For the past 18 months, clips on the news have quietly reminded us that half a world away, a deadly conflict continues unabated. Yesterday evening, that reminder became much more jolting. Four soldiers were killed in Baghdad, bringing the total deaths in Iraq to 1,002 since the war began and 647 since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations.
While the sheer number of deaths should serve as a grim reminder that this war's end is nowhere in sight, it would be a mistake to reduce the death toll to a simple figure. A numerical representation of the human cost of war not only marginalizes the individuals who have fought and continue to fight in Iraq, but it also forces us to focus on our decision to invade. While the thousand who have died should give us pause before engaging in armed conflict in the future, to an even greater extent these dead should compel us to find a workable and concrete strategy to avoid another thousand deaths.
Individuals can disagree on whether the war in Iraq was worth the costs or if we are safer now that Saddam is no longer in power. These points of ideology, no matter how deeply held, should not delegitimize the lives of individuals who died fighting for their country.
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Nader's candidacy an exercise in futility
Ralph Nader advertises himself as the progressive alternative to the establishment. The independent/Reform presidential candidate, who submitted more than 4,000 signatures to be added to the presidential ballot in Wisconsin yesterday, has claimed that he does not take special interest money, that he has many fresh new ideas and that he is the only real option besides lifelong Washington insiders to run the country. Although he has a constitutional right to be on the ballot should he acquire sufficient signatures, a quick look at Nader's recent record belies his assertions at independence and shows that he cannot live up to the ideals he purports to represent.
After stating that he would not even attempt to get onto the ballots in battleground states, a category into which Wisconsin squarely falls, Nader has aggressively pushed to get onto the ballot in several such states, often using tactics that were at best shady and at worst may have broken federal election laws. In Oregon, dozens of the signatures Nader's supporters collected in an attempt to get him onto the ballot were found to have been of deceased residents of the state; he has since been taken off the ballot on a technicality. A lawsuit in Maine to remove Nader's name from the ballot states that, among other things, his campaign workers went about collecting signatures illegally. Furthermore, the Republican Party itself is alleged to have funded the Nader campaign.
Even if one were to look past the questionable procedures Nader has used to get his name onto ballots in various states, he has yet to take a strong stance on any policy, let alone a stance in opposition to one of the major-party candidates. Gone are the days when Nader's candidacy stood for strong environment, worker's rights, reformed agricultural policies and universal healthcare. It now seems that he is running for little more reason than to show he can.
Third-party candidates for political office can keep major-party candidates from straying too far toward one side of the political spectrum and can offer real policy alternatives in certain cases. The Republican Party, in fact, started as a Northern abolitionist movement in the mid-nineteenth century. Ralph Nader, however, is a third-party candidate who offers very little substance. Far from the idealist he claims to be, Nader is a full-fledged member of the political establishment. He would just prefer that voters think otherwise.
