brits and 312 Canadians.) South Korea lost 103,248 slain, 159,727 wounded.

The US high command estimated that North Korea lost 316,579 killed, and China lost 422,612. It was also calculated that two million civilians, both north and south, were killed or wounded.

Beijing’s own published figures were 401,401 killed and 21,211 missing.

Another war in the Korean Peninsula would be even more destructive, perhaps – if nuclear weapons were used by the rogue regime in Pyongyang. But that’s not likely.

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Everybody’s travelling these days. After flying to St. Petersburg to attend the 300th anniversary celebrations in that beautiful Russian city – one of my favorite places in the world – (the hometown of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin), GMA’s recent host, US President George W. Bush arrived yesterday aboard Air Force One in Geneva, then choppered over to the nearby resort town of Evian-les-Bains, on the French side of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) to attend the G-8 summit.

In St. Petersburg, Bush had made "peace" with Putin, one of the foremost critics – in league with France and Germany – of America’s and Britain’s attack on Iraq. Now, he’s facing French President Jacques Chirac, who’s playing host to the Group of 7 (plus Russia), the organization of leading economic powers.

Bush has made no effort to disguise the fact that he’s "disappointed" with and irritated by Mr. Chirac.

Will the meeting with Chirac be frosty? The photographers are waiting to record that important moment and flash the handshake or frown all over the planet. Will Bush be cordial to his other critic, Germany’s Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder? The extent or limit of Dubya’s smile will likewise be examined by interested onlookers and kibitzers.

Bush will then zoom off to Egypt and Jordan, to try to jumpstart his "road map" for peace between Israelis and Palestinians (not much room for optimism there) and "dialogue" with Arab leaders on the situation in the Midde East.

America has indeed, by its conquest, restated its predominance as the world’s only superpower – and is more hated, I guess, for that. Poor Bush. It’s lonely at the top, being feared, hated, despised, and asslicked, at the very same time.

Until we get those pictures from Evian, I won’t speculate further. Let me just say that Evian – which is more renowned worldwide for the bottled "Evian" water it exports from its Alpine springs (a household label by now, in every kitchen and restaurant) – has a very famous casino.

The G-8 leaders might do better to spend their time at the casino, since nothing much of a multilateral nature may be accomplished at their sessions, given the poisoned international atmosphere of the moment. (In truth, the Iraq crisis saw the re-emergence of the nation-state, rather than "globalism" and "multilateralism". It revealed that it’s still every-nation-for-itself rather than the Three Musketeers’ slogan, "one for all and all for one".)

My wife and I used to take the ferry boat – a roll-on-roll-off – from Geneva in Switzerland, across the lake, to Evian, which is in French territory. You rolled your car on the ferry, and then rolled off into Evian.

From Evian, one could drive to Chamonix, at the foot of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain peak in Europe (at 15,770 feet). Chamonix-Mont Blanc is the world capital of mountaineering where you can visit one of the great glaciers, the Mer de Glace.

But we didn’t go mountaineering. We would take the Tunnel Mont Blanc into Courmayeur on the Italian side of Val d’ Aosta (the Valley of Aosta) where we spent our holidays in either Courmayeur or the resort of Brouil-Cervinia on the slopes of the Matterhorn.

It’s enchanting countryside over there altogether – too charming an area in which to waste your time discussing the dreary subject of the world’s problems.