[Marxism-Thaxis] John Kerry will make his adoring anti-war groupies look like fools - Ed Luttwak
Sunday Telegraph October 24, 2004 John Kerry will make his adoring anti-war groupies look like fools By Edward Luttwak One of the more amusing spectacles of these less-than- amusing times is the emergence of a Kerry fan club among European anti-war enthusiasts. The letter-writing campaign of The Guardian to the voters of Clark County, Ohio, is especially silly, but is only one of many examples. Of course many people support John Kerry for the next president of the United States for a variety of reasons - he is credible when he promises to cut the Federal deficit, for example. But to support him in the hope that he would make American military policy more doveish is absurd. All the evidence is that he will do the exact opposite. He has declared that he wants to increase the US Army by two divisions, more than the total of Continental Europe's intervention troops. That too is a credible promise, in part because Iraq has exposed an acute shortage of ground forces and an excess of navy and air force personnel. But beyond any specific policy positions, there is Kerry, the very combative man. In the televised debates, when President Bush spoke of defeating terrorism, Kerry invariably spoke of killing the terrorists. This was not just an electoral pose: the words accurately reflect the character of the man. He is a fighter, a two-fisted brawler. In all his past electoral campaigns, successful or otherwise, he was always the more aggressive candidate, ready to make wild accusations he knew to be false in the hope that some voters would believe even the incredible. At the moment he is telling older voters that Bush has a secret plan to cut their pensions by 45 per cent, and younger voters that Bush has a secret plan to re-introduce compulsory military service. And Kerry was certainly a fighter in Vietnam. Like many other well-born Americans of the time, Kerry already opposed the war as contrary to US strategic and economic interests (not as a pacifist) when he volunteered for an extra tour of duty in Vietnam, having already served his compulsory year safely aboard ship. As all the world knows by now, he won a Silver Star by beaching the boat he commanded, to jump off in pursuit of a Viet Cong guerrilla, whom he shot dead. He did not have to be in Vietnam, he could have been at home; he did not have to beach the boat - the standard tactic would have been to pull back from the shore all guns firing, not ram the prow into the mud. And as commander of the boat, he did not have to chase the guerrilla himself. He did it all simply because he is a fighter, and a ferocious one. I am quite certain that if Kerry had been president on September 11 he would have reacted more violently than Bush, sending bombers into Afghanistan, not just Special Forces scouts, and demanding immediate co-operation - or else - from Saudi Arabia, not just Pakistan. European anti-militarists have really picked the wrong guy as their hero. It is true that Kerry opposed the 1991 Gulf War (as did Senator Nunn, among other certified hawks) but he urged the use of force in Bosnia, regretted the failure to invade Rwanda before that, approved the Panama intervention of the first President Bush and was an enthusiast for the 1999 Kosovo war, before voting in favour of the war in Iraq. If Kerry is elected next month, he will certainly not act out his apparently clear-cut opposition to the war by immediately withdrawing US forces from Iraq - although even the Bush Administration is pursuing a form of disengagement, striving to add to the number of Iraqi police and National Guard as quickly as possible rather than sending more US troops. With a rifle strength of well under 60,000, there are not even enough American soldiers to control the Baghdad area, let alone the whole Sunni triangle. Kerry is unlikely to change course. He too will pursue disengagement, with the aim of leaving Iraq to its elected government after January, with as much of an army, national guard and police force as can be built up in the meantime. The only difference - and here is the greatest irony - is that Kerry would almost certainly disengage more slowly than Bush simply as a matter of political positioning: he is the one more vulnerable to accusations of abandoning Iraq to Islamic fanatics, warlord-priests and Saddam loyalists. It is not just over Iraq that the hawkish Kerry will confound European liberals. He has harshly criticised Bush for not being tough enough with Iran - another irony, because it implies a preference for unilateral action rather than the multilateral diplomacy he supposedly espouses. Iran's fanatical priests and Revolutionary Guard thugs, having faked the last elections, now rule the country behind the increasingly thin facade of President Khatami's elected but powerless government. The extremists have been playing a diplomatic game with the E3 - Britain, France and Germany - and with the
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] John Kerry will make his adoring anti-war groupies look like fools - Ed Luttwak
It is essential not to have illusions. It is also crucial to defeat Bush. At 12:47 PM 10/24/2004 -0400, Jim Farmelant wrote: Sunday Telegraph October 24, 2004 John Kerry will make his adoring anti-war groupies look like fools By Edward Luttwak ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] John Kerry will make his adoring anti-war groupies look like fools - Ed Luttwak
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 13:07:30 -0400 Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It is essential not to have illusions. It is also crucial to defeat Bush. The problem is that's of Kerry supporters do have illusions concerning him. The fact is, he is a hawk concerning both Iraq and the so-called war on terrorism and he has spent this campaign trying to outflank Bush from the right on these issues (sort of like JFK's 1960 election strategy against Nixon). I see no reason why he won't govern this way, if he enters the Oval Office next year, given his political record, and the kinds of political forces that he would most likely be bumping up against, if he becomes president. Also, the record of liberals and progressives in regards to the Clinton Administration is not very comforting here. Under Clinton we saw such things as the passage of NAFTA and GATT, the abolition of AFDC, the passage of anti-terrorism legislation following the Oklahoma City bombing (which presaged Bush's Patriotic Act), the prosecution of a war against Yugolslavia in 1999, and the brutal imposition of sanctions (backed up by frequent aerial assaults) against Iraq. In other words stuff, that most progressives would never have tolerated from a Republican president. But after all, Clinton was our guy who was himself under constant attacl by the right, so all was forgiven. I suspect that we would see much the same thing under a Kerry Administration. He too will come under assault by the right-wing attack machine and all manner of liberals and progressives will be looking the other way, when Kerry pursues a more aggressive foreign policy, or revives the draft or attempts to privatize social security, or does other things that a Republican president cannot do, since after all Kerry is our guy. At 12:47 PM 10/24/2004 -0400, Jim Farmelant wrote: Sunday Telegraph October 24, 2004 John Kerry will make his adoring anti-war groupies look like fools By Edward Luttwak ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis Speed up your surfing with Juno SpeedBand. Now includes pop-up blocker! Only $14.95/ month - visit http://www.juno.com/surf to sign up today! ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] John Kerry
Living in Washington, I see all too well how far people will go in abasing themselves on behalf of the Democratic Party. Supporters of the Democrats are in a hamstrung position, stuck in the logic of the downward spiral of the political system. And I'm certain that the political crisis in the USA will intensify with the election of Kerry, in ways that go beyond the political degeneration that transpired while Clinton was getting his dick sucked in the Oval Office. However, I don't think we will have a replay of Clinton. Aside from what backbone Kerry will or will not summon, I think that the political system will become much more unstable than it was when Newt and the other white boys were trying to paralyze the federal government. However, even a center-right government makes a big difference compared to a far-right government when one thinks of the damage Bush will do in every sphere of life if he is allowed to continue. And there is the question of the balance of power, if we can call it that, among the electorate. The franchise must be protected against jim crow practices, and this means a Democrat must be elected even though Gore was a spineless little shit in refusing to stick up for black voters in Florida. This is a trivial election only for leftists with one hand stroking their putzes and their head up their ass. At 01:43 PM 10/24/2004 -0400, Jim Farmelant wrote: On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 13:07:30 -0400 Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It is essential not to have illusions. It is also crucial to defeat Bush. The problem is that's of Kerry supporters do have illusions concerning him. The fact is, he is a hawk concerning both Iraq and the so-called war on terrorism and he has spent this campaign trying to outflank Bush from the right on these issues (sort of like JFK's 1960 election strategy against Nixon). I see no reason why he won't govern this way, if he enters the Oval Office next year, given his political record, and the kinds of political forces that he would most likely be bumping up against, if he becomes president. Also, the record of liberals and progressives in regards to the Clinton Administration is not very comforting here. Under Clinton we saw such things as the passage of NAFTA and GATT, the abolition of AFDC, the passage of anti-terrorism legislation following the Oklahoma City bombing (which presaged Bush's Patriotic Act), the prosecution of a war against Yugolslavia in 1999, and the brutal imposition of sanctions (backed up by frequent aerial assaults) against Iraq. In other words stuff, that most progressives would never have tolerated from a Republican president. But after all, Clinton was our guy who was himself under constant attacl by the right, so all was forgiven. I suspect that we would see much the same thing under a Kerry Administration. He too will come under assault by the right-wing attack machine and all manner of liberals and progressives will be looking the other way, when Kerry pursues a more aggressive foreign policy, or revives the draft or attempts to privatize social security, or does other things that a Republican president cannot do, since after all Kerry is our guy. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
