January 01, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

FORD'S ROTTEN FOREIGN POLICY

When someone dies it shouldn't mean their life gets whitewashed. Give them credit for the good they did and their accomplishments. But also acknowledge what was not so good. That is particularly true for people in power. Their lives should serve as object lessons for future generations. So we should take a look at the truly despicable foreign policy of the late President Gerald R. Ford. The most egregious part of Ford's record is allowing Indonesian dictator Suharto to invade East Timor and slaughter a third of the country's population. This article by Stephen Zunes is at www.commondreams.org:

Despite brutal repression, massive corruption and widespread violations of the Paris Peace Agreement, President Ford continued to send billions of dollars of aid to prop up the tottering dictatorship of General Nguyen Van Thieu in South Vietnam. This support needlessly prolonged the war until the Communist-led uprising finally ousted the regime in April 1975.

The following month, Cambodian naval forces seized the Mayaguez. The civilian U.S. merchant ship and its 40-member crew was sailing in a shipping lane that the Cambodians claimed to be within their international maritime boundaries. Without even attempting negotiations for their release, Ford ordered air strikes on the port city of Kompong Som and a Marine assault on the heavily fortified Koh Tang Island. This operation took the lives of 44 American servicemen and scores of Cambodian soldiers and civilians.

Despite reports that the Mayaguez crew had already been released before the U.S. military assault began, the media and leaders of both parties praised Ford for his “decisive” action. The failure of Congress to enforce the recently passed War Powers Act served to severely weaken subsequent efforts to challenge unilateral presidential war-making authority.

In November 1975, President Ford pushed the Spanish government to renege on its promise of independence for Western Sahara. As a result, Morocco seized the territory with Spanish support and in violation of a ruling by the International Court of Justice and a series of UN resolutions. To this day, Western Sahara remains under a Moroccan military occupation that brutally suppresses pro-independence activists and has sent much of the population into exile.