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THE TASK AHEAD:
CHALLENGES FOR THE PEACE MOVEMENT IN THE NEXT FOUR YEARS
(UNDER A PRESIDENT BUSH OR A PRESIDENT KERRY)
by Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret.
It is nearly the eve of the presidential election, and we don’t know who is going to be in office for the next four years. Still, we can make an educated guess as to what our challenges during this period will be. The next administration is likely to be a fairly centrist one.
If Bush is reelected, chances are the old line Republicans will exert pressure to pull him back from the cowboy adventurism and fiscal excesses of the last four years. I predict that Rumsfeld and Ashcroft will go and that Cheney, if he survives, will not exercise the control over events that he does now. Too many Republicans are aware of how the neoconservatives have damaged this country and their party. Just as Reagan was reined in in his second term, and his most extreme advisors replaced, the same can happen to Bush. Cooler heads, like John McCain and Colin Powell, will exert greater influence. Bush may be forced to abandon his neocon imperial ambitions of 14 permanent military bases in Iraq from which he can dominate Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and all the oil in the Middle East and the Caspian Sea. Then the Iraq war can be wound down with the help of the international community, and the endless “War on Terror” can be slowly defused. After that the budget deficits can be slowly trimmed.
If, on the other hand, Kerry is elected, the realities of a likely Republican House and Senate will keep him from implementing all he would like. His administration will not be as progressive as one would expect. He has already disavowed any permanent occupation of Iraq and has stated his intention to give Iraq those 14 bases. That will allow him to gain the cooperation of our allies and to end the Iraq War. But he has committed himself to the “War on Terror,” and probably will keep that going indefinitely. We will have to convince him that there is no long-term military solution to terrorism, and that the conditions of deprivation and injustice which breed terrorism must be recognized and alleviated.
On some issues, it doesn’t matter much who is elected. Both Bush and Kerry have condemned the International Court of Justice which has declared the illegality of Sharon’s infamous wall through the West Bank. We, along with our brothers and sisters in the peace movement in Israel, must work to get both our nations to recognize and abide by international law. Only when the injustices are undone will both Israel and the United States have any measure of security. The cancer afflicting both our countries has the same source. The same neocons (Perle and Feith) who authored Bush’s policies also authored the Likud hard-line policy followed by Netanyahu and now Sharon. (By the way, for those who are tempted to read anti-Semitism into our words, let me remind you. We have Israelis on our advisory board. Just as criticizing the actions of a right-wing, hawkish Bush Administration does not make us anti-American, criticizing the actions of a right-wing hawkish Sharon Administration does not make us anti-Israel or anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic. And we are none of those things. As John Kerry well knows, sometimes in order to serve your country, you must criticize your government. Sometimes dissidence is the height of patriotism, whether you’re American or Israeli.)
Whoever is elected, we who are for peace and real security will have our work cut out for us. Our struggle never ends. And we must never quit!
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