"U.S. Presidential Race"

www.newsday.co.tt

The United States goes to the polls today to elect a President and while the decision is a matter for the American people, nonetheless the US is the world's only superpower and what US voters decide today will affect the rest of the world. Will the American voters, for example, take into account that a victory for incumbent, President George W Bush, or challenger, Democratic Senator John Kerry, may very well determine whether the US expands its policy of unilateral military intervention in defiance of the United Nations or is prepared to act in accordance with the United Nations Charter?

Bush, by ordering the invasion of Iraq, in violation of the UN position, and his general sabre-rattling makes it clear where he intends to lead his country. His boast that Iraq was now a democracy and Iraqis felt secure for the first time in decades is belied by continued bombing and shelling of Iraqi towns and villages by US troops. Latest reports have stated that some 100,000 Iraqis, including women, children and old people have been killed since the invasion last year, largely by US forces. More than 1,000 US soldiers have died and thousands more so seriously injured that their lives are virtually over. The puppet transitional "Prime Minister” of Iraq, Ayad Allawi, and his "Government” which has been recently installed by the United States until "General Elections,” carded for January, 2005 are held, may be an indication of what President Bush means when he speaks of democracy in operation in Iraq. Without even the bother of appearing to obtain a feedback from the Iraqi people Allawi is being touted by the Americans to emerge as Prime Minister of Iraq come January, 2005. That's democracy for you!

Iraq may be far way, but Bush's sabre-rattling with respect to nearby Cuba is unsettling to most Caribbean people. Any United States invasion of Cuba would be virtually on our doorstep and make Cuba the third Caribbean country in which a Republican Government intervened militarily in just over two decades. The others, both of them Caricom countries, were Haiti, earlier this year, and Grenada in 1983. Should this happen two questions inevitably will arise. Will Venezuela led by President Hugo Chavez, against whom (Chavez) the Bush Administration has expressed reservations, be next and if so will the United Nations be gradually reduced to the same status of a United States puppet as the Allawi regime?

The average American voter, although he may not be able to point out on a map of the world the location of Iraq or Cuba or Venezuela or for that matter Haiti, Grenada, the Dominican Republic or Panama, Iran or North Korea, must insist that a US President sees his country as subject to the principles of the United Nations Charter. We would not be so presumptuous as to tell Americans which candidate they should vote for in today's Presidential election nor to seek to suggest to them which Party, whether Republican or Democratic, should be in control of the Congress and the affairs of the American people.

The American voter, with all his/her access to information, including that dealing with economic, social and political thinking, as well as international relations, the United Nations Charter and its insistence on the rights of States and people to determine their affairs, should be able to allow himself/herself to be guided by reason rather than emotion. It would be ironic though if Americans in the exercise of their franchise voted for continuing Presidential and Government restraint on the human and civil rights and freedoms of others and, unthinkingly, vote for a hobbling of their own rights and freedoms for example via Homeland Security.