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Politicizing the War |
Current rating: 0 |
by Jonathan Schell
(No verified email address) |
28 May 2004
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"On Tuesday morning, a piece was torn out of our world. A patch of blue sky that should not have been there opened up in the New York skyline. In my neighborhood -- I live six blocks from the World Trade Center -- the heavens were raining human beings. Our city was changed forever. Our country was changed forever. Our world was changed forever." |
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The Nation, June 14, 2004
Many people (mostly Republicans) say (mostly to Democrats) that it's wrong to "politicize" the war in Iraq. But politicizing the war is exactly what should now occur. To be precise, those who oppose the war should politicize it as much as the Bush administration has already done. Politics is not just the activity of politicians; it is a democratic people's chief means of making basic decisions about its future. Such decisions -- whether the country's foreign policy will be imperial or democratic, whether the constitutional system will remain intact, whether the United States stands for or against torture -- are now before the electorate. In any case, it seems clear from the President's speech at the Army War College on May 24 that no basic change in US Iraq policy is likely before November 2. On the other hand, the entire direction of American politics is at stake on that day. To point this out is not to be indifferent to the welfare of the people of Iraq. For the shape of their future will also depend chiefly on the outcome of the election.
The beginning of realism is to acknowledge that the next step in the President's policy -- his promise of "full sovereignty" to Iraq -- is a cosmetic operation. The story of the war has been one of official claims or predictions dissolving upon contact with fact. Let's see how quickly I can run through the over-familiar list: Weapons of mass destruction in Saddam's Iraq? Not there. Iraqi ties with Al Qaeda before the war? Missing. Democracy in Iraq? Drowned in blood at Abu Ghraib. Transformation of the whole Middle East? For the worse.
The promise of "full sovereignty" is the next in this series (coming along just in time to refresh the litany). But in one way it's different. You had to wait some months for the previous mirages to dissipate, but this one is dead before arrival. It is a phrase advanced in the teeth of multiple admissions by the administration itself, which has let it be known that the new "sovereign" will not: possess authority over either American forces or its own; be able to pass legislation; control its own news media; make decisions about the economy of the country. Neither will it enjoy the authority of the "interim constitution" recently promised by Bush but now simply forgotten. Arguably, the new group will possess less authority even than the powerless existing "governing council." "Withdrawal of power" might be a better description than "transfer of power" for what is about to happen -- except that the governing council lacked real power in the first place. As for the election promised in January, this will be as uncertain, once the US election in November is out of way, as the interim constitution turned out to be.
What is at stake on June 30 has little to do with any reality in Iraq. In all important respects, American policy will remain the same. The Coalition Provisional Authority will be renamed an "embassy." (The President said, "Our embassy in Baghdad will have the same purpose as any other American embassy." This is true if the comparison is to, say, the American Embassy in Chile in 1971.) Some 138,000 -- or more -- troops will remain in the country, using, in the President's ominous words, "measured force or overwhelming force." The electricity, water and oil will stop and start as usual. The fighting will continue. Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis will jockey for power. The prison at Abu Ghraib will be torn down, but a new "modern maximum security prison" -- America's latest gift to Iraqi democracy -- will replace it (as if a building, not the people in it, had been torturing Iraqi prisoners.)
The changes that will occur are all in the realm of appearances. But they are not, for that reason, insignificant, for as the White House well knows, it is appearances that may determine the November election. The trick for the administration is to create, for a period of four months, an illusion that American policy is working. In this effort, there are at least four distinct fronts. One is the United Nations. Theoretically, its man Lakhdar Brahimi is choosing the country's next government. In actuality, he has become a key figure, however unintentionally, in George W. Bush's election effort. Now the United States and Britain have placed before the Security Council a draft resolution inviting the UN to give its blessing to the new order in Iraq. The UN is in danger of creating an aura of legitimacy and international control where none in fact exist. The draft permits the Security Council to "review" -- not "renew" -- the presence of the American and other foreign troops after a year. That is, the United States, wielder of a veto in the council, can keep its troops in Iraq as long as it wants.
The second front is the political leadership in Iraq, which is under intense pressure by the administration to play its part. What happens to defectors was recently illustrated by the treatment of the Pentagon's former favorite Iraqi, Ahmad Chalabi, who made the mistake of turning against the occupation, stating, "sovereignty is not to be given, it is to be seized." With a brutality that is the hallmark of this administration's approach to any opposition, an Iraqi force accompanied by Americans looted his office and home, breaking up furniture and smashing family photographs.
The third front is the American media. Its members should awaken to the fact that every time they use phrases like "handing over sovereignty" or "transition to democracy" they are misleading the public just as thoroughly as so many did when they accepted at face value the administration's claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
A final front is the administration's Democratic opposition, which is hobbled by Senator John Kerry's own "stay the course" position. Perhaps he is simply following the old political rule that when your opponent is destroying himself by his own efforts, you should stay out of the way. However, by failing to challenge the President on the war, he risks himself becoming a kind of unwilling accessory to the White House propaganda maneuvers.
The UN should not abandon the people of Iraq; neither, of course, should the leadership of Iraq; American reporters should not become partisans of the Democratic Party; and John Kerry should not adopt any view on the war simply to bait his rival. But all of them should be aware that, to whatever extent they give credence to the charade on June 30, they are above all else assisting in the re-election of the President.
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This is a Jonathan Schell "Letter from Ground Zero" column from the Nation magazine. Many of Schell's Ground Zero columns since 9/11/2001 have just been collected into a book, A Hole in the World, An Unfolding Story of War, Protest and the New American Order (Nation Books). Schell, the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute, is also the author of The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People among many other books. |
See also:
http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1462
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This work is in the public domain |
Comments
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Re: Politicizing the War |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
28 May 2004
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It is my hope that the dems make the war an issue. Republicans will simply remind the voters of the failure of the prior adminstration to do anything to hunt down the terrorist's since the Carter Adminstration.
We will change soccer moms to national security moms.
I guess you can't use the economy as an issue now. The tax cuts did their job. You have no other ideas except universal health care (That's new) and gay marriage. What a platform.
Jack |
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Kerry Surges Ahead in 12 Crucial Swing States as Bush Poll Ratings Plummet |
by Andrew Buncombe
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
28 May 2004
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George Bush has had a warning shot from the crucial battleground states likely to decide the outcome of the presidential election where his rival John Kerry is surging ahead.
Less than six months from election day, polls suggest that Mr Kerry is leading the President in 12 of the 16 so-called swing states. In some states the lead is slight, but in places such as New Hampshire, which Mr Bush won in 2000, Mr Kerry has a lead of almost 10 per cent.
Though polls offer only a snapshot in time, pollster John Zogby, who made the latest survey, said if the present leads in these 16 states hold true - and Democrats and Republicans hold on to the states each party won easily in 2000 - Mr Kerry will win with a margin of 102 electoral college votes. In 2000, Mr Bush beat Al Gore by 271 to 267.
"I have made a career of taking bungee jumps in my election calls," Mr Zogby wrote in an op-ed article. "Here is my jump for 2004: John Kerry will win the election ... We are unlikely to see any big bumps for either candidate because opinion is so polarized and, I believe, frozen in place. There are still six months to go and anything can happen. But as of today, this race is John Kerry's to lose."
The battleground states, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin, are likely to prove crucial in deciding who carries the day on 2 November. Republican and Democrat strategists know that in at least 30 states, along with the District of Columbia, the outcome of the vote is a foregone conclusion. But in the battleground states - which were won in 2000 by six percentage points or less - everything is up for grabs.
Not surprisingly, this is where both sides are focusing much of their efforts, and trying to fine-tune their campaigns to reflect local issues, be it the controversial proposal to use Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a nuclear waste dump or else the issue of "guest worker" status for immigrants in heavily Hispanic New Mexico.
The poll of these 16 states will have shaken the President's strategists. As they have watched his approval rating sink to between 41 and 47 per cent - the lowest of his Presidency - his aides say that in the battleground states, the President has the advantage. This new poll suggests that is not the case.
"If these numbers are correct, the Republicans are probably disappointed," Ken Goldstein, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said.
Some analysts attribute Mr Kerry's surge to biographical ads in these 16 states at a cost of $25m. Experts say they appear to have helped him recover from negative ads paid for by the Republicans which criticized his voting record in Congress and questioned his national security credibility. Adam Clymer, the political director of the National Annenberg Election Survey, told USA Today: "Kerry has been doing better lately in the battleground states, and my guess is his ads are very important in that."
At a national level Mr Bush and Mr Kerry are extremely tight and both sides agree that with the country so heavily polarized, the election is going to be close-run. Another poll, by Gallup, places Mr Kerry ahead of the President by 49 to 47, a statistical tie. This is the third poll in which the candidates have been separated by less than the margin of error.
Matthew Dowd, the Bush senior political strategist, said: "I didn't trust the readings on the states that said we were up or said we were down," he said. "I don't think the race has changed much, and I don't think ads are having much of an effect, given all the other news."
Given the impact that issues such as Iraq appear to be having on voters, strategists agree Mr Bush is far more of a victim to events than his rival. With no apparent end to the violence in Iraq, the President has seen his approval rating drop, and drop. Mr Bush's best hopes are for continued improvement in the economy, and that transferring sovereignty to Iraq results in a reduction in violence and enables withdrawal of US troops.
© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
http://news.independent.co.uk |
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Re: Politicizing the War |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
29 May 2004
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With all due respect fo Mr. Zogby, he did predict that Carol Mosley Braun would defeat Peter Fitzgerald in Illinois.
Much can happen in six months and I do have faith that the American people will not vote for a slogan that says" We will fight the war smarter".
Now I know that the revolutionist on this web site will most likely vote for Nadar or the Green Party candidate (whoever that is) The Republican Vote will be at 43% and that is a given. While I suspect that we need to get more women to vote for Bush, I suspect that this will occur as a result of the exploding economy which heretofore that media has successfully hidden.
If we can overcome the complete and absolute leftist media bias, I predict a 19080- election in which we were tied with Carter ten days prior to the vote and Reagan won by 10 percentage points.
As a reminder, his policies went on to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War and freed over 50 million people from slavery.
I also predict that this article will be hidden.
Jack |
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