NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY

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NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY
2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100
Washington DC 20037
World Wide Web: http://www.LP.org
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For release: August 17, 2004
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For additional information:
George Getz, Communications Director
Phone: (202) 333-0008
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Best strategy for troop realignment
is to bring them back home, Badnarik says

WASHINGTON, DC -- President Bush's plan for a massive realignment of
U.S. troops is half right, says Libertarian presidential candidate
Michael Badnarik: All U.S. forces should be re-deployed -- right back to
the United States.

"Bush wants to remove U.S. troops from places where they don't belong,
then put them in other places where they don't belong," says Badnarik.
"It's time to bring all of our men and women home and start using them
for defensive purposes only."

In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday in Cincinnati,
Bush announced that in order to make the military more agile in the war
on terrorism, approximately 70,000 U.S. troops would be shifted from
Cold War-era bases in Europe and Asia. Some would be stationed in the
United States, while others would be sent to the Middle East, the former
Soviet republics and South Asia.

But moving more U.S. troops into the Middle East and volatile central
Asian nations may provoke more terrorism than it prevents, Libertarians
say.

"The U.S. military presence in the Middle East has been used as a
justification for several terrorist attacks, including the September 11
tragedy," Badnarik said.

"How long can politicians pretend to be surprised when terrorist threats
turn into bloody reality? How many more innocent Americans have to lose
their lives before U.S. policy makers come to their senses and stop
interfering in other nations' affairs?"

While removing U.S. troops from Germany 15 years after the collapse of
the Soviet threat is a positive development, putting them in harm's way
elsewhere makes no sense, Badnarik says.

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the goal of Bush's plan is to
create more 'deployment locations' for U.S. troops," he notes. "But what
politicians call deployment locations are actually wars waiting to
happen.

"In recent history, presidents have deployed our troops to locations
like Vietnam, Lebanon, Bosnia, Somalia and Iraq, and each time Americans
died needlessly. The lesson is that politicians can't be trusted to
distinguish between national defense and military adventurism.

"Bush's plan is nothing more than more military adventurism, and it's
only a matter of time before innocent Americans pay the price -- again."