By Joe Spurr and Jenny Jiang, Globe Correspondents
Ralph Nader’s criticisms of the federal government during last year’s presidential race haven’t shrunk. They’ve grown.
Calling the US war in Afghanistan “a riverboat gamble,” Nader said President Bush is “basically in the process of burning down the haystack to find the needle.” In an interview yesterday with the Globe before speaking at a peace rally in Boston, Nader argued that a blend of “bribes, spies, and limited military action, coupled with a big humanitarian effort by the UN” would be more effective and minimize the costs to innocent civilians.
“You have to ask yourself: `What happens after you catch the backers of the attackers and you leave . . . behind an extremely devastated society bitter?’” Nader said.
He addressed a near-capacity crowd at the 2,700-seat Orpheum Theatre during the “Democracy Rising” tour, a series of rallies to bring local and national groups together on such issues as universal health care and clean elections.
The crowd clapped as they watched excerpts from an independent documentary on peace rallies in Washington and New York after the Sept. 11 attacks.
“I think that Americans do feel an impulse to support their government at this time,” said John Brett, a senior at Dartmouth College. But “even though the polls show that the majority of Americans support some sort of action, they may not support the actual measures put in place by the government.”
Sitting in the lobby of the Omni Parker House hotel before the rally, Nader said that not only would thousands of Afghan civilians suffer as a result of the US military campaign, but the strikes may foster deeper resentment toward the United States.
“If we reconstruct Afghanistan, we could come out ahead with the people because the Taliban is very repressive,” Nader said. “But we’ve never done that since the Marshall Plan in Europe. Every time we get involved - Somalia, Grenada, Panama - we back out like the Wild West tavern guys backing out with their six-guns flaming.”
History has shown that once the pressure is off, Congress is less likely to appropriate money for reconstruction, Nader said.
“Now, maybe it’ll be different this time, because they need Afghanistan for a pipeline and other interests,” Nader said. “Suddenly, Afghanistan becomes strategic.”
He accused the Bush administration of capitalizing on the “thought conformity” in Capitol Hill and creating a climate where dissent is viewed as being unpatriotic, un-American.