Kerry will bring improved security

The difference between the two candidates' plans to win the war on terrorism in this election is simple: Kerry's plan makes sense, and Bush's doesn't.

The first part of Bush's strategy seems to be getting in the way of reform. He opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. He opposed the formation of the 9/11 Commission for a full year. He then blocked its investigation, attempting to hold back documents and even his own national security adviser from the commission's scrutiny. Before switching his position yet again, he also opposed one of the commission's most important suggestions: an intelligence chief with budgetary authority. Without that authority, U.S. intelligence remains a multi-agency beast no single person controls. In order for it to take place, however, the Department of Defense will have to cede around 20 billion dollars of its budget. The idea that Bush will fight his powerful Secretary of Defense for a reform he himself initially opposed is laughable. With Bush in office, the U.S. intelligence system that failed to warn of 9/11, the fall of the Soviet Union and the complete absence of WMD in Iraq will remain unchanged.

What Bush has been willing to fight for is the aggrandizement of his own power. He issued an executive order (later shot down by the Supreme Court) stating that he could declare any person in the United States to be an "enemy combatant" and then throw them in prison for an unlimited amount of time. The administration also gave us the Patriot Act, which alternates between necessary reform and some of the most egregious violations of civil liberties ever attempted by the government. The NRA has joined forces with the Green Party to fight it. It's that bad.

Kerry's domestic security strategy, on the other hand, offers a chance for meaningful change. He will repeal the draconian portions of the Patriot Act but retain its positive aspects. His plan to roll back Bush's extravagant tax cuts for the rich will give the government the money it needs to secure America's vulnerable infrastructure. That means more support for the emergency personnel who we depend on to save our lives during a terrorist attack, which is why the national unions of both police and firefighters have endorsed Kerry. Most importantly, unlike Bush, Kerry will not be intellectually outmatched by his own cabinet, and will be able to push through the intelligence reform we desperately need.

This contrast continues in the foreign arena. Bush has shown real resolve here — resolve to focus on a single preemptive action while ignoring every other front. It's not just that Bush's conduct of the Iraq war has created more terrorists, which it has: The International Institute of Security Studies puts al-Qaida's ranks at 18,000 and growing. It's that we've completely disengaged from Israel/Palestine, that our relationship with the Saudis is unchanged and that Russia, site of the most superbly coordinated act of terrorism since 9/11, has nuclear weapons that are not secured.

America cannot afford any more of this type of resolve. We need a new strategy, and Kerry is offering one. Kerry will move away from the Bush Doctrine and its unilateral vision to a world of international cooperative security, because he understands that America cannot hope to fight global terrorism without global support. As part of his plan to fight the causes of terrorism in addition to the terrorists themselves, he will return to Israel/Palestine and work for peace rather than abandoning it like his opponent. He will make the people of the Muslim world understand that we do not support their corrupt governments, which he has already begun with his public criticism of the Saudi regime. And with some 300 billion dollars more revenue to work with than a tax-cut-hampered Bush government, he will be willing and able to devote the necessary resources towards keeping the world's nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.

John Kerry is offering America a comprehensive solution to its greatest security crisis since the Cold War. George W. Bush is offering the war in Iraq and John Ashcroft going through your email box. The most important battle in the war on terrorism, it seems, will be fought Nov. 2. Arthur Plews '06 writes on behalf of the College Democrats. He can be reached at aplews@princeton.edu.