What Kind of Crap Is This?

Dictators have often used fear as a way to maintain their strangleholds on their people.

Yesterday I heard that Dick Cheney said the following about John Kerry.

"If we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."

Give me a break. We face that danger every day and Bush/Cheney didn't stop it in the past and the notion that they will stop it in the future and John Kerry can't and won't is just crap.

I wish the American public would see through this campaign of fear, but I have my doubts these days and it makes me really sad and really angry.

UPDATE: I am not the only person who is angry about this. Read Jason Chervokas' longer and better articulated perspective on the VP's comments.

Comments

[chervokas]

Fred, right on. See my post on the subject this morning: http://chervokas.typepad.com/trickster/2004/09/the_fear_presid.html

[jackson]

I wouldn't get to worked up Fred, I have a feeling our guy will get a bump from the debates.

[jackson]

I wouldn't get to worked up Fred, I have a feeling our guy will get a bump from the debates.

[Duncan]

"I wish the American public would see through this campaign of fear, but I have my doubts these days and it makes me really sad and really angry."

Often in political situations where you think "why can't everyone else see it like I do," it means you don't see the real deal yourself. The American public is made up of people as lucid as yourself, believe it or not. I imagine what really makes you sad and angry is that every man and woman's vote counts the same, and yours don't count extra :)

[Jerry]

Duncan:
Except if you're a Floridian, right? I mean, for example, there are only 100,000 people who have paid their debts to society waiting for the State of Florida to reinstate their civil rights after their incarceration.

Funny how those waiting lists used to be much, much shorter under previous governors...previous that is to Jeb Bush.

No, Duncan, I am afraid you're wrong. Not all votes count...or more, specifically, not all votes are counted.

[Duncan]

Conspiracies are fun, aren't they? There's always a grand (right-wing?) conspiracy behind it all. Jerry, did you hear the one about how all the jews got phone calls to get out of the twin towers right before they were hit?

The smug elitism is pretty comfortable, espsically when there's no way to prove things one way or another, isn't it. Nothing wrong with it (I feel that way about my football team after all), not too becoming though, you have to admit.

[Pierre]

Sad and angry are emotions that I never thought would dominate my spirit, but day in and day out of reading the current adminstrations positions on nearly *everything* they get involved with has lead me to this perpetual state of mind :-(

My sadness and anger however are largely tied to those I know who hear and see the same things that we're hearing and seeing, but still feel strongly to promote the current administrations status quo. It's unbelievable to me when intelligent and compassionate people hear these types of statements and still say, "but I like his family values". Arrrrggggghhhh! ;-)

No one said it was going to be easy living in this country and having tolerance for all points of view, but I never thought that in 2004 I'd have to be tolerant of fascism ;-)

BTW, a great book to pick up for those Christian minded folks who believe that our current leaders are playing by that Book, is called "May God Bless America: George W. Bush and Biblical Morality" by Joseph J. Martos (a pentecostal pastor). It goes into some good details on Christian values related to public policy issues in turn related and how the current administration has handled these.

[Jason Chervokas]

Duncan, I'm not one for conspiracy theories. I never saw a right wing progrom vs. Bill Clinton. I mean, the right hated him, but there was nothing conspiratorial about trying to remove him from office for lying under oath. In fact, I agreed with it. Hell, I'm even willing to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed John Kennedy. But with this administration the evidence clearly suggests that there is no tactic too unstoopably low, no element of policy too sacrosanct for it to be twisted for the sake of political advantage, and that includes terror alerts and voting booth technology.

I'm not concerned that Cheney's comments will be detrimental to the Kerry campaign. In fact, I suspect the comments will have quite the opposite effect. But I do get concerned when partisanship descends to the level of "my guy, right or wrong," and partisans find rationales to excuse reprehensible behavior like the vice president's shameless, disgraceful fear mongering. It's partisan rationale construction that time and again turns government off its proper path.

[Jason Chervokas]

Pierre-

A less great book--it's neither all that well written or all that well organized--but a book chock a block with fascinating historical information on church and state issues, is Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers, a history of American secularism.

[Duncan]

I agree with you Jason. I agree it goes both ways too. I read alot of shameless, disgraceful fear-mongering right on this blog :)

Fortunately, I think that most voters think a bit more level headed, even though that makes the partisans sad and angry at times.

[Jerry]

Hey Duncan...I'm never one for crazy theories but the source of my comment aout the ex-cons being unable to vote is pretty reputable: Bob Graham.

[Tony Alva]

So this latest comment from DC is any more/less incindiary then JK's "...I'd have done everything differently" speech How? Let's not forget JK's voting record here. JK is a terrible candidate against guys like J. Lieberman and all you can hope for is a catastrophe to alter the outcome at this point I'm afraid.

All you NYC movers/shakers are so easily incensed by election year rhetoric. It boggles my mind.

I just turned the channel on your boy Dan Rather doing a piece on GW's guard record. I will be very curious to se how you blatant partisians react to the "outragious" act of looking into someones militaru background.

[Jason Chervokas]

Tony-

I think you're way off base here. Cheney's comments were different in kind from Kerry's statement that he would have done things differently--which was merely a statement of policy difference (the reason we have campaigns after all)--or from the incendiary, polemical hyperbole that typifies electioneering. Cheney threatened the electorate with his comments that a vote for Kerry would result in a terrorist attack against the US. That's not even down and dirty politics. It's a reprehensible kind of fear-mongering that would have been reprehensible in any era no matter who spoke the words.

Also, of course it's perfectly fair game to look into a candidate's war record. But in the case of the Swifty campaign it was not a matter of looking into Kerry's war record but using a fabricate record. All of the group's assertions (except for the December date of Kerry's Cambodian episode) were entirely unsupported by any verifiable record. They were simply lies (and in some cases opinions). That's old-fashioned politics. Not an outrage but certainly dirty and something for which they should be taken to task. Attacking someone's record is fine. Lying about it is another matter altogether. As to Bush's national guard service record, I think it's utterly irrelevant to the present campaign and I'm sorry to see the Dems wasting any time and money on it.

[jackson]

"If you vote for Kerry the sky will fall, Satan will emerge from his black lair and evil will run rampant upon the land." - D. Cheney (Translated into arabic and back via Alta Vista's Babel Fish.)

[Tony Alva]

We'll agree to differ on this, but in my mind it all fits into plain ole election year rap. From the rep's perspective, JK's notion of a "kinder, gentler..." War on terror frightens them as much as what DC's comments affected the Dem's. I can tell you at great risk of being tossed into the Rep's camp by you guys, that I agree with the Rep's on this issue.

You said it yourself on your blog a while ago in your "3 things" post. I believe way more than party lines reveal that a majority of Americans want a stronger response to the war on terror and since the only one talking tough is W, against all the other bad policy he represents, he will get the begrudged vote. Fighting terror is the only issue of this election, period. You can disagree with the Iraq invasion et al, but any signs the Kerry camp gives that it will be more sensitive to the war on terror the less likely it will be for him to be elected. I'm shocked that he hasn't figured this out at such a late stage of the game.

You and I, as well as Jarvis, all agree that this military record stuff is way off what ought to be front and center.

I posted on Jacksons blog back in the spring that vets were going eat JK alive for his acts of idiocy AFTER he got back from Nam. My father and his friends are extremely demure guys on pres politics of this nature, but when I here these guys grit their teeth about his actions, I gotta think there are many out there that support the Swifties for payback reasons alone even though they don't believe any of the charges themselves. In the south here it's called "gittin' what you git."

I also said that all Kerry had to do was retract the action not the message, and most would have let it go. He wanted no part of it.

I think it's even too late for him to take your sage advice about coming out strong against terrorism I'm afraid. Too bad really. Now it looks like we'll be stuck in neocon land for another 4 years.

[jackson]

Doesn't anybody listen to the candidate? Kerry IS tough on Terror, he's said it over and over, but nobody hears because of the din created by Bush's black op smear team. He's saying Bush isn't doing it right, not that it shouldn't be done. Didn't ANYBODY watch the convention?

[jeff nolan]

Seeing as how Kerry embodies the notion of nuance, let's put the VP's comments in the context of his entire statement for proper perspective. What Cheney said is that if we go back to treating terrorists as crimminals rather than groups making war on us, we will be at greater risk of attack. I agree with this statement completely, it's really hard to not agree with this logic.

Will Kerry/Edwards treat terrorists as crimminals, I'm inclined to believe they would:

1) they want to wage a more "sensitive" war on terror
2) outsource our foreign policy to the UN, who can't even manage to call the situation in Darfur what it is, genocide. The UN and NATO are both limited in their offensive military capability, and the fact remains that their is a coalition of military forces in Iraq today... that's it's not being commanded by Kofi Annan or the Europeans is quite frankly a positive to most Americans.
3) commit to pulling out troops from Iraq whether or not the job is done
4) and then there's the pesky voting records, when they showed up to vote, that get in the way of any argument in favor of Kerry's prediliction for being tough

The notion that Kerry will be tough on terrorists just because he says so is laughable. He has absolutely no record to speak of, and his comments create more confusion than clarity. Jeez, John Edwards is out talking about how he would sell uranium to the Iranians if they "promised" not to make weapons with it.

Blame Bush-Cheney all you want, but the problem for the Democrats is your candidate, not the incumbant.

I would even go so far as to say the problem with the Democratic party today IS the Democratic party. Maybe this is why you lost the Presidency, the Senate, the House, and the majority of state governors. Come November the GOP could pick up another 4-5 Senate seats as well.

Finally, I think the Democrats are hyprocritical for crying foul about the VP's statements considering that the DNC's talking points include statements that say the President is creating more terrorists and making America less safe in the manner upon which he has led the country.

[Jason Chervokas]

This whole criminal vs. war thing is just such a load of bull. If treating terrorists as criminals is the wrong strategy then why does the justice dept need all sorts of new powers to combat the "war on terrorism," why is freezing assets an appropriate tactic, and why does the US help countries like Germany, Spain, and the UK arrest and charge terrorists?

Of course all tactics are and should be on the table--criminal, diplomatic, military-- when it comes to fighting a war against enemies that attack us. The only people having the 'criminal vs. miliatry' discussion are Neo-con intellectuals. Its an irrelevant distinction on the ground.

Finally and most importantly, there is no US "war on terrorism." A) terrorism is a tactic not an enemy; B) we are not at war with ETA, the IRA, Hindu assassins in India. We are at war with Al Qaeda because they declared war on us and attacked us. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has no relevance to defeating Al Qaeda, in fact the argument that it has hindered our war on Al Qaeda by diverting resources and alienating allies is a strong one.

It's true that Bush has put the United States in a moral and practical position of having to create a stable nation in Iraq before we leave, but there has always been a strong likelihood that such a nation is impossible. It's the reason Bush I, Scowcroft, and Baker decided not to take out Saddam years ago, because they new that a contained, predicatable Saddam was a better option for US safety that the current options that Bush II has left us: i) puppet government propped up by the US of the type we used to run during the cold war that got our modern problems started in the region w/ our support of the Shah of Iran; and ii) a three way partitioning of the nation w/ an Iran dominated Islamic gov't in the south, a Kurdish government always worrying about Turkey to the north, and some kind of Shi'ite anarchy in the middle.

[jeff]

that's revisionist history, GWI limited the military option to removing Saddam from Kuwait. This was the necessary compromise in order to herd all the cats.

What is a load of bull is the idea that the DoD cannot wage several wars simultaneously. With 1.4m active duty there is more than enough resources to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Iran and North Korea should the need arise. Read Tommy Franks book, the decision to go to war with 140,000 troops wasn't a resource issue, it was a military doctrine one... mobile warfare. Looking back on it today, even the critics and skeptics admit that it was highly successful. Sure, post war is messy, but there is ample historical precedent for that as well, keep in mind that the Marshall Plan wasn't unveiled until 1947.

Finally, regarding your "no war on terrorism" comment, keep it up because that is exactly why the Democrats will lose this election. You can't drive you car effectively looking in your rear view mirror, you can't be expected to be trusted with national security if you are always fighting yesterday's war. We are not at war with a nation, but we were never attacked by an entity not attached to a nation either. Your notion of what war is reflects your historical perspective, not a current one.

Anyone that doesn't see this as a struggle between ideologies just doesn't want to see it that way.

[Jason Chervokas]

Jeff-

You're wrong about my revisionism. Jim Baker's explanation of the decision not to go into Baghdad, from his memoir The Politics of Diplomacy, is too long to quote in it's entirety but to paraphrase and quote in part here is what he said:

1) as you mention the core objective of ejecting Iraq from Kuwait and weaking Saddam's military might had been achieved;

2)"even if Saddam were captured and his regime toppled, American forces would still be confronted with the specter of a military occupation of indefinite duration to pacify the country and sustain a new government in power. The ensuing urban warfare would surely result in more casualties to American GIs than the war itself....";

3)"Diplomatically, pressing on to Baghdad would have caused not just a rift but an earthquake w/in the coalition...had we opted for this approach, we never would have been in a position to create a meanginful peace process because we would have lost the Arab members of the coalition."

4)"...as much as Saddam's neighbors wanted to see him gone, they feared that Iraq might fragment in unpredicatable ways that would play into the hands of the mullahs in Iran, who could export their brand of Islamic fundamentalism w/ the help of Iraq's Shiites and quickly transform themselves into the dominant regional power. This was also a genuine concern of the Bush administration and many of our allies....."

Events have proven Baker prophetic. These reasons still clearly articulate the problems in Iraq and why current US actions have created a perhaps inextricable quagmire. They are also the reasongs, I suspect, why Bush the Elder's National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft opposed the invasion.

Baker was a brilliant secretary of state, a committed multilateralist, and he, Scowcroft, and Powell knew exactly what they were doing both militarily and, just as importantly diplomatically with the Gulf War. The current administration could learn a thing or two about foreign policy from their Secretary of State if they ever let him have any influence in foreign policy decisions!

As to your second comment, my understanding is that it is universally believed among military tacticians that one of the problems w/ securing Iraq is the insufficient numbers of troops committed to the problem, and that many of the problems that lead to the Abu Ghraib disgrace result from a) putting military personal into duties for which they weren't trained because manpower is tight and b) relying on outside contractors--the lite warfare that Rumsfeld has advocated.

Finally, human history did not reboot on September 11, 2001. It's true that a war against a non-national enemy is new and presents new challenges. But frankly the new challenges it presents are less military than diplomatic. And even if you see it as a clash of ideologies, surely you must realize that you can't defeat ideas with bombs and occupations (not that you don't have to use those tactics occasionally where appropriate). After September 11 GWB had a historic opportunity to build an international coalition against Al Qaeda. Hell, even the French would have been putty in his hands! He chose instead to take the keys of the foreign policy away from Powell and hand them over to hawkish ideologues like Cheney and Rumsfeld who a) wanted to take the spoils of the Cold War off the table; and b) wanted to put into practice their pet theories of American supremecy and lite warfare. The problem is that its left us trillions in debt and no safer with and facing an open ended military ocupation of two countries. It's loony, particularly for a President who vowed that he wouldn't engage in nation building.

[jeff]

Jason,
You make a compelling and articulate argument, however I believe we'll have to call it a draw and agree to disagree. Powell's book, as well as several independent policy analysises (e.g. Yetiv) cover extensively the political dimensions of GW1 and the necessity to stick to Kuwait in order to hold together the coalition. Furthermore, the U.S. was still living in Vietnam mindset, Bush 41 was mindful to that reality.

Regarding where we are in the current conflict, most definitely you have a point about insufficient troops, but the disbanding of the existing authority and the Iraqi military compounded this dramatically. It's never just one thing, and even with another 50-75k troops we would have had security issues because the threat not only came from within Iraq but also from foreign fighters coming in through porous borders. I have issues with the way the President handled the post major combat period, so we can agree on that.

I do disagree with the notion that the Europeans would ever have gone along with an offensive military operation, not with the French selling weapons to Saddam in the months prior to the invasion, nor with the French and a number of other countries getting bought off by Saddam with the oil-for-food program. There are many dirty hands among the Euros, let's keep that in perspective.

Finally, I don't believe that the military card alone is going to win this war, but absent of aggressive military action we will certainly fail. Additionally, insofar as the governments in this region stoke these fires to take the heat off of domestic situations, bringing democracy and representative government is a good long term strategic goal.

It's up to the Muslim world to start the process of introspection, blowing up buses and shooting children in the back is barbaric and lacking in divinity, and any religion that finds this acceptable has some serious issues. Sure, it's an extreme element and not representative of the masses, but it's going to take action by the masses to marginalize the extreme elements. The Arab world also requires some introspection with regard to self-responsibility and self-determination because all I hear coming out of this region is that it's 1) the Jews fault, 2) the Americans fault, and 3) Americas support for Israel. The genocide in Darfur doesn't interest the OAS or Arab representatives at the UN because it doesn't fall into 1, 2, or 3, although Sudan is trying to suggest that Israel is behind the problems in Darfur so maybe they will get outraged about it after all.

With no opportunity to look forward to and an appalling lack of value for life, the middle east will remain a shithole and a problem. We can't fix that for them, but standing around and waiting for the middle east to do it for themselves isn't working either.

[Pat]

I hardly think we'd be having this discussion if the Democrats nominated a stronger, more pro-defense candidate. Wes Clark would not be having this particular problem, nor I think would Lieberman. Had a centrist (like Clinton) been nominated, with strong national security credentials (sorry, Kerry was pro-nuke freeze and pretty dovish on most defense appropriation bills and really is no centrist). Hopefully, next time around the Dems will abandon the McGovern wing of the party and work harder to "steal" the national security issue from the Republicans with a credible candidate.

[chervokas]

Jeff-

I suspect that we have myriad areas of agreement, as do, I believe, many rank and file Republicans and Democrats--those who are not ideologues but pragmatists interested only in the best means for ensuring security at home and furthering US interests abroad.

Problems always occur when ideologues of any stripe are in charge because they are true believers, inherently convinced of the perfection of their ideas. They don't compromise, they don't negotiate, they don't listen to other opinions, and they are susceptible to people willing to tell them what they want to hear.

I think the situtation in Iraq is a classic case. There were ideologues in the administration or close to it that were predisposed to war with Iraq at the time of the President's inauguration. They were led astray by disinformation fed to them by Ahmed Chalabi and his associates because they believed a US toppling of Saddam would lead to their rise to power. So under contract w/ the Pentagon Chalabi et al. started telling stories about secret caches of WMDs, about how US forces would be cheered as liberators, etc. Just what the neocons in the DoD and VP's office wanted to hear. The administration kept feeding the "intelligence" on WMDs to UN inspectors, who kept finding it groundless, but because that conclusion didn't jibe w/ the ideology it was dismissed.

Now I think it's ok for a President to have ideologues in his cabinet, but as cheif executive the President has to act not out of ideology but out of concern for furthering US interests. It was a leadership failure on the President's part to blindly follow where the ideology led even as intelligence existed to contradict the bogus stuff to which DoD fell prey. We should never have gone to Iraq in the first place. There was no compelling US interest at stake there.

It was a futher failure of leadership on the part of the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Cheifs of Staff to insufficiently plan for the diplomatic, political, and military repercussions of their Iraqi invasion. If Jim Baker nearly 15 years ago could articulate all the problems we now face in Iraq then certainly any war plan should have been devised to deal with those problems. It wasn't. And there still is no real plan. They're just making it up as the go along, reacting to situtaions that threaten to run out of control.

Also, while I agree with you in principle that it is in our interests to promote democratic goverments in the Middle East, that policy goal has proved problematic on two fronts. First, our invasions and occupations have not led to secure democratic governments and may never do so. Let's not forget that we handed over the keys to the Iraqi's in the dead of night and among the first acts of the provision government--not a democratically elected government--was the declaration of martial law. Meanwhile elections in Afghanistan have had to be postponed twice. Some democracy! Second, it has often happened in recent years (Algeria, Pakistan) that democratic elections in Arab nations have led to Islamic governments hostile to the US, followed by military overthrows that we supported at least tacitly. So it may be the case that democratic governments in the Middle East will not result in greater US safety. Iraq had a secular gov't and if free elections are held there now it is certainly likely that Islamic parties will have a large if not controlling stake.

And as to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, that too may prove intractible--so far neither side has shown a true willingness to settle on anything but its own absolute terms. But US engagement in talks, even talks that fail, has historically been a stablizing factor, projecting the US as an honest broker to the rest of the world. The current policy--to refuse to engage the Palestinians as long as Arafat is in charge while giving Sharon a political blank check-- while it comports with the ideological correctness of "moral clarity" has been destabilizing and run counter to our interests in ensuring US safety.

For these, and a number of other reasons involving deficit spending, nuclear proliferation, and in intrusion of church into state, I believe George Bush's presidency has been a disasterous failure.

John Kerry may not be the perfect candidate, but he has military experience and he is a gentleman and a diplomat who has proven he can work across party lines--skills, experiences, and character traits that will be valuable in extricating us from the current mess--and he is pointedly not an ideologue, which to me is of crucial importance.

[Pat]

"We should never have gone to Iraq in the first place. There was no compelling US interest at stake there."

Hardly. Oil is a major national interest for this country whether you agree with it or not. Even while gasoline at inflation-adjusted rates is below what it was in the 1930s, the outrage over a gallon of gas priced at $2.20 here in California is palpable. See how many people agree with your "no compelling interest" argument when gas hits $3 a gallon.

Second, you may hate them, but Israel is an ally of the U.S. and, like Taiwan or South Korea, is a country we've pledged to defend. Iraq has demonstrably shown itself to be a threat to Israel, as well as others in the region like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Third, Hussein plotted to assasinate former President George H.W. Bush. Protecting current and former heads of state is a compelling national interest.

Fourth, eliminating anti-U.S. governments in Iraq, Syria, and Iran is an obvious goal here and in the interests of protecting our interest in oil, regime change in those countries is in the national interest, hence our invasion of Iraq.

Fifth, Hussein demonstrated the capacity to commit genocide against the Kurds in the north via the use of chemical weapons, and brutally repressed the Shia in the south in 1991. As BilL Clinton intervened in Kosovo with the notion of preventing genocide as in our national interest, so to was it in the national interest in invade Iraq.

Sixth, Iraq built and used chemical and biological weapons. Perhaps even nuclear weapons. It flaunted UN resolutions and weapons inspectors, and demonstrated continual shenaningans to frustrate the efforts of the weapons inspectors, eventually kicking them out of Iraq. They admitted they had the weapons, they behaved like they had something to hide, and we were given little reason to doubt they still had them. In tandem with 9-11 recall the anthrax attacks in the U.S., and you see a compelling national interest to eliminate producers of such weapons that might be used against the U.S. or our allies. Witness our posturing today vis-a-vis Iran: a nuclear Iran is unacceptable to us and we'll stop them to prevent their development.

So, you might consider sticking to your argument about the flawed execution of the war, which by historical standards (Germany, Japan) isn't all that flawed, and lose the arguments about our invasion not being in the national interest.

[Jason Chervokas]

Pat,

All of those things are true but none of them at the time rose to the level of imminent threat to the United States.

Ensuring the free flow of oil is a compelling interest, one that was endangered when Iraq invaded Kuwait but not in the current context.

The Iraqi military had been decimated by the gulf war and years of sanctions, in fact it was a soft target by the time of the US invasion. It posed no immediate threat to Israel and had taken no action against Israel.

Once in the past plotting to commit a threatening act obviously does not constitute an imminent threat or compelling state interest.

The commission of on going genocide, while it may have made a strong moral case for intervention, wouldn't present a case that American interests were directly at stake, and in any event it was not going on at the time of the decision to invade.

And finally, Iraq which obviously had and used WMD in the past had currently no stockpiles of them and most likely no ongoing programs.

I stand by my arguments that no compelling interests were at stake, that the war was a botch job strategically and tactically, that the war had no relevance to the war against our true enemies in the world of militant Islam, and that the war has probably hindered our execution of that truely important war.