Summary:
National security / Foreign Policy
• I will use our National Guard for homeland
security
• I will not support ill-conceived, poorly
managed foreign wars
• I will protect our borders, ports, and
vulnerable facilities
• I will seek vigorous, international opposition
to terrorism
• I will plan now for natural disasters
Full Explanation:
National Security
and Foreign Policy depends upon many things, some
of which the present Republican administration
has completely failed to address. Fighting terrorism
on foreign soil is only one aspect of national
security, and if poorly planned and improperly
begun, such as Bush’s war in Iraq, it can
actually be counterproductive. Here are some things
required for a comprehensive approach to our national
security.
1. We need to fund our military adequately.
To do this, we must determine the most effective
way to use our money. Pouring billions into cold-war
weaponry will not do the job in a changing world.
On the other hand, paying our military personnel
adequately will attract more highly qualified
people into the armed services. And making an
iron-clad commitment to providing adequately for
them after their service is a moral obligation
we cannot fail to meet.
2. We need to use our National Guard for
homeland problems, the purpose for which
it was created. We do not have to experience any
more Katrinas to convince ourselves that domestic
crises go untended when our National Guard is
shipped overseas.
3. We need to secure our borders.
To do this we must have adequate personnel and
up-to-date technology. We must also secure the
cooperation of our neighbor nations to deal more
effectively with the problem of illegal immigration
by sending illegal aliens back to their countries
of origin or by insisting that they engage in
the legal processes of immigration in order to
remain here and benefit from our system of government.
4. We must not under any circumstances
export the security of our ports or vulnerable
facilities (transportation systems, nuclear and
chemical plants, communication infrastructures)
to foreign companies or foreign powers.
Security is an obligation of our own government
and must be dispatched as such.
5. We must never send our military into
harm’s way on the basis of intelligence
which is faulty or deliberately misrepresented.
The tragedy in Iraq should teach us that
lesson for all time.
6. We need to advance the internationalization
of the war on terrorism by cooperating with our
allies rather than alienating them. It
is in their interests as well as ours to prevent
global terrorism. We must seek and respect their
views if we hope to have their help.
7. We need to engage in the non-military
prevention of terrorism through international
cooperation which supports the dignity and sovereignty
of all peoples and which provides the financial
help to eradicate the poverty that drives the
creation of terrorism generation after generation.
In doing this, we need to be mindful of the historical
forces that created the poverty that contributes
to the humiliation felt by so many nations in
which terrorism is spreading. Ignoring history
will only make the job harder.
8. Finally, we ought to begin planning
now for disasters that we know will befall us.
Earthquakes on the West Coast, hurricanes in the
East and Gulf, droughts, floods, tornados, and
even dangers from space are coming sooner or later.
With foresight we can be more prepared than we
have been. The time to begin is now. The costs
of prevention are many times less than the costs
of dealing with natural disasters after they occur.
IRAQ:
The recent hullabaloo in Washington about troop
withdrawals and timetables in Iraq leads me to
believe that come election time, whatever the
“conditions on the ground” might be,
they will be exactly “right” for Bush
to instigate his “October surprise”,
and my opponent, Phil English, who has been in
lock-step with Bush on Iraq from the beginning,
will then no doubt try to turn Bush’s preplanned
rhetoric into political hay.
But rhetoric is
not reality, and the Bush-English agenda in Iraq
continues to be a criminal failure. It is for
that reason I am addressing the issue now, before
the politics of October rears its predictable
head.
I would like to
start with an important historical observation.
The indigenous peoples of the Middle East see
the West through the prism of an 800-year reign
of colonial expansion which began with the Crusades
and continues today with our occupation of Iraq.
Right or wrong, it is imperative that we understand
this perspective. We cannot solve today’s
crisis in the Middle East without taking the tides
of history into account.
Next, it is also
imperative that we realize our invasion of Iraq
was unnecessary; that it was based on the deliberate
falsehoods of the Bush Administration and its
unquestioning supporters, of whom my opponent
is one. The Carnegie Report (available online)
stated categorically over two-and-a-half years
ago that the Bush Administration “systematically
misrepresented” the pre-invasion intelligence
it was given in order to justify its pre-emptive
war. The lies of the administration and its abjectly
poor post-invasion planning are what have created
the mess which exists today.
The confluence
of these perspectives means that our troops are
fighting several battles: a millennium-long hatred
of the West, an insurgency of America’s
own creation, and a civil strife among historically
adversarial Mesopotamian factions (Kurd, Sunni,
Shiite). We need to deal with all of this to extricate
ourselves from our current dilemma.
Short-term we
need to set a reasonable timetable for the Iraqis
to take full control of the defense of their own
nation and for us to redeploy our forces to a
perimeter which is out of harm’s way yet
close enough for swift action if needed. In the
longer term, we need to deal with the historical,
social, economic, and political forces that have
created the terrorism we now battle. In the words
of General Wesley Clark, we must “drain
the swamp” which feeds the current crisis.
To do that, we
first need to re-invigorate the international
alliances which have been fractured by the arrogance
of the Bush Administration. Right now, because
we have isolated ourselves in the international
community, we bear an overwhelmingly disproportionate
burden of the war on terrorism. America accounts
for $522 billion of the entire annual global defense
budget of $1.083 trillion. This has not only stretched
our security forces thin at home and abroad, it
has also helped to create a crushing national
debt and a huge individual tax burden.
To put that $522
billion in perspective, the next two leading defense
spenders, Communist China and Russia, spend only
$120 billion together. Our allies must step up
to the plate with both troops and treasure if
terrorism is to be successfully combated.
Finally, the wealthy
nations of the world—principally America
and the nations of Western Europe (who were the
initial colonial “culprits” to begin
with)—must find ways to provide for the
economic and social development of the poverty-stricken
regions of the world which spawn terrorism. Distrust
and poverty are the real enemies we face because
as long as they exist, young men will view violence
and terror as advancing their interests more effectively
than peace.
No “October
surprise” will stem the historical tides
we are fighting, and the inability of the Bush
Administration and my opponent to understand and
deal with these tides is without a doubt the greatest
tragedy of the past six years. The only way to
end that tragedy is to change the thinking of
Washington by changing the membership of Congress.
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