• President Bush has chosen key advisers and appointees who have a vision of the role of the United States which is far different from these values, a vision of total global dominance and empire contradictory to the principles upon which he was elected.

• Pursuit of  policies of preemptive war, unilateralism and global dominance have resulted in increasing isolation from our allies and have created even more hatred of us in the Muslim world, inflaming the passions of terrorism.  Not finding the weapons of mass destruction which were the principle justification for our preemptive invasion of Iraq, we now find ourselves embroiled in a nation building exercise without a discernible exit strategy, opposed by Iraqis who no longer regard us as liberators.

• These key advisers and policy-makers remain in power, policies remain intact, and even as the war in Iraq remains unresolved, we remain on course for confrontation to force political change in Syria and Iran, following policies which lead to endless war.

• In domestic affairs, President Bush responded to the impending bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare by enacting the largest expansion of entitlements and of the size of the federal government since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the Medicare prescription drug benefit.  As neither seniors nor taxpayers are happy with this program, the chief beneficiaries seem to be the pharmaceutical companies and the President's short term political prospects.

• The President did not allow impending deficits from domestic spending nor mounting war expenditures, to delay a second round of tax cuts.  The fiscally conservative Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, who opposed the timing of these cuts with impending deficits during a time of war, was fired.  While generations in the future are saddled with this bill, current voters were shielded from sacrifice at a time when American troops are making the ultimate sacrifice.

• The influence of corporate interests, the role of no-bid contracts, the relationship of individuals and corporations involved in financial misdeeds, with this Administration, discredits an Administration which claims to be "conservative".  An impartial government free of corrupting influence and the absence of corporate welfare is essential to the proper functioning, fairness, and survival of the free enterprise capitalistic system in which we believe.

• In addition to increasing the threat of terrorism, pursuit of the foreign policy agenda of total global dominance has resulted in erosion of civil liberties, fraying of the fabric of our free society.

While we admire the President's determination and intent, we believe he erred in replacing the conservative, non-interventionist, limited government values, with which  he campaigned and was elected, with an ideology and policies of total global dominance and preemptive invasion.

Not only do the majority of Americans believe the invasion of Iraq to be a mistake, but this view is now shared by many conservatives and Republicans who supported the invasion at the time.

Continued denial of the realities of Iraq is particularly relevant, as key policy-makers who were influential in making the decision to preemptively invade Iraq, and who remain advocates of similar regime change in Syria, Iran, and elsewhere, remain in their positions of power.

It is not by accident that historical observers have noted the incompatibility of the policing of a wide-ranging empire with the preservation of the individual liberties which are the basis upon which our republic was founded.

If we choose to preserve our liberties, we must re-commit to the values candidate Bush professed before his election, values of individual liberty, limited government, and a foreign policy of strength which avoids "nation building", grandiose restructuring of world society with multiple regime changes imposed by a foreign power, overextension of troops, injudicious intervention, unilateralism and preemptive invasions.  We must realize that the promise of a security achieved by total dominance is a chimera. We cannot expect allies or foes to ever acquiesce, to ever rest, for insurgencies to ever be suppressed, while the world is dominated by one nation which, however benevolent, alone retains the power and right of preemptive invasion.

We must commit to a strategy with less grandiose goals, which accepts a world in which we are less than omnipotent. While each nation has the right to act unilaterally to protect its own shores, we must more effectively nurture alliances with allies we truly regard as peers in seeking to solutions to the world's problems.

We must acknowledge the arrogance of failing to recognize that there are those who hate us for our policies - for what we do, not just for who we are.  We must recognize that even a great and wonderful nation can err, and we must be willing to re-evaluate our policies, and must be willing to change when that is the just and proper thing to do.

In a world in which terrorists have the capacity to acquire and utilize a nuclear "dirty bomb", it is frightening to contemplate accepting any role other than that of total dominance, of accepting any degree of insecurity.

But total security is an illusion, and is not truly a option open to us.

Rather, the choice we face is whether or not it is wise to pursue this illusive goal of global dominance, this mirage of total security, even when the pursuit of this goal alienates our friends, inflames our enemies, and causes ongoing escalating losses of the civil liberties we so cherish.  We must consider if our actions actually decrease the likelihood of an unthinkable outcome, or make such an outcome more probable.

Perhaps words of the leader who led, as supreme commander of Allied military forces in Europe, through the dark days of World War II, and who, as President, guided the nation through the nuclear terrors of the Cold War, Dwight D. Eisenhower, spoken in reference to the nuclear arms race, might have meaning when applied to the war on terrorism:

The policies of the Bush Administration, which brought us into a war for the purpose of disarming a tyrant, promoted with cherry-picked and misinterpreted intelligence, now threaten to embroil us in an unending quest to democratize the entire Middle East with military force, in the name of "expanding freedom".  Bush Administration policies continue to increase the size of government and of entitlements, financed with deficit financing, while falsely claiming this to be "conservatism".  Bush Administration policies continue to increase the Orwellian intrusion of government into our lives, with erosion of our civil liberties, in the name of "security", all the while pursuing foreign policies which increase terrorist recruitment, and diminish our safety and security.

We believe the misguided policies of the Bush Administration, in contrast to the values espoused by candidate George W. Bush, have damaged our foreign relations, distorted and abused conservative principles, and endanger the American people.

For conservatives and Republicans, it would be far better to lose one election, than to enable the further consolidation of power by those who distort and compromise American values, who discredit the conservatism they claim to represent, and are committed to an ideology leading to reckless foreign policy, expansion of government, and diminution of individual liberties.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, history has shown that true conservative values have faired better, that the growth in the size and budget of the federal government has been less, under a divided government, with Republicans in control of Congress and a Democratic President, than under a government  in which Republicans control both the Presidency and Congress.   History has also shown that a political party and movement best regains its moral bearings, and experiences regenerative growth, when it does not control the Presidency.

We believe that America, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement would be well served by the defeat of George W. Bush in November.

Theodore Roosevelt