NP? "we have a fool in charge and he does not speak for us"

[pynchonoid]

> pynchonoid wrote: [...] 

No, Simon Tisdall wrote, in The Guardian, "The voice
of America: Only his people can stop Bush now - and
many are speaking out against war in Iraq", on
Saturday October 12, 2002, on the Web at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,810488,00.html


....Bush isn't the only national leader who knows how
to rig an election:
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/story/0,4386,149024,00.html



Tough Questions from One Father to Another
By John Passacantando, AlterNet
October 11, 2002
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14288

Dear President Bush: 


Recently your administration released a report
entitled “The National Security Strategy of the United
States of America,” which proposes shifting the
strategic priorities of the United States from
deterrence to dominance. As a result, many of us are
struggling to understand what this strategy might mean
for our country, our soldiers, our jobs and our safety
at home and abroad. 


We are trying to understand why you are pushing for a
war with Iraq. We are trying to understand how to
raise our families if the American values of
compassion, humility and understanding are to be
displaced by domination, arrogance and stubborn
holding forth of American needs and way of life first
and foremost, despite the consequences. 


Like you, I have two daughters. At some point in our
lives you and I both will be held accountable to them
regarding how we have fulfilled our roles as parents
as well as how we have engaged and changed the world
that they will inherit. I am certain that we can both
agree on one thing -- if we leave behind a polluted,
damaged world with a legacy of conflict and suffering,
we will be deeply ashamed. So I would like to focus
today on the environment and the prospect of war. 


I work for Greenpeace, a 30-year old organization that
is committed to non-violent direct action in order to
secure a green and peaceful world. We oppose the use
of violence by all nations and believe that each and
every one must abide by international law if we are to
avoid the massive human carnage seen in the 20th
century. Sadly, both Iraq and the United States have
flouted international law, and it is the infractions
by the U.S. that set the negative example for other
nations that we trust and respect. The result is the
undermining of collaborative efforts to isolate
nations like Iraq that have threatened the use of
weapons of mass destruction. 


Regarding the environment, I am frustrated that your
administration has ignored pleas from across the
country to protect our environment. Yet I am grateful
to live in a country where the president must face the
voting public in democratic elections. Corporate
lobbyists may make many walks down the West Wing of
the White House, but we the people still get to walk
into that voting booth every four years to make our
voices heard. 


Until then, there are a number of key questions that
must be asked if we Americans, as activists, parents
and engaged citizens, are to understand our collective
role in the world. 


I want to know why you opposed making our automobile
fleet more energy efficient when doing so would give
us far more energy independence from the Middle East.
I want to know about the profits that Vice President
Cheney’s former employer, Haliburton, made during the
1990s providing oil services to Iraq. I want to know
about your campaign contributors like ExxonMobil and
exactly how much business they conducted with Saddam
Hussein’s regime in the years since the last Gulf war.



I want to know how you plan to divvy up the windfall
that you expect Haliburton and the U.S. oil companies
to receive if you are able to put a friendly regime in
Iraq. According to Lawrence Lindsey, one of your own
top economic policy advisors, such a regime change
would double or triple the amount of oil produced
daily in Iraq, adding up to five million barrels a
day. With profits of approximately $5 per barrel, U.S.
companies currently precluded from operating in Iraq
could make up to $9 billion per year. This figure does
not include profits to oil services giants like
Haliburton, which would benefit greatly from the
rebuilding of oil wells, pipelines and storage and
shipping infrastructure in the region. 


With this much money at stake, it is hard not to ask
some disturbing questions. Should you decide to
declare war, and Iraqi citizens and American soldiers
die in the effort, will these oil profits be
repatriated to the families of the victims? Will the
dollars be used to develop the renewable energy and
energy efficient technologies so that we will never
have to fight another war for oil? If the answers to
these questions are negative, then would we not be
sending in troops simply to benefit the oil industry? 


I want to know if you will be willing to support
weapons inspections, backed by the force of the United
Nations, for both Iraq and the United States. Given
our own anthrax attacks at home, there seem to be
worrisome quantities of biological weapons agents, and
even pharmacological weapons, being created in the
United States, far in excess of the quantities agreed
to internationally. 


But the most difficult question of all is what to tell
our daughters about U.S. dependence upon oil and your
reluctance to help us kick this deadly habit. I had a
conversation in my kitchen with my two daughters --
Sophie, age 7, and Mollie, age 4 -- the day after the
one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. They
wanted to know why people would want to kill us. 


When my daughters were born, I thought the toughest
conversation I would ever have with them would be
about boys. Now that conversation is lower on the list
of difficult subjects. This war on terrorism is a very
challenging one. It is about fanaticism and people so
angry and desperate that they resort to suicide
attacks. But even those topics I can handle. 


What I don’t know how to explain is why the United
States is simultaneously so admired and so hated by
people the world over. 


We live in a country that prides itself on the
ingenuity of its people, on our ability to create
whole new industries overnight with speed, flexibility
and confidence. And yet the Bush administration
chooses to keep our military stationed around the
world to protect oil supply lines back to the United
States. We choose to drive gas guzzling cars and SUVs
and to anger much of the world in the process. We
choose to cede the future of super efficient vehicle
manufacturing to competitors around the world. We
choose to live the way we have grown accustomed to
living, rather than to adapt and get smarter. And we
choose to indignantly stand our ground as our 4.6
percent of the world’s population emit 25 percent of
the global warming pollution. These are not easy facts
to explain to today’s younger generation. 


So in the end it comes down to hope. My daughters
still believe that any situation, no matter how bad or
difficult, can be fixed by an adult. As a result, I
keep slogging away, keeping hope alive, believing that
someday we will break through and redirect our world
onto a far more peaceful path. 


So, Mr. President, the crux of the issue is this. When
all the pollsters, advisors and consultants have gone
home, you will have to speak from your own heart and
explain the mistakes of the past. What, sir, are you
going to tell your daughters? 


John Passacantando is the executive director of
Greenpeace USA.




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