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Ralph Nader shares a 88% similarity with your beliefs on Iraq and Foreign Policy
I support setting a withdrawal timetable for US troops to leave Iraq
“In 2004 I urged a six-month negotiated withdrawal of all U.S. soldiers and corporate contractors from Iraq, with UN sponsored elections [and] a certain amount of autonomy between Sunnis, Shites, and Kurds…and continued humanitarian aide because of what we’ve done to the devastated people of Iraq. I think that will knock the bottom out of the insurgency. It will end the $14 million dollars an hour we’re spending, 24 hours a day. Bring that money back home, put it into public works…”
On Iraq, Ralph Nader supports the rapid and responsible withdrawal of US military forces, civilian military contractors, and US corporate interests from Iraq.
"We want to have a responsible six-month withdrawal of the US military and corporate occupation, and an internationally supervised election, so that the Iraqi people don't feel that they're facing a permanent military occupation and the control of their oil resources and of public government. If they feel that, the majority of the Iraqis are going to support the insurgency. They're not going to distance themselves from the insurgency."
NPR, "Justice Talking" Dean-Nader Debate Jul 9, 2004
"There’s got to be much more aggressive moves by Congress, maybe reflected in Congressman Jim McGovern’s bill, which will deal with the appropriations process and protect the soldiers, as they withdraw. If we don’t withdraw on a timetable, our military and corporate occupation of Iraq, including the oil industry, the bottom will never fall out of the insurgency."
I oppose the increase in US troop levels in Iraq which has been ongoing throughout 2007
Retired Army Maj. General Paul D. Eaton said the post-invasion effort in Iraq is about 60,000 troops short of what it needs for success and that the Army "is in terrible shape," lacking proper equipment and resources. President Bush should never have invaded Iraq, but whenever troops are deployed they should be at levels which are necessary to protect the civilian population--an obligation military occupiers are required, under international law, to fulfill.
Open letter by Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese Nov 2, 2006
In an article called "Defining Victory Downward: No, the surge is not a success," columnist Michael Kinsley exposed the fatuous standards of comparison used by Bush and took his readers to standards back in 2003. Kinsley observed how Bush spouts success against conflicts and conditions that never existed before March 2003. There were no Al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq, no large scale sectarian carnage.
I strongly oppose the US having a long-term presence in Iraq
On Iraq, Ralph Nader supports the rapid and responsible withdrawal of US military forces, civilian military contractors, and US corporate interests from Iraq.
"We want to have a responsible six-month withdrawal of the US military and corporate occupation, and an internationally supervised election, so that the Iraqi people don't feel that they're facing a permanent military occupation and the control of their oil resources and of public government. If they feel that, the majority of the Iraqis are going to support the insurgency. They're not going to distance themselves from the insurgency."
NPR, "Justice Talking" Dean-Nader Debate Jul 9, 2004
"The way you get mainstream Iraqis to knock the bottom out of the resistance is to get rid of the occupation. It's the occupation that's breeding the resistance. It's the takeover of their only resource by U.S./Texas oil companies that's breeding the resistance."
When pressed by the audience, Mr. Nader declined to provide more detail on what immediate steps could be taken to assure stability in the region if the United States withdraws by the end of the year. But he criticized a resolution introduced by the United States and Britain on Monday in the United Nations Security Council, which would support a sovereign interim Iraqi government to take office by June 30. The White House had little credibility in making the proposal, he said, because the administration plans to build military bases in Iraq. '"We are the sovereigns,'" he said, adding that the bases will assure a permanent or long-term occupation. People in Iraq need '"a light at the end of the tunnel,'" he said.
I oppose the use of military force unilaterally
"We don't win when we violate international law, because it simply creates a free-for-all, and the other side is very determined, they're willing to engage in suicide attacks. But our country is very, very vulnerable. If we're seen as a law-breaker instead of a law upholder, which strengthens our moral stature in the world, it endangers our national security."
"Second, on the Bill Ayers thing, who is a lapsed small-time saboteur with the Weather Underground many years ago, what should have been said was the big-time terrorists, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, these are clinically verifiable mass terrorists who have killed innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in their criminal wars of aggression. These are criminal wars of aggression. These are war crimes. These are war criminals. They have killed over a million Iraqi civilians as a result of that criminal invasion. That’s where the discussion should have focused on. The big-time terrorists, the state terrorists in the White House who have violated our Constitution, our statutes and our international treaties, and have been condemned even by the American Bar Association for a continual violence of our—violation of our Constitution."
"Jefferson, Madison, Adams and company had distinct reasons for refusing to lodge this power in the Presidency and instead wanted many legislators in open session to make this awesome decision. They did not want another King George emerging with this single-power launching war. Throughout the year 2002, Bush made no secret of his desire to unilaterally overthrow the Iraqi dictatorial regime (called "regime change"). But the opinion polls were unflagging; the American people in sizable majorities did not want the U.S. to go it alone. OK said Mr. Bush; he'll go to the UN and have the Security Council resume a rigorous inspection process in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. The other nations then insisted that if Iraq materially breaches the UN resolution, the U.S. would go back to the Security Council for any further action. Yet Bush made it clear that if the UN did not act, the U.S., and its very few allies, would do so unilaterally."
Q: Barack Obama stated that if they were what he called 'actionable evidence' and if Mr. Musharraf didn't act, he would act. Don't you think in advance he is stating he is willing to commit a war crime? NADER: Yeah I was surprised he said that, because being a constitutional law specialist, Mr. Obama was in effect saying we are going to violate international law...