Sunday, December 19, 2004
A Reality Check for the Empire
Reality Catching Up to Empire?
December 17, 2004
Many of the signs and portents hovering around the beginning of a second Bush term look less than promising for partisans of peace. As cabinet members have resigned, they have for the most part been replaced by people whose salient qualities are less competence or expertise than personal loyalty to the president, several of them White House staffers with little discernible executive experience. Most of the architects of what even many partisans of the war are coming to view as at least a setback if not an outright disaster in Iraq – Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Feith, Rice, and others – have been kept on or rewarded with higher positions.
None of this bodes well for the president getting anything resembling independent counsel from those who in theory should occasionally check his enthusiasms with a little straight, hard talk about the differences between aspirations and achievements. The president apparently doesn't want much of such potentially troublesome – but also potentially salvific – advice from his inner circle.
Perhaps the most significant signal that erring grievously – so long as the mistakes were made in pursuit of a presidential enthusiasm – will not only not be punished in this administration but rewarded, was the decision to give the previously prestigious Medal of Freedom to three of the more notable screw-ups in the administration. Let Andrew Sullivan, an enthusiastic supporter of the war until the problems of the postwar and the administration habit of denial of any less-than-rosy development made him grumpy, tell it: "The presidential medal of freedom goes to George 'Slam Dunk' Tenet, Tommy 'We Have Enough Troops' Franks, and Paul 'Disband the Iraqi Army' Bremer. It's one thing never to punish error, but to reward it so magnificently!"
Steve Clemons of the Washington Note blog also had some pointed and pungent comments, suggesting the "honor" could be renamed the "Spear Carriers for Empire" medal.
To top it off, we have had a neocon-like propaganda campaign against Iran and Syria similar to the one that led up to the Iraqi war. While President Bush confined himself most recently to warning Iran and Syria not to meddle in the upcoming election in Iraq, the Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, and other members of the war-whooping crowd have as much as called for war as soon as possible against both countries.
And yet .... and yet.
Signs of Change
Even so, there are signs that reality may be catching up with those who actually make policy, as compared to those who sit on the sidelines and call for other old men to send more young men to their deaths.
I'm not quite sure what to make of the recent flap over Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and his comment to the media-coached soldier in Iraq who asked about getting more armor for the troops on the ground. "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time," said the estimable Mr. Rumsfeld. I think the secretary was blindsided by the question and was winging it rather than offering a deeply-considered opinion. But sometimes off-the-cuff remarks offer insight into thought processes.
As neocon senior partner Bill Kristol noted in a Washington Post piece effectively calling for Rumsfeld's resignation, Rumsfeld's comments suggested a strong inclination to pass the buck, to avoid taking personal responsibility for miscalculations and mistakes at all costs.
I strongly suspect that what Kristol wants in the position, however, is somebody more capable of making more war more effectively rather than somebody who will be scrupulously honest and personally responsible. When he came into office, Rumsfeld had a notion that the U.S. military needed to be reformed in the direction of making it leaner, more mobile, and more high-tech rather than massive. The Iraq war put that question to one side for a while, though even in the run-up to the war there were disputes over how many troops would be needed, with Rumsfeld generally arguing for fewer.
If Rumsfeld sticks to his general view during a second term, it could bollix up dreams of increasing the size of the military so it will be better-equipped to carry out a virtually endless series of imperial housekeeping assignments. I think Kristol, who has called for a beefed-up military and more military spending, suspects Rumsfeld still wants a leaner military, so it's best to get him out of the way. That doesn't mean antiwar people should hope Rumsfeld stays, but it's something to consider.
Reality Bites
In circles beyond the rather small war-at-any-cost crowd, however, the reality of the war in Iraq and questions about the consequences of war on a more-or-less continuing basis are starting to matter. For starters, there's the little matter of money. The latest news is that the Bush administration will ask for $80 to $100 billion to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, rather than the more "modest" $70 to $75 billion it had privately told members of Congress before the election that the tab was likely to be. Beefing up the armor, as virtually everyone has now promised to do, will probably add to the expense.
John Pike, a defense specialist at the military think tank GlobalSecurity.org, says the Iraq operation has "been running over a billion a week thus far. I think we're probably getting up to $2 billion a week fairly soon." Now that the election is over, is there a chance putatively fiscal conservatives will start to raise questions about these ongoing costs – especially if they get in the way of making the tax cuts permanent?
Whether cost becomes a factor or not, military morale is increasingly becoming a topic of conversation. Yesterday's Christian Science Monitor suggests that something more than the usual griping "is happening now in Iraq with what appears to be growing resistance from the troops." The Monitor counts deserters in the thousands, "resignations of reserve officers, lawsuits by those whose duty period has been involuntarily extended, and a refusal to go on dangerous missions without proper equipment." The Army National Guard is short about 5,000 of its recruiting goals. Soldiers and would-be soldiers seem to be simply losing confidence in the civilian leadership during this war.
Nightline Wednesday night and last night featured returning Iraqi military personnel who are opting for psychological counseling even in the face of pressure not to act like a "coward," implying that this war will produce thousands of people with long-term psychological problems. Other experts, as the New York Times reported yesterday, predict the same.
Whence the Troops
To be sure, much of the conditional optimism one might be entitled to feel is based on the fact that the Bush administration has so far been more restrained than the lobbyists for empire without end would like. But it's quite possible that this reluctance is based on a belated recognition of reality. If the Army doesn't provide enough troops to do the job effectively in Iraq, where are they going to find the troops for Iran, Syria, or (gulp!) North Korea? Can they raise more troops without stirring a more widespread antiwar sentiment? Can they even think about Social Security, tax reform, or anything else domestic if the next four years are dominated by war?
None of this bodes well for the president getting anything resembling independent counsel from those who in theory should occasionally check his enthusiasms with a little straight, hard talk about the differences between aspirations and achievements. The president apparently doesn't want much of such potentially troublesome – but also potentially salvific – advice from his inner circle.
Perhaps the most significant signal that erring grievously – so long as the mistakes were made in pursuit of a presidential enthusiasm – will not only not be punished in this administration but rewarded, was the decision to give the previously prestigious Medal of Freedom to three of the more notable screw-ups in the administration. Let Andrew Sullivan, an enthusiastic supporter of the war until the problems of the postwar and the administration habit of denial of any less-than-rosy development made him grumpy, tell it: "The presidential medal of freedom goes to George 'Slam Dunk' Tenet, Tommy 'We Have Enough Troops' Franks, and Paul 'Disband the Iraqi Army' Bremer. It's one thing never to punish error, but to reward it so magnificently!"
Steve Clemons of the Washington Note blog also had some pointed and pungent comments, suggesting the "honor" could be renamed the "Spear Carriers for Empire" medal.
To top it off, we have had a neocon-like propaganda campaign against Iran and Syria similar to the one that led up to the Iraqi war. While President Bush confined himself most recently to warning Iran and Syria not to meddle in the upcoming election in Iraq, the Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, and other members of the war-whooping crowd have as much as called for war as soon as possible against both countries.
And yet .... and yet.
Signs of Change
Even so, there are signs that reality may be catching up with those who actually make policy, as compared to those who sit on the sidelines and call for other old men to send more young men to their deaths.
I'm not quite sure what to make of the recent flap over Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and his comment to the media-coached soldier in Iraq who asked about getting more armor for the troops on the ground. "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time," said the estimable Mr. Rumsfeld. I think the secretary was blindsided by the question and was winging it rather than offering a deeply-considered opinion. But sometimes off-the-cuff remarks offer insight into thought processes.
As neocon senior partner Bill Kristol noted in a Washington Post piece effectively calling for Rumsfeld's resignation, Rumsfeld's comments suggested a strong inclination to pass the buck, to avoid taking personal responsibility for miscalculations and mistakes at all costs.
I strongly suspect that what Kristol wants in the position, however, is somebody more capable of making more war more effectively rather than somebody who will be scrupulously honest and personally responsible. When he came into office, Rumsfeld had a notion that the U.S. military needed to be reformed in the direction of making it leaner, more mobile, and more high-tech rather than massive. The Iraq war put that question to one side for a while, though even in the run-up to the war there were disputes over how many troops would be needed, with Rumsfeld generally arguing for fewer.
If Rumsfeld sticks to his general view during a second term, it could bollix up dreams of increasing the size of the military so it will be better-equipped to carry out a virtually endless series of imperial housekeeping assignments. I think Kristol, who has called for a beefed-up military and more military spending, suspects Rumsfeld still wants a leaner military, so it's best to get him out of the way. That doesn't mean antiwar people should hope Rumsfeld stays, but it's something to consider.
Reality Bites
In circles beyond the rather small war-at-any-cost crowd, however, the reality of the war in Iraq and questions about the consequences of war on a more-or-less continuing basis are starting to matter. For starters, there's the little matter of money. The latest news is that the Bush administration will ask for $80 to $100 billion to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, rather than the more "modest" $70 to $75 billion it had privately told members of Congress before the election that the tab was likely to be. Beefing up the armor, as virtually everyone has now promised to do, will probably add to the expense.
John Pike, a defense specialist at the military think tank GlobalSecurity.org, says the Iraq operation has "been running over a billion a week thus far. I think we're probably getting up to $2 billion a week fairly soon." Now that the election is over, is there a chance putatively fiscal conservatives will start to raise questions about these ongoing costs – especially if they get in the way of making the tax cuts permanent?
Whether cost becomes a factor or not, military morale is increasingly becoming a topic of conversation. Yesterday's Christian Science Monitor suggests that something more than the usual griping "is happening now in Iraq with what appears to be growing resistance from the troops." The Monitor counts deserters in the thousands, "resignations of reserve officers, lawsuits by those whose duty period has been involuntarily extended, and a refusal to go on dangerous missions without proper equipment." The Army National Guard is short about 5,000 of its recruiting goals. Soldiers and would-be soldiers seem to be simply losing confidence in the civilian leadership during this war.
Nightline Wednesday night and last night featured returning Iraqi military personnel who are opting for psychological counseling even in the face of pressure not to act like a "coward," implying that this war will produce thousands of people with long-term psychological problems. Other experts, as the New York Times reported yesterday, predict the same.
Whence the Troops
To be sure, much of the conditional optimism one might be entitled to feel is based on the fact that the Bush administration has so far been more restrained than the lobbyists for empire without end would like. But it's quite possible that this reluctance is based on a belated recognition of reality. If the Army doesn't provide enough troops to do the job effectively in Iraq, where are they going to find the troops for Iran, Syria, or (gulp!) North Korea? Can they raise more troops without stirring a more widespread antiwar sentiment? Can they even think about Social Security, tax reform, or anything else domestic if the next four years are dominated by war?
They have to be wondering.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Palestinian Olive Branch
VIEWPOINT
Editor's Note:
Few people in the US understand why Arabs and Muslims place Palestine at the epicentre of the region's problems. Simply put, the creation of Israel is seen as a western, colonial implant in the region which acted as a proxy for British and US interests.
Even the most moderate Arab or Muslim will say the same thing. And why is it that so many who read this publication are unaware of these feelings? One is free to disagree with the conclusions drawn by Arabs and Muslims, but it is not open to debate that they think this way.
The mainstream media is hopelessly lost in their world of promoting the interests of large corporations... and thus they dare not utter impressions that might be viewed as counter to those interests.
Can Bush notice the Palestinian olive branch?
by Dave Hirst
Since the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, there has been a shift of international attention away from Iraq toward that other, older, and most imperishable of Middle East crises.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged the re-elected US President George W Bush to revitalize the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, "the single most pressing political challenge in our world today," while Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called it more important than Iraq itself. Then the view that the two crises are malignantly linked found forceful corroboration in a surprising quarter. In a report flatly contradicting Bush administration orthodoxy, the Pentagon's Defence Science Board said America's problems in Iraq and elsewhere arose from Muslims' hatred of its policies, not of its freedoms, and especially "what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights."
To Arabs, this discovery is hardly Archimedean. To them it has always been self-evident: the Palestine problem, a legacy of Western colonialism as virulent today as it ever was, has always been the greatest single source of anti-Western sentiment in the region. So if Islamist terror now ranks as the greatest single contemporary threat to global order, and Iraq is its most profitable arena, Palestine must have a great deal to do with the political climate in which it took root.
In a recent video address, Osama bin Laden said that the spectacle of Israel's bombardment of Beirut during its 1982 invasion first inspired the idea of blowing up the World Trade Centre; an afterthought perhaps, but one born of the shrewd realization that such support as he commands among Muslim and Arab masses comes less from his messianic ideology than his identification of it with this most emblematic of Arab causes.
For Arabs, the remarkable thing is the way that, historically, the West has repeatedly ignored or overridden the centrality of Palestine in their psyche, with Iraq as the latest and most blatant example of it. True, the sickness that was Saddam Hussein's Iraq had its own origins and dynamics; and most Iraqis wanted by almost any means to be rid of him. But the more strategically or economically self-serving, badly managed, repressive, arrogant, bloody and chaotic the American-led "liberation" has turned out to be, the more it is perceived by Arabs and Iraqis as just another, quasi-colonial aggression in the history of Western interference in the region — as "another Palestine" in fact. Indeed, there is seen to be a direct, causal link between the two, in that the whole enterprise was from the outset as much Israeli as American in inspiration and purpose.
Blair himself saw that it would have been a very good idea to pave the way for Iraq with a serious attempt to persuade the Palestinians that redress was finally at hand; hence what later emerged as the "road map." But the pro-Israel, neoconservative hawks who drove US policy reversed these priorities; the road to Jerusalem, and peace in the holy land, lay through Baghdad. So what, for Blair, would have been merely prudent risk-avoidance before the war now, in his postwar revival of it, looks more like a desperate bid to salvage what can be salvaged from a grim Iraqi predicament.
Bush did promise to invest political capital on the Palestinian issue. But he was distinctly noncommittal about how. And in any case the whole history of Israeli-Palestinian peace-seeking suggests that, of all American presidents, Bush is just about
the last to listen, in any productive way, to what Blair — or
even those in his own administration — has to say.
It is not that American presidents have ever underestimated the importance of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Given that, at its core, it involves a very small proportion of mankind they have in fact lavished extraordinary amounts of time, energy and political resources in trying to resolve it. The real trouble is that, thanks to the partisanship noted in the Pentagon report, they can never acknowledge the real nature of the problem, which is essentially one of decolonization. So, far from opening new opportunities, Arafat's death is almost bound to merely reconfirm that congenital inability — though this time, because of Iraq, Al-Qaeda and their ramifications, in graver circumstances than ever before.
The history of the conflict so far is one massive Zionist gain versus proportionate Palestinian loss. If the Palestinians were to secure the redress that other colonized peoples have earned, there would either be no Israel — just as there is no French Algeria — or Israel would be a binational state — like South Africa — in which it would lose its exclusively Jewish identity. But the Palestinians are not demanding that. They have formally committed themselves, via Oslo, to the loss of 78 percent of their original homeland. If there ever is a settlement, this concession, unique in the history of European decolonization, would rank as by far the greatest contribution to it. Moreover, it was under Arafat's auspices that the Palestinians made it. Yet the Americans called him the "obstacle" to peace who — being corrupt and undemocratic to boot — had to be replaced by a "moderate," clean and democratic leadership that would persuade the Palestinians to give yet more — on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, the attributes of statehood — than they already have.
But a new leadership won't do that, least of all if it is clean and democratic, because, reflecting the popular will, it simply couldn't. That Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is no less an obstacle to peace than Arafat ever was, and that Israeli "moderation" is as necessary as the Palestinian variety, are thoughts that might occur to Bush. But they are not thoughts he would find politic to act upon. American Middle East policies have always been shaped more by domestic politics than by realities on the ground, and never more so than today.
Bush was re-elected in a campaign where candidates vied with one another in rejecting the very concept of "evenhandedness" as an affront to political morality and American devotion to Israel. He is deeply influenced by his neoconservative entourage, a pro-Israel lobby now dominated by right-wing "Likudnik" factions, and Christian fundamentalists who support as warlike and expansionist an Israel as possible, the faster to bring about the Second Coming.
Arabs wonder anxiously whether, in the headiness of re-election, Bush will embark on more of the Iraq-like enterprises envisaged in the neocons' grand design for the region. Continued, incorrigible partisanship on Palestine, combined with remorseless deterioration in Iraq, will certainly make it more likely. For, to America's growing exasperation, Iran, the other, more formidable Middle East member of the "axis of evil," can exploit the situation both in Palestine and in Iraq
Any showdown will almost certainly come over nuclear weapons, and the American and Israeli belief that Iran is about to get such weapons. That would be very dangerous, mainly because Israel already has them, is determined to preserve its monopoly and intimates that if the US doesn't do something about it, Israel will - an act liable to reduce Iraq to a case of merely moderate turbulence compared with the regional tempest that would ensue.
David Hirst was a Middle East correspondent of The Guardian, and is author of The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East.
Editor's Note:
Few people in the US understand why Arabs and Muslims place Palestine at the epicentre of the region's problems. Simply put, the creation of Israel is seen as a western, colonial implant in the region which acted as a proxy for British and US interests.
Even the most moderate Arab or Muslim will say the same thing. And why is it that so many who read this publication are unaware of these feelings? One is free to disagree with the conclusions drawn by Arabs and Muslims, but it is not open to debate that they think this way.
The mainstream media is hopelessly lost in their world of promoting the interests of large corporations... and thus they dare not utter impressions that might be viewed as counter to those interests.
Can Bush notice the Palestinian olive branch?
by Dave Hirst
Since the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, there has been a shift of international attention away from Iraq toward that other, older, and most imperishable of Middle East crises.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged the re-elected US President George W Bush to revitalize the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, "the single most pressing political challenge in our world today," while Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called it more important than Iraq itself. Then the view that the two crises are malignantly linked found forceful corroboration in a surprising quarter. In a report flatly contradicting Bush administration orthodoxy, the Pentagon's Defence Science Board said America's problems in Iraq and elsewhere arose from Muslims' hatred of its policies, not of its freedoms, and especially "what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights."
To Arabs, this discovery is hardly Archimedean. To them it has always been self-evident: the Palestine problem, a legacy of Western colonialism as virulent today as it ever was, has always been the greatest single source of anti-Western sentiment in the region. So if Islamist terror now ranks as the greatest single contemporary threat to global order, and Iraq is its most profitable arena, Palestine must have a great deal to do with the political climate in which it took root.
In a recent video address, Osama bin Laden said that the spectacle of Israel's bombardment of Beirut during its 1982 invasion first inspired the idea of blowing up the World Trade Centre; an afterthought perhaps, but one born of the shrewd realization that such support as he commands among Muslim and Arab masses comes less from his messianic ideology than his identification of it with this most emblematic of Arab causes.
For Arabs, the remarkable thing is the way that, historically, the West has repeatedly ignored or overridden the centrality of Palestine in their psyche, with Iraq as the latest and most blatant example of it. True, the sickness that was Saddam Hussein's Iraq had its own origins and dynamics; and most Iraqis wanted by almost any means to be rid of him. But the more strategically or economically self-serving, badly managed, repressive, arrogant, bloody and chaotic the American-led "liberation" has turned out to be, the more it is perceived by Arabs and Iraqis as just another, quasi-colonial aggression in the history of Western interference in the region — as "another Palestine" in fact. Indeed, there is seen to be a direct, causal link between the two, in that the whole enterprise was from the outset as much Israeli as American in inspiration and purpose.
Blair himself saw that it would have been a very good idea to pave the way for Iraq with a serious attempt to persuade the Palestinians that redress was finally at hand; hence what later emerged as the "road map." But the pro-Israel, neoconservative hawks who drove US policy reversed these priorities; the road to Jerusalem, and peace in the holy land, lay through Baghdad. So what, for Blair, would have been merely prudent risk-avoidance before the war now, in his postwar revival of it, looks more like a desperate bid to salvage what can be salvaged from a grim Iraqi predicament.
Bush did promise to invest political capital on the Palestinian issue. But he was distinctly noncommittal about how. And in any case the whole history of Israeli-Palestinian peace-seeking suggests that, of all American presidents, Bush is just about
the last to listen, in any productive way, to what Blair — or
even those in his own administration — has to say.
It is not that American presidents have ever underestimated the importance of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Given that, at its core, it involves a very small proportion of mankind they have in fact lavished extraordinary amounts of time, energy and political resources in trying to resolve it. The real trouble is that, thanks to the partisanship noted in the Pentagon report, they can never acknowledge the real nature of the problem, which is essentially one of decolonization. So, far from opening new opportunities, Arafat's death is almost bound to merely reconfirm that congenital inability — though this time, because of Iraq, Al-Qaeda and their ramifications, in graver circumstances than ever before.
The history of the conflict so far is one massive Zionist gain versus proportionate Palestinian loss. If the Palestinians were to secure the redress that other colonized peoples have earned, there would either be no Israel — just as there is no French Algeria — or Israel would be a binational state — like South Africa — in which it would lose its exclusively Jewish identity. But the Palestinians are not demanding that. They have formally committed themselves, via Oslo, to the loss of 78 percent of their original homeland. If there ever is a settlement, this concession, unique in the history of European decolonization, would rank as by far the greatest contribution to it. Moreover, it was under Arafat's auspices that the Palestinians made it. Yet the Americans called him the "obstacle" to peace who — being corrupt and undemocratic to boot — had to be replaced by a "moderate," clean and democratic leadership that would persuade the Palestinians to give yet more — on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, the attributes of statehood — than they already have.
But a new leadership won't do that, least of all if it is clean and democratic, because, reflecting the popular will, it simply couldn't. That Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is no less an obstacle to peace than Arafat ever was, and that Israeli "moderation" is as necessary as the Palestinian variety, are thoughts that might occur to Bush. But they are not thoughts he would find politic to act upon. American Middle East policies have always been shaped more by domestic politics than by realities on the ground, and never more so than today.
Bush was re-elected in a campaign where candidates vied with one another in rejecting the very concept of "evenhandedness" as an affront to political morality and American devotion to Israel. He is deeply influenced by his neoconservative entourage, a pro-Israel lobby now dominated by right-wing "Likudnik" factions, and Christian fundamentalists who support as warlike and expansionist an Israel as possible, the faster to bring about the Second Coming.
Arabs wonder anxiously whether, in the headiness of re-election, Bush will embark on more of the Iraq-like enterprises envisaged in the neocons' grand design for the region. Continued, incorrigible partisanship on Palestine, combined with remorseless deterioration in Iraq, will certainly make it more likely. For, to America's growing exasperation, Iran, the other, more formidable Middle East member of the "axis of evil," can exploit the situation both in Palestine and in Iraq
Any showdown will almost certainly come over nuclear weapons, and the American and Israeli belief that Iran is about to get such weapons. That would be very dangerous, mainly because Israel already has them, is determined to preserve its monopoly and intimates that if the US doesn't do something about it, Israel will - an act liable to reduce Iraq to a case of merely moderate turbulence compared with the regional tempest that would ensue.
David Hirst was a Middle East correspondent of The Guardian, and is author of The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East.
Friday, December 17, 2004
Victory of the Neocons
The Neocons Haven't Won Yet
by Patrick J. Buchanan
December 15, 2004
With Bush's 51 percent victory, Colin Powell's departure, and the purge at CIA, many on the Old Right seem sunk in Bunyan's Slough of Despond. They assume the neoconservatives are now free to pursue war without end.
Yet, six weeks have now passed since Nov. 2, and there is as yet no conclusive evidence George Bush is looking to widen the war in Iraq or launch wars on other axis-of-evil nations. Consider:
With the recapture of Fallujah, U.S. generals have indicated a need for more troops to neutralize other strongholds and pacify the Sunni Triangle before January elections. John McCain told Meet the Press that we may need 40,000 to 50,000 more. In The Weekly Standard, Tom Donnelly and Vance Serchuk of AEI have called for an enlargement of the U.S. Army of 480,000 and pumping up defense spending from 4 percent to the 5 percent or 6 percent of GDP Reagan spent in the decisive years of the Cold War.
Why do we need the ground troops? Because, write Donnelly and Serchuk, our real war is "a contest between liberalism and radical Islam to supplant the crumbling autocracies that have dominated the region since the fall of the Ottoman Empire." Our war is about "preserving Pax Americana."
The neocons have in mind taking down Middle East regimes and occupying their nations with U.S. troops, who would train and fight with indigenous forces to crush insurgents who resist American "hegemony."
"[America] will continue to contribute the lion's share of the blood and treasure in the effort to transform the greater Middle East," write Donnelly and Serchuk, but it's "impossible to have a Bush Doctrine world with Clinton-era defense budgets. The problem for the United States is not imperial overstretch, it's trying to run the planet on the cheap."
To which some of us might respond: The problem for the United States is trying to run the planet in the first place.
What is critical, however, is not what neocons say, but what Bush does. And while he still rhapsodizes about democratizing the world, he has yet to will the actions to attain the neocons' ends. There is no evidence of any large imminent increase in U.S. forces, or of 40,000 more troops embarking for the Sunni Triangle, or of a Bush plan to raise defense spending to Donnelly's "$500 or $600 billion for the foreseeable future."
Consider Iran. Relying on reports from an exile group we once labeled terrorist, Powell has warned that Iran may be at work on a nuclear warhead for its Shahab-3 missile, which can reach Israel. The neocons and Sharonites have been howling for Bush to effect the nuclear castration of Iran by bombing now.
Yet, there is no evidence Iran is working on a warhead, or has built a bomb, or has the fissile material for a bomb or the operational facilities to create the weapons-grade uranium or plutonium needed for a bomb.
The heavy water plant at Arak that would produce plutonium does not come on-stream until 2014. And while Iran has apparently converted "yellowcake" to uranium hexaflouride, the first step in producing highly enriched uranium, there is no evidence Iran has constructed a cascade of thousands of centrifuges needed to extract critical U-235 from U-238 and enrich it to 90 percent.
Thus, Iran has no nuclear arsenal. And as President Bush has yet to warn us to brace for the consequences of a U.S. strike, it would appear his near-term agenda does not include a Bush Doctrine preventive war on the mullahs' regime.
The same seems true for North Korea. In that same Weekly Standard, AEI's Nick Eberstadt calls Bush's approach to Pyongyang "dangerously flawed." He urges the "readying [of] non-diplomatic instruments for North Korea threat reduction" – i.e., sanctions, blockade, air strikes, or invasion.
But again, there is no evidence Bush is contemplating any such action, which could ignite a Korean war we are unprepared to fight.
What appears to be happening is this: While there is no shortage of neocon war plans for a Pax Americana, President Bush is bumping up against reality – a U.S. Army tied down and bleeding in Iraq, the rising costs of war, soaring deficits, a sinking dollar, and an absence of allies willing to fight beside us or even help. He is facing the Vietnam dilemma.
Does he plunge deeper into Iraq in hope of victory, risking all, or cut his losses and revert to a more affordable, less ambitious foreign policy that secures the nation, but no longer seeks to convert the world to the American idea of democracy?
For 15 years, some of us have warned that if we fail to adopt a traditionalist foreign policy, the world will, to our humiliation, impose such a policy upon us.
Bush is at a crossroads. Conservatives, rather than wringing our hands, must re-engage the debate. All is not lost. All is never lost.
Yet, six weeks have now passed since Nov. 2, and there is as yet no conclusive evidence George Bush is looking to widen the war in Iraq or launch wars on other axis-of-evil nations. Consider:
With the recapture of Fallujah, U.S. generals have indicated a need for more troops to neutralize other strongholds and pacify the Sunni Triangle before January elections. John McCain told Meet the Press that we may need 40,000 to 50,000 more. In The Weekly Standard, Tom Donnelly and Vance Serchuk of AEI have called for an enlargement of the U.S. Army of 480,000 and pumping up defense spending from 4 percent to the 5 percent or 6 percent of GDP Reagan spent in the decisive years of the Cold War.
Why do we need the ground troops? Because, write Donnelly and Serchuk, our real war is "a contest between liberalism and radical Islam to supplant the crumbling autocracies that have dominated the region since the fall of the Ottoman Empire." Our war is about "preserving Pax Americana."
The neocons have in mind taking down Middle East regimes and occupying their nations with U.S. troops, who would train and fight with indigenous forces to crush insurgents who resist American "hegemony."
"[America] will continue to contribute the lion's share of the blood and treasure in the effort to transform the greater Middle East," write Donnelly and Serchuk, but it's "impossible to have a Bush Doctrine world with Clinton-era defense budgets. The problem for the United States is not imperial overstretch, it's trying to run the planet on the cheap."
To which some of us might respond: The problem for the United States is trying to run the planet in the first place.
What is critical, however, is not what neocons say, but what Bush does. And while he still rhapsodizes about democratizing the world, he has yet to will the actions to attain the neocons' ends. There is no evidence of any large imminent increase in U.S. forces, or of 40,000 more troops embarking for the Sunni Triangle, or of a Bush plan to raise defense spending to Donnelly's "$500 or $600 billion for the foreseeable future."
Consider Iran. Relying on reports from an exile group we once labeled terrorist, Powell has warned that Iran may be at work on a nuclear warhead for its Shahab-3 missile, which can reach Israel. The neocons and Sharonites have been howling for Bush to effect the nuclear castration of Iran by bombing now.
Yet, there is no evidence Iran is working on a warhead, or has built a bomb, or has the fissile material for a bomb or the operational facilities to create the weapons-grade uranium or plutonium needed for a bomb.
The heavy water plant at Arak that would produce plutonium does not come on-stream until 2014. And while Iran has apparently converted "yellowcake" to uranium hexaflouride, the first step in producing highly enriched uranium, there is no evidence Iran has constructed a cascade of thousands of centrifuges needed to extract critical U-235 from U-238 and enrich it to 90 percent.
Thus, Iran has no nuclear arsenal. And as President Bush has yet to warn us to brace for the consequences of a U.S. strike, it would appear his near-term agenda does not include a Bush Doctrine preventive war on the mullahs' regime.
The same seems true for North Korea. In that same Weekly Standard, AEI's Nick Eberstadt calls Bush's approach to Pyongyang "dangerously flawed." He urges the "readying [of] non-diplomatic instruments for North Korea threat reduction" – i.e., sanctions, blockade, air strikes, or invasion.
But again, there is no evidence Bush is contemplating any such action, which could ignite a Korean war we are unprepared to fight.
What appears to be happening is this: While there is no shortage of neocon war plans for a Pax Americana, President Bush is bumping up against reality – a U.S. Army tied down and bleeding in Iraq, the rising costs of war, soaring deficits, a sinking dollar, and an absence of allies willing to fight beside us or even help. He is facing the Vietnam dilemma.
Does he plunge deeper into Iraq in hope of victory, risking all, or cut his losses and revert to a more affordable, less ambitious foreign policy that secures the nation, but no longer seeks to convert the world to the American idea of democracy?
For 15 years, some of us have warned that if we fail to adopt a traditionalist foreign policy, the world will, to our humiliation, impose such a policy upon us.
Bush is at a crossroads. Conservatives, rather than wringing our hands, must re-engage the debate. All is not lost. All is never lost.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Hypocritical "Support of the Troops"
How We Really Could Support Our Troops
by Susan Lenfestey
by Susan Lenfestey
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune
...a gutsy soldier named Thomas Wilson asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld the question heard round the world about why some Guard units have to scrounge the dumps to find makeshift armor for their Humvees. And Rummy answered with the usual callous arrogance that he applies to any situation where his judgment is questioned or his ineptitude exposed.
His answer, along with his insistence that all's hunky-dory in Iraq -- even though the recently leaked CIA memo tells a very different story -- shows his utter lack of compassion for the lives of those he sends "into harm's way." (There's a doozy of a military euphemism.)...
His answer, along with his insistence that all's hunky-dory in Iraq -- even though the recently leaked CIA memo tells a very different story -- shows his utter lack of compassion for the lives of those he sends "into harm's way." (There's a doozy of a military euphemism.)...
Iraqi Elections Will Solve Nothing
Why Elections Won't Quell Iraq Resistance
by Molly Bingham
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Boston Globe
by Molly Bingham
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Boston Globe
The composition of the Iraqi resistance is not what the US administration has been calling it, and the more it is oversimplified the harder it is to explain its complexity.
I spent from August 2003 until June this year in Baghdad researching the resistance. That's obviously not a comprehensive study, but it does provide a more complete picture of the resistance than the administration's. My objective is not to romanticize the fighters or their fight, but merely to better understand what our realistic choices are in Iraq and the Middle East.
Here are some myths about the Iraqi resistance that need to be dispelled...
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Palestinian Elections
Update on the Palestinian Elections
Predictions about the January 9th Palestinian elections remain confused, even after the withdrawal of Marwan Barghouti as a candidate for president of the Palestinian Authority.
Even though there now seems little doubt that Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) will be elected on January 9th, the real question is whether he will be completely successful in ending Palestinian violence against Israelis. And even more important is whether he will be able to persuade the Israelis to end their unceasingly violent behavior towards the Palestinian population.
Israeli commentators are being unusually circumspect in judging the situation among the various Palestinian factions, hoping of course that there really will be an opening to peace, even on a limited scale.
The Sharon government so far has made only minor concessions in facilitating a successful Palestinian election. It has agreed to release 200 Palestinian prisoners out of the 8,000 they are holding as a gesture of good will to Egypt. It has agreed to allow voter registration on the West Bank and Gaza to proceed, but registering the 200,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem remains problematic. Israel wants to cut the Palestinian ties to East Jerusalem as much as possible. Sharon's government has announced that it will allow voting in East Jerusalem, but as in 1996, the number of voting places may be so limited that only a few thousand will be able to actually vote. The Israelis continue to re-issue resident permits in a very dilatory fashion, including those of American citizens of Palestinian birth and residence in East Jerusalem.
Despite this cloud over facilitating democracy in Palestine, the polls indicate that Mahmoud Abbas is likely to gain a clear majority.
Nonetheless, despite Marwan Barghouti's withdrawal, there will be confusion in the minds of some voters, particularly those in Gaza, who may vote for Dr. Mustafa Barghouti thinking they are voting for Marwan Barghouti. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti is much better known on the West Bank than he is in Gaza.
It should be noted that there are no important candidates in the race for president now representing those who wish to continue the intifada. But Marwan Barghouti, in withdrawing, made plain that he expected Abbas to continue the struggle.
Abbas is the candidate of choice for Israel and the United States, in expectation that he will end the violent response of Palestinians to the occupation. Only if Israel continues her violent retaliations and assassinations will Abbas face a situation where he may be unable to stop the young guerrillas who have been blooded in the most recent intifada.
The new Israeli national coalition government will also have strong contradictory impulses built into it, with Shimon Peres on one side and Ariel Sharon and the ultra-Orthodox Jewish colonists on the other. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for Sharon to step back and find other means than violent retaliation to respond to any major incidents. Abbas needs breathing room to build an effective security service. In the present atmosphere it seems almost impossible to conceive of joint Palestinian-Israeli patrols, an effective tool during the Oslo process.
Palestinian and Israeli commentators agree that Abu Mazen has so far made not a single misstep. He has even visited Kuwait, once a great supporter of the Palestinian cause, and apologized for the mistake the Palestine Liberation Organization made in 1990 by supporting Saddam Hussein.
It is interesting to compare the losses of civilians and "insurgents" in Iraq, which number some 15,000 to 20,000 in a population of 25 million. The Palestinian West Bank and Gaza population is about 1/10th of that. Palestinian families have lost the equivalent, when compared to Iraq, of 35,000 killed and some 200,000 hospitalized. More and more, the juxtaposition of Palestinian elections on January 9th and Iraqi elections on January 30th represents the most crucial test yet of the Bush doctrine of spreading democracy in the Middle East and around the world.
It is probably a safe bet that the Palestinian elections will be accompanied by much less violence than the elections in Iraq. But both elections are only the beginning of a very long and difficult phase in American relations with the Middle East.
Arnie's a MAN, not a GIRLIE-man!
Governor Tough Guy, At It Again
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Published on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Published on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
You may have heard the story.
You probably haven't felt the outrage.
You should.
Last week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger garnered another round of media attention by denigrating a group protesting outside of a conference at which he was speaking.
"Pay no attention to those voices," the muscleman governor told the audience at the conference. "Those are special interests. They're just angry because I kick their butts everyday."...
You probably haven't felt the outrage.
You should.
Last week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger garnered another round of media attention by denigrating a group protesting outside of a conference at which he was speaking.
"Pay no attention to those voices," the muscleman governor told the audience at the conference. "Those are special interests. They're just angry because I kick their butts everyday."...
1, 2, 3, 4! We Don't Want Your Bloody War!
[Time to revive the Moritoriums of the 1960s?]
Getting Out of Iraq: A Letter to the US Peace Movement
by Mike Kress
Published on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
America is now enmeshed, much like Israel, in a spiraling cycle of violence. For the sake of Iraq’s people and our nation’s future – and for the benefit of all humanity – we must end the occupation of Iraq. The question is, how?
Gene Sharp, a leading nonviolence educator and author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action, teaches that change is possible when a movement adopts a strategy that undermines a regime’s “pillars of support.” The Bush regime’s pillar of support in Iraq is the military. The peace movement’s adoption of a strategy that reduces first time military enlistments and the number of current service members willing to serve in Iraq could make the occupation unsustainable...
A New Peace Movement?
[Are Australians INTERESTED in Iraq any more? Maybe when our troops start getting killed in Dubya's "War to liberate Iraq", Ms Benjamin's ideas will find an audience here too]
Building Peace in a Time of Perpetual War
by Medea Benjamin
Published on Monday, December 13, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
by Medea Benjamin
Published on Monday, December 13, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
Immediately after George Bush declared victory on November 2, 2004, his administration gave the green light for an all-out attack on the Iraqi rebel town of Fallujah. The town was virtually leveled, hundreds of civilians were killed, and over 150,000 became desperate refugees suffering from hunger, cold and disease. And all this after Bush supposedly won the election because of his strong moral values!
During the first debate between George Bush and John Kerry, Bush made a pointed comment about moral values. "What distinguishes us from the terrorists," he said somberly, "is that we believe that every life is precious." But according to an October 2004 report in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, the US occupation of Iraq has cost the lives of over 100,000 Iraqis, mostly women and children...
The "Moral" Abusers
It's Time to Stop Being Hit
...In the meantime, while we reflect on what went wrong, I would like to pass on to you an essay that a friend who works with abuse victims sent to me. It was written by a woman who has spent years working as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse and she sees many parallels between her work and the reaction of many Democrats to last month’s election. Her name is Mel Giles and here is what she had to say:
Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the ‘new’ language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"
And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.
They will tell you: Every single day.
The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence.
As victims we can't stop asking ourselves what we did wrong. We can't seem to grasp that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating.
Listen to George Bush say that the will of God excuses his behavior. Listen, as he refuses to take responsibility, or express remorse, or even once, admit a mistake. Watch him strut, and tell us that he will only work with those who agree with him, and that each of us is only allowed one question (soon, it will be none at all; abusers hit hard when questioned; the press corps can tell you that). See him surround himself with only those who pledge oaths of allegiance. Hear him tell us that if we will only listen and do as he says and agree with his every utterance, all will go well for us (it won't; we will never be worthy).
And watch the Democratic Party leadership walk on eggshells, try to meet him, please him, wash the windows better, get out that spot, distance themselves from gays and civil rights. See the Democrats cry for the attention and affection and approval of the President and his followers. Watch us squirm. Watch us descend into a world of crazy-making, where logic does not work and the other side tells us we are nuts when we rely on facts. A world where, worst of all, we begin to believe we are crazy.
How to break free? Again, the answer is quite simple.
First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don't do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don't do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring its over faster and hurts less if you don't resist and fight back.
Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 57 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you've learned, and that you aren't going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 57 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it's better than the abuse.
We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered. We are 57 million strong. We are building from the bottom up. We are meeting, on the net, in church basements, at work, in small groups, and right now, we are crying, because we are trying to break free and we don't know how.
Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: Stop responding to the abuser.
Don't let him dictate the terms or frame the debate (he'll win, not because he's right, but because force works). Sure, we can build a better grassroots campaign, cultivate and raise up better leaders, reform the election system to make it fail-proof, stick to our message, learn from the strategy of the other side. But we absolutely must dispense with the notion that we are weak, godless, cowardly, disorganized, crazy, too liberal, naive, amoral, "loose,” irrelevant, outmoded, stupid and soon to be extinct. We have the mandate of the world to back us, and the legacy of oppressed people throughout history.
Even if you do everything right, they'll hit you anyway. Look at the poor souls who voted for this nonsense. They are working for six dollars an hour if they are working at all, their children are dying overseas and suffering from lack of health care and a depleted environment and a shoddy education.
And they don't even know they are being hit...
Fear and Freedom
The Price of Fear Is Paid in Lost Freedom
by Joel Agee
Published on Monday, December 13, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times
by Joel Agee
Published on Monday, December 13, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times
I told a friend I would be writing an essay about fear. He cautioned me, counseled me: "Don't say that our fears are groundless." He had heard me express the widespread opinion that in allowing ourselves to be governed by fear, we may be forfeiting our freedom.
Of course our fears are not groundless. Who would deny the threat of nuclear and biological war on our shores? And there are militant factions within three major religions that seem intent on fulfilling some prophecy of a final war between good and evil, certain that they and not their enemies are the children of light. What greater danger can be imagined?
But just for that reason it seems to me necessary to live without fear — to the extent that we are able, of course. This does not mean we should not protect ourselves from real dangers. It means we must be vigilant against the counsels of fear...
Monday, December 13, 2004
The Great Dilemma
There is a great dichotomy dominating sexuality in the "West," a love-hate relationship which will not die. We find a multi-billion dollar sex industry, assisted by the popularity of trash television, advertising, music videos and the rest, ranged against hypocritical Bible-thumpers - among whom, by the way, we also find the highest rates of teen pregnancy and divorce - who want to repress sexual pleasure.
