80% of the nation's media is owned by the same five companies.
They choose the President, start the wars, and decide the policies.
Because as the founding fathers understood, only a free press can guarantee
our freedom, |
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GETTING OUT OF THE TARPIT by Robert Manis Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina today became the party's first major presidential contender to oppose President Bush's request for $87 billion to secure and reconstruct the country.... "It is clear to me that President Bush is not going to change direction unless someone stands up to him and says no," said Edwards, who had voted in 2002 to authorize the war in Iraq -LA TIMES Sen. Edwards is the first of the major candidates to endorse what I think should be THE major issue of the 2004 campaign. Let's shoot straight here (pardon the metaphor). It does not matter a whit whether you voted for or against the war last year. It matters what you want to do NOW. Several candidates have come out against the war. But most indicate they would, now that we are in, "stay the course." This would be throwing good lives after bad. There is no such thing as a bad war ending with "Peace with honor." Tens of thousands of American lives were lost in Vietnam AFTER we made the decision to leave - all in pursuit of that chimera. Henry Kissinger himself noted that a peace reflects the balance of forces on the ground. There are 40 million Iraqis. If only 1% of them are vehemently opposed to the American presence, then they outnumber our forces by better than 2-1. The real number is without a doubt much higher. Iraq is a national fiction, sprouted from the roots of empire and colonialism. No doubt it would break apart if we left. It was only Saddam's totalitarian regime that held it together, much like Communism held together the former Soviet Union. Power abhors a vaccuum. It is true that if we leave, the chance is great that Iran or Turkey will abscond with parts of Iraq. Iran will become a greater threat to the region. It was that calculation which caused the first President Bush to abandon the Kurds and Shi'ites after the first Gulf War and leave Saddam in place. But if we stay it is likely the same results would occur, albeit in a far more painful and drawn out fashion. If elections were to occur, the winners would be the Shi'ites and the result an Iranian style Islamic Republic, a result we would never tolerate. Any one of the Democratic candidates would be superior to Bush. There is no doubt in my mind, no matter which way they voted, they would not as President have attacked Iraq. Yet Iraq will not go away on January 20, 2005. It will be there to haunt whoever is the American president. Let us stand up to President Bush. Let us learn the lesson of Vietnam or we will, in Santayana's words, "be condemned to repeat it." |
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