by Kennedy Graham
12 October 2009
Dr. Kennedy Graham, MP,
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
Wellington
Open Letter to President Barack Obama
Dear Mr President,
Congratulations on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009. Many around the world will welcome the award and be inspired by the tribute accorded to you.
The Prize, no doubt, reflects equally your achievements for peace in attaining the presidency itself as much as those recorded during the fleeting presidential period before closure of nominations. It is not my purpose to over-rate your achievements to date or to query whether they are sufficient to have earned the high accolade that has been given to you. The Nobel Committee members will be confident that they know what they are doing.
My purpose in writing is rather to consider the new political situation you are now in, and in some ways the new challenges you face, as a result of having been awarded the Prize. For from now on, the peoples of the world will perceive you in a new light, with heightened expectations. Those perceptions will reflect a daunting multiplicity of beliefs, apprehensions and hopes. In a sense, the Prize has upped the ante for you in your strategic policy-making for the remainder of at least your first presidential term.
It seems there are two central challenges for you to address, as national commander-in-chief and now global peacemaker-in-chief. One is the continuing existence of nuclear weapons in the world. The other is the legitimising of the use of force for global governance. The two are closely related, and you are at the centre of their vortex.
Your ringing, if carefully-crafted, declaratory rhetoric about creating the conditions for a nuclear-free world will come across to all as highly welcome. How to translate that into practical initiative is less easy. But the options do exist.
They do not lie in tinkering at the margin with vertical non-proliferation measures such as, for example, test bans, fissile material cut-offs, or seeking ratification of the South Pacific Nuclear-free Zone’s Protocol, as important as those might be. Nor do they even lie in greater assertiveness towards the horizontal non-proliferation regime, such as curtailing Iran and North Korea, India and Pakistan and, if we may dare mention it, Israel. These are critical issues but they are not at the epicentre of the nuclear dilemma. The dilemma is, actually, your country. For yours is the leader – both politically and militarily.
The option lies in addressing the central reliance of the US itself on nuclear deterrence, both in force posture and doctrinal tenets. For nuclear deterrence has, for over half a century, underpinned what passes for strategic stability, and it has been the US that has led the trend. It is the US that first acquired the weapon, the US that offered to place it under international control, and when that extraordinarily visionary initiative failed, it is the US that has led the nuclear arms race. And even today, it is the US (followed by the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council) that steadfastly refuses to lessen its reliance on nuclear weapons and deterrence theory.
To reduce the numerical surplus of nuclear weapons, from some 20,000 in the national arsenal to some 5,000 is laudable, but it does not confront the central challenge – which is to cross the threshold of minimal deterrence. Russia and the others will follow, but the lead can only come from the US.
In the 1980s, some countries used to propose a 20-year phase-out programme for a nuclear-free world. The US and other major powers ignored the plan as if it did not exist. Today, a refashioned and improved version lies before the UN – a nuclear weapons convention which would result in a nuclear-free world by 2030.
Total bans have been put in place for chemical and biological weapons. But unlike those weapons, the nuclear military machine is central to the global power configuration. It will take huge political skill and courage – of the kind only that wins Nobel Peace Prizes – to lead the world through the psychological nuclear deterrence barrier, and towards a nuclear-free world that such a convention offers.
To get there requires equal courage on the other front – the use of force – because they are intimately related. For the United Nations, as with the League of Nations before it, rested global stability on the idea of collective security using conventional weapons. It is one of history’s greater ironies that a month after the ink on the UN Charter was dry, the world moved from the conventional to the nuclear age.
There are those who say that nuclear deterrence makes the world safe. There are those who say the price is too high, through the risk of failure. Until the world agrees that global stability can be secured through conventional weapons again, with nuclear weapons either absent, or on a near-deployment status, or at least off high-alert, then we shall never be able to attain a nuclear-free world.
So the twin challenge is to wean the US, and the world, off nuclear deterrence and replace it with a credible alternative means of securing global governance through conventional weaponry.
That brings us to the Afghanistan crisis. For it is the litmus test of all of the above.
Your electoral success in exiting Iraq through re-focusing on counter-terrorism in Afghanistan was politically astute. Yet in politics every solution bequeaths the next problem and, as you know well, Afghanistan could doom your presidency if it is not satisfactorily handled within your first term. The Nobel Prize places you with excruciating precision between a rock and a hard place. A troop surge will make the Prize twist hypocritically in the wind. A rapid exit will produce a Republican presidential challenger to ‘save America from a weak dreamer whose Nobel Prize went to his head’. You go down either road, now, at your political peril.
There is a third option. It is to return to a genuine multilateralism at the United Nations – of the kind that the United States envisioned when it created the system in the 1940s. Your records will show that defence officials reported to the US Congress in the mid-‘40s that it could provide a conventional military force in support of the UN.
Mr President, go back to the Security Council, once more in person, and refer the situation of Afghanistan to Member States for a genuine deliberation. Not as in a US lead that has been worked out within the State Dept. the week before, calibrated in London and Paris, then cajoled through Moscow and Beijing before being imposed on the elected ten. I mean refer Afghanistan to the UN, without a preconceived American solution. Leave it to a Security Council committee to emerge with a proposal.
At the same time, reiterate US military support for a UN-led (not US-led) mission. Only then will the conflict that has become a civil war in that country be handled in an objective manner, and nation-building become an authentic undertaking. Only then will Taliban engage in dialogue.
Only then, when the UN is given a chance to function as an effective multilateral agency, not one brought to its knees by the US and major power rivalry; only then, will you have the twin opportunity of leading towards a world that does not have to rely on nuclear deterrence but can govern itself well. Ditch the regional nuclear defence alliance system that is intoxicatingly addictive and hideously dangerous at the same time. Adopt a global conventional collective security system that can evolve to something more sane, and civilised.
It is one almighty punt. But the Nobel Prize gives you little choice, now. And you are probably the only person, with the right skills and vision, in the right place at the right time, to be able historically to pull it off. If you do not, probably no-one ever will.
With sincere respect,
Dr. Kennedy Graham, MP
Published in Featured | Justice & Democracy by Kennedy Graham on Mon, October 12th, 2009
Tags: afghanistan, Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize, nuclear weapons
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
I’m not fighting any wars, nor ordering anybody else to do so. How come I don’t get one?
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The advantage of the US going down the UN route and including the Taleban in the future Afghanistan (at the price of all the values being fought for – democracy, freedom and human rights for all Aghanis) is that this betrayal of Afghani democrats/human rights activists will be associated with the UN and won’t harm the US reputation for “integrity and committment” when it advocates these values elsewhere.
PS Can anyone expect the Taleban to simply disarm and join the democratic process (more likely their inclsuion will involve foreign forces leaving and allowing them to subsequently betray the agreement via violent takeover and with impunity).
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Yes , well I am in full support of Obama’s sentiments now lets hope that he can fullfill them like;
(1) disengaging in the two wars that the US is involved in. and
(2) Lobbying the UN nuclear weapons inspectors to see if Israel has any weapons of mass destruction!!!!!
(3) Declare Israel a terrorist state!!!!!!
If the above was acted on by the US government then the US govt. would be percieved by the Islam world as being more even handed.
Unfortunately at the moment that is not the case!!!
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This is the biggest fix ever, quite astonishing really. There are probably thousands of people more deserving of this award than Obama, the guy hasn’t done anything yet.
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“Russia and the others will follow, but the lead can only come from the US”
Oh sure, that “open liberal democracy” with a strong anti-militarist culture with no history of interfering in the political affairs of its neighbours is bound to follow. That corporatist capitalist one party state in East Asia, that was threatened by its northern neighbour, and spent many years under the yoke of brutal occupation by Japan, also bound to abandon nuclear weapons.
How naive can you be that if the US abolishes its nuclear arsenal that the remaining nuclear weapons states wouldn’t hang onto theirs or indeed use them for some military blackmail? What would then stop Russia deciding Ukraine and Belarus are within its sphere? What would deter North Korea from launching an all out assault with nuclear, chemical, biological and conventional agents on South Korea or indeed Japan?
Nuclear disarmament will come when the world is rid of fundamental conflicts (e.g. Korea, Kashmir, Palestine) on the one hand, and aggressive dictatorships (e.g. Russia, China) on the other. South Africa disarmed when the apartheid regime was disbanded, so no longer feared Soviet backed attack from its northern neighbours, for example. US-Soviet detente happened when it became clear the USSR no longer wished to be an expansionist empire with totalitarian satellites, as Gorbachev gave up. The Western hardline was met with surrender to Western values.
Nuclear disarmament wont come when the one side that exemplifies the values of a free, open, transparent, liberal secular democracy surrenders its nuclear arsenal, crosses fingers and hopes. That would be incredibly irresponsible. No US President would entertain unilateral nuclear disarmament, it’s so naive and dangerous.
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You won’t make peace either. The hardline conservatives will be in power for as long as the country exists on that basis, but it wouldn’t last long. You could succeed in killing all of them… because THAT is what you’d wind up doing Drakula. Not because you intend to, but that would almost surely be the result.
The question is whether the US impeachment would be fast enough to be able to reverse things before an effective genocide could be arranged. You realize that the impeachment would happen almost immediately.
You can’t solve the Arab-Israeli dispute by taking sides. This is a horribly nasty problem but the temptation to take sides MUST be resisted. My best answer is that they need a wall, but it must be on their proper border… and the settlements must be turned over to the Palestinians… and they need guarantees of their borders as do the Palestinians.
So far people who try to make peace have been assassinated. Sadat and Rabin both. This is not a nice place with nice people on EITHER side. They need a lot of help. NOT people taking sides.
BJ
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Liberty …. I don’t think I read unilateral disarmament in what Kennedy said here… he wants to be rid of nuclear deterrence as a policy.
To reduce the numerical surplus of nuclear weapons, from some 20,000 in the national arsenal to some 5,000 is laudable, but it does not confront the central challenge – which is to cross the threshold of minimal deterrence. Russia and the others will follow, but the lead can only come from the US.
Which is essentially (I think) the notion of abandoning MAD. Which doesn’t (I think) preclude keeping SOME of the damned things, just not in a “ready-to-launch” state, while the conflict areas you speak of remain “hot”.
We’d still be having a military. It just wouldn’t have nukes behind it. Key problem with this is China IMHO, not Russia.
BJ
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This is a great letter. Just a thought – does this actually get sent to Obama?
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Dear Dr Graham,
TL;DR
Love,
Obama xx
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“My faith is small, but you must have some.”
My ‘faith’ in Obama is the same as my faith that my fairy godmother will flitter down and make my mortgage records disappear from the bank’s records.
“My best answer is that they need a wall, but it must be on their proper border… ”
Some of the great walls of history: Hadrian’s, China’s, Berlin’s. Failed, failed, failed.
And the problem here is that there is no proper border – borders are always fiction, though some have stood long enough to gain a degree of acceptance. In the part of the world under discussion, there is no such agreement, merely assertions and counter-assertions, none of which match.
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Sam dreadfully sorry to say _ You are in a losing War in Afghanistan…how did you miss it?
Nice sort of letter KG; longish; – the Prez is not only in the Vortex, if he starts cancelling Military Contracts – he’ll be in the cross-hairs too.
I allow myself this knowledge when watching the game unfold…..the Ref already knows who must win…
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Apenda to Letter to BO!
The Afghanistan question can only be resolved if the USA reconciles its drug policy with international human rights. Both are UN issues. In that regard, drug policy by current conventions has Obama boxed into a philosophical corner alongside the terrorists who profit from the perpetual mayhem.
The UN has a fecundate duty to connect the dots.
It seems our own intersectoral watch dogs, the NZ State Commission is unable too even venture to discuss ‘drugs’ as it too is boxed in by the same dysfunctional paradigm. We should be so harsh on the USA perhaps, when we are guilty of the same folly, but the historical legacy of anti-drug law began right after the Spanish-American war when the US banned opium in the Philippines. It has been downhill slide embracing country after country ever since then. Defuse the War on (some) Drugs, re-establish common civility inherent in ‘governance of the self’ and democracy will flourish. No nukes required!
There needs to be a New Clear Proliferation of Common Bloody Sense!
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I would begin without congratulating Mr Obama on his award – it implies that you are deliberately expressing pleasure for a job well done, or that you may believe he even deserves the award (?). We should take the time to query whether his achievements are sufficient to have earned the high accolade – the earth was flat until someone dared to explain that it was a sphere.
Obama was thrust into office on a promise of change. The rhetoric may have softened but the actions are no different to past Presidents. A look at his brief track-record would indicate that he does not deserve this award.
Obama continues to support Israel in its annexation of Palestinians (recently abstaining from SC resolution 1860 calling for a durable and fully respected ceasefire and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip), has increased and will further increase the number of troops in Afghanistan, and has bombed civilian villages in Pakistan, declared by the Obama administration as “Taleban’. Defence spending is up under Obama in 2009, the highest since the Vietnam and Korean wars.
He threatens Iran over nuclear weapons, however, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have inspected Iran’s nuclear sites. America’s middle-east collaborator Israel holds nuclear weapons, but the IAEA have never been allowed to conduct an inspection; big brother America makes sure this does not happen. Obama’s beat-up of the threat of Iran will continue until public support allows him and his ‘partner’s’ to attack/invade Iran.
The scariest part for me is the absolute willingness of the liberal left to take Obama at face value. We expect behaviour like this from the likes of Bush and his predecessors, but Obama asked us to be better; I suppose it’s do as I say, not as I do. He has managed to nullify the left’s ability to criticize, as they espouse all that drips beautifully from of his mouth. I prefer my Wolves not to wear sheep’s clothing. This highlights our inability to define american politics as left or right, truly seeing it only as the evolving beast called ‘Americanism’.
On reflection, maybe you meant ‘celebratory’ it in the other sense of ‘good fortune’, because his receipt of the award is surely only this -by chance – comparable to winning the lottery.
I do applaud you when you say, “The dilemma is, actually, your country.”
Orwell is probably laughing from the grave at the Nobel Committee.
Regards
B. Pilgrim
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“Sam dreadfully sorry to say _ You are in a losing War in Afghanistan…how did you miss it?”
No, I’m not. I’m in Cuba Street. Never been to Afghanistan in my life.
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bj, we’ve debated what it means to not take sides, and I maintain that declaring the reality of each side’s crimes equally is not taking sides (though not saying Drak has done this). However, I’d accept your dictum if the US as the biggest side taker would be the first to stop.
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BillyPilgrim
The USA had no choice but to accept the right of Israel to resort to the use of military force (abstain) in response to terrorist acts. The US deposed the Taleban regime because they hosted al Qaeda and they deposed the Iraqi regime and occupied the country to install another in its plac e because of a perceived WMD threat. All Israel did was occupy parts of Gaza and they left Hamas in local governance.
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Valis
Is the US really on anyones side? The UN Security Council’s role is to ensure collective security for all member states – including Israel. If the UN is unable/unwilling to do this, then it has to allow Israel to do this itself. The consequences of enabling Israel to defend itself is of course a lack of restraint on their part in their political choices (citing security as some excuse to impose their will on the ground). The alternative was to provide UN forces on the border (1947-1948 or 1949-1967) between the state of Israel and the armies of the Arab states was the option not chosen.
Once Britain and France withdrew from empire (1956), the Americans simply took over the de facto UN role (though it was still the French who provided help to nuclear arms power status).
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SPC, there are unbelievably myopic comments in both those posts. I’m not even going to debate them as they’ve been thrashed so many times on this blog before.
I’ll just say that if that’s what passes for not taking sides, it’s truly no wonder the mid east in in the mess it’s in.
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Valis
1 The US cannot condemn in others what it chooses to do itself on a larger scale, without being a hypcrit and being called out on it. It’s not a debatable point.
2. I guess, then all I have to add is that I do not see you as even handed on the issue.
Which speaks to the wider point, the idea that the USA needs to be even handed is a moot point, as no one agrees or will agree on what being even handed actually means.
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Please let me make my position perfectly clear. I am not in the least anti- semetic and I have signed petitions for jewish communities who are against the Zionist government and sympathise with the palestinians.
When the Balfour Declaration was signed in the 1920′s the boarders of West Bank and Gaza were already drawn up by the Zionists.Their intentions were very clear at that time, that is to push the Arabic Palestinians out of the country.
Not all members of the then British foreign office involved agreed with the wisdom of setting up an ‘Israel’, Lord Rothschild predicted that ‘concieved Israel’ would be a very segregated state.
So I am sorry to say that I would have to disagree with Bj when it comes to taking sides. The Zionist government of Israel are actively involved in pushing the Palestinians out of their country and replacing them with settlers from Russia to China who just so happen to be Jewish.
Now if that is not an act of agression I don’t know what is, and anyone who has any ounce of integrity would stand firmly against governments who commit acts of agression.
Sadly the Isreali government (not necessarily all of the people)are the agressor!!!!
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Sorry SPC, I don’t agree with your logic, but I’m happy to live with that at present.
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Drakula
The BD was of 1917, the League of Nations (formed 1920) “Palestine” mandate to the British on its premise – a homeland for the Jews (one Jews could migrate to if they wished) and the borders changed when Jordan (east of the river) came out of Palestine in 1923.
As to the agendas of the Jews of the 1920′s, I would have thought their only goal was a “homeland” open to their immigration and from 1923 the conflict with Arabs was over this and not borders. Only after the UN decided on partition in 1947 did borders mean much, and in their original plan which Israel accepted and Arabs rejected, this included much of the Galilee and a Gaza linked to the West Bank in the Palestinian Arab majority area state proposed.
PS
Jews opposed to the state of Israel come in two main forms, those who await the Messiah to restore Zion and regard secular matters with disfavour and those who oppose all nationalism’s as part of an assimilationist internationalism.
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Great… now we’re discussing the “he hit me first” nature of the situation that exists on the ground now, and ignoring the actions of one side in order to put the other in the wrong. This is foolish. It is unproductive in terms of obtaining peace.
If you want to get there, you have to reckon that there is QUITE enough blame to be spread about both sides to create new mountain ranges, and work out that shoveling it liberally about is not going to cause either side to trust YOU. One side might, but the other side will (correctly) call you an enemy and refuse to work with you, and there’s the end of your credibility as a broker of peace.
Pay attention people. There are generations of people injured in cultures which regard revenge as a sacrament. They have to be held apart, peacefully, long enough for the hatred to cool. Just like kids on a schoolyard.
The alternatives are:
Create a new “State of Israel” in the middle of outback Australia or the US Midwest, and evacuate every Jew IN Israel to that country (Good Luck with that).
Acceptance of a second genocide against the Jewish people.
Acceptance of the Jewish holocaust being visited on the Palestinian people.
Holding both sides safely (preventing further offenses like settlements or bombings or rocket attacks) apart until their children’s children accept some set of borders as legitimate, and the right of the other side to exist.
I know which one makes sense to me. I don’t THINK there are any other alternatives available. This isn’t a nice clean problem and we have to be very clear about the stakes. Jewish settlements and military actions against Palestinians have been severely unjust… and the Arab League has never to my knowledge retracted its stated desire to extinguish the Israeli state and drive the Jews into the sea. Certainly several member states are still willing to express that desire openly.
Given that, we have to work VERY hard for MANY years if we are to expect to achieve a solution.
BJ
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Valis
Declaring either or both sides to be “guilty” of things will not produce any willingness on either side to sit down with you and discuss peaceful settlement of the dispute.
Assessing blame is NOT a way to achieve peace.
respectfully
BJ
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Tanwa
Is apparently one of those link-trolls – arriving here by way of the discussion related to the keywords Israel and Jew. I find this vaguely disturbing.
BJ
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Declaring either or both sides to be “guilty” of things will not produce any willingness on either side to sit down with you and discuss peaceful settlement of the dispute.
Fine to a point, but you just can’t expect things to change with the language employed at present. Calling one side “terrorists” and the other “counter terrorists”, sets a certain frame and it is one where sides have definitely been taken. The language IS important here. When an atrocity happens, we, and I really mean the US, should call it what it is regardless of which side does it.
If they’re going to refuse to call a spade a spade across the board then both sides should have the same kid glove treatment, not that I think this is a good idea as it would only seem to reduce the need for serious action.
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Truth is that the only difference between us is that I would call neither side “terrorist” whereas you would call them both… You have a point.
I prefer to talk it down and try to get them to implement “separation of the combatants” to the extent possible in that environment…but I DO agree that there is not an equality of treatment in the western media or by western governments.
Separation even to the point of creating a walled-bridged corridor between the West Bank and Gaza. Not precedented to my knowledge, but the span of distance is short enough and the need is great enough to consider the usefulness of connecting the two through the the unused 3rd dimension.
respectfully
BJ
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Truth is that the only difference between us is that I would call neither side “terrorist” whereas you would call them both… You have a point.
We may even be closer as I wouldn’t choose to call either side “terrorist”, given how that word has been corrupted and is now only used to scare people. However, as both sides have committed heinous acts, if one is to be labeled “terrorist”, then so should the other.
I understand the need to tone down the rhetoric. I’m just concerned that tomorrow’s flattening of some building with missiles that kills innocents isn’t described as a “defensive response”, while tomorrow’s suicide bombing that kills innocents gets tagged a “terrorist act”. If you did manage to get both sides sitting at the same table after being described so, the world’s expectations would surely be different given the aggressor and victim have been pre-determined. That won’t lead to a just outcome, only more strife. In fact, I’ve just described all the “peace” talks of the last few decades.
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Bj: It is funny that you suggested a ‘new Israel’somewhere in Australia or the Mid West as I was thinking along those lines in fact New York State probably has as many Jews there as Israel and from what I gather It is a very prosperous and peaceful community.
I mean they are not on the front of every newspaper every day are they?
Why arn’t settlements built in New York State?
Secondly I think that a place like Israel could opt for secularisation. there are places like Singapore where religion is considered a personal matter and that one group should never think that they are special or exclusive from any other group.
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It’s not exactly a region with a tradition of secular government Drakula.
I promote the idea at Haaretz, but while its a western liberal view some share its advocacy is part of the same cultural war that also occurs in “Judeo-Christian” USA (where only a Christian is electable, 40% believe in creation science and a majority is awaiting the return of some dead person to rule the world).
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