IDEAS
FOR DEMOCRATS, V: ATTACK ON DEFENSE”
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
At
the end of January last Karl Rove announced that the Republicans would/should be
running on two issues in the November, 2006 Congressional elections: national
defense/security and "values" (New York Times, January 21, 2006,
Metropolitan Desk Late Edition – Sect. A, Page 1, Col. 1). Rove
does love to set the agenda for he knows well that virtually every time, he who
sets the agenda wins the election. We will be dealing with that electoral
strategy issue in more than one future column. In this one I begin a two-part
focus on the national defense/security issue, further developing the thinking
that I presented briefly at the end of my TPJ column of February 9, 2006,
entitled “A Comment on Democratic Alchemy; Appearing in The American
Prospect.”
The
Democratic Leadership Council Democrats, like Senators Hillary Clinton, Evan Bayh,
and Joseph Lieberman present one approach to the conundrum. It is
encapsulated well by the title of one of the most well-known songs from Irving
Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun: “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do
Better.” And so, they start from the falsity that in the War on
Iraq
“we are fighting them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over
here.” Now that strategy might be a good one if there were in Iraq large
numbers of non-Iraqis (or Iraqis for that matter) dedicated to the use of
flanking maneuvers (sorry, I mean “terrorism”) who we could fight and kill
or capture in large numbers. Unfortunately, that is not the case. On
many important issues the DLC seems to have the same level of dependence on
facts that the Georgites do. But, engaging in that alternate reality, the
DLC and its minions are falling all over themselves countering with the "we
can do the Georgite national security and values agendas even better than the
Georgites have, so elect us" line.
First,
this approach gives the game away on the facts before play starts. It is
well-known that the vast majority of Iraqi resisters to the
US
occupation are Iraqis and the best guess about them is that they would not have
taken up arms against any successor Iraqi government if the
US
occupation were not ongoing. It is also well-known that the overall
security situation in
Iraq
is getting worse, not better. Third, it is also well-known that among the
tens of thousands of new Iraqi enemies of the
US
the invasion/occupation has produced; before the invasion many of them viewed
the
US
as a country they could count on to help them when push came to shove in
getting rid of the hated dictator. It never occurred to them that the
US
way of replacing him would create a situation that an increasing number of
Iraqis regard as worse, not better.
Second,
the DLC approach gives the game away on what the correct electoral strategy is
before play starts. The Georgite policy in
Iraq
is based on the concept that military force can achieve the goals it has set as
those of the invasion: “establishing Democracy.” “We can do it
better” means that the DLC supports using more force, which presumably means
more money and more military manpower, both in short supply in the US, that is
unless taxes are raised to support the war effort and the draft is resumed.
(Even then, “success,” however it might be defined, would be hardly
guaranteed.) But one hears none of the latter. Just “we have to be
muscular,” “we cannot abandon the Iraqis, or the troops” “what will the
world think,” and the like.
Third,
the DLC strategy ignores the facts that a) the Georgites bold-facedly lied our
country into the war, b) a majority of Americans now thinks that the
US
never should have gone in, and c) that the primary electoral base of the
Democratic Party wants the
US
to leave as soon as possible.
Fourth,
the strategy totally disregards Harry Truman’s dictum that if a voter wants to
choose a Republican, they will go for the real one rather than some pale
imitation every time.
In
the face of this, what should Real Democrats do? Well, first of all, they
should be calling for withdrawal from
Iraq
at the earliest feasible time, just like Cong. Murtha and colleagues are in the
House and just like Sen. Feingold and colleagues are in the Senate. But to
my mind even more importantly, they should be going onto the offensive against
the Georgites. They should not accept the position that the Georgites
simply made a mistake and it is up to the Democrats to rectify it. The
premise should be that not only has the Iraq invasion weakened the national
security of our country, not strengthened it, but that the whole Georgite
national security policy and programs are totally flawed, and weaken our
country, not strengthen it.
And
so. The indictment of the Georgites on defense/national security could go
something like this.
1. Protecting
us from future 9/11s? The first one happened to have happened on their
watch.
It happens that they received multiple warnings about some threatened dire
terror event, from the famous 8/5/01 Presidential Daily Briefing paper to
whatever warning was leaked to Judith Miller and The New York Times by a
“top-level White House source” in the summer of 2001 (Daily News Attytood, www.pnionline.com.
5/18/06). They didn’t protect us the first time. Why should we
count on them to protect us again?
2. They may
have caught and killed al-Zarqawi but it still not known a) just how much Power
he had in the Iraq insurgency (some sources say”very little”), b) whether or
not he was really “al Qaeda.” In any case, the
US
has not caught Osama, and c) how his death (itself already shrouded in secrecy
and charges of cover-up) will affect the facts on the ground, if it will at all.
3. If the
Georgites did not lie the
US
people and Congress, as well as the UN, into the War, they were totally
incompetent in handling the intelligence information about what was the true
situation in
Iraq
in relation both to WMD and relations with al Qaeda (both non-existent).
2500 American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars later why should the
Georgites be trusted to do any better the next time around.
4. They have
depleted and weakened our armed services in fighting a war for which it is
ill-equipped and not properly trained. (There’s that competence issue
again.) In fact, they have taken the world’s mightiest military force
and are on their way to rendering it incapable of doling anything except massive
bombings (apparently on the Georgite agenda for
Iran
).
5. They have created
large numbers of new terrorists, not reduced their ranks.
6. They have turned the world
against us.
7. They
have done virtually nothing to strengthen homeland security in the homeland,
e.g., the deplorable situation at our nation’s ports. They use homeland
security funds as much for bucking up their electoral prospects in certain
states and districts as for proving true homeland security. And of
course, they have created a domestic spying operation that has no proven
relationship to homeland security but has a clearly proven relation to the
Georgite campaign to destroy Constitutional democracy in the
United States
.
8.
They have demonstrated clearly that they are totally incompetent when it comes
to handling natural disasters, much less future man-made ones that could have
even worse aftermaths.
9.
They have depleted the national treasury.
10.
Showing that they just love military solutions to problems that cannot be solved
using the military (like hunting down and seriously weakening if not eliminating
al Qaeda), they propose to send the National Guard to patrol our nation’s
Southern border, a task for which they are neither equipped nor trained.
Next time we will discuss a positive program on developing a true and truly
effective program for national defense and security.
________________
Dr. Steven Jonas is a contributing author for The Political Junkies
(www.thepoliticaljunkies.net).
He is a
Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and
author/co-author of over twenty books. Dr. Jonas is one of
America
's most perceptive Democratic political analysts.
In his book The New Americanism, Dr. Jonas presents his proposal for that
“new vision and mission” for the Democratic Party that so many, for so many
years, have been urging it to find. A new vision and mission are obviously
needed with increasing urgency as with increasing speed and determination the
Georgites drive our nation towards frank theocratic fascism. Dr. Jonas
finds the needed vision and mission in the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution. "The
New Americanism: How the Democratic Party Can Win the Presidency is available from Amazon.com (go to "Books;" enter the
title) and BarnesandNoble.com (same).
He is also the author of The 15% Solution: A Political
History of American Fascism, 2001-2022. Under the pseudonym
"Jonathan Westminster" this book was originally published in 1996.
It was republished with a New Introduction in 2004. Under Georgite rule,
the “fictional non-fiction” scenario of this work of “future history”
is, most unfortunately, becoming all too real, now almost day-by-day. The 2004 edition is available at www.barnesandnoble.com (search with the book title) and
www.xlibris.com (click on “Bookstore,” then
“Search” with the title). Both versions are available at www.amazon.com (go to "Books;" search with
the title).
Dr. Jonas is also a Contributing Editor
for the Weblog http://planetarymovement.org/blog/, produced by The Planetary
Movement Ltd. UK (http://planetarymovement.org/blog/), TPJ's own Michael
Carmichael, President and Chief Executive Officer, a Contributing
Columnist for the Project for the Old American Century, POAC (http://www.oldamericancentury.org/), on which
his TPJ columns appear regularly, and a Columnist for the webmagazine BuzzFlash
(http://www.buzzflash.com/) on which short(er)
articles are published once a week or so. By invitation, Dr. J's TPJ
columns are also posted periodically on the weblog Thomas Paine's Corner (http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/).
2006
Jun 15, 2006 "Ideas
For Democrats, IV: The Ten Commitments, Re-visited”
Jun 8, 2006 "Ideas
For Democrats, III: Dealing The DLC”
Jun 1, 2006 "Ideas
For Democrats, II: Why Don't The Democrats?”
May 25, 2006 "Ideas
For Democrats, I: The Vision”
May 18, 2006 "On
Conspiracy Theories"
May 11, 2006 "The
Significance Of The Tony Snow Job”*
May 3, 2006 "Bush
Is Not Hitler, II"
April 25, 2005 "Bush
Is Not Hitler, I”
April 20, 2006 "Some Thoughts On The 'Immigration Problem'"
April 13, 2006 “The Georgite State Of The Union Address Revited"
April 6, 2006 "A
Firebell In The Night: The So-Called 'Gay Marriage' Amendment, II"
April 2, 2006 "A Fireball In The Night:
The So-Called ‘Gay Marriage’ Amendment, I
Feb 22, 2006 “The
German Reichstag Fire of 1933 and 9/11: Some Comparisons. A Revisit,
Part II”
Feb 16, 2006 “The
German Reichstag Fire Of 1933 And 9/11: Some
Comparisons. A Revisit, Part1"
Feb 9, 2006 "A Comment On The Democratic Alchemy,’
Appearing In The American Prospect”
Feb 2, 2006 "Vengeance Is Mine, Saith The LORD"
Jan
26, 2006 "George
Bush And The Doctrine Of Original Intent"
Jan 19, 2006 "Let's Hear It For Original Intent (Version 2)"
Jan 12, 2006 "A Quick Visit To Mexico"
Jan 5, 2006 "Why
The Patriot Act, Redux: Fascism In The Here And Now, Cont."
Dec 22, 2005
"Why The Patriot Act, Redux: Fascism In The Here
And Now"
Dec 15, 2005 "An
Iraq Exit Proposal"
Dec 10, 2005 “Exiting
Iraq, The Georgite Way"
Dec 1, 2005 "The
Future Of The Democratic Party, VIII:
A Politically Viable Progressive Position On The War"
Nov
25, 2005 “The Future Of The Democratic Party, VII: ‘The Ten Commitments’”
Nov 17, 2005 "The
Future Of The Democratic Party, VI: An Organizing Proposal For Progressives”
Nov 10, 2005 “The
Future Of The Democratic Party, V:
There Is No Middle Ground"
Nov 3, 2005
“On
The (Possible) Indictments.”
Oct
27, 2005 “The
Future of the Democratic Party, IV:
Bush, Bennett, Miers, and the DLC.”
Oct 20, 2005 “The
Future Of The Democratic Party, III:
First Thoughts On Dealing With The DLC.”
Oct 13, 2005 “The Future Of The Democratic Party, II: On The Republicans”
Oct 6, 2005
“The Future Of The Democratic Party, I”
Sept
29, 2005 "The
Bush Flood, And The Georgites: New Orleans, III"
Sept 22, 2005 "On The Great New Orleans Flood Of 2005, II"
Sept 15, 2005 "On
The Great New Orleans Bush Flood Of 2005, I"
Sept 8, 2005 "Let's
Hear It For Original Intent"
Sept 1, 2005 "An
Iraq Solution"
Aug
25,2005 "Some
Thoughts On The Atomic Bombing Of Japan"
Aug 18, 2005 "Why
God Sent Us George W. Bush"
Aug 12, 2005 "John
Bolton And The Nuclear Option II"
Aug 5, 2005
"The
Significance Of The Karl Rove Speech"
July
28, 2005
“Iran
Nukes, Revisited"
(Expanded Edition)
July 21, 2005
“Iran
Nukes, Revisited"
July 14, 2005
"The
Dick Durbin Disaster" A Follow Up
July 7, 2005
"The Dick Durban Disaster"
June
23, 2005 "Why
All Of This Repression Abroad?"
June 16, 2005 “Not Very Intelligent Design"
June 8,2005
"Pat
Buchanan's "What If, "III?"
June 2, 2005
"Pat Buchanan's 'What If,' II?"
May
26, 2005 "Pat Buchanan's 'What If?'"
May 18, 2005 "The
Schiavo Case, V: The Attack On Science"
May 12, 2005 “Possible
Explanations For Bush-Behavior On And Around 9/11"
May 5, 2005
"Bill
Frist's Declaration Of War"
April
28, 2005 "The
Schiavo Case, IV: The Definitions Of Life And Death"
April 24, 2005
"The
Schiavo Case, III: Further Legal Considerations And Their Political
Implications"
April 14, 2005
“The
Schiavo Case, II: William Bennett And The Beginning Of The End Of The Separation
Of Powers"
April 7, 2005
"The
Schiavo Case And The Locus Of The 'Police Power'"
March
31, 2005 “John
Bolton And The Nuclear Option"
March 22, 2005
Of
"Moolahs," Putin and Bush
March 17, 2005
Georgite
"Freedom And Democracy"
March 10, 2005
"We
Won't Have To Worry Any More"
March 3, 2005
"Iranian
Nukes"
February
24, 2005 "Going
Nuclear In Iran"
February 16, 2005 “The
Georgite Social Security Scam: Bases For Suspicion”
February 10, 2005 “The
Georgite Version of ‘Freedom and Democracy’ ”
“The Coming 2nd Civil War (Unless),” No. 6
Feb 3, 2005
“WMD
Discovered --- In Washington”
Jan
27, 2005
“Comparing
George W. Bush And Adolf Hitler”
Jan 18, 2005 “The
Bush Second Inaugural: A Preview” “The Coming 2nd Civil War
(Unless),” No. 5
Jan 13, 2005 “The
Georgite Concept of Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law”
Jan 6, 2005
“The
‘Unless’ Of The ‘Coming Second Civil War’ Series; Part II”
Dec
30, 2004
“The
‘Unless’ of the ‘Coming Second Civil War’ Series, Part I”
Dec 23, 2004
“The
Real Meaning Of The ‘Faith-Based Presidency;’ Part II”
Dec 15, 2004
“The
Coming Second Civil War (Unless)”
Dec 9, 2004
“The
Real Meaning Of The ‘Faith-Based Presidency’ ”
Oct
28, 2004
Why
The Patriot Act?”
Oct. 21, 2004
“The
Cheneys’ Daughter Flap”
Oct 14, 2004
“George
Bush’s America”
Oct 7, 2004
“The
Debate”
Sept
30, 2004
“Four
800 Lb. Gorillas In The Campaign Room”
Sept 23, 2004
"Fixing
The Kerry Campaign, 9/15/2004"
Sept 16, 2004
"Lessons
From Japan. Part II: Successful Occupations"
Sept 9, 2004
"Thoughts
On the Third Anniversary of the Tragedy of 9/11/2001"
Sept 2, 2004
"Lessons
From Japan, Part 1"
August 26,2004
“Dealing
with the Republican National Convention and Related
Issues”
August 18, 2004
"The
Best Of Dr. Jonas"
August 12, 2004
“Some
Thoughts For and About The Kerry Campaign, VI”
August 5,2004
“Some
Thoughts For and About The Kerry Campaign, V”
July
29, 2004
“Some
Thoughts For and About The Kerry Campaign, IV”
July 22, 2004
“Some
Thoughts For and About The Kerry Campaign III”
July 15, 2004
“Some
Thoughts For And About The Kerry Campaign II”
July 7, 2004
“Some
Thoughts For And About The Kerry Campaign,I”
July 1, 2004
“Counsel
To The President”
June 24, 2004
“
’You Know me Al:’ On the German Reichstag Fire of Feb. 27, 1933
and the 9/11/01 Bombing of the World Trade Center, Part II”
June 17, 2004
“ ‘The Ralph Nader Problem’ --- A Re-run plus”
June 10, 2004
“Ronald
Reagan’s Legacy”
June 3, 2004
“’You
Know Me Al:’ On The Reichstag Fire Of Feb. 27, 1933 And The
9/11/01 Bombing Of The World Trade Center,
Part I”
May
27, 2004
“On
Fascism -- And The Georgites”
May 20, 2004
“On
John Ashcroft -- And Jefferson Davis”
May 13, 2004
“Karl
Rove’s Personal Political Notebook”
May 6, 2004
“Possible
Explanations For Bush Behavior And 9/11”
April
29, 2004
“On
George Bush and Religion, Part 2”
April 22, 2004
“What
Condi Rice Might Have Said”
April 8, 2004
“On
George Bush And Religion”
April 1, 2004
“Some
Political Thoughts For Senator Kerry”
March
25, 2004
“Brief
Essays”
March 16, 2004
“You
Know Me Al: The Iraq War --- So What Was It About, Anyway?
March 11, 2004
“A
Word (Or Two) On Ralph Nader”
March 4, 2004
“A
Firebell In The Night”
February
27, 2004 “On
Doctor Dean”
