WINNING AN ELECTION BUT LOSING ONE’S SOUL

By: Gulamhusein A. Abba

Note:  This article was written on June 29 and  published on July 3 in the NewsTimes: (http://www.newstimes.com/opinion/article/Gulamhusein-A-Abba-Winning-an-election-but-3679537.php

Just as Lyndon B. Johnson’s efforts to establish the Great Society and his War on Poverty were lost on the streets of Hanoi, so also Obama’s quest for justice, his efforts to reduce the killing federal deficit and his war to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor in this country are all being lost on the streets of Kandahar and Jerusalem..

Millions in USA are saying to themselves in their heart, though they hesitate to utter it with their lips, “For God’s sake Mr.President, end the senseless, unwinnable war in Afghanistan, and end it now. Leave the corrupt Karzai to his own fate. Why on earth are you committing the cream of our country to death and life-shattering injuries for two more years after having already decided on departing from Afghanistan ? What will be gained?”

They seem to be echoing the question Lyndon B. Johnson once famously asked in a telephone  conversation with his Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, McGeorge Bundy, on May 27, 1964 while discussing the Vietnam War. Here is a relevant excerpt:

Johnson: I will tell you the more, I just stayed awake last night thinking of this thing, and the more that I think of it I don't know what in the hell, it looks like to me that we're getting into another Korea. It just worries the hell out of me. I don't see what we can ever hope to get out of there with once we're committed. I believe the Chinese Communists are coming into it. I don't think that we can fight them 10,000 miles away from home and ever get anywhere in that area. I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out. And it's just the biggest damn mess that I ever saw.

Johnson continued:

And we just got to think about it. I'm looking at this Sergeant of mine this morning and he's got 6 little old kids over there, and he's getting out my things, and bringing me in my night reading, and all that kind of stuff, and I just thought about ordering all those kids in there. And what in the hell am I ordering them out there for?  (Emphasis added by writer).

Notwithstanding this soul searching he did go on ordering more and more of those “kids” towar.

Obama, who showed so much promise before and immediately after his election to be the President of USA, and from whom the people expected so much, is being used by powerful forces. He either does not know that he is being so used or has sold his soul to the war hawks and the Jewish lobby merely to retain the golden throne and all that goes with it.

He should know that the continuation of the war in Afghanistan, his paying obeisance to AIPAC and Netanyahu and  assuring  continued and unconditional support to Israel while ignoring the  injustices heaped on the Palestinians and their plight, may win him the coming election but these policies are inflicting incalculable harm on this country.

There is a lesson Obama can take from the Johnson episode. All his ordering of those “kids” needlessly into war haunted Johnson for a long time and ultimately led to his decision not to ask for or accept his party’s nomination for another term as President.

If Obama does not have the courage to end the destructive policies being followed by this country, or knows that, with realities of government being what they are in this country, he cannot do what he would like to in these matters, he should at least have the courage of his convictions to say, as LBJ did, “I will not seek or accept the nomination of my party for the Presidency”.

Obama will soon find that it is better not to have blood on his hands and guilt on his conscience than sit on the throne for four more years.

As for the voters, true their choice is limited to only bad or worse. Choosing the lesser evil is never the answer. Evil is evil and must be avoided at all cost.

The voters need to send a strong message that they will not support anyone who puts his own personal interests before the long term good of the country.

The voters in the coming historic election have a third choice. Give their support to neither Obama nor Romney. Just don’t vote for any of them. Leave that portion of the ballot blank or vote for any independent or the nominee of some other party, the Green Party for example, if any of them fields a candidate.

By this simple act the voters can and should send a clear message to both the parties and to all future contenders for the throne in Washington.