Reasons to consider Kerry
If you or your friends are considering voting for G.W.
Bush, I hope you will consider some of my reasons for doing otherwise. Click
for links to some reasons in the following sections or read it all.
Myopic global village experience
America’s economic and democratic strength is due to the opportunity it provided Americans to turn hard work into building a bigger and stronger middle class. Building a stronger middle class results when more people have more quality family time, more kids become educated with critical and logical thinking skills that better prepare them to face tomorrow’s more complex challenges, and those families have more money to churn backed into an economy by spending on their needs and desires.
From the 1950-70’s America’s middle class was growing fairly well. Recent decades has found it fighting in various ways to maintain its growth. Its opponent has too often been the “Con” men who too often represent big interests who want special tax and regulatory treatment to benefit their big, wealthy interests. Too often the middle class has been conned into believing these special tax and regulatory treatments will trickle down to benefit the middle class. That seldom happens enough. That’s not healthy for America.
America’s wealth and resources are becoming too concentrated.
In 2001 President Bush gave a big
tax cut to the rich and trickled some tax cut crumbs down to the rest of the
nation. Consider where, how, and if the
tax cut has helped middle class America, the backbone of our economy and
democracy, grow more rapidly than America’s concentrated wealth has grown. Some examples:
1)
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
(CBPP), Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ): the typical single taxpayer
will receive less than $250; average tax break for top one percent of earners
will be $96,000; average tax break for the bottom 60% of earners will be $350. http://www.cbpp.org/8-25-04tax-fact.htm NEW DETAILS EMERGING ON EFFECTS OF
RECENT TAX CUTS
2)
90 percent of all taxpayers will receive less than $1,600
from Bush's tax plan. In fact, more than one out of four taxpayers will get
zero, and the taxpayers who get zero are not the rich. This richest one percent
will take almost half of the entire tax cut, and this is NOT because they pay
almost half of all taxes. Their share of the tax cut is larger than their share
of current tax payments.
3)
12 million families, with 24 million children, will get
nothing from Bush's "across the board" tax cut.
4)
Put into dollar terms, households with more than $317,000
in annual income would see their tax bill cut by about $8,000; taxpayers with
incomes of $1 million or more would get an average tax break of about
$27,000.
5)
Households with annual incomes of $44,000 to $73,000 would
get an average tax break of less than $90.
6)
While these tax cuts go on, next year the Bush
administration will cut the HUD Section 8 voucher program $1 billion below the amount provided in
2004. It has been estimated that the
proposed funding will be $1.6 billion below the amount needed in 2005 to
maintain the current level of assistance the program provides. Cutting HUD Section 8 will negatively affect
serving battered women, the elderly, disabled, mentally ill. Having a handicapped-by-diabetes sister
should make it clear how I feel about pushing further burdens on these people.
http://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234%257E28109%257E,00.html?search=true
Add to such lobbied for tax policy, the unhealthy trend toward concentrating wealth in America:
7) America’s average annual salary (in 1998 inflation adjusted dollars) rose from $32,522 in 1970 to $35,864 in 1999, a 10% increase.
8) Over the same 1970-1999 period, according to Fortune magazine, the average real
annual compensation of the top 100 C.E.O.'s went from $1.3 million -- 39 times
the pay of an average worker -- to $37.5 million, more than 1,000 times the pay
of ordinary workers.
During World War II Roosevelt made America’s richest contribute to the war’s cost with a 90% top tax bracket. He also put a growing low and minuscule middle class to work building the educational and physical infrastructure that laid the foundation for building a growing middle class – which also built a larger rich class. Today, we are being conned by some mega corporations and connected wealthy individuals to pass the cost of almost everything onto the middle and lower class. Consider some of economist Paul Krugman’s data:
9)
Census data shows a rising
share of income going to the top 20 percent of families, and within that top 20
percent to the top 5 percent, with a declining share going to families in the
middle.
10)
The top 20 percent of families have had bigger percentage gains than
families near the middle: the top 5 percent have done better than the next 15,
the top 1 percent better than the next 4, and so on up to Bill Gates.
11)The C.B.O. study found
that between 1979 and 1997, the after-tax incomes of the top 1 percent of
families rose 157 percent, compared with only a 10 percent gain for families
near the middle of the income distribution.
12) The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the true cost of the tax bill through 2011 is $1.9 trillion, not the $1.35 trillion the bill’s backers claim, and the cost in the next 10 years, 2012-2021, will soar to $4.3 trillion.
13) The CBPP report calls the claim that the bill complies with the $1.35 trillion limit set out by the budget resolution as “essentially a fiction.”
14) The non-partisan Congressional Budget office reports that 2/3rd of the 2004 deficit results from the Bush tax cuts.
15) Although Bush inherited a budget surplus, today this administration runs a $7.4 TRILION deficit, which grows by$1.7 BILLION per day. An even more dangerous fact, however, may be that over 40% of the debt is owned by foreigners, and China is an increasingly larger holder of that foreign held debt.
16)In the meantime, America’s
very poor suffer. In 1996 we passed
welfare reform. With a booming economy, jobs were made to employ the poor. Now advocates for the poor claim many un and
under-employed need and should receive welfare, but they are slipping between
the cracks of the welfare net. For a
variety of procedural and political reasons, many who should be on welfare are not
on today’s welfare rolls.
17)Since 2001, even as
welfare rolls continued to decline, the poverty rate has increased, climbing to
12.5% last year, or 35.9 million people.
Of those, 12.9 million were children.
The number of families in deep poverty rose 10%, to 3.2 million in
2003. The percentage of single-mother
families living in poverty also jumped, to 28% from a recent low of 25.4% in
2000. (The
Washington Post National Weekly, Off Welfare but Back in Poverty, Griff
Witte,Oct. 4-10, 2004)
We are engaged in a poorly managed Terror
War that will last generations. Mostly
middle and lower income individuals serve in a three front war that morphs into
a worldwide terror war. Had someone
with father George Herbert Bush’s experience been President, we would probably
have had a smarter, less costly two front war.
The two front war would be in: 1) Afghanistan & Pakistan and 2) in
protecting America’s home front. And
America’s home front would see much more money and security spent in making
airline, shipped and railed cargo, energy, nuclear facilities, nuclear dumps,
and bridges, roads, coasts and buildings, etc. more secure.
George Bush Senior would probably have been
smart enough to tax those in America able to pay additional taxes to pay for
the much less costly Afghanistan - Pakistan area war, rather than practice a
new form of voodoo economics that passes the bill for Afghanistan – Pakistan –
Iraq – Worldwide - Terror War to today’s low and middle classes and their
following generations.
Rather than consult with his wizened
father, George W talks to a “higher father,” as though he is the only one who
seeks such heavenly counsel and gets a personally delivered right answer from
God. Does he not realize radicalized
and misguided Muslin Jihadists think they too talk to God? They too think they get a personalized right
answer from God -- and look at all the
stupid bloodshed they cause.
In the 21st century most
Americans should have trouble following a leader who says, “God told me to
strike at Al Queada, and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at
Saddam.” (President Bush at Aqaba Summit, June 4, 2003)
I remember my Catholic high school and
college training, as well as the Peace Corps service it inspired. It said we were to seek as much human
counsel as possible, do lots of homework, and undertake hard, diligent work
among humans to obtain a goal or complete a job. We were to work hard as men serving others, but never
assume that we had the only acceptable God-given answers. (Speaking of reading
and homework, perhaps this administration could have read and paid attention to
the President's
Daily Brief from 6 August 2001, headlined "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike
in US.") For more: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/ God, we were taught, doesn’t just give you, or one
American leader, simple answers to life’s complex problems, especially when
those complex problems mix with the world’s regional, religious, and cultural
complexities.
If there is one thing I can remember from
Econ 101, it is MPC. The low and middle
classes have a higher Marginal Propensity to Consume than do the rich. They spend higher percentage of what they
earn on food, shelter, education, clothing etc., than do the rich. The rich spend a lot more on yachts, Las
Vegasian investments, vacation homes, diamonds, fancier cars, etc., and still
have lots left over. Therefore, I
supported the middle class tax cuts and probably even more reasonable cuts
targeted at them. But, having enrolled
and passed Econ 101 as a lower middle class kid where Mom balanced a meager
budget, I did not support the gargantuan difference in benefits Bush gave the
wealthiest in our nation.
When you give those with a higher MPC more
dollars to vote with, they create more jobs than when you give the money to
those who invest in the extras of life.
Giving those higher MPCers more money also increases the money they can
spend on education, good nutrition, and medical insurance. Giving the middle and lower class more of
the tax break than is given to the wealthy decreases what society must pay to
cover existent and future needs of the middle and lower class. The economic result is that costs are lower
for all, the economy grows and there is less inequity and less reason for class
dissension. The middle class grows,
crime falls and the rich still get richer.
Everyone wins when burdens are fairly shared.
The preponderance of economists know that
targeting tax cuts to the middle and lower class better stimulates jobs and the
economy than does giving more special treatment to those with lower MPCs who
already are specially treated.
Giving overwhelming federal tax cuts to the
super rich is only the tip of the iceberg.
With states and localities struggling, low and middle class people are
now continuously bombarded with bond measures, extras sales tax proposals,
higher fees, higher public transit costs, etc., in order to cover basic costs
for roads, schools, medical care, state and local debts, etc. If one were cynical, one would see these tax
cuts to the very rich as a sneaky means to not only dump more taxes on the
middle class but to also force them into working longer hours, spending less on
health and education, less formative family time and thereby dumbing down
America’s middle and lower class. In
the process, the increasing concentration of economic power forces the middle
class to “shut up” and not bother those rich and powerful, who Bush refers to
as “his base,” from running the world mistake free, as God told them to.
If those who control your political party
are cunningly smart at manipulating words to con people into believing a
paper-mache image of American society, then they change the Estate Tax’s name
to Death Tax, and imply that everyone suffers under the Estate Tax. They play with the Estate Tax name because
they figure if they say “Death Tax” often enough, they can dumb America down
into implying that this is a terribly unfair tax on every one who dies.
The Estate Tax came into being because: a)
historically Americans have been adverse to concentrated wealth and power b)
many Americans felt that it was better for the character of the nation to be
peopled with those who “earned it” rather than those who “inherited wealth.”
This
administration’s policies indicate that it believes an aristocracy of inherited
wealth is better for the nation’s character and long-term strength. Some facts:
1)
In 1999, only the top 2 percent of estates paid any tax at
all, and half the estate tax was paid by only 3,300 estates, 0.16 percent of
the total, with a minimum value of $5 million and an average value of $17
million.
2)
Just 467 estates worth more than $20 million paid a quarter
of the tax.
3)
Tales of family farms and businesses broken up to pay the
estate tax are basically rural legends; hardly any real examples have been
found, despite diligent searching.
4)
According to the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation,
estate and gift tax repeal costs a fortune -- $662 billion -- over the next 10
years. And who is slipped keys to their Jaguars as a multi-millionaire? Ninety
percent of the windfall goes to about 2,400 families a year with estates worth
more than $5 million.
5)
According to Forbes magazine, Buffett is worth $28 billion.
Repealing the estate tax could save his heirs as much as $15 billion -- enough
money for one family to buy most of the family farms in Buffett's home state of
Nebraska.
6)
Too bad the Bush
administration didn’t listen to Buffet, William Gates Sr., George Soros, and
David Rockefeller and keep the Estate Tax.
As Buffet said, repealing it is not the American way since it
"means you pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation
based on heredity rather than merit.” http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=125&subid=163&contentid=3303
7)
Kerry believes in raising the Estate Tax exemption to $10
million for small business owners and family farmers but not to dispose of the
tax for those over that amount.
I agree
with Bush, Kerry and Nader that future generations ought to worry about whether
Social Security will be there, especially since this administration is
essentially borrowing from the Social Security Trust fund Candidate Bush
promised to put in a locked box four years ago. I also think a Retirement Savings Account for a small percentage
of SS funds could be helpful and is worth exploring when the deficit and budget
gets out of the dismal spiral of the last four years.
But I
don’t believe you fund this Retirement Savings Account by now further indebting
Social Security another trillion dollars or so, since today’s taxes paid to SS
are paying today’s recipients and covering some of today’s governing
bills. Too bad this president didn’t
keep the Estate Tax and use that revenue to fund the cost of building a
‘Supplemental Retirement Savings Account’ that would have helped low and middle
class families build their own future 5+ million dollar estates. Keeping the Estate Tax to do that would have
been smart middle class economics, but I guess it would have upset his “base.”
The
wealthy and powerful have lots of influence, lobbying, and clout with this Bush
administration. This administration
will continue to push for moving America toward a more aristocratic, gilded
society, even though that is not in the long run best interests of the
nation. The low and middle classes have
very little lobbying clout other than at election time, so I hope you vote for
the long run middle class interests of the nation.
There was a time when America’s infrastructure – bridges, roads,
transit systems, even buildings -- were the envy of the world. Now, if you are among the too few 5-20% of
Americans who have taken out passports and worked and traveled the world, from
Malaysia to Germany to Australia, you can see America’s infrastructure, as well
as educational and medical care, slipping into second class in comparison.
1) In 2001
Congress passed the bi-partisan No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) to eliminate academic achievement
weaknesses. This administration talks a
lot about NCLB. Yet nearly $27 billion
has been withheld from America’s public education system needed to carry out the mandates of
NCLB. Examples: California did not get $1.3 billion in public school funding last year
promised by Congress and the President, including $898 million for extra
academic support for low-income students, $103 million for critical
after-school programs, and $47 million to raise teacher quality. Ohio
did not get $310 million in
public school funding last year promised by Congress and the President,
including $196 million for extra academic support for low-income students, $23
million for critical after-school programs, and $12 million to raise teacher
quality.
2) To become and maintain a vibrant
democracy, nations need a growing, diversely educated middle class; a middle
class that reads well, thinks critically, and has the time to expose itself to
and learn from the complexities of the world.
Cutting educational and service programs that help grow and strengthen
the middle and lower class is not how America’s economy and democracy is
improved.
3) This administration raves about its dedication to service. AmeriCorps is one of those service programs its
touts, but does not fund to the level that ensures its growth. In 2003 AmeriCorps suffered a devastating
cut of nearly 60 percent that congressional leaders and the President were
unwilling to restore. Thousands of
service members, who help communities meet their urgent needs by running
after-school programs, building affordable housing, and responding to
disasters, have been denied the chance to serve, causing severe shortfalls in
many communities. In California, AmeriCorps programs were cut by 65 percent,
and nearly 4,700 service member positions were eliminated. Many successful programs, such as the Head
Start Children and Family Development Project which provides Head Start
families with key assistance in obtaining health insurance and medical care,
recruit volunteers to support Head Start programs and connect parents to
resources and information were eliminated.
Under intense pressure from Democrats and the AmeriCorps community,
negotiators on Capitol Hill finally agreed to give the program $444 million for
fiscal year 2004. The increase in funds will allow AmeriCorps to grow, but it is
unclear whether or not it will be enough for the President to meet his pledge
to expand the program to 75,000 service members this year.
4) Head Start
is another program that strengthens low and middle class
America and it too is under pressure to be dismantled by the Republican
controlled House. The Republican House
bill has two sections. In one section, a new block grant demonstration program
is created for 8 states. This new block grant would remove program control from
local communities and give it to the Governors as well as eliminate all current
program performance standards and requirements, class size requirements, and
detailed program quality components. It would also minimize program oversight
and accountability and permit states to decrease their spending on early
education programs.
When America’s middle class was growing in size and strength, much of the world thought its medical care was among the worlds best. Today the means by which we deliver medical care to too few Americans rates our health care system among the worst of all the rich nations. The primary reasons America rates so poorly? A) Too many low and middle class Americans do not have medical insurance. B) Among rich nations, we have the highest level of poverty and income inequality among all rich nations. Poverty, and its commensurate lack of good nutrition and medical understanding, affects one's health even more than a formal health care system. Most Americans, who rely on television’s ER to form their belief that we have the world’s best medical care, need to adjust their world view. We may have the best emergency care in the world, but the ER care we give to the needy hides the fact that among the rich nations we have one of the worst health care systems. Examples:
Percent of population covered by public health care:
ALL NATIONS (except below) 100%France, Austria 99Switzerland, Spain, Belgium 98Germany 92Netherlands 77United States 40Life Expectancy (years):
Men Women
Japan 76.2 82.5
France 72.9 81.3
Switzerland 74.1 81.3
Netherlands 73.7 80.5
Sweden 74.2 80.4
Canada 73.4 80.3
Norway 73.1 79.7
Germany 72.6 79.2
Finland 70.7 78.8
United States 71.6 78.6
United Kingdom 72.7 78.2
Denmark 72.2 77.9
Infant Mortality Rate (per 1,000 live births):
United States 10.4United Kingdom 9.4Germany 8.5Denmark 8.1Canada 7.9Norway 7.9Netherlands 7.8Switzerland 6.8Finland 5.9Sweden 5.9Japan 5.0Death rate of 1-to-4 year olds (per community of 200,000 per year):
United States 101.5Japan 92.2Norway 90.2Denmark 85.1France 84.9United Kingdom 82.2Canada 82.1Netherlands 80.3Germany 77.6
Switzerland 72.5Sweden 64.7Finland 53.3Death rate of 15-to-24 year olds (per community of 200,000 per year):
United States 203Switzerland 175Canada 161France 156Finland 154Norway 128
Germany 122Denmark 120United Kingdom 114Sweden 109Japan 96Netherlands 90For more go to: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-healthcare.htm
Myth: The U.S. has the best health care system in the world.
Fact: The U.S. has among the worst health statistics of all rich nations.
A medial savings account has merit – for those who have the means that allows savings. It, however, seems to be another complex answer from an administration that sees everything as a simple even though their answer increases complexity for most hard working taxpayers. If the answer is workable for some, it will increase paper work and add to the already overwhelming complex tax code for whatever portion of Americans who can afford it. A medical savings account sounds good, but does not address how the uninsured half of Americans can afford such a seemingly simple answer.
Simple answers like using the bulk buying clout of the government, as the Veterans Administration does, exists. But, for some influential reasons, this administration will not use the drug buying clout of the government to help regular Americans. Importing cheaper drugs from Canada, and giving more benefits to middle Americans rather than big drug companies and HMOs is another part of a simple answer. A change in administration, however, will be needed to even consider those simple, straightforward answers that benefit those in need. Government, like Christ, is not created to help the influential but to help people walk and see, so they can then independently live life on their own.
In the 1970 those of us who worked with People's Lobby, through the initiative process and then through the 18 states Western Bloc Safe Power Nuclear Moratorium campaign, were among the first in the nation to educate the country on the dangers of nuclear power. Then we educated the nation on how: a) taxpayers funded the nuclear industry’s insurance through the Price Anderson Act – and still do; b) complex, dangerous and too often hidden were the technical faults of nuclear power plants; c) how difficult and dangerous disposing of nuclear garbage was and remains.
The simple, clean answers to our energy production lies in promoting today’s cost effective solar, wind, and other clean energy sources, which this administration is not inclined to support enough to make America safe from energy blackmail. Instead, this administration favors giving subsidizes and credits to gas, oil, and coal friends.
It refuses to raise the EPA mileage standards; refuses to incentivize America’s few remaining auto companies see the future of hybrid engines being taken over by Toyota and Honda.
Americans like myself could send more of our patriotic dollars to American firms rather than to purchasing British Petroleum solar collectors, German made solar converters, and a Toyota Prius, if we had an administration that supported a smart, patriotic energy policy that got us off of the foreign oil fix and tax breaks to gas, oil, nuclear, and coal campaign contributors.
1)
The
nuclear industry’s trade association, and member companies that own commercial nuclear
reactors, as well as other firms focused on nuclear plant construction and security,
including their employees, have given $8 million to the Bush campaigns,
the Bush-Cheney Inaugural Committee and the Republican National Committee (RNC)
since the 2000 election cycle.
2)
The
NRC worked on a coordinated strategy with the Nuclear Energy Institute, the
nuclear plant owners trade association, to quash bipartisan legislation (S.
1746) approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2002
that would have required nuclear plants to withstand attacks comparable to
9/11,mandated corrective actions for facilities that repeatedly fail security
tests, and required NRC review of emergency response plans and regular
emergency response exercises. The Bush administration opposed the bill. In
all, the committee has passed nuclear security legislation in various forms
three times since 9/11 (including unanimous support for one bill, S. 1043, in
May 2003), but none of these bills have been voted on by the full Senate, in
part because the Bush administration has not made it a priority.
3)
In
2003, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified
three major deficiencies in the NRC’s oversight of nuclear plant security. A
year later, it found that little had been accomplished to address the serious
shortcomings highlighted by the GAO, including: the NRC’s assessment of
individual plant security plans is merely a “paper review” and lacks detail
sufficient to determine whether plants can repel an attack; security plans are
largely based on a template that often omits key site-specific information; NRC
officials do not typically visit plants to obtain site specific information;
NRC readiness tests at all facilities will take three years to conduct; and the
NRC does not plan to make the improvements to its inspection plan recommended
by the GAO in 2003, such as following up to see whether cited violations of
security requirements have been corrected.
4)
In
March 2004, the NRC proposed weakening fire safety regulations for
nuclear power plants, which would make it harder for a reactor to be safely
shut down in the event of a fire caused by a terrorist attack. The NRC wants
to allow plant operators to rely on manual, rather than automatic, shut-downs
of equipment in areas surrounded by smoke, fire and radiation. The NRC has
been accused of wanting to water down the rule because many plants are not
actually in compliance with current fire protection regulations. http://www.citizen.org/documents/ACF189.pdf
The chemical companies that make up the American
Chemistry Council (ACC) and the petrochemical companies that are members of the
American Petroleum Institute (API) – the two major chemical industry trade
associations that led the fight against Corzine’s bill – have strongly
supported President Bush in their political giving. Over the past three
election cycles, the two trade groups, their member companies and their
employees have donated at least $8.1 million to the Bush-Cheney presidential
campaigns, the Bush-Cheney Inaugural Committee and the Republican National
Committee (RNC), which has as its primary purpose election of the president.
1)
The
administration and the chemical industry together blocked the Chemical Security
Act (S. 157), sponsored by Sen. John Corzine (D-N.J.), which would shift the
chemical industry away from unsafe technology toward new processes using safer
chemicals and technologies where they are available and cost-effective. The
bill also would make chemical production safer and less vulnerable to attack by
terrorists. The legislation was initially approved by an overwhelming vote in
the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), but stalled as seven
Republican supporters withdrew their support under pressure from industry and
the administration.
2)
The
EPA tried to address terrorist threats by drawing up a plan that called for it
to use its existing authority under the Clean Air Act to compel chemical plants
to increase security. But under pressure from industry, the agency backed down
and decided instead to ask Congress for additional authority to mandate action.
Subsequently, the Bush administration totally overruled EPA’s fledgling
initiative by allocating responsibility for chemical security to the new
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), even though DHS has no authority to
enforce the Clean Air Act or to establish and enforce new plant security
standards.
3)
After
initially announcing in October 2002, with the EPA, that voluntary security
steps by chemical plant operators were insufficient to protect the homeland,
DHS has failed to issue mandatory security and safety standards. Instead, it is
relying on voluntary industry measures, which are widely viewed as inadequate. http://www.citizen.org/documents/ACF189.pdf
No one argues that 9-11-01 changed America and our relationship with the world. It is not a grand revelation that only a hard working, decisive leader could figure out. Donald Duck could have been president and been angry enough to know what to do – get our best military minds together, send a lot of our best warriors to where the terrorists were hiding – Afghanistan and Pakistan – and wipe them out.
Our means of addressing the changed world should have been a lot wiser and would have been had this administration not been so narrowly experienced. Evidently, this administration didn’t consult with George Herbert Bush who was smart and worldly-wise enough to not walk into a cultural and tribal hornets nest without a real coalition; GHB also seemed to know that you could ground Saddam into nutmeg via squeezing him with air, economic, UN inspections and military pressure and not lose American lives and billions of dollars. This administration was long on corporate connections and big power experience. It was, however, short on experience in today’s hard global village service of nation building and the harshness of warring in someone else’s land.
On a different level, 911 reminded me of experiences learned at La Honda’s Juvenile Detention Ranch and the Peace Corps. If more individuals in Bush’s circle had had some ‘streets experience’ and some broader global village experiences, our nation would be a lot healthier today.
La Honda had kids, around 15 –18, who had street crimes ranging from burglary to murder. Like a prison yard, they hung in their ethnic gangs for protection. Like much of the world, those gangs had tribal codes that were usually juvenile and sometimes criminal. It was, however, a code that these gangs used to protect themselves and to measure their response to authority while making life work and learning life’s lessons.
As a rookie La Honda counselor/guard, the gangs and then a gang leader challenged my authority on my first few days and nights. Then a gang leader’s challenge turned to swipes at me. All the gangs watched to see how ‘The Man’ would respond. A decisive win against the challenging gang or its leader reaffirmed your leadership control, and insured that the yard would still run smoothly under the control of adults, the right men.
If your response wasn’t clearly strong enough, you’d begin to lose control. If your respond was to hit all the gangs, you’d be in bloody deep trouble, need tons of re-enforcements, would in time drain your resources and in the end loose the effective control you once had.
We should have gone into Afghanistan and Pakistan with street smarts. We should have sent the world’s best fighters and killed Osamma and his gang. After 911 the whole world would have supported almost any actions we did in those theaters. A few Middle Eastern states might have disliked our action, but they would have just watched to see what “The Man” did. Instead, we had an administration that listened: too little to wiser military leaders, too much to greedy corporate aggrandizers, too little to those who had nation building experiences in those parts of the world like aid workers and Peace Corps volunteers.
Instead of making a killing example of one pack of the bad guys, we picked a fight with a bunch of gangs whose gangs of juveniles have since grown exponentially. Because of that poor understanding of that part of the world, which works much like a prison yard of gangs, we will now be sapping America’s blood and resources in generations long Terror Wars.
After 911 Bush used “He can run, but he can’t hide,” in reference to Osamma. Now he ignores Osamma and tries to tag it pejoratively onto Kerry. Poor judgment by this administration has for too long made that quote only applicable, with a contractive change, to America’s still number 1 enemy. Evidently, for the last 37 months Bush meant to say about Osamma that “He can run, and he can hide.”
The long-term Terror War answers we need -- a vastly expanded Peace Corps (our best intelligence gathers), a Warm Draft and steps toward answering the generations of Holy Lands Terror. When the poverty of economics and ideas is allowed to spread through the world, “isms” arise. As today’s world’s leader, we are looked to lead in long and short run solutions to these world problems. If we don’t clearly exemplify leadership, we are the primary nation that is attacked as responsible for the world’s problems.
The
short-term answer is we need a change from this administration, whose policies
are seen as muddled by almost the whole world, in order to get closer to the
needed long-term answers.
If I or a loved one had to choose to share a fox hole or a war with a guy who put himself in the way of bullets, shrapnel, bombs and death in a Vietnam war -- versus with a guy who missed a required medical exam but made a dental exam during a year in which he showed up for little training and was not even remembered by those who were supposed to train with him; if I had to choose to believe the words of guy who won three medals in four out of 25 months of combat military service and whose boat members said they would follow him in battle again -- versus the words of guys on other boats who were upset about what the medal winner had to say about how a few acted during the Vietnam war; if I had to choose between voting for a Yalie who was gritty enough to have served in a Vietnam War and then gutsy enough to protest its ill-conceived continuance -- versus a Yalie who did neither during one of America’s most contentious and bloody eras; it would be an easy, common sense choice, even if the bushy second Yalie had a team of diversionary word makers trying to confuse my and the voters choice.
1)
He quickly earned the respect
and loyalty of his crewmen. "He was in total control, and willing to be
aggressive," recalls one of them. "He wanted to take the fight to the
enemy. . . . I'm talking straight: he always put his men's welfare first, and
was tough, tough, tough. He was a great leader." (one
of Kerry’s crew)
2) From their Yale senior year through October 73 there is a drastic difference
in Kerry and Bush’s service record, click to compare: http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/02/02_400.html
4) Kerry was courageous enough to serve in battle. He was then
courageous enough to speak out against that war in which we wasted too many
American and Vietnamese lives and resources. If his speaking out against the
war saved ten or a thousand lives, ended the war ten or a hundred days earlier,
it was better for America. What his
opponents have thrown against his service are typical distractions used by
conniving campaigners.
5)
Throughout the Swifty Boat campaign Kerry’s
detractors claimed there was hardly any battling going on when Kerry won his
Silver Star. Detractors claim he shot a
little kid in the back. Recently, another
group who was actually in the battle – the Vietnamese villagers -- relayed a
different story about the battle in which Kerry chased and killed a VC and
returned with his rocket launcher that put all the swift boats in deadly
danger. Some quotes: “But according to Vo Van Tam, now 54, who was a local Viet
Cong commander, there were at least 20 Viet Cong soldiers at Nha Vi when two
Swift Boats approached the hamlet. His wife, Vo Thi Vi, 54, told ABC News it
was a day that the villagers would never forget. "Everything was
destroyed. There's no houses left. They levelled everything. There was no
leaves left. The fighting was very fierce."…. Regarding Kerry detractor John O’Neil’s description of the VC
Kerry killed as "a lone, wounded, fleeing, young Viet Cong in a
loincloth". The villagers
said: "No, this is not
correct," Nguyen Thi Tuoi, 77, told ABC News. "He wore a black pyjama
... He was big and strong. He was about 26 or 27." Her husband, Nguyen Van
Ty, in his 80s, had a slightly different account of how Ba Thang died.
"I didn't see
anything because I was hiding from the bullets and the bombs. It was very
fierce and there was shooting everywhere and the leaves were being shredded to
pieces ... when it was over, I saw Ba Thanh was dead. He may have been shot in
the chest when he stood up."
For full story: Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Kerry under fire but
Vietnamese to rescue, By Elizabeth Jensen in New York and agencies
October 16, 2004. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/15/1097784050979.html?oneclick=true
Not much flip-flopping when you get out of a little aluminum boat in the midst of a battle, chase down a VC with a rocket launcher, and kill him. Yet in today’s US, Con men are trying to tell the electorate that a guy who was AWOL for a year, missed a mandatory medical and made a ton of bloody mistakes in the War on Terror is --- a decisive leader? Is that who you’d choose to share a fox hole with?
6)
I have also watched
some Swift Boat ads and find their story confusing when placed next to
Rassman’s, who was saved by Kerry. The
Swift Boater claim there was no shore fire.
Rassmann claims he dove under water to avoid fire from both shores and
then was saved by Kerry.
Rassmann in his Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Shame on the Swift Boat
Veterans for Bush, states “For
his actions that day, I recommended John for the Silver Star, our country's
third highest award for bravery under fire. I learned only this past January
that the Navy awarded John the Bronze Star with Combat V for his valor. The
citation for this award, signed by the Commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam,
Vice Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, read, "Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry's
calmness, professionalism and great personal courage under fire were in keeping
with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service." To this
day I am grateful to John Kerry for saving my life. And to this day I still
believe that he deserved the Silver Star for his courage. “ http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005460
7) It is also interesting to note that on Rear Admiral William L. Schachte Jr., the man who claims Kerry was not under fire when he received his first Purple Heart, is a top lobbyist for a defense contractor that recently won a $40 million grant from the Bush administration. SWIFT BOAT VET GOT $40M CONTRACT FROM BUSH, The Daily Mis-Lead, http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/read.asp?fn=df08312004.html
Some Bush supporters
continue basing their vote for Bush on accusing Kerry of lacking “character”
and being a “traitor.” When Kerry’s
steps of life are logically assembled they don’t add up to traitor and display
quite a bit of character. Contrasting
his steps with those of his main opponent portray a stark contrast, if one
analyzes the context of both of their respective actions.
1) Yalie rich kid Kerry actually put himself into lethal harm’s way. He took wounds and shrapnel – and where it hit matters little, for those who argue it was just a butt wound. Move the shrapnel 30” and Kerry is blind for life. His boat crew all supports his medals, his valor, and his leadership.
2) Rassman, the Green Beret he saved, supports him.
3) The Vietnamese villagers support the fact that he was involved in a heated, “fierce” battle and relate that the killed VC rocket launcher, whom was supposedly killed by Kerry, was a grown man in black VC garb.
4) While in Nam, he confines in his diary his wonders and concerns about the war. Kerry’s Vietnam War concerns are similar to those growing in America, which many of our Viet vets are promoting on their return. Does anyone remember Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July movie portraying quadriplegic Ron Kovic’s autobiography? If not, see it. And pick up the Deer Hunter video to bout, to remind one and all of how bad that war, spun as a fall of dominoes, by a conniving government that hid information from Americans, was. Ah, might there be a similarity with this Iraqi war?
5) Rich Yalie Kerry could have sat on what he learned in Vietnam, returned home and let more young, naive Americans carry on and die in an Asian quagmire. Instead, he did the patriotic thing. He returned, became a spokesman against the war, repeated what others said they saw, and tried to shorten the war to save American lives and resources.
6) Today some of the commanders above him, whose actions he criticized in Vietnam, turn up putting together Swift Boat anti-Kerry ads. Yet Kerry’s crew and the saved Green Beret – those closest to him in battle, stand by Kerry. So far, following these logical steps, I see character and certainly no traitor in John Kerry.
7) Kerry goes to the Senate and leads the charge, along with McCain, to get to the root of the MIA Vietnam vets. He and McCain, close the tortuous chapter on MIAs and rebuild relations with little Vietnam, the nation that a lying government had us fearing would take America down if we didn’t invade the little brown Vietnamese. Ironically, due to our unfamiliarity with the Vietnam’s techniques of guerrilla warfare and their historical ferocity in battle and our insularity from the global village, this little nation pretty much kicked our butt. Fifty thousands plus American lives later, we knew more about brawling in someone else’s jungle and culture.
8) Now I am supposed to believe that Kerry is a traitor and lacks character, versus a guy who was, many suggest, in AA and missing his physical during the same period. Sounds suspiciously like the campaign Karl Rove ran against McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary to make sure McCain lost to Bush. Here are some Rovisms used against McCain:
a. McCain Slurs Included Illegitimate Children,
Homosexuality And A Drug-Addict Wife.
Among the rumors circulated against McCain in 2000 in South Carolina was that
his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually black, that McCain was both gay
and cheated on his wife, and that his wife Cindy was a drug addict.”
b. Rove Suggests Former POW McCain Committed
Treason and Fathered Child With Black Prostitute.
In 2000, McCain operatives in SC accused Rove of spreading rumors against McCain,
such as “suggestions that McCain had committed treason while a prisoner of war,
and had fathered a child by a black prostitute,” according to the New Yorker.
c. Sampley Called McCain a “Coward” and a
Traitor.
“Sampley… accused McCain of being a weak-minded coward who had escaped death by
collaborating with the enemy. Sampley claimed that McCain had first been
compromised by the Vietnamese, then recruited by the Soviets.” http://bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=8&topic_id=522
9) And in more recent history the Cons, not Conservatives, in charge of today’s Republican party, attack Kerry for voting on authorizing the Iraq war. I can understand voting to given the President the authority to go to war. It shows the world our resolve, but it should also be used, as Kerry called for, only after full planning and coalition building had been fine-tuned. Commanders need that and Kerry supported and voted that.
10)But Kerry also wanted the war to be paid for by repealing the tax cut to the super wealthy. When the Democratic version of the bill, calling to repeal the tax break to those earning over $300,000. in order to pay for the war, was defeated, Kerry voted against the funding bill in protest.
"I actually voted for the $87 billion
before I voted against it," Kerry said once, a line that the Bush campaign
used in commercials to mock Kerry for inconsistency.
However, Kerry's line was but a clumsy way of
saying that he had voted for a Democratic version of the bill that would have
raised the $87 billion by repealing Bush's income tax cuts for people making
over $300,000 a year.
When that measure failed, Kerry voted against
the $87 billion on final passage. He said his vote was a protest against adding
$87 billion to the burgeoning federal budget deficit. He also said he was
protesting what he saw as sloppy planning for securing the peace. That
position, at least, is consistent with a belief that Bush mishandled the
authority that Congress gave him. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/election2004/9743494.htm?1c
If your world stature keeps shrinking, in time it costs you and your economy dearly. Winning stature back through brawls becomes bloody costly. Here’s how the world views our stature:
The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) polls the world on issues.
Poll Of 35 Countries Finds
30 Prefer Kerry, 3 Bush
Traditional US Allies Strongly Favor
Kerry
Bush Preferred in Philippines, Poland
and Nigeria
(Out of these nations surveyed:
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, the
Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan,
Kazakhstan, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, the
Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, Thailand,
Turkey, the U.K., Uruguay, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.)
Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments,
"Only one in five want to see Bush reelected. Support for Kerry was
greater among those with higher education and income levels.
Asked how the foreign policy of President
Bush has affected their feelings toward the US, in 30 countries a majority or
plurality said it made them feel "worse" about America, and in 2
countries, people were divided. while in 3 countries, more of the respondents
GlobeScan President Doug Miller says, "Perhaps most sobering for Americans
is the strength of the view that US foreign policy is on the wrong track, even
in countries contributing troops in Iraq." For more: http://www.globescan.com/
In
another poll: George
Bush has squandered a wealth of sympathy around the world towards America since
September 11 with public opinion in 10 leading countries - including some of
its closest allies - growing more hostile to the United States while he has
been in office. According to a survey, voters in eight out of the 10 countries,
including Britain, want to see the Democrat challenger, John Kerry, defeat
President Bush in next month's US presidential election.
The poll, conducted
by 10 of the world's leading newspapers, including France's Le Monde, Japan's
Asahi Shimbun, Canada's La Presse, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian,
also shows that on balance world opinion does not believe that the war in Iraq
has made a positive contribution to the fight against terror.
The results show that
in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, Spain and South Korea a majority
of voters share a rejection of the Iraq invasion, contempt for the Bush
administration, a growing hostility to the US and a not-too-strong endorsement
of Mr Kerry. But they all make a clear distinction between this kind of
anti-Americanism and expressing a dislike of American people. On average 68% of
those polled say they have a favourable opinion of Americans.
The 10-country poll
suggests that rarely has an American administration faced such isolation and
lack of public support amongst its closest allies.
The only exceptions
to this trend are the Israelis - who back Bush 2-1 over Kerry and see the US as
their security umbrella - and the Russians who, despite their traditional
anti-Americanism, recorded unexpectedly favourable attitudes towards the US in
the survey conducted in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan tragedy.
The UK results of the
poll conducted by ICM research for the Guardian reveal a growing
disillusionment with the US amongst the British public, fuelled by a strong
personal antipathy towards Mr Bush.
The ICM survey shows
that if the British had a vote in the US presidential elections on November 2
they would vote 50% for Kerry and only 22% for Bush.
Sixty per cent of
British voters say they don't like Bush, rising to a startling 77% among those
under 25.
The rejection of Mr
Bush is strongest in France where 72% say they would back Mr. Kerry but it is
also very strong in traditionally very pro-American South Korea, where fears of
a pre-emptive US strike against North Korea have translated into 68% support
for Mr. Kerry.
In Britain the growth
in anti-Americanism is not so marked as in France, Japan, Canada, South Korea
or Spain where more than 60% say their view of the United States has
deteriorated since September 11. But a sizeable and emerging minority - 45% -
of British voters say their image of the US has got worse in the past three
years and only 15% say it has improved.
A majority in Britain
also believe that US democracy is no longer a model for others.
But perhaps a more
startling finding from the Guardian/ICM poll is that a majority of British
voters - 51% - say that they believe that American culture is threatening our
own culture.
For full report: Poll Reveals World Anger At Bush Eight Out Of 10 Countries Favour Kerry For President , By Alan Travis, The Guardian – UK, 10-15-4, http://www.guitartabs.cc/forum/index.php?showtopic=113183
In our relatively brief historical stand as the world’s leading power, we have learned some lessons that we should apply to today’s global village. When America ignored racial discrimination and quality, integrated education, we got racial violence. When we ignored the poverty connected to racial discrimination and low quality education, we got gangs driven by violence and crime. Now we are engaged in a generations long Terror War, and we have to apply what we learned in our brief history in order to effectively win the war.
Too many in this administration started their term attacking foreign aid, stymieing working with other nations to decrease worldwide poverty and increase worldwide educational opportunities, and acting like know-it-alls.
It is not healthy for our nation to be directed by a team that has not served in a variety of world situations that reflect the true needs and character of today’s global village. We need:
1) A president that works toward true coalition building to address the world’s myriad problems (George Wrong Bush). The world will suck our blood, money, resources, and stature if we continue following the policies of the last 4 years.
2) To kill the bad guys but begin winning hearts and minds and reduce the likelihood of future violent ‘isms’ arising by expanding the Peace Corps (Green Berets of Terror War; Peace Corps could slow terror;).
3) To tie our aid to programs that will reduce long-term hatred that violence breeds in the Holy Lands (Holy Lands) and foments through out the world.
4)
World War I, II and Korea
were necessary wars. Vietnam became a
war shrouded in duplicity and ended up being senseless.
5)
Iraq
has become a war shrouded in duplicity.
We could have more cost effectively improved that part of the world with
judicious uses of our military, economic, and diplomatic strengths. Instead, myopic, juvenile judgments force
us to now waste a lot more in blood, time, and resources. For the long-term health of our nation,
America needs a smarter, harder working team at the helm. American needs a team that works at seeing
the true state of the world, not one clouded by buzz words prompted by mostly
fantasy, fundamentalist and comfortable wealthy class views.
Treading where others have not and making life better for those in need has been an American trademark. Opening the field of stem cell research to American science, as the preponderance of American scientists request, fits within that American trademark.
All the candidates agree there should be the most stringent of safeguards, rules and regulations to stop human cloning from sneaking into this arena. We need stringent rules and regulations, but then let American science compete because with or without our participation, the world will enter the world of stem cell research. To believe America can stop the world from doing what they will do is to live in a fantasy world.
Those who know my family know I have a sister who has suffered almost all the serious effects of juvenile onset diabetes – from daily insulin injections, amputation, retinopathy, kidney pancreas transplant through to all the life repercussions such produces. I’d like a president who will support having fewer future people suffer through what my sister suffered through.
Empires fall when they rely on weapons of mass deception. Hopefully, America’s raises its head above the deception before the American empire is drained of its strength.
1) This administration failed to act decisively and strongly enough on information it was given by the previous administration and by its own staff, which could have perhaps stopped or reduced the impact of 911. The President's Daily Brief from 6 August 2001, headlined "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US," but the conning administration just brushed the report off with their words. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice described the August 6, 2001 Brief as "very vague," "very non-specific," "mostly historical," and "nothing really new here.” This administration even tried to hide the whole report until public pressure put the report into the declassified area, after minor deletions were made.
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/
2) After
months of exhaustive study, the 9/11 Commission concluded there was no
"collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaeda. It debunked the White House
justification for Iraq War by finding no link between Iraq and Al-Queda. At the concluding hearing, a
senior FBI official and a senior CIA analyst concurred with the finding. "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link
Is Dismissed," Washington Post, 6/17/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1299137&l=54792
911 Commission Executive Summary http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/22jul20041130/www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/execsummary.pdf
3) This was the key finding in 911 Report issued June 17, 2004 entitled "Overview of the Enemy." It was read by 9/11 Commission staff member Douglas Maceachin.
9/11
Commission report "Overview of the Enemy"
Bin Ladin also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in
Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime. Bin Laden had in
fact at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The
Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Laden
to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. A
senior Iraqi intelligence officer made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting
with Bin Laden in 1994. Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish
training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently
never responded. There's been reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda
also occurred after Bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not
appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. The two senior Bin
Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda
and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on
attacks against the United States.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/17/1436250
4) Richard Clarke was
the terrorism czar in the Clinton White House. He also worked in the Reagan and George H Bush
administrations. He continues saying
the Bush administration has done “ a terrible job on the war against terrorism.”
Clarke's
Take On Terror, March 21, 2004 60 Minutes
In the aftermath of Sept. 11,
President Bush ordered his then top anti-terrorism adviser to look for a link
between Iraq and the attacks, despite being told there didn't seem to be one.
The charge comes from the adviser, Richard Clarke, in an exclusive interview on
60 Minutes.
"Frankly," he said,
"I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the
grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He
ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop
9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."
Clarke went on to say, "I think he's done a terrible job on the war
against terrorism.”
"Rumsfeld was saying that we
needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said
... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And
Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots
of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots
of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it. …
"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in
Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.
"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA
was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've
looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no
connection."
His allegations are also made in a book, "Against
All Enemies," by Free Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster….
"I blame the entire Bush
leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in
2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office
eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues
right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed
over the preceding eight years."…
Clarke finally got his meeting
about al Qaeda in April, three months after his urgent request. But it wasn't
with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each
relevant department.
For the Pentagon, it was Paul Wolfowitz..
Clarke relates, "I began
saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul
Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to
deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk
about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.'
"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the
United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA
and said, 'Isn't that right?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no
Iraqi terrorism against the United States."
Clarke went on to add, "There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was
supporting al Qaeda, ever."
By June 2001, there still hadn't
been a Cabinet-level meeting on terrorism, even though U.S. intelligence was
picking up an unprecedented level of ominous chatter.
The CIA director warned the White House, Clarke points out. "George Tenet
was saying to the White House, saying to the president - because he briefed him
every morning - a major al Qaeda attack is going to happen against the United
States somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. He said that in
June, July, August."
Clarke says the last time the CIA had picked up a similar level of chatter was
in December, 1999, when Clarke was the terrorism czar in the Clinton White
House.
Clarke says Mr. Clinton ordered his Cabinet to go to battle stations-- meaning,
they went on high alert, holding meetings nearly every day.
That, Clarke says, helped thwart a major attack on Los Angeles International
Airport, when an al Qaeda operative was stopped at the border with Canada,
driving a car full of explosives….
Clarke harshly criticizes President Bush for not going to battle stations when
the CIA warned him of a comparable threat in the months before Sept. 11:
"He never thought it was important enough for him to hold a meeting on the
subject, or for him to order his National Security Adviser to hold a
Cabinet-level meeting on the subject."
Finally, says Clarke, "The cabinet meeting I asked for right after the
inauguration took place-- one week prior to 9/11."
In that meeting, Clarke proposed a plan to bomb al Qaeda's sanctuary in
Afghanistan, and to kill bin Laden.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml
5)
George
Herbert Bush (41) indicated in 2003 to Mickey Herskowitz - a ghost writer for both
George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush -
“that he disagreed with his son's invasion of Iraq.” (In addition, George W. Bush admitted, (into the tape recorder)
that he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he was
'excused.'"[3] Bush's comments to Herskowitz "directly contradicts
his public statements that he participated in obligatory training with the
Alabama National Guard."[4]
6)
In 1999, Bush said to Herskowitz, "My father had all this
political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted
it. If I have a chance to invade…. if I had that much capital, I'm not going to
waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm
going to have a successful presidency."6 BUSH
GHOST WRITER SHOWS TRUTH ABOUT FATHER AND SON, http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df10292004.html
7) The Bush administration chose Charles A. Duelfer to complete another investigation of Iraq's weapons programs. He completed his report in October 2004. It continued the news that Iraq had no WMD and was not an accomplice in 911.
Duelfer's report, delivered
October 6th to two congressional committees, represents the government's most
definitive accounting of Hussein's weapons programs, the assumed strength of
which the Bush administration presented as a central reason for the war. While
previous reports have drawn similar conclusions, Duelfer's assessment went
beyond them in depth, detail and level of certainty.
"We were almost all wrong" on Iraq, Duelfer told a
Senate panel yesterday. Duelfer said Hussein's ability to produce nuclear
weapons had "progressively decayed" since 1991. Inspectors, he said,
found no evidence of "concerted efforts to restart the program."
The findings were similar on biological and chemical
weapons. While Hussein had long dreamed of developing an arsenal of biological
agents, his stockpiles had been destroyed and research stopped years before the
United States led the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Duelfer said Hussein
hoped someday to resume a chemical weapons effort after U.N. sanctions ended,
but had no stocks and had not researched making the weapons for a dozen years.
Washington Post Staff Writers, Thursday, October 7, 2004;
Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12115-2004Oct6.html
8)
With all this information, nonetheless, supporters of Bush continue
believing misinformation put out by this administration. The
Program on International Policy Attitudes found these striking
numbers. Are Americans reading and
learning enough, ignoring facts and logics, or just refusing to admit that the
“Emperor’s coach has no horses?”
The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). Bush Supporters Misperceive World Public as Not
Opposed to Iraq War, Favoring Bush Reelection.
Even after the final report of
Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD
program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD
(47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had
actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at
least a major WMD program.
Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that
Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear
evidence of this support has been found.
Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion
of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of
the 9/11 Commission. http://www.pipa.org/
Thanks for considering this information. May you closely check on where the Emperor’s coach has been going and then vote smartly.