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A Better Foreign PolicyPresident George W. Bush has proved to be as much of a disaster on foreign affairs as on domestic issues. More, if possible. And not just on Iraq. On many other issues, including global warming, missile defense, population growth, and now Iran, he has been just as flagrantly wrong as he was on the supposed weapons of mass destruction held by Saddam Hussein. It’s not just that he’s getting bad advice: his narrow worldview is upside-down to begin with. Combine that with his desire to seek advice only from people who will fortify his prejudices, rather than from the ones who know and understand the issues, and you get a dangerous combination.
It was a national tragedy that we had this kind of person at the helm when the terrorists struck on September 11, 2001. Bush used the attack to justify a foreign policy aimed at world domination, accompanied by an even more systematic and thorough attack on our civil liberties, all in the name of “protecting” us against further terrorist assaults. As a result we are no longer admired abroad–we are feared and hated–while on the home front we face an erosion of our rights, an extraordinary accession of executive power, and an assault on the wall separating church and state.
I think it was Henry Kissinger who once observed that absolute security for any one country meant absolute insecurity for its neighbors. The Bush response to a serious, but not existential terrorist threat, has been entirely disproportionate. We built up our conventional military forces and then used them against Iraq, a country that wasn’t even threatening us. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda continues to regroup in the frontier regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan while we stride across the globe like some modern colossus, threatening anyone who disagrees with us, turning a deaf ear to their arguments.
There has to be a better way, and of course there is. We need to lead by example, not threats. We need to listen to others, learn what their problems are, and exercise our talents and ingenuity toward finding solutions that help everyone to the extent possible. We need to take the dawning environmental crisis seriously and show that we’re willing to make our share of needed sacrifices. Above all, we need to recognize that we have to sacrifice some of our national sovereignty if we are to cooperate effectively on global problems with the rest of the world.
This last point is critical and is least understood, not only by Bush and his accomplices, but by many, if not most, Americans. The fact of the matter is that we can’t have it both ways. We can’t insist on total security for us and us alone, and expect full cooperation from everyone else. Cooperation requires some sacrifices, some concessions, from each of the partners.
LIBERTY VS. SECURITY
The tradeoff between liberty and security is as old as humanity itself. Any human society that endures has rules that constrain its members in ways that make cooperation possible. So we prize liberty but fear anarchy. We are all for free choice but insist that everyone should respect the law of the land. We recognize that there’s a contradiction, or at least a tradeoff, between our yearning for as much individual freedom as possible, and the maintenance of public order, but we also believe that a just society can have its cake and eat it too. We admire societies, including our own, to the extent they have worked out institutions and attitudes and principles that maintain order while maximizing freedom. We deplore both failed states, where chaos reigns, and dictatorships, where order is maintained only by force. Isn’t that what democracy is all about?
Until now, there has been no such thing as a global society. The most complex societies have been nation-states. There is a global authority, the United Nations, but it has no teeth. On the most important issues, a sovereign nation can ignore any UN attempt to constrain or control its behavior. It’s true that many international and regional organizations, buttressed by treaties and conventions, bring a modicum of law and order into specific areas of international relations. They are useful and respond to real needs. But on the most important issues, any member of the UN can defy its authority, and the only recourse the UN has is to try to persuade other nations to put pressure on the miscreant. This sometimes works with small and powerless countries, but the big ones can behave as they please. When the chips are down, the current global society resembles Dodge City from the mythology of the cowboy movie, where victory goes to the fastest draw.
EVOLUTION OF A GLOBAL SOCIETY
Humanity is now in a transitional phase, moving reluctantly from Dodge City to a global society ruled by law. We’ve seen this kind of transition before, on more limited scales. Some combination of circumstances alters the environment and the existing social order comes under great stress. People get desperate enough to commit to a substantially different order that involves cooperating with former competitors, even enemies, in a larger society. There are problems of adjustment but eventually almost everyone is integrated into the new order and few want to go back to the old one. Our own nation’s history tells the story: thirteen colonies, each of them filled with pride at its particular history and character, hesitantly agreed to form a confederation. From that, the tighter bonds of a federal republic were created and now here we are. Who wants to go back?
Our history of morphing from thirteen small societies into a subcontinental giant was extraordinary. Usually the process involves more trauma, more false steps (I say this even while acknowledging that our civil war was a thoroughly traumatic affair). European history is more typical in that respect. How many wars have been fought on European soil since the Roman Empire collapsed? And how difficult is it still, when all the disadvantages of narrow nationalism have been revealed, and all the blessings of union are being unveiled, for the several national parties to agree on the institutions and modalities of union?
All this suggests that creating some kind of law and order that will include the whole globe will be an enormously complicated task, one that certainly will not be fully accomplished during the lifetime of anyone alive today. But it’s equally plausible that some such order will evolve eventually, if humanity is to survive at all. Right now we are living in a fool’s paradise, based on an uneasy equilibrium backed up not by an effective international rule of law but by a balance of terror, known as mutually assured destruction. No nation-state is mad enough to use nuclear weapons first, not so far at least, and all are concerned lest some of those weapons fall into terrorist hands. But is this the best guarantee of stability that we can leave to our grandchildren? If this is the best we can do, will there be that many grandchildren left to receive our inheritance?
HUMANISM’S ROLE
I think there is a special role in all of this for the humanist worldview. There are other voices being raised on this theme of world togetherness, like the descendants of the old world federalists, and some environmental groups. We can welcome their interest and cooperate with them as the situation demands, but we need to keep our own voice and perspective. Most humanists would support the view that the world needs a stronger UN and more effective means of controlling conflicts, and especially nuclear weapons. But we need more. I envision an active, explicitly humanist policy centered on a renewed dedication to certain basic rules of good conduct and an insistence that they apply to interstate relations much as they do to relations within the family, community, or nation.
Support for the concept of universal human rights is already an integral part of the humanist worldview, as is opposition to genocide. But for the most part, our concern has been directed at governments mistreating their own citizens. What I propose here is more general and more inclusive. I think humanists should judge the way all nation-states deal with each other by the same basic rules of good conduct as the ones that operate at lower levels of social organization. That is to say, the rules and taboos that make societies at all levels function harmoniously and efficiently. At the level of the family and the community, they can be defined loosely as: Don’t kill people, especially if they belong to your own group. Don’t try to cheat them, or steal from them, or run off with their spouse. Share, when you can, with the less fortunate … sound like the Golden Rule? Of course, for these are basic rules governing human social behavior that evolved long before religion–though religions falsely claim them as their own.
There are many different ways of formulating these rules. They take different forms when applied at the family level, for instance, as opposed to the state. And they are culture-bound to a great extent. But there is some form of them in every society that exists above the level of anarchy. They provide the social glue that keeps most people behaving decently toward other members of the group. They operate parallel to more explicit codes and institutions–the law, police, courts, and jails–that enforce the unwritten codes and back them up with explicit penalties for cheaters.
MORE DEMOCRATS SAY: END THE WAR, RESTORE CHECKS AND BALANCES...The list of Democratic congressional candidates who are committing to back the "Responsible Plan" movement to end the war in Iraq, guard against similarly wrongheaded wars, restore Constitutional principles and reform the media is growing rapidly.
When it was announced earlier this week that the "Responsible Plan to End the War In Iraq" -- an initiative conceived by Washington state's Darcy Burner, Maine's Chellie Pingress and a handful of other progressive women seeking House seats -- would be launched today, 25 House and Senate contenders had signed on.
By the time of the actual launch, the number of signers had risen to 42, including 38 House candidates and 4 Senate contenders. The list includes candidates such as Maryland's Donna Edwards, who has already won her primary and is all-but-certain to be elected in November, as well as many leading House contenders from other states. Some like Pingree are seeking open seats, some like Burner are challenging Republican incumbents, some like Iowa's Ed Fallon are taking on disappointing Democrats -- as Edwards did when she beat Congressman Al Wynn in Maryland's February primary.
All are challenging Democratic leaders in the House and Senate to stop pulling punches, just as they are suggesting a clearer course for the party's cautious presidential contenders.
That course is outlined as:
1. Ending U.S. military action in Iraq:
There is no military solution in Iraq. Our current course unacceptably holds U.S. strategic fortunes hostage to events in Iraq that are beyond our control; we must change course. Using diplomatic, political, and economic power, we can responsibly end the war and removing all of our troops from Iraq.
2. Using U.S. diplomatic power:
Much of the remaining work to be completed in Iraq requires the effective use of diplomatic power. Many of Iraq's neighbors are currently contributing to instability and need to be persuaded to assist instead in stabilization.
3. Addressing humanitarian concerns:
The humanitarian crisis caused by Iraq's situation is destabilizing to the region and damaging to America's moral credibility. We must both take responsibility for the Iraqis who are now endangered because of their assistance to the U.S. and begin to address the regional problems of displaced Iraqis.
4. Restoring our Constitution:
Many mistakes were made in the course of this war, and our systems of checks and balances have failed us at critical moments. To prevent repeating those mistakes, we must repair the underlying Constitutional framework of our republic and provide checks to executive authority. Balance must be restored between the executive and the judicial branch (for instance through the restoration of habeas corpus), between the executive and the legislative branch (for instance through clarifying that the President does not have the Constitutional authority to unilaterally alter legislation through signing statements), and between the executive and the people of the United States (for instance by clarifying that the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause and a warrant for the government to spy on Americans).
5. Restoring our military:
Repairing the damage done to our military will require reforms in contracting procedures, restoring benefits for members of the military and veterans, and investment in repairing or replacing damaged military equipment.
The need for contracting reform is substantial. Private militias have direct incentives to prolong the conflict rather than resolve it; their use needs to be phased out. Contractors must be legally accountable for their actions. War profiteering must be stopped, and those who have engaged in it need to answer for their actions.
The safety of our men and women in uniform requires that we adhere to international standards with respect to treatment of prisoners. We must also make it clear that the United States does not torture, and that we do not send people to other places to be tortured, either.
Kurtz continues to cover Wright comments while giving short shrift to Hagee, Parsley commentsSummary: On CNN's Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz has devoted a total of approximately 18 minutes to the controversy surrounding remarks made by Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In contrast, Kurtz has led only brief discussions on two religious figures who have endorsed Sen. John McCain and who have made controversial comments -- a single two-minute discussion on Rev. John Hagee and only seven seconds on Rev. Rod Parsley.
On Fox News Sunday, Kristol claimed Hagee and Parsley are "just individuals who've endorsed" McCainOn the March 23 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace highlighted controversial statements evangelist John Hagee and pastor Rod Parsley, who have both endorsed Sen. John McCain for president, have made, and asked New York Times columnist and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol: "Do you think it's fair, Bill, to compare McCain's, quote, 'ministers' to [Sen. Barack] Obama's pastor [Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright]?" Kristol replied: "No, because these are just individuals who've endorsed Senator McCain." He later added: "This would be like attacking Obama because random individuals in the Democratic Party have endorsed him." In fact, contrary to Kristol's assertion that Hagee and Parsley are "just individuals who've endorsed Senator McCain," McCain stated in a joint appearance with Hagee: "All I can tell you is I'm very proud to have Pastor Hagee's support." And in an interview with New York Times reporter Deborah Solomon, Hagee stated: "McCain's campaign sought my endorsement." Additionally, McCain reportedly called Parsley a "spiritual guide" during a Cincinnati campaign rally.
Obama Offers a Progressive Vision of Patriotism
I watched Barack Obama's speech Tuesday morning intently. The "pre-game show" of cable commentators predicted a somewhat grim outcome. What could Obama say that could possibly overcome his association with the words of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Would he throw his pastor on the train tracks? And even if he did, would he still suffer from guilt by association?
But then, for 45 minutes, I saw a man who for days had appeared somewhat at sea, buffeted by waves that relentlessly pushed him off course, seem to find his compass and chart a course directly into the eye of the storm. I saw a man with the inner confidence, and the steadiness of a captain who knew he was sailing on uncharted waters but needed to go there anyway, take the nation with him and land them safely on the shore.
The pundits were clearly stunned. They knew they had witnessed something extraordinary, a moment when time seemed to stand still and a politician in the midst of a withering electoral storm did the unspeakable: he spoke the truth. The unspoken, unspeakable truth. He told the nation that he understood what was happening in white barber shops and black barber shops, around white water coolers and black water coolers, and that we are neither free from our prejudices nor merely prejudiced in our respective grievances, and that in both our prejudices and our grievances, we have more in common than we know.
With the exception of commentators who pride themselves on their bigotry, the speech drew immediate, nearly universal acclaim, and I suspect that its lasting impact will mirror its initial impact. But as the great French sociologist Emil Durkheim described it, we live our lives in the realm of the profane, punctuated by moments of sanctity, only to return again to everyday life. And by nightfall, as I listened to reports of the speech on television, many of the talking heads had returned to the realm of the literal, the crass, and the profane: Did he distance himself enough from Reverend Wright? Did he condemn his former pastor enough to reassure white voters?
But the speech wasn't about Reverend Wright, even though the controversy surrounding pieces of his sermons was the impetus for it. Obama delivered a message that spoke to the conflicts and contradictions around race that have existed since the earliest days of this nation, and he delivered it in a personal way that spoke to his own history and his own complex response to his pastor's messages over many years. The speech brought to mind a passage written by the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson a half century ago in his psychobiography of Martin Luther, which could just as easily have been written last night. Erikson was describing that ineffable quality we call charisma, and the way an individual life history sometimes converges with the historical moment: "Now and again," Erikson wrote, "an individual is called upon (called upon by whom, only theologians claim to know, and by what only bad psychologists)," to lift his personal conflicts to the level of cultural conflicts, "and to try to solve for all what he could not solve for himself alone."
Obama clearly hadn't wanted to make this election about race. But the events of the last week led him to do what the nation has long needed to do: to have the kind of open conversation about race that Republicans have avoided because they've preferred to exploit it and Democrats have avoided because they've tended to fear it. We can't solve problems we can't talk about, and our better angels on race tend to be our conscious values. As numerous commentators described it, Obama led us to our better angels.
But from a political standpoint, at least as important as the primary message of his speech was a series of meta-messages he conveyed as much through his actions as his words. Obama's speech was in many respects a rejoinder to a number of questions raised about him over the last few weeks that contributed to defeats in Ohio and Texas.
Is he a moving orator who speaks pretty lines but lacks substance? No one can seriously ask that question today, after Obama offered the most eloquent, intellectually penetrating, and most moving description of the complexities of race in America of any politician in recent history. But he did more than talk about race. He began to build a progressive narrative that Democrats, and the progressive movement more broadly, have had difficulty developing. He offered a progressive vision of patriotism, integrating a more traditional view -- referring to his grandfather's service under General Patton, and the military service of Reverend Wright -- with the notion that love of country is not blind love, that forming a more perfect union -- the essence of progressivism -- is part of what it means to love one's country.
How Could So Many People Buy into Bush's "Patriotism Sweepstakes"
The Iraq War -- now ending its fifth bloody year -- represents not only a human tragedy of enormous consequence and possibly the greatest strategic blunder in U.S. history but also a systemic failure of American political and journalistic institutions.
Instead of checking George W. Bush's imperial impulse for the good of the Republic, the Congress -- including Sen. Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats -- and the national press corps tended to their careers and their political viability.
In recognition of this tragedy, we are publishing the following excerpt from Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.
Iraq's "Day of Liberation" -- as George W. Bush called it -- was supposed to begin with a bombardment consisting of 3,000 U.S. missiles delivered over 48 hours, 10 times the number of bombs dropped during the first two days of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
Officials, who were briefed on the plans, said the goal was to so stun the Iraqis that they would simply submit to the overwhelming force demonstrated by the U.S. military. Administration officials dubbed the strategy "shock and awe."
In his 2003 State of the Union speech, Bush had addressed the "brave and oppressed people of Iraq" with the reassuring message that "your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country."
Bush promised that the day that Saddam Hussein and his regime "are removed from power will be the day of your liberation."
But never before in history had a dominant world power planned to strike a much weaker nation in a preemptive war with such ferocity. It would be liberation through devastation.
Many projections expected the deaths of thousands of Iraqi non-combatants, no matter how targeted or precise the U.S. weapons. For those civilians, their end would come in the dark terror of crushing concrete or in the blinding flash of high explosives.
In the prelude to the invasion, the United Nations predicted possibly more than 500,000 civilians injured or killed during the war and its aftermath and nearly one million displaced from their homes.
The International Study Team, a Canadian non-governmental organization, raised similar alarms. The invasion of Iraq would cause a "grave humanitarian disaster," with potential casualties among children in "the tens of thousands, and possibly in the hundreds of thousands," the group said.
Assuming U.S. forces succeeded in eliminating Saddam Hussein and his army with relative speed, the post-war period still promised to be complicated and dangerous. The Bush administration outlined plans to occupy Iraq for at least 18 months, installing a military governor in the style of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Japan after World War II.
But it was not clear how the United States would police a population that was certain to include anti-American militants ready to employ suicide bombings and other irregular tactics against an occupying force.
Bin Laden's Message
There was the risk, too, that the U.S. invasion would play into the hands of Osama bin Laden, who circulated a message portraying himself as the defender of the Arab people.
"Anyone who tries to destroy our villages and cities, then we are going to destroy their villages and cities," the al-Qaeda leader said. "Anyone who steals our fortunes, then we must destroy their economy. Anyone who kills our civilians, then we are going to kill their civilians."
Some U.S. military strategists saw Bush's war plan as the worst sort of wishful thinking.
What if the Iraqi army -- instead of making itself an easy target for the U.S. missiles -- melted into urban centers and began coordinating with an armed civilian population to resist a foreign invasion of their homeland? What if the Iraqi people chose to fight the American invaders, rather than shower them with rose petals?
Already, Saddam Hussein had begun concentrating his troops in urban centers and passing out AK-47s to Iraqis, young and old, men and women. But Bush's biggest gamble was whether the "shock and awe" bombardment from the air and the stunning American firepower during the ground invasion would intimidate the Iraqis into surrendering.
The relatively light invading force of a couple hundred thousand troops would be enough to take Baghdad, most military analysts believed, but significant resistance during the invasion would be an early sign that the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, was right when he told Congress that the occupation could require "several hundred thousand troops."
After that alarming estimate, Shinseki was pushed into early retirement and drew a public rebuke from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who called Shinseki "wildly off the mark."
A similar dispute erupted over the expected cost of the war. White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsay had estimated a figure as high as one or two percent of the gross national product or about $100 billion to $200 billion.
To head off American worries about this high cost, Bush's budget director Mitch Daniels slapped down Lindsay's estimate as "very, very high," pegging it instead at between $50 billion and $60 billion. As for reconstruction costs, Wolfowitz and other administration officials suggested that Iraq's oil revenues would pay for nearly all of that.
Lindsay was soon headed for the door, fired in December 2002 along with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, an even more outspoken Iraq War critic.
Lost Objectivity
There is the old cliché about war, that its first casualty is truth. But -- as U.S. forces began the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, still the evening of March 19 in Washington -- an even more immediate casualty was the journalistic principle of objectivity.
Many U.S. news outlets dropped even the pretense of trying to stay neutral and just report the facts. TV anchors were soon opining about what strategies "we" should follow in prosecuting the Iraq War.
"One of the things that we don't want to do is to destroy the infrastructure of Iraq because in a few days we're going to own that country," NBC's Tom Brokaw explained as he sat among a panel of retired generals on the opening night of "Operation Iraqi Freedom."
There was little sensitivity to the sensibilities of the region. U.S. networks used large floor maps of Iraq so American analysts could stride across the country to point out troop movements. They looked like giants towering over the Middle East.
When American troops faced resistance from Iraqi paramilitary fighters, Fox termed them "Saddam's goons." When Iraqi forces surrendered, they were paraded before U.S. cameras as "proof" that Iraqi resistance was crumbling.
Some of the scenes showed Iraqi POWs forced at gunpoint to kneel down with their hands behind their heads as they were patted down by U.S. soldiers. Network executives apparently felt no sense of irony when they ran these images over the words, "Operation Iraqi Freedom," the title for the coverage and the code name for the invasion.
Showing these degrading images of captured Iraqi soldiers generated not even the mildest concern. Neither the Bush administration nor a single U.S. reporter covering the war for the news networks observed that these scenes might violate the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war.
Telling sign of a failed Iraq strategy
Are the media dumb or just out to lunch? Sorry to be intemperate, but how else can one explain the meager attention paid to the truly historic visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Iraq? Not only is he the first Mideast head of state to visit the country since its alleged liberation, but the very warm official welcome offered by the Iraqi government to the most vociferous critic of the United States speaks volumes to the abject failure of the Bush doctrine.
On Tuesday, Condoleezza Rice reiterated the administration's position that Iran is behind the turmoil that has engulfed the Mideast from Beirut to Baghdad and, most recently, Israel, where what she claims are Iranian-supplied rockets have destroyed the belated Bush peace plan. There is also the matter of Iran's nuclear program, which President Bush condemned once again over the weekend. But what leverage does the United States have over Iran when, as the image of Ahmadinejad holding hands with the top leaders of Iraq demonstrated to the world, we have put the disciples of the Iranian ayatollahs in power in Baghdad? There is no face-saving exit from Iraq without the cooperation of Tehran, and the folks who call America the "Great Satan" now hold the high cards.
How interesting that Ahmadinejad, unlike a U.S. president who has to be airlifted unannounced into ultra-secure bases, was able to convoy in from the airport in broad daylight on a road that U.S. dignitaries fear to travel. His love fest with Iraq President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who fought on Iran's side against Iraq and who speaks Farsi, even took place outside of the safety of the Green Zone, adding emphasis to Ahmadinejad's claim that while he is welcome in Iraq, the Americans are not.
Nor did the Iraqi leaders take exception to Ahmadinejad's insistence that the U.S. has brought only terror to the region and that the continued American presence is the main obstacle to peace. On the contrary, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pronounced his talks with fellow Shiite Ahmadinejad "friendly, positive and full of trust." Video of Talabani, who asked that Ahmadinejad call him "Uncle Jalal" after holding hands and exchanging kisses with the Iranian president, was broadcast throughout the region.
Saddam Hussein went to war with Iran, but George W. Bush has given his Iranian foes a Shiite-run ally. Iran is now a major trading partner of Iraq that has offered a $1 billion loan, the border is increasingly porous as religious pilgrimages have become the norm, and many investment projects supervised by Iranians are in the works. Instead of isolating the "rogue regime" of Iran, the Bush administration has catapulted the theocrats of Tehran into the center of Mideast political power. There can be no peace, whether in Lebanon, Gaza or Iraq, without the cooperation of the ayatollahs of Iran. If that was the intention of the neoconservative cabal that led Bush into this folly, its members should be tried for treason.
That was, however, obviously not what the neocons expected from the invasion of Iraq, which they engineered in the aftermath of 9/11 with a much rosier scenario in mind. The saying that there is no need to attribute to mendacity what can be explained by ordinary stupidity aptly defines the neoconservative folly. Clearly the neocons were conned by the likes of Ahmed Chalabi, the rogue banker accused by the CIA of slipping U.S. secrets to Tehran, into believing that a "liberated" Iraq would advance democracy in the region, not to mention the security of Israel. That the opposite has occurred is no big problem for them as they emerge with their careers intact.
The leading neocon publicist, William Kristol, has even been rewarded for never getting it right with a premier spot on the New York Times opinion pages, so yes, in the punditry business, one does fail upward.
But for Bush, his signature issue, the battle against terrorism, is a shambles. The terrorists are very much on the rise in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which Bush neglected for an Iraq sideshow that has cost over a trillion dollars and tens of thousands of lives. But the long-run price will be far higher, with the blowback from the massive instability that he has engendered in the region.
When Bush has finally retired to that ranch, cutting sagebrush to his heart's content, his all-consuming smugness might ever so subtly be troubled by the memory of a father who knew best, and who warned against the terminal foolishness of seizing Baghdad.
ABC Attacks Obama While Giving McCain a Free RideDuring recent editions of Good Morning America and World News, ABC discussed and aired reports on the "explosive statements" of Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, but ABC has yet to report on controversial comments by two "allies" of Sen. John McCain. For example, evangelist John Hagee has said that "Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans," and pastor Rod Parsley reportedly wrote that "America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion [of Islam] destroyed."
Bush The Torturer, The Tyrant, The DisgraceOn Saturday, Mr. Bush vetoed a bill that would have outlawed the CIA’s use of torture in interrogations (a bill, it should be noted, John McCain, alleged opponent of torture, voted against). He had the temerity, our Dear Leader, to begin his official endorsement of torture in his radio address this morning with these words: “Good morning.” Good for him and his kind of delusional sadists, maybe. Not so good for this country, whose reputation today takes one more plunk toward the abyss of rogue and less than ordinary nations. Not so good for the rest of the world, either, whose nations have been disbelievingly howling, in Babels of translations, that most American of plaints: “Say it ain’t so.” This spring training for terrorist-interrogators (for torture is terrorism at its distilled worst), it very much is so. The United States is officially, proudly, the land of torturers. It’s true that the United States has been at this for years. But the difference here is not only that the president is endorsing torture, but that he’s doing it so openly and willfully. It isn’t arrogance anymore. It isn’t even hubris. Arrogance and hubris suggest that at least some awareness that public perceptions still matter. In Bush’s mind, perceptions are for the birds. This is pure tyranny. His statement embracing torture, a study in mendacity, is worth a line-by-line look.
“This week,” he began, “I addressed the Department of Homeland Security on its fifth anniversary and thanked the men and women who work tirelessly to keep us safe.” Really? As of last May 1, Homeland Security, the Washington Post reported, “had 138 vacancies among its top 575 positions, with the greatest voids reported in its policy, legal and intelligence sections, as well as in immigration agencies, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard.” It got so bad that a panicky report was sent to the House committee overseeing the department-the department led, as we unfortunately know, by the intrepidly dismal Michael Chertoff, who captained the agency through its finest hour: its spectatorship of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath.
“Because the danger remains,” Bush continued, “we need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists.” All the tools. Not the necessary tools, but all the tools. The most effective way not to worry about crossing the line into the dark side is not to have a line at all. For the Dear leader there is no question of nuance, of the difference between right and wrong. It is all right as long as he declares it so. By all means necessary (although I hate to soil Malcolm’s fine line, given its context, with the Dear Leader’s criminal intent). But by that reasoning, nuking Kandahar would be justified. Aren’t nuclear weapons also tools in the fight against “terrorism”? One day, the question may well be answered. Especially if the country insists on electing John McCain (and liberals who personally despise the black one or the bitch, as their prejudices couch them, insist on helping along the reactionaries).
Where Bush Lies Like a Nixonian Sweat Bead
“The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror — the CIA program to detain and question key terrorist leaders and operatives.” The bill, of course, does no such thing. It does not take away the CIA’s right to detain anyone. It does not take away the CIA’s right to question anyone. It only forbids the CIA to employ waterboarding and other forms of torture or degrading and dehumanizing treatment of inmates-inmates, we should always, always remember, who aren’t terrorists, but alleged terrorists. Until they are proven so, it is only their incarcerators who are the demonstrably proven terrorists.
Bush then lists a series of supposed terrorist attacks the interrogations foiled. We have to trust him on that one, as several of them have never been mentioned before. Trusting Bush at this point, of course, is an exercise best left to the pathologically cretinous. One example from the plots Bush does mention-the supposed attack on the Library Tower in Los Angeles. It’s an old story, peddled by his administration since 2002. But when even the Voice of America, which is barely two radio waves removed from Radio White House, gives credence to doubts about the Dear Leader’s story, it’s time to give his fictions a chance to get sold as the latest memoir. “Micheal Scheuer, who was the leading al-Qaida expert in the CIA’s counter-terrorism center in 2002,” VOA reported in 2006, “says he is not aware of any such serious threat against the West Coast in 2002. As the man in the CIA who knew more about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida than perhaps any other agency officer, he says it is unlikely that he would not have been kept informed on such a plot. “It could be that it was very closely held, but I think that’s unlikely,” he said. “It could be just a function of my failing memory. But this doesn’t sound like anything that I would recall as a major threat, or as a major success in stopping it.’”
Brutality’s Euphemisms
Bush in his radio address then moves on to euphemizing torture as “specialized interrogation procedures to question a small number of the most dangerous terrorists under careful supervision.” It’s a little disingenuous for the man who turned extraordinary renditions into a secret competitor of Disney’s Vacation Club, the man who replaced the Soviet Union’s gulags with a secret gulag of his own (using, cleverly, the Soviet Union’s old prisons in some cases, as in Poland and Romania), the man under whose careful supervision the likes of Khaled el Masri and Maher Arar were wrongly imprisoned, tortured in Afghanistan and Syria, and released without apologies long after the CIA knew they had the wrong men-it’s a little disingenuous for that man now to claim “careful supervision” in torture chambers.
And to characterize torture as “these safe and lawful techniques.” Safe? When, by 2006, more than 100 individuals in American detention had been murdered by their captors? Lawful, when this very veto the Dear Leader is bandying about is an attempt to evade the law? But here’s his reasoning: limiting the CIA to interrogation techniques allowed only by the Army field manual would be wrong because the field manual deals with soldiers. The CIA deals with terrorists. Just as Bush on March 8 officially placed the United States as a champion of torture, Bush on this day also placed the United States as a champion of separating the race between legitimate human beings and sub-human creatures-”hardened terrorists.” The circular argument gives the appearance of perfect logic-if you’re willing to accept the notion that some human beings are not quite human beings. And isn’t that the notion once peddled in the United States about blacks-excuse me, about niggers? Isn’t that the notion peddled about Indians, at least while there were enough of them around that a distinction mattered? Isn’t that the kind of distinction some conservatives attempted to write into the Constitution with their prohibition of “oriental” immigrants at the turn of the last century?
Some things don’t change. Once a bigoted nation, always a bigoted nation. But this goes beyond bigotry. Bush is projecting an interpretation of human beings that links up with the sort of distinctions Nazi and apartheid regimes were known for, when they, too, facilitated the torture and murder of “enemies” by dehumanizing them in the eyes of the public. This is no different. He may be speaking the language of Anglo-Saxon civilization. He may be doing so from the august rooms of the White House. What he’s saying makes him no different in these regards than the tyrants of the 20 th century. His rhetoric is another chain-link to his actions: he dehumanizes in words in order to dehumanize in deeds.
Last month Michelle Obama was criticized for saying that finally, she can be proud of the United States, the implication being that she hadn’t been proud of it before Barack Obama’s hopeful run. She may want to rethink her newfound pride. There’s nothing to be proud of when the president reduces this country to rank criminality while calling it, of all things, a “higher responsibility” that is “keeping America safe.” No one should envy the next Americans to be taken prisoner by rogue nations and terrorists, now that we’re no better than either. (article by way of Common Dreams)
Halting Illegal Spying on Americans
Almost seven years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, mainstream media and Congressional Democrats are finally beginning to defy President Bush’s illegal and unconstitutional program of spying on Americans.
During an astounding press conference on February 28, 2008, President Bush was jarred by the veteran and habitually-reserved CBS correspondent, Bill Plante, who asked point blank: “I know it’s unintended to spy on Americans, but in the collection process information about everybody gets swept up and then it gets sorted. So if Americans don’t have any recourse, are you just telling them when it comes to their privacy to suck it up?”
Stunned by the question, Bush delivered a condescending non-sequiter: “I wouldn’t put it that way, if I were you - in public. You’ve been around long enough.” (The President never disputed Plante’s premise that everyone’s information is vacuumed up by the government.)
Visibly angry, the President blamed everything on his favorite target - trial lawyers: “You cannot expect phone companies to participate if they feel like they’re going to be sued… class-action plaintiffs attorneys, you know - I don’t want to try to get inside their head; I suspect they see, you know, a financial gravy train - are trying to sue these companies. It’s unfair. It is patently unfair.”
Always willing to go to the mat to defend helpless phone giants, President Bush neglected to mention that the original lawsuits were brought by public interest lawyers like us and the ACLU, not class-action lawyers. This is only one of a series of untruths told by the Bush Administration about the largest domestic spying program in American history. Not least, as reported in this paper in January, the Bush administration took steps to monitor the calls of American citizens before 9/11, not after, as the administration has repeatedly asserted.
The President’s suggestion that it would be “patently unfair” to hold the phone companies liable represents a new low in this administration’s disregard of the law. Congress has long made it a crime for phone carriers to share a subscriber’s phone records with the government without a warrant or subpoena. Both the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Stored Communications Act provide for a minimum of $1,000 in damages for each violation of a phone subscriber’s privacy rights.
The Bush Administration never mentions that at least two phone companies refused to participate in the Administrations’ illegal attempts to access citizen phone records without court order. Qwest, under former CEO Joe Nacchio, refused to cooperate with the NSA’s spying program because the government would not certify that the program was legal. Michael Kieschnick, President of the Working Assets phone company, went further: “Working Assets believes that the warrantless monitoring of phone conversations ordered by the Bush administration is illegal and unacceptable… Working Assets would never, under any circumstances, give (let alone sell) records to the Bush administration without a warrant or court order.”
John McCain Wants America To Be In Debt Forever
"In the shorter term," said McCain, "if you somehow told American businesses and families, 'Look, you're not going to experience a tax increase in 2010,' I think that's a pretty good short-term measure."
So making permanent tax cuts that McCain originally voted against because he thought, correctly, that they were an unconscionable, budget-busting giveaway to the richest Americans, will now provide a short-term stimulus to the poor and working class as the economy goes into the tank.
McCain Embraces Hate Mongering MinisterThe McCain/Hagee story is growing, though still not as much as it ought to. My new friends from the Catholic League emailed earlier to advise that Bill Donohue was being interviewed for tonight's program of The Situation Room on CNN. Blogs at The Washington Post and ABC News today covered the growing scandal from the anti-Catholic bigotry perspective, with the latter actually featuring the unbelievably inflammatory You Clip -- found by Ann Althouse, which I posted yesterday and which is now being distributed by the Catholic League -- of a shirt-sleeved Pastor Hagee spewing the creepiest, most hateful bile imaginable about Catholicism ("This is the Great Whore of Revelation 17").
As The Post noted, Catholics United, a less reactionary group than the Catholic League, has now also denounced McCain's warm embrace of Hagee and demanded that he repudiate his endorsement. Thus far, it is Hagee's anti-Catholicism which is being featured -- largely because when Bill Donohue issues press releases, the media jumps to cover it. While that angle has substantial political ramifications -- Karl Rove identified the Catholic vote in 2004 as the most vital to the GOP's electoral successes -- the reality is that Hagee's hateful and twisted extremism extends far beyond that realm. In sum, John McCain has aligned himself with one of America's purest -- and most powerful -- haters, and that ought to be the story here.
