Ten years and counting of warfare in Afghanistan is enough. My first official act as president will be to order removal of all United States forces from that country. My second will be to order home any remaining United States forces in Iraq. Robotic U. S. military and CIA drones that now patrol over at least six countries and fire missiles to carry out targeted assassinations (213 attacks in Pakistan alone under the current administration) will cease. NATO will resume its role as a defensive alliance. Untried Guantanamo inmates imprisoned for over ten years will be released, and those held for a lesser time will either be tried in the first six months of my administration or let go.
The war on terrorism will continue to be fought at the airports and other transportation centers. But that war will only be successfully concluded when its root cause has been eliminated and peace attained
We won the cold war. Why can't we win the peace? Because as long as the Palestinian people in the occupied territories remain oppressed and persecuted, and as long as the Palestinian people within Israel have their rights abridged and remain without permanent constitutional protections, that peace will elude us.
There are a number of parallels between America's days of slavery and the present age of Palestinian captivity : 1. The gag rules adopted by both houses of Congress to halt an avalanche of antislavery petitions...and today's crescendo of pro-Israel messages that keep another side from being heard. 2. The four million slaves...and the four million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. 3. The Fugitive Slave Act to force return of escaped slaves...and a long list of U. S. laws that have rewarded and encouraged Israeli actions harmful to Palestinians and others. 4. John Brown's raid of October 1859 when 19 men captured 100,000 muskets to arm the slaves, followed by war 18 months later...and the nineteen men who carried out the 9/11 horrors that brought us two wars in rapid succession.
The United States has been instrumental in the creation, nurture, arming, and protection of Zionism. Be it Aryan racism or Jewish racism, oppressors wearing swastikas or oppressors wearing stars, it's all the same thing : one group exercising superiority over and suppression of another. President Truman's fears told to Eleanor Roosevelt were well founded, and action by the United Nations Security Council is essential if we are ever to attain a peace that is true and lasting.
