{"article":{"id":102394,"heading":"A Republican's Case Against George W. Bush","author":"Paul Findley","created":"2004-02-06 04:04:17","modified":"2013-11-11 00:28:42","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:28:42","article":"

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. <\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":""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. \r\nHe fails to recognize that more than a billion Muslims worldwide, along with many millions of non-Muslims, are deeply aggrieved at this complicity. " \r\n Paul Findley, former Republican Congressman speaks out about Palestine \r\n","numcomment":4,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2004\/02\/102394.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":102397,"heading":"You're a pretty sorry excuse for a Republican","article":"If you're a Republican then we need to get you expelled from the party right away. But we both know that you're only kidding. You're no Republican and you never were. Why are you trying that BS on us?\r\n\r\nThe average Republican (me for example) is 100% behind Israel and Ariel Sharon. \r\n\r\nHe's the best leader Israel has ever had. Going after Hamas terrorist leaders with helicopter gunships is precisely the right thing to do. \r\n\r\nBarak tried appeasement. It didn't work. Of course it didn't work. Arafat is, and always was, a terrorist. You can't negotiate with terrorists. Don't even try!\r\n\r\nThere is no chance that America will abandon Israel in favor or the terrorist supporting regime that Arafat commands. Thank God for that.","author":"BA19","parent_id":102394,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-02-06 04:43:21","modified":"2004-02-06 04:43:21","fileurl":""},{"id":102415,"heading":"BA19","article":""Thank God for that."\r\n\r\nIn addition to God, what other fairy tales do you believe in? The US government's explanation of 911?\r\n","author":"Dan III","parent_id":102394,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-02-06 17:54:42","modified":"2004-02-06 17:54:42","fileurl":""},{"id":102444,"heading":"this crap again?","article":"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.\r\nThey 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.\r\nLook, 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. \r\nBALANCE","author":"mymicz","parent_id":102394,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-02-07 01:42:19","modified":"2004-02-07 01:42:19","fileurl":""},{"id":102461,"heading":"fresca","article":"Doing what we can to create peace between Israel and a Palestinian state is of utmost importance.\r\n\r\nBut 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.\r\n\r\nFurthermore, 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. \r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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..","author":"fresca","parent_id":102394,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-02-07 03:44:49","modified":"2004-03-09 22:02:00","fileurl":""}]}