Scandal over Bush's military records teaches foreign policy lesson, Libertarians say:
WASHINGTON -- Here's the lesson that Americans should learn as a result
of the controversy over George Bush's service in the National Guard,
Libertarians say: When governments wage futile, unnecessary wars -- such
as Vietnam and Iraq -- young Americans will try to avoid them.
"The scandal isn't that so many Americans tried to avoid going to
Vietnam; it's that their government tried to send them there in the
first place," said Michael Dixon, Libertarian Party national chair. "The
fact that Bush is sending troops to Iraq proves he hasn't learned that
lesson."
While Democrats and Republicans spar over Bush's service in the Guard,
the Libertarian candidate says Bush's service as president is a far more
important issue.
"We may never know whether Bush entered the National Guard to avoid
service in Vietnam," Dixon said. "But we do know that thousands of men
his age did so, or sought college deferments, or even fled to Canada, to
avoid getting killed or maimed. And who can blame them? More than 58,000
Americans who fought in this mindless military misadventure never came
back.
"The tragedy isn't that Bush, the Guardsman, may have avoided Vietnam.
The tragedy is that Bush, the president, has sent more than 1,000
Americans to their deaths in Iraq."
Dixon pointed to several similarities between Vietnam and Iraq: Neither
was a defensive war; both were justified based on false claims; and both
became increasingly unpopular with the American people as the truth
became known.
"Contrast Vietnam and Iraq with World War II," he said. "After the
attack on Pearl Harbor, American teen-agers weren't lying to get out of
the war; they were lying about their ages to get in.
"In Vietnam, politicians instituted the draft because too few Americans
were volunteering to senselessly sacrifice their lives. In Iraq, Bush
has already instituted a 'backdoor draft' by extending deployments, and
there's little doubt that a formal draft would be just as widely evaded
as it was in Vietnam."
The point is that the American people know which wars are essential to
national security and which are not, regardless of what the president
says, Libertarians say.
"Fortunately, there's a way for Bush to salvage something positive from
the controversy, while ensuring that no American is ever again accused
of 'hiding out' in the Guard," Dixon says. "Quit waging wars that have
nothing whatsoever to do with national security, and start by pulling
our troops out of Iraq." |
