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Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Security Scholars for Sensible Foreign Policy

In an open letter to the American people, a nonpartisan group of fifty foreign affairs scholars has called for an urgent change in American security policy.

"We judge that the current American policy centered around the war in Iraq is the most misguided one since the Vietnam period, one which harms the cause of the struggle against extreme Islamist terrorists. One result has been a great distortion in the terms of public debate on foreign and national security policy�”an emphasis on speculation instead of facts, on mythology instead of calculation, and on misplaced moralizing over considerations of national interest."

(Read their press release, the full letter, and media coverage by Jim Lobe.)

While the Bush administration continues to bury its head in the sand, British foreign secretary Jack Straw admitted yesterday that his government's claim that Saddam Hussein was capable of launching a chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes was false. (Read coverage from the BBC, The Guardian, and The Independent.)

Now Tony Blair is under increasing pressure over deceptive tactics in the lead up to the war. With the Duelfer Report concluding that Saddam Hussein never had the weapons to justify a hurried invasion, it is becoming harder for Blair and Bush to continue to ignore the facts. Former head of the Iraq survey group, David Kay, stated last week in an interview on NBC in response to repeated Bush administration denials on this subject, "All I can say is 'denial' is not just a river in Egypt." Former UN arms inspector Hans Blix said today in an AFP article that while the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, it isn't any safer. Instead, the Bush policy "has stimulated terrorism."

As the Security Scholars for Sensible Foreign Policy urge, "a fundamental reassessment is in order." Since the Bush administration is clearly incapable of such a reassessment, it is now up to the American people on November 2.

The Pope, the Dixie Chicks...and now Bush's hometown paper

The Lone Star Iconoclast, a newspaper in Bush's adopted hometown of Crawford, Texas, recently endorsed Senator Kerry for President after having endorsed Bush four years ago. The paper's editorial decried the Bush administration's policy over the last four years.

"Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq."

The paper went on to write:

"Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:

• Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
• Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans��™ benefits and military pay.
• Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
• Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
• Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
• Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
• Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay."