A REPUBLICAN'S CASE AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH
by Paul Findley
"..... the president has made no
effort to distance America from Israel's colonialism.
He pays lip-service to statehood as a goal for the
Palestinians, but he has done nothing to stop Israeli Prime
Minister Sharon's brutality of Palestinians--assassinations,
military forays that leave vast death and destruction, high
fences that confine Palestinians like cattle, and the steady
usurpation of more Palestinian land.
Bush seems unconcerned by the worldwide outrage at America's
massive, unconditional, uncritical support of Israel, with-
out which the Jewish state could never have carried out its
humiliation and devastation of Palestinian society.
Bush is overwhelmed by the influence of religious zealots--
both Zionist and fundamentalist Christian. He ignores
America's own heavy guilt for the plight of Palestinians.
He fails to recognize that more than a billion Muslims
worldwide, along with many millions of non-Muslims, are
deeply aggrieved at this complicity.
Bush offers an exquisite example of close-in hypocrisy. On
one side of a Middle East border, he tries to convince Iraqi
Arabs that he offers them democracy and freedom while, at
the same time on the other side of the border, he supports
Israel's violent denial of these identical rights for
Palestinian Arabs.
Iraqis worry that U.S. occupation will become a new
colonialism--indefinite U.S. control of Iraqi oil reserves,
Israeli-style brutality, and a U.S.-forced treaty that will
keep Iraq from helping the Palestinians.
President Bush is so befuddled by the awful carnage of 9/11
and rumors of more assaults to come that he does not see
what is vivid to most of the world--the real ground zero of
terrorism is in Palestine, not Manhattan. He ignores the
real ground zero at great peril to America.
This issue surmounts all others in the presidential
political campaign. It impels me to speak out against what
George W. Bush is doing. I am a Republican, and I will
remain in the Party of Lincoln. I feel no joy in making
this case against the president. He may be sincere in his
stewardship, but he is wrong—dead wrong--in the direction
he is taking our country.
What should be done? Must the president proceed with wars
without end?
The president's best war decision is purely political one,
and it is plain, peaceful, generous and just. He must make
a clean break from Israel's scofflaw behavior.
If Bush has the will, he can easily free himself and America.
If he acts, he will transform the grim scene in Iraq and
elsewhere in the Middle East into bright promise. Any day he
chooses, the president can instantly—without firing a shot--
quiet guerrilla warfare in Iraq and anti-American protests
throughout the world.
All he needs to do is inform Sharon that all aid will be
suspended until Israel vacates the Arab territory Israeli
forces seized in June 1967. U.S. aid is literally Israel's
lifeline, so the ultimatum would be electrifying evidence
that the United States, at long last, will do what is right
for Arabs and Muslims. If Bush acts, the Iraqi people will
have reason to believe, for the first time, that the U.S.
government truly opposes colonialism.
The ultimatum would prompt rejoicing worldwide, not just
among Iraqis and Palestinians. Opinion polls show that a
large majority of Israelis, weary of the long, bloody
struggle to subjugate the Palestinians, would welcome co-
existence with an independent, peaceful Palestine.
An impressive foundation for this presidential ultimatum
already exists. All member-states of the Arab league
unanimously offered peace-for-withdrawal four years ago. A
similar plan called the Geneva Accords was recently announced
jointly by former officials of Israel and Palestine. Almost
simultaneously, four retired heads of Israeli intelligence
even urged full, unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank
and Gaza.
By standing resolutely for justice for Palestinians, who
are mostly Muslim, Bush would virtually end anti-American
protests and strengthen moderate forces worldwide. " Paul Findley
The entire article can be read in Bill Buckley's
THE CONSERVATIVE REVIEW
February 3, 2004
A REPUBLICAN'S CASE AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH
by Paul Findley
During my long life, America has surmounted many severe
challenges. As a teenager, I experienced the great
depression. In World War II, I saw war close-up as a Navy
Seabee. As a country newspaper editor, I watched the
Korean War from afar. As a Member of Congress, I agonized
through the Vietnam War from start to finish. During these
challenges I never for a moment worried about America's
ultimate survival with its great principles and ideals
still intact.
Today, for the first time, I worry deeply about America's
future. We are in a deep hole. I believe President George
W. Bush's decision to initiate war in Iraq will be the
greatest and most costly blunder in American history. He
has set America on the wrong course.
I must speak out. As best I can, I must bestir those who
will listen to the grave damage already done to our nation
and warn of still greater harm if Bush continues his
present course during a second term in the White House.
When terrorists assaulted America on 9/11, killing nearly
3,000 innocent civilians, President Bush responded, not by
focusing on bringing to justice the criminals who were
responsible, but by initiating a war against impoverished,
defenseless Afghanistan, a broad attack that killed at
least 3,000 innocent people. Even before the dust settled
in Afghanistan, the president initiated another war--this
one in Iraq, a war planned long before 9/11.
In the name of national security, the president has brought
about fundamental, revolutionary changes that threaten our
nation's moorings.
At home and abroad, he has undercut time-honored principles
of the rule of law.
Abroad, he has made war a ready instrument of presidential
policy instead of reserving it as a last-resort should peril
confront our nation.
In public documents, he claims the personal authority to make
war any time and any place he alone chooses and the authority
to use force to keep unfriendly nations from increasing their
own military strength.
His power is unprecedented. He directs a military budget greater
than all other nations combined. At his instant, personal
command is more military power than any nation in all recorded
history ever before possessed.
He proclaims America the global policeman and for that role he
has already expanded a worldwide system of U.S. military bases.
Four new ones are in place in Iraq and four others near the
Caspian Sea.
He orders the development and production of a new generation
of nuclear arms for U.S. use only, meanwhile threatening other
nations—Iran and North Korea, for example—against acquiring
any of its own.
Unleashing America's mighty sword, he brings about regime
changes in Afghanistan and Iraq but mires our forces in
quagmires from which escape seems unlikely for many years.
He isolates America from common undertakings with time-
tested allies. He trivializes the United Nations and violates
its charter.
The president offers wars without end, and the Congress
shouts its approval. But his use of America's vast arsenal
is so reckless that he is regarded widely as the most
dangerous man in the world.
Here at home, in his frantic quest for terrorists, he stoops
to bigoted measures based on race and national origin,
tramples on civil liberties, and spreads fear and disbelief
throughout the land. Those of Middle Eastern ancestry, and
many others, buckle under government-inflicted humiliations
and abuses with trepidation, sorrow and resentment.
Frustrated by Iraqi dissidents who protest the occupation
by killing U.S. troops almost daily, the president reverts
to war measures. He orders heavy aerial bombing in wide
areas of the countryside.
Even as body bags pile high, the president seems oblivious
to war's horror. The rockets and one-ton bombs may kill a
few Iraqi guerrillas and cause others to pull back and pause,
but they kill and maim innocent civilians, level homes,
turn neighborhoods into rubble, and permanently blight many
lives. They create deep-seated outrage, not cooperation.
The Iraqi carnage is piled alongside the simultaneous
destruction and blighting of American lives. More than 500
U.S. military personnel have been killed and, according to
one estimate, nearly 10,000 have been wounded. Ponder that
fact. Ten thousand American families permanently blighted
in a war the United States initiated. Mark Twain, writing
of war, once asked, "Will we wring the hearts of the un-
offending widows with unavailing grief?"
The president overreacts to 9/11 by leading America into a
lengthy fiery trial that may last far into the future—years
of U.S.-initiated wars designed to punish regimes believed
to harbor terrorists.
This is not the America my generation fought to preserve in
World War II.
Starting wars will not bring a just peace. The president
should ponder deeply why many people in many nations engage
in anti-American protest.
The answer: People worldwide, especially in Iraq and
Palestine, are livid over grievances against America.
Almost all Iraqis are glad Saddam Hussein is out of power,
but many of them—the total may be a substantial majority—
see America as arrogant, biased, untrustworthy, and bent
on world domination.
Here are some of the reasons:
In the l980s--the height of Saddam's cruel treatment of
Kurds and other Iraqi citizens—the U.S. government served
as the dictator's silent, uncomplaining partner, helping
him battle Iran by providing intelligence, and critical
military supplies, even some components of weapons of mass
destruction.
At the end of the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqis had a bitter
experience with the president's father. President George
Bush, Sr. publicly urged the Iraqis to overthrow Saddam.
His call prompted a strong uprising, but Bush refused U.S.
support in any form. This bleak rejection prompted Saddam
to use helicopter gun-ships to slaughter dissidents by the
hundreds. He had retained use of these lethal aircraft in
a provision of the U.S.-approved armistice.
Iraqis also remember bitterly that U.S. fighter planes
enforced sanctions on the people of Iraq for a decade after
the Gulf War. This embargo was so harsh it led to immense
civilian suffering, including the death of at least a half-
million Iraqi infants.
Today, Iraqis are wary of the President's motives and
dependability. Many doubt that his true objectives are, as
he now states, establishing freedom and democracy in their
country, or, as he earlier stated, destroying Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction.
Aware that he ignored offers of conciliation from Saddam's
emissaries before the invasion, they believe he harbors
dreams of an American empire and wanted the war in Iraq,
come what may.
Their greatest and most deep-seated complaint is Bush's
failure to make even the slightest move to halt America's
anti-Arab bias. For example, the president has made no
effort to distance America from Israel's colonialism.
He pays lip-service to statehood as a goal for the
Palestinians, but he has done nothing to stop Israeli Prime
Minister Sharon's brutality of Palestinians--assassinations,
military forays that leave vast death and destruction, high
fences that confine Palestinians like cattle, and the steady
usurpation of more Palestinian land.
Bush seems unconcerned by the worldwide outrage at America's
massive, unconditional, uncritical support of Israel, with-
out which the Jewish state could never have carried out its
humiliation and devastation of Palestinian society.
Bush is overwhelmed by the influence of religious zealots--
both Zionist and fundamentalist Christian. He ignores
America's own heavy guilt for the plight of Palestinians.
He fails to recognize that more than a billion Muslims
worldwide, along with many millions of non-Muslims, are
deeply aggrieved at this complicity.
Bush offers an exquisite example of close-in hypocrisy. On
one side of a Middle East border, he tries to convince Iraqi
Arabs that he offers them democracy and freedom while, at
the same time on the other side of the border, he supports
Israel's violent denial of these identical rights for
Palestinian Arabs.
Iraqis worry that U.S. occupation will become a new
colonialism--indefinite U.S. control of Iraqi oil reserves,
Israeli-style brutality, and a U.S.-forced treaty that will
keep Iraq from helping the Palestinians.
President Bush is so befuddled by the awful carnage of 9/11
and rumors of more assaults to come that he does not see
what is vivid to most of the world--the real ground zero of
terrorism is in Palestine, not Manhattan. He ignores the
real ground zero at great peril to America.
This issue surmounts all others in the presidential
political campaign. It impels me to speak out against what
George W. Bush is doing. I am a Republican, and I will
remain in the Party of Lincoln. I feel no joy in making
this case against the president. He may be sincere in his
stewardship, but he is wrong—dead wrong--in the direction
he is taking our country.
What should be done? Must the president proceed with wars
without end?
The president's best war decision is purely political one,
and it is plain, peaceful, generous and just. He must make
a clean break from Israel's scofflaw behavior.
If Bush has the will, he can easily free himself and America.
If he acts, he will transform the grim scene in Iraq and
elsewhere in the Middle East into bright promise. Any day he
chooses, the president can instantly—without firing a shot--
quiet guerrilla warfare in Iraq and anti-American protests
throughout the world.
All he needs to do is inform Sharon that all aid will be
suspended until Israel vacates the Arab territory Israeli
forces seized in June 1967. U.S. aid is literally Israel's
lifeline, so the ultimatum would be electrifying evidence
that the United States, at long last, will do what is right
for Arabs and Muslims. If Bush acts, the Iraqi people will
have reason to believe, for the first time, that the U.S.
government truly opposes colonialism.
The ultimatum would prompt rejoicing worldwide, not just
among Iraqis and Palestinians. Opinion polls show that a
large majority of Israelis, weary of the long, bloody
struggle to subjugate the Palestinians, would welcome co-
existence with an independent, peaceful Palestine.
An impressive foundation for this presidential ultimatum
already exists. All member-states of the Arab league
unanimously offered peace-for-withdrawal four years ago. A
similar plan called the Geneva Accords was recently announced
jointly by former officials of Israel and Palestine. Almost
simultaneously, four retired heads of Israeli intelligence
even urged full, unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank
and Gaza.
By standing resolutely for justice for Palestinians, who
are mostly Muslim, Bush would virtually end anti-American
protests and strengthen moderate forces worldwide.
Will Bush liberate America from endless wars and chart a
constructive, peaceful new future for our nation? If he
does so promptly, he will be a shoo-in for reelection. If
he does not, I will join other Republicans—there will be
many of us--in urging his defeat.
Exactly how one sided can you be on an issue? HELLO!!!! Israel is a country of refugees, attacked by Arabs repeatedly. Nixon and Kissinger didn't win the six day war. The Israelis won. They won because three major religions spawn from these refugees and that place. They won because they were tired of letting racists, Arab or German, tell them where to live.
They won because there are people, Muslims, Christians, who recognise the suffering of the Jewish people, and recognise that a country the size of CHICAGO PEOPLE!!! is not too much to sacrifice when you own 22 other Muslim countries where there is little relgious freedom and Jews, Americans, and even Hindus are regularly discriminated against and slaughtered. Are you daft, or just saying that Arabs are so clean handed that they don't have to get theirs sometimes.
Look, no one is saying human rights aren't important, but everyones rights, on all sides, not just the Muslims who hate and create terror ans sexism like Arafat and the Iranian Regime, do you ever really take their human rights violations in to consideration.
BALANCE
Doing what we can to create peace between Israel and a Palestinian state is of utmost importance.
But doing it in order to appease the part of the Muslim Middle East that simply hates Jews and sees them as less than human is NOT the right reason.
Furthermore, seeing the situation as one-sided characterized by Israel "seizing" Arab territory in 1967 is and has been the main problem. Israel did not "seize" anything. Israel was catagorically attcked by three racist states PURELY because they cannot accept living peacefully alongside a culture and religion which has progressed beyond them. In a very short amount of time no less.
The disputed territories should and will be part of a Palestinian state, I'm sure. But not because they aren't rightfully Israel's to begin with. Since a three pronged attempt at Jewish genocide in 1967, these lands have been, by any real standard, Israeli.
The article is simply another tired effort to absolve the Arabs of any complicity in the situation. Until the Arab world and their ill informed supporters realize that BOTH sides have a hand in the circle of violence EQUALLY, there won't be peace. There will simply be more Arab terrorism and more Isareli retaliation..
