Ralph Nader: Hypocrite

Ralph Nader, hypocrite.

Ralph Nader wrote this article, published last year at Common Dreams, about the life, service, and death of a young man, a soldier seriously injured in Iraq named Tomas Young.  The young man died in November 2014, eleven years after he was ambushed in a military truck and suffered terrible wounds.. Wounds that left him paralyzed but didn't kill him for those eleven long years.In my opinion, Ralph Nader is almost as responsible for this young man's injuries and death as Bush or Cheney. 

Tomas Young, pictured in Ralph Nader's article at CommonDreams. 

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I still hold Nader responsible for much of the Bush/Cheney fiasco. 

Nader knew how close the 2000 election would be and he knew he had not one chance of winning anything, not a single state.  But he refused to pull out and endorse Gore.

And so the Republicans won (with help from the Supreme Court).  It's pretty clear that Gore would have won at least one more state, probably Florida, probably New Hampshire, without people voting for Nader, and Gore would have been the President in 2001.  It's doubtful that we would have entered Iraq; we don't even know if 9/11 would have happened.  Perhaps Gore, an integral member of Bill Clinton's administration, would have been more proactive on the terrorist threats that were bouncing about the intelligence community in summer 2001.

But Bush, occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue compliments in part to Ralph Nader, and his Republican war mongers led us into the Iraq War with lies.  Congresspeople, Senators, international leaders, hundreds of them, believed those lies and decided to support a war based on those lies.

4,000+ American servicemen and women were killed, thousands more were wounded, tens of thousands of Iraq citizens died; people in Iraq are still dying now due to the rise of ISIS and the de-stabilization of the Middle East.

But here is Nader, writing a tribute to a man that some might say he helped to kill.  The story is a good one; the story of a young man who signed up after 9/11 with patriotic dreams and wound up in Iraq.  Nader writes the article with care, but he is sanctimonious and, to be honest, shameful.

Look into the mirror, Nader. You caused Tomas Young's misery as much as Bush and Cheney. 

I know others out there will not agree with me, but I stand my ground on this one.