Columns - September, 2004

Trading Our Fundamental Rights for a Sense of Security

September 30, 2004

Despite managing to stay below the radar for the most part in recent times, John Ashcroft and the Justice Department have not been idle in the service of the Bush agenda. Using their patented fear inducing terror rhetoric as a basis for action, the Bush Administration is again acting to diminish individual rights in the name of the War on Terror. However, despite the hubris of the current White House in its insistence that rights must be sacrificed on the alter of safety from terror, not everyone sees the elimination of our rights as necessary, or even, for that matter, productive or desirable in the war against terror.

Who Really Won the Debates Tonight?

September 30, 2004

The debate between George W. Bush and John F. Kerry has been one of the most anticipated events of the election. Before the debate was over, both sides were spinning stories of victory for their candidate. But to understand who really won the debate, it is necessary to look at what defines a win in this situation.

When one is analyzing George W. Bush’s performance during the debates, one must look at what he and his political advisors wanted to get out of the debate. And what the Bush team wanted to get out of the debate was an opportunity to reiterate their message yet again, this time in the guise of a debate forum. Bush’s intent was not to win an argument; he is not appealing to the mind. Rather, Bush appeals to emotions. However, by agreeing to the debate, Bush appears to his loyal followers as willing to stand up to John Kerry in a debate. Furthermore, since his followers already believe in the Bush approach to terror and America’s foreign policy – and desperately want to continue to believe in Bush’s approach – all that Bush had to do was keep telling the same story that he has been telling since September 11, 2001.

In order accomplish this goal, Bush only had to hammer home his message again and again, no matter what John Kerry said. He was not there to win a debate of ideas, or even to participate in one. That much is obvious when one looks at the conditions of the agreement that were demanded by the Bush handlers.

The content of what Bush had to say was actually very simple, and comes in two parts. This content had to be repeated again and again, so as to reassure the faithful. First, Bush had to make the point that there are a lot of dangers out there that are coming to get us, and they are all in it together. Second, that he is taking proactive action to combat these linked threats.

What Bush is offering is not a rational plan for defense against terror, but rather, a safety blanket to cover up under. He emphasizes the threat, and then offers the shield to protect from the fear. He links all the real and potential threats to America, and then, because all the threats are linked, is able to point to Iraq and claim that he is confronting all the threats at once. And this he did again and again during the debate. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, if one listened to George W. Bush tell it, there were indeed WMD’s in Iraq, Iraq was massively linked to terror prior to the U.S invasion, and America is safer from Al Quaida because George Bush attacked Iraq. And since he is preaching to the faithful, who very much want to hear exactly this, he succeeded from his perspective in the debate.

Of course, there were other flourishes that Bush threw in. His references to God being on our side during his closing remarks, and the implication of Manifest Destiny, were obvious messages to his acolytes. He attempted a number of times to paint John Kerry as a flip flopper. But these were relatively minor compared to his central theme: there is danger, and George W. Bush is taking proactive action against it.

John Kerry, on the other hand, is selling a completely different kettle of fish. John Kerry knows that he is up against an opponent who is selling faith based anti-intellectualism; at the same time, he knows that George W. Bush must be defeated on the strength of the arguments raised against him. John Kerry must deal with the smear and whisper campaigns launched against him and point out to the American public what a colossal failure the Bush administration has been without being seen as being a lowlife himself.

In terms of pure debate, John Kerry won the debate tonight on any scale that could be applied. His arguments were stronger, his thoughts were more organized, he was in better control of his emotions, he was more articulate, and his logic was cleaner. Furthermore, despite the expectation that he would come off as stuck up or unlikable actually worked to his advantage, as he came off as neither. This was exactly what John Kerry needed to do, and this is exactly what he did.

So, who won the debate?

Both George W. Bush and John Kerry set out to do what they intended to do. Bush was able to preach to the faithful in a debate setting, and John Kerry was able to deliver a decisive logical blow to the Bush approach to threat of terror, and to Bush’s rational for his actions on the world stage.

So, who won the debate in terms of realpolitik will come down to the character of the American people. Will they cling to their safety blanket, and refuse to analyze what is happening with this nation in reference to data that is radically different than it was four years ago? Or will they have the courage to face the terrible fact that we are still incredibly vulnerable to terrorist threats, that even more of a far better armed and more dangerous world hates us more than they did four years ago, and that George W. Bush, whether his intentions were truly good or not, has led us into more danger than we have ever faced before?

Nuclear Proliferation in the Aftermath of Iraq

September 28, 2004

Pride Before the Fall

September 26, 2004

Last night, when walking home through downtown Portland, I encountered the Damnation Three – a group of three evangelical doomsayers that have a tendency to appear at events around the city and deliver fire and brimstone sermons in booming voices.

I chanced across the Damnation Three in Pioneer Courthouse Square – the center of Portland’s downtown district. Portland’s downtown district is unlike any other city I have been too. When the railroads laid the city out years ago, they designated that there would be 20 blocks to the mile. This led to many blocks being used not for buildings, but for parts. From the beautiful Riverside park on the bank of the Williamette River to the shady Parks Blocks to the fountains that are to be found as the centerpiece of many a neighborhood park, downtown Portland is an elegant and beautiful city.

So it was in Pioneer Courthouse Square that I met the Three. As per usual, even at ten in the evening, the Square was bustling. Pioneer Courthouse Square is known as the Living Room of Portland. People gather here to take meals, to discuss things, to meet, and to partake of the many sponsored events that occur here.

And indeed, an event was in preparation for the next day: the AIDS Walk. This event is a fundraiser to raise money for research into finding a cure for this plague. Given the nature of the event, the usual late night mix of tourists, street kids, business people heading home, musicians, Starbucks employees jittering out of the coffee house wondering how they would slow down and the homeless were supplemented by a number of AIDS victims. Of course, these visitors to the Square included a number of gay people.

And it was because of the gays that the Damnation Three had made their appearance. With their signboards proclaiming messages of Fear of God, their strong voices raised as they read from their Scriptures, they confronted these suffering people with messages of hellfire and damnation.

As I watched the scene unfold, one thing became apparent to me. There was no compassion in the words being preached. The victims of AIDS were railed against for their “choice to live in sin”. One man who professed to be a Catholic, who was there with his bisexual son, confronted one of the Three. He was told that his Catholicism would wind him a place in hell (along with Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Pagans), and that his son’s preferences had earned a berth in Hell as well. The son, of course, was dying of AIDS – and it was clear to anyone who observed the two that the father and the son had made peace, and were trying to get in all the time that they still had together. Yet this pair was damned by this righteous trio.

As I beheld these three use Scripture like clubs their audience, I began to wonder if there was anything to them but their message of damnation. So, I approached one of them, and asked him if what else he did in the service of God. Did he perhaps do volunteer work in a homeless shelter, a soup kitchen, a hospice, a school? Maybe he gave comfort to the dying? Did he give money to charities? No, he did not. In fact, he became quite defensive, telling me that he did not have to account to me – and moved away to attack his next target.

As continued my journey home, several thoughts occurred to me. First, that there are too many people who take the words of the Bible and twist them into messages of hatred for those who are different, who see the world in a different manner, who believe too strongly in their own righteous nature. It is hubris, it is arrogance, it is pride.

And it is for this reason that despite all the good that is done by people of faith that we must be careful about mixing the governance of our great land with faith and religion. It is hard enough to avoid pride and hubris without political power being added to religion – when the two are mixed, an intolerant alloy is produced that is oft used to forge a scythe that cuts away all dissent.

Today, in this nation, many people believe that the war in Iraq is a Holy War, that when George W. Bush “slipped” and used the word crusade to describe the United States’ invasion of that country he was in fact being precise. Too many people believe that it is the right thing to kill Muslims because their faith is different that the faith of the 76% of America who are Christian. This is the same pride and arrogance displayed by the Damnation Three in the town square – the same turning away from the message of the Biblical Scripture that forms the foundation of Christianity and the acceptance of the mantle of hubris, and the grasping of the weapons of damnation and destruction.

Can There Truly Be Legitimate Elections In Iraq?

September 25, 2004

Much ado has been made over the upcoming elections to be held in Iraq this coming January 31, 2005.

Perhaps pushed by a changing tide of public opinion, the beginnings of war weariness in the American population, or his political contest with Senator John Kerry, President Bush has attempted to present further support for his case that fair and legitimate elections will be held on time.

True Freedom: The Most Effective Weapon Against Terror

September 24, 2004

One of the primary ideas that this nation is founded upon is that one is allowed to think what one will, and express those thoughts.

This principal is never more important than in times of crisis. If we do not protect the right to speak of those that we do not agree with, if we do not preserve this most fundamental of rights when times are tough, then it is meaningless. If the right to speak is limited to those who agree with power, then there is no right to speak freely.

Today, George W. Bush condemned John Kerry for speaking out against the policies of the United States in Iraq, effectively saying that it gave aid and comfort to the enemy. In effect, George W. Bush was calling John Kerry a traitor for doubting Bush’s leadership, and speaking out against it.

The war that we as Americans are fighting against terror is far more than a war of arms, of battles, of supply lines and military strategy. It is a fundamental battle of ideas. The United States is feared by the radical right of the Muslim world because of one simple fact: we tolerate and even encourage different points of view. This more than anything else makes the West, and in particular, the United States, a threat to their way of life. If those that they trod upon and keep beaten down see that there are choices, that there places in the world where one can think and speak as one will, then they will rise up, and more than anything, this is what those who would hold the Arab world in a Dark Age fear.

When the Soviet Union fell, there were two primary causes for it. First, the arms race had reduced the Soviet economy to rubble. Second, the people there knew that there was a choice, and chose freedom. Had it not been for the United States and the rest of the West being that shining beacon of freedom, the economic war waged would not have been adequate to produce the almost spontaneous rebellion in the Soviet Union.

Americans have forgotten some of these hard learned lessons about freedom. We speak glibly of spreading freedom, yet many Americans wish to limit the freedom of their fellow citizens. They speak of dissent being a bad thing, a treasonous action, when in fact, it is patriotic to debate, to reason, to consider and argue our course of action.

After September 11, 2001, the American people and the Senate seemed ready to fall over themselves in their efforts to trade their rights for a feeling of safety. The Patriot Act, presented by the Bush administration scant weeks after the World Trade Center attacks, attacked at least seven of the ten Bill of Right amendments to the constitution, including habeas corpus, due process of law, search and seizure freedom of assembly and others. Yet there is little evidence that the Patriot Act has done any tangible good in the effort to keep America safe from terrorists.

The aim of any terrorist action is to cause conditions that prompt change. One of the changes that the terrorists would most like to see is the extinguishing of the flame of freedom in the United States. No matter how powerful the United States is in terms of arms, if the freedom that the ideals of this nation is based upon is damaged or destreoyed, the terrorists will have won more than half of their battle. They know that their people will not look to the West and see the torch of freedom – and hence, they know that they will be able to control their own people, and force their people to think and act and speak as they desire.

The people of the United States must stop this course of destruction that we seem to be bent upon – we must preserve our own rights. Only then can we truly be the leader and the power that we see ourselves as being – and only then can we truly lead the dark places of the world to the light of freedom.

Bush’s U.N. Speech: A Disgrace to America

September 21, 2004

This morning, when President George W. Bush spoke to the United Nations General Assembly, the words he spoke may have had a grand sound to them – but their hollowness was apparent to the world. The words he spoke showed the hypocrisy of the United States as it has acted under the Bush administration – and brought shame and dishonor to the American people.

To begin with, it was a speech aimed not at the world body, but at the American voters during an election year, and it showed. But the speech was also a threat. The United Nations was intended to be an international place – yet Bush made the point at the start of his speech that the delegates were in New York, in the United States.

The speech made by George Bush must have made the rest of the world either wonder how it is that Americans could stand to have that man lead us or decide once and for all that Americans are completely arrogant and without conscience.

The incredible arrogance of George W. Bush – to accuse other nations of attempting world control while we are in the middle of an aggressive war – is beyond belief.

To accuse other nations of torture, of killing civilians, of trying to impose their beliefs while at the same time defending American practices in Iraq, saying that Afghanistan is a democracy now and trying to get the world to ban human cloning research is hubris at its worst.

President Bush spoke of how the people of Iraq and Afghanistan had been made free through American conquest – though he did not call it that. Rather, he spoke of a coalition. What he did not speak of was the fact that the coalition is 90% American, that Britain, who makes up the majority of the remainder of the other 10% is planning a force reduction, that the opium trade in Afghanistan is at an all time high, that the warlords in Afghanistan now rule the country again and that centralized government has no chance, that in Iraq, fundamentalist groups allied with Al Quaida now have control over the majority of the country and that the majority of the people of Iraq hate the West with a renewed passion.

President Bush promised help for AIDS in Africa, chastised Sudan for their genocide, and called upon the Sudanese government to abide by the United Nations’ resolutions. Yet the United States’ total contribution to Aids in Africa is less than we will spend this week in Iraq fighting the insurgents there, we have failed to assist the millions of displaced Sudanese people to date, and the United States certainly has had no respect for U.N. resolutions when they did not coincide with the wishes of the Bush administration.

President Bush also spoke of freedom and democracy spreading across the world. Did he think that the rest of the world is not aware that this is not the case? Did he think that the rest of the world does not know that in Russia, democracy is dying fast in the face of a toleration government? Did he think that the rest of the world does not see the rising corruption in Latin America? Did he think that the rest of the world does not see the rising tide of religious finalism in the Middle East? And, perhaps most importantly, did he not think that the rest of the world is not aware that, under the Bush administration, the very rights and freedoms that he extolled before the world body were being stripped away from the American people?

President Bush spoke at length of how history would view the United Nations as a great body that represents freedom and peace for all peoples of the world. Yet these words must have sounded incredibly hollow to the United Nations delegates – and well they should have, for they were intended as sound bites for American voters who will never take the time to listen to the speech in its entirety, and who do not follow events closely enough to see the gaping holes of what George W. Bush did not say during his speech.

George W. Bush was entrusted to represent the American people when he was elected to be President of our nation. He has failed in this trust, and through his lies and hypocrisy, has brought shame and dishonor to the United States before the entire world.

Why We Are Loosing the War on Terror

September 15, 2004

We are loosing the war on terror. Not due to of lack of determination – but because we are fighting on the wrong battlefield.

Let’s go back and take a look at what started the War on Terror: let’s take a look at the tragedy of 9/11, and what motivated it.

The attack of September 11, 2001 was truly a tragedy. However, in terms of people killed, it killed less than .0001% of the population. In terms of damage to the overall infrastructure of this great nation, the damage was trivial.

What was not trivial was the psychological affect that 9/11 had on this nation. Without a doubt, al-Qaeda knew that this would be the consequence. The purpose of terror is to induce change on the part of the victim of the terror.

al-Qaeda and its leaders may be evil, but they are not stupid. Without a doubt, it was easy for them to see the changes in America that would come from the 9/11 attacks.

Within weeks of 9/11, we were not only clambering to give away our constitutional rights, we had done so via the patriot act, which erodes Amendments I, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and IX of the constitution. Law enforcement in this country was beefed up and rights diminished.

How would this serve al-Qaeda? One has to look at their goals to see that. Specifically, al-Qaeda does not want the Western cultures to interact with the Muslim cultures, for fear of contamination. By causing our own culture to become more repressive, they achieve this end.

However, more insidious, is the fact that al-Qaeda sees the ideals of the West as its true enemy, and by the 9/11 attacks, they were able to undermine our ways of thought and of life. They see freedom of religion, freedom of though, freedom of speech, due process of law, and everything else that defines our way of life and government as corrupting influences to the Muslim way of life. By causing a situation in which we willingly reduced our freedoms, they know that the ideas of the West were weakened, and therefore, less of a threat through contamination to their Muslim beliefs.

In addition, al-Qaeda must have known that the United States, especially under a “Texas cowboy” like George W. Bush, would strike back, and strike back hard. Yet they seemed to invite this counter attack. Why? Because they knew that it would create a multitude of martyrs. When previously al-Qaeda had been a relatively small, if well funded, group, they knew that when America unleashed its might on the Arab nations, thousands upon thousands of willing soldiers for the cause of al-Qaeda would be created.

And this is exactly what has happened. In Iraq, due to the collateral combat deaths, the disease and starvation brought by war, due to the torture of prisoners by the American forces, due to the combat deaths, and due to the cavalier attitude about this death and destruction displayed by George Bush, a new multitude of soldiers has been created for al-Qaeda’s cause.

al-Qaeda and its leaders must have known that they would be hunted. But, like the suicide bomber, they knew that their deaths would only bring more fanatics to their cause. al-Qaeda is like a hydra – it does not matter if you cut off its head: another will grow.

The only thing that will defeat terror is the ideal of freedom, for which America should be a symbol. But by forcing America to become something tainted, by forcing America into aggressive wars, and by forcing America to give up its own rights, the terrorists have already achieved a victory greater than any post 9/11 military victory achieved by the United States.

Why Haven’t We Put Saddam Hussein on Trial Yet?

September 11, 2004

Given that today is September 11, and the third anniversary of the terrible day that started an even more horrible sequence of events in this nation and around the world, I got to thinking about terrorism, and the way that George W. Bush has attempted to link the 9/11 attacks with Saddam Hussein. This, in turn, got me wondering why we haven’t heard much about his trial lately.

Could it be because we can't charge him for any of the following actions without being seen for complete hypocrites?

• Aggressive war against another nation
• Looting of another nation after an aggressive war
• Torture of war prisoners
• Holding prisoners incognito
• Repression of religion in Iraq
• Suppression of the press in Iraq
• The killing of thousands of Iraqi citizens

Or maybe it is because a number of independent sources (e.g., The 9/11 Commission, various senate committees, the UN) have determined that there were not nor were there at the time leading up to the invasion of Iraq WMD's, nor was there a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.

Or maybe we are just holding him until it is convenient to have something to show off.

Or maybe the Iraqi people see the Americans as invaders at this point, and would actually rather have Saddam Hussein back in control, and we don't want to make a martyr out of him. At least, in their mind, he was their evil and not ours.

Or maybe Saddam Hussein got mixed in with all the other “disappeared” prisoners, and neither the Army nor the CIA knows where we are holding him any more.

Or maybe we just cut a deal with him.

Or maybe it is some combination of all of the above.

EDS Next on the Guillotine-Alter of Outsourcing to CEO Salaries

September 10, 2004

Once again, the Republican economic model strikes, and another company is preparing to lie down on the Guillotine-Alter of Outsourcing to CEO Salaries.

Electronic Data Systems (EDS) could shed 15,000 to 20,000 employees, or about 13 percent to 17 percent of its work force, in the next 2-1/2 years, Chief Executive Michael H. Jordan said Thursday.

The computer services giant, based in Plano, Texas, is evaluating which jobs to cut and didn’t offer specifics on which employees might be affected. The company has more than 120,000 workers.

EDS probably will continue its pattern of cutting its U.S. headcount wile it spreads to other parts of the globe, spokesman Jeff Baum said. Jordan’s estimate is rough and could change as the company’s cost-cutting plan evolves, he said.

“The next two years, there’s going to be a lot of change in EDS,” Jordan said at an investor conference in New York. The plan is to “take 20 percent out of our cost structure - $3 billion out. That’s the way you do it.”

Where will that $3 billion dollars go? It certainly will not go into helping the American workers that made EDS what it is today. It will go to line the pockets of the uber-rich share holders and the elite bunch of corporate officers with their eight digit salaries.

American companies are being systematically looted at the expense of the American worker, and thereby, at the expense of the United States as a whole. The common pattern is for a company to go through a cost slashing program, including massive layoffs, outsourcing, and physical resources cuts. Often the boundaries of what is legal and moral are pushed, and it is a rare occurrence that anyone is ever really held accountable.

The American workers being outsourced here will probably find other jobs – but they will, in many cases, be relatively menial, given the pattern that has evolved with this sort of scenario.

And the looters – the super-rich who own the corporations – will not have to pay capitol gains taxes on the stock that will zip up in price. The CEO will get a huge bonus.

The corporate controllers consider themselves to be worth more than the companies over which they have control. In the United States, the average ratio of worker wage to CEO salary is 400:1. In England, the most extreme European country for the same ratio, it is 40:1. The ratio of the Walt Disney CEO’s salary to the average worker at Walt Disney is 10000:1.

If one projects this trend, the results are ominous. America will become a nation of poverty, with a very small, elite living in insane luxury. No mater how good you are at your job, somewhere out there is a foreign national who is just as smart as you, who is as capable as you are, who is fine with living in a hut, who can do your job for 20% of the wages that you pull - and who will provide a tax break for your employer when you get fired in favor of him.

George W. Bush talks of free markets, of tax breaks to the rich to stimulate the economy. Yet the Republican economic and tax policies have led to one after another occurrence such as is now happening to EDS. There is no way – no way at all – that this even can possibly help the American worker, the United States Economy, or any American citizen, except for the small group of already-rich power players who will now be able to loot yet another great American company.

The Week In Terror

September 9, 2004

We have now passed the 1000 mark on troops dead in Iraq. Interestingly, when George W. Bush declared that the combat was over on March 2, 2004, that total was at about 200 or so.

And speaking of the number 200, that is how many billions of dollars the United States has spent in Iraq so far. Lawrence Lindsey, the then-chairman of Bush's Economic Council, suggested in September 2002 that the cost of war with Iraq could range from $100 billion to $200 billion, including reconstruction. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House officials said that figure was far too high and that Iraq's oil revenues would more than cover the cost of reconstruction. Lindsey was eased out later in a shake-up of Bush's economic team, and in case nobody noticed, the oil has not flowed for over a week now due to the fact that the Iraqi's keep blowing up the pipelines.

In Russia, the Russians have released information that indicates that over 1200 people were killed in the terrorist attack there. Of course, George W. Bush did not even offer condolences. It seems that the Russians are a bit peeved at us. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had this to say about matters: "When our western partners urge us to rethink our policy and tactics in Chechnya, I would advise them not to interfere in Russian internal matters - which they do by granting asylum to terrorists who are directly to blame for the tragedy of the Chechen people," he said.

Lavrov did not name specific countries, but Russia was particularly angered by Britain's granting of refugee status to Akhmed Zakayev, an envoy for Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, and by U.S. asylum for Ilyas Akhmadov, who Maskhadov named his foreign minister while he was Chechnya's president during the late 1990s.

Al-Qaida had several things to mention today, as well. It seems that Al-Qaida is not so crippled after all. Ayman al-Zawahri, the number two figure in al-Qaeda, appeared in a new videotape aired on Al Jazeera on Thursday, ridiculing U.S. forces which he said were "hiding in their trenches" in Afghanistan.

Zawahri, the right-hand man of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), spoke to camera for several minutes in the videotape, wearing a white turban with a machine gun at his side.

"East and south Afghanistan have become an open arena for the Mujahideen (jihad fighters). The enemy are limited to their capitals," he said. Unfortunately, he is probably right. The United States and the government that we established in Iraq do not have control of most of the country. Due to our torture of Iraqi’s, the allowance of high ranking members of the Bath party to hold power in the new government, the unilateral manner in which the United States attacked Iraq, the fact that the reasons for the attack proved to be false, the more than 10,000 Iraqi’s killed, including women and children, and the obvious intention of the United States to take advantage of the Iraqi oil, the Iraqi population has become increasingly hostile to the United States, and has shown this hostility through acts of violence. To the Iraqi citizen, the United States forces are not seen as a liberating army to be greeted with open arms – it is seen as a conquering army that brings as much sorrow and misery and pain as Saddam Hussein did – but brings it from an outside source, and shames the Iraqi people because they feel that they are living in a conquered nation. And they are.

Of course, the fact that the United States has conquered one of the “Axis of Evil” nations does not stop us from using their resources that we were supposedly fighting against. For example, dozens of Saddam Hussein former generals and colonels are being paid hundreds of dollars a month by the Pentagon to advise US and Iraqi officials on how to contain the insurgency in northern Iraq. And the current puppet government set up by the United States if rife with Bath party officials, who have sworn that they have “reformed”.

Of course, not everyone is so lucky. The Pentagon is investigating the imprisonment of as many as 100 "ghost detainees" who were held in secret custody by US forces in Iraq, the army general leading the Abu Ghraib prison abuse probe told a congressional committee. General Paul Kern told members of the Senate Armed Service Committee that investigators "found many reports ... of people that were brought into the facilities and who were moved so that they could not be identified by the International Red Cross."

"This is in violation of our policy which requires us to register people so that it can be reported that they are being held in detention," he said.

Both torture of prisoners and the hiding of prisoners are considered to be war crimes.

Though the United States is shouldering 95% of the cost of the war in Iraq – in terms of lives and dollars – that does not mean that the terrorists that we have created there do not notice other Western nation’s involvement. Including the involvement of Austrailia. Today, terrorists in Indonesia blew up the Australian embassy – killing nine, and wounding 173.

One surprising development, though. No Weapons of Mass Destruction were found. Still. Nor were any links between Saddam Hussein’s seclatarian government and Al-Qaida or any other terrorist organizations found. Of course, now that we have ensured that the Iraqi’s hate us, one can be assured that we will see more and more terrorists coming out of Iraq. While they weren’t there when Saddam was in power, they certainly are there are now.

And of course, we had genocide in the Sudan (and after tens of thousands murdered and millions displaced, the White House admits that it is genocide), many more killings of Israelis by Palestinians, and even Al-Qaida style bombings in Hong Kong.

George W. Bush keeps telling us how the war on terror is working, and how the world is safer due to his efforts.

I do not feel safer.

Do you?

Our Fine Economy

September 5, 2004

During his acceptance speech, and in many other situations during his campaign, George W. Bush has proclaimed to the nation that his policies have led to a healthy, vibrant economy. He advocates what are, in effect, Regan-era ideas of trickle-down, supply side economics.

Ronald Regan was a great president and the right man for the job at the time. His leadership of America and the Western world broke the Soviet Union and the threat of Communism. This was accomplished, in short, by out-spending them in the arms race. This led to the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union, to which its downfall and fragmentation can be directly traced. It was American industry and the power of our system that enabled this chain of events to take place.

But this economic war did not come without a price. During the Regan-Bush era, huge deficits were acquired. When President Clinton was elected in 1992, it was primarily due to the nation’s concerns about the economy. The Regan-Bush approach to spending, deficits and taxation allowed the United States to outspend the Soviet Union – but spending on this sort of a war footing is not indefinitely sustainable.

Today, we see the same financial patterns that we saw during the end of the Cold War. Deficits are being accrued at a record rate of over 400 billion dollars per year. And while George Bush is cutting taxes, and the government under his administration is spending more than it gets in revenues, the economy is faltering.

In order for the employment rate to remain stable, between 150,000 and 200,000 jobs must be created per month in order to keep up with population growth. Last month, only 144,000 jobs were created. The month before, only 34,000 jobs were created. In fact, the unemployment rate has risen from 4% in 2000 when George W. Bush took over from President Clinton to 6% today, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, taking into account population growth, a total of 1.8 million jobs have been lost under George W. Bush to date.

Every year under George W. Bush, the unemployment rate has risen. Ironically, when accepting the Republican Nomination in 2000, Bush said, “For eight years the Clinton-Gore administration has coasted through prosperity. The path of least resistance is always downhill. But America’s way is the rising road. The nation is daring and decent and ready for a change.” Well, under Clinton-Gore, unemployment fell from 7.5% to 4.2% - a nice downhill coast indeed. And, as noted, it has indeed gone uphill from the time that George W. Bush took over.

Outsourcing is another concern of many Americans, and a drain on the American job market. Companies are not just shipping the low-tech, manual labor jobs overseas at this point – rather, they are sending the core middle class jobs in technology, business, communications, and many other fields overseas. President Bush says that “this just makes sense” for the companies to do so. To the CEO and board of directors of a major corporation, it does indeed make sense; in fact, the tax structure as it stands now actually rewards companies that outsource the high paying jobs to other nations. However, to the American worker, and to the nation as a whole, it is a loss of revenue to a foreign nation.

The poverty rate under George W. Bush has also been on the rise. This is the third straight year that the poverty rate has risen; this year, there were 35.8 million people who fell below the poverty line, as opposed to 34.5 million people last year. Once again, these are the numbers released by the Federal government.

The increase in the poverty rate can be attributed to a number of factors, including the loss of jobs. It can also be in part attributed to the decrease in the average American family’s income. Under the George Bush stewardship, the median family income fell by over 1400 dollars per year. At the same time, inflation has been holding at approximately 2.5% per year.

However, rising unemployment, outsourcing, and the rising poverty rate are not the most significant features in evaluating the economy as managed by George W. Bush. The greatest threat to our economy, and the fact that most belies George W. Bush’s statements concerning the economy, is the national deficit. While holding the nation in the grips of a war economy, the government, under George W. Bush’s administration, insists on spending more than tax revenues. Yet while the deficits grow, the Bush administration advocates further extensions of a tax cut that mostly benefited the richest 1% of the nation.

No one argues that the war on terror must be fought. However, in many ways, the government is neglecting a number of its responsibilities. Education, environmental programs, health care for the needy – these sorts of programs just cannot be paid for when we have spent 200 billion dollars to date on the war in Iraq.

The national debt that we are facing today must be paid, if not by us, then by our children and grand children. During the Clinton administration, the budged surplus was used to pay down the debt. For the first time since the mid-1800’s, the United States was in a position to have the debt paid in full by 2007. However, George W. Bush used this surplus to start a tax reduction program as opposed to continuation of debt reduction. When 9/11 struck, and then the War on Iraq was initiated, defense and anti-terror spending increased dramatically without any new sources of revenue.

During his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, President Bush proposed making these tax cuts permanent. Yet he offered no way to pay down the debt that his administration is racking up. He claims that supply-side, trickle down economics will work, if given enough time. The problem is that history has shown that they do not work. They simply lead to greater and greater deficits, reduce the middle class, and make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

With the poverty and unemployment levels rising, wages falling, and the deficit rising by over a billion dollars per day, the effects of the Bush administration’s mismanagement of this nation’s economy are becoming more and more painfully obvious.

Defense of Marriage: An Offense Against Individual Rights

September 4, 2004

Morals. Values. They are what define us as individuals and drive our behavior. Our moral and value structures determine who we associate with and how we act. When we evaluate the worthiness of another individual, we look at their character before almost any other attribute of that individual.

Moral and value structures come from many different places. One person who comes from a good home may grow up to be a liar and a cheat, while another who grew up on the streets may mature into a wise and honest individual. Many people attribute their morals to their religion.

The one place that people do not and should not look to for their morals and values is the law. The function of law is not to impose a belief system on the individuals who make up a society. The function of law is to ensure the smooth running of society. The framers of the Constitution knew this, and were extremely careful not to allow their personal beliefs to infringe on the foundations of this nation they laid down in the form of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The framers of the Constitution were all deeply religious men; specifically, they were all Christians. Yet there is not one mention of God to be found anywhere in either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. In fact, the only mention of religion at all is in the First Amendment to the Constitution, which specifically separates religion and the state.

It would seem that today, however, we have lost sight of this wisdom. During the past year, President George W. Bush and the reactionary right have been pushing for a constitutional amendment to the United States Constitution to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman. This is a direct reaction to the attempt of homosexual groups to get legislation passed that would legalize marriage between partners of the same sex.

There are numerous reasons that have been touted for the Defense of Marriage Amendment. They range from arguments concerning tax structures to concern for children brought up in single-sex parent families. However, the underlying motive for the Defense of Marriage Amendment was that gay marriage offended the moral sense of its sponsors. In particular, homosexuality is proscribed by the Christian Bible. For that matter, it is also proscribed by the Jewish and Muslim faiths; however, it was primarily Christian action groups that pushed for the amendment.

Had the amendment become part of the United States constitution, it would have been the first time in the history of the United States that any part of the Constitution limited the rights of the individual, aside from the Amendment XVIII, the prohibition against alcohol, which was repealed 14 years later with Amendment XXI, and article I section II, which only allowed for a non-white land owner to be counted as three fifths of a person (amended by amendment XIV). Nowhere else in the Constitution are the rights of the individual limited, in all it’s history. All that would have changed, had the Defense of Marriage Amendment been enacted.

But failure at the national level did not stop this drive to “protect marriage”. When the amendment to the United States Constitution failed to get through the Senate, the groups behind the attempt shifted their efforts to the state level. Currently, 12 states have a constitutional amendment up for approval by the voters in some form or another. George W. Bush has made it a part of his re-election campaign to appoint judges that will strike down laws aimed at granting marriage and civil unions to gay couples. The Republican Party has made the issue one of its planks in the 2004 election.

There is a certain amount of hypocrisy in these efforts to enact laws to defend marriage. If marriage is in such danger, why are the proponents of the Defense of Marriage Acts attempting to outlaw divorce or attempting to increase government funding for marriage counseling?

The answer is that the sudden urgency by politicians to defend marriage is politically motivated. Defense of marriage is a crusade issue that can be spun to move attention away from other major issues in this nation.

Once started, it was not difficult for the political leaders to recruit religious leaders, and a multitude of grass roots supporters. Marriage is a special, sacred thing to those who enter into it. Given how deeply people are affected by marriage, and how they identify with the sacrament in others, they feel that somehow their own marriage is lessened by the existence of a gay marriage.

The gay community is a relatively small one compared to the general population. Despite a certain level of acceptance by society of gays in this country, there is still a stigma attached to being gay. Many straight people still feel threatened somehow by the existence of gay people, as if the “gayness” will somehow rub off on them. This is exemplified by the protectionism that some people feel about marriage – the feeling that if gay people are allowed marriage, it will dirty a straight marriage somehow. Furthermore, many individuals and groups who would be inclined to speak in defense of the gays are hesitant to do so, for fear that by being associated with gays they will be ostracized by their straight friends and associates.

Personally, I think that the many of the supporters of the Defense of Marriage Act in its various forms think that they are doing the right thing, the moral thing, and, unlike the initiators of the movement, are not politically motivated. I believe that they believe that their faith drives them to defend the holy sacrament of marriage. And therein lies the flaw of their efforts. Marriage, in this nation, is not a holy sacrament as far as the government is concerned. Marriage is a legal contract between two individuals. Being in the state of marriage allows the spouse to exercise certain legal rights, and to have certain legal responsibilities.

I doubt that the sponsors and supporters of the Defense of Marriage Act realized how drastic a step they were attempting to take when they tried to amend the constitution of this nation. Every single word of the constitution that defines the rights of the individual guarantees rights, and does not limit them. I do not believe that they saw what they were doing as undermining the very structure of the ideals that this nation was built on. Yet, that is exactly what was being done – and is still being done today, though on the state level, through the appointment of judges who will rule against the rights of the individual, and through various other laws that are being enacted to limit the rights of this one group of people.

One may not like gays; one may even despise what they do. But to attempt to place limits on one group’s rights into the very foundation of our nation’s principals is a horribly dangerous thing to do. To quote the classic words of Martin Niemoller:

"In Germany they came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

The Republican Convention Four Years Ago, The Republican Convention Today, and Everything In Between

September 3, 2004

Four years ago, during his speech accepting the nomination of the Republican Party, George Bush laid out a number of things he would do for our nation if he were elected.

He promised reform for Social Security – including the privatization of portions of an individual’s account.

He promised to revamp Medicare, and “make prescription drugs available and affordable for every senior who needs them.”

For the poor who could not afford health insurance, he told them, “We will give low-income Americans tax credits to buy the private health insurance they need and deserve.”

He promised to reform the education system, through new standards of accountability and the funding to achieve those standards. He said, “Now is the time to make Head Start an early learning program to teach all our children to read and renew the promise of America’s public schools.”

He told us that the people of the United States would receive a tax cut – based upon the surplus that existed at the time of his election. He told us that “the surplus is not the government’s money; the surplus is the people’s money.”

He spoke of the responsibility of corporations to “leave the air and waters clean.”

He promised to enhance this nation’s defenses, and to increase the benefits for our troops: to give our troops “better equipment, better training, and better pay.”

Given these promises he made at the last convention, it is not surprising that he did not speak of his record concerning any of these issues during the last four years.

Social Security is still approaching bankruptcy, yet there has been no reform, and certainly no privatization. At the same time, the elderly demographic is steadily growing.

The prescription drug card offered to seniors has proven to be an overly complex system that makes a 1040 look trivial, with 40 different sub plans. Even after working through all the math, many elderly do not consider it to be worth it, as participation in the Bush drug plan invalidates other private drug plans. All the while, more and more people are seeking their prescription drugs in Canada. Illinois as a state recently even defied the FDA and announced that it would begin buying drugs in bulk from Canada in order to make prescription drugs affordable to the elderly and the poor.

Health insurance has also suffered under the Bush stewardship. There is no national health coverage plan, there is no plan for a plan, and a record number of Americans are completely without health insurance of any sort. Furthermore, many states, due to the lack of Federal Funding, have had to completely close shut down their public assistance programs for those in need. For example, Oregon’s state health plan is no longer taking any applicants, for any reason at all.

Education in this country is also suffering. The “No Child Left Behind” program replaced his Head Start ideas. This program was intended to hold schools accountable, and provide the funding to allow schools to reach the desired standards. However, there is no funding available, yet students are still required to be tested to the program’s standards. With shorter school years, larger class sizes and fewer qualified teachers, more and more teachers are teaching simply to the tests and not attempting to teach underlying concepts such as logical reasoning. Furthermore, schools that are unable to reach the testing standards set out in the program are actually penalized – and thereby are doomed to deteriorate even further. The Texas Teacher’s Union and other teacher’s groups in Texas warned the nation what Bush’s approach to education would do to the system – and we have paid the price of not listening.

George Bush did provide the tax cut that he promised. Certainly, the budget surplus has turned into a record budget deficit. Furthermore, it was not the poor who got noticeable tax breaks: it was the top 1% who received the greatest tax breaks.

When George Bush spoke four years ago about corporations’ responsibilities to leave “cleaner air and cleaner water,” he must have been thinking of non-American corporations. George Bush has revoked every executive order that he has been able to in order to allow corporations more freedom to act as they will, regardless of the cost to the environment. Certainly he has not supported any legislation in support of cleaner air or water. In fact, he has seriously weakened the enforcement provisions of the Clean Air and Water Act.

So, it is not surprising that George Bush didn’t have much to say about these issues during the four years that he has been president of this nation.

Yet, George Bush again made many of the same promises during his acceptance speech at this convention. Once again, we heard promises about how education would be enhanced, how Medicare would be strengthened and how “every senior would be able to get prescription drug coverage.” We heard again about how Social Security would be largely privatized.

There were some differences, though. This time, we did not hear about health coverage, private or government sponsored, for the general populous. Instead, we heard about how medical lawsuits would be limited, and government health care insurance would be limited to poor children.

We heard nothing about the environment. Despite the oceans have risen, the glaciers have receded, the air is so bad that we now must use phrases like “code red day” on a regular basis, not a word was said.

We also heard some new things.

We heard that George Bush would further reduce taxes, and would simplify the tax code. What we did not hear is how the government can afford to do this when there is such a great government deficit already.

We heard in a round about way how marriage would be protected to mean, between a man and a woman. We heard how “the union between a man and a woman deserves an honored place in our society, and protection from activist judges.” We heard how George Bush would “appoint federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law.” In other words, we heard that Christian marriage would be held to be the only acceptable marriage in this nation of many faiths, of many creeds and of so many personal make-ups.

The main thing we heard from George Bush, though, was about the War on Terror, what an outstanding job he has done for us, and what a horrible job John Kerry would do in his place.

George Bush spoke of how we have crippled Al Qaida. What he did not speak of is where Bin Laden is at this point, or about how many intelligence agencies have reported that Al Qaida has managed to regenerate it’s losses since Afghanistan.

The day after 3 major terrorists attacks, George Bush told us that “the world [is] safer”.

George Bush told us that Saddam Hussein was linked to the Talliban and the 9/11 attacks. He asked us, “Do I forget the lessons of September 11th and take the word of a madman?” What he did not tell us is that every report from every intelligence agency now says that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida or the Talliban. George Bush also talked of the Weapons of Mass Destruction associated with Saddam Hussein. What he did not remind us of was that not a single WMD or WMD facility was found after Iraq was conquered.

Iraq, George Bush, went on to tell us, “now has a strong prime minister, a national council, and national elections are scheduled for January.” What he did not tell us was that the this government would fall in a matter of hours without American military forces backing it up – forces that are despised by most of the Iraqi population at this point.

“The people of Iraq no longer fear being executed and left in mass graves,” the President told us. What he did not tell us was that they fear and loath us for the hundreds of prisoners that were tortured by American troops, and that disciplinary action for knowledge of this type of behavior went all the way up to a brigadier general. What he did not tell us is that many Iraqis have gone from seeing Americans as liberators to seeing Americans being occupiers who are just as brutal as the troops employed by Saddam Hussein.

George Bush did, however, tell us of how grateful the Iraqis were. He told a touching story of how several Iraqis who were maimed by Saddam Hussein visited the Oval Office. What he did not tell us of were the thousands of Iraqi “collateral damage” deaths, the children who were burned with napalm, or the massive rise in birth defects caused by depleted uranium shells used during the combat.

On the other hand, George Bush did tell us how John Kerry had voted “against money for bullets and fuel and vehicles and body armor.” What George Bush did not tell us was that it was only the versions of the bill that contained enough pork to keep Oscar Meyer in business for several years, not against military spending in general.

George Bush told us of the strength and character of America’s military families. What George Bush did not tell us was of the pay cuts, the extended service, the military families relying on food stamps, and the cutting of VA benefits.

George Bush talked of the greatness of the American spirit, and of Americans. He told us how we could stand strong against terrorism. What George Bush did not speak on was the loss of rights to the patriot act or the illegal manner in which his Attorney General has gone about prosecuting various groups in the name of anti-terror actions.

George Bush’s speech was indicative of the last four years. A great deal of the speech was spent on terrorism, the military and God – just as much of his four year sin office have been spent.

One wonders, though, why none of these ideas that he had four years ago, or now, were ever introduced as legislation during the last four years?

One wonders why none of the reforms to Medicare, to Social Security, to Education were announced as programs during a State of the Union – why they are just campaign promises?

George Bush made promises four years ago, and these promises have, for the most part, come to naught. There is much more to being the president of this great nation than simply leading the nation against the threat of terrorism.

Terrorism is a fact of modern life. While the United States must be vigilant and strong, we must not loose those things that make us a great nation. We must continue to educate our young, heal our sick, and protect the jobs that keep American industry and our economy strong. We cannot deceive ourselves into thinking that these things come for free and that we can pay for the American Dream on credit on a national scale and never have to pay for it.

What George Bush did not say was far more telling that what he did say.

When Liberators Become Occupiers – The Betrayal of Our Troops and Our Cause

September 2, 2004

Last night, at the Republican convention, Sen. Zell Miller told the delegates and the nation, “Nothing makes this marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.”

This is at the heart of what many soldiers feel who are now in Iraq, it is what many soldiers felt at the time of Vietnam, and it is what many veterans of all our wars feel.

What may come as a surprise is that it also is at the heart of many of those who are not in the military, and who oppose the war in Iraq. Yet, the fact remains, in the eyes of the most of the Iraqi people, the Arab world, and even the world in general, that is exactly what we are.

The reactions of the Iraqi people were mixed when we first toppled Saddam from power. Many of the Iraqi people were joyous; many more were incredulous or still fearful form the years spent under Saddam Hussein. However, incredibility and shock faded to relief and gratitude in much of the country – those parts of the country that did not receive preferential treatment from Saddam Hussein – and the American soldiers were indeed seen as liberators.

But what the Bush Administration, it’s political strategists, it’s intelligence officers, it’s planners and it’s generals either did not foresee or consider to be significant was the effect of the removal of an extremely stringent and effective secular dictatorship from a passionate and deeply religious people combined with the other outside forces affecting those people.

When the United States removed Saddam Hussein from power, Muslim clerics such as Moqtada Sadr suddenly were free to preach their gospel of fundamentalist Muslim philosophy – and hatred towards the United States. Other Arab nations, in the past prevented by Saddam Hussein’s regime, were able to pipe their own propaganda into Iraq. Resentment for the Americans also sprang from the collateral damage in civilian lives during the fighting, from the torture of Iraqi citizens and militants by the Americans. Furthermore, terrorist organizations, also held in check by the Hussein regime, were able to gain a foothold in Iraq once the iron fist of Saddam Hussein’s political police was lifted from the country.

Is this to say that Saddam Hussein was good for either the world or for Iraq? No. Saddam Hussein was evil by any standard. He abused his people, he sought dominance over other nations, and he, frankly, enjoyed both personal power and the pain of others.

With this said, though, it must be realized that Saddam Hussein did indeed maintain a certain level of stability in the region. And this stability has now been removed, leaving a power vacuum that the United States is attempting to fill, while at the same time trying to prop up what is viewed as a puppet government by most Iraqis and most of the rest of the Arab world.

This brings us back to how our soldiers are seen as occupiers and not as liberators. After the initial euphoria of the liberation from Saddam wore off, the Iraqi people began to wonder why the Americans were still there. After all, Saddam was no longer in power. And were not the Iraqi people the children of the Persian Empire, a culture over 4000 years old? Were they not capable of rebuilding their own country?

As more time has passed, the resentment towards the American troops by the Iraqi people, and the world in general, has grown. This resentment is taking form in riots, in uprisings, and in insurgencies all over the nation of Iraq. Even Colin Powell admitted today that the United States had not properly addressed the possibility of such levels of resentment and insurgency, and that we were not prepared to handle them.

And so it is that, despite the intentions of the soldier in the field, despite what he has been told, his roll has become that of occupier as opposed to liberator. When the majority of a nation does not want a foreign army controlling that nation, that army becomes one of occupation, not liberation. All the best intentions in the world on the part of that army and its leaders will not change that fact.

This is a betrayal of our men and women in service, both those now serving and those who have served in the past. There is no doubt in my mind that Senator Zell Miller is indeed enraged by the calling of our forces “occupiers” and not “liberators” – but he should place the blame where blame is due – with the short sighted, ill conceived and poorly executed war imitated by George Bush, on proven false pretenses.

10 Questions for the Republicans

September 1, 2004

• During the last 3-1/2 years, we have seen rising unemployment rates nationwide. Last month, only 34, 000 new jobs were added – as opposed to the 250,000 expected. Last year, 1.3 million new people became poor by definition, and the overall median salary of the American worker has fallen. The Republican Party claims that the economy is doing better. How can this position be defended?
• President Bush promised tax cuts for the American people. He did keep this promise. Now, he is hinting at more tax cuts. However, the deficit is rising at a record rate. Social Security is going broke, we are waging a war, and many other programs are under funded. How does the Republican Party plan fund its programs and proposals when revenues are less than expenditures?
• George Bush implemented his “No Child Left Behind” program that tests the education levels of schools. Schools that are deficient are penalized, and required to make improvements, otherwise they loose funding. Yet there is no funding for schools to make improvements, and educators find that they must teach to the tests, and not to the subject. Music, arts and AP classes are almost extinct in many school districts, class sizes are continuing to rise, and teachers are underpaid. What will the Republican Party do to get education back on course in this country?
• George W. Bush has rolled back many of the administrative orders, such as the Roadless Rule, that protect the environment. Furthermore, the current administration has not attempted any new legislation to protect the environment, and has refused to sign the Kyoto treaty. Yet Global Warming is no longer a theory – it is a proven fact. The glaciers are melting, the hole in the ozone is growing, there are dead zones in the oceans, many rivers cannot be fished or drunk from, and poisons leak from waste sites. What is the Republican’s long term plan for the Environment?
• As a follow up to the Environmental question: We are burning through our renewable resources at an alarming rate; in fact, we are using up those resources faster than they can be renewed. Timber is being harvested faster than the forests can grow, the great schools of fish, such as tuna, are being depleted, and even the plankton is being affected by the Japanese trolling for it. This is obviously a global problem – but much of the problem stems from American and American ally and trading partner practices. What is the Republican approach to keeping our renewable resources renewable?
• Energy use in this country is expected to double in the next 30 years. Currently, the United States relies primarily on fossil fuels (78%) for its energy. Yet, those resources are limited – both in terms of the amount that the United States can mine here in North America and globally. Furthermore, the current administration has proposed no new major research into alternative fuels, nor has it attempted any major push for conservation, despite the fact that current national energy usage could be reduced by 25% through conservation alone. What is the long term Energy plan of the Republican Party?
• In the week before the Republican Convention, two major events took place concerning the Republican plank concerning gay marriage. First, the plank was changed from any gay marriage to any gay civil union. This seemed to be in response to the Dick Cheney’s break with the President. There are over one million gay republicans in the Log Cabin Republican organization. After all the election hype is over, how will the Republican Party deal with gays and gay marriage?
• Despite claims, the War in Iraq has not yet been won. To date, some 11,000 Iraqi and 960 United States servicemen have been killed. The United States has pulled its troops out of it’s commitments in Europe and is calling up every reserve unit possible. Yet, the Iraqi people do not like us, and instead of forging an Iraq in the image of the United States, we have created a hotbed of new generation fanatic martyrs, given Al-Quida a foothold in what was a secular nation and elevated dime-a-dozen clerics to heroic status. Ignoring our original stated reasons for going into Iraq, how can we fix the mess that is now Iraq without it becoming another Vietnam?
• World opinion is steadily turning against the United States. Our refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty, lack of payments to the United Nations, our effectively unilateral attack on Iraq have all added to the negative manner in which the world views us. Probably the worst factor in world opinion of us is the fact that we are perceived to have waged a war of aggression on Iraq, and to have lied about our reasons for going in to Iraq. A recent poll in Italy showed that the Italian people view the number one threat to peace as United States foreign policy. What will the Republican administration do to fix this deficit in foreign policy and world opinion?
• George Bush recently said that the War on Terror could not be won. In saying this, he was probably accurate. As long as there is a third world, as long as there are religious fanatics who do not see things our way, there will be terrorists. Yet, for political reasons, George Bush has had to retract that statement, and now says that the War on Terror can be won. At the time, he stated that “we may not sit down at a peace table, may not know when we have won [the war on terror]”. What, then, are the conditions for victory in the War on Terror, and how will we know when it is won?

Recipe For a Terrorist

September 1, 2004

I don’t think that there is anyone in either political party who does not acknowledge that the United States must face a new kind of warfare: the terrorist. How we face that threat, however, is one of the defining debates of this election.

The current administration believes that the United States needs to do, unilaterally if necessary, whatever is needed to keep the United States safe from the threat of terror. The main thrust of the current administration’s approach is the military solution. This administration believes that the ends justify the means.

Certainly, there is a time and a place for unilateral, military action. An example of this was in Afghanistan. Note, however, that Afghanistan was not unilateral in terms of world opinion – at that point, the world, even the Arabic world, was basically on our side due to 9/11. However, the United States cannot depend upon this approach to answer all the possible terrorist threats for several reasons. First, we simply do not have the military manpower to conquer and subdue every single threat nation. Second, it would do incredible damage to our international standing to pursue this course. Third, and perhaps most importantly, such an approach will, in the long run, simply breed more terrorist threats.

In terms of military manpower, the United States has already reached the maximum deployment it can without reinstating the draft. At this point, we have pulled troops out of NATO commitments to send them to the Middle East. The National Guard has been called up, and even the “ready reserves” have been called up this week. Simply put, the manpower just isn’t there to take out even the high-threat nations such as Iran, Syria, and North Korea.

Furthermore, the rest of the world can only be pushed so far in what we are going to be allowed to do. Though we may be the only true superpower remaining, it is dangerous to think that this allows us to take any action that we see fit without concern to how the rest of the world will react to it. If nothing else, the United States needs trading partners to buy our goods. However, if the United States keeps knocking out the governments of other nations with military action, we will eventually overextend ourselves, and will pay a military price.

However, these first two reasons pale in comparison to the third and final reason: unilateral military action by the United States in the regions of the world that breed terrorists simply breed more terrorists.

Let’s take a look at the profile of a terrorist of the sort that the United States needs to worry about. He is, first of all, devoted to his cause. In fact, he is willing to die for it. Odds are that he has extremely strong religious beliefs, and is extremely intolerant of other beliefs. He was recruited from an extremely impoverished region, and in many cases, is promised that his family will be financially supported for the rest of their lives if he gives his to “the cause”. He sees his people’s condition to be desperate. Finally, the government control of the region from whence he comes is either a fanatical theology or unstable. The nations that sponsor the terrorists may be far more secure and respectable by our standards (e.g., Saudi Arabia), but the actual recruit will be from the gutters of the world.

When the United States attacks a country such as Iraq, without the support of the rest of the world, and without the support of the rest of the Arab world in particular, we are creating a hot bed of resentment for terrorism. This is not to say that Saddam Hussein was a good man, or that the nation that he ruled was not a threat in any way. However, by not presenting solid reasons to the rest of the world, the United States has made itself look to be the aggressor in a war of conquest. This belief by the rest of the world is strengthened by the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found. It is further strengthened by the fact that the fanatical clerics, kept on a very short leash by Hussein, are now free to preach their hatred, and of course, they do so, directing much of it against the United States. This is picked up by the rest of the Arab world, and makes them hate us all the more.

By breaking up the secular government of Iraq, we have unleashed the religious forces in that country that have historically hated the United States. Though many Americans cannot understand it, many of the Iraqi people do not see us as liberators: they see us as conquerors. They see the Americans as oppressors, even as some of them saw Saddam Hussein as an oppressor. The average Iraqi citizen’s quality of life has deteriorated, and the signs of war are everywhere. In short, we have created exactly the breeding ground that the terrorist recruiters need to build their armies. We have not, and never will, win the “hearts and minds” of the people through violence: that is a lesson we should have learned during Vietnam.

What is the alternative to the approach that we are using in Iraq? To start with, the United States desperately needs to get other nations involved in the nation building in Iraq. In particular, some of the other, more reliable and stable Arab nations need to become involved. Though they may not always act with the United States interests foremost, at least they are stable and trusted by the Iraqi people. By bringing in other nations, we have at least a chance of being seen as trying to help the Iraqi people, both by the Iraqis and by the rest of the world.

Furthermore, this approach needs to be broadened to how we deal with the other “threat nations”. Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, and many of the splinter Soviet states: these are all danger zones for the United States and the Western world. We can’t do it alone. And the sooner we realize this, the better off and safer we will be in the long run.