March 25, 2005 PERMALINK
What Passes For Democracy
(posted March 25 1 AM ET)
When Dubya cites Afghanistan as a success of his alleged pro-democracy policies, he is rarely challenged.
Perhaps he should be.
It’s rare for US media to shed light on the inner workings of our government’s influence on Afghanistan.
But on Wed., the Wall Street Journal did -- in a profile of our Ambassador to Afghanistan, neocon Zalmay Khalilzdad, who will soon become Ambassador to Iraq.
WSJ made it clear that Khalilzdad has been running the show in Afghanistan, despite attempts to paint Hamid Karzai as an independent leader of a free country.
Some key excerpts:
In Afghanistan, “people regard him as the viceroy, and they say that … Karzai doesn’t say anything without checking with him first,” says Peter Babbington, a former British marine who runs the United Nations’ militia-demobilization program in Kabul.
Mr. Khalilzad traveled the country to unveil U.S.-funded public-works projects, mediate\ between feuding warlords, and encourage religious and military leaders to join the political-transition process, frequently upstaging Mr. Karzai.
He was thought to possess so much control over Afghanistan’s interim government that Iran’s state-run radio dubbed him “the King of the Shadows.”...
...Khalilzad made no apologies for his level of involvement in Afghanistan’s politics, saying he helped avert more bloodshed and instability in the country...
...In the run-up to October’s landmark Afghan elections, opposition figures accused Mr. Khalilzad of trying to clear the way for Mr. Karzai by visiting politicians and urging them to drop out of the race and support Mr. Karzai.
Several Afghan politicians derided Mr. Khalilzad for crossing the line into outright advocacy of Mr. Karzai, charges the ambassador denied.
Now, it’s very possible that Khalilzad is right that without help in setting up a new government, there would have been more bloodshed and instability than there is today.
And it’s also possible that without Syrian troops, Lebanon wouldn’t have ended its civil war in 1990.
But there’s a difference between altruistic assistance and selfish interference.
In working with the international community to help a nation attain freedom for freedom’s sake, which is in our long-term self-interest, or unilaterally exploiting a country for our narrow self-interest, say, permanent military bases.
If the free will of the people is not the paramount concern, if true democracy is not the real goal, then the people will eventually lash out, sooner or later (see Syria).
At minimum, with the level of direct involvement Khalilzad had in the Afghan elections -- the sort of involvement we have been condemning Syria for -- it is ridiculous to claim freedom is on the march.
March 24, 2005 PERMALINK
Big Setback For The "Culture Of Life"
(posted March 24 1:15 AM ET)
The pro-life groups trying to prolong Terri Schiavo’s life against her wishes were fully prepared for this moment.
George Bush argued in ’99 that a “culture of life” – which the Pope defined in ’95 as a culture that rejected abortion, birth control, euthanasia and the death penalty -- can only be built “brick by brick” since “laws are changed as minds are persuaded.”
(Of course, Bush and most GOPers have room in their "culture of life" for the death penalty.)
Bush’s call was an attempt to finesse social issues, to convince right-wingers he was one of them without having to come out for things like a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion that would alienate the majority.
But the pro-lifers seem to have taken Bush’s call to heart, and are looking for vehicles to help “persuade" the majority, making Terri’s case a seemingly perfect one to exploit.
As Rep. Tom DeLay recently said in a private address:
It is more than just Terri Schiavo. This is a critical issue for people in this position, and it is also a critical issue to fight, that fight for life, whether it be euthanasia or abortion...
...one thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo to elevate the visibility of what's going on in America.
Similarly, Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition argued the case is “giving revival and renewal to millions of people who feel strongly about the culture of life and the protection of life.”
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, framed the vote by saying, “this culture of death that shows up in our movies, in our video games, on television, has been around awhile …There's a move in Washington to offset that and bring a higher value to life.”
And Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins stressed the judicial angle: “It certainly does increase the debate over whether or not the courts have overstepped their bounds.”
They knew what they wanted out of the case, and had their media strategy down pat when the moment came.
Whereas Democrats, liberals, pro-choicers, the die-with-dignity movement, anyone who believes our government should not interfere with deeply personal decisions, were completely unprepared.
Once Congress entered the picture and the story broke big, the culture-of-lifers had free reign to shape the coverage with their messages and their visuals.
Basically, they took their best shot to persuade the country to get behind their vision of a “culture of life.”
And they failed.
Poll after poll shows the public ain’t buying that people shouldn’t be able to make their own decisions about their medical treatment, including the refusal of it.
Which means that despite their bluster, they can’t effectively use Terri to make the case that something needs to be done about “liberal activist judges.”
If anything, this is will only reaffirm the public’s view that our courts need impartial justices to check the right-wingers in charge, and bolster the Dem effort to filibuster their nominees.
But this is not only setting them back with the broad middle of the country, it also may be fracturing the GOP base.
Corporate conservatives and social conservatives have worked well with each other in recent years, even getting their messages on things like taxes and judges to meld.
Now, there seems to be some fraying in that coalition. The LA Times recently reported:
...during the first three months of the president's second term, social conservatives had become increasingly unhappy with what they saw as neglect of their concerns, such as banning same-sex marriage, in favor of issues pushed by corporations...
Furthermore, the LA Times found that the social conservatives got even more livid when they thought Congress was half-assing it on Terri:
...some [social conservatives] exploded in anger late Friday when the House and Senate failed to reach an immediate agreement and seemed prepared to let the matter drop rather than disrupt their plans for the fast-approaching Easter recess.
The message, as some conservatives saw it, was that GOP leaders were more interested in their personal political goals than the moral imperative of saving Schiavo's life.
"There are a lot of folks who helped create Republican majorities that were pretty disgusted with what went down, and the inescapable reality was that while they were dithering the tube got pulled," said Kenneth L. Connor, former president of the conservative Family Research Council...
..."That could have been avoided. The people who created this majority are interested in product, not process."
To translate: the base has become cocky and demanding, and forced the Congress to do something that is alienating the rest of the country.
The base had been smarter about playing their cards the last few years, but now they’re foolishly throwing elbows and causing internal rifts.
They’ve not only set back the "culture of life" cause by choosing a bad vehicle to try to persuade the country with, they’re weakening their own political coalition that gives them any influence at all.
All in all, the attempt to exploit Terri has been one big disaster for the Right.
March 23, 2005 PERMALINK
On Foreign Policy, A Tale of Three Clintonites
(posted March 23 2 AM ET)
Since the ’05 inaugural, LiberalOasis has been pushing Dems to craft an alternate foreign policy to counter the current neocon policy which “jeopardizes our national security in the most fundamental way possible.”
We are starting to see some moves in this area.
For example, Dem congressional leaders Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi started a National Security Advisory Group, and Sen. John Kerry is planning on writing a book on national security.
Those are theoretically good developments, depending on what they come up with.
While the liberal grassroots should not cede this area to the Beltway Establishment, there’s no getting around that the foreign policy players from the Clinton Administration will be extremely influential as the Dems move forward, as they are pretty much the only experienced hands we have.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
It appears to depend on what Clintonite we’re talking about.
Recent comments from three key Clinton Era experts indicate some advice is great, some wanting, some downright troubling.
Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, a former national security adviser and alternate rep to the UN, is currently promoting her book “The Superpower Myth,” complete with a foreword from Clinton himself.
While LO hasn’t read the book, her basic premise appears sound, even if the language isn’t politically deft.
In an interview with Salon, she summed up her views as follows:
[The Bush Administration] fell victim, in the first term, to what I call the "superpower myth," which says that because we're the lone superpower we can bend the world to our will, primarily on our own and through military means. I think that has been [disproved as a viable] policy...
And also:
...we need to return to a policy of tough engagement, where America is a persuader and not an enforcer.
It’s not necessarily the best political tack to sound like you don’t want America to be a superpower, but that’s just the language, not the policy.
On policy, her basic point is a good, if not novel, starting point for Dems: stressing the practical benefits of multilateralism and the consequences of Bush’s unilateralism.
But she falls off the beam when she talks about recent foreign policy moves by the Bushies.
Instead of explaining how Bush’s neoconservative foreign policy continues to destabilize the world and make us less safe, she is buying into the notion that the Bushies have had a change of heart.
She told Salon:
I think the administration is undergoing a second-term shift.
Look at the president's trip to Europe: He's talking partnership, he's talking about listening, he's talking about building coalitions, and he's even praising French fries instead of freedom fries now.
It's a fundamental shift in rhetoric that may well translate into great opportunities.
While Soderberg is not compromising her views, she is not doing all she can to illuminate the differences between the parties, and she is ignoring what damage is currently being done.
However, her comments are not nearly as disturbing as those from Jamie Rubin, Clinton’s assistant secretary of state.
In a
NY Times op-ed yesterday, Rubin not only praised the choice of Paul Wolfowitz for the World Bank, he praised neoconservatism itself, positively defining it as merely a belief in promoting democracy:
...the core of the neoconservative mission is the expenditure of American resources in support of democratic values...
...The neoconservative movement is distinctive in part for its willingness to expend American resources - military and economic - to promote democratic change...
This does not appear to be an isolated incident.
In 2002, as host of a PBS program called “Wide Angle,” Rubin gave a softball interview to leading neocon Richard Perle, where he directly assisted Perle’s campaign of lies about a Saddam-Qaeda connection.
Knowing all that, it would appear that Rubin’s famous gaffe as a John Kerry adviser in ’04, where he had to retract a comment that “in all probability” Kerry would have attacked Iraq too, was a case of Rubin projecting his views onto the candidate.
This guy has no business shaping Dem foreign policy. Period. Prospective 2008 candidates, do not put Rubin on the payroll.
At the other end of the spectrum is another Clinton national security adviser, Ivo Daalder, now at the Center For American Progress.
Earlier this month, he penned a very interesting piece for CAP, where he implicitly rejected the Soderberg view that Bush is shifting towards a Clintonian multilateral policy.
But he doesn’t say that the necons are in charge either.
He argues that the assumed struggle between neocons and Colin Powell-style “realists” within the Bush Administration is not the real story.
Instead, it is the “nationalists” who have been running the show, and continue to do so:
...while Washington engages in its favorite parlor game of deciding whether the realists or the neoconservatives are up or down on any particular day, the nationalist forces driving this administration's foreign policy are given a free ride.
And let there be no doubt: though there are debates about tactics within the administration, the nationalist direction of its foreign policy was set long ago by the president – and he hasn't swerved from it since.
The nationalists' direction is clear: America is a great power that exists to do great things.
America will use international institutions and abide by international law when they advance its great mission; but it will abandon institutions and ignore international laws if they constrain its freedom to act.
America will deal with like-minded countries, but it will never rely on anyone else for its security.
And America will never place its trust in tyrants or anyone else who opposes freedom.
Seen this way, the seeming contradictions in Bush's foreign policy vanish.
We will support democracy, but we will not do much to promote the democratic aspirations of other people.
We will talk nice to our friends and allies, but not actually change our policies in order to promote joint strategies.
And when we do change course – as with Iran – the adjustment is tactical, designed to avoid being blamed by Europe if diplomacy fails to stop the mullahs' desire for nuclear weapons.
For the administration neither hopes for nor expects negotiations to succeed...
...the administration's actions ... speak louder than words.
They are neither realist nor neoconservative. They're just destructive of America's true interests.
This is largely the right way to criticize the Bush foreign policy.
Though LO would not give Bush the credit for “never plac[ing] its trust in tyrants,” when we clearly are doing so in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan -- just to name a few.
And exposing that hypocrisy is no small matter, as it gives us the opening to show Bush’s rhetoric is not sincere.
Also, LO doesn’t see the need to separate out the neocons from the nationalists.
Daalder may use the terms in technically correct ways, but his definition of “nationalist” can just as easily apply to the now more common “neocon” term.
But unlike Soderberg and Rubin, Daalder is trying to make people understand that Bush has been on a dangerous course, and that his course hasn’t changed a bit.
Understanding that is essential to any Dem foreign policy, both for Dems’ long-term political prospects, and for the sake of global peace and prosperity.
March 22, 2005 PERMALINK
Lacking Poll Numbers, Dems Flinch
(posted March 22 12:45 AM ET)
Hopefully, yesterday’s ABC News poll, showing that “Americans broadly and strongly disapprove of federal intervention in the Terri Schiavo case,” will be a wake-up call for Dems.
Ever since GOP leaders in Congress inserted themselves into Schiavo family’s personal business, Dem leaders largely retreated into accommodationist mode, clearly unnerved with the intensity of the Culture-Of-Lifers.
With no organized activism on the side of respecting Terri’s wishes and the Florida courts, with no survey data to tell them it would be OK to speak up, Dem leaders were flying blind on where to stand and what to say.
Of course, it is pathetic that Dems would be so dependent on such crutches of public opinion.
While professional pols always want to keep their fingers on the public pulse, fundamental principle and gut instinct should be enough to direct the party when quick action is needed.
But there is probably no area where Dems are more gun-shy and more unsure about their principles than on hot-button social issues.
Which is a problem.
Americans clearly would have liked to see an organized effort to defend the right of families to make difficult personal decisions without our government intruding on them. But Dems would not oblige.
Mind you, there may be times when Dems would go on gut instinct and not be in the majority.
That would be OK too. As long as they were clearly acting on principles and not on crass politics, they would earn respect from most voters.
But what this ABC poll hopefully reminds Dems is that just because the right-wing tried to spin the 2004 election to make Dems think the GOP had a stranglehold on “moral values,” it doesn't mean they actually do.
Dems do not, should not, have to assume that they are chronically in the minority when it comes to social issues, and do not need to second-guess their every move.
Until Dems overcome this self-confidence problem, they won’t be able to connect with the public and show them what principles drive the party.
Fortunately, it’s a safe bet that this won’t be the last time the GOP Congress abuses its power, and in turn, won’t be the last opportunity for Dems to stand up for individual rights.
QUICK HIT
Revoke Frist’s Medical License (Part 2)
You may recall that last December, LiberalOasis encouraged readers to contact the Nashville Academy of Medicine and request that Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist have his medical license revoked.
That was because he violated the AMA Code of Medical Ethics by spreading misinformation about HIV transmission and condom use.
Now once again, he has violated his pledge to “be honest in all professional interactions,” “advance scientific knowledge” and “maintain a commitment to medical education” by claiming to make a superior diagnosis than Terri Schiavo’s doctors by watching a few video clips.
Since LO’s earlier Frist post, LO has obtained the official Nashville Academy of Medicine grievance form from the academy’s executive director.
To file an ethics complaint, download the form, follow the directions, have it notarized, and return it to the address at the bottom of the form.
Feel free to roll all of Frist's ethical violations into one comprehensive complaint.
March 21, 2005 PERMALINK
The Sunday Talkshow Breakdown
A weekly feature of LiberalOasis
(posted March 21 1:15 AM ET)
While the sorry Terri Schiavo spectacle dominated much of the TV news coverage yesterday, the White House dispatched Defense Sec. Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chair Richard Myers to the four main Sunday shows for the 2-yr anniversary of the Iraq War.
Most of they said was the same “nothing to worry about, nothing to see here” spin we’ve grown accustomed to when Iraq is the issue.
But only one interviewer brought up yesterday’s W. Post cover story, about how the Bushies misled our allies about who North Korea was shipping nuclear material to.
As the W. Post reported, in an attempt to prevent China and S. Korea from embarrassing the US by bolting from multi-party negotiations with N. Korea, they and Japan were told that N. Korea sent nuclear material to Libya.
“That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state,” said the W. Post.
But it wasn’t the truth.
North Korea sent the material to Pakistan, our supposed ally in the war on terror. Pakistan then sold it Libya.
George Stephanopoulos, on ABC’s This Week, put this revelation to Rumsfeld.
And Rumsfeld was highly, and pathetically, evasive.
Here’s the exchange (video at Crooks and Liars):
STEPHANOPOULOS: The Post goes on to say: “Pakistan's role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington's partner in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders”. Is that true?
RUMSFELD: I have no idea. I never heard anything like that, and it wouldn’t be the Department of Defense that would be involved anyway. It would be intelligence agencies.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But this is something you'd be aware of --
RUMSFELD: I'm not.
STEPHANOPOULOS: In other words, nuclear materials, you know
nothing about this?
RUMSFELD: I know a good deal about the flow and interaction and proliferation that took place in the A.Q. Khan network.
I know a good deal about what North Korea has been doing --
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s the question. Is it still going on?
RUMSFELD: I know nothing about the front page Washington Post article.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you know anything then about Pakistan buying weapons, buying nuclear materials from North Korea and selling it to Libya.
RUMSFELD: I do not personally, and the implication that the United States misled allies … I’m not in a position to comment on, because I just have no knowledge of it.
Actually, the question, “is it still going on?” wasn’t the big question to ask Rumsfeld after he acknowledged he knows “a good deal” about “the A.Q. Khan network.”
Because the nuclear material at issue here was sent to Libya through the very same network run by the Pakistani nuclear scientist Khan.
In the past, Bush has happily talked about what they know about the A. Q. Khan network in the past, including its connection to Libya.
Because they were desperately trying to take credit for breaking up the nuclear proliferation network that some say will destabilize this entire century the way that Hitler and Stalin did the last.
(Even though it was the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, not the White House, that first pressured Pakistan to admit Khan’s role, and Bush praised Pakistan for it even though Khan barely got a wrist slap.)
So the question for Rumsfeld, and the rest of Bush Administration who are clamming up, should be:
Why is it you were willing to discuss the A.Q. Khan network before, but not now?
The real answer would be that this tale suggests that Khan was not running some rogue operation unbeknownst to the Pakistani government, but that the government – again, our supposed ally – was more directly involved.
As the W, Post reported:
Although the briefings did not mention Pakistan by name, the official said they made it clear that the sale went through the illicit network operated by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdel Qadeer Khan.
But the briefings gave no indication that U.S. intelligence believes that the material had been bought by Pakistan and transferred there from North Korea in a container owned by the Pakistani government.
...
Since Pakistan became a key U.S. ally in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, the administration has not held President Pervez Musharraf accountable for actions taken by Khan while he was a member of Musharraf's cabinet and in charge of nuclear cooperation for the government.
"The administration is giving Pakistan a free ride when they don't deserve it and hurting U.S. interests at the same time," said Charles L. Pritchard, who was the Bush administration's special envoy for the North Korea talks until August 2003.
This is the Pakistan that has exercised a veto over our national security, preventing our troops from pursuing militants who have directly attacked them.
This is the Pakistan that recently gave Al Qaeda $540,000 via anti-American militants.
And, y'know, destabilized the entire planet with its nuclear proliferation network.
Yet, the Bushies continue to cover for them.
What does that tell you about how seriously this Administration is prosecuting the war on terror?
