Posted on 03/23/2003 4:05:21 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
What you will find below is not a rant from the Iraq Ministry of Propaganda, or the wailings of a tenured professor at one of our institutions of "higher learning." Rather, it is a statement by a Member of Congress, who represents a moderate district equally divided among Republicans and Democrats.
Read it and be enraged.
Congressman Maurice D. Hinchey Representing New York's 22th Congressional District
March 22, 2003
Dear Friends,
We are witnesses to a watershed moment in the history of the American republic. It is too soon to know how this will turn out, but it is very clear that the Bush Administration has radically changed the way our country behaves at home and in the world, and consequently, how others regard us. In just two years the Bush Administration has deconstructed the American economy, the nation's civil liberties, and our environmental protection. They have unilaterally withdrawn from the International Ballistic Missile Treaty, abandoned our European friends on the issue of global warming and walked away from the International Criminal Court.
And now, contrary to International Law and against every decent instinct, we are engaging in what will come to be seen as a massacre in Iraq on the basis of the "Bush Doctrine" of preemption, which allows the United States to attack any other country anytime we want and for whatever reason the President feels is justified.
Last week, Mr. Bush at his press conference said he would insist on a vote in the United Nations Security Council on going to war in Iraq, declaring that he wanted all members to "show their cards" on the issue. But this week that has changed. All the bribery and bullying did not bring us close to the nine votes needed for a Security Council sanction. So we have gone to war without it. History will include the United Nations as part of the "collateral damage" of Mr. Bush's war. Is it any wonder that we have generated so much ill will in the rest of the world?
The criminal attacks of September 11, 2001, for all their horror and tragedy still provided us an unusual opportunity for insight and self-examination. They caused us to ask ourselves "why"? Why does anyone hate us so much as to do this to us and to themselves? It was a natural and intensely human response and it was being asked by people of every status and station.
If President Bush and his advisors had stayed with that question we would all be better off today. We would not be attacking a country that had nothing to do with the attack against us. We could have retained the support then gladly given by almost every country around the world. -- Remember the headline in the Paris Daily? "We are all Americans now!" -- And most importantly, we would be in a position to lead the world to a better and safer place. But rather experiencing an epiphany, we are in danger of becoming a pariah.
In the next few days and weeks the Bush Administration will focus its attention on dissent at home. They will try to make it seem that criticism of their policy in Iraq shows disloyalty to our country and to our armed forces in the field. We must not fall victim to that trap.
We can support our military men and women and do all we can to insure their safety and security wherever they are sent, at the same time we oppose the policy that sent them. Dissent is the essence of democracy. We must always be free to speak our minds on the critical issues of the day, no matter how lonely or isolated that position may seem at any moment.
Sincerely,
Maurice D. Hinchey
Infiltration
Mr Hinchey ought to be asking himself why he kept his mouth shut as his beloved Klinton put us in this situation.
Listen up New Yorkers, it is time to get fools like this out of government before he does major damage.....
"And now, contrary to International Law and against every decent instinct, we are engaging in what will come to be seen as a massacre in Yugoslavia on the basis of the "Clinton Doctrine" of preemption, which allows the United States to attack any other country anytime we want and for whatever reason the President feels is justified."
The fact is that other than the city of Ithaca, it is a moderate district. There are as many registered Republicans as Democrats, and several rural, highly Republican counties in the district. This is not NYC, it's upstate NY! Bob Moppert would have won the district in 1994 if he had carried his own home county, but Hinchey spents hundreds of thousands on an intense smear campaign in Moppert's home town.
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