Correction Re Commentary on the Bush/Kerry Presidential Debate (Part I): = This is a continuation of the Comments posted on the Bush/Kerry debate, yesterday.
I need however to correct/ clarify a couple things accidentally posted in yesterday's post: Where I wrote -- "The war in Iraq is not in a war of conquest to make Middle Asia safe of American oil companies and provide contracts to Halliburton to rebuild the countries that American troops destroyed." This was an obviously typographical error. What I meant to write is that: The war in Iraq is in a war of conquest to make Middle Asia safe of American oil companies, and provide contracts to the Halliburton's to rebuild countries that American troops destroyed. Lil Joe Today's Post: Commentary on the Bush/Kerry Presidential Debate (Part II) by Lil Joe Lehrer: Senator Kerry, 90 seconds. Kerry: The president just talked about Iraq as a center of the war on terror. Iraq was not even close to the center of the war on terror before the president invaded it. The president made the judgment to divert forces from under Gen. Tommy Franks from Afghanistan before the Congress even approved it, to begin to prepare to go to war in Iraq. Lil Joe's comment: There is some truth to this. It is not to be forgotten, that the so-called War on Terror is in actuality a war in Middle Asia/North Africa, in part to solidify US control of the oil regions in that part of the world, but also to defeat armies and regimes that threaten Israeli military supremacy in the region as well. Thus, Israel wants the US to invade and occupy not only Iraq and Afghanistan but Iran and Syria as well. Kerry: And he rushed to war in Iraq without a plan to win the peace. Now that is not the judgment that a president of the United States ought to make. You don't take America to war unless you have a plan to win the peace. You don't send troops to war without the body armor that they need. Lil Joe's comment: It is significant that Kerry mentions "win the peace", and in connection with it "body armor". "Win the peace"! Doublethink! By "win the peace", Kerry means the same as Bush says more honestly: "win the war". By win the peace Kerry means suppress the resistance: "The morning after his encounter with the President, he took up just this issue even more emphatically, responding to Bush criticisms by saying: 'Well, Mr. President, nobody's talking about leaving, nobody's talking about wilting and wavering. We're talking about winning and getting the job done right.' " http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/041004Engelhardt.shtml?mail=04 Thus, "getting the job done", like "win the peace" is Newspeak euphemism for suppress the resistance, thus the "job" is the job of American troops is to kill Iraqis. Thus, the only real difference between Bush and Kerry on the issue of war and repression in Iraq is the rhetoric. What the American labor movement and left, tied to the Democratic Party, want to hear from Kerry is his promise of Peace in the Middle East, withdrawing American troops from the Iraqi "quagmire". This delusion is necessary for them to justify campaigning for the Democratic Party to win the Presidency. What American imperialists and Zionists recognize, however, is that Kerry is telling them that "peace", and therefore pullout will be achievable only after the conquest of Iraq, by American soldiers, has succeeded in suppressing the resistance. The American labor movement and leftist individuals and organizations that are supporting the Kerry bid for Presidency are, inadvertently or consciously, by campaigning for Kerry are in actuality supporting US imperialism in its wars of conquests in Middle Asia. Kerry: I've met kids in Ohio, parents in Wisconsin, places, Iowa, where they're going out on the Internet to get the state-of-the-art body gear to send to their kids. Some of them got them for birthday presents. I think that's wrong. Humvees, 10,000 out of 12,000 Humvees that are over there aren't armored. And you go visit some of those kids in the hospitals today who were maimed because they don't have the armament. Lil Joe's comment: Anecdotes don't substitute for logical arguments based on empirical data, parables about personal encounters with unnamed "kids in Ohio" and "parents in Wisconsin" purchasing "state-of-the-art body gear to send to their kids" as birthday presents being "wrong" is irrelevant demagogic rhetoric. This demagogy does not hide the fact that it was, in part due to Kerry, Edwards and other Democrats in Congress voting for the war that these American "kids" (soldiers!) are in harms way in Iraq. Had the Democrats in Congress, including Kerry and Edwards, rather had joined Robert Byrd fighting against this war deployment these "kids" would not be in Iraq in the first place, and subsequently not be in need of "body armor" as "birth day presents". Kerry: This president just, I don't know if he sees what's really happening there. But it's getting worse by the day. More soldiers killed in June than before. More in July than June. More in August than July. More in September than in August. Lil Joe's comment: Of course Bush sees "what's really happening" in Iraq -- that the resistance is deepening and spreading, in consequence of which the death toll on American occupation forces are increasing quantitatively "by the day". The point is that had Kerry, Edwards and the rest of the Democrats in Congress opposed the war drum beating rather than joined in it, and subsequently voting war authorization as a "blank check", authorizing the President to exercise his powers as commander in chief to conduct aggression, the "kids" (US soldiers!) would not have been in Iraq getting killed at all, let alone: "more in July than June; more in August than July; more in September than in August." When the American labor movement and lefts campaign for Kerry and Edwards they are campaigning for a team that is just as much responsible as are Bush and Chaney for American troops in Iraq killing Iraqis and getting killed in the process. But notice, moreover, that Kerry does not mention the tens of thousands of Iraqis being killed, only the American soldiers who are doing the killing and subsequently getting killed in the process. Were the Iraqis not putting up such stiff resistance to the occupation the war on Iraqis would no more be a campaign issue than is the war on Afghanis is. Kerry: And now we see beheadings. And we've got weapons of mass destruction crossing the border every single day. And they're blowing people up. And we don't have enough troops there. Lil Joe's comment: The beheadings are a sideshow staged by religious fanatics; staged in part for the media, by foreigners, and not part of the indigenous Iraqi resistance. The Iraqis have in fact denounced the beheading being carried out in their name. The only weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that are "crossing the Iraq border every single day" are those used by US military forces killing Iraqis, bombing homes and by this "blowing people up". Car bombs should be discontinued because; although they are targeting occupation forces and collaborators, they are disproportionately killing Iraqi civilians including children. The Iraqis are right: this is not resistance this is terrorism. Bush: Can I respond? Lehrer: Let's do one of these one-minute extensions. You have 30 seconds. Bush: Thank you, sir. First of all, what my opponent wants you to forget is that he voted to authorize the use of force. And now says it's the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place. I don't see how you can lead this country to succeed in Iraq if you say wrong war, wrong time, wrong place. What message does that send our troops? What messages does that send our allies? What message does that send the Iraqis? No, the way to win this is to be steadfast and resolved and to follow through on the plan that I just outlined. Lil Joe's comment: Bush seems to have the mind of a child! American children are taught in elementary school what can be called the power of positive thinking to overcome empirical limits. Just say to yourself, moving from self-doubt to self-certainty: "I think I can, I think I can"; to "I know I can, I know I can!" Bush seems to think, or rather, cynically wants the American people to think that the flow of empirical events in the deepening and expansion of the Iraqi resistance can be reverse simply by Americans being "steadfast and resolute": from "I think I can" to "I know I can" win this un-winnable war. It is against this childish solipsism that Kerry is perceived as a political adult, and thus won the debate by calling for an objective appraisal of the unfolding facts on the ground. Bush's only retorts are ad homonym attacks on Kerry for have said in the past that the US aggression in Iraq is "the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place. I don't see how you can lead this country to succeed in Iraq" Then, somehow, without making a logical connection, let alone refutation of Kerry's conditional opposition to this war, Bush triumphantly declare that all that is needed to overcome empirical reality is to be "steadfast and resolute"! Lehrer: Thirty seconds, Senator. Kerry: Yes, we have to be steadfast and resolved. And I am. And I will succeed for those troops now that we're there. We have to succeed. We can't leave a failed Iraq. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a mistake of judgment to go there and take the focus off of Osama bin Laden. It was. Lil Joe's comment: In connection with what Kerry had mentioned earlier, about more troops, body armor and equipment, he is in actuality setting aside his previous statement that it is the wrong aggression at the wrong time and place but saying, on the contrary that he wants to win this war, using more troops and equipment needed as indicated by objective conditions, together with being "steadfast and resolved". Kerry's continuing to bring up Osama bid Laden, an a rootless individual with a ragtag army of rootless fanatics, is really, in my opinion a side show, directly playing to the audience that has seen and been convinced by Michael Moore's "documentary" on the Bush-bin Laden family connections. Kerry: Now we can succeed. But I don't believe this president can. I think we need a president who has the credibility to bring the allies back to the table and to do what's necessary to make it so America isn't doing this alone. Lil Joe's Comment: Here, Kerry is playing to the American imperialist audience, the American ruling classes and to the rulers of other nations, particularly France, Germany, Russia and China, saying he will mind fences, childishly breached by Bush playing the game of go it alone macho, macho man. Bush is to arrogant to humble himself and eat crow -- that is to say, admit that the US was wrong to go it alone, and beg the great powers of Europe and Asia for forgiveness and help. But, this is precisely a case in point in which the electoral democratic game is so useful to the ruling classes: blame the fiasco on one man, the President in this case Bush. This enables the replacement President, representing the same ruling class interests to change the policies of his predecessor without having to humble himself, and the country by apologizing and eating crow! The go-after-bid Laden crap, in this connection, Kerry is also sending a clear and unambiguous message to France, Germany, Russia and China, and also to Japan and to the UN: that if they [NATO and UN forces] enter the Iraqi theatre of combat America will withdraw its forces from Iraq (and perhaps other Arab countries e.g. Saudi Arabia) and settle for keeping its forces only in Afghanistan. Lehrer: We'll come back to Iraq in a moment. But I want to come back to where I began on homeland security. This is a two-minute new question, Senator Kerry. As president, what would you do specifically in addition to or differently to increase the homeland security of the United States than what President Bush is doing? Kerry: Jim, let me tell you exactly what I'll do. And there are a long list of things. First of all, what kind of mixed message does it send when you've got $500 million going over to Iraq to put police officers in the streets of Iraq and the president is cutting the cops program in America? Lil Joe's Comment: What "America" does Kerry live in? Obviously, wealthy the world of the Americans, whose wealth and person are protected by the State, the so-called cops. Because in the ghettos and barrios in inner city slums are infested with cops where police brutality, and even murder is a common occurrence. Kerry: What kind of message does it send to be sending money to open firehouses in Iraq but we're shutting firehouses, who are the first responders here in America? The president hasn't put one nickel - not one nickel - into the effort to fix some of our tunnels and bridges and most exposed subway systems. That's why they had to close down the subway in New York when the Republican convention was there. We haven't done the work that ought to be done. Lil Joe's Comment: While that is true, it must be pointed out that the American reconstruction efforts, in Iraq, are not a favor to the Iraqis. Before the devastations caused by war with Iraq (supported by the United states and the Arabs and Israelis), followed by wars, invasions, bombing campaigns by the British and Americans under the auspices of the UN, followed by twelve years of brutal genocidal sanctions under the auspices of the UN but enforced by the British and US military, and now the destructive current war and occupation -- before this Iraq was one of the most modern, industrializing, self-sufficient countries in Asia. The United States has destroyed Iraq, and now Kerry argues that they are doing Iraq a favor for repairing the destruction America caused on that suffering people. Saying that "aid to Iraq" is the reason that America's infrastructure is deteriorating also a boldfaced lie. But that's another discussion. Kerry: At present, 95 percent of the containers that come into the ports, right here in Florida, are not inspected. Civilians get onto aircraft and their luggage is X-rayed, but the cargo hold is not X-rayed. Does that make you feel safer in America? This president thought it was more important to give the wealthiest people in America a tax cut rather than invest in homeland security. Those aren't my values. I believe in protecting America first. And long before President Bush and I get a tax cut - and that's who gets it - long before we do, I'm going to invest in homeland security and I'm going to make sure we're not cutting cops programs in America and we're fully staffed in our firehouses and that we protect the nuclear and chemical plants. The president, also unfortunately, gave in to the chemical industry, which didn't want to do some of the things necessary to strengthen our chemical plant exposure. And there's an enormous undone job to protect the loose nuclear materials in the world that are able to get to terrorists. That's a whole other subject. Lil Joe's Comment: This is nothing but demagogic populist rhetoric. The issue of wealth and class in this country has really to do with the exploitation of wageworkers by capitalists, and the issue of taxes needs to be placed in this context. This is not going to be explained neither by Kerry, Edwards, nor any other capitalists in the Democratic Party. But, yes, that's a whole other subject. Kerry: But I see we still have a little bit more time. Let me just quickly say, at the current pace, the president will not secure the loose material in the Soviet Union, former Soviet Union, for 13 years. I'm going to do it in four years. And we're going to keep it out of the hands of terrorists. Lil Joe's Comment: Nuclear capacity is already in the hands of "terrorist" states, for instance the United States, Britain and Israel, which are presenting raining terror and destruction in Afghanistan, Iraq, and of course, as always occupied Palestine. The United States is presently engaging to sell to Israel billions of dollars worth megaton bombs -- paid for, by the way, by US tax dollars that could have been used building firehouses and rebuilding schools in America. Why didn't Kerry contrast this spending to America needing firehouses, rather than contrasting it to rebuilding the infrastructure the US military destroyed in Iraq? Lehrer: Ninety-second response, Mr. President. Bush: I don't think we want to get to how he's going to pay for all these promises. It's like a huge tax gap and - anyway, that's for another debate. My administration has tripled the amount of money we're spending on homeland security to $30 billion a year. My administration worked with the Congress to create the Department of Homeland Security so we could better coordinate our borders and ports. We've got 1,000 extra borders and ports. We've got 1,000 extra Border Patrol on the southern border, more than 1,000 on the northern border. We're modernizing our borders. We spent $3.1 billion for fire and police - $3.1 billion. Now, we're doing our duty to provide the funding, but the best way to protect this homeland is to stay on the offense. You know, we have to be right 100 percent of the time, and the enemy only has to be right once to hurt us. There's a lot of good people working hard. And by the way, we've also changed the culture of the F.B.I. to have counterterrorism as its No. 1 priority. We're communicating better. We're going to reform our intelligence services to make sure that we get the best intelligence possible. The Patriot Act is vital - it's vital that the Congress renew the Patriot Act, which enables our law enforcement to disrupt terrorist cells. But again, I repeat to my fellow citizens, the best way to protect you is to stay on the offense. Lil Joe's Comment: As I stated previously, the best way -- in fact the only way -- to increase America's security is for America to cease maiming and killing people all over the world, by bombings and invasions; and to cease supplying rogue states such as Israel with funds and arms to maim and kill innocent civilians including children in racist violence. If people are hit, they are naturally going to strike back with what they have, including by methods officially described as "terrorism". I already commented upon what Bush in his childish mentality demagogically refers to America being on the "offensive". America, as this discussion on "homeland security" intimates is not on the offensive but the defensive. Moreover, America's military forces of occupation in Iraq is also on the defensive as the resistance to the occupation deepens and spreads with daily and monthly increased attacks on American forces and collaborators, throughout Iraq. Lehrer: Yes, 30 seconds. Kerry: The president just said the F.B.I. changed its culture. We just read on the front pages of America's papers that there are over a hundred-thousand hours of tapes unlistened to. On one of those tapes may be the enemy being right the next time. And the test is not whether you're spending more money. The test is are you doing everything possible to make America safe. We didn't need that tax cut. America needed to be safe. Lil Joe's Comment: Again, the demagogic, populist rhetoric about taxes for the wealthy circumvents the focus from an explanation of the exploitation of wage labor by capital, from which the capitalist's wealth and profits are derived, and from which taxes are paid or cut. More directly, as I said previously, America's security will not come from either increasing the FBI readers and listeners of tapes, nor the Patriot Act, with all its racist anti-immigrant codes and attacks on the civil liberties of American citizens notwithstanding. America, if the American ruling class's economic and political interests permit, must fundamentally change its foreign policies. However, the fact that, as we have been seeing, there are only cosmetic changes in American foreign policy that a Kerry/Edwards regime would make, it will be neither the Democrats any more than the Republicans who will make the needed changes in American foreign policy, and at the same time overthrow the hated Patriotic Act. The only class in American politics that has irreconcilable interests in opposition to capital, and therefore capable of representing the American people by changing US domestic as well as foreign policy is the working class, the proletariat. Just as the capitalists are a cosmopolitan class with universal (common) interests, as well as mutually exclusive competitive interests so also the proletarian class is cosmopolitan with common, universal class interests. However, in the modern world of capital dominated nation-states, the inevitable conflicts between competitive capitals engender economic rivalries in the forms of political conflicts and wars. It is the sons and daughters of the working classes that are recruited into the military to go to war on one another -- proletarians of different countries killing each other in wars in which they have no class interests at stake, representing the economic and political interests of his or her own national bourgeoisie. Workmen and women have a common interest in true peace in part because they have no interest in war, as they are the ones that sacrifice life and limb while the Halliburton's enrich themselves at their expense. So long as capital exists there will be capitalist competition, rivalries and wars between states. Security in and of one country cannot come about unless there is security and justice in every country, and of men and women of every ethnic group within those countries. Only the working class can bring this about, put an end to war, by taking the productive forces from the capitalist class by internationally coordinated proletarian revolutions. Bush response: Of course we're doing everything we can to protect America. I wake up every day thinking about how best to protect America. That's my job. I work with Director Mueller of the F.B.I. He comes into my office when I'm in Washington every morning talking about how to protect us. There's a lot of really good people working hard to do so. It's hard work. Lil Joe's Comment: In reality, it's not just a hard job - rather, it's an impossible job. Whatever Bush might or might not think about when he wakes up "every day", is irrelevant to the impossibility of the task. Whether in the Middle East or elsewhere, for most of its history, and in particular for the past five decades as super-imperialist power the United States has been at war in one or several countries throughout the world. It was therefore inevitable that at some point these wars would come to American soil, as the war in the Middle East/North Africa did on 9/11. The threshold has been crossed, and no matter how hard "really good people" are working to prevent other such attacks, such attacks will be inevitable unless American foreign policy is radically changed by the American working class organizing itself into a class party, and by winning the battle of democracy become the ruling class with an international policy of working class solidarity in opposition to exploitation, racism, Zionism and imperialist wars everywhere. Bush: But again I want to tell the American people: We're doing everything we can at home, but you better have a president who chases these terrorists down and brings them to justice before they hurt us again. Lil Joe's Comment: This kind of narcissistic rhetoric doesn't deserve a response from Kerry, or comment from me. Lehrer: New question, Mr. President. Two minutes. What criteria would you use to determine when to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq? Bush: Uh, let me first tell you that the best way for Iraq to be safe and secure is for Iraqi citizens to be trained to do the job. And that's what we're doing. We've got a hundred thousand trained now, 125,000 by the end of this year, over 200,000 by the end of this year. That is the best way. We'll never succeed in Iraq if the Iraqi citizens do not want to take matters into their own hands to protect themselves. I believe they want to. Prime Minister Allawi believes they want to. Lil Joe's Comment: History repeats itself. President Nixon, regarding the American exit from the war in Vietnam, first articulated this Bush ideology and strategy: it was then called Vietnamization. The principle is that "peace with honor" can be achieved by allowing the Americans to save face by really turning government over to its abandoned Quisling regime. I contrast this really turning government over to its quisling to the sham "transfer of power to the Iraqi Interim Government" because the quislings operating today are nothing but an ideological political front for the continued occupation/domination by American and British forces, whereas when the Americans leave this quisling regime will be on its own. The Soviet's did the same thing when they were driven from Afghanistan by the Al Qaeda-US-Taliban alliance, using American weapons now used by Al Qaeda and Taliban guerillas against U.S. occupation forces and their quislings in Afghanistan and Iraq. As did the American quisling government of "South" Vietnam collapse once the American forces withdrew under the guise of Vietnamization, and the Kabul regime collapsed once the Soviet troops left Afghanistan, so one must expect the quisling government will collapse once the Americans actually pull its forces from Iraq. Bush: And so the best indication about when we can bring our troops home, which I really want to do-but I don't want to do so for the sake of bringing them home, I want to do so because we've achieved an objective-is to see the Iraqis perform, is to see the Iraqis step up and take responsibility. Lil Joe's Comment: Moreover, in connection with this addendum, the Iraqis have already taken "matters into their own hands", and are taking "responsibility" for themselves: the resistance! Bush: And so the answer to your question is when our generals on the ground and Ambassador Negropont tells me that Iraq is ready to defend herself from these terrorists, that elections will have been held by then, that there's stability and that they're on their way to, you know, a nation of, that's free. That's when. Lil Joe's Comment: Notice that Bush has backed away from the "objective" of completely suppressing the resistance, which he calls terrorists. What he is talking about now is Iraqification (that is, the Iraqi version of Vietnamization). The point here is that notwithstanding his macho rhetoric of "not wavering", and being "steadfast and resolved", the "mixed messages" here is that Bush is in code admitting that America in Iraq is on the defensive, not the offensive in that he is saying that notwithstanding continued resistance, Americans will pull their troops from Iraq following the sham elections under occupation in January. This encoded message from Bush is, to use the language of the Bush campaign against Kerry, another Bush flip-flop. At the beginning the objective of invasion of Iraq is finding and destroying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. After this lie was exposed on the grounds that no such weapons were in existence, the Bush political and ideological teams manipulated the Americans into thinking that the objective was to remove Saddam from power -- that by putting this pathetic individual in jail the world is somehow "safe". Then the claimed objective is to stabilize Iraq against "terrorist disruptions" (i.e. translated from Newspeak, suppress the resistance). But, now the objective is having elections in January after which the quisling government is on its own to defend itself, quote "from these terrorists". Bush intimates that a nation "that is free" is one in which elections are held, whereas the resistance forces say that Iraq will not be "free" until the invaders are expelled and the quisling government left behind is overthrown and dismantled. Thus, what Bush is intimating is that, after the US exist the next Bush administrating (if re-elected) will leave the elected Iraqi quisling government to retain power on its own. Bush: And I hope it's as soon as possible. But I know putting artificial deadlines won't work. My opponent at one time said, well, get me elected, I'll have them out of there in six months. That's, you can't do that and expect to win the war on terror. Lil Joe's Comment: Obviously, as deeper analysis shows Bush is not the idiot he appears to be. By making it an issue of time (withdrawal in six months sooner or later) By doing this Bush is cloaking the "mix messages": that notwithstanding his macho demagogy about not wavering, being on the offensive and being steadfast that in reality he like Kerry recognize that the war on Iraq has turned out, for the Bush administration to be the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time because the occupation is suffering defeat after defeat after defeat. So, stripping away the demagogy and macho rhetoric what is the real difference between the Bush and Kerry war policy regarding Iraq? That Bush says he will pull the troops from Iraq "as soon as possible", and Kerry that he will do so "in six months"! Bush: My message to our troops is thank you for what you're doing. We're standing with you strong. We'll give you all the equipment you need. And we'll get you home as soon as the mission's done. Lil Joe's Comment: In other words, at this moment rather than in direct response to Kerry's criticism, Bush is saying the same to the troops as Kerry: "I'll send you the body armor" and "withdraw you from Iraq". Bush: Because this is a vital mission. A free Iraq will be an ally in the war on terror. And that's essential. A free Iraq will set a powerful example in the part of the world that is desperate for freedom. A free Iraq will help secure Israel. A free Iraq will enforce the hopes and aspirations of the reformers in places like Iran. A free Iraq is essential for the security of this country. Lil Joe's Comment: So! There it is! American soldiers are being sacrificed to advance the interests of Israel! It must be said here, however in anticipation to the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist about "Jews" determining American foreign policy that that is not the case. Rather the opposite: America is arming and funding Israel for America's own imperialist designs. Jews in Israel are being sacrificed to advance American capitalists economic and political interests in Middle Asia and North Africa. To be continued _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis