Shalrirorchia
10-10-2004, 20:43
My fellow Americans, my fellow Ohioans...in three weeks the nation heads to the polls to choose the next President of the United States. We stand at a crossroads the likes of which the country has never seen, and we must choose wisely the road we wish to tread. We stand at the very brink of catastrophe, and yet hope remains that America will make the right choice on Election Day.
Four years ago, I voted for Al Gore in the 2000 elections. Needless to say, I was disappointed that George W. Bush was victorious, but at the time I was not overly disturbed. Bush had seemed like a compassionate and moderate Republican, just like his father. Although I did not agree with his social and economic priorities, I DID give the Republican high marks on national security and international affairs. I advocated a strong hand to deal with the threats of the new century, and I believed that George Bush was the man do it.
After the 9-11 attacks, my convictions regarding George Bush's actions crystallized. I strongly supported his invasion of Afghanistan, and then his invasion of Iraq. When he told us that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I did not need any proof. When he told us that Al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein were working together, I needed no proof. The word of President George W. Bush was enough for me.
And then it all went horribly wrong.
I began to hear whispers and see small, telltale signs that Bush's actions did not entirely match his words. People were arrested under the authority of the Patriot Act and imprisoned without charge, without access to lawyers, without contact to the outside world, for however long the Bush government deemed it "necessary" to hold them. John Ashcroft, Bush's own Attorney General and the leader of the Justice Department, has been cited at least twice already for using the Patriot Act in ways that Congress had not authorized. Many of those detained were never charged with any crime at all, much less terrorism.
The war in Iraq began to go wrong. A top United States general who insisted that we needed more troops in Iraq was forced into retirement by the Bush Administration. Intelligence reports from the State Department surfaced suggesting that U.S. policy in Iraq was flawed....reports that President Bush ignored. I was horrified to hear that Bush had rushed into the war with Iraq -so- quickly that large numbers of U.S. soldiers did not even have body armor to protect them. Their parents had to go shopping on the internet to buy suitable armor and MAIL it to their sons and daughters serving over in the Middle East. And through it all, the Bush Administration kept assuring us that we were winning the war...even as terrorists launched attack after attack and allied nations began to leave the country. I continued to BELIEVE in President Bush's word on Iraq.
Then the reasons for going to war against Iraq began to change after the fact. First, we invaded Iraq to disarm Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Then, when we did not find any WMDs, we invaded because Saddam Hussein was working with Al-Qaida. When that claim was decisively disproven the new reason was, "To bring peace and freedom to the Iraqi people". 1,000 American fatalities later (not to mention the 10,000+ innocent Iraqi civilians who have so far been killed), large tracts of Iraq are no longer under U.S. control. Bandits roam freely creating a climate of lawlessness, and American soldiers are no longer the hunters....they are the hunted.
Do not mistake my purpose. The soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq are some of America's best, and not even the prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib can tarnish that completely. They fight for their nation even as their president flip-flops from one war rationale to another. They fight even though George W. Bush sent them in with insufficient equipment, intelligence, and numbers. It is not John Kerry who denigrates the soldiers in Iraq. but rather George Bush. Neither the President nor Dick Cheney are admitting the truth to the American public...either they can not or will not acknowledge the reality of the situation in Iraq.
Indeed, they will not recognize the situation for what it is anywhere else in the world, either. In Afghanistan, the "free" elections Bush trumpeted in his second debate on Friday have already suffered a major setback...most of the candidates running for office there have withdrawn from the race, citing massive election fraud. Al-Qaida and the Taliban remain active in the southern parts of the country. Bush's speech on Friday illustrated his ignorance regarding the situation when he claimed to have "killed or captured 75% of Al-Qaida's leadership". Al-Qaida has surely appointed NEW leaders to replace those who have been taken out. And in this lies the very heart of the problem with George W. Bush's War on Terror.
Bush is very good at finding and killing current terrorists. Yet, that is only half the game. Terrorism is not a physical object, it's an idea...and no force in the course of human history has ever been able to completely destroy an idea. Bush CANNOT win the War on Terror simply by dropping bombs. You must address the underlying problems that spawned terrorists in the first place...and George W. Bush has shown NO interest in doing that. Take for example Saudi Arabia; we buy tons of oil from that country every year to fuel our economy and our gas-guzzling SUVs. Would it surprise you, then, to know that some wealthy Saudis are helping to FUND terrorists? Indeed, Osama Bin Laden himself is a former Saudi citizen. Every time you drive over to the gas station and fill the tank, you may unwittingly and indirectly fund terrorists. And what has the Bush Administration done to fix this problem? Nothing. It fought tighter vehicle fuel-efficiency standards that would have reduced our dependency on foreign oil. It has done nothing to rebuke Saudi Arabia for supporting those terrorist organizations. It has also done nothing to reduce our dependency on Saudi oil. This is not the liberal media attempting to deceive you, these are facts....policy statements made by the Bush Administration and a matter of public record.
Also a matter of public record is the growing anti-Americanism spreading over the globe. George Bush has, from the very beginning of his presidency (before AND after 9-11), consistently thumbed his nose up at the international community. He withdrew unilaterally from the Kyoto Treaty. He withdrew unilaterally from the ABM Nuclear Treaty. He invaded Iraq unilaterally. Bush claims to this day that he "worked with the UN" before going into Iraq. Yet, he would not have done so at all if it had not been for a large outcry both internationally and in Congress. Even the highly conservative Pat Buchanan noted, "America is not hated for what we are, but what we do." George W. Bush has consistently pushed away other nations (even our allies and friends) at the EXACT time he should have been working to form closer bonds in order to prosecute the War On Terror. The United States CANNOT be everywhere in the world at once hunting terrorists. In order to direct a truly comprehensive and effective strategy to win the War On Terror, we MUST have the cooperation of our allies and friends abroad. Former presidents, like Ronald Reagan and the FIRST President Bush understood this. They understood that in order to achieve the objective (whether it was defeating the Soviet Union, repelling Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, or fighting global terrorism) that you need the cooperation of other nations because the sheer scope of the problem defies the efforts of any single nation to solve it. The United States did not attempt to contain the Soviet Union alone...it forged powerful alliances like NATO to ensure victory in the Cold War. By extension, the United States should not try to fight the global war on terror alone, either.
This argument lies at the very heart of the case against President Bush. His mistakes in Iraq, combined with his earlier behavior on the world stage, have completely alienated the United States. Longtime allies are refusing to support us because they have extreme difficulty working with George Bush. He is unwilling to admit his mistakes, unable to devise a plan to correct them. President Bush's credibility around the world (and by extension the credibility of the United States) is at an all-time low. Bush claimed during the Friday debate that being President means that you have to make unpopular decisions sometimes. That's true, but a President also has to take responsibility for his decisions, both good and bad...and the fact is, there are no weapons of mass destruction, Saddam had no links to Al-Qaida, and we are now saddled with a $200 billion dollar boondoggle in Iraq that has drained our military and financial strength to the point where we may not be able to prosecute the War On Terror. When Kerry has pointed this out, Bush has accused him of "wanting to leave Saddam in power" which he KNOWS is nonsense. Saddam Hussein is an evil, vile, rapacious man...this is beyond debate. BUT HE WAS NOT AN IMMEDIATE THREAT TO THE SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES. The sanctions had effectively destroyed his ability to create weapons of mass destruction, as the final report to Congress regarding Iraq states. Even if Saddam still wanted to develop those weapons again once sanctions were gone, there were clearly other (and FAR less expensive) ways to keep him under control. Sanctions COULD have been reinforced by the United States. There are many tools available to the President other than the military with which to craft foreign policy. After 9-11 and before the Iraq War, Bush could have used the enormous worldwide goodwill to ask for new measures to contain and control Saddam Hussein short of war, thus leaving U.S. forces free for other anti-terrorist operations around the globe. But Bush didn't. He rushed into war for whatever reason, and now we are mired in Iraq with no clear exit strategy.
This isn't leadership. This is a mixture of George W. Bush's ignorance and impulsiveness coming home to roost. He has not made America more safe. In fact, he's made it LESS safe. He's made America less safe because: A.) He has wasted money and military strength in Iraq, leaving us unable to react to threats elsewhere. B.) He's inflamed anti-Americanism all over the world, creating vast new pools of potential recruits for terrorist organizations, and C.) He's severely damaged U.S. credibility and relations abroad which we NEED in order to fight the War On Terror. And worse yet, he's not trying to FIX these problems. He's instead attacking John Kerry, trying to paint him as a flip-flopping pacificst who would be worse at the job than Bush himself is. John Kerry may be many things, but he is NOT what Bush has tried to make him out to be. John Kerry is a Vietnam VOLUNTEER whose courage and determination is noted by both his commanding officers and his shipmates. John Kerry understands what is needed to win the War On Terror, and he understands that there is a difference between decisive leadership and plain old stubborness. This is why many former military commanders back his candidacy....it's because John Kerry has laid out a solid, cohesive, and logical plan for winning the War on Terror. George Bush has not. The ONLY reason Bush is not in deep trouble is because he's been running on 9-11. He can't exactly claim success on the economy...here in Ohio we've lost almost a quarter of a million jobs under him. He can't claim success in foreign relations...Nixon went to China, but Bush only goes to Crawford. In light of that, he claims "catastrophic success" in the War on Terror, tries to hide the details of what is going on from the American public, and wages a ceaseless smear campaign against Kerry/Edwards. It's NOT right! America deserves better than -this-. Even members of the President's own party in Congress have said that his performance in Iraq is, and I quote, "Pathetic". Bush has made the centerpiece of his campaign, "You don't change horses" in the middle of a war.
Let me tell you something. If MY horse is galloping over the edge of a cliff, I am gonna move my ass to a new one. Quickly. I urge the rest of you to seriously consider doing the same.
Four years ago, I voted for Al Gore in the 2000 elections. Needless to say, I was disappointed that George W. Bush was victorious, but at the time I was not overly disturbed. Bush had seemed like a compassionate and moderate Republican, just like his father. Although I did not agree with his social and economic priorities, I DID give the Republican high marks on national security and international affairs. I advocated a strong hand to deal with the threats of the new century, and I believed that George Bush was the man do it.
After the 9-11 attacks, my convictions regarding George Bush's actions crystallized. I strongly supported his invasion of Afghanistan, and then his invasion of Iraq. When he told us that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I did not need any proof. When he told us that Al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein were working together, I needed no proof. The word of President George W. Bush was enough for me.
And then it all went horribly wrong.
I began to hear whispers and see small, telltale signs that Bush's actions did not entirely match his words. People were arrested under the authority of the Patriot Act and imprisoned without charge, without access to lawyers, without contact to the outside world, for however long the Bush government deemed it "necessary" to hold them. John Ashcroft, Bush's own Attorney General and the leader of the Justice Department, has been cited at least twice already for using the Patriot Act in ways that Congress had not authorized. Many of those detained were never charged with any crime at all, much less terrorism.
The war in Iraq began to go wrong. A top United States general who insisted that we needed more troops in Iraq was forced into retirement by the Bush Administration. Intelligence reports from the State Department surfaced suggesting that U.S. policy in Iraq was flawed....reports that President Bush ignored. I was horrified to hear that Bush had rushed into the war with Iraq -so- quickly that large numbers of U.S. soldiers did not even have body armor to protect them. Their parents had to go shopping on the internet to buy suitable armor and MAIL it to their sons and daughters serving over in the Middle East. And through it all, the Bush Administration kept assuring us that we were winning the war...even as terrorists launched attack after attack and allied nations began to leave the country. I continued to BELIEVE in President Bush's word on Iraq.
Then the reasons for going to war against Iraq began to change after the fact. First, we invaded Iraq to disarm Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Then, when we did not find any WMDs, we invaded because Saddam Hussein was working with Al-Qaida. When that claim was decisively disproven the new reason was, "To bring peace and freedom to the Iraqi people". 1,000 American fatalities later (not to mention the 10,000+ innocent Iraqi civilians who have so far been killed), large tracts of Iraq are no longer under U.S. control. Bandits roam freely creating a climate of lawlessness, and American soldiers are no longer the hunters....they are the hunted.
Do not mistake my purpose. The soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq are some of America's best, and not even the prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib can tarnish that completely. They fight for their nation even as their president flip-flops from one war rationale to another. They fight even though George W. Bush sent them in with insufficient equipment, intelligence, and numbers. It is not John Kerry who denigrates the soldiers in Iraq. but rather George Bush. Neither the President nor Dick Cheney are admitting the truth to the American public...either they can not or will not acknowledge the reality of the situation in Iraq.
Indeed, they will not recognize the situation for what it is anywhere else in the world, either. In Afghanistan, the "free" elections Bush trumpeted in his second debate on Friday have already suffered a major setback...most of the candidates running for office there have withdrawn from the race, citing massive election fraud. Al-Qaida and the Taliban remain active in the southern parts of the country. Bush's speech on Friday illustrated his ignorance regarding the situation when he claimed to have "killed or captured 75% of Al-Qaida's leadership". Al-Qaida has surely appointed NEW leaders to replace those who have been taken out. And in this lies the very heart of the problem with George W. Bush's War on Terror.
Bush is very good at finding and killing current terrorists. Yet, that is only half the game. Terrorism is not a physical object, it's an idea...and no force in the course of human history has ever been able to completely destroy an idea. Bush CANNOT win the War on Terror simply by dropping bombs. You must address the underlying problems that spawned terrorists in the first place...and George W. Bush has shown NO interest in doing that. Take for example Saudi Arabia; we buy tons of oil from that country every year to fuel our economy and our gas-guzzling SUVs. Would it surprise you, then, to know that some wealthy Saudis are helping to FUND terrorists? Indeed, Osama Bin Laden himself is a former Saudi citizen. Every time you drive over to the gas station and fill the tank, you may unwittingly and indirectly fund terrorists. And what has the Bush Administration done to fix this problem? Nothing. It fought tighter vehicle fuel-efficiency standards that would have reduced our dependency on foreign oil. It has done nothing to rebuke Saudi Arabia for supporting those terrorist organizations. It has also done nothing to reduce our dependency on Saudi oil. This is not the liberal media attempting to deceive you, these are facts....policy statements made by the Bush Administration and a matter of public record.
Also a matter of public record is the growing anti-Americanism spreading over the globe. George Bush has, from the very beginning of his presidency (before AND after 9-11), consistently thumbed his nose up at the international community. He withdrew unilaterally from the Kyoto Treaty. He withdrew unilaterally from the ABM Nuclear Treaty. He invaded Iraq unilaterally. Bush claims to this day that he "worked with the UN" before going into Iraq. Yet, he would not have done so at all if it had not been for a large outcry both internationally and in Congress. Even the highly conservative Pat Buchanan noted, "America is not hated for what we are, but what we do." George W. Bush has consistently pushed away other nations (even our allies and friends) at the EXACT time he should have been working to form closer bonds in order to prosecute the War On Terror. The United States CANNOT be everywhere in the world at once hunting terrorists. In order to direct a truly comprehensive and effective strategy to win the War On Terror, we MUST have the cooperation of our allies and friends abroad. Former presidents, like Ronald Reagan and the FIRST President Bush understood this. They understood that in order to achieve the objective (whether it was defeating the Soviet Union, repelling Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, or fighting global terrorism) that you need the cooperation of other nations because the sheer scope of the problem defies the efforts of any single nation to solve it. The United States did not attempt to contain the Soviet Union alone...it forged powerful alliances like NATO to ensure victory in the Cold War. By extension, the United States should not try to fight the global war on terror alone, either.
This argument lies at the very heart of the case against President Bush. His mistakes in Iraq, combined with his earlier behavior on the world stage, have completely alienated the United States. Longtime allies are refusing to support us because they have extreme difficulty working with George Bush. He is unwilling to admit his mistakes, unable to devise a plan to correct them. President Bush's credibility around the world (and by extension the credibility of the United States) is at an all-time low. Bush claimed during the Friday debate that being President means that you have to make unpopular decisions sometimes. That's true, but a President also has to take responsibility for his decisions, both good and bad...and the fact is, there are no weapons of mass destruction, Saddam had no links to Al-Qaida, and we are now saddled with a $200 billion dollar boondoggle in Iraq that has drained our military and financial strength to the point where we may not be able to prosecute the War On Terror. When Kerry has pointed this out, Bush has accused him of "wanting to leave Saddam in power" which he KNOWS is nonsense. Saddam Hussein is an evil, vile, rapacious man...this is beyond debate. BUT HE WAS NOT AN IMMEDIATE THREAT TO THE SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES. The sanctions had effectively destroyed his ability to create weapons of mass destruction, as the final report to Congress regarding Iraq states. Even if Saddam still wanted to develop those weapons again once sanctions were gone, there were clearly other (and FAR less expensive) ways to keep him under control. Sanctions COULD have been reinforced by the United States. There are many tools available to the President other than the military with which to craft foreign policy. After 9-11 and before the Iraq War, Bush could have used the enormous worldwide goodwill to ask for new measures to contain and control Saddam Hussein short of war, thus leaving U.S. forces free for other anti-terrorist operations around the globe. But Bush didn't. He rushed into war for whatever reason, and now we are mired in Iraq with no clear exit strategy.
This isn't leadership. This is a mixture of George W. Bush's ignorance and impulsiveness coming home to roost. He has not made America more safe. In fact, he's made it LESS safe. He's made America less safe because: A.) He has wasted money and military strength in Iraq, leaving us unable to react to threats elsewhere. B.) He's inflamed anti-Americanism all over the world, creating vast new pools of potential recruits for terrorist organizations, and C.) He's severely damaged U.S. credibility and relations abroad which we NEED in order to fight the War On Terror. And worse yet, he's not trying to FIX these problems. He's instead attacking John Kerry, trying to paint him as a flip-flopping pacificst who would be worse at the job than Bush himself is. John Kerry may be many things, but he is NOT what Bush has tried to make him out to be. John Kerry is a Vietnam VOLUNTEER whose courage and determination is noted by both his commanding officers and his shipmates. John Kerry understands what is needed to win the War On Terror, and he understands that there is a difference between decisive leadership and plain old stubborness. This is why many former military commanders back his candidacy....it's because John Kerry has laid out a solid, cohesive, and logical plan for winning the War on Terror. George Bush has not. The ONLY reason Bush is not in deep trouble is because he's been running on 9-11. He can't exactly claim success on the economy...here in Ohio we've lost almost a quarter of a million jobs under him. He can't claim success in foreign relations...Nixon went to China, but Bush only goes to Crawford. In light of that, he claims "catastrophic success" in the War on Terror, tries to hide the details of what is going on from the American public, and wages a ceaseless smear campaign against Kerry/Edwards. It's NOT right! America deserves better than -this-. Even members of the President's own party in Congress have said that his performance in Iraq is, and I quote, "Pathetic". Bush has made the centerpiece of his campaign, "You don't change horses" in the middle of a war.
Let me tell you something. If MY horse is galloping over the edge of a cliff, I am gonna move my ass to a new one. Quickly. I urge the rest of you to seriously consider doing the same.