Steve Harrison is running for Congress against one of Bush's main Iraq War supporters, Vito Fossella. Vito has voted for the war at every opportunity and has helped to block Democratic attempts to discuss withdrawal.
We need a change. And Steve Harrison understands that. I learned this last year when I met him and we discussed the Iraq war.
One of the things I like about Steve Harrison is he understands what is at stake and how to stand up to the Republicans in Congress who have failed us on national security. For example, Steve Harrison put the Iraq war into almost perfect perspective. He gave credit for this perspective to one of his staff members, but it means a lot that he recognized the importance of this perspective.
Suppose for a moment Bush had not lied about Iraq. Let's suppose that Bush does bring stability and democracy to Iraq and the civil war that we are now stuck in calms down and we can pull out our troops. Would New York, after that, feel safer than you did just after 9/11?
No! We would be no safer even if we did manage to turn the quagmire around. Why? Because Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on America...never did. We were attacked by al-Qaeda, not Iraq, and whether we win or lose in Iraq has nothing to do with making us safer. Iraq was nothing but a DISTRACTION from the war against those who attacked us.
He went on to point out that we could go a long way to securing our ports by installing scanners for cargo for a fraction of the cost of the Iraq war and it would have made us FAR safer. Right now less than 5% of the cargo that comes into our ports is checked. That means 95% of what comes into any American port could be anything at all including a dirty bomb. It is our main vulnerability and Harrison thinks we need to address that.
Sadly, Vito Fosella, though supporting the Iraq war at every chance, does not think our ports need better security.
Fossella opposed securing our ports because "inspections would be too hard and too expensive." Of course Harrison's idea is NOT to have inspections, but scanners, not so different from the scanners at the airport that we ALL have to go through. Fossella even claimed that the technology didn't exist! Maybe Vito is just ignorant, not lying. But, the technology does exist (Harrison points out it is a glorified Geiger-Mueller counter) and even if it didn't, funny how that didn't stop Americans from FINDING the technology to defend themselves during other wars. Fossella did a typical Republican tactic of arguing against something that wasn't even proposed. Vito will eagerly POUR money and soldier's lives into the Iraq quagmire, but he opposes the much cheaper and more important issue of port security.
We need a change. ENOUGH of this Iraq quagmire that is not and CANNOT make America safer. We need port security, not more soldiers dying in an Iraqi civil war where neither side wants us. We need to fight al-Qaeda, not squander our resources and soldiers in an endless war where no one wins except Halliburton's executives. We need better care for our Veterans, better pay and equipment for our troops. Vito Fossella doesn't understand any of this. Steve Harrison does.
So let's all get behind Steve Harrison and our other Democratic candidates [1]. Let's make the change that America needs.
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