THOUGHTS ON THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRAGEDY OF 9/11/2001

Column No. 29 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - September 9, 2004

This column is another in the occasional series of thoughts from my friend A.L. (who wishes to remain anonymous). With apologies to Ring Lardner, Sr., in this space they go under the rubric of "You Know Me, Al." This writing consists of a set of memos that Al wrote to a friend of his, the first five on the day of the WTC bombing, the sixth two days later. In light of what we know now about the major lapses of intelligence and counter‑terrorism policy and programs under the Georgites (and according to some, e.g., Jim Marrs in Inside Job, Jeff Wells'  The Coincidence Theorists' Guide to 9/11, their possible passive or active complicity), there is a combination of naiveté and prescience that I find most engaging. I thought that you might, too.

1. Subj: Terrorism hits home, I Date: 9/11/01 1:05:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Hi. The CIA, the FBI, the NSA. Not one, apparently, had even a sniff of an incredibly complex, highly sophisticated attack on the US. If someone had made a movie with this plot, no one would have believed it. That we were caught flat‑footed, with more civilians killed in one day than Israelis have been killed in 10 months of the current Intifada, with apparently not the least awareness of the trouble coming, an attack that has to have been many months in the planning, considering the vaunted CIA/FBI/NSA intelligence security apparatus, this is absolutely incredible. Or is it?

I don't think that it is. These agencies have lived in a culture of "fighting communism" at home and abroad for 50 years. They were really good at overthrowing popular left‑wing governments and leaders on the one hand, and tracking Soviet subs with fancy listening devices on the other. They are simply not equipped or funded to deal with this kind of asymmetrical threat. Whoever did this, you can just imagine what kind of sophisticated communications system alone they must have used, not to have had transmissions picked up by the NSA, for example. But we do know where the Russian subs are!

Of course, with our resources we could easily have the most advanced communications control system in the world, but that doesn't really cost big, big bucks, and that won't win elections. So we have this tragedy. Well, perhaps all those people will not have died in vain. Perhaps this will wake up at least some political leaders with the nerve to get our intelligence and military communities finally out of the old "destroy communism or anything that even remotely resembles it wherever you can find it" mentality and into the 21st century.

Final note: And to think that any of those high jacked aircraft could have been carrying a suitcase sized nuclear weapon!

2. Subj: Re: NY‑eerie silence Date: 9/11/012:27:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Americans are now experiencing war on our shores for the first time since 1865, and have had foreign "troops" firing in anger on our shores for the first time since 1815 (the Mexican War having been fought on territory that was rightfully Mexico's or had been recently, at the time). What we should be looking at, of course, is both fighting terrorism effectively (like, duh, making the CIA into an intelligence agency instead of a covert‑actions‑to‑overthrow‑governments‑we‑don't‑like outfit) and, especially, how to deal with the root causes of terrorism. We might, just might, do the first. (But there are certainly no guarantees under this Administration; because the military‑industrial complex makes lots more money building Star Wars than it would building an effective anti‑terrorism function.) The second? Not in our lifetimes, under any conceivable American Administration, for sure

3. Subj: Re: Terrorism Date: 9/11/016:45:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time

My friend. What an excellent response to [a Right‑Winger]. He would like the disagreements over the causes of the tragedy and how to respond to it both to be "non‑political." It's fascinating how the Right‑Wingers, who politicize everything from the freedom of belief on when life begins to the supposed non‑sanctity of the system established in the last century to provide some modicum of financial security for the aged, suddenly use the "don't politicize it" argument when public policy on, for example, how best to respond to terrorism, is the subject of debate.

The reason, of course, is because they want everyone to fall behind whatever policy it is that the ultimate political animal called the current occupant of the Presidency of the United States decides that policy should be Oust as long as he is a reactionary of course. I doubt that the Right would have used the "don't politicize it" argument if Kennedy hadn't been killed and had withdrawn US troops from Vietnam after the '64 election.)

Since politics happens to be the means that human beings have devised to settle differences over social and economic policy short of the use of force, it also happens to be the correct tool to use to decide military/foreign‑policy issues like how to respond to terrorism. Yet it should not be used on basic moral/ethical issues like the right to maintain one's own beliefs about what life is, especially since such private decision‑making is protected by the Constitution. But if private belief on, say, the matter of when life begins, is to be a subject for political intervention, then surely the nation's foreign policy and to best conduct it should be. And indeed it is, and indeed your arguments about the scandal that is the state of our "intelligence and security" community are the correct issues to be dealt with through the political process.

4. Subj: Re: September 11 Terrorism Date: 9/11/016:54:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time

My friend, again, an excellent response to [a Right‑Winger]. Cannot a "sober response" be a quick one? Critics from the left of the US "intelligence" community, like me, have been saying for years that the FBI/CIA/NSA nexus was too stuck in the Era of the Anti‑Communist Crusade to be effective in a world where our enemies have changed radically. And there's that anti‑terrorism expert, surely no leftie, on TV nine months ago saying that Bin Laden had an intelligence/security system sophisticated to a level far beyond anything the US has. Does a "sober response" require waiting some time to say these things, perhaps until the attention of the public has gone elsewhere? Was the "sober response" after the Oklahoma City bombing completely to ignore the violent Radical Religious Right in the US, which is exactly what happened? I don't think so. The sooner the drumfire of criticism gets going, the better. That's the way truly to honor the victims: find out what went wrong, why this happened, and then change things to try to make it never happens again.

5. Subj: Two last points Date: 9/11/01 10:15:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Hi. Do we now have evidence that there is more than one God? If indeed it was Muslims behind the attacks, we know that with few exceptions they are "religious," and surely at this time are thanking and praising Allah for his help. (The "Marxist" Palestinian terrorist grouping, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, formerly headed by George Habash, whose acting leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, the Israelis assassinated last month, is one of those exceptions. By the way, have I shared with you the fact that the word "assassination" is derived from an Arabic word for "political murder?") Then there is the "God" whose blessing was sought by about 70 Senators when they spontaneously burst into song across the street from the evacuated Capitol today. Surely that God and Allah could not be one and the same (unless He, or She, is highly neurotic or truly schizophrenic, and neither of those psychological states would really do for a God).

So maybe there is more than "one true God." A Christian one, a Jewish one, an Islamic one, actually several for each denomination because they each have their inner schisms. Then there might be a bunch of Hindu Gods, a Buddhist deity (hard to find, the others might spend some of their free time looking for him or her), to say nothing of the Gods of the wide variety of the world's less popular religions. It would be sort of a polytheistic monotheism in which, for at least those religions that are monotheistic, there is one God, but each religion has that God to themselves, so there really are a bunch of Gods up there wherever (the) God(s) live(s). Then one has to ask such questions as, do they fight among themselves as their human devotees do? Is one more powerful than the rest, and if that is the case, what does that do to each human group's view that "God" is all‑powerful, to say nothing of all‑knowing. But if each is all ­powerful and all‑knowing, then "our" God would/should have known what the people who support that other Gods were up to, and would have done something to stop them. Wouldn't He (or She) acted? Ah, these questions are puzzling. Maybe you can help out with developing some answers ‑ starting tomorrow!

6. Subj: Re: Sidebar to discussion Date: 9/13/01 1:15:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time

We have seen a side of Rudy Giuliani that none of us knew existed. I was saying to myself last night that I have to admit that he is doing a great job. Then I saw Joyce Pumick's column in the NYT this morning (p. 6). It's a shame that he can bring this side of himself out only in response to this kind of crisis. As for Bush, you would think that he would at least have popped into NYC for a short visit by now. The guy is so in apparent, so weak, and his handlers must be so terrified of what he might say, unscripted, if they did let him out onto the scene of the disaster.

By the way, as you have probably already heard on the airwaves yourself, the Right is already mobilizing very quickly to take advantage of this situation, to propose limits on civil liberties here, which limits would apply to a lot of us, without limit. Bill Bennett last night was talking about "fighting political correctness" (whatever that is ‑‑‑ they never define it, and no newsperson ever asks them to) to protect ourselves. At the same time, they are telling us not to criticize the intelligence community and that the breakdowns are all the fault of rules that limit the kinds of person the CIA can deal with in lining up spies and other sources of infori‑nation. Of course, what is needed most is not passive defense at home, but active prevention by routing out the terrorists abroad (and at home too, but no‑one talks about Oklahoma City because that was both homegrown, no Arabs there, and Right‑Wing), And on this topic, that's it for today.

LESSONS FROM JAPAN, PART I: GIVING FALSE REASONS FOR GOING TO WAR

Column No. 28 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH – September 2, 2004

I recently was fortunate enough to spend a three-week vacation in Japan.  Even more fortunately for me, it was my second visit to this fascinating country.  My first was in 1971, in the company of my father who, among many other things, was a teacher of Asian history with a special interest in Japan.  That interest began in 1930 when, as a graduate student at Columbia University living at the International House, my Dad made a number of friends among a group of Japanese graduate students who were also residing there.

My Dad has made his first visit to Japan in 1935 and was there numerous times again after the War, beginning in the 1960s.  From that first visit, Dad had brought back a number of pieces of Japanese art work which hung on the wall of our apartment in New York City.  Thus I grew up with something of a Japanese influence in the house.  While my Dad’s interest was more on the cultural history of the country, mine was always on the political history (not surprisingly), about which I have read on and off over the years.  For my latest trip, I renewed my acquaintance with Japanese political history by reading A Traveller’s History of Japan, 3rd edition (New York: Interlink Books, 2002), by Richard Tames, who among other things is the former head of External Services at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies

In the light of my trip, the reasons President Bush gave for his War on Iraq, and the experience to date of the American occupation of that country, some lessons of history that might be of interest and use were brought to my mind.  These lessons are from a series of events that first eventually lead to Japan’s involvement in World War II, and then followed upon her defeat and occupation by the United Sates. They might be called “When the Reasons Given for Going to War Are Not the Real Ones,” and “How to Run a Successful Occupation.” This column deals with the first of these two.  I will deal with the second in a subsequent column

When the Reasons Given for Going to War Are Not the Real Ones

Japan is unique among the world’s nations in that alone of the nations outside of Europe it was never colonized by one or more European powers.  When colonization first threatened in the late 16th century, over a 50-year period Japan responded by closing itself off from the outside world almost completely.  The door was firmly shut (with a tiny window left open for a Dutch trading post isolated on an island in Nagasaki Harbor) beginning in 1625, during a period called the Tokugawa Shogunate. When that isolation was eventually breached by the Western Powers beginning in the 1850s, Japan was able to protect itself again by very quickly importing the economic and military means to that end, during what is called the “Meiji Restoration.”

In fact, Japan became a modern military and economic power so quickly that within just over 40 years of the historic visit of Commodore Perry to Tokyo Harbor in 1853, Japan defeated the much larger China in a war. That war brought it, among things, the island of Taiwan, called by the Japanese Formosa. In a dispute over sphere of influence in northeast Asia, Japan went on to defeat Russia in 1905. One result of that event was the annexation of Korea in 1910.  During the same period, Japan also acquired permanent mining and associated railway interests in the Manchurian province of China.

Japan fought on the Allied side in World War I. Among other things, she acquired all of the former German possessions in the far-flung islands of the Western and Central Pacific.  Her imperialistic ambitions were now being really stoked, and to support them an increasingly authoritarian approach to government was fostered at home.  Among Japan’s military and her economic imperialists there was an increasing interest in acquiring a permanent, geographic presence on the Asian mainland, beyond Korea.  The economic pressures of the Great Depression stoked this interest.

And so, in 1931 an act of sabotage took place on the Japanese railway in Manchuria.   It came to be called “The Kwantung [Guandong] Incident” (after the name of the Japanese army guarding the railroad). In response to the “dastardly deed,” Japan quickly moved to military action that eventually led to the complete takeover of Manchuria by the Japanese.  They turned it into a separate “country” that they called Manchukuo, replete with a puppet Chinese ruler.  He just happened to be the last son of the Chinese Empress who had been overthrown in the democratic revolution of Sun Yat Sen in 1911.  (If you can ever get to see the marvelous movie about this man, Pu Yi, and his times called The Last Emperor, do it.) The Japanese position was, of course, that Chinese subversives had attacked them.  What were they supposed to do?  Stand idly by against this threat? Interestingly enough, it eventually turned out that anti-Japanese forces had not committed the “terrorist act.”  Rather, it had been fabricated by the Japanese military itself.

During the 1930s, aided by strategic assassinations of politicians committed to the Constitutional government, such as it was, that had been established during the Meiji Restoration in the latter part of the 19th century, the government was gradually taken over by nationalists and militarists, with the support of leading industrialists such as the Toyoda family.  (It is interesting to note that when they, a pioneer in the textile business in Japan, turned to making automobiles in the 1930s, the company’s registrar department made a mistake in transcribing the name for the new business.  And thus we have Toyotas when we really should have had Toyodas.)  When in 1933 the League of Nations condemned Japanese aggression in Manchuria, Japan simply quit the League.  In 1936, Japan joined Germany and Italy in the “Anti-Comintern Pact.” Among other things, this pact pledged mutual assistance in case of hostilities with the United States.  Japan was feeling its oats.

And so, in 1937, there occurred the “Marco Polo Bridge Incident” on the Chinese Manchukuokan border, which lead to the Japanese invasion of China proper.  It later turned out that this incident, like its predecessor in 1931, had also been entirely fabricated by the Japanese military.  Japan quickly took control of the major Chinese coastal cities, in the course of which their forces committed the infamous Nanking Massacre.

The Japanese next turned northward, without an “incident” to justify the moves, and engaged in a bloody, unsuccessful war with the Soviet Union along the Manchurian-Siberian border.  (It was the resolution of this war, ironically enough in light of the “Anti-Comintern Pact,” that enabled Stalin to rush fresh Siberian troops to the defense of Moscow in late 1941, to halt the German advance into the Soviet Union for the first time.)  When France and the Netherlands fell to the Nazis in 1940, Japan moved into Southeast Asia.  Those moves caused Roosevelt to declare an embargo on oil flowing from the Dutch East Indies to Japan, which in turn eventually led to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which eventually led to the American Occupation of Japan.

But for now, just consider these fascinating parallels with the onset of Japanese aggression.  In 1931, the Japanese Army faked an “incident,” which just happened to be local in nature, that it used as a totally false justification to take over a very large and very valuable piece of real estate that happened to have belonged to China.  In 1937, they faked another “local” incident that they used to justify, totally falsely, an invasion of the whole country of China.

The Georgite use of 9/11 for everything from getting passed highly repressive domestic legislation to invading Iraq certainly comes to mind, doesn’t it?

I am certainly not saying now that the Georgites were directly involved in the 9/11 tragedy.  (My column of May, linked below, does discuss some of the possible explanations for Georgite behavior around the events of 9/11.  It happens that there is an increasing amount of speculation that they somehow were directly involved.  See, for example, Inside Job: Unmasking the 9/11 Conspiracies, by Jim Marrs, San Rafael, CA: Origin Press, 2004.  But so far, there are only coincidence and speculation.)  But it does not require direct involvement to see parallels in the use by right-wing government of a “terrorist incident” to attempt to achieve ends that would otherwise be difficult to achieve.

Just recall Hitler’s use of the Reichstag Fire in 1933 to justify the repeal of the Weimar Constitution, to enable the institution of a fascist dictatorship in Germany (see the SJ Columns of June 3 and 24, 2004, linked below).  In that case, virtually all historians agree that the Nazis did not set the Fire. But with a propaganda apparatus that was indeed totally revolutionary for its time, the Nazis were within days able to get a significant number of the German people to believe a total falsehood: that the fire had been set by Communists who were on the verge of creating a violent revolution to take over the German government, an event to be defended against by any means available.

The point is that the comparison of using a “terrorist incident” of a violent nature in a totally dishonest way, to justify pre-planned aggressive action, foreign and domestic, does hold in the case of Japan as well as Germany.  No, history does not repeat itself, but similarities and analogous events abound.

Dealing with the Republican National Convention and Related Issues

Column No. 27 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH – August 26, 2004

For the past couple of months I have been writing a series of columns around the general themes of the Democratic National Convention and thoughts about how the Kerry Campaign might move to action.  This column is the first in a series that will focus on the Republicans, this time dealing with their Convention (RNCon) and related issues, with some thoughts about how the Kerry Campaign might respond.

Preparing for Violence at the Republican National Convention

In my mind, the first and most important issue concerning the RNCon for us as opponents of the Georgites is pre-meditated violence. The overwhelming majority of the hundreds of thousands of anti-Georgite protesters gathered in New York City will want to have nothing to do with any violence, whether initiated by protesters or thrust upon them by outside forces (remember the Chicago Police Riot in 1968).  Nevertheless, I am certain that certain pro-Georgite operatives, official and/or unofficial, are going to make sure that violence occurs.  Given where they are and where they are going in this Campaign, it is vital for them that violence does occur.

As readers of TPJ know well, the Georgites have nothing positive going for them; neither a positive past Bush record nor a positive future Bush program to run on.  So far -- as I happened to have been advocating for months (but hardly because of me) --- the primary agenda item of the Campaign has been George Bush.  If the Kerry Campaign can manage to maintain that status quo, we will win.  Both campaigns know this.  So the Georgites will try anything to get the focus shifted away from Bush and onto Kerry.  So far, none of their efforts in this direction --- from trying to make “gay marriage” a primary issue to making an argument, that some veterans should be taking up with the Navy not John Kerry, about Kerry’s war decorations (which he hardly awarded to himself) --- have been successful.  At this time, then, what better way to do that than by having violence, on as large a scale as possible, occur at the RNCon, and then be able to put Kerry on the defensive about it.

And so, in my view it is highly likely that “they” will make sure there is violence, both through agents provocateurs placed in various anti-Georgite organizations and through direct action of their own people.  I hope that I am wrong.  But I myself saw a highly probable example of the latter happen at the close of the anti-War march that took place in New York City in February 2002.  At the end of a march that been extraordinarily peaceful, even with some fraternization between marchers and the police along the way, and literally at the physical point for dispersal in Washington Square, I saw a couple of vans pull up and disgorge a group of well-dressed young people.

I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen and I suggested to my group that we leave immediately, which we did.  It was later reported that just about the time these young folks arrived, some anti-police violence erupted in the Square.  It wasn’t a considerable amount, but it was enough to get mentioned in the news stories. Can I be sure that the youngsters who I saw pull up in those vans were the perpetrators?  No, for I didn’t see them directly.  But the timing was right.  Enough said.

In the current instance, even if some demonstrators on our side fail to realize how violence would play into the Georgites’ hands, we have to be ready for it to take place.  When it does, the Kerry Campaign will have to deal with its effects.  How?  First, the usual: condemnation of, disassociation from, and disapproval of any police tactics that could be considered provocative.  Second, condemnation of the “’tiny minority’ of anti-Bush demonstrators who abandoned the American Way of peaceful protest for something that obviously just plays into our opponents’ hands.”  Both would then be accompanied by a statement to the effect that it is “too bad the Bush Campaign has nothing else to talk about, certainly nothing positive about what is going on inside their Convention because there isn’t anything positive to talk about, given the record of this Presidency.” If violence, whether initiated by irresponsible anti-Georgites or provoked/created by pro-Bush forces, does occur, the Republicans will talk about little else.

Second, one could hope for something unusual: an intelligence operation, already planned, that has been able to penetrate the agent provocateurs’ organization and then, at the right time, thoroughly expose it.  Now wouldn’t that be something?  It may be too much to hope for, but one never knows. If provocateurs are “uncovered” with a “smoking gun” in their hands, then a statement of the “what is this country coming to” variety should be issued by the Kerry Campaign.  It should not ask for an accounting by the Bush team, because they won’t give one, and doing so simply gives them the opportunity to get into the distractive “yes you did, no we didn’t” game they love so well.  The statement should, on the other hand, demand a return to sanity and a focus on what is really important: the Bush record and what the Bush Administration has done to so damage our great nation, at home and abroad. In other words, the Kerry Campaign both takes the high road and maintains the agenda focus on Bush.  There would plenty of other folks, within and without the media, who would be going after the provocateurs and their connections and sponsors.

Running Against the Republican Platform

The Republican National Convention is bound to supply us with a very juicy bit of Campaign red meat: the Republican National Platform.  Especially since, apparently, the Convention is going to give little public exposure to the Republican Religious Right, they have to give something to the “Faithful” (of that certain, let’s-use-the-criminal-law-to-impose-OUR-version-of-faith-on-everyone-else type).  The “Faithful” will thus be given the platform, covering all of their favorite subjects.

Clinton never ran against the Republican National Platform because the DLC wouldn’t allow it.  After all, doing so would have clearly shown the ideological differences between the two parties, while the DLC’s position has always been “you know, we’re pretty much the same; we Democrats could just run things better.”  In his speeches so far, Senator Kerry is showing that he is made of sterner stuff.  He clearly recognizes that yes, Virginia, we Democrats really are different.  What better way to demonstrate the manifold differences than by holding up the Republican National Platform for everyone to see – a platform which, in recent elections, the Republicans as well as DLC Democrats have worked so hard to keep in the closet.  Once it is in plain sight, what a wonderful target is it likely to be to shoot at.

Dealing With Negative Campaigning

A colleague writes to a member of a pro-Kerry grouping, words to the effect of:

“In regard to your latest communication with our group, I too find the present situation very discouraging.  There is a very conservative talk show host in the Boston area, Jay Severin (who might be going national). He was a guest on Don Imus’ show last week and indicated that, as a professional political consultant as well as a talk show host, ‘he and the Bush team know that Bush is just about maxed out with the people who are presently likely to support him with their vote.’ Hence the only way Bush can win is to maximize Kerry negatives, to throw doubt in Kerry supporters' minds, to get enough of them to switch their vote to Bush. This was Severin’s response to Imus asking: ‘isn't the Republican mud-slinging starting too early?’ ”  Severin did say, this informant told us, that under normal circumstances that the Republicans would wait until a few weeks before the election to descend to the low road, but in this case they need now a strategy to win, and this is all they have left.

My response was to say that, in fact, this is good news.  Jay Severin is a card-carrying Far Right Media type.  He is a typical Georgite media mouthpiece.  If anyone knows the degree of the Georgites' growing desperation, he does.  The question is, how to respond to the increasingly negative attacks, attacks that will, for example, be the centerpiece of every speech at the RNCon. Of course, the Republican negativism will be of an entirely different kind than the strong anti-Bush focus of the DNCon.  That focus was on programs, policies, and the Georgites’ total approach to governing.  The Republicans’ focus will be as personal as they can get, and as off the issues as they can manage to be.

The question for Kerry is, of course, how to respond.  The last thing he wants to do is get into tit-for-tat.  In my view, the first thing he wants to do is deliver something like the following message:

"See this, folks?  This is what this President and his henchmen are all about.  No record of achievement to defend; no positive program for the next four years to put forward; no solutions to the problems we face at home with the economy, education, the environment, and health care, and abroad with Iraq and the world.  All they have is mud and distraction.  Is this what you want in the Oval Office for the next four years?  If so, vote for them.  If you want a positive program for change and achievement, designed to bring America back to greatness at home and abroad, a program I have been putting forward ever since I started this campaign, vote for me.  But I am not going to get into the gutter with these folks, however hard they may try to pull me there."

Some Thoughts For and About the Kerry Campaign, VI

Column No. 25 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - August 12, 2004

Note to the reader: This is now the last of the series of columns that I prepared before I left on a three-week vacation trip to Japan in July. The Democratic National Convention has now of course concluded, quite successfully by most accounts (except those of angry left-wingers who do not realize that the enemy now is Bush, not right-wing Democrats.  If we are going to have the luxury of engaging in policy debates at all, and have the privilege of being to wrest control of the Democratic Party once and for all from the Democratic rightists, first we have to make sure that open fascism, brought by the Georgites, does not devour the Constitution and make the whole subject moot.)

This column is thus the last in the series that has been devoted to what are primarily campaign matters, rather than the more historical and theoretical issues I usually deal with.  It is possible that some of what I have said here has been overtaken by events.  But hopefully, whether or not that happens, you will find these thoughts to be of use as our attention turns to the principal challenge facing the pro-democracy forces, not in Iraq, but here at home: how to defeat George Bush and assure the election of John Kerry.

I should note that some of these thoughts have appeared in one form or another in past columns.  If that be the case, obviously I like them a lot.  So please bear with me.

Bush's International “Achievement”

One of the amazing aspects of Bush policy and Bush himself is that they have achieved something that no previous American President has come close to: receiving almost universal condemnation from both governments (to a greater or lesser extent depending upon their state of dependency on the US) and people from around the world.

On Dealing With Terrorism and the Georgite Approach to It

I previously quoted UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on "Terrorism," at some length.  Here is an excerpt from that quote: "Important and urgent questions are being asked about the collateral damage from the 'war on terrorism' -- damage to the presumption of innocence, to precious human rights, to the rule of law and to the very fabric of democratic governance.... There is a danger that, in pursuit of security, we end up sacrificing crucial liberties, thereby weakening our common security, not strengthening it, and thereby corroding the vessel of democratic government from within....”

What has happened to civil liberties, in Iraq itself since the first heady days following the ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime and in our country, of course, speaks volumes to the Secretary General’s concerns.

And then consider that: “The State Department’s top counter terrorism expert, J. Cofer Black, recently acknowledged that the [Iraq] war has created exactly that which it was launched to prevent [sic] – greater cooperation between Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups in the Middle East” (Ted Widmer, review of Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack, New York Times Book Review, May 9, 2004).

Further, Georgite policy has actually managed to create in Iraq a new, non-al Qaeda terrorist grouping that did not previously exist: the Taliban/Wahhabist organization bent on Jihad led by the newly emerged Abu Mousab a-Zarqawi (see Michael Ware, “Meet the New Jihad,” Time, July 5, 2004, p. 24).  Quite a Georgite achievement, at a cost of $200 billion, and counting, 928 American and countless Iraqi lives, and counting, and the long-term potential wrecking of the American economy, an event which, were it to occur, would not do much to help the world’s economy either, come to think of it.

On the Religion Issue

The Georgites and their journalistic allies like David Brooks of the New York Times are going about setting a "religion trap" for Kerry.  Let's hope that he doesn't fall into it.  The Georgites would like nothing better than to see him suddenly become "religious" in the way they prescribe (a way, by the way, that many of the Georgite leadership doesn't itself practice.  I wonder when Cheney or Rumsfeld last went to church, and I wonder if the totally amoral Wolfowitz even believes in God.)  The whole point about religion in the US, for most of us, believers or not, is that we observe in our own way, not some prescribed way as the Christian Right would have it.

Kerry happens to be a practicing Catholic who happens to take communion.  You can't be more of a believer than that, even if, like many, many Catholics in the US, he doesn't buy certain Church teachings on matters relating to sex and procreation.  I'm sure his approach will sit just fine with his voters and potential voters of a religious persuasion other than Christian Rightist.  Speaking as a secular humanistic Jew, I find Kerry's religiosity genuine and, therefore, not a turnoff in any way. To do something false would alienate many genuinely religious voters, to be sure, as well as turn off many other potential voters who don't worry about religion but would like a President whose principal foci are jobs, peace, and the preservation of Constitution Democracy (as well as the environment).

People like Brooks would have it that Kerry’s low-key approach (which happens to be honest, of course) turns off certain religious “moderates.”  I think that just by being who he is religiously, Kerry builds bridges to the religious.  Religious people who are truly moderate aren't going to vote for the Armageddonist in the White House anyway.

On the Stem Cell Issue: Tactics

For most readers of this column, I don’t have to discuss the substance of the stem cell research issue.  I here want to address briefly tactics in dealing with it.  What follows is a short report on the Senator’s first comment on the matter.  It followed “Reagan Week.”

“‘Kerry Calls on Bush to Reverse Stem Cell Policy’” by Patricia Wilson, Reuters, Pittsburgh (June 12): “After a week of political silence to honor Ronald Reagan, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry called on Saturday for a White House policy change to allow more research into Alzheimer's, the brain-wasting disease that afflicted the former president. … The senator from Massachusetts joined a growing chorus, including the voice of Reagan's widow, Nancy, in urging President Bush to remove restrictions on embryonic stem cell research that could help combat Alzheimer's.”

Wrong Answer, or rather Wrong Statement.  Bush’s stem cell research policy reflects for sure a major demand of his very vocal, although relatively small minority base (small in terms of the actual percentage of eligible voters who adhere to it), the Christian Right.  It also may well reflect a strongly held personal belief of Bush himself.  Thus, the chance of getting him to reverse his position, for both political and personal ideological reasons, is slim.  But more important politically, taking the position of asking/demanding a change in his policy puts Kerry in the position of supplicant, not co-equal in an electoral battle.  Such a demand also makes Kerry look like he is just out to score political points.  Now that is fine, when the points mean something.  But since Bush would never change on this one, it just looks cheap and weak.

Better is the position that the Senator took 10 days later (AOL News: Elections 2004, Nedra Pickler, AP, Denver, June 21, “Kerry Urges Lifting Stem Cell Ban”): “Democrat John Kerry, backed by 48 Nobel Prize winners, on Monday criticized President Bush for allowing ideology rather than facts to determine science policies and repeated his pledge to overturn the ban on federal funding of research on new stem cell line.”

In this statement Sen. Kerry criticized Bush for making policy based on “ideology,” here a code word for “religious doctrine.”  He also criticizes the abandonment of science in general, with the backing of a large group of very prestigious scientists.  He is no longer asking Bush to change his policy, but telling the voters what he, Kerry, would do, as President.

Going one step further, Kerry could use the issue to illustrate how Bush makes many policy decisions, from supporting the denial of choice in the outcome of pregnancy to the proposal to make homosexuals second-class citizens through the “Same Sex Marriage” amendment.  One doesn’t have to support same-sex marriage to be opposed to ensconcing in the Constitution the policy of singling-out one particular group of people for discrimination by who they are, not anything they have done.

When the Kerry-is-Hitler Republican ad came out, once again the supplicant position was taken, this time by the DNC.  The demand was made to Bush to withdraw it.  Why, when he or his people approved it to begin with?  How much better to say something like, “This is what my opponent stands for.  Is this the kind of person, a person who would stoop to such depths of political despair even to think of making such a comparison, who the American people (to say nothing of the free world) should have as their leader in the White House?”

One Current Note

On the flap over the anti-Kerry Vietnam Vets and their charges that he didn’t deserve his medals.  The answer to this one should not be of the "oh yes he did deserve the medals" ilk.  The gets quickly into the totally distractive “yes he did/no he didn’t” kinds of arguments the Georgites just love, because it takes one’s attention away from what really counts.

In my view, the response should be along the following lines:

A)      Kerry didn't award himself the medals; the Navy did.  Why don't these guys take it up with the Navy?

B)      Whatever the merits of the medals argument, Kerry was in Vietnam, with his own life on the line, while the President first dodged the draft by getting into a closed National Guard unit, and then he was at least AWOL from part of his obligation to it (if not an actual deserter).

C)      Is this all the Georgites have?  Pretty weak stuff when the future of the Nation is on the line.  But then again it's typical of the Republicans, who will do just about anything to avoid the principal issue of this campaign: George Bush’s record in office.

SOME THOUGHTS FOR AND ABOUT THE KERRY CAMPAIGN, V

Column No. 24 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - August 5, 2004

Note to the reader (again): We are now past the Democratic National Convention, and in a series of columns written before I left on summer vacation, I continue to devote myself to what are primarily generic campaign matters.  This is the last column this Series.  Next week, if all has gone and goes well with my schedule, I shall be back with you “live.”

To remind you once again, this set of columns has been prepared in advance.  It is possible that some of what I have to say here will have been overtaken by events.  But hopefully, whether or not that has happened, you will find these thoughts to be of use as our attention turns to the principal challenge facing the pro-democracy forces, not in Iraq, but here at home: how to defeat George Bush and assure the election of John Kerry.

On the “Tax and Spend” Issue

“Tax and spend" has been used as a Democrat-demolition slogan by the Republicans since it was first introduced in a major way politically with the Prop. 13 campaign (1978) in California.  They did this because, of course, they always lost when the battles were over what tax revenues bought, not the tax revenues themselves. Goldwater had complained long and loud about this problem, as he tried to figure out ways that he could get taxes for his rich supporters cut and “shrink government” for programs that he didn’t like, which nevertheless had strong appeal to at least some segments of the voting population.  It came into full bloom under “but wasn’t he such a nice guy” Reagan.

The “tax and spend” epithet has been now for years a very effective political tool for the Republicans as they continue to proceed along the pathway to the achievement of Grover Norquist’s chosen and oft-stated goal: “shrinking government to the size of a bathtub and then drowning it in the tub.”  Of course, by “government” these folks mean everything other than its most expensive bits: the military-industrial and the prison-industrial complexes and all of their accoutrement.

I have dealt in some detail with how to counter-attack this tactic in my book, The New Americanism (see the citation below), esp. Chaps. 4 and 16.  One major responsive tactic would be to develop what I call a “Local Problems Bank” approach to the issue.  In campaigns, from the national to the local, it would detail what Federal, and state, tax cuts for the rich have cost in terms of the reduction of specific services in specific communities, the loss of a specific road or rail construction/development project in a particular region, a specific facility that was either closed or made very costly, specific jobs lost because of government budget cuts. Republicans want to focus on the general: “tax cuts.”  We could very effectively, I believe, focus on the specifics of what those tax cuts cost us, in the reality of people’s daily lives (and not deficits down the road, an abstract concept) right here at home.

How to Deal with Red and Liberal Baiting

There will be an increasing amount of liberal – and then I believe red-baiting coming from the Republicans in this campaign, especially as they become more desperate, as I think they will.  In my view, in the case of red-baiting this should always be done by an immediate attack on the attacker for doing it.  That is, first resist the temptation to say, “What do you mean, I’m not a red.” Rather, immediately counter-attack by saying “this is what these people do; they cannot handle the issues, so they just get into their usual distractive, irrelevant, politics.  It is just so old. And now getting back to the issues. . . .” In the case of liberal-baiting, one can do the same thing, and one can also go to the formula that I spelled out in some detail in the first of this series (July 8): "if liberal means x, y, and z, then I am happily a liberal" (health care, environment, protection of the American way of civil life, etc.).

Developing a Strategy for Dealing with BushBadNews

What I like to call BushBadNews is coming across the wire every day, sometimes in torrents.  This is hard stuff, not speculation, on Iraq, on Georgite corruption, on secrecy in government, on attacking the Constitution, on "mis-statements" and outright lies, on disorganization and internal conflict in the Administration, on corruption, on the economy, on the environment, on personal stuff, and so on and so forth.  One doesn't have to dig for this stuff.  They just do their thing and provide us with it in regular doses.

It seems to me that a problem for our side is to come up with a way of organizing and prioritizing the BushBadNews.  There is so much of it, and such a steady stream of it, on so many issues, that it is very possible that the Georgites will stage-manage this thing to promote nothing but public boredom about it: "oh yeah, there those Democrat-traitors and those constant-Democrat-politicizers go again, but we just KNOW how GREAT George REALLY is."

Both to combat that kind of counter-attack and use the material to the best of the Kerry-Edwards Campaign’s advantage, I believe that there has to be a plan for doing so.  Just random shots/responses won’t do.  That would play right into their hands to create the “boredom” response.  To use conventional strategic planning language, the Vision of course is to achieve a Kerry Presidency. The Mission would be to have is to use the BushBadNews to the best advantage.  The Goal of the planning process is to establish a workable system for doing that.  The tasks that need to be accomplished (not necessarily in order of importance) are:

1. Listing criteria to establish the credibility of sources, on the web, in the print media (newspapers and magazines), and other electronic (radio and television) and then commit to use only those that meet the pre-established criteria.

2. Listing the sources to be consulted regularly.  I don't have to discuss the print/electronic media potential sources, starting with the major national dailies and such news programs as All things Considered here.  Just for starters, the list of websites that should be reviewed for usefulness includes: www.tompaine.com; www.misleader.org; http://democrats.com; www.centerforamericanprogress.org; http://www.moveon.org/.  And there are plenty more of them.  But one of the problems is going to be keeping the amount of potentially, possibly, usable material under control.  One way to do this is to spend some time looking at sites, deciding which ones to review on a regular basis and which ones not, and then sticking to that decision.

3. Next, a system for organizing the information has to be developed.  I suggest three major categories: process, substance, and personal.  Process has to do with such practices as lying, misrepresentation, concealment, ignoring the Courts, ignoring Congress.  Substance has to do with issues: the economy, Iraq, unilateralism in foreign policy, tax and fiscal policy, health care, Social Security, infrastructure, environment, you name it.  Personal has to do with such elements as appear in the personal "Bush Resume," everything from the AWOLty to the Saudi/bin Ladens connection. Establishing priorities for the process and substance material is a central part of the process.

4. Coming out of “3” should be a plan for integrating the BushBadNews with the overall plan and strategy for the Campaign.  What are the major themes of the Campaign?  How are they going to be cycled?  Should the Campaign be issuing periodic BushBadNews summaries of its own (drawn for the sources the Campaign decides to use)?  If so, when should they come out as separate items, when as part of the stump speech and various others that the Senators deliver?  Should there be a BushBadNews "Theme of the Week?”

5. Finally, there must be a plan for dealing with the inevitable Republican/Georgite responses.  As I have said many times in this space (the most recent being the mention just above) Republicans inherently never want to deal with issues if they can at all avoid doing so, because when they have to they almost invariably lose.  Thus they want to deal with process: "Democrats are politicizing; Democrats are traitors (courtesy of Ann Coulter); Democrats are personalizing; Democrats are leaking; Democrats are waging class-warfare; Democrats are playing the race card," and so on and so forth.

The way to do this, in brief? You’ve heard it all before:

“Always attack; never defend.”

“Stay in Control of the Agenda,” and make sure that the agenda is primarily George Bush and his record.  If we can do that, we are going to win, and win big.