[Rhodes22-list] Politics- my position, if anyone cares

[Wally Buck]

Doug,

You really hit the nail on the head!

Wally

>From: "Gardner, Douglas (LNG-DAY)" <douglas.gardner at lexisnexis.com>
>Reply-To: The Rhodes 22 mail list <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>To: "'The Rhodes 22 mail list'" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Politics- my position, if anyone cares
>Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:41:53 -0400
>
>Some observations and opinions
>
>With only a couple of vague exceptions, I've remained publically silent on
>election issues this year.  I have had private backchannel discussions with
>several people on policy issues, and I'll mention some of those issues 
>later
>in this opinion piece.  However, certain precipitating events are of such
>import that they have caused me to end that silence.  I hope that it 
>doesn't
>negatively affect certain friendships I have developed.  However, the
>consequences of silence dictate that if it does: so be it.
>
>First, some background, as I know most of you don't really know or care who
>I am.  I have voted for every Republican candidate since (and including)
>Reagan, except one.  I consider myself independent, but have largely
>libertarian values, including smaller government, lower taxes, respect for
>individual liberty and state's rights.  Throw in my belief in the need for 
>a
>strong defense and a willingness to use it when it is in our best interest,
>and that means I almost always vote republican.  I think that these values
>are consistent with respect for the rule of law, protecting our democracy
>(republic), and ensuring the rights of all citizens to participate in the
>democratic process.
>
>The facts are yet uncertain and therefore "Truth" is difficult to 
>determine.
>But many hints to the facts are now available. In Ohio alone, the GOP has
>challenged 35,000 voter registrations.
>http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/oh.registration.challenge.ap/index
>.html  Apparently, these challenges are not limited to Ohio, and are common
>across the country.  In Georgia, virtually all hispanic voters in a county
>are being challenged.
>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4129390  In interviews
>I heard with representatives of the Democratic and GOP parties on voter
>registration, the Democratic representive was clear that their goal is to
>register all voters.  The GOP said clearly that they intend to register
>Republican voters.  I contend that in order to be trusted with a voter
>registration activity, you must accept the responsibility to complete the
>process for ALL citizens who entrust you or your organization with their
>sacred rights.  Failure to do so abrogates both the voters' trust through
>disenfranchisement and the DUTY of the person or persons undertaking the
>registration campaign.  This year, there are too many instances of failures
>of this sacred trust for it to be an accidental or isolated incident.  
>These
>include willful destruction of democratic registrations in Nevada,
>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4107720 , and
>pre-selecting "Republican" on registration forms and telling everyone else
>they need to go elsewhere.  Add to this, the mysterious "disappearance" of
>nearly 60,000 absentee ballots in Broward County, FL
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3960679.stm.  It is hard for me 
>to
>fathom how the disappearance of absentee ballots in the most heavily 
>favored
>"Gore" county in Florida is anything but deliberate.  This, combined with
>these other issues, has the appearance of a concerted and deliberate attack
>upon the rights of voters and the integrity and sanctity of the electoral
>process.  I do not dispute how important it is to make sure that only
>citizens have the right to vote, and to vote only once.  But challenging
>35,000 registrations in one state alone without first verifying the case
>against each voter has nothing to do with maintaining the integrity of the
>voter roles.  It is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise huge numbers of
>voters (who are believed, statistically, to support Kerry). This strikes me
>as a direct attack upon the foundations of the republic.  As such, it
>transcends petty bickering over military service, and even foreign policy
>issues, no matter how questionable the wisdom of those policies.
>
>In Florida in 2000, I favored the Bush outcome because I believed that it
>was correct.  Hey, the count supported Bush, if only by a small margin. 
>That
>is what happens in politics.  Until recently, I defended that belief 
>because
>I refused to entertain the possiblility that voter tampering through
>registration irregularities and intimidation at the polls was happening in
>the United States.  I now believe that I was wrong.  Dreadfully wrong.
>
>One might argue that "even if true, George W didn't order them and 
>therefore
>shouldn't be held accountable."  I might agree with you, if there weren't
>overwhelming evidence that this is his standard pattern.  In the 2000
>primary, Bush had a guest speaker at a rally who trashed John McCain's
>service in Vietnam and his conduct as a POW.  Bush survived the backlash
>from that by contending that it was only a guest speaker who made those
>comments, not himself.  When McCain confronted Bush on this issue on Larry
>King Live, Bush responded with "John, I honor your service."  The same 
>words
>he used with John Kerry in response to the swift boat attacks on him.
>However, we now are beginning to understand just how tightly controlled
>Bush's campaign really is.  Even attendance is strictly regulated. I can
>only imagine how strictly controlled the messages presented by speakers is.
>Bush or his campaign clearly vetted every word of that man's speech.  It 
>was
>THEIR message, plain and simple.  There are similar cases throughout Bush's
>political career.
>
>We are, in my opinion, engaged in the most serious threat to our republican
>(small R) experiment since the civil war.  If we cannot trust the
>enfranchisement of our electorate, confidence in our government, and hence,
>our system of government, will fail.  It is a sad day when UN (or any 
>other)
>elections inspectors should be deployed in the United States for any reason
>other than to "learn how it should be done."
>
>I call on all of you to clear your minds and examine the evidence.  Make
>your decisions as the evidence and your conscience guide you.
>
>In the interest of full disclosure, I supported Kerry prior to and
>independently from these observations.  However, I considered these to be
>normal political disagreements and not worthy of a political rant from me.
>If you care to know why I support Kerry for president (other than the
>above), here are some of my reasons:
>
>I'm in favor of the use of force as an instrument of foreign policy.
>However, our use of force should be restricted to situations where the net
>result is positive for us, and that includes thinking about if our actions
>actually generate more hostility toward us and actually increase the
>probability of an attack on US soil. We've made a lot of enemies lately, 
>and
>not all of them are Muslim.  The consequences of Bush's Iraq policy have
>been to split the Western Alliance, to weaken the internal support of those
>allies who stuck with us, to create a breeding ground for radical Muslim
>terrorists, and to provide them with easy access to weaponry and weapon
>making supplies and equipment.  The interest in the election abroad is a
>symptom of this. I don't think that this is contributing toward our quality
>of life, improving our standing in the world, or making us safer.
>
>Don't overinterpret the lack of recent attacks on US soil as evidence we 
>are
>safer.  Remember, terrorism on US soil is very difficult for terrorists to
>do.  They've hated us for decades, but they've not been able to mount more
>than about one attack per decade.  It just so happens that the last one was
>a biggie.  If they get another in before 2009 or so, I'd interpret the
>threat to have INCREASED since our response to 9-11.  The way to combat the
>terrorist threat is to recognize if for what it is: by definition it is an
>attempt to frighten the population into doing what you want.  They want to
>frighten us into giving up our liberty.  I think they've largely succeeded,
>and George W Bush has played right into their hands in his zeal to use the
>attacks to his own political advantage.  DON'T BE AFRAID!  Statistically,
>you should be far more scared of cancer or heart disease.  That's what is
>going to get you.  Not some nut case with a box-cutter.
>
>Iraq had nothing to do with the terrorist threat until Bush invaded.  Bush
>created the terrorist threat in Iraq, and he armed them. Saddam hated
>terrorists.  They were historically a bigger threat to him than the west.
>As far as contribution to terrorism is concerned, we would have been FAR
>BETTER OFF at this point in time with Iraq as a totalitarian state. 
>Saddam's
>extraordinary security apparatus guaranteed that these materials were
>extraordinarily secure in Iraq under his boot.  In the short run, we were
>safer, I believe, with a brutal totalitarian regime in Iraq to crush any
>threat to his leadership than we are now that those weapons are essentially
>free for the taking.  Bush himself said "If Kerry were president, we never
>would have invaded Iraq and those 380 tons of explosives would still be
>under his control."  Yes!  Exactly right!  They would be under his control
>and tagged by the IAEA in a warehouse.  Not in the hands of terrorists
>waiting to be used against us.  By the way, this was the same type of
>facility where nuclear equipment went missing.  I know people who 
>speculated
>that it was US who took that equipment.  The failure of us to locate and
>secure explosives at a nuclear facility makes that assumption unlikely.  We
>should assume that terrorists now control that nuclear equipment, and the
>fact that they do is a direct consequence of the US invasion of Iraq.  It 
>is
>our fault (Bush's fault) and there is no denying it.
>
>Certainly, we needed to eventually deal with Saddam (and other brutal
>totalitarian Arab states) in order to stabilize the middle east and promote
>the values of liberty.  I've been an advocate of getting rid of Saddam 
>since
>1991.  I think there were 2 times when we should have done it.  1) in 1991
>when we had the means and the international support which could have (with
>some work) been brought to bear on the problem.  G H W Bush failed us then.
>Perhaps he was right to stop.  Hard to know, now. If he had supported the
>Shia uprising against Saddam, he might have been able to have them do the
>dirty work for us, and increased our status in the world as a benign and
>just counrty.  Instead, over 240,000 Shia were slaughtered by Saddam, and 
>we
>stood by and let it happen.  That fact has not served us well in Iraq.
>2) 1998 When Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors.  That was a 
>violation
>of the cease fire of 1991, and with that one act he opened the door to
>pretty much whatever we felt we needed to do.  Clinton failed us at that
>time.
>
>Also, would have been a 3rd time: After the immediate threat from terrorism
>had been significantly reduced and we had built a solid coalition to 
>support
>the activity.  The endeavor is simply too risky to attempt without the
>support to conduct reconstruction cleanly, quickly, and effectively.
>Unfortunately, we were not prepared for catastrophic success, and had too
>few troops to ensure order and security over Saddam's vast arsenal  That
>arsenal is now in the hands of our enemies.
>
>Bush took his eye off the ball.  More to the point, he did it in a way that
>made us weaker internationally.  The net result is that
>1) the terrorists are better organized, better armed, and recruit new
>members more easily than any time since the invasion of afghanistan, and
>probably any time EVER.
>2) Our diplomatic position is far weaker.  Yes, we now know for sure who
>will stick with us no matter what. But we really knew that before, didn't
>we?  Now those leaders are weaker as the support of their own people wanes.
>3) Individual American's are more vulnerable that ever.  Have you travelled
>abroad since the invasion of Iraq? I haven't, but I know a lot of people 
>who
>have. They say basically the same thing.  We are not loved around the 
>world.
>Whatever support we had because of the 9-11 atrocity was squandered by the
>invasion of Iraq.
>
>It doesn't matter if the Iraqi people or people in general will be better
>off in the long run as a result.  What matters is that the logic used in
>Bush's arguments leading up to the war were unsupported and transparent.
>The Europeans didn't support the war because they knew the arguments were
>unsound.  Not because they were on the take.  There were plenty of SOUND
>arguments Bush could have made to support the war, but the fact is he 
>didn't
>make them.  He insisted on connecting Saddam and al queda with a vague
>threat of WMD falling into the hands of terrorists.  That argument simply
>didn't fly.  Saddam wanted WMD.  Absolutely.  But he DIDN'T want his 
>enemies
>to have them.  In Saddam's mind, a NBC weapon in the hands of Osama would
>have been as much of a threat (probably more) to him than to us. The
>Europeans knew this, and weren't about to support a war that couldn't be
>effectively defended to their own people.  Because of the failure to gain
>support for the war, we engaged in this effort at great cost to our
>traditional alliances, and we are going to have to clean up the mess 
>largely
>alone.  That has stretched our considerable resources so far that we
>couldn't do everything we needed to do in Iraq quickly enough.  What 
>happens
>now?
>
>I think the threat to us is greater than even Bush imagines.  Radical
>fundamentalist Muslims are gaining influence in the Arab world.
>http://jihadwatch.org/ When we attack, we play right into their hands and
>recruiting will be easier for them as their world becomes more polarized.
>The civilized world cannot end this movement through force of arms, unless
>we are willing to commit genocide on a scale that even Hitler couldn't
>imagine.  Clearly, we have the means to do this. Those means remain, and
>will still be fully available if we were to wait 20 years, or until
>otherwise forced to action. But is there an alternative?  Frankly, I do not
>know the answer to that question.  The only hope is to rely on moderate and
>liberal Muslims to take control of their faith and their societies, and
>bring civilization back to the arab world. We could engage in policies to
>facilitate this, rather than to work against this end. It is clear that 
>Bush
>is either incapable or uninclined to use diplomacy as a tool of foreign
>policy. I do not believe that at this point he could be effective at it,
>even if he were inclined. Kerry has engaged in diplomacy his entire
>political life. There are only 2 viable choices on this ballot. Only he has
>the chance to succeed at a diplomatic solution. You make the choice.
>
>
>--Doug Gardner
>s/v Fretnaught
>
>Please note that these are my own thoughts, and have nothing to do with my
>employer.
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