By Peter Bearse

Russia's invasion of Georgia marks a sea-change in the U.S.A.-Russia relationship. If we are not careful, the Cold War could start again. Why, then, have the media-designated 'leading' candidates for the U.S. Congress in New Hampshire's First Congressional District not spoken out or written anything on the issue? Perhaps it is because, unlike the Independent Candidate, Dr. Peter Bearse, they have no international experience - even though Congress frequently has to deal with global issues that, like Georgia, could rise up to threaten us at any time. Dr. Bearse is the only NH Congressional candidate who has worked in Georgia as well as two other major areas of major conflict, Iraq and Pakistan, and a dozen other countries worldwide.

The unfolding events in Georgia are not a minor sideshow in a far, inconsequential corner of the world. They threaten our national security.

So far, we have seen:

* Another failure of American intelligence.
* Another failure of President Bush:
* How our preoccupation with Iraq prevents us from effectively dealing
with a crisis elsewhere.
* A rise of Russian power that could threaten another breakaway from the
former-Soviet Union, the Ukraine, leading to another rise in oil prices,
and further undermining efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.
* And more; watch out!

Mixed and confused signals from our government emboldened Georgia's President Saakashvili to send troops into a province threatening to breakaway, South Ossetia. This, in turn, gave Russia's President Putin a ready-made excuse to send troops into Georgia. President Bush's immediate reaction was more weak tea. Even while Secretary of State Rice was pushing Saakashvili to sign a cease-fire agreement negotiatied by the President of France and signed by Vladimir Putin, Russia was planning to establish a "buffer zone" that would keep Russian forces inside Georgia.

The fundamental issue raised by South Ossetia is peoples' rights to self-determination and self-governance. We dropped the ball on this by not insisting that Georgia avoid force to bring South Ossetia into a unified Georgia. Instead, they should have offered substantial self-governance to the province and revealed how its people would lose freedom under Russia. A good example: Kosovo [where Dr. Bearse has also worked]. The Kosovars love us.

So, what is to be done? –

* Congress should hold hearings to get to the bottom of our poor handling
of the situation in Georgia.
* The U.S. should call on NATO to immediately admit Georgia as a member.
* We should call for Russia to be removed as a member - the only
non-democratic member - of the G8, a group of advanced industrial
nations.
* Russia's membership in the World Trade Organization should be
reconsidered.
* Start a crash project - like the Manhattan Project during WWII that
developed an atomic bomb in only 3 years - to rapidly complete
development of alternative sources of energy so that we can substantially
reduce our dependence upon foreign oil and reduce the value of oil exports
to Russia.
* BUT: Congress should immediately vote to APPROVE the Bush
administration's landmark nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia,
signed by both Presidents Bush and Putin last year. Or do we want to see a
resumption of the Cold War?

The Georgia crisis underlines the fact - as if it needed underlining! - that the post-Cold War word is a very dangerous place. Thus, a critical question that voters face is: Which candidate is best prepared to help us deal with the dangers? The answer? -- PETER BEARSE.

Released by Supporters of Peter Bearse for Congress, August 26, 2008.

Bio: Bearse is a 1963 graduate of Harvard University who received his master's degree and then Ph.D. in economics with high honors from the Graduate Faculty of the New School of Social Research in NYC. He served as economic advisor to two New Jersey Governors, Associate Director of the Center for New Jersey Affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, and Founder/President of Development Strategies Corporation. As International Consulting Economist, he has worked in 15 countries, including Iraq and Pakistan.

By David Howaniec

The current Russo-Georgian conflict is serving as a critical test for the Presidential candidates. While John McCain has been releasing multiple statements on the conflict calling on Russia to cease fire and seek reconciliation in the region, Barack Obama was largely silent on the issue, releasing a statement only after the White House announced new diplomatic and humanitarian efforts in the region, to call for the U.S. to join our European partners in direct, high-level diplomatic talks with both Georgia and Russia.

While Senator Obama is sitting in Hawaii with a map trying to figure out where in the heck Georgia is, someone should remind Obama that he’s the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on European Affairs. This issue would clearly fail under the jurisdiction of Obama’s committee, especially since Georgia’s desire to join NATO and play an active role in the European community exacerbated the problem. In fact, the tension has been boiling for quite some time and Obama should have already taken action in his capacity as chairman.

The SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS deals with all matters concerning U.S. relations with the countries on the continent of Europe (except the states of Central Asia), with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

In 2002, Did Hillary Clinton have the foresight that Senator Obama appears to lack regarding Georgia? She gave a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, detailing her opposition to a pre-emptive attack on Iraq by citing some consequences:

"If we were to attack Iraq now, alone or with few allies, it would set a precedent that could come back to haunt us. In recent days, Russia has talked of an invasion of Georgia to attack Chechen rebels. India has mentioned the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on Pakistan. And what if China were to perceive a threat from Taiwan? So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option."

Realizing the potential of such a significant foreign policy event is critical when serving as President of the United States. The fact that Senator Clinton was able to see this coming six years ago is remarkable and demonstrates the superior judgment needed to be President.

Meanwhile, even though the intelligence was available and the tension had been brewing, Obama didn’t bother holding any committee hearings on this issue. Is it because he was too busy campaigning? Or because he didn’t see it coming? Either way, it doesn’t build much confidence for how he would actually handle the most difficult job in the world.

By Dave Jarvis

The following argument is the product of careful reasoning, cautious fact checking, and careful documentation Supporting documentation can be found in the "supporting documents" section of davejarviscongress.com

I would first like to state that I support our current efforts to reestablish security in Iraq, that I am pro-life, I believe in free markets, low taxes, and at least eighty percent of the time I have found myself in political agreement with former President George H. W. Bush. My reason for writing this is not political or to throw anyone’s name through the dirt but instead to address the long litany of strange occurrences that have followed Bush around through the years that the American people should look at. Not the least of which are two wars in Iraq that could have been avoided if not for two “mistakes”, one in the State Department of the administration of the elder Bush and the other in the CIA of his son’s administration. None of what I am stating relies on some hidden treasure trove of intelligence information, just common knowledge and public information.

According to the Warren Commission, Lee Harvey Oswald’s only real friend in Dallas was a man named George de Mohrenschildt. De Mohrenschildt was a wealthy, extremely well connected oil man who the House Select Committee on Assassinations believed to be a CIA contract agent and whose brother, Dmitri von Mohrenschildt, worked directly for the CIA. De Mohrenschildt also had a good friend named George Bush who was running for United States Senate at the time of the assassination and was also the son of prominent United States Senator Prescott Bush. Crazy as it sounds, being a good friend and business associate of Oswald's only friend and confidant in Dallas while also being a candidate for Senate and the son of a prominent United States Senator creates enough suspicion toward George Herbert Walker Bush to recommend an official investigation, that is, if the case were ever investigated as a political crime.

However, on top of his political connections and his connections to Oswald’s friend in Dallas, there is a great deal more that demands exploration. There is a documented call to the FBI hours after the assassination from George Bush, President of “Zapata Oil” (George H. W. Bush’s oil company), reporting that a young man he knew had threatened to kill Kennedy and Bush was concerned that this man could be the President’s assassin (he also volunteered that he was not in Dallas but would be driving there later and staying the night). The next day the office of J. Edgar Hoover in another well documented call, debriefed a CIA agent who had been working on Cuban affairs and apparently planning a repeat invasion of Cuba. The agent’s name was George Bush. The subject of the call was the immense outpouring of emotion the nation was experiencing over the Kennedy assassination and that a repeat invasion of Cuba would be impossible. Bush has been asked about both calls in the past and claims he doesn’t remember either. Worthy of note is that the official CIA codename for the original Bay of Pigs invasion was “Operation Zapata”, and George Bush’s oil company (again, “Zapata Oil”) had rigs off the coast of the Bay of Pigs. And interestingly, close associates of President Richard Nixon would note that whenever discussing the Kennedy Assassination Nixon would refer to it as “that whole Bay of Pigs thing”. Lastly, George Herbert Walker Bush was an official of the Nixon White House and a political ally of Richard Nixon himself. Convicted Watergate Burglar and notorious CIA agent E. Howard Hunt’s recent confession to Rolling Stone Magazine of being part of the plot to kill Kennedy and Jack Ruby’s recently discovered past employment with Nixon while Nixon was in Congress seals Bush’s position as being one close friend in separation from Oswald, Jack Ruby, and a self described Kennedy conspirator. Being an oil man concerned about Kennedy’s proposed reduction of the Oil Depletion Allowance while working on Cuban Affairs for the CIA at such a level to be debriefed on the assassination by J. Edgar Hoover would connect Bush to every prominent theory of Kennedy’s assassination.

Shifting gears, John Hinckley, the man who shot and almost killed President Ronald Reagan, was a member of a prominent oil family in Texas. His father was close friends with George Bush and was a financial supporter of Bush’s political campaigns as well having sold his Oil Company to Bush’s Zapata Oil. Our current President Bush has even stated the likelihood of his at some point being at the same social functions as Reagan’s would be assassin. The Reagan shooting has never been considered a political crime due to the obvious insanity of John Hinckley Jr. and is understandably an odd case to be second guessing. But it is quite bizarre and more than a little bit creepy that the man who would have been made President of the United States if Reagan died was also great friends with the shooter’s father. In a nation of a few hundred million the sudden murderous insanity of the son of a close family friend and the extreme coincidence of his choice of victims is enough to make anyone scratch their head and is definitely worthy of further investigation.

Furthermore, George H. W. Bush is a close friend of the Bin Laden family and the Saudi elite. His associates in the oil and arms industries are major beneficiaries of the spoils of our current War in Iraq, a war that clearly never would have happened without the events of September 11th first having occurred. His son has enjoyed for six years war powers and political advantages more befitting a dictator than a United States President, mainly due to the events of 9/11. Osama bin Laden, being the son and brother of prominent Saudi oil elite who enjoy close friendships and tight business relationships with the elder Bush, easily creates a suspicious personal link if the attacks of September 11th were ever investigated as a political crime.

So, one man, somewhat suspicious of three separate crimes of immense political significance, separated by forty years of history, occurring in entirely different locales, each with its own lunatic assassin, and each with a prominent “oil man” as an intermediary. A bewildering pattern becomes evident only by changing our view of these tragic events as being acts of lunacy to being calculated acts of political violence. I am calling for a renewal of the investigation into all three crimes with the important distinction that they also be investigated as possible political crimes. In doing so I am only attempting to clear up once and for all what I am fully aware could end up being merely a bizarre list of truly amazing coincidences.

Ultimately, the suspicions of the American people should be driven by evidence and by character. If our current President Bush had never invaded another nation under false pretences and then loudly called for that leader’s decapitation by hanging there would be much less call for suspicion toward him or toward his greatest supporter and the number one reason he was elected…his father. We might have considered political violence below them. If our pro-life President had shown more concern toward of the loss of life in Iraq or if he had shown the least attention to the suffering of the people of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina his father’s proximity to three major political crimes would not seem so unnerving. If he had never developed secret prisons, called for the removal of habeas corpus, and had not called for torture’s return to the Western World the American people could afford to be less suspicious.

We have seen our President invade, assassinate, torture, eavesdrop, lie, undermine our Constitution, and scoff in the face of Democracy. We have witnessed all this with our own eyes. His initial election was based in large part due to his name, a name that he shares with his father and a name that has seen close proximity to the darkest moments of the last forty years.

The American people don’t fall for suspicion easily. We like to trust. We like to believe the best in people. But our current administration forces us to revisit old suspicions with new resolve…now more aware than ever of the price of burying our heads in the sand. If there was any crucial advice we could wean from our founding fathers’ work on the Constitution it is “be suspicious”. I suggest we do so.

By Jennifer Horn (Republican Candidate for US Representative for NH-CD2)

Our Independence was born with the stroke of a pen on July 4^th, 1776. We were a nation without the rights of our mother country; our forefathers rose up and fought for our right to self-governance, our right to be a free and independent people. They created a government that was to be of the people, by the people, for the people.

Congress no longer serves the very people it was created to represent. The partisan gridlock of our elected representatives threatens the very freedoms our Founding Fathers fought to protect. It seems that Congress serves party over the people and special interests over the rights of all. Power and prestige have replaced public service as motivation for public office.

Our Founding Fathers built a great nation and every American has a duty to fight to preserve their vision. Each one of us has a duty to serve the cause of democracy and freedom - not just on the battlefield, but in our communities and at the voting booth.

Make your voice heard – join the fight to return government back to the people. We may not all don the uniform of the most courageous, but we are all called to serve the cause of freedom and democracy.

Our red, white and blue banner is now and must forever be a flag of hope and possibility to freedom seeking people everywhere. Serving that flag, and that cause, is the most noble of all.

I hope I have taught my children what my parents taught me: that service to others is the greatest measure of your life, that freedom for all is the most treasured cause, and that those who make the ultimate sacrifice in defense of that cause are the most heroic among us.

As we march in parades and grill burgers in the yard with family and friends, let us remember both those that forged our great Nation and those who have served and sacrificed to defend it.

May God continue to bless those who serve, their families and above all, those lost to the continuing fight for freedom for all people.

By Nathaniel Gurien

From its kickoff TH meeting in Berlin, NH in February, 2007 to the present day, HRC's campaign has been, apparently by design, informed by its sizzle, not its steak, process over policy, script and pandering over leadership. I made this specific point to Gen. Wes Clark during a small gathering of local activists in North Conway, NH in December, 2007 in which he was pitching Senator Clinton's candidacy. He agreed with my observation but defended her "cautious" approach as necessary to avoid providing the "right-wing propaganda machine" with material.

This fundamental defect of her campaign struck me from Day One when during the aforementioned 02.07 TH meeting, she opened with remarks and then took questions. In front of a impressive contingient of regional, national and international media, she answered a few softball questions about health care and tuition assistance with numbing generalities. Disgusted, I raised my hand and asked her: "We all know that the Bush Administration are congenital liars. In the interest of demonstrating that your administration would be more honest and transparent than the Bush administration: What is the true reason(s) the US invaded Iraq? We know it wasn't because of WMD or Al Qaeda, so take this opportunity right now to set the tone of your campaign and future administration by telling us the truth." Her reply, as reported by Patrick Healy of the NYT was:

She responded by asserting that President Bush and his advisers came into power in 2001 with an "obsession" to oust Saddam Hussein and resolve the "unfinished business" of the first Gulf War of Mr. Bush’s father. "From almost the first day they got into office, they were trying to figure out how to get rid of Saddam Hussein," Mrs. Clinton said. "I’m not a psychiatrist – I don’t know all of the reasons behind their concern, some might say their obsession." "I guess they must have seen it as unfinished business, for want of a better term," she added. Mrs. Clinton then turned to criticizing the administration’s handling of the war, saying: "If you had been obsessed with doing this, as they apparently were, why were you so incompetent?"

Now, of course, with her security clearances, and those of her husband, she certainly knows at least as much of the truth as we moderately-informed little people. She chose instead an answer that translates as either: 1) No, my administration is not going to be any more transparent or honest than the Bush Administration, or 2) Condescending circuitous bullshit.

My question was followed by one from Roger Tilton, subsequently reported ubiquitously, who asked her if she was ready to apologize for her Iraq war vote. She answered no, based on a false claim of ignorance.

I and many other activists and citizens attended innumerable campaign events throughout the early months of the NH Primary, and one of the most common refrains was that most glaringly she, but also most of the other "top-tier" candidates WERE NOT ANSWERING OUR QUESTIONS.

This ultimately led to my founding in October 2007 (along with Roger Tilton and other activists who felt that citizens deserved a responsive and substantive dialogue with candidates for public office) a non-profit, non-partisan organization called NH Asks to ask all the presidential candidates in NH provocative and tough questions in newspaper ads throughout the state. Their answers would then be rated for truthfulness, straightforwardness and responsiveness (STR) and published in subsequent newspapaper ads. As Executive Director of NH Asks, Inc., I can state with some authority that Senator Clinton rarely, if ever, supplied genuinely responsive answers to substantive questions, certainly at least when she campaigned in NH. Neither she nor her campaign ever answered NH Asks's questions.

The meeting with General Clark in North Conway, NH in December, 2007 was, for me, one of the most enjoyable and truly informative of the primary season. His candor and honesty was refreshing, and his respect for the intelligence of his audience was genuine. He stated that Hillary shared his progressive policy views, and that we could be confident of her similarly competent and progressive leadership.

I pointed out that whereas that might be true, she had given us no basis to know that. Her public interaction seemed all scripted and/or manipulative, as well as devoid of demonstrative leadership, citing examples including her support of the Kyle-Leiberman Amendment, and her failure to stand with Senator Dodd to defend the Constitution.

I suspect that the other side of the same coin that also doomed her candidacy was an excessive reliance on professional political advisors, rather than trusting her own instincts. However, my suspicion in this regard is largely circumstantial.

Notwithstanding, her campaign's most monumental blunder was a failure to demonstrate her ability to lead the nation with both her words and deeds. And she squandered numerous golden opportunities to do so.

The real shame is that she could have run an inspiring and historic campaign, and if she had shed all this baggage, she might have been a great president.