Witnesses, victims and citizens of the world

The bottom has fallen out of August and summer is trickling down. A silver half moon twinkles through aspen leaves as smoke from forest fires sets a pink glow on the western edge of a yet starless midnight blue sky. This Montana summer has been glorious.

Sitting here on our porch in Missoula, the troubles on the flickering screen in the living room seem impossibly removed. Wars, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, starvation, fiscal calamity and floods cannot pierce this peace - and yet they do. As Mike Mansfield once noted, "Montana may be an oasis, but it is not an island." Our nation's and the world's troubles have enveloped our city, our families. No longer distant threats, today's troubles have affected each of us.

Beginning 10 years ago, our men and women fight and die in mistaken wars a world away, our brothers and sisters seek non-existent jobs, friends have lost their hard-won investments, including their diminishing retirement funds. Governments strive to assist us amid incessant criticism from an increasingly organized citizen fringe.

Americans, more angrily partisan than at any time in 80 years, wonder why the U.S. Congress, those who represent us, have difficulty finding compromise. The number of troops fighting in Iraq's dead-end war is rising again to 3,000. Afghanistan is a mess, Iran an impossible puzzle, Syria a genuine threat.

For each mother, father and sister killed by an American drone missile, there is a young Muslim brother promising future revenge.

Even in this financial downturn, small businesses take financial risks and wonder if they are wise as they watch the largest corporations hoarding rather than investing hundreds of billions of dollars. As emerging world markets gain traction, America sinks to fifth place in global economic competitiveness. Following short summer vacations, the President and the Congress have returned to Washington, D.C., with national unemployment above 9 percent and public approval ratings at only the mid-40s for the President and mid-20s for members of the Congress.

Each day's news features weather catastrophes - drought in our own Southwest and throughout southern Africa, a deadly tsunami devastates the Japanese economy, hurricanes cause wind and devastating flood damage in New England that has displaced almost 200,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of Africans are dying of starvation.

This is arguably the first time in any of our lives that we have been bombarded by so many problems at home and abroad. Yes, the troubling news is now brought to us in one-minute updates around the clock.

But it is more than that. The world has changed and for now, at least, troubles dominate, and we are all both witnesses and victims. Each of us lives in historically difficult times, and as never before, we have become citizens of the world.

Pat Williams served nine terms as a U.S. Representative from Montana. After his retirement, he returned to Montana and is teaching at the University of Montana.