We have been down this road before.
U.S. troops sent to war half a world away. American foreign
policy controlled by an arrogant elite, bent on projecting
military power around the globe. A public misled into
supporting an unconstitutional war founded on deceit and
fabrications.
As the death toll mounts, we hear claims that the war is
nearly won, that victory is just around the corner. But
victory never arrives.
As the public loses confidence in the government, the
government questions the patriotism of any who express doubt
about the war.
When a presidential election arrives, both the Democrat and
Republican nominees embrace the policy of continued war.
The military draft comes to dominate the lives of America's
young, and vast numbers who believe the war to be a
senseless blunder are faced with fighting a war they do not
believe in, or facing exile or prison.
The year was 1968. Because voters had no choice that
November, the Vietnam War continued for another six years.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans like you died, were
maimed, or suffered from diseases like malaria. A far
greater number of Vietnamese died.
Today, the war is in the quicksands and alleys of Iraq. Once
again, under the pressure of a determined resistance, we see
an American war policy being slowly torn apart at the seams,
while the candidates urge us to "stay the course" in this
tragic misadventure. Today's Presidential candidates are not
Nixon and Humphrey, they are now Bush and Kerry.
Once again, there is one overriding truth: If war is the
only choice in this election, then war we will have.
Today enlistments in the Reserves and National Guard are
declining. The Pentagon is quietly recruiting new members
to fill local draft boards, as the machinery for drafting
a new generation of young Americans is being quietly put
into place.
Young Americans need to know that a train is coming, and it
could run over their generation in the same way that the
Vietnam War devastated the lives of those who came of age in
the sixties.
I am running for President, and have been against this
war from the beginning. We must not waste lives in order
to control and waste more oil. Stand with us and we may
yet salvage your future and Americas' future from this
looming disaster.
Sincerely, Ralph Nader
--
in Paris." Cilluffo is Deputy Director, Global Organized Crime
Program Counterterrorism Task Force at Washington, D.C.'s Center for
Strategic and International Studies.
This same testimony reveals the Nepal Communist Party, ".turned to drug
trafficking for funding. Nepal serves as a hub for hashish trafficking in
Asia." The CIA Fact Book lists Nepal as a major source for heroin from
Southeast Asia to the West.
The South Asia Terrorism Portal wrote of the Nepal Communist Party: "The
Maoists (Nepal) draw inspiration from the 'Revolutionary International
Movement', among whose affiliate is the American Revolutionary Communist
Party that provides them their ideological sustenance. Observers have
noticed striking similarities in the policies and guerilla tactics adopted
by the Maoists and those of the Shining Path of Peru.. Maoist violence has
already cost Nepal several hundred lives and destruction of property worth
millions of rupees. In 1996, the year the insurgency commenced, 82 people
were killed. This figure included insurgents, security forces, personnel and
civilians. During the next year, total killings came down by half - 38
people died. The following year, in 1998, after the Maoists intensified
their program of violence, 408 people were killed - nearly an elevenfold
increase in the number of deaths over the previous year. Ever since, the
death toll has been on the rise. By l