[Peace-discuss] Nader on the debate (fwd)

[Carl Estabrook]

[I think it's vital to repudiate the the Bush administration in the coming
election -- which means a vote for Kerry where it's close -- but Nader's
take on the debate seems pretty good.  --CGE]


Like most of you, I've just finished watching the parallel interviews
called the Presidential debates between Bush and Kerry.  And I'd like to
share a few comments briefly with you.  First of all, neither have an exit
strategy for the war in Iraq and both of them say we're going to win the
war in Iraq - which means an endless occupation, which breeds resistance,
and which does not cut the bottom out of the insurgency, because
mainstream Iraqis are given no light at the end of the tunnel that they're
going to get their country back with a set schedule under a US military
and corporate (i.e. oil company) withdrawal from their nation.

Eisenhower, when he was running for president in 1952, promised the
American people that he would get us out of the Korean War.  It was a
harder war to get out of because behind North Korea was Communist China
and the Soviet Union, but he got us out of the Korean War.  These two
gentlemen can't even get us out of this quagmire war that we were plunged
into, unconstitutionally, on a platform of fabrications, lies, and
deception - and, one might add, against the better judgment of retired
diplomatic, military, and intelligence officials.

Other points on the debates, Bush said it was going to be an all-volunteer
army; he didn't quite say he was opposed to the military draft, but he
moved a little closer to that.  Bush still promotes this total boondoggle,
un-workable missile defense system.  'Star Wars' has been condemned as
unworkable by the leading physicists in the United States, many of them
consultants to the Pentagon, but that doesn't stop Bush from spending ten
billion dollars a year on that boondoggle.

Kerry seems to be much stronger on the non-proliferation of nuclear
materials issue, especially from former countries of the Soviet Union.

Both of them were very weak on Darfur and the Southern Sudan and the
genocide that's going on there.  They expressed sympathy and mentioned
something obliquely about the African Union, but really indicated they had
no plans to support the African Union with the necessary means to preserve
those people from further slaughter.

All in all, I think the people got a longer look at John Kerry than they
ever have.  They're used to George W. Bush.  I would say that within the
narrow confines of the so-called debates there was the edge to Kerry over
Bush.  However, having said that, Jim Lehrer really narrowed the range of
subjects to the debate.  We didn't hear anything about the
Israel/Palestine conflict; we didn't hear anything about global arms
control in the broader sense; we didn't hear anything about the global
trade treaties - WTO and NAFTA - nor did we hear anything about the need
to do something about the military budget of the Pentagon, which is so
wasteful.

So, the Nader/Camejo ticket remains the only one that was against the war
- before it started, during, and after - and wants to bring the troops
back home, stop the endless occupation and proliferation of violence in
that area, and indeed reflects the growing majority of American people who
want us out of there and who now think that sending troops there was a
mistake.

So we want to continue spreading this effort of waging peace, muscularly,
robustly to avert conflict and of putting the best foot forward in the
United States, so it can become a humanitarian super power...