Peace Is Not Presidential: The Candidates On The Pentagon
The war in Iraq is a failure. The “Global War on Terror” cannot be won by military might alone. Access to health care is a right for all. The growing divide between rich and poor is a problem. Torture is un-American.
The Democratic candidates for president - both mainstream and long shots — tend to agree on these and many other issues that position them as smart and compassionate alternatives to the policies and priorities of President George W. Bush and his administration. But on the one issue that profoundly impacts all of the above, there is not enough difference. Most Democratic candidates for president speak of increasing rather than slashing the military budget.
Since President Bush came into office in 2001, the Pentagon’s budget has increased by more than one-third. The $481 billion proposed for 2008 - the $459 billion appropriations plus the nuclear weapons programs of the Department of Energy - is a jump of more than 10% over current spending. To be clear, this is a huge figure even before factoring in the costs of military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in under the “Global War on Terror.” A recent analysis of the emergency supplemental budgets to pay for the war by the Congressional Research Service finds that (so far) a total of another $607 billion has been spent since September 11, 2001.
The United States is currently spending more on the military than at the height of the Reagan military build-up (when we had a nuclear-armed superpower rival) or during the Vietnam or Korean wars. Thanks to the Bush administration, the United States now spends about as much on its military as the rest of the world spends collectively, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Given these figures — and the fact that preponderant military spending has not equaled an unassailable military or the fulfillment of the Bush administration’s objectives — there is plenty of fodder for Democratic candidates wishing to take on the Bush administration’s love affair with the Pentagon. In the 2008 military budget, the White House showed its devotion to weapons manufacturers and its disdain for men and women in uniform by packing the “reconstituting the forces” area of the budget with $51 billion in weapons that are not only not worn out by the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan — but aren’t even relevant. There is money for 20 F-22 tactical aircraft originally designed to engage Soviet fighter planes in high-speed aerial dogfights. Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia does not have any fighter planes. Among other useless programs was $74 million to continue research on an unmanned spy plane that is years away from being fielded.
A Tale of Two Budgets
While this administration justifies the spending as necessary to fight the terrorists over there so that we don’t face them here, the numbers tell a different story — a story of two separate military budgets.
The first is bursting with billions for new fighter planes, nuclear powered submarines, and ballistic missile components. This is the budget that has propelled spiraling profits for weapons manufacturing companies like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
The other military budget is plagued with the belt-tightening we usually see in education and social service programs. The Army suffered a $530 million shortfall in 2006 that led to cuts at military hospitals and no new money for medical research on key procedures like dealing with traumatic brain injuries - the signature of the improvised-exposive-devise war in Iraq.
All the Democrats who wish to sit behind the desk in the Oval Office criticize the administration for not providing ammunition, communication systems, armored vehicles and helicopters to U.S. soldiers in the field. They also take Bush to task for always leading with the Pentagon and not providing enough support to the State Department’s non-military counter-terrorism programs. After $20 million was slashed from their counter-terrorism program budget in 2007, the State Department is requesting only $150 million for 2008. Its highly touted Regional Strategic Initiative, bringing together different agencies to collaborate on the ground, is getting a mere $1 million each year — the kind of money the Pentagon loses in its sofa cushions every week.
What the Candidates Say
But, in most cases, the Democrats are not taking the next step to say that the United States does not need to spend more on the military, it needs to spend smarter. Of the leading Democratic candidates, only John Edwards has identified specific weapons systems he would red-line. In a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations on May 23, 2007, Edwards vowed to root out “cronyism and waste” while “increasing efficiency in the Pentagon” and investing “substantial additional resources into maintenance of our [military] equipment.” He also said that if elected, “I would direct my Secretary of Defense to launch a comprehensive, tough review of fraud, waste and abuse-and put an end to it. One example is missile defense and offensive space based weapons, which are costly and unlikely to work.”
Pursuing this strategy as president would mean taking on the military industrial complex, which has been living high-on-the-hog throughout the Bush administration. It would be an up-hill battle, but one worth pursuing.
Obama has not talked about cutting the military budget. In fact, when asked recently in Cedar Rapids if he would cut the military budget, he responded: “Actually, you’ll probably see an initial bump in military spending in an Obama administration.” He went on to explain that those resources would be used to “reset” forces worn out by war in Iraq and to cover adding as many as 80,000 soldiers and Marines to the U.S. military.
Senator Hillary Clinton is proud to be the first New York senator to serve on the Armed Services Committee and tends to over-compensate for her gender and her husband’s reputation (deserved or not) as anti-military by being uncritically pro-military. She has also gotten behind the idea of increasing the size of U.S. forces: “I have joined other Democrats and Republicans in proposing that we expand the Army by 80,000 troops, that we move faster to expand the Special Forces, and do a better job of training and equipping the National Guard and Reserves.”
None of these front-running candidates has identified the short- or long-term costs of adding troops, where the money would come from, or — perhaps most importantly — the missions these troops would be engaged in once the Democratic leadership succeeds in “bringing them home.”
Department of Peace?
Dennis Kucinich, the representative from Ohio, is considered a very long shot for President. In fact, Edwards and Clinton found common ground a while back in wanting to limit future debates to what Edwards called a “more serious group.” Kucinich consistently calls for a more limited and defensive role for the U.S. military and putting more resources into diplomacy and global engagement. His Department of Peace is one indication of the kind of vision his candidacy embraces.
There is no Department of Peace in any of the GOP platforms, but their efforts to strike a different posture than Bush and company do not include a radical re-vamp of the Pentagon budget or taking on the weapons manufacturers who reap the benefits of a war-without-end strategy. Despite John McCain’s prisoner-of-war credibility, Rudy Giuliani’s 9/11-forged patriotism, and Mitt Romney’s neo-Republican suave, they and most of the other Republican hopefuls are not promoting a set of policies that would spend less for more security. Only the libertarian “maverick” Ron Paul is calling for smaller budgets - even the military budget - as a first step to smaller government and challenges the wisdom of a “war on terrorism” by calling it a “vague declaration.”
The Unified Security Budget for the United States, a joint effort of Foreign Policy In Focus and the Center for Defense Information, outlines $62 billion in cuts to the military budget and another $52 billion that can be added to budgets for diplomacy, emergency response, infrastructure and other non-military defensive tools. Their 38-page report should be required reading for any presidential contender who is serious about charting a more secure and peaceful course for the United States in the decades to come.
FPIF columnist Frida Berrigan is a senior program associate at the Arms and Security Project of the New America Foundation.
© 2007 Foreign Policy In Focus
To reduce the money going to the Pentagon we will have to change our foreign policy. That won’t happen as long as corporations run the government.
Hoa binh
One more reason, to vote for Dennis Kucinich. No one believes the MSM, so why do they believe THEIR polls?
Kucinich 2008
It’s called a self fulfilling prophesy. If people quit saying “Kucinich can’t win” then maybe he will win. Try it!
Hey, progressives to my south. Dennis should be the only candidate you folks consider. His history, his honesty, his integrity, his positions of the issues — all these set him apart from the rest of the field. (Apologies to Gravel, who is progressive on many issues, but whose tax plan is more than a bit loopy.)
The trouble with being the 800 pound gorilla in the neighborhood is that we act like one.
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Consider the Aztecs. They were the greatest civilization and the greatest bully in the Americas until Cortez showed up with a small band of ruffians and destroyed it all. None of the vassel states came to the Aztecs’ aid.
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Do we have so many friends that we can afford to make global enemies?
For years I’ve thought of many things that might save this country. I finally realized I was looking in the wrong direction. It isn’t the idiots pretending to run the country we need to worry about. As hoa binh says in the first message, it’s the corporations pulling their strings we need to be looking at.
I was born when the country was at the tail end of the Great Depression, and maybe we should all look back to that event. It really leveled the playing field.
People keep saying “Kucinich can’t win” because they’re corporate bitches….whether they know it or not
Lesser-evilism, electability, corporate controlled sheep bitches
I fail to see the difference between their sheep and ours….both are fear oriented, non-thinking corporate controlled pod people
Any “Democrat” pod who would support candidates like the WalMart Witch, the Iranian Obomba, AIPAC Edwards have no right to say anything about the Republican pods supporting their garbage.
They can’t see it…these Democrats pots calling the Republican kettles black…mores the pity
There’s a consensus in this country that our national interests extend to all parts of the world and that we have a right to defend our national interest in any way that we choose.
As long as that consensus lasts, it’s unlikely that we’ll get much of a real reduction in ‘defense’ spending.
Has anyone considered that these candidates may be barking mad?
It makes no rational sense to have the military equiped to fight world war against non existant enemies.
This military cannot fight successfully against an insurgency in Iraq.
Yes, they must be barking mad; we just don’t appreciate their mental derangement, yet.
It’s called a self fulfilling prophesy. If people quit saying “Kucinich can’t win” then maybe he will win. Try it!
oaxaca…WELL SAID!—And Very True. The excuse in 2004 was that Dennis (again) was not electable. And, back then, there was a dangerous juvenile delinquent running for re-election that we ALL wanted the hell out of there, and the stakes were too high as the campaign neared the end.
So what happened? Korporate Kerry folded like a soggy French (oops!) fry and showed his cowardly colors.
Damnit! We ain’t got no stinkin’ Bushit running this go ’round; there’s not a Repug with a chance in hell of winning; we have “tell-em-what-they-wanna-hear Hillary; Pakistan bombing Bama; and Billionaire Edwards. PLEASE!
Eliminate these corporate cows and–do the math–D.K. is front-runner!
How can ANYONE call themselves Progressive and even consider one of the above?!
Read the following: http://www.dehp.net/candidate/
All to Relevant Quote:
How is the World Ruled & how do wars start?
Diplomats tell lies to journalists & then believe what they read.
(Karl Kraus, Austrian Press,1874-1936)
In view of the absurdity of the ill conceived plan to provides arms to the Saudis & others in this volatile region, and the history of other comparable policies of this administration, one can only conclude that the arms merchants are instrumental in its conception.
General Eisenhower’s warnings concerning the dangers of the military industrial complex were preceded by Albert Einstein in 1932 when he cited munition makers as the main thrust for war machines. Warnings concerning the need to scrutinize such misadventures by the executive branch had earlier been made by John Adams and other constitutional framers.
Unfortunately this war is an example of the neglect and/or ignorance of pertinent history, along with the profiteering motives. Such misguided disasters can occur only when a compliant & apathetic populace allows their legislators to tolerate these types of abuses from arrogant and unlearned administrations guided by special interests.
All of this money goes to destroy and cripple human beings. It is a tragic mistake. One Presidential Candidate - Dennis Kucinch wants to create a department of peace. He wants to help people, not kill them. The corrupt US establishment is doing everything they can to downplay his popularity.
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Find out which candidate shares your views:
http://www.dehp.net/candidate/index.php
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CLEVELAND, OH – In the political equivalent of a “blind taste test” taken by more than 67,000 participants, an independent website surveying public attitudes on various issues is reporting that Ohio Congressman and Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is the first choice of a phenomenal 53% of respondents.
No other candidate, Democrat or Republican, even reaches double digits.
http://www2.kucinich.us/node/4871
If issues were more important than popularity/celebrity status, Kucinich would win the nomination in a landslide
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KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT!
Kucinich can win — it’s the job of the reporters to snicker every time his name is mentioned, as do the mediawhores like Dana Millbank who shows up every night on Countdown to counteract the influence of a Keith Olbermann, who might actually give Kucinich a fair hearing.
Kucinich could win, if the DLC & its major underwriters were mysteriously crippled or excluded.
But it’s the system of economic relations which, unchanged, obliges the ssytem to function as it does. No people’s tribune will alter those — they have to be altered first.
Obama has never said he would invade and occupy Iran or Pakistan. He said he leaves all options on the table, which is a reasonable position if you consider the fact that Iran is run by a theocracy that denies the Holocaust ever occured, and Pakistan is a military dictatorship(since 1999) that has utterly failed to act against the Taliban inside its own borders. Unless the United States is taking the side of the Taliban, what is wrong with acting on intelligence to prevent the Taliban from overrunning Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Obama should be praised for calling for the need for a ‘democratic ally’ in Pakistan, not just an ‘ally’. If the United States had worked with the democratically elected government of Palestine, (Hamas), instead of refusing to engage with them maybe Gaza would not be in a state of turmoil today. Why is K Street opposed to engagement with democratically engaged political parties and the idea of a democratically engaged public in states like Palestine, Lebanon, and Pakistan? Vested interest in war? Why was Al Sadr declared a ‘criminal’ by Paul Bremer for having a political militia, just like everyone else. Think about who wins out the longer wars go on. Every time political parties engage in a democratic path they get screwed by America. And who gets left holding the stick? The Monarchy in Saudi Arabia, the national security state of Israel (founded on David’s Star, and in many ways a theocracy), the dictatorships in Egypt and Syria.
Obama’s speech is refreshing because it asserts we will work with whoever is elected, with no preconditions. That’s a foreign policy that makes sense and that encourages democratic negotiations to occur within societies. The naive pacifism of “Big Pimping” Kucinich to pull out of Afghanistan and the word games of phony antiwar critics who say Obama would invade and occupy Pakistan or Iran the same way Clinton, Edwards, Biden, and Dodd voted to invade and occupy Iraq is disingenuous at best and the same kind of disinformation we were fed by the mainstream media in the lead up to war in Iraq at worst.
Obama said we would act against regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which if you read the news today, are not governed by either country, but by the Taliban. That’s the problem, the Taliban openly harbored Bin Laden; Saddam Hussein, as terrible as he was, did not. The Right War at the Wrong Time, is still the Wrong War.
Progressives should not defend Saddam Hussein and what he stood for because “at least he was secular”. Hitler was “secular” too. The reality is that sooner or later action was going to be taken against Hussein, but that in 2002 the Hussein regime had cooperated with weapon inspections, was not harboring Al Qaeda, and while a threat to national security, was not on the eve of attacking the United States or Iraq’s neighbors, (though they had in the past and should have been taken out in the first Gulf War). And the fact is, the argument for invasion and occupation was not democratization, but violation of UN declarations, who knows how a war to democratize would have played, but it was not seriously cited. And in the post-Hussein Iraq we have not taken democratically engaged political parties inside Iraq, (or Palestine), seriously- note the hydrocarbon law the folks at the State Department are shoving down their throats, the Bush notion that the capital must be in Baghdad, the failure of de-Baathification in the delivery of social services, (the witholding of funds for Hamas), etc. As long as the United States is de facto police and the strongest political party in Iraq, who is going to make the laws? what is the point of Iraqis voting for anybody? what are the incentives of Iraqi political leaders to align themselves with the American ‘vision’? Do some reading on the ‘tenancy’ of the East India Company on the Subcontinent. Hell, do some reading on the loyalists who lived in prerevolutionary America.
“The exodus of roughly one hundred thousand loyalists from what became the United States between 1775 and 1784, often after the expropriation of their property, eliminated perhaps one-third of the thousand largest prerevolutionary wealthholders.”
(Kevin Phillips, ‘Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich’, (New York: Broadway, 2002), 12.)
Nobody wants to sign on to get screwed. And we routinely screw over democratic parties in this region of the world. We can change that by allowing Iraqis to decide and the best way to do that is to give them control of their own security, and invoke timelines, not to ‘go big’ in 2007.
Obama is the candidate of change. Read his speech. Consider history. Do you want America to turn its back on the Taliban and let them gain control of Pakistan and Afghanistan? Who voted for them? No one ever voted for the Taliban. American progressives should not take the side of ‘the lesser evil’ of Monarchy (Saudi Arabia), Military Dictatorhsips (Egypt, Syria, Pakistan since 1999) and Theocracies or states whose identities are exclusively religious and colonial (Israel, Iran, and the Taliban) if we identify ourselves with equality before the law, constitutional rights we fight for, and other basic democratic rights. We can’t keep screwing over the legitimately elected governments, minority parties, and deny apartheid occupation in these countries and have any moral standing in the world. We don’t need Kucinich isolationism, we need engagment that brings out the best in us. That’s why I support Obama.
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.event&event_id=269510
“We must not, however, repeat the mistakes of Iraq. The solution in Afghanistan is not just military – it is political and economic. As President, I would increase our non-military aid by $1 billion. These resources should fund projects at the local level to impact ordinary Afghans, including the development of alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers. And we must seek better performance from the Afghan government, and support that performance through tough anti-corruption safeguards on aid, and increased international support to develop the rule of law across the country.
Above all, I will send a clear message: we will not repeat the mistake of the past, when we turned our back on Afghanistan following Soviet withdrawal. As 9/11 showed us, the security of Afghanistan and America is shared. And today, that security is most threatened by the al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary in the tribal regions of northwest Pakistan.
Al Qaeda terrorists train, travel, and maintain global communications in this safe-haven. The Taliban pursues a hit and run strategy, striking in Afghanistan, then skulking across the border to safety.
This is the wild frontier of our globalized world. There are wind-swept deserts and cave-dotted mountains. There are tribes that see borders as nothing more than lines on a map, and governments as forces that come and go. There are blood ties deeper than alliances of convenience, and pockets of extremism that follow religion to violence. It’s a tough place.
But that is no excuse. There must be no safe-haven for terrorists who threaten America. We cannot fail to act because action is hard.
As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.
I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.
And Pakistan needs more than F-16s to combat extremism. As the Pakistani government increases investment in secular education to counter radical madrasas, my Administration will increase America’s commitment. We must help Pakistan invest in the provinces along the Afghan border, so that the extremists’ program of hate is met with one of hope. And we must not turn a blind eye to elections that are neither free nor fair – our goal is not simply an ally in Pakistan, it is a democratic ally.”- Barack Obama
Find out which candidate shares your views:
http://www.dehp.net/candidate/index.php
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CLEVELAND, OH – In the political equivalent of a “blind taste test” taken by more than 67,000 participants, an independent website surveying public attitudes on various issues is reporting that Ohio Congressman and Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is the first choice of a phenomenal 53% of respondents.
UPDATE!!! 100,000+ have now taken the survey and Kucinich is Waaaaaaaaaaaay ahead!!! This PROVES that D.K. has the pulse of the people AND VICE VERSA!!!
It’s amazing that imperial fantasists are still peddling “benevolent, anti-extremist, humanitarian” fables as a justfication for continuing to cowboy up.
The pretense that there is a “responsible War on Terror” is puerile. The attacks justifying it only occurred because our government & airline companies were too damn cheap to make cockpits inaccessible. That no one had ‘connected the dots’ by September 10th but within days the hijackers & their organizer were firmly identified is the sort of thing that only people who live, breath, and eat commercial advertising would ever lend credence to.
And prior to September 11 2001, “the Terrorists” had managed to bomb a few embassies and one ship. The Taliban had rushed into the vacuum in Afghanistan, while the Shia government in Iran had been gradually obliged to adopt more and more reforms. It was after the US invasions that the Iranians voted for a mroe vigorusly anti-US candidate.
So all this “Saddam WAS like Hitler” and all the rest is nothing but pulp drivel on a level with the Great Yellow Peril fiction of the 1920s and ’30s . . .
I always like her articles. And its nice to get a confirmation and facts supporting what I thought I already knew. But this article is a surprise to whom? Is there still anyone out there who’s so delusional as to think the Democrats are a party of peace? Is there anyone out there who’s so delusional as to think the Democrats aren’t in the pocket of the defense industry and that they don’t give the Pentagon everything they wanted? Didn’t anyone notice that this year’s Pentagon budget soared through our little Democratic controlled Congress with no cuts and instead Democrats competing to see who can add to it?
If you are sickened by the absurd amount of money we give the military and the defense industry to defend ourselves from ….. uh ….. our mighty enemies ……. uh Canada? …. well its plain and obvious that the Democratic Party is not for you.
And gawd I’m sick of hearing about Kucinich. He’s playing a losing hand in a rigged game he knows he can’t win. The Kucinich campaign is just a foil that diverts energy, money, and enthusiasm into a doomed effort that can’t win and can’t change anything. Here’s why the game is rigged against Kucinich.
1) Democratic campaign finance rules: The Dems allow as much money as federal law allows to pour into their primaries. They don’t have to. The Dems can conduct their internal party contests under any rules they choose as long as it doesn’t exceed federal law. But the Dems deliberately allow money to have as much influence as possible on their contests.
2) The Calendar: On top of this, the party has deliberately created a primary\caucus calendar where big money rules. Lots of big states all at once, one right on top of the next. The candidate with money who calls his media advisor and diverts new money to this day’s big states is almost guaranteed to win. A grassroots candidate like Kucinich who needs to come to the state and appeal for votes has almost no chance. Its a week of ad saturation then yet another big state votes. The whole thing is going to be over so fast your head is going to spin. Just like last time when it turned fast and Kerry had the nomination almost before anyone realized it was over. Except its even faster this time.
3) Superdelegates: If Kucinich overcomes all these obsticles, he still needs about 60% of the elected delegates to win. That’s because the Democratic Party has the thoroughly undemocratic notion of unelected SuperDelegates. This little hack was put in the system after McGovern won. About 20% of the delegates (800 out of 4000) are party hacks who have guaranteed delegate spots at the election. So someone like Kucinich really needs a super-majority to win.
Put your time, money, effort, enthusiasm into building a political force that can really represent us and change things. That ain’t the Don Quixotic-like campaign in the rigged game that’s the undemocratic Democratic Party. Anything given to Kucinich is just wasted and gone like a puff of smoke with not effect from it.
Peace is Presidential if you’re Dennis Kucinich. All progressives should be doing everything in their power to elect the one (and only)candidate we’ve got with a progressive heart and mind. This mess takes more than a few progressive positions to clean up, it requires a progressive world view. Kucinich is the only guy who gets it coming and going, across the board, every single time. How about flat refusing to settle for less, folks?
PS … and by the way, that’s really the role of the Democratic Party in general. Its serves as a diversion of energy, time, money and enthusiasm. It tricks activists into thinking they can achieve their goals in working through the Democrats. Except they can’t. Never. Ever. All that really happens is that the money, time, energy and enthusiasm of those activists gets diverted into the Democratic Party where it is either wasted in stupid campaigns that can’t win, or its tricked into being diverted to supporting candidates who in no way represent what the activists believe in by the “support the Democrat\lesser of two evils” tactic.
The Kucinich campaign is just another variation on this. Its playing in a rigged game it can’t win. It only exists as a foil to divert activist energy into a black hole where it can’t do anything to really change things.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Kucinich. But I won’t beleive he’s serious as long as he’s a Democrat. If he ever goes Independent or 3rd Party, I’d be glad to support him. But as a Democrat he’s just a trap to waste efforts that could be much better spend elsewhere. We need to build a political party\movement that truly represents us. That should be our big goal in every election. Even if we can’t win, we have to be building that movement. That’s where I energy needs to go. Its wasted with the Democrats, even Kucinich.
Hey Diechterfreund, go and rob a Quickie Mart without a mask on and see if you’re firmly identified within 24 hours. Of course law enforcement agencies have ‘high tech’ methods like the television and airline ticket sales records. That’s a ridiculous (and personally I believe antisemitic)argument to say 9/11 was all staged by Israel in the hope of provoking war in Afghanistan? Give me a break.
“. That’s a ridiculous (and personally I believe antisemitic)argument to say 9/11 was all staged by Israel in the hope of provoking war in Afghanistan? Give me a break.”
So to disbelieve the official account, on any grounds, is automatically to suspect Israel, and therefore to be antisemitic?
And even though the hijackers were identified in a matter of hours or days, the administration resisted public hearings for well over a year, and were only finally forced into allowing hearings by unrelenting pressure by the New Jersey widowws? Oh, wait, the Jersey widows are anti-semites, by your measure.
Than who staged it according to you, you nut? I’m sure everyone is on pins and needles.
The New Jersey widows don’t know; more than half the residents of NYC, who disbelieve the official version, don’t know; one doesn’t need to find the real culprit of a crime in order to know that those framed for it were not responsible.
Blind credulity in the face of manifest deception is always rich soil for those who sow propaganda.
COMarc, you write
“And gawd I’m sick of hearing about Kucinich. He’s playing a losing hand in a rigged game he knows he can’t win. The Kucinich campaign is just a foil that diverts energy, money, and enthusiasm into a doomed effort that can’t win and can’t change anything. Here’s why the game is rigged against Kucinich.”
You probably have read, but must disagree with, George Bernard Shaw’s comment:
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Way to not answer a direct question. Who do you accuse of being credulous in the face of manifest deception? No wonder you support Kucinich, a manifest deception. You say 9/11 was a conspiracy- but you don’t know who was conspiring against who. We should withdraw from Afghanistan- but you don’t know if the Taliban will take over and have no plan if they do. Do you know where the toilet is when you have to use it? Do you know where the phone book is when you have to look up a number?
The 9/11 hijackers were caught in the act on videotape and bank records, and Bin Laden has acknowledged the operation as an Al Qaeda operation. I ask again, who was conspiring against who?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizers_of_the_September_11%2C_2001_attacks
‘Progress’ doesn’t depend on the unreasonable man, especially unreasonable people like you.
“Way to not answer a direct question.”
It’s not a question at all, merely a rhetorical attempt to divert a direct question: Are the New Jersey widows anti-semites for not believing the official account?
“No wonder you support Kucinich, a manifest deception”
How is a person a “manifest deception”?
“You say 9/11 was a conspiracy- but you don’t know who was conspiring against who.”
Of course I don’t. Conspirators don’t include non-conspirators in the conspiracy.
“We should withdraw from Afghanistan- but you don’t know if the Taliban will take over and have no plan if they do.”
Afghanistan is not my country, and it isn’t up to imperial stormtroopers & their ill-instructed cheerleaders, who are indifferent to whether or not those they kill are Taliban or not, to be deployed there in perpetuity.
“and Bin Laden has acknowledged the operation as an Al Qaeda operation.”
Ah, well, Q.E.D. Unless, like many criminals, he boasts about crimes he didn’t commit, like mafiosa claiming they were the ones who had JFK shot.
Since the war on terror is so dire and the threat to your country so real, why aren’t you in uniform? why haven’t you enlisted?
Thanks Frida. It’s people like you who sustain us by providing the information we need to understand our present reality and bring cold hard facts to an often obscured debate. It is information that underlies our dissent. The truth is our only weapon. Thanks for the ammo Frida. The USA is in an arms race of one. ‘They’ rationalize expending such phenomenal sums for weapons by angrily shouting ‘We need to be afraid’ and then take billions out of our children’s mouths. When we object to them gouging us, then that fear goes Rambo and they angrily shout ‘We will not be afraid if we have more weapons’. But we always have more weapons and somehow we always need more and more. Yet after we get them each time, they still they say we need be afraid. No matter how much we spend it is never enough. True defense doesn’t lie in 30,000 (or more…ask Frida…she knows…lol)nuclear weapons. Imagine using just twenty of those nuclear bombs…we’d poison the world. 1,000 of them…10,000…20,000 etc.! Yeah …didn’t you know…evidently we need more! We alone spend as much as the whole rest of the world combined on weapons…yet for all that…evidently we need more. It is never enough and having gotten all they wanted each and every time, each year they say we need more and increase the military budget. Even when the military says they do not want a particular weapons system sometimes congress votes for it anyway. Soon we will have to admit that weapons are our only growth industry. What a mindset. That emotionalized fear through aggression mindset. Such Ramboized self interest and profit is combatted only with facts. Frida fights with facts not just opinions (ahem…hint people!)and exactly what would we do without such people who do the work to provide them for us? Would fighting with our uninformed opinions be effective in the face of entrenched and oh so profitable interests? The ‘military industrial complex’ is centered in congress whose members expect to reap the benefits in ciontributions from a (political) military industrial complex which sucks us dry. Oh not at the top which garners such obscene profits but at the bottom, in our failing schools, abyssmal medical system (great if you can afford it of course) and deteriorating infrastructure. But if you aren’t aware of that, how do you combat it? Facts are our only weapon against the weapon makers who bribe our politicians and drain away the chances of a better future. By the way…Why is it that people can’t stay on subject? Attention Deficit Disorder? Hypocritical egoism of people who will write a tome but never address the issues stated in the article like dougnwagner? Whether one likes one candidate or the other is not the point of this informative article. Who are you taking to anyway? Gee on Common Dreams people like Kucinich, what a surprise.
*Who are you talking to? Gee on common dreams people like Kucinich, what a surprise.
COMarc and all who agree…
Great idea! The hell with changing things and putting POSITIVE energy behind a REAL possibility!
Yah! Fuck Kucinich and the possibilities of real change, eh? It’s all just a fuckin’ pipe dream to support someone REAL because he happens to belong to a certain political party.
Yeah, hell, why vote for a man who’s solid on issues; after all he’s just in this to waste my fucking time and HOPE!
You got through to me: I’m voting for the worst Republican possible–one that goes against EVERYTHING I believe in! Yeah! That’s what I’ll do! Thanks for helping me see the darkness more clearly. Damn, I’ve been dreaming of a REAL chance at a new America. Boy, was I stupid to dream and believe!!!
“Frida fights with facts not just opinions (ahem…hint people!)and exactly what would we do without such people who do the work to provide them for us? Would fighting with our uninformed opinions be effective in the face of entrenched and oh so profitable interests? The ‘military industrial complex’ is centered in congress whose members expect to reap the benefits in ciontributions from a (political) military industrial complex which sucks us dry. Oh not at the top which garners such obscene profits but at the bottom, in our failing schools, abyssmal medical system (great if you can afford it of course) and deteriorating infrastructure. But if you aren’t aware of that, how do you combat it? Facts are our only weapon against the weapon makers who bribe our politicians and drain away the chances of a better future.”
The production of disinformation is essential to maintaining the weapons’ makers. In the absence of a nation with an arsenal large enough to challenge hegemony, another enemy must be found, and the only one that could set up was an amorphous worldwide threat cobbled together from small, separate religious-ethnic conflicts.
It’s equally useless {a) to go beyond the obvious defects in the official fable into unstantiable conjecture and (b) the emptiness of qualifying the Iraq occupation as “the war ‘the terrorists’ want us to fight”, which then would oblige us, still, to engage in a war which, as soon as its necessity is admitted, can’t end.
Dr. Ron Paul would slash military spending, close down as many of the more the 700 US Military bases worldwide as possible, use our armed forces for DEFENSE only, and get us the hell out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Colombia.
Dems - you’re answer?
Two people sitting next to us at the local coffee shop this morning overheard our table’s conversation on politics. They asked who this guy Kucinich is that we were all talking about. Of course we told them all about his platform. They were impressed but wondered why they had never heard much about him!!!
Try asking the MSM.
I have a feeling Kucinich’s support is stronger than the corporate owned media wants American voters to think.
Spread the word! The revolution has begun.
If you’re throwing your vote (energy, time) away on Kucinich, help me understand why you’re not throwing it all away on a 3rd party. Kucinich and his supporters have a perfectly legitimate claim on the Democratic party, which is the only serious opposition party we’ve got. Who’s got the goods? Follow him or her. Who’s bought and paid for, and who’s working for the people who elected him/her and the Constitution it all rests on? I’ve heard it said, and have come to believe myself, that Kucinich is incorruptible. MSM wants you to believe he’s unelectable. That’s reason enough not to believe it.
Just one point to counter of dougnwagner’s.
Iran is not denying the historic Nazi systematic slaughter of Jews, Gypsies, Socialists and Gays. Neither are they denying the earlier one against Armenians, or the one against Africans and Native Americans before that. What they are denying is special, sacred status given to the one Hitler committed which is then used as a justification for Israel’s atrocities. I myself am tired of these people who consider themselves a special-god-chosen race that reserve the right to inflict any and all atrocities on other people - especially if they are dark complected and speak Arabic.
I’d just like to add my name to the comments supporting Dennis Kucinich. I believe he IS incorruptible, I’m sure of it.
I think he has huge underground support, but as newageartist said, above, MSM wants us to believe otherwise.
I won’t give up until all hope is gone.
Ok, a subject close to my heart. You see I work for the Federal government, for an Agency directly responsible for assuring that the stuff the government orders is in fact the stuff they get. I have been doing this for over thirty years. So there are my bona-fides, and now for my two cents.
I have witnessed the good Defense Department, and now an entirely different Defense Department. For those of you who really believe the Defense Department was/is the same under this regime as it was under the previous, you aren’t paying attention. This silent coup began during the Reagan years, a big hike in defense spending but at the same time, defense related manufacturing jobs were disappearing like GW during National Guard training weekends. My city lost ove 12,00o good paying defense jobs. Where did they go?
Some went to the South (the good old bible belt, republicans to the end!), but most just went. You see, the increase in the defense budget went to corporations as a sort of “Corporate” WELFARE! we are now at war, so a logical person would think that the stuff that the fighting men and women need would be the stuff we were concentrating on RIGHT! Well, you couldn’t be more wrong. The stuff we are concentrating our dwindling resources on are AIRCRAFT PARTS! Yes for all of those dogfights over the Tigris-Euphrates valley. Yes we are ordering F-22s, VF-22s (the modern widow makers), the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-18 Super Hornet (the best deal in fighter planes by the way), and we still are giving the fighter the worst small arms in the world. I know this is a liberal blog, and I am liberal, but I am not crazy to think that this country, no matter who is in charge, has enemies and even though I agree with Rep. Kucinich that we need a Department of Peace, in no way does that eliminate the need for a real DEFENSE department. NOT a Department of Offense, but DEFENSE. And although I want the troops home, does anybody out there really think that we should abandon the country we destroyed! Would that be the right thing to do? I don’t think so. So while we are there, we need to provide our troops with the best body armor, (no happening at this time) a better rifle (the piece of shit they carry now is just that a POS! and how about finally putting a stake in the heart of the infamous Humvee, we have spent so much time and money retrofitting it it is like a slug. But guess who has the contracts for most of the defense budget? General Dynamics maybe? They own the Defense Department.
Let me make this simple, we spend too much for the wrong stuff. This info is available and you should contact your Congressional Reps and complain. Of course if you live in Texas, Florida, Georgia, California, South Carolina, or Massachusetts you might think everything is ok, but your tax dollars are still not going creating jobs, but are stuffing the pockets of the number or execs who are lucky enough to have the number of the VP or whoever is running this joint. Sorry fo any spelling errors.
Kucinich was a loser in 2004 running in the Democratic Party primary against the corporate candidate Kerry. Here he is again, playing the same game, under the same conditions, and he will again cave in.
Obama and Clinton have each tens of millions in campaign funds. Where does this money come from? The same corporate interests that control the Republican Party! Rupert Murdock supports Clinton! Clinton and Obama both esssentially SUPPORT the same foreign policy that is making the military-industrial complex millionaires and billionaires. Both Democratic and Republican Parties support the PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY. (Look it up!)
How about Cindy Sheehan? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if shee defeated Nancy Pelosi?! She DID resign from the Democratic Party! She is way ahead in terms of UNDERSTANDING about the bankrupt nature of the Democratic Party.
NO ONE INDIVIDUAL CAN “SAVE THE COUNTRY” OR THE WORLD! It makes as much sense as praying for the Divine Intervention of your favorite Deity!
Instead let’s propose the power of these individuals should by multiplied by THOUSANDS! Let’s ask the dissenters of today, such as Cindy Sheehan, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Al Gore, etc. to issue a call for a founding convention for a NEW PARTY!
Also let’s propose to the thousands of activist organizations (Representating MILLIONS) to likewise support the call for a NEW PARTY. Organizations that are anti-war, ecological groups, supporters of universal non-profit health care, PTA groups working to save the public schools, prison reform groups, Bus Rider’s Union, civil rights groups, etc.etc. to bring their proposals and agendas to the founding convention(s). [So many people would come you would have to hold this convention in many cities around the country!)
What would be the minimal platform of this new party?
* Corporate funding would be rejected, so that the parties representatives could stop the corporate plunder of the federal government.
* Oppose not only the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, would be explicity oppose the PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY. (Pre-emptive imperialist war on the entire world for power, profit and control of world’s resources.)
* To regain a balanced budget, reduce massive debts to China, to stop the massive looting of the federal government, the military budget would be cut by 50%.
The 700 military bases would be closed down. Tax cuts
on corporations and the wealthiest 10% would be re-instated.
* The New Party commits the country to stop pollution, destruction of the enviornment, and to transform the economy towards stopping Global Warming.
* A national single-payer non-profit universal health care system is to be implemented.
THESE THINGS ARE MINIMAL IF THE COUNTRY AND THE PLANET IS TO SURVIVE. NONE OF THESE ARE POSSIBLE WITH THE REPULICAN/DEMOCRATIC CORPORATIST GANG IN POWER.
Kucinich was a loser in 2004 running in the Democratic Party primary against the corporate candidate Kerry. Here he is again, playing the same game, under the same conditions, and he will again cave in.
He did NOT cave in. You talk like it was neck-and-neck and he decided to quit. Such bullshit.
In lining out your “Fantasy Party” plarform, you quoted even LESS THAN what kucinich is about. Yeah, in a perfect world, with everyone merging to do what you list, that would be ideal. BUT we are NOT in an idealistic situation and your great grandchildren STILL (and probably won’t) be in an idealistic situation–but it HAS to start somewhere.
I beg you and the rest of your ilk to throw out this “Party Fixation” and go for the person most embodying YOUR values.
For me and damn near everyone I know, D.K. is that person.
Whadya say, Jeremy, let’s AT LEAST get things headed in the right direction–support D.K. Party affiliation be damned!
Looking at American candidates to lead America out of the Bush catastrophe is rather pointless. All American politicians, existing or potential, are tarred with the same black brush.
What you need is to go to a place like Tibet and grab a hundred Buddhist monks, the kind of people who have forsworn worldly possessions and earthly delights.
Now with people like this you might end up with real politicians, the kind who actually care about people rather than themselves.
http://seeking-utopia.blogspot.com
COMarc & others rightly see that the Democrat party is hopelessly corrupt –a rat hole no different than the GOP.
Kucinich Supporters rightly see that D.K. is the most integrated/reliable Progessive thinker of anybody now running for Prez.
Posters on this site, for these two seemingly-opposed views, make well-thought-thru points in reasoning their positions; both reflect my own inner dilemma.
To CoMarc I’d say: Remember that historically US 3rd Parties have never won the presidency because of a fundamental structural defect in US political culture (money buys and keeps control.)
Running somebody like D.K. on a Third Party ticket isn’t gonna overcome this defect in time to prevent his defeat. The invisible government holds much more power over mass perceptions, today than ever before. You and I don’t have any money.
To D.K. Supporters I’d say: Don’t dismiss COMarc’s as impractical idealism. Progressives would need a solid Demo Party Progressive who’s far-more ‘personally magnetic’ than D.K., to even have faint hope of overthrowing the rotten Demo Party/Invisible Government nominating processs from within; to say nothing of a candidate who’d be able to actually win a presidential election even if nominated (cf: McCarthy; McGovern.)
CoMarc sees that Progressives (and in fact, just average/decent citizens) now have no choice except to try to re-build US politics from the bottom-up, and in the end I tend to agree with CoMarc: The US election process too corrputed now for any less medicine.
The crucial problem with re-building US politics from bottom-up, is that you’d first have to create a fair and balanced mass-communications media by which you’d have half a chance of conveying an alternate view of Reality to a diversely flung, mass-hypnotized public. And exactly how you’d do THAT, given the infinite tentacles of the Monied Leviathan, remains a strategic/tactical Catch-22 –thus far.
But Catch-22’s didn’t finally intimidate signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and present dilemmas should not intimidate us Progressives now, either. So, debate, yes. Then close ranks and work together in the months ahead — to heal the worst of our country’s sickness. Stay in comity, no matter what work your fellow Progressive does.
For starters, I don’t agree with most of this crap being thrown around left AND right (if you know what I mean). I think that maybe the reason we’re spending so much is not just for the end result product, but instead for the process, more importantly those who work in that process, those who expect to get a paycheck sometime soon so that they can buy food for themselves and their families. Believe me, my mom works for the government, and the only people making any “good” money right now are the higher-ups, and they might not even be doing as well as we think they are. The last thing this country needs are those of you playing the blame game, because guess what, that gets you even less than what is already being done.
I’m not here to mouth off any of you super-liberals, I’m here to read up on what others have to say because understanding, and most of all, listening are the best things for us to do right now. So let’s put the fingers down and close our mouthes; it’s about high time we all sat down and started thinking together to find positive and productive way out of this, in whatever direction necessary.
JPD, Look it up. Ahmadinejad considers David Dukes a Holocaust Expert. I may not support Israel’s apartheid occupation of Palestine, but it doesn’t mean I defend Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust. His ministers’ explanations- which you are using-, are ridiculous. Read the quotes. And by the way, the notion that he was elected is a scam. In reality, half the candidates were thrown out for being ‘too liberal’. Daily life in Iran is anything but not oppressive- unless of course you’re on the ‘right side’.
http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=17019
Ahmadinejad: Holocaust a myth
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2719559
Holocaust Deniers Praise Ahmadinejad
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236014,00.html
KKK’s David Duke Tells Iran Holocaust Conference That Gas Chambers Not Used to Kill Jews
And excuse me Dichterfreund, but how do you know New Jersey widows you keep referring to aren’t anti-semitic? That’s a bunk response.
“Afghanistan is not my country, and it isn’t up to imperial stormtroopers & their ill-instructed cheerleaders, who are indifferent to whether or not those they kill are Taliban or not, to be deployed there in perpetuity.”
People who die for their country aren’t ’stormtroopers’ and people who take positions on foreign policy aren’t ‘cheerleaders’. Way to fit the complex world of serious foreign policy into the comic book size proportions you can understand. Good luck in beating your video game while ther rest of us live with disastrous Kucinich campaign after Kucinich campaign that benefits? A: John Kerry, Hillary Clinton. And causes who to lose? A: Howard Dean, Non-Hillary candidates.
You people are hacks and the most disingenuous kind.
You won’t defend anything, you just don’t want the United States to confront ‘powerful anti-Zionists’ like Ahmedinejad and the Taliban. Give me a break. That’s not the progressive agenda. That’s the regressive agenda. You shouldn’t have to defend Kucinich’s ‘peace at any cost’ agenda. Think about it. Is that the foreign policy you really support?
According to the Kucinich ‘peace at any cost’ foreign policy I guess we shouldn’t call the police if we see a woman being battered? or a bank being robbed? or genocide being committed? That’s not who I am.
Why not support the Obama foreign policy that supports engagement with foreign leaders- not isolationism, of the Bush kind or of the Kucinich kind-, and that seeks a ‘democratic ally’ not just an ‘ally’ in Pakistan? None of your positions on dialogue with democratically engaged political parties like Hamas have ever been stated. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Because if you really treasurd the rights millions have fought for in this country you would distinguish between Theocratic Iran, the Taliban, (both antidemoratic parties), and legitimately conservative Islamic parties like that elected in Turkey and Palestine that legitimately won elections. Democracy doesn’t elect who you want, political parties are often times violent, but at the end of the day it’s alot better than monarchy, dictatorship, or religious apartheid (Israel). We shouldn’t be defending military dictatorhips because “they’re better than the islamists”. That’s outright hypocritical if you say you treasure democratic rights and methods of electing leaders.
dougnwagner–
Kucinich believes in UNITY OF ALL–NOT isolationism.
Get your facts right or zip it up…
Step 1- get the USA an actual democratic process, currently the process does not meet UN Standards.
Step 2- vote for who you actually support, ignore the silly game playing habits of the pre-step 1 system.
the huge budgets of campaigns ensure influence peddling, that is called corruption in most other countries and at the very least they pretend to eliminate it.
the representative democracy removes clear line of accountability fr the citizens of a country- look for ways to reconnect yourself in support of what you actually want to support, disconnect support for that which you do not, and be loud about both to encourage others in doing so also.
wow, thats $1,600 annually from each man, woman and child in the USA, $6,400 for your typical family of 4 each year.
If I was being hosed for that much each year for the military, and still didn’t have proper health care, I would at least want my own personal tank in my driveway, maybe even my own personal figher jet to commute to work in.
Or that could buy some nice non-collapsible bridges.
rebel republican -
You want us to all to sit down and think our way of “..this..” — as you call it?
Okay, rebel republican: the “..this..” you’re referring to is the (wildly-furthered) corrpution of US Constituional government under a Republican administration that’s gone beyond the pale - to any halfway-objective observer.
You think it’s just a lot of “crap” being thrown around on this website? Strange that you’d say that - but then make no mention of the endless and endlessly-documented crap (ruinous official lies; illegal wars; Executive power-grabs) which’ve been initiated by your Republican president and made in to law by the power of his neocon myrmadons in Congress.
Most of us here disgusted with the Democrats, too — but notice that scant few of us on this website even bother to identify ourselves as ‘rebel Democrats.’
That’s because most of us here are interested in human problems and policy issues that have nothing to do with Party affiliation, though even fewer of us have much use for anything that’s today called Republican or Conservative. True enough.
And if some of us here ‘take down’ Bush & Co.’s lies, incompetence, and disastrous policies with special political focus, well — duh! — that’s because Republican Bush happens to be in power at the moment! — and because Bush & Co. - far more than the pathetic Demos, are creating the “..this..” that you mention with such obviously Party-oriented pique.
Unlike even the ‘crap’ of Clinton & Co., Bush & Co. are now so totally out of Constitutional control, that even many former Bush appointees from the CIA, DIA, NSC, Treasury Dept., State Dept., and armed-forces General Staff have quit this Republican administration in disgust — and gone public (as legitimate philosphical Conservatives) to decry the illegality, maddness and moxie of the present ( neo-con Republican) administration.
So what’re you so pissed-off at, Mr rebel republican? At the fact that your Republican Party is the worst concentration of thieves, liars, and sociopaths ever to mis-govern this republic?
Or is it that you’re really pissed-of that your Republican Party’s betrayed you, too — and you’re trying to deny that by laying blame on a website that at least allows honest debate across [mindless] Party lines??
Well, wake-up, man: We progressive Democrats who contribute to the website admit that our Party’s betrayed us, too.
The deep concern of most of us, here, is that the entire, rotten US political structure has betrayed all of us average citizens — Repubs & Dems alike - and put the human promise of our beautiful & loved country at unprecedented risk - on a whole host of fronts.
Glad that you cared enough to access this site. As far as I’m concerned, everybody who cares to analyze what above you call “..this..” is needed and welcome here.
But your initial come-on, above, doesn’t exactly introduce you as a useful thinker…..
Try again, if you care to - and enlighten us with some actual thinking from your point of view.
To me, Edwards wanting to limit debate to ‘the more serious group’ and assigning himself to that category is really a dictatorial tendency and shows that ‘narrowing down’ deomocracy instead of widening it is also still firmly on the Democrats agenda.
The only thing that can be said is that John Edwards has more money, but I think Dennis Kucinich is more serious about democracy than any of these corporate clowns.
Sorry to say so, but I think the candidates are right to stand tall and hang tough about America’s need to be permanently “at war”. It has given the government the chance to reconfigure the concept of civil rights and the power of the executive. It’s hard to admit it, but I think ‘personal freedoms’ had been getting out of hand slowly but surely during the entire post-1945 period. And as long as the US Govt is a force for Good, I don’t see why it shouldn’t increase its ability to act without hindrance. We progressives may not have the stomach for it, but I suppose that is exactly wht we have no power.
kucinich will stop the bloodshed!!
Brown,
“The government of Afghanistan itself didn’t attack us,” (Kucinich) said. “That’s the thinking. The attack was not justified.”- Dennis Kucinich
“I’m not making Afghanistan an issue,” (Dennis Kucinich) said. “I’m making Iraq an issue.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3453-2003Nov21?language=printer
“Kucinich Passionate to a Fault” by Terry Neal Washington Post
November 21, 2003
Yet he voted for it? Kucinich is a pawn in a larger game. He is NOT for the unity of all in a way that actually engages with anyone. He’s for giving a fancy speech in New York City to delegates to the United Nations. Lets get real, (1) if the United States doesn’t engage with countries unilaterally you’re going to see more failed states like you do in Gaza, Somalia, and Sudan. (2) The United States has a responsibility in this world to oppose genocide. No body elected governments to kill them. (3) Our approach to Darfur and Rwanda are not models, they’re approaches overdetermined in the former case by being bogged down in Iraq and the loss of our credibility in the world, and in the latter case by Bill Clinton’s subscription early in his presidency to the same set of Victorian isolationist beliefs that Kucinich advocates today that legitimizes everyone who has a seat at the UN, and takes no principled stand on supporting democratically engaged political parties and movements.
So why I am not surprised a Kucinich supporter wants me to “zip it up”? The truth is that we should be talking about the positions these candidates take on foreign policy. What better time than now? What better place than here? And the truth is that the Kucinich candidacy is designed to give neo-stalinists political cover within the context of an antiwar movement to shut out debate about the American progressive movement’s commitment to democratic reform and engagement with democratically engaged political parties in the world, and encourage the same kind of naive pacifist isolationism that led to the Taliban taking power in the first place.
Progressives should not be thrust into defending Kucinich’s isolationist statements that legitimize the Taliban. No one elected the Taliban. Progressives deserve better. Afghans deserve better.
Kucinich may stop the bloodshed, but his supporters should ask themsevles at what cost? a totalitarian ‘peace’ under Taliban rule at undetermined length, undetermined cost, and undetermined consequences?
Let’s talk about Kucinich and progressive agendas for a minute.
I’m going to try to be as objective as I can by using personal history in regards to the Kucinich campaign. I supported him as a Green back in 2004, volunteering in my state during the Dem primary, promoting his progressive platform more than the man as a Democratic Party politician. His platform was a carbon copy of the Green Party platform and was an obvious choice for me during the 2004 Democratic Party primary season to support. I did my homework, read his book, studied his platform positions and came to the conclusion that this guy was the real deal… a progressive in Democratic Party clothing.
Some here suggest that support for Kucinich or any Democrat is a false hope for the progressive cause. In other words, once a Dem, always a Dem; once a corporate sellout, always a corporate sellout. I would agree to a point. I understand that the Democratic Party was hijacked years ago from the social justice, world peace party and morphed into a corporate controlled and big money financed political lie machine. But I also understand that it is pointless to continually butt heads with the entrenched two-party system we currently have since both parties are like siblings from the same corporate world dominating parents.
Wishing and hoping for a savior on a white horse to rise from the ashes and carry the banner of progressive causes outside the two party system is actually more self defeating than support for a progressive working inside the duopoly. We saw what happened to Nader in 2004 when he mounted an Independent run to raise American consciousness and bring progressive ideals to the table for national discussion. He was completely shut out of any national debate and was dismissed by corporate media as a fringe politicaiian who enabled Bush to attain the presidency. We could go into all the arguments about Nader but it would waste space on this thread at the present time. I will say one thing about his 2004 Independent run. Nader waited long into the Democratic Party primary season hoping that his friend Kucinich would somehow catch on with the voting public. When this didn’t happen and Kucinich still lingered in the 1 - 5% range among Dem voters, Nader made his move. Meanwhile, the only glimmer of hope outside the duopoly, the Green Party, opted to become Democrat-lite and run a Democrat in Green clothing candidate. The rest is history.
If progressives are truthful with themselves, they will support a politicain who carries their banner regardless of whether they are members of the Sociialist, Green, Democrat or any other party. It is the PLATFORM, not the person or party affiliation that will bring about the change we need in this country. Being bullheaded and stubbornly defending our point of view has been the progressives’ Achilles heel for years. It has caused us to be swept aside time and time again with national elections. It is time for progressives to shed their defensive skin and embrase any politician who carries their banner.
Kucinich is honest. He’s a politician of integrity. He has a progressive vision.
Should he quit the Democratic Party? Probably. Will he? No. He knows that he now has the ear of his fellow lawmakers and has the inside position to bring forward peace initiatives and social justice agendas that he couldn’t do sitting outside as a Green, Socialist or Independent. Until a strong, viable third party arises that actually becomes an electable player with the two corporate parties (I’m always hoping the Greens will step up somehow), Kucinich is our one hope inside to make the changes we want.
Will Kucinich win his party’s primary? No. As much as I and others would hope to see him not only win his party primary and even become president, reality says otherwise.
So why support him? Because he is our only hope. By supporting him during the primary season, we give him and our progressive agenda the only chance to be heard by voters in this country. I’ve seen his support growing among people who never even knew about him before. I’ve seen people “light up” when they hear his views on issues. Americans are tired of the war. They are tired of the corrupted Washington scene. They are tired and want a real change. They need a man like Kucinich. Help him be heard and you’ll be helping your own progressive cause!
See any link between the bridge collapse in Minneapolis and the Pentagon budget? You should.
And our (MN) politicians of both parties conveniently debate about raising tax vs. not. But as usual, like with every other major topic, the debate is fake. The debate should not be about raising vs. not raising the tax. The debate should be about where the huge amount of tax money is going. To bomb innocent citizens in foreign countries or to build/maintain infrastructure in our own country, to provide health care to our citizens, to provide good education. Americans wake up!
newageartist…
Beautifully stated! That sums it up exactly. I hope you will use this wonderful logic on many posts on many sites and as many places as possible. Thank you!
Like many here my thoughts on Kucinich go back and forth somtimes almost hourly. Not concerning what he stands for, believes in, and how he has conducted himself during his political career, but whether I should support him, contribute money and time to his campaign.
This past week my wife and I received a (modest) financial windfall and I immediately sought her approval to contribute to DK’s campaign (we do most everything by mutual consent) since we had some breathing room from our usual bills. OK she says, lets do it! 24 hours later I’m wondering why I’d waste money that could be better spent on our own real needs rather than throwing it away on a losing cause.
Well, thanks to many who have posted here who have reinforced conclusions I’d reached long ago. No, he can’t win and won’t win but I am going to put his name everywhere I can (without getting arrested) send him money, write letters to the newspaper urging people to support him.
Why, many posting here will ask, would you act like such a fool Vince? Because I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing I can control is my own integrity. After the media destroyed Dean in ‘04 I reluctantly got behind Kerry only to see him capitulate like a spineless weenie here in Ohio.
No more. Dennis may go down in a (media contrived) laughable ball of flames, but if we, who agree with his positions and his sentiments abandon him, maybe even Dennis himself will eventually say “what the fuck’s the use?”
Sorry all you “let’s think strategically” posters urging us to get behind a front-runner that can win. The point of the article, in case you missed it, is that all of the front-runners (owing that status to their corporate contributions) are supportive of a larger military emphasis.
I came from a middle class family with middle class values and aspirations, but life has radicalized me.
Dichterfreund: thanks for the Shaw quote. I have understood the truth of that for most of my life. Conservatism has never, and will never, be an agent of change, except of course the kind of change harped upon by DM Green - “regressivism.” BTW - no-one is incorruptible(sp?)
Beautiful, Vince! AWESOMELY BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Frida,
Excellent article, but you leave out a few important points:
1. War is obsolete.
2. America has no enemies, except the ones we create.
3. There’s no war in Iraq. However, there’s an illegal invasion and occupation which are crimes against huamnity.
4. The Bush mob are a bunch of criminals.
5. The “defense” budget should be funded according to need not greed.
6. The Global Village already exists. Only the cold warriors are blind to this fact.
7. Our soldiers are victims in Iraq and also in the “defense” budget.
8. Democrats who support mass murder are really Republicans in Democratic clothing.
9. We’re living in a war economy, but nobody wants to mention this glaring fact.
10. Did I mention war is obsolete?
Franklin L. Johnson
starhelix@aol.com
Frank L.: Yes, it is quite Orwellian to call it a “defense budget” in light of the PNAC manifesto.
All hail the new American Empire! - but you’d better hurry because it’s fading fast.
“Most Democratic candidates for president speak of increasing rather than slashing the military budget.”
Why is this? Simply put, they cannot get elected unless they provide the proper funding to the military industrial complex that is our government. Fascism in action folks. Or what Los Criminales call “free elections”. Free for the corporate war mongering bastards and you and I pick up the tab!!
Kucinich won’t win as a Democrat in a two party monopolistic plutocracy. As a Democrat, I can’t vote for him in the primary because I am locked out and refuse to join the DNC lead party of Clinton and Lieberman and the “liberal” war-mongers who are on the corporate/rich men’s side on too many issues.
If they (Hillary/Obama/Edwards/DNC) lock him out of the debates, he should leave the Dems and screw them in the national elections as an independent.
Joe Tex
Notice that FOX NEWS is considered a reliable sources by DGW:
“http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236014,00.html
KKK’s David Duke Tells Iran Holocaust Conference That Gas Chambers Not Used to Kill Jews”
The fake humanitarian stance belies the real agenda here, as it always does for Bill Kristol and his fuhreedom fighters.
Anyone who opposes the “kill-every-Arab-Persian-Muslim-to-save-Israel” stance is anti-semitic by DW’s rule.
@dougnwagner
Your lengthy, passionate posts seem to boil down to you wanting the USA to keep engaging in aggressive, unilateral war..
especially wars for zionist benefits.
Nobody elected the Taleban? Why is that the USA’s business? Weren’t they welcomed to Texas for business deals when GWBush was governor there?
Why all the harping on the taleban? Perhaps you object because of their crackdown on opium?
Please don’t tell me you want to go to war to save Afghani human rights ~ don’t tell me you’d have USA drop bombs or use du on Afghanis so that women don’t have to wear the veil?
What good are human rights if you’re dead?
you can’t use them then can you?
USA needs to join the brotherhood of nations not continue to bully the world for power & greed.
I like what Dennis Kucinich stands for.
If we had honest elections he could even win. Imho I think the corporations have allowed him a voice so that genuine reformers have some hope,
but if he won the presidency it would be naive to think he wouldn’t have a “heart attack” or a plane crash post haste.
Unfortunately our faux american democracy throwing kucinish in there is just more bread & circuses.
The script is already written & the light is fading fast.
In regards to supporting Kucinich, Texshelters wrote:
“As a Democrat, I can’t vote for him in the primary because I am locked out and refuse to join the DNC lead party of Clinton and Lieberman and the “liberal” war-mongers who are on the corporate/rich men’s side on too many issues.”
It is just this type of ‘reasoning’ not only among disheartened Dems but Indies too that keeps our progressive agenda from finding a foothold in national politics. If a Dem such as yourself refuses to support the ONLY Dem candidate who waves the progressive banner during the primaries just because you don’t support the corporate phonies in the party, how could you expect any hope at all on a national scale in national elections? Your ‘logic’ escapes me.
It is NOW, during the primaries, that full scale support for Kucinich is so desparartely needed. Whether we like the idea or not he is our ONLY voice for progressive ideals, our ONLY hope that progressive issues to be addressed. Put aside your distaste for the corporate cronies in the Dem Party and “stick it to them” by supporting and voting for Kucinich. The message will be LOUD and CLEAR! But only if progressives give it a chance to work. As for Indies in states where only dems can vote for Dems, switch to Dem for the primaries and vote Kucinich. Greens and others… do the same! The corporatists won’t know what hit them and the corporate media will be scrambling to figure out where this guy Kucinich came from. Make it work. Do it.
newageartist…
BEAUTIFUL!!! IF ONLY THE NEGATIVE-THINKING, ALLEGED, PROGRESSIVES, AND GREENS, AND SOCIALISTS, AND LIBERTARIANS, ET AL WOULD JUST HEAR YOUR WORDS CLEARLY AND ACT ON THE IDEA!!!!!!!
I think there is a very good chance to turn all the waste money in the pentagon budget into needed rational based programs, that would benefit all citizens.
The creation of universal single-payer health care, up-dating our deteriorating infrastucture, cleaning and protecting the environment, and removing all nuclear waste to a secure environment, etc., could all be accomplished by a simple re-allocation of our tax dollars.
It would be easy. Just show the various players in the military-industrial groups, that they could make more money if they switched from making bombs to making us safer in a real sense.
They would probably have to given $1.10 for each $1 worth of waste goods money they contributed to health care, or to the clean up of their industrial waste, but I don’t imagine they would care if they made a profit on health-care instead of bombs, as long as the bottom line showed an increase.
Of course, if we wanted such a plan to work we would probaly have to take all the present day insurance-pharmaceutical-HMO lobbyists and turn them into hostile enemy-combatants, and put them on a slow boat to Cuba.
It would perhaps take ten minutes of our leader’s time, and a few cue cards to get the deed done, but remember, the Big ‘D’ wants a legacy.
In an attempt to get back to the original point, that is that even every democrat with a possible chance for the presidency stands for an increase in our military….The question is WHY!!!! Answer some obvious questions; 1. If our intent is to disengage from Iraq, and to avoid any further nation building; then why do we need a larger Army and Marine Corps? I have spent my life and my career in support of the military but this is madness. A certainty is that if a little person like Bush has a tool like an expanded military he will find the justification to use it.
Also, why in the name of God do we need eleven carrier groups threatening other nations? In actual combat they will be vunerable to even 1950’s technology like the Execet missile. And why do we need to continue buying new carriers? And why do we have Ballistic Missile submarines still on station under the artic ice with missiles targeted at….. WHO? The answer of course is the feed the military industrial complex that really drives our military planning…And it would seem that all of our leading contenders for 2008 are in their pockets. Thank you.
newageartist: I think I love you! It takes a lot of courage to stay in a game that you know is rigged. Knowing that others are in this game with me helps to keep me going. Thanks!
By the way, there was a blog over at DKos the other day about the issue of Kucinich’s electability. This was after he did so well at the Union debate in Chicago. Kucinich took the polls over Hillary by a landslid! The blog made me feel much more hopeful. Go here to read the blog:
“I no longer fear the Kucinich Revolution”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/8/10/92816/5144
Peace
“Anyone who opposes the “kill-every-Arab-Persian-Muslim-to-save-Israel” stance is anti-semitic by DW’s rule.”
So now instead of engaging in debate on issues I’ve brought up, (supporting democratically engaged and elected political parties like Hamas and Hezbollah, Obama’s call for the need for a democratic ally in Pakistan, not just an ally (that happens to be a dictator) and the extension of the Obama logic to the question of Palestine, Israel, and Lebanon, which could also be extended to the elections in Egypt which saw the Muslim Brotherhood gain seats), your entire argument for Kucinich’s isolationist foreign policy boils down to misrepresenting everything I said, asserting that that misrepresentation constitutes a ‘rule’ bestowed from the heights of your small mind in my humble name, and a flourish of ad hominem attacks on my character on the basis of that misrepresentation. The fact that people like you support “Big Pimping” Kucinich says enough about his candidacy and the bankruptcy of his position to withdraw from Afghanistan which is de facto support for the Taliban. Read the news. (One link. One you have to google. Don’t kill yourself. I know you have alot of important stuff to do today like beat that videogame.)
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1650518,00.html
Pakistan’s Next Red Mosque Problem?
By Ghulam Hasnain/Mohmand
Time Magazine
August 7, 2007
Truce over, Pakistan militants kill 70
By Riaz Khan
Associated Press Writer
July 15, 2007
I never said anything that could be remotely construed to “kill every Arab-Persian-Muslim-to save Israel”. And what I considered anti-semitic are those, (probably yourself), who think Israel really committed the atrocity of 9/11, not Al Qaeda. Posts like….
“Your lengthy, passionate posts seem to boil down to you wanting the USA to keep engaging in aggressive, unilateral war..especially wars for zionist benefits”.
Yeah bellthecat? (use a real name, get a real life), Israel really benefits from the US invading Afghanistan. Who couldn’t see that?
You keep on blaming the Jews for everything that obviously sucks about your life. I think it’s pretty obvious who benefits most from the opium being exported from Afghanistan.
And by the way, since you seem to be such an expert on human rights, why don’t you explain to us all exactly how you define them since you seem to be in such a hurry to defend the Talibanization of Pakistan and Afghanistan? Of couse what happens in the world affects us. Bin Laden operated out of where? A: Afghanistan. 15 of 19 hijackers came from where? A: Saudi Arabia. Welcome to the 21st century.
And I do happen to believe that intervention in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan were done for human rights. Let me guess, you’re cynical enough to believe that they were all “wars for zionist benefits” and that every bomb dropped is aimed at civilians. I’m sure the women of Afghanistan are glad people like you will be there to ‘normalize’ relations with Mullah Omar once we get Kucinich elected and Karzai out of Kabul. Just like I’m sure the Kurds are glad no one in the Kucinich camp cares about them. Just like the Hmong are looking forward to being deported from Thailand to Laos.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3264890
You 9/11 conspiracy theorists are insane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_hijackers
The truth is that the Kucinich candidacy is designed to give neo-stalinists political cover within the context of an antiwar movement to shut out debate about the American progressive movement’s commitment to democratic reform and engagement with democratically engaged political parties in the world, and encourage the same kind of naive pacifist isolationism that led to the Taliban taking power in the first place.
Progressives should not be thrust into defending Kucinich’s isolationist statements that legitimize the Taliban. No one elected the Taliban. Progressives deserve better. Afghans deserve better. The Taliban did harbor Al Qaeda. Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party did not. You can’t equate withdrawing from Iraq to withdrawing from Afghanistan. Only people who buy hard into the ‘war on terror’ slogan consciously or unconsciously take this position.
Kucinich may stop the bloodshed in Afghanistan, (although I 100% doubt that), but his supporters should ask themsevles at what cost? a totalitarian ‘peace’ under Taliban rule (and how many are going to die at their hands on the march to Kabul?) at undetermined length, undetermined cost, and undetermined consequences? And judging from the state of the world, it looks like those solid alliances we’ve established in the recent ‘middle east arms sale for peace’ are working out real great. This country needs a President who recognizes its the way we do business that is the problem, not just the business decisions. Obama is that candidate. Kucinich talks a high game about the United Nations, but guess who sits at the same table- dictators, monarchs, and theocrats. You’re not going to seriously broach the question of democracy at the United Nations people, get real.
Enabling democratic reforms to occur within countries we deal with (like the Ukraine, Turkey to a certain degree vis-a-vis the military establishment) and working with democratically engaged political parties of the world with no preconditions (truly having a democratic ally in Paksistan, not just an ally, and acting on intelligence to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in areas they already control) is better foreign policy than taking the Kucinich position to withdraw from Afghanistan and turn a blind eye towards whether the Taliban is reconstituting or not.
American progressives should not take the side of ‘the lesser evil’ of Monarchy (Saudi Arabia), Military Dictatorships (Egypt, Syria, Pakistan since 1999) and Theocracies or states whose identities are exclusively religious and colonial (Israel, Iran, and the Taliban) if we identify ourselves with equality before the law, constitutional rights we fight for, and other basic democratic rights. We can’t keep screwing over the legitimately elected governments, minority parties, and deny apartheid occupation in these countries and have any moral standing in the world. We don’t need Kucinich isolationism, we need engagment that brings out the best in us. That’s why I support Obama.
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.event&event_id=269510
@dougnwagner:
Without a doubt, the Taliban are horrible. I initially supported the Afghan War, but over the years it has become apparent that the only reason our country is there is for geopolitical, not humanitarian reasons. We have worn our welcome out there and have done more harm than good. We have no moral authority in Afghanistan and we’re no better than the Soviet Union.
Thanks to our country, the Taliban have actually regained their legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan people due to the corruption of the warlords and NATO’s careless bombings and belligerant raids.
We can’t fix Afghanistan, and the Afghani people don’t want us there anymore. They sure as hell don’t care what any Americans like you and me think. You ignorantly assume that you know what’s best for them. You don’t. Neither do I.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq is the only sensible thing we can do. We won’t like how their country turns out after we leave, but it’s not up to us.
As for Pakistan, it would be beyond retarded to launch any strike on that country or do anything that would further destabilize it. Do you really want to further boost al-Qaeda’s standing by attacking another Muslim nation? What about Pakistan’s sovereignity? Musharraf is indeed a dead-beat dictator. We shouldn’t bother supporting him or removing him. It’s best to let Pakistan self-destruct and let the people there work out their own solution.
As for Bosnia and Kosovo, those were not humanitarian missions. The United States has vested geopolitical interest in the Balkans, especially since Russia is competing. The Serbs are the only ethnic group with an expansionist worldview in the Balkans.
You are no different from the Republicans who support the Iraq War and accused dissenters of being pro-Saddam. Like them, you are a gutless, blood-thirty coward and hypocrite with illusions of granduer.
Why don’t you enlist? Why aren’t you in Afghanistan right now? Can we count on you to fight Obama’s war in Pakistan? How can you be so stupid to assume that U.S. foreign policy can be humanitarian? For that matter, what makes you think that the Pentagon or the whole United States military does anything remotely humanitarian or progressive?
Our country needs a non-interventionist foreign policy. We have no right to meddle in other country’s affairs. We should have diplomacy and cultural and economic exchange with other countries, but not get into ANY foreign entanglements! No more wars, police actions or nation-building.
I agree that we shouldn’t support corrupt and totalitarian regimes, but it’s not our place or right to remove them either. Let the other nations deal with their own national affairs, just like we expect to be left alone by the rest of the world.
Democracy can’t be spread at gunpoint. You are sick and deluded for thinking so. War does not bring peace, but only more war. It’s sad that a coward like you expects everyone else to fight a war that you wouldn’t get your own hands dirty in.
One last thing: I find the whole 9/11 conspiricism to be bullshit too.
dougnwagner - So you are telling us we should vote for POTUS based on what is best for other nations?
You say “we need engagment that brings out the best in us. That’s why I support Obama.”
If I followed your logic I would vote for Bill Richardson not Obama. Obama is a poser, he has no experience and no credentials, and he is really not a progressive by any evidence I can see. At least with Richardson you know for sure what you are getting.
For starters, my father took the classifed photos of the bodies hanging from the rafters of the Sarajevo Olympic Ice Rink and the hundreds of bodies thrown into roadside ditches by Milosevic’s military and paramilitary forces. Of course, according to you, those genocidal atrocities were justified, because I mean hey, after all, “Serbs are the only ethnic group with an expansionist worldview in the Balkans”
You have to be kidding me. Let me guess, Pol Pot was just the only Cambodian with an expansionist worldview in SE Asia?
I really think there is some sickness and delusion in your worldview if you truly think ‘there was nothing we could do’ in Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Kosovo, or that our humanitarian intervention was some kind of vast G8 conspiracy to rip apart Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia ripped itself apart. Even the German Green Party voted to militarily intervene to stop Milosevic’s genocidal slaughter of Albanians in Kosovo. Actually, you are no different than the Republicans who at the time dissented from President Clinton’s choice to intervene.
While I agree it’s not our role to invade and occupy a sovereign nation hypothetically, what if Canada started firing missiles at New York City? What do you think would happen? When you fail to distinguish Afghanistan and Iraq you buy into the ‘war on terror’ bumper sticker.
If you think the Pakistani or Afghan people are by and large in support of Al Qaeda and the Taliban you’re wrong. I don’t even think you fully comprehend the facts on the ground in that region of the world when you say “It’s best to let Pakistan self-destruct and let the people there work out their own solution.” That’s a recipe for disaster involving a country with nuclear weapons. That would be the worst thing we could do at this moment in history. (Which is why the second worst thing to do would be to withdraw from Afghanistan).
FYI, Pakistan had a democracy before Musharaff overthrew it in 1999. The Chief of the Supreme Court, backed by hundreds of thousands of Pakistani lawyers, was reinstated in the last several months after Musharraf tried to throw him out earlier this year. Pakistan is not going to ’self-destruct’. Pakistan is at a crossroads between choosing to return to a democracy or not. A military strike against the Taliban in a region of Pakistan under Taliban control is not going to as you say “boost al-Qaeda’s standing by attacking another Muslim nation.” Al Qaeda’s standing has not been boosted. They represent a small demented group of people who would probably call themselves something else if Bin Laden and Zarqawi weren’t the leaders. Do you really think a majority of Muslims around the world look forward to the day when the Wahhabist Taliban comes to town? The fact is, the Taliban harbors Al Qaeda and it is not in the interest of the South Asian region for us to turn our heads and look the other way. (Iran even threatened to invade Afghanistan when it was under the thumb of the Taliban and cooperates with us well in Afghanistan).
The bottom line is that there is a difference between invading and occupying Iraq and militarily intervening to overthrow the Taliban. Hussein’s Baath Party did not harbor Al Qaeda. The Taliban did. It really is that simple. To say we should never intervene is just naive pacifism that simplistically generalizes about a complex world.
America has a responsibility to stand up to genocide. According to your logic, I guess we should have just let Hitler complete the Holocaust? Was there nothing we could do? War costs people lives. There’s no way to dress that up. I’m not making an argument for all wars, but I think it is better foreign policy to militarily intervene to stop genocide and to overthrow those states that directly attack the United States than to stand by and let genocide happen, or be repeatedly attacked by the same state over and over again. The Taliban won’t stop fighting and killing just because we do. Did Pol Pot? Did Stalin? Did Pinochet? Do any of them? You have to see that.
And now that we have removed the Taliban from Kabul- the same people who were harboring and continue to harbor Al Qaeda- your solution is to withdraw from Afghanistan, give them a free hand to do as they please? How many will die as the Taliban fight to take back Afghanistan as NATO leaves? Do you ever consider the lives of those who would oppose them, as the Northern Alliance did? What, just because they’re not Taliban they’re not ‘real Afghans’? The Afghans, (the Afghani is the currency), did not vote and elect the Taliban their leaders. Most of the funding for Al Qaeda comes from Bin Laden’s personal fortune, not campaign contributions. Which points to the final necessary distinguishments that need to be made:
I really do believe your analysis is “beyond retarded” because it takes as it premise that all wars are the same and that by being en