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Senator
John Kerry’s campaign for president is running like a
dry creek. George W. Bush has set America on a
dangerous, costly course and shows no sign of changing
if he wins a second term as president. The case against
Bush is powerful and compelling. Why doesn’t Kerry say
so?
Bush has made the
world more dangerous, not safer. America is more
reviled worldwide and debt-ridden than ever before. His
presidency is one colossal blunder after another. In
overreaction to 9/11, he abandoned sound, cherished
American principles and doctrines, and, at his request,
a craven Congress gave him near-dictatorial powers.
With an imperial
flourish, Bush announced a year after 9/11 that the
United States would be the self-appointed policeman of
the world and would establish worldwide bases for that
purpose. He trashed national sovereignty and other
vital rules of international law by asserting his right
to invade any nation when he alone perceived a security
threat. He announced that the United Nations and other
international institutions must follow his lead or
become irrelevant.
Unfortunately,
Bush meant what he said. Without exhausting diplomatic
measures, he rushed America into the yawning abyss of
preventive wars, attacking Muslim Afghanistan and Iraq,
neither of which posed any serious threat to the United
States or their neighbors. These invasions created
costly new problems and left old ones unsolved. They
have already snuffed out the lives of more than a
thousand U.S. military personnel, killed at least 13,000
Iraqi and Afghan civilians, and inflicted serious injury
on many thousands more. Uncounted families on all
fronts have been blighted forever, with homes and means
of livelihood laid waste.
These wars have
made the U.S. government hated worldwide, especially
among the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims. At home, instead
of raising taxes to finance the wars, Bush, incredibly,
pushed through tax cuts that shift this burden of war to
future generations.
The president put
his own integrity in question by frequent changes in his
justification of the Iraqi war. Much like a salesman of
bogus goods determined not to take no for an answer, he
first said the war was needed to rid Iraq of weapons of
mass destruction. When that claim proved specious, he
said the war was to rid the world of Saddam Hussein.
When the dictator was arrested and locked up, Bush
shifted again, this time saying the war is needed to
bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people.
How can Iraqis
believe Bush’s promise? They need look no further than
neighboring Palestine to know that the U.S. government
is financially, politically, and militarily complicit in
Israel’s brutal long-term denial of freedom and
democracy to Iraq’s fellow Arabs in Palestine. No wonder
militancy against the U.S. occupation continues.
Bush’s plans for
a second term include more military campaigns. He seeks
regime change in Muslim Syria and Iran and has set has
set the stage with threatening, high-decibel rhetoric
and espionage. He has already received congressional
sanction to begin preparations. To gauge the peril of
assaulting Iran, one must remember that more than one
million Iranian troops were killed in the Tehran
regime’s successful defense against Iraq’s heavy attack
in 1980.
Bush seems
oblivious of the true nature of terrorism. He keeps
saying that terrorists hate America’s freedom. That is
both wrong and absurd. The truth is they hate our
policies in the Middle East, not our freedom. Terrorism
arises mainly from deeply felt grievances, most often
affronts to basic human dignity, nationalism, or
religion. Bush’s massive, expensive, and dangerous war
on terrorism does not contain even one small step toward
redressing these grievances. Perhaps he is afraid of
offending Israel, although, by now, even the most ardent
Zionist must realize that Israelis can never fully
escape the terror of suicide bombings until Palestinians
are free from terror inflicted by Israel’s military
forces.
War-making-conduct should be one of the most important
issues in the presidential election. If reelected,
Bush, who avoided combat service in Vietnam, promises
most wars. Kerry would be unlikely to start wars. Why?
He volunteered to serve in Vietnam and was wounded in
combat. Later, convinced not only that the war could not
be won but, as important, that it was being waged on
ideas and interests that were increasingly questioned,
he had the courage and good sense to lead the home-front
battle to end it.
Unfortunately,
Kerry’s campaign is lackluster and even his position on
the war in Iraq remains unclear. Although he shows no
signs of the messianic, hunch-directed mindset that
seems to guide Bush, he is silent on important human
rights issues, as well as on Bush’s radical new
doctrines.
Kerry’s silence
on these paramount issues leaves several million
voters—Muslims, Arab-Americans, disenchanted
Republicans, and others--unsettled. For example, at a
Labor Day Muslim convention in Chicago, more than 8,000
delegates voted to wait until mid-October before
deciding which candidate, if any, to endorse. Four
years ago, over 65 percent of Muslim votes went to Bush,
a massive tide that I, misjudging Bush’s competence,
helped create. A recent survey shows Muslim support for
Bush is now near zero.
Kerry could
jumpstart his campaign by pledging a complete, quick
exit from Iraq of all U.S. forces that the
directly-elected Iraqi government does not want to
remain, by stating clearly a deep concern for civil
rights in America and human rights on both sides of the
Israel-Palestine conflict, and by rejecting Bush’s plans
for an imperial America.
He must tell the
American people the truth--that the present dangers to
U.S. security and economic well-being are greatly
magnified by international hostility to Bush’s
occupation of Iraq and support of Israel’s occupation of
Palestine.
Kerry is
America’s only hope to avert deep trouble in the next
four years. If he fails to speak out clearly and
resolutely, many unsettled votes—perhaps two
million--will likely go to principled independent Ralph
Nader, who has no chance to win, or not be cast at all.
In that event, Bush’s reelection is virtually assured.
Paul Findley, a
Republican Representative in Congress, 1961-83, resides
in Jacksonville, Illinois. He is the author of They
Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront
Israel’s Lobby, Chicago Review Press [Lawrence Hill
Books]; Deliberate Deceptions, AET Publications;
and Silent No More: Confronting America’s False
Images of Islam, Amana Publications. |
