Who Should I Vote For?

If you like the job Bush is doing as President, you should go ahead and vote for him. But if you ask me, that’s a bad idea, and here’s why: I think he lied to us about the war in Iraq being a war of last resort. I think he lied to us about keeping our country safe from terrorism, too. 9/11 happened on his watch, for one thing, and every dollar wasted overseas on KBR, Halliburton and the rest of this administration’s cronies is one less dollar spent on keeping our ports and airports secure here in our country. I think he lied about his reasons for going to war, not once or twice, but 23 different times. Bush lied about a lot of things and instead of admitting to his lies (or even being able to admit he’s made mistakes), he and his team (with Karl Rove at the helm) have done nothing but spin the media and obfuscate the truth from the American people. The media is beginning to wake up to how they’ve been abused and manipulated by this administration and the neocons in the Republican party.

In the 1980’s, John Kerry exposed the hypocrisy of these people who now are at the heart of the current Republican party. While serving on the Senate’s Foreign Relations Commission, he headed an investigation that turned up extensive evidence of drug deals involving the CIA and the Contra rebels in Nicaragua; evidence that pointed directly to the drugs-for-arms-for-hostages scheme at the heart of the Iran Contra Scandal involving the Reagan administration (of which Bush Sr. was vice president) and Oliver North, among others. Kerry wasn’t afraid to take on the dirty dealers who run our nation’s corrupt so-called War on Drugs, just as he took on the corrupt war-mongers in the Pentagon after returning from duty in Vietnam. He saw then as he sees now that it’s the big money interests (within and outside of our government) that are the root of the problem, not the vast majority of the American people. (And for the record, Kerry supports medical marijuana research.)

If Bush gets another four years, the first thing he’s going to do is ask Congress for ANOTHER $70 billion for this failed war effort of his (probably more…); I think he’ll keep asking for more and more, and no one will require a regular progress report. It’ll be a series of blank checks handed out and the spending will be untraceable. What have we gotten for the billions we’ve already spent in Iraq ? Why are our troops so ill-equipped going into battle, and why haven’t the Iraqis completed the training and received the equipment they need to properly secure their country (now 3 years after the invasion)? What are all those billions being spent on? Where is the accountability and oversight? There is no oversight!

In addition, the Bush administration, along with the Republican-controlled House, Senate, and Supreme Court, has deemed that We the People have no right to know how that money is being spent. They’ve used document classification and “national security” to put a cap on what information is allowed to be released and they’ve taken away our rights of oversight by removing our access to defense contract databases; databases that were previously available to the public and created through the use of taxpayer money. Those are “our” databases. Bush has privatized those databases, selling “our” information to private companies. And while we can’t look at that information (information that rightfully belongs to us), these private companies are free to spy on us and use those databases with all of our personal information via the USA Patriot Act, and they don’t have to tell us what they’re using that information for: they do this and cite “national security” as the means to keep us all in line.

Meanwhile, anyone who examines the facts on this issue of security can quickly find out that not only do the airlines NOT have one single accurate “list” of passengers who might be security risks, Homeland Security has not even taken the steps to secure our planes, airports, seaports, train corridors, or anything else. Apparently, the American people themselves pose a greater risk to this administration than any fringe groups who use terrorism as a tool against this country. The Bush administration doesn’t see this as a problem because their agenda has nothing to do with national security or keeping our citizens “safe” although that’s what they tell the entire world through the media. Their agenda also has nothing to do with being “compassionate” or “conservative” or even “religious.” Their agenda is about power and corporate profits, and it extends world-wide, not just in the U.S.

The very fact that Osama bin Laden is alive and well and still making taped threats against the United States of America points to how weak Bush has been on this “war on terror” and on national security — since he let OBL get away at Tora Bora and then waged a war on Iraq, a country which had NOTHING to do with 9/11 and was NOT a hotbed for Al Qaeda activity until Bush made it one — and bin Laden is not even someone Bush thinks about very much at all.

Even now, recent estimates of over 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, most of which were women and children and not terrorists, plus the fact that critical water, power, and weapons facilities were not secured (while the oil ministry was) should focus peoples’ attention on the fact that Bush either knows (a.) absolutely nothing about making a nation secure, not Iraq and not the U.S., and/or (b.) that his concern was not security but oil and money for reconstruction contracts to enrich his friends and buy political and corporate favors he can call in later.

This administration has used nothing but fear, lies, and spin to advance their agenda. They conjured mental images of mushroom clouds over U.S. cities to frighten people into supporting their very flawed, inept policies, and they continued to repeat that same message on a daily basis, knowing they had fixed the intelligence around those policies. We’ve already seen what those policies result in. We cannot afford endless war in terms of money, lives lost, or enemies created. We cannot support this agenda of endless war, death, and fear.

Here’s some reminders….

Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. (Need I say more?)
Chalabi, the embezzler and spy for Iran. (Need I say more?)
The 377 tons of explosive missing and the IAEA seal story.
Osama bin Laden still on the loose. Bush failed to fulfill his pledge to get Osama Bin Laden ‘dead or alive.’
The Bush campaign’s fake troops ad.
100,000+ Iraqis dead, most of which were women and children, not terrorists.
1,000+ American troops dead. Funerals Bush attended: 0
Highly screened and selected audiences at Bush rallies.
The Bush administration failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building.
A White House source outed CIA agent, Valerie Plame’s identity.
Bush using 9/11 victims in his campaign to evoke sympathy, while his friend Baker defends not the 9/11 families, but the Saudis in the lawsuit.
In the 18 months following the 9/11 attacks Bush successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States. The only reason there even was a 9/11 commission was because the victims’ families pushed Bush into relenting and allowing such a commission to be formed. It was not, however, an independent commission.
“Mission Accomplished!” - premature, wasn’t it?
Biggest budget deficit in history. This is “conservative”???
Bush dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
The presidential debates: Kerry 3, Bush 0
The vice presidential debate: Edwards 1, Cheney 0
First US president to order a pre-emptive attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation that had no means of defending itself.
Contempt for and violation of the Geneva Conventions, putting our own troops at risk of being treated likewise.
Sending troops into harm’s way without the proper body armor and equipment.
Continuing to give defense contracts to firms that traffic in human beings (check the Congressional Record).
Bush, along with Ashcroft and the rest of his administration, removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history.
Republicans broke into and stole the computer files of Democrats every day for over a year in a row… will justice be delivered? Don’t hold your breath waiting.
Bush reversed federal rules to allow corporations with criminal convictions to bid on more government contracts.
Bush administration lies about everything from budget and Medicare numbers to repeatedly lying about something as petty as a kid yawning at a Bush speech (verified, kid yawned), or whether it rained or not in Crawford, Texas, prior to Bush’s bike mishap (verified, no rain). What’s so stupid is, the lies are easily exposed with photos, documents, or leaked files… and they keep lying anyway.

“I request duty in Vietnam” — John Kerry, Feb 10, 1968 in the very first line of a military request.
“I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada.” — George Bush, Dallas Morning News, Feb. 25, 1990

I think you get the idea.