Contacts:
Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator
207-326-4576, nallen@acadia.net
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator
202-518-5624, scottmclarty@yahoo.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The new administration of George W. Bush has made it clear that it will continue the most  inhumane, destructive, and wasteful military policies of the Clinton years.  An  equal danger is that many or most Democrats in Congress will support these policies, in bipartisan cooperation -- confirming the criticism from the Green Party that there's basic agreement and little debate between the two major parties on many of the most important issues. 

These policies include:

• Iraq: Air strikes by the U.S. have continued regularly against Iraq since December, 1998, as ordered by President Clinton, and now with the February 16 raid ordered by President Bush.  But the bombing assaults, like the sanctions, have failed in their objective to dislodge the murderous Saddam Hussein, and have resulted in over a million Iraqi civilian deaths (180 deaths of children each day, according to UNICEF).  These deaths are the result of destroyed infrastructure, withheld food and medicine, and the bombs themselves. The U.S., with the lone support of Great Britain, refuses to consult the Gulf  War Alliance or many other nations on the air strikes, thus violating international law.
  
  Iraq continues to suffer huge casualties in cancer (especially leukemia), tumors, and infection, probable results of the U.S.'s use of radio-active depleted uranium in shell casings, bullets, tanks and bombs during the Persian Gulf War.  Thousands of American and other soldiers have suffered the same effects; Clinton also allowed the use of depleted uranium in weapons  in assaults against Serbs in Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia. But the U.S. refuses to take responsibility for the deadly effects of depleted uranium. The Pentagon ignores demands by NATO allies that the U.S. reveal the chemical and radio-active properties of American weapons, and refuses to test American soldiers who were stationed in the Persian Gulf area and the Balkans.  The Pentagon called the February 16 air strikes "protective retaliation." George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have thus added their own Orwellian twist to the atrocious policies of the Clinton Administration. Green Party members will continue to protest and lobby against the air attacks and sanctions.

• Plan Colombia: The U.S., under Clinton and now Bush, is sending $1.3 billion in Plan Colombia aid to fight the War on Drugs. But thanks to the Colombian armed force's close ties to right-wing paramilitaries, American taxpayers' money is implicated in the violent suppression of Colombian civilians. In January,2001, these paramilitaries were responsible for 27 massacres, leaving at least 200 dead.
  
  The Clinton-Bush policy of attacking the sources of Colombian drug exports does nothing to address the hunger of millions of Americans for cocaine and other drugs. Instead, the War on Drugs and Plan Colombia have (1) threatened to displace up to 100,000 civilians and threaten the human rights and security of millions of Colombians; (2) caused extensive environmental destruction, especially from the use of aerial fumigation -- sprayed chemicals that kill not just coca but all plant and animal life -- in Colombia's Amazon basin; and (3) increased guerrilla warfare and the likelihood of direct U.S. military involvement.
  
  Greens have strongly opposed and protested Plan Colombia and the War on Drugs, and have supported the Colombian people in their democratic vote on October 28, 2000 to reject Plan Colombia.

• Anti-ballistic missile defense: In naming Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, President Bush in effect hired a lobbyist for defense industries and for space-based National Missile Defense (NMD). Formerly called the Strategic Defense Initiative and "Star Wars," NMD began as a pipe dream of Ronald Reagan, soon discredited by missile intercept tests (and tampering of test results). Bill Clinton revived it with bipartisan support, the (Donald) Rumsfeld Report, a 1998 commission study, asserted its urgency in the defense against "rogue states" like North Korea, and both George W. Bush and Al Gore campaigned in its favor in 2000. President Bush promises rapid implementation of NMD, and has the bipartisan blessing of Congress.
  
  The patently fraudulent and failure-prone basis of NMD -- and the ease by which nuclear and other massively destructive weapons can be deployed without the use of missiles -- suggests that the real motivation for NMD is an enormous boondoggle for defense contractors. More testing failures (most recently on July 8, 2000) and the rapid diffusion of technology, whether from espionage or "free trade" sales of technological secrets to other nations (such as China under the Clinton Administration) ensure NMD's continued uselessness, except as a conduit of taxpayer money to defense industries.
  
  Even if NMD proved successful, its deployment would undermine agreements with Russia and Other nations to reduce nuclear weapons. For that reason, nations around the world have blasted U.S. efforts to revive NMD. Greens have joined this opposition, and Green candidate Ralph Nader spoke out against it during his 2000 campaign.

The Association of State Green Parties, in its commitment to nonviolence, stated in its 2000 platform: "With the end of the Cold War has come a more complex set of challenges in how our nation defines its NATIONAL SECURITY. Our present task is to rid ourselves of the residue of the geopolitical conflict of East versus West, with its bloated defense budgets, thousands of unneeded nuclear weapons and major troop deployments overseas. Greens support sustainable development and social and economic justice across the globe. Reducing militarism and reliance on arms policies is the key to progress toward collective security." 

"We oppose structural and direct violence of all kinds: assaults against individuals, families, nations and cultures, the environment and the biosphere.... Preventive diplomacy, a strong economy and humane trade relations are our best defense. We must maintain a viable American military force, prudent foreign policy doctrines, and readiness strategies that take into account real, not hollow or imagined threats to our people, our democratic institutions and U.S. interests. Even so, Greens seek strength through peace." 

MORE INFORMATION 
The Association of State Green Parties: http://www.greenparties.org,
Platform http://www.gp.org

The Association of State Green Parties
PO Box 18452, Washington, DC 20036
(202) 232-0335

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