Posted on 10/07/2004 9:01:48 AM PDT by CHARLITE
Bush vs. Kerry: An Election Like No Other By Ali Sina
I watched the first round of the presidential debate between President Bush and Senator Kerry with a lot of interest. I am not an American but I believe the outcome of this election will affect not just America but the entire world. If you don’t accuse me of being hyperbolic I dare to say that this is the most important election in the history of mankind. On this election may depend the future of the world and whether there would be another world war or perhaps it could be avoid. This was one debate I could not miss.
I have to acknowledge that Sen. Kerry was better prepared and was more eloquent than President Bush. But do eloquence and being articulate really equate to wisdom and statesmanship? Please do not misunderstand me, I am not drawing any comparison but merely trying to make my point. Hitler was an impressive orator but of course he was a very wrong person to lead his country.
So with this in mind I put aside the eloquence factor and tried to understand the message that each one of these candidates was delivering, peer into their character and appraise their capability as the commander in chief of the most powerful country in the history of mankind.
Sen. Kerry said many things that sounded logical. He said North Korea now has nuclear bombs and Iran is in pursuit of them and no one is doing anything about it. I agree with that.
He said that not enough is being done to buy the uranium-enriched stockpile that the Soviets had developed that could fall in the hands of wrong bidders. I agree with that too.
He said American ports are not secure. This is true. But in reality terrorists do not need to send their destructive terror through the ports. There are so many ways they could hit America and the rest of the civilized world that only their diabolic imagination is the limit. We really can’t protect ourselves everywhere. If you try to secure the airports by checking the passengers, they could blow themselves up in the crowded lines at the check-points. They could attack schools, subways, busses, hospitals, restaurants, water-reservoirs, shopping malls…, the list is end less. Can we really secure all these places? So the point is moot. Yes it would be nice to secure the ports but does that make America any safer? What if atomic bombs are delivered to various ports and detonated simultaneously while waiting inspection? What Sen. Kerry is proposing will only make Americans spend more money for a false sense of security.
Sen. Kerry also berated his rival and said that the war in Iraq was a wrong war at a wrong time. Then in that debate he said something different. He said that he agreed with the war but he would have fought it differently. In other words it wasn’t the wrong war at a wrong time but a war that was fought in a wrong way. The Senator however did not go into specifics to explain in what ways he would have fought this war differently. I wanted to know, and a google search brought me the answer: The following is part of an interview that Sen. Kerry gave in 1998:
"Saddam Hussein is pursuing a program to build weapons of mass destruction and I support regime change, with ground troops if necessary. I am way ahead of the commander in chief, and I’m probably way ahead of my colleagues and certainly of much of the country.” (1)
It is clear that Sen. Kerry realized the danger that Saddam was posing and he wanted to remove him by sending ground troops to Iraq way before 9/11.
Isn’t this exactly what the President did? So in what ways Sen. Kerry would have fought this war differently?
In 2002 he reiterated his fear of the Iraqi dictator and warned, “he may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States .” (ibid)
In this debate, Sen. Kerry also said a lot of things that are clichés, like “reaching out to Muslims.” What does reaching out to Muslims mean? Is that a new term for appeasement? How does he plan to do that? Build more Mosques in America ? Give more special rights to Muslims? Make more compromises? Or perhaps offer them Israel as the sacrificial lamb?
He said that he wants to enlist the support of all other countries in the fight against terrorism. What if other countries do not want to come aboard? Would he sit on his hands and wait until the terrorists become stronger? The Europeans have totally different priorities. All they care for is to sign lucrative trade agreements with the rogue states. Terrorism and the stability of the world is the last thing in their minds. This is to them an American problem.
Yesterday (Oct. 6, 2004) the French carmaker Renault unveiled plans to build its new budget car, the Dacia Logan, in Iran. (2) On the same day Rafsanjani announced that “Iran's missiles can now hit Europe” (3) and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani said “Iran will not cede to international demands that it suspend all activities related to the enrichment of uranium and the country is prepared for both confrontation or negotiations”. In fact on October 5th, Iran ’s hardliner dominated parliament began pushing for resumption of uranium enrichment. (4) And in the middle of all this a German trader is suspected of selling nuclear secrets to Iran. (5)
Whether the Europeans are asleep or pretending to be asleep is unclear. But the fact is that America cannot afford to be asleep in this crucial moment of history.
It seems that Senator Kerry is trying to adopt a more European approach vis-à-vis Islamic Terrorism. And like the Europeans, he seems also to want to win the cooperation of the rogue countries that support and even promote terrorism by appeasing them. In a bid to “bribe” the Mullahs and perhaps to “improve” the relations between the two countries Sen. Kerry suggested supplying the Islamic Republic of Iran with nuclear fuel for power reactors if Tehran agrees to give up its own fuel-making capability. The offer was of course rejected (6) But this makes it clear that Sen. Kerry desires to "reach out" and tie the broken knots with the Islamic Republic, which means more power to Islamic Terrorism worldwide.
The truth is that Iran 's missile program poses a serious threat to not just Europe but the entire Middle East and US interests, which is compounded significantly by Iran ’s relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons. (7)
Senator Kerry plans to fight terrorism defensively. The problem is that no amount of defensive measures can eliminate the risk of being hit again. President Bush favors preemptive war, or in other words he wants to wage this war that has been launched by Muslim terrorists on America in their own field instead of fighting is in the cities of the United States. Whether he will succeed or not remains to be seen. But the fact is that no war has ever been won by fighting defensively. So, although there is no guarantee that the President’s plans will succeed, the failure of Sen. Kerry’s plan in fighting terrorism defensively is foregone.
The real battle against Islamic Terror is the ideological battle and this is not even being fought yet. To destroy Islamic Terrorism we must destroy the ideology behind it. Neither one of the candidates addressed this crucial point. Although the President mentioned once “the ideology” of the terrorists, he fell short of saying what he intends to do about that.
There is a saying, "Tell me who is your friend and I will tell you who you are". One interesting way to learn which side each of the two candidates stand is to look at their friends and see who supports them.
Yesterday, the Arab-American Political Action Committee in Dearborn announced their endorsement for the Sen. John Kerry-Sen. John Edwards ticket in the 2004 presidential election.
"We believe Senator Kerry will make America stronger, safer and more respected throughout the world," said AAPAC president Abed Hammoud in a written statement. (8)
Really?!!
Since when, the Arabs became so interested in the strength and safety of America? Last I remember, they were dancing in the streets after watching 3000 Americans die in 9/11.
But that is not all. Among Sen. Kerry's top fundraisers are three Iranian-Americans who have been pushing for dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Most prominent among them is Hassan Nemazee, 54, an investment banker based in New York. Nominated to become U.S. ambassador to Argentina by President Bill Clinton in 1999, Nemazee eventually withdrew his nomination after a former partner raised allegations of business improprieties.
Nemazee was a major Clinton donor, giving $80,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 1996 election cycle and attending at least one of the famous White House fund-raising coffees.
In 2001, at the invitation of Mobil Oil Chairman Lucio Noto, whom he counts as a "personal friend," Nemazee joined the board of the American-Iranian Council (AIC), a U.S. lobbying group that consistently has supported lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran and accommodating the Tehran regime. Nemazee tells Insight magazine he "now regrets" having joined the AIC board and resigned his position after 12 months when he was vilified by Iranian exile groups. (9)
Another Iranian fundraiser in Sen. Kerry’s campaign is Susan Akbarpour who was a journalist in Iran, where she was close to Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, the man who said in a nuclear confrontation Israel will be totally destroyed while Muslims will only suffer casualties. She made programs attacking the Iranian dissidents abroad and their anti regime activities
Akbarpour boasted: "I am an actor in U.S. politics. I am a fund-raiser for all candidates who listen to us and our concerns." (ibid)
My congratulation to Americans for having an actress of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the same country that called America the "Great Satan" and took their embassy workers as hostage for 444 days, that masterminded the bombing of Israeli consulate in Argentine and in 1983 killed 241 U.S. Marines in a terrorist attack near Beirut airport, now staring in their political theater!
Akbarpour is not even a U.S. citizen. She came to America in 1997 as a tourist and remained as an illegal immigrant until last year when she married to another Islamist Iranian-American and now she is a green card holder.
One thing we can be sure of is that the Islamists are no friends of America. They certainly have no desire to see America become strong or safe. They are the enemies of America. It seems that the enemies of America have chosen their candidate. Now we have to wait and see who the American voters will choose as the next president.
Write comments to Ali Sina at: faithfreedom3@yahoo.com
Great read! Thanks for posting.
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