Deja Vu All Over Again

I just saw an ad that was placed by one of the candidates for the presidential nomination. I had heard it earlier on the radio. Children were sleeping and there was the sound of a phone ringing--presumably a red phone. The voice over declared that your children are sleeping safely but the red phone showed that there was something going on the in the world. the voice over asked whether you wanted someone who could handle issues of foreign importance. Blah. Blah. Blah. RED PHONE. RED PHONE!!!!!!!!!! Get it?

I had assumed that it was the McCain campaign. After all, the Republicans have fostered and fed upon an atmosphere of fear for the past seven years. And fear, as the folks in the novel Dune declare, "is the mind killer." I assumed, of course, that it was John McCain.

It was sponsored by Hillary Clinton. Enough said.

LETTER TO HILLARY CLINTON, 9/18/01

After the "debate" in Ohio yesterday between Obama and Clinton, I looked through my old e-mails and came up with an e-mail that I wrote to Sen. Hillary Clinton a week after September 11. You didn't have to be a psychic to see where things were going. And I am not happy to say that I was right, as were many who opposed the response of the Bush Administration together with congressional rubber stampers like Sen. Clinton. I did not, by the way, get a response from her office.

Dear Senator Clinton:
senator@clinton.senate.gov

I am writing to express my grave concern over the United States government’s reaction to the terrorist attacks last Tuesday. Our grief and horror must not turn into blind rage. The
killing of innocents is vile and supremely reprehensible. We cannot do the same thing.

A massive military action against Afghanistan would result in the deaths of countless
innocent civilians—men, women and children. How can we fight terror with terror? Such
an action would escalate rather than defeat terrorism.

Further, calls in Congress to support the recruitment of “unsavory” people to aid the
United States effort are equally misguided. It was the training of such people by the CIA
that gave us a highly organized and trained Osama bin Laden. Are we to create and train
more bin Ladens in the name of fighting terrorism? Has not this policy shown itself to be
shortsighted and bankrupt over and over?

Finally, the stability of moderate governments in the Middle East is tentative. A massive
United States military action in the area could easily result in the overthrow of these
governments by powerful and vocal Islamic fundamentalists. Once again, the United States
has the potential to create the conditions for even greater terrorism.

Terror begets terror. We must break the cycle. If the United States is to present any
leadership in this, we must look to the roots of the problem. The United States must use its
influence to see that the heart of the problem—the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—is resolved
equitably. For a start, we must throw our support behind the implementation of the now
moribund Oslo accords. Once there is a fair resolution of that issue, the roots of terrorism
will wither and die.

In conclusion, I urge you to oppose any military action that targets or involves civilian
populations. I urge you to oppose any efforts to turn back to the discredit policy of allying
ourselves with people or regimes that oppose human rights. And I urge you to support
efforts to involve the United States in the fair and peaceful settlement of the Palestinian
situation.

Why I Cannot Support Hillary Clinton

A few weeks ago my daughter, Hira, called from Seattle where she lives. The Washington caucus was to take place shortly. She told me that she could not support Barak Obama.

One of the things about Hira is that she has a low tolerance for bullshit of any kind. That is something that I have always admired and supported in her. Another thing is that she does her homework.

Hira listed the ways in which Hillary Clinton’s policies were better than Obama’s. Health care, of course, was high on the list. She summed up several other policies and concluded that Obama was “Bush Lite.” I could not disagree.

I have experienced many decades of political bullshit. I have, for example, never been one of those who sanctifies President John F. Kennedy. I watched him debate Richard Nixon as they tried to outdo each other with their Cuba phobia. The main difference between the two men in those debates was that Nixon had five o’clock shadow. I read the stories of the way the election of 1960 was given to Kennedy by Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago who saw to it that large number of ballots for Nixon were dumped in the river. I saw the way in which President Kennedy sunk the United States into a murderous war in Vietnam—slowly, sneakily and inexorably. And, despite the cinematic pipe dreams of Oliver Stone, Kennedy got us deeper into not out of that war.

Whatever was happening domestically, foreign policy in the Kennedy administration was aggressive and imperial. Lyndon B. Johnson simply followed the legacy of his predecessor. And United States forces bombed, napalmed, machine gunned and poisoned a million people in a country that posed absolutely no threat to the United States.

So, when Edward and Caroline Kennedy anointed Barak Obama as the heir to JFK I was not impressed. The Camelot of King Arthur was much more real than the manufactured public relations fiction in Washington, D.C..

I began to resonate with the falseness of the Madison Avenue glitz of “Camelot” as the Obama campaign became vaguer and vaguer. Pretty soon all I was hearing was “change” and “unity” with less and less substance. Once again I was watching the hopes and longings of millions projected on the screen of a politician. Hira was right. In substantive domestic policies the small difference between the candidates balanced towards Hillary Clinton,

When I hung up the phone I had a gnawing sense of doubt. I felt an unease upon which I could not put my finger. Then it hit me.

Senator Hillary Clinton spoke for and voted for authorization of the war in Iraq. She did this for no other reason than political expediency. And she, together with her fellows, bears responsibility for the ongoing deaths of innocents.

I listened to the Congressional debate on the war authorization over five years ago. It was like something out of “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” Anybody who bothered to read the reports of Hans Blix and the United Nations inspection team at that time knew that there was little likelihood of weapons of mass destruction. Anybody who listened to Scott Ritter, former chief United States weapon inspector knew then that there was no Iraqi capability for constructing weapons of mass destruction. Anyone who bothered to go beyond the headlines could see the ways that Vice President Cheney was twisting arms to get the intelligence community to distort their findings in order to justify the invasion. If I was able to find this in 2002 then surely the junior senator from New York, with her efficient staff, could come up with the information. While the public might be excused for not digging deeper, a member of Congress, voting on war, cannot be excused.

The Congressional debate on war was disgraceful. Never have I seen a group of legislators illustrate so clearly how politicians are not leaders, but followers. Never have I seen such a Congressional disregard for the truth. A runner up was the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which facilitated the expansion of the Vietnam War based on another fiction.

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia was a voice in the wilderness of this “debate.” By voting the President a carte blanche to wage war, Byrd said, Congress was abandoning its responsibility to the people, country and constitution of the United States.

Hillary Clinton followed Byrd and spoke for the war. Considering the venue it was practically incoherent. It was political word salad. She provided no justification for authorizing an attack on a country that posed no threat to the United States. It seemed quite clear that she was just getting on the bandwagon—no principles here—just expediency.

And the war was waged. Today, five years later, the war is still being waged. The United Nations estimates that almost five million Iraqi’s have been displaced since the United States invaded their country. If that occurred here that would amount to about fifty-five million Americans being displaced. As for casualties, the British medical journal, Lancet, has estimated over one million. And a large number of those have been women and children. To put it bluntly hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died because of a war that Senator Hillary Clinton voted to authorize. Thousands of young American men and women have died in a meaningless and unjustified war that Senator Hillary Clinton voted to authorize. It’s murder pure and simple.

The war in Iraq, for me, is not just another campaign issue be balanced against pro-choice, NAFTA or health care. There can be no trade for homicide. The United States entered into a war on Iraq based on a tissue of lies. And this war continues to claim Iraqi and American lives.

That Hillary Clinton supported this war is bad enough. Either she knew better or she is incompetent and irresponsible. That she makes no apology for her vote is arrogant and inexcusable. We’ve certainly had enough of that in the last eight years. It’s as if she keeps on voting for it again and again.

It is true that Obama was not in Congress when this vote was taken. It is also true that he clearly and loudly denounced it at a time when it was not politically expedient to do so.

It is time for people to stop playing political games. For me, the essential difference between the two candidates comes down to one issue. I will not support someone who has the blood of children on her hands and will not even wash them clean.