by James Glaser
August 11, 2004

I'm anti-war. I don't like us going off to war and that is about the only foreign policy tool in Washington's tool box right now and it has been that way for decades. You add up all the wars in the world since WW II and you will find the United States in a lot of them. If we are not directly in a war, then chances are pretty good that we supplied the arms for one side or the other, or just maybe, both sides. We sell way more arms to third world countries than any other nation. Isn't that a prize?

People the world over know that we are the Merchants of Death and that doesn't make us any friends. Just think of all the dictators we have backed. Think of Saddam and the Shah of Iran for two.

Being anti-war, I would like to vote for a President who at least uses the word Peace once in awhile. Now you have to know that leaves out both Kerry and Bush. I don't buy George Bush's line that he has made the world more peaceful by attacking both Afghanistan and Iraq.

John Kerry, although I admire his war record, I find it harder and harder to believe. The man wants to make our Military, the strongest Military in the history of the world, bigger with 40,000 new troops and he wants to double the size of the Green Berets, so we can send them to even more countries.

I have to wonder what John Kerry really saw while he was in combat. Maybe he is part of that small percentage of American Troops who learn to like killing and develop a real lust for blood. Most combat veterans do not want their kids, or your kids, to have to see what they did. John Kerry wants your kids to have the chance to see war up close and personal.

John Kerry wants to use our Military as a diplomatic tool and has repeatedly said that he will not be afraid to use our troops. If the man really saw combat, then if he is sane at all, he would be afraid to use our troops and he would be talking about ways to bring us peace, but he isn't doing that.

George Bush has no plan for peace and seems to only be able to talk about attacking more countries and he continues to make verbal threats against any poor third world nation that doesn't bow down to his will.

Neither candidate seems to have read our Constitution, nor do they seem to have read what our founding fathers believed.

When John Kerry was asked this week, if he would have voted to give Bush authorization to go to war in Iraq even if there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, here is what he said.

August 9th 2004, Kerry, "I'll answer it directly. Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it is the right authority for a President to have, but I would have used the authority effectively."

I'm sorry, but I believe in the Constitution of the United States. Maybe John Kerry has never read our Constitution, but he has given an oath to defend it. Only Congress has the power to send us off to war. Kerry wants to put that power in the hands of one man and he has voted to do just that. As far as I am concerned, now that he has explained his vote, I think John Kerry is sick and should never be President. The man is as power hungry as George Bush.

This is a sad time in America, when we have to decide between Bush and Kerry, neither one of them gives a rat's ass for the ideals that our country was founded on.

POST SCRIPT

Maybe there are Veterans who believe that it is OK for over 11.000 Soldiers and Marines to get killed and wounded so we can save some Iraqis who would not fight for themselves. I don't buy it. I remember trying to save the good Vietnamese from the bad Vietnamese. It does not work. Where does it stop? If we want to save all oppressed people every where, if that becomes America's mission, we are in deep shit.