Saturday, December 15, 2007

Pearce says priority in Iraq is to win war on terrorism

Clara Garcia News-Bulletin Staff Writer; cgarcia@news-bulletin.com

Belen During a stop in Valencia County Friday, U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., outlined the top three campaign issues he is focusing on as he runs for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that will be up for grabs in next year's general election.

Pearce has represented the New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District, which includes Valencia County, since 2003 and is running against U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson for the nomination. Both are vying for the seat held by retiring Sen. Pete Domenici.

Pearce said in an interview with the News-Bulletin that the country is currently fighting three different battles at once — the war on terror, an economic battle, and finally, a cultural war.

"Our challenge in the coming years is to win the war on terror, win the economic battle and then to win this cultural war that is splitting us apart right now," Pearce said. "That's the beginning point for any point — what are the tasks at hand?"

When asked about the war on terror and if the United States should bring home the troops from Iraq soon, Pearce said the priority should first be to win the war on terror.

"There's no middle ground — we'll either win it or we'll lose it," he said. "They say, the radical terrorists, that they want to annihilate America and Americans — there's not to much middle ground there."

Pearce said he would not vote to bring home the troops until the job is done and predicts that American troops will continue to have a presence in the Middle East as they have been since World War II in Germany and Japan and in South Korea after the Korean conflict.

"We fought that war in the '40s, and we still have troops in Germany and Japan — 60 years later," he said. "We still have troops in Korea — 50 years later. So I think, 50 years from now, we'll still have some troop presence in Iraq and in the Middle East."

The congressman says his job is to legislate, and he will leave it up to the generals how to run the war. He also said that the purpose of the war in Iraq is not to establish a democracy that mirrors that of America, but to stabilize the country so that they don't export terrorism around the globe.

While Pearce hesitates to set a time line regarding bringing home the troops, he does hope that a significant draw down of troops can occur beginning next year as the violence in Iraq continues to decrease.

"We must succeed; and like in World War II, we have to defeat the enemy," he said. "But for me to sit here and speculate to my constituents that we're going to be pulling troops out next year, that may lead to false expectations, and I say we must win the conflict."

As for the economic battle that Pearce says the country is fighting, the congressman says that the United States represents 26 percent of the world's economy, even though there are 180 countries worldwide.

"If we had our fair share, it would be down in the 6 percent range," he said. "So the fact that we have 26 percent means that some (countries) are below even their portion and their countries would like to have our standard of living and our jobs."

Pearce noted that Dow Chemical recently announced that its going to lay off between 1,000 to 2,000 in the U.S., but had already announced earlier this summer their plans to build a $22 million plant in Saudi Arabia. He said in the next 20 years, an estimated five million jobs would be lost to other countries because of our current energy policies.

"If we lose those 5 million jobs, then there aren't as many jobs to help pay the taxes ... so our whole economy will shrink one component at a time," he said. "We can say, No. 1, that our graduates from high school should be very competitive — they're not. China and India are graduating far, far better students than what we are.

"No. 2, we should have policies that lower the costs for Americans to do business," he said. "We're making policies that increase the cost of doing business."

Pearce said just last week the House of Representatives passed an energy bill raised taxes $21 billion on American manufacturers. He said the house didn't raise taxes on foreign manufacturers, so it's cheaper for other countries to do business than the United States.

"The next thing would be fair trade. We're doing a lot of free trade, but we should have fair trade," he said. "We insist that our nation speak on behalf of our manufacturers. "

The third issue Pearce spoke about is the cultural war America is facing. He said the country needs to know what the definition of the family is going to be, what the definition of marriage is going to be and also the life issue.

"We need to know what the value of right and wrong is — is there such a thing as right and wrong, and if there is, how should our court system play that out?" he said. "Even the ownership of guns is one issue of this cultural debate."

Pearce said while liberals believe that people are essentially good and that when something goes wrong it's because the parents messed up or society didn't treat them right, conservatives believe the people have the capability to be flawed and have to have a response mechanism such as the court to hold people responsible.

He said he was pro-life and stated that, if elected to the Senate, he would vote to confirm pro-life justices. "I would vote for justices who have strict construction — meaning they want to take the constitution and they want to interpret how our founding fathers believe this country was to be set up and run," he said. "I don't want judges who begin to evolve the constitution into something different. I want the constitution to be only amendable by the people."

Pearce also said he while he is not in favor of same-sex marriage, he does believe it's a state issue, although there will be difficulties enforcing one state's law in another.

"I'm of the view that same-sex marriage should not be our definition of a marriage," Pearce said. "And frankly, that's the stake — that's the question. Are we going to redefine marriage or not."

Pearce said that it's already assumed that same-sex marriage is going to be allowed in the courts, so the great pressure is exactly that. He said legal scholars tell him that once it's approve into law, it will redefine marriage on the basis of emotion rather than genetics.

"Do I wish to there was a circumstance that would help people I know very well and love very dearly? Yes, I wish," said Pearce. "But I don't want to redefine marriage because I see downstream effects."

Pearce said some of the issues concerning the state that he will also focus on include the increase of careers in New Mexico rather than jobs, water and border and immigration concerns.

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