The ‘Dems do war better’ campaign
By Jeremy Scahill
Aug. 24 — On the closing night of the Democratic National
Convention in Boston, John Kerry took to the podium, raised his hand
in a military salute and declared, “I’m John Kerry, and I’m
reporting for duty.”
There couldn’t have been a more fitting end to the convention and
the official launching of Kerry’s bid for the White House. Since
September 11 and the start of George W. Bush’s “war on terror,”
Kerry has consistently reported for duty. In fact, Kerry has served
as one of Bush’s top legislative foot soldiers.
During the DNC in Boston, former President Bill Clinton extolled Kerry’s
virtues, firing up the house with a rhetorical riff about how John Kerry
has always said “Send me!” when asked by Uncle Sam to do his
duty, from his service in Vietnam to the his career in the Senate. Kerry,
the crowd was told, has always said...dramatic pause...(everyone in
unison now) “Seeeend Meee!”
Let’s pick up where Clinton left off. When President Bush asked
Senators to vote for the USA Patriot Act, John Kerry said, “Send
Me!” When he asked for a blank check to attack Afghanistan, John
Kerry said, “Send Me!” When Bush looked for senators to make
fraudulent claims about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction,
Kerry said, “Send Me!” When the president looked for Senate
approval to invade Iraq, Kerry said, “Send Me!” When Bush
sought more support for Israel’s apartheid wall, Kerry said, “Send
Me!”
With all of the bashing of Ralph Nader for having the audacity to run
for president and the Democrats continuing to blame him for Bush taking
power, it is important to note that Kerry did not say, “Send Me!”
when the Congressional Black Caucus needed one senatorial signature
to reopen the question of the illegitimate 2000 elections.
The Boston convention was a meticulously orchestrated show. Speeches
were vetted, the slightest anti-war message relegated to a non-primetime
slot and party dissidents kept off the platform. But under the tons
of confetti, balloons and printed signs cheering on Kerry, there was
tremendous frustration and disillusionment among the 4,300 delegates
inside.
Several polls indicated that 9 out of 10 delegates were anti-war. Yet,
the vast majority of the speeches, particularly those given in primetime,
did not reflect those sentiments. In their major addresses in Boston,
both Kerry and John Edwards called for more US troops and a doubling
of Special Forces. Bush was not criticized for invading and occupying
Iraq — he was bashed for how he did it. The message was, “Dems
do war better.”
So marginalized was the peace camp at the DNC that some Kucinich delegates
had their signs confiscated or were told to remove their pink scarves
that read, “Peace Delegate.” Medea Benjamin from Code Pink
was dragged off the floor of the convention by police for holding up
a pink banner reading: “End the Occupation of Iraq.” That
apparently was not one of DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe’s approved
messages for the day.
Not one speaker at the podium inside the convention said anything about
the razor-wired “protest pen” outside the convention that
one federal judge called an “internment camp.” There was no
mention either of the camouflaged US Army reserve soldiers around the
convention’s perimeter, patrolling bridges and train overpasses.
So much for posse comitatus.
What is clear is that disgust and outrage at the Bush administration
is so severe that the Democrats could field Mr. Potato Head and he’d
get about as much support as Kerry.
This year could have marked a watershed moment in US history. The Democratic
Party could have run on a real anti-war platform with a real anti-war
candidate who would stand a good chance of winning in November. The
message to the world would have been significant. Instead, the hawkish
Democratic leadership successfully pushed through a candidate out of
step with the vast majority of his supporters who just want to end one
of the most violent and repressive administrations in US history. Such
is the state of our democracy.
With John Kerry on the ticket, the Democrats have ensured a victory
in November for the small but powerful pro-war special interest. Kerry
is their sleeper, their private Manchurian candidate. They face a win-win
scenario. Even if Kerry wins, the initial euphoria sparked by a Bush-free
White House will eventually be replaced by this reality: no matter what
Kerry and Edwards may have said from the podium in Boston, for most
of the world neither help nor hope is really on the way.
Still, Kerry has won significant backing from many genuine progressives
who are part of the “Anybody But Bush” movement. They argue
that the work begins Nov. 3, once Bush is out of office and Kerry, who
is characterized as someone who will at least listen, is in power.
It’s not that a Kerry administration wouldn’t implement some
significantly different policies from Bush’s. But a Kerry victory
will not bring significant change to the system.
After the defeat of Bush’s father in 1992, Bill Clinton’s
policies paved the way for many of the international and domestic horror
stories we now see unfolding. His devastating welfare-reform policy
and his Omnibus Crime Bill were practically pulled from Newt Gingrich’s
playbook. Clinton’s telecommunications policy, like George W. Bush’s,
supported further media consolidation. His 1996 anti-terror legislation
paved the way for the Patriot Act. He presided enthusiastically over
the most deadly regime of economic sanctions in history and began the
longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam in the so-called “No-fly
Zones” in Iraq. He scorned the United Nations and bombed Yugoslavia
for 78 days.
Clinton attacked Afghanistan and bombed a pharmaceutical plant in the
Sudan. He tightened the blockade against Cuba and pushed through NAFTA,
which sacrificed worker and environmental rights in favor of corporate
profits. During the demonstrations outside of the Fleet Center in Boston,
protesters from the Bl(a)ck Tea Society set fire to a two-faced effigy
of Bush and Kerry. Perhaps that message is not ready for most living
rooms in the US But in a few years, it could be prophetic.
Jeremy Scahill is a reporter and producer for the national radio and
TV show Democracy Now!
Source: RNC edition of The Indypendent
Americans need to connect the dots
By John Janney
Aug. 27-- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appointed the members
of the Independent Panel to investigate the causes for the infamous
prisoner abuse scandals and provide advice for what actions the Department
of Defense can take to help prevent such incidents in the future.
Rumsfeld can start by firing Lt. Gen. William Boykin.
Boykin was the subject of another recently released report which faulted
the evangelical general for failing to preface his church speeches with
a disclaimer stating that his views, spoken while in uniform and after
being introduced by his rank and position, were not necessarily those
of the Department of Defense. The Boykin report also faulted the crusading
commander for failing to clear the content of his church speeches, which
was the central concern of this scandal.
However, the authors of the Boykin report disavowed themselves from
the responsibility of judging the inappropriateness of his bigoted tirades
in front of thousands of impressionable churchgoers, leaving such judgments
at the feet of his superiors. When asked about content preached from
Boykin’s pulpits, Rumsfeld the superior simply shot back: “We’re
a free people.”
Like the 9/11 Commission and Boykin reports, the prisoner abuse report
fails to scratch the surface under which the core causes reside. The
American government establishes investigative bodies for the purposes
of pointing the public away from the roots of scandals, thus maintaining
the appearance of blamelessness.
Public outrage over the Enron, Halliburton, 9/11 intelligence, Iraqi
WMD mis-intelligence, USA PATRIOT Act, civil liberties violations, massive
racial and religious profiling and detentions, Guantanamo human rights
violations, military tribunals, enemy combatant declarations, Boykin
church speeches, and Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandals somehow failed
to prompt these pseudo-investigators to connect the dots between these
scandals. Such connections made public would be a blow to the basic
beliefs of our society and would cause us to question the motivations
of our government.
The Boykin affair is a perfect example.
The authors of the Boykin report steered clear of the fact that the
general traveled the country telling churches that George W. Bush was
appointed by God to defend America, that he was raising a spiritual
army of Christians to destroy the Muslim terrorists whose commander
is Satan, that Muslims hate America because it is a Christian nation
and so many other comments that crossed well understood lines of acceptable
speech while wearing a military uniform. Instead, they focused their
energies towards determining if Boykin committed administrative violations
in the pursuit of defaming Islam and Muslims before twenty-three congregations.
Muslims feeling the brunt of Boykin’s two-year anti-Islam rampage
are surely sleeping soundly tonight knowing this menace managed to properly
fill out his paperwork while using his official government position
to spread hatred of Muslims in the minds of religious communities across
America.
Another recently released report from the California Senate Office of
Research detailing hate crimes issues facing the state provide alarming
statistics. During the time Boykin was running amuck with his Muslim-bashing
sermons, hate crimes against Muslims in California alone increased by
2333.3 percent. This number does not include six murders of Muslims
in California. Of course, we are to rest comfortably in the mis-realization
that Boykin-like behavior and rising hate crime statistics are not related.
Boykin is in charge of military intelligence, under whose command the
Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo concentration camp scandals arose.
Perhaps he is escaping liability due to the fact, as we learn from the
misdirecting Boykin report, that President Bush personally nominated
Boykin to receive his third star. A fact not lost on the observant,
especially considering the evangelical ideology both share and how these
views are used to paint America as the Christian good and all others
as the Muslim evil.
Boykin was previously in charge of the “training, educating, and
developing doctrine” for the Army. This explains much in how easy
it was for soldiers under his command to commit such atrocities. After
all, it is really not abuse if the enemy is reduced to a subhuman classification,
such as “evil.” Under this ideology, supported by Rumsfeld
and Bush, soldiers are not committing human rights violations. Evil
is not human, and therein lies the crux of the problem when placing
conflicts in religious terms and determining the enemy as the antithesis
of our self-declared goodness.
Perhaps there should be a citizen-run commission established to investigate
the connection of all these issues, their impact on the world and ways
to release the people from the tyranny of fear and hatred being thrust
upon us.
John Janney is a Washington, DC area writer, speaker and activist.
Source: CommonDreams.org
