Annie
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http://lp.org/press/archive.php?function=view&record=669
August 17, 2004
'Realign' our troops back home, Mr. Bush
WASHINGTON, DC -- President Bush's plan for a massive realignment of U.S. troops is half right, says Libertarian presidential candidate Michael Badnarik: All U.S. forces should be re-deployed -- right back to the United States.
"Bush wants to remove U.S. troops from places where they don't belong, then put them in other places where they don't belong," says Badnarik. "It's time to bring all of our men and women home and start using them for defensive purposes only."
In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday in Cincinnati, Bush announced that in order to make the military more agile in the war on terrorism, approximately 70,000 U.S. troops would be shifted from Cold War-era bases in Europe and Asia.
Some would be stationed in the United States, while others would be sent to the Middle East, the former Soviet republics and South Asia.
But moving more U.S. troops into the Middle East and volatile central Asian nations may provoke more terrorism than it prevents, Libertarians say.
"The U.S. military presence in the Middle East has been used as a justification for several terrorist attacks, including the September 11 tragedy," Badnarik said.
"How long can politicians pretend to be surprised when terrorist threats turn into bloody reality? How many more innocent Americans have to lose their lives before U.S. policy makers come to their senses and stop interfering in other nations' affairs?"
While removing U.S. troops from Germany 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet threat is a positive development, putting them in harm's way elsewhere makes no sense, Badnarik says.
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the goal of Bush's plan is to create more 'deployment locations' for U.S. troops," he notes. "But what politicians call deployment locations are actually wars waiting to happen.
"In recent history, presidents have deployed our troops to locations like Vietnam, Lebanon, Bosnia, Somalia and Iraq, and each time Americans died needlessly. The lesson is that politicians can't be trusted to distinguish between national defense and military adventurism.
"Bush's plan is nothing more than more military adventurism, and it's only a matter of time before innocent Americans pay the price -- again."