In his Feb. 8 column, “The secret of McCain’s big success: George Bush,” Charles Krauthammer closes his observations with the statement, “Bush remains popular in his party [because of] his singular achievement: he’s kept us safe.” Would that it were so!

The biggest threat to our security is the ever-growing mountain of dollars accumulating in the Persian Gulf states, China and a multitude of other countries. Several of these nations could start a run on the dollar that might well be catastrophic. (The dollar has already dropped in value by 40 percent when compared with the Euro). With a run on the dollar, even our friends would be tempted to sell dollars for Euros and Yen. Our ability to refinance our debt could be crippled and our ability to find borrowers for new debt could become near impossible, and, in the worst case, drive interest rates and inflation to obscenely high levels.

What is fueling this massive increase in dollars accumulating in foreign capitals and foreign banks? Two things. One, our ever-growing national debt based on deficit financing. We don’t pay as we go, we borrow as we go. That borrowing is increasingly from foreign nations, foreign banks and foreign security dealers. Two, our trade imbalance – we buy too many foreign goods (sending dollars abroad) and sell too few goods (failing to reclaim our dollars from foreigners).

Bush has made each situation worse. In the name of security he has dragged us into very costly wars against nations that had no ability to attack us at home. Did anyone realistically think that Afghanistan or Iraq was going to launch nuclear missiles against us? Put together a naval armada to sail across the seas and invade New York, Florida, or California? Get real; these wars were all about Bush’s embarrassment over 9-11 and pressure on him to finish the job of subduing Iraq that his father and Dick Cheney failed to do. He then aided and abetted the real enemy, our massive debt, by not asking the American people to pay for these wars with current tax dollars. On the contrary, he urged making tax cuts to wealthy citizens permanent.

With respect to trade, Bush did little to stem our massive need to buy foreign oil and ship billions upon billions of dollars to Persian Gulf states. Imagine our problem should al-Qaida undermine the royal family and take over Saudi Arabia. Nor did Bush help us get truly committed to energy efficiency and energy sufficiency. Nor did he help us mobilize the vast human capacity of this great nation to solve economic, technological and social problems and restore our reputation among the nations as a great republic and a friend to people everywhere. Under Bush respect for America is at an all time low in all but two or three countries in the world.

Finally, Bush did nothing to help us recognize that war, as a means of securing us against terrorism, is counterproductive. War and occupation in the Gulf feed the radical Islamic view that we are the “Great Satan.” It motivates terrorists and is a great recruiting tool for them.

One key to success in overcoming terrorism will be rebuilding America into a great and compassionate nation whom people of goodwill everywhere will once again admire and befriend. This renewal will require investment in roads and bridges, in education and technology, in solving the problem of energy efficiency and energy sufficiency. Shifting expenditures from foreign wars to national renewal would be a major step in the right direction.

Far from keeping us safe, Bush has made us more vulnerable.

Matthew Arnett is a town councilor in Hampden.