Bush
By MILA PAREDES REID
El Vaquero Staff Writer
Bush versus Kerry. Which candidate do you think is capable of making the toughest decisions?
In the middle of America’s war with global terrorism, we must never change our experienced president with an inexperienced president. “The terrorists want President Bush to lose the election,” President Vladimir Putin of Russia said on CNN. “If President Bush loses, terrorism will continue to spread worldwide.”
Whether or not Bush won the T.V. debates, many believe that he is the best one to lead America to win the war on terrorism. “We go after them [terrorists] so that we do not have to face them on our shores,” Bush said.
To many Americans, Bush’s conviction and knowledge of America’s security problems makes him the best man between the two candidates to fight the terrorist threat on American soil. After all, he successfully removed Saddam Hussein from power. Saddam was a ruthless dictator who killed his own people using weapons of mass destruction and he also invaded Kuwait. CIA investigator Charles Duelfer’s report outlining the United Nation’s Oil-for-Food scandal “justified the American-lead invasion of Iraq,” Bush said. According to the L.A. Times, Saddam bribed U.N. employees, France, Russia, China and other countries exploiting the Oil-for-Food program, “acquiring $11 billion through illicit oil sales to build his weapon arsenal.”
Prior to the debate, MSNBC and CNN showed clips of Sen. John Kerry in Vietnam receiving five medals, but he returned to America telling the American people and the U.S. congress that the Americans fighting in Vietnam were raping women, killing Vietnamese people including babies, and cutting their ears and tongues on a daily basis.
During the debates, Kerry repeatedly said, “The President is in the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time…a diversion.”
“What message does that send our troops?” Bush asked, leaving the television audience of some 60 million to ponder.
“It’s very demoralizing for U.S. troops…it gives aid and comfort to the enemy,” said retired Maj. Gen. John Singlaub.
Dennis Anderson, editor of Antelope Valley Press, was embedded with the U.S. Army during the invasion of Iraq and his 19-year-old son is a marine in Bagdad. Anderson said, “Regardless of whether WMDs existed or not in Iraq, it will be wrong for us to leave Iraq. When Russia left Afghanistan, the Taliban took over. We could not allow that to happen in Iraq…it is going to haunt us.”
“As long as I am the commander-in-chief, America will never retreat in the face of the terrorists,” said Presisdent Bush.
You decide. Your vote makes a difference.
Kerry
By MARTINA
VASSILEVA
El Vaquero Staff
Writer
This presidency is going to Sen. John Kerry. Bush failed in the most hotly debated topic in the 2004 presidential elections – national security. Kerry actually has a plan for it.
America finds herself in a time where allies are of vast importance. Kerry’s plan for national security involves strengthening alliances we have as well as establishing new ones. Kerry promises to “deploy all the forces in America’s arsenal – our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power and the appeal of our values and ideas – to make America more secure and prevent a new generation of terrorists from emerging.” This is something President George W. Bush has not done. The terrorists emerged under his presidency and America now has enemies around the world. Where were these terrorists before and where are they now that we are looking for them? Certainly Iraq did not attack America, but somehow the ones who did have managed to go untouched as the war in Iraq has progressed.
Bush is often blamed for starting the war because of oil in the Middle East. Kerry will end that legacy by diminishing America’s dependence on external sources of oil. The Bush administration has not only failed to protect our interests abroad – it is still failing at protecting the lives of people within the borders of our country.
Kerry will put safety first and secure chemical plants that present the potential deaths of more than a million Americans if attacked.
When Bush became president, he promised that no child would be left behind. In the past three years, the price of a college education has risen by 35 percent. Students at GCC have felt the sting of that increase and enrollment has dropped nationwide – with 220,000 potential college students unable to afford school.
Kerry promises to put the money back in schools, thus making education obtainable to capable students. He will refund money to college students through taxes. As students who have experienced the soaring costs of college education, that alone should be enough reason to vote for Kerry. He will ensure the future of students across America.
Health care is another issue that makes Kerry the best choice. Bush cut safe prescription drug imports from Canada, thus driving up the costs to seniors and benefiting his campaign contributors, the drug companies. Kerry will reverse this decision and make health care affordable once again.
In the past four years Bush has shown us what he can do, and it isn’t the job he now hold.
It’s time for a president who will do some cleaning
up.