Women Voters Should Read Carol Taber's article below

Carol A. Taber

In the 2000 election, 7.7 million more women than men voted. Having fought for the right to vote - when many courageous suffragettes were beaten, jailed and tortured - women have become conscientious citizens.

Indeed, after 9/11 when many Americans admitted to knowing not much about this new enemy, Islamofascism, women clamored for information. Soon, we developed a new sophistication about the world.

We learned that all countries have no permanent allies, only permanent interests; that the U.N. is corrupt, cruel and shiftless; and that former allies could betray us by valuing profit above all else. More importantly, we learned that we and our children are not safe. In the decades leading up to 9/11 while blissfully ignorant of the world around us, American families became Target Number One of savages beyond description.

Our reaction? Women’s focus groups and polls show we want to save the Patriot Act, to win the war against terror, to allow guns in the cockpit, to strengthen immigration/deportation laws, to build missile shield defense systems and to stay on the offense against terrorists. In protecting our children, we are proactive and we do not vacillate. We don’t want summits; we want show-downs.

This is why – for the first time in decades - President Bush had obliterated the gender gap. He is the right man at the right time for the right job.

We applaud the President who has taken a root-causes and comprehensive strategy to transform the Middle East where tyrants and their terrorist offspring breed. Demolishing two totalitarian regimes that provided aid and sanctuary to terrorists, documented in the 9/11 Commission’s Report, we freed more than 50 million people. For the first time in history, Afghanistan held democratic elections; Iraq follows in January. Repeating early 20th century America, Afghan women wept as they voted.

Through aggressive American diplomacy, Libya capitulated and abandoned their wmd’s while Pakistan now brings thousands of terrorists to justice. Sixty-four nations, whose flags proudly fly at U.S. Centcom Headquarters, are now allied with America in this war. Even France - who’d promised Hussein to veto America’s efforts to depose him in exchange for millions in profit – and Germany are now part of President Bush’s Proliferation Security Initiative.

Women are behind President Bush in enforcing a forward strategy against terrorists, hunting them down where they live and where our brilliant military is much better trained at shooting back than we or our children are. Of al Qaeda operatives, 75% are killed or captured. All 26 NATO countries are in Afghanistan and/or Iraq. Even the U.N. is helping elections in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military sees our striking progress first-hand; that’s why they support President Bush (73%) over Senator Kerry (18%), according to the Army Times. Are we and our children safer? Of course we are, and that’s why polls show President Bush leading Mr. Kerry among women, too.

As it is the President’s most solemn duty to protect American families, no president has more earned the right to be re-elected than President Bush. Who cares what Jacques Chirac thinks?

Mr. Kerry has not earned the right for us to risk putting our families’ fate in his hands. Amazingly, he’s voted against every weapons system we now use and against intelligence spending by $6 billion, after the first WTC bombing. Two years later he tried again and not one Senator supported his irresponsible bill. His tiresome vacillation about the war is, moreover, frightening. Can anyone say even now what his war policy is?

We’re about to choose the man who will lead us through the most dangerous time in human history with terrorists able to acquire nuclear weapons and America’s families their primary target. John Kerry, named America’s Most Liberal Senator by the National Journal, has stated as President he would sell nuclear fuel to Iran, the world’s premier sponsor of global terror. John Kerry is a risk our country cannot afford.

Choosing our wartime leader is the most crucial vote any of us will cast, especially as women are 52% of voters. The outcome of this war will determine the future of civilization. That’s not bombast. That’s fact.

Our foremothers would be proud to see us vote to safeguard our democracy. This is, after all, why they suffered beatings and jail time for us, so long ago.

Carol A. Taber is President of www.FamilySecurityMatters.com, a website and online newsletter devoted to informing women on all issues related to national security.

©2004 Carol A. Taber

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