Message To America's Students: The War, The Draft, Your Future
ra...@vote.nader.2004
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
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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 late 2000 the death toll has risen to
over 2,100. As of August 2002, nearly 5,000 lives have been lost to the
insurgency "
Shining Path sent congratulations to RIM for its first anniversary in May of
1985. The Central Committee wrote, "...the people's war in our country
continues to blaze defiantly, expanding, spreading its roots and preparing
for newer and higher tasks, guided always by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism,
battling for the emancipation of our people for the purpose of and at the
service of the world revolution. Thus we are contributing and will
contribute to the tasks of the RIM, more and more willing and able to aid in
every possible way our glorious common cause: the emancipation of the
proletariat and communism prevailing though out the earth.
"Comrades, the Communist Party of Peru is part of the Revolutionary
Internationalist Movement and feels honored to be so, honored to serve in
such a far-reaching and historic vanguard battle, as well as to have the
comrades in arms found in our Movement's ranks; and furthermore, the Party
feels fortified and augmented by the repeated expressions of support, of
proletarian internationalism, which it receives from the very outstanding
fraternal communist parties and organizations, and very especially from the
Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement to which we extend
our revolutionary gratitude for its constant encouragement and support. All
this, comrade