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On media and politics. . .
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Thursday, September 30, 2004 |
Delusional Candidates This article is inspired by a George Will column entitled "Grand Delusions". http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60974-2004Sep29.html. George Will believes that both candidates are deluded about Iraq. George Bush believes we are making "steady progress". John Kerry believes the "the world -- a geographical expression, not a political entity -- will help heal Iraq."
George Will doesn't believe either of them. He has no advice for Bush but a suggestion for John Kerry -- " By late this evening we may know whether, beyond wishful thinking, Kerry's real answer to the Iraq conundrum amounts to telling Americans to face defeat gracefully. In which case, he will have to do just that."
I don't think John Kerry will advise accepting defeat. The stakes are too high. Nor do I think Kerry's idea of help from other powers is such a delusion. It has at least a logical chance of working.
Gerge Bush was arrogant and clumsy in his handling of the nations on the U.N. Security Council. Still, it is just possible that the reason the major European powers did not go along with us has little to do with George Bush. Bush handled the diplomacy clumsily, but it might have never been in the cards for him. France, Germany and Russia were all doing business with Saddam. It has been charged that there was vast corruption having to do with these three countries in the oil for food program. It may be that the corruption rose to a level that could effect foreign policy. The large Muslim populations of these three countries may have made it politically impossible to go along with U.S. leadership.
Bush has recently been to the U.N. to remind them of ther promise to aid in Iraqi security and reconstruction. So far there has been no additional cooperation. What makes John Kerry believe that he could produce a better result? I am willing to speculate.
Someone, perhaps Degaulle, once said, "Nations do not have friends they have interests." Bush failed to explain how helping America in Iraq was in the interest of these three nations. I believe Kerry will find it easier to convince other nations to help us because conditions their interests are threatened by chaos in Iraq. The oil resources are the lifeblood of Western civilization. It is to the interest of every nation to have stability in the middle east. The current instability may be the fault of American policy, but Europe, Japan and China all need every drop of reasonably priced oil they can get.
The Global war against Islamic extremism is escalating. The world needs American strength in this fight. We must be free of Iraq if we are to provide that strength.
Finally, John Kerry would be starting with a clean slate. He will not have ordered soldiers into battle. He does not have to consider, as does George Bush that he did it it vain. He has not insulted other nations. He has a chance to pull it off. I hope we give it to him.
Mel
8:09:57 PM 
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Friday, September 24, 2004 |
Negotiate with terrorists?
It has been a long standing principle of the United States and most of its allies that we never negotiate with terrorists. Although there have been exceptions the recent kidnappings and gruesome murders by the insurgents in Iraq underscore that the policy is still adhered to rather dogmatically. The policy or at least the dogmatism should be reconsidered.
The general rationale, as recently repeated by Secretary of State Powell, is that to negotiate or capitulate in any way would be seen by the terrorists as a reward for their actions and encourage new atrocities. It is a logical assumption and all experience of human nature confirms this tendency. But that simple pschychological construct does not always serve us well. It should be considered on a case by case basis.
When we refuse any contact with the terrorists and refuse to talk to them, we leave them unexposed and feeling safe. We leave them to imagine that they only need increase their ferocity to push our government over the edge. They know that terrorism as a tactic has worked in the past. With the retreat of the U.S. Marines from Lebanon after a truck bomb killed more than 200 marines in their barracks and the retreat from Somalia after a loss of far fewer men they have not learned that atrocities are fruitless. They have learned that sometimes they actually win.
There is another way they win. This has to do with the goals of the terrorists and the goals of the government. The goal of the government is to create order. The goal of the terrorist is to create violent disruption. By the time an incident has occurred and some government official is announcing the tired old line about not negotiating with terrorists, they have won. They have publicity. They have proven their fierceness to themselves and to their comrades. Most of all they feel safe. Doesn't that all add up to encouragement to commit more offenses?
In the U.S. with an ordinary non-political kidnapping, nothing starts until the kidnappers get in touch and make their demands. The minute they do the investigation starts and some times the kidnappers are caught, often the victim is spared.
What if we sometimes did negotiate with the terrorists for instance over hostages? In order to speak to us they would have to expose themselves. We would learn something about them. We would have some small chance of a successful conclusion.
There are no guarantees either way. Our current policy is a failure.
Mel
5:59:54 PM
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Monday, September 13, 2004 |
No winning strategy over terrorism President Vladimir Putin, citing the need to fight terrorism moved to increase his personal power at the expense of the constitution of the Russian federation. "the governors or presidents of the country's 89 regions would no longer be elected by popular vote but rather by local parliaments — and only on the president's recommendation." from the NYTimes of Monday Sept. 13, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/international/europe/13CND-RUSS.html?hp
This is a man who has given no indication of any sympathy to democratic aspirations. Now the tactics of terrorism have created enough instability that he can, without much political risk, take these steps to consolidate power. Freedom of the media was already sharply curtailed. Now we can be sure to be reading the "Further Tales of Lubyanka Prison" in a decade or so. As he mobilizes his military to pound the breakaway state of Chechnya into dust one wonders if the terrorists could have possibly won a greater victory.
Today, the headlines from Iraq include 59 dead from an insurgent attack and 25 dead from an American attack. After 9/11 we were cautioned repeatedly that if we changed the way we lived in response to the tactics of terrorism we would be giving them victory. We are giving them a victory of epic proportions.
Every military establisment in the world is unprepared for the tactics of terrorism. We have not yet even gotten past our fear to comprehend that terrorism is a tactic used by our enemies, not an entity in itself. We feel somehow morally superior because we have rules of engagemwnt and they do not. The Israelis have rules of engagement that allow them to go into Gaza or the West Bank and blow up houses or cars that may contain identified enemies. If innocent bystanders are killed it is justified under the rationale of self-defense. The Russians have killed, according to media sources, possibly 25% of the Chechnyan population. Could ll of them have been armed militants. Is it all right that an orgranized regular military kills thousands of innocents when going after a few who use terrorist tactics?
The U.S. evidently has an official policy of not releasing the numbers of innocent Iraqis killed or wounded its military operations.
We are not morally superior. We are merely more comfortable with our own rules. Both sides kill innocents for their political purposes.
We are all paying the price of historical neglect of our relations with the Arab world. I want to be perfectly clear. The Arab world is its own worst enemy. It is angry at us largely because of its own failures. But we have, to our lasting regret, ignored our overdependence on their oil. We could have changed that long ago. We could have foreseen that keeping American troops in Saudi Arabia over time would have brought a reaction. We should have foreseen that our uncritical support of Israel's hysterical policies of self-defense would have made it nearly impossible to have decent relationships with the Arab nations.
I do not advocate abandoning the right of self-defense. I advocate understanding that are losing. Islamic extremism is turning civilization on its ear. Despite all the brave words we are losing every day. The battle is won every time the insurgents attack. It does not matter if we occasionally win a battle. The terrorists win when they mount an attack. We win only when they fail to attack. since the terrorists are capable of attacking on many fronts, we, the nations of the world, need to fight back on as many fronts. We can't do that as separate nations with different policies. We have to coordinate our policies. We have to cooperate even to the extent that we compromise sovereignty. I know that is blasphemy, but this problem is global. The idea that the military of any one nation can solve the defense problems of that nation is now a fallacy. And now the final fallacy. We will have to negotiate with the Islamicists. We might as well start calling them what they are, fighters for a cause. Even though we don't want to respect them and hate their cause, we must accept their existance as a force with an agenda, otherwise we can't even fight them to a draw.
Mel
9:17:09 PM
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Freedoms March and Credibility There was a large physical disturbance over the weekend in North Korea. Secretary of State Colin Powell was quick to announce that it was not a nuclear event. This brings to mind some questions:
How would he know? Does he have scientific staff available for such analysis? Wouldn't that be the purview of CIA or NSA or even the Defense Intelligence Agency. If one of those agencies gathered and analyzed the information, why would it be announced by the State Department? Aren't these the same types of data that would have come across the desks of the same people who were responsible for deciding that Saddam Hussein had WMD.
Was the decision made to have the announcement come from State an attempt to get the most possible credibility for yet one more piece of critical information that may not be ultimately knowable?
Can we now go to the Security Council and say with any hope of being believed that the North Koreans are one step closer to becoming a Nuclear power? Based on Iraq and the continued spin of the administration over the failures in that unfortunate country, it is not clear how anyone is going to believe us over an issue that all seem to wish would just go away.
One wonders how we Americans can be believed in world affairs on a day when another 59 Iraqis were killed in freedom's march.
Mel
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3:23:46 AM
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Wednesday, September 08, 2004 |
A preemptive world Yesterday, Israel struck a Hamas headquarters in Gaza in retalliation for two suicide bombs on buses in Israel. The attack resulted in a number of dead Hamas members. There was no mention of other casualties although innocent bystanders are often killed in such attacks. Observers could be presumed to have breathed a sigh of relief that it was Gaza and not Syria that was attacked. Syria, which does harbor the Hamas leadership in Damascus, had been threatened by the Sharon government. Israel would have considered itself justified under its right of self-defense policy. Under the same policy Israel has bombed a nuclear facility in Iraq and is said to threaten such facilities in Iran. Of course, Israel is presumed to have nuclear weapons of its own.
Since the beginning of the Afghanistan war America has been fighting and bombing under its own version of self-defense called preemption. We have said we will strike anywhere there exists "terrorists with a global reach" and we will consider nations who harbor such terrorists to be legitimate targets. It is hard to believe Iran is not next on our list.
Today, in response to the horrific terrorist incident in a Russian school house a Russian general stated that the Russian military would strike anywhere in the world where there were terrorists who threatened his country. (I do not have the precise quote, but that was the gist.) We don't know what else he could bomb in Chechnya, but Russia has a number of Muslim neighbors.
Iran has indicated that it would not sit idly by while it was targeted by its enemies.
At least four powerful nations have indicated or practiced a policy of striking anywhere in the world in support of their view of self-defense. I think we have the seeds of another world war where nations fight nations, where there is mass devastation. where the weapons of mass destruction are hysterical nations willing to justify any behavior for national security and the only winners are the terrorists.
Should we reelect George Bush, the author and first practitioner of the American preemptive doctrine, or should we elect John Kerry who has repeatedly stated that the war on terror is a global problem requiring a global solution.
Melvyn Polatchek
7:40:14 PM
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Monday, September 06, 2004 |
The terrorist transformation What is a terrorist? The Chechen rebels had a real cause. They wanted to separate from Russia. They ran into the political needs of Vladimir Putin, the Russian President. Putin has fought two brutal wars against them. It is clear the Chechens can not stand up to the Russian military which, it has been charged, has killed of some 25 per cent of the population of Chechnya.
The Chechens not completely defeated, despite grievious losses, have fought back using terrorist tactics. World opinion did not, at first condemn the Chechens because they had legitimate grievances. The U.S. never condemned Russian tactics because Presidents Clinton and Bush both had commited personal friendships with Russian Presidents Yeltsin and Putin.
Then came the attack on a theatre in Moscow. While there have been many attacks, the capture of an entire theatre audience galvanized world opinion against the attackers. Still the condemnation was not complete because of the grisly use of nerve gas by Russian security forces.
There have been a large number of attacks that have not captured world attention. But, starting with the downing of two Russian airliners and ending with the school hostage crisis, in which at least two hundred were killed, the last few weeks have been a horror for the Russians and the terrorists have lost all public sympathy.
I find it interesting that if the Chechens were to fight on, they had no choice but to use the tactics of guerilla fighters, but their tactics inevitably transcended their issues. They became known more as terrorists than Chechen rebels. Now with this attack and the clear evidence that they are allied with and supported by Al Qaeda the transformation is complete.
Presidene Putin has declared that his nation is at war with a terrorist force which is out to destabilize the country. So far they are quite successful.
It is probably unjust, but those who turn to terrorist tactics eventually lose the righteousness of their cause. To survive, the nations of the world will eventually coalesce and find new forms of alliance to wipe out all the terrorist groups. It is a shame that legitimate grievances will be forgotten in the battles to come.
Melvyn Polatchek
6:35:39 AM
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Sunday, September 05, 2004 |
The Republican convention and John Kerry The republican convention is finally over. In my lifetime I can't remember a more frightening show. There were two themes. The first was the mythology of 9/11. Repeatedly, they congratulated themselves for behaving wonderfully during and after the attacks. They were sending the message that somehow they were superior beings who saved the day. They did not save the day. The day was saved by the cops and firemen, many of whom were lost, who went into those buildings to rescue people. The day was saved by hundreds of unnamed heroes who helped their fellow human beings out of the buildings.
Mayor Giuliani was a calming influence and provided needed leadership on the day of the attacks. He was the ideal media presence. But he told the convention audience that when he saw the first building coming down he said, "Thank God George Bush is President". It was the stupidest lie in a convention of lies. On what basis of achievement could George Bush have created such confidence. Any one in his right mind would have said. "My god we've been attacked and we have an untested President of no experience!"
On what basis could Giuliani even have such a thought. For that matter on what basis did the republican party elders annoint George Bush with the nomination in 2000. When they had John McCain, a hero of astonishing achievement in their party, how could they name this person who had never succeeded at anything in his life? He had name recognition and his father's connections and money. So from the beginning, even before the primary process began, the party's calculation was cynical. They believed they could sell him and that was the reason they nominated him. Though, because they did not believe he could actually do the job, they put Dick Cheney in to hold his hand.
Out of the luck of birth and position was created a President. Out of the terrorist attack was created the myth of George Bush, the great President, and they played it for four nights like the background music of a horror movie.
The second theme was to insult John Kerry repeatedly. Except for John McCain every politician that spoke took his shots. John Kerry has given them ammunition. He runs as a Senator with all the baggage of having been a legislator where every bill is voted upon numerous times for different arcane reasons. Anyone can impune the record of a legislator. Zell Miller, the rogue Democrat turned Republican demagogue read the list of weapons systems opposed by John Kerry. He asked if John Kerry would fight a war with spitballs and got a rousing ovation from the partisan crowd. There was no debate here, no one to ask how the B1 bomber could be used to root out the insurgents in Bagdad? There was no one to point out that Dick Cheney had opposed these same systems while he was defense secretary? The whole speech, nearly hysterical in tone, was designed and presented to shock. Then came Vice President Cheney. After Miller's ragged fortissimo furioso his smooth adagio like tone sounded almost reassuring, if you didn't listen to his words. Mr. Cheney spoke of driving the Taliban from power. "even though just as the convention got under way, at least seven people, including two Americans, were killed by Taliban fighters in Kabul" *
Then finally on Thursday night came Bush, as smooth as any snake oil salesman. The following is a quote from a column by Maureen Dowd about one if his more clever lies:
Painting himself as the noble agent for "the transformational power of liberty" abroad, he said "there have always been doubters" when America uses its "strength" to "advance freedom": "In 1946, 18 months after the fall of Berlin to Allied forces, a journalist in The New York Times wrote this: 'Germany is a land in an acute stage of economic, political and moral crisis. European capitals are frightened. In every military headquarters, one meets alarmed officials doing their utmost to deal with the consequences of the occupation policy that they admit has failed.' End quote. Maybe that same person's still around, writing editorials."
She isn't. Anne O'Hare McCormick, who died in 1954, was The Times's pioneering foreign affairs correspondent who covered the real Axis of Evil, interviewing Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Patton. She was hardly a left-wing radical or defeatist. In 1937, she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, and she was the first woman to be a member of The Times's editorial board.
The president distorted the columnist's dispatch. The "moral crisis" and failure she described were in the British and French sectors. She reported that the Americans were doing better because of their policy to "encourage initiative and develop self-government." She wanted the U.S. to commit more troops and stay the course - not cut and run.
Mr. Bush Swift-boated her.*
I am reminded of the schoolyard at P.S. 85 in the Bronx when I was seven years old. There were bands of roving boys who went about bullying. Though there was occasional violence, the preferred method was verbal harassment. Picking on some attribute of weakness in a victim they went after him. They did everything they could to create a scene of crying or running away so they could launch the ultimate barb of "chicken" to ruin the poor boy's life. I was victimized only occasionally. Some were attacked often enough to become destroyed persons afraid to come to school. I recall a couple of boys who dissappeared. Those bullies with their tactics seem to have joined the Republican party.
John Kerry reminds me of the victims. I saw him at a rally after George Bush's convention speech. He started out with the following. "The Vice President called me unfit for public office. Let me ask you this. What qualifies you for office more, five deferments or two tours of duty in Vietnam?" The retort of a victimized child. "Nyah, "Nyah", drowned out by by the media who repeated the Republican lies endlesly. The Republican bullies have learned they don't have to follow the victim around. The media hyenas will do it for them.
My candidate, John Kerry, does not know how to strike back successfully. He always describes himself as a fighter, but he does not fight. He has given the Republicans much ammunition with which to hurt him politically. He must now fight back with winning blows. He must get out in the street with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He must forget Vietnam and yell back. "Oh yeah!, you lost 3 million jobs" "Oh yeah!, you sent the troops into Iraq and forgot to close the border with Iran". "Oh yeah!, you railroaded the patriot act through congress with your republican friends and you have hundreds maybe thousands of people imprisoned only on the word of your Attorney General and no citizen is safe from unwarranted arrest or investigation". "Oh yeah!, Since you appeared in your flight suit and declared 'mission accomplished' we have lost nearly a thousand soldiers with thousands wounded and uncounted numbers of Iraqis killed or wounded." "Oh yeah!, Our Marines have been sent into battle repeatedly and had to stop before victory was achieved for political considerations your administration does not know how to manage." "Oh yeah! the U.S. Marines now act under the orders of Prime Minster Alawi of Iraq!"
John Kerry is in a brawl and he has to brawl. He has to dust off his M-16, stop talking about Vietnam and fight.
He has to throw back one-liner grenades and force George Bush on the defensive. He has to give a speech where the most rousing line is not the first but near the end like a real politician rallying a crowd to give money and go out and work for him. He can't be President any other way. He has to get into that arena. He took on the responsibility of accepting our nomination. He has seen the character of the opposition, naked in all its barbaric fury, now he has to do what it takes to win.
Melvyn Polatchek
Maureen Dows article of Saturday Sept 4, 2004 ttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/opinion/05dowd.html?hp
6:28:46 AM
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