Every politician has a story about why he or she was called into public service. My story is one that is intertwined with the trajectory of our country over the past seven years, and unfortunately there are constant reminders for why I am compelled to run for U.S. Senate.
Over the last few days, we have seen a Russian incursion into a sovereign Georgia, an action that many foreign policy experts saw coming – but the Bush administration failed to do anything to intervene before the inevitable came.
Though much of the world is coming to China in peace for the Olympic games, that country’s rescinded visa for a former Olympian who has been openly critical of many nations’ inaction on the crisis in Darfur has only reminded us of the need to resolve that ongoing conflict.
And now today, another story hit closer to home.
Yesterday, Ted Gistaro, the U.S. national intelligence officer for transnational threats, noted that al-Qaeda "has maintained or strengthened key elements of its capability to attack the United States in the past year." With safe havens in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border regions and a focused mission of attacking the U.S. and our interests maintained by al-Qaeda leadership, this group is still flourishing and remains a significant threat.
Seven years ago, I joined with other victims’ families to push for the formation of the 9/11 Commission so that our nation could look back at the circumstances that led to the attacks on that horrible day, when my brother, along with nearly 3,000 other Americans, was killed. I also pushed for Congress to implement the Commission’s recommendations to ensure that the people responsible for my brother’s death would be held accountable, and that their extremist ideals and their thirst for American bloodshed would be quashed.
Mr. Gistaro’s analysis confirmed my reasons for opposing the War in Iraq as a conventional war against a country that didn’t attack us. It has been a distraction from real threats like al-Qaeda and an emboldened Russia.
The resources that we should have been directing toward fighting the War on Terror have been instead bogged down in Iraq, and we are unable to go after the people who are still determined to attack us at home.
The diplomacy we needed to employ in Russia to ensure the preservation of emerging democracies in the former Soviet bloc has been spent by forming an alliance to enter into a war of choice.
The stance the Bush administration took on preserving human rights in Iraq has not translated to the same urgency to fight genocide in Darfur, or to press for human rights protections among our important allies, such as China.
We are funding the war and reconstruction in Iraq with deficit spending, but we are not finishing the job in Afghanistan or rebuilding our own military. Meanwhile, Iraq oil revenue remains dormant, and we are failing to fight several fronts in the War on Terror.
My opponent worked to block the 9/11 Commission recommendations from passing Congress and is now letting the Bush administration get away with not implementing them to improve our nation’s security. The evidence that we have squandered our military, diplomatic, and economic resources by choosing to fight in Iraq is building, and we have lost focus on growing problems in the rest of the world.
Mr. Gistaro noted that though we have constrained al-Qaeda’s abilities to some extent since 9/11, "al-Qaeda remains the most serious terrorist threat to the United States." I never want any American family to have to go through the horror of a domestic terror attack again. But we, as a nation, are not doing enough to ensure that will not happen.
With the Bush administration's narrow focus on Iraq, problems in the rest of the world have grown outside of its blinders. It is critical for the next administration, and the next Congress, to closely examine our international priorities and pursue the threats against our homeland. My opponent has been in Washington for 22 years, and he has served as a rubber stamp for Bush administration policies during the last seven years. Our next Congress must go to work with the blinders off, ready to focus on all the international threats that face us and to use our resources toward keeping our nation safe, secure, and free.
http://andrewforoklahoma.com