Knowing When to “Shut Up” – And When Not to

An interesting exchange occurred during an open session of the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago yesterday [Nov. 10] with King Juan Carlos of Spain chiding Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to “just shut up.” No doubt many share the same annoyance at times regarding Chavez's proclivity to speak his mind in a manner that is often “undiplomatic” to say the least. The exchange came after Chavez had referred to former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar as a “fascist.” Aznar, a Conservative party leader, is a close Bush ally and had backed the US invasion of Iraq against the sentiments of a large faction of the Spanish people. When Aznar was ousted following a popular election, Spain pulled back troops and the country promptly withdrew its support for the US led occupation of Iraq.

Blunt public references are nothing new to Chavez. He referred to US President George W. Bush as the “devil” during an open session of the United Nations, sparking strong criticism. So his negative reference to Aznar, who supported Bush in Iraq, was not totally unexpected. When the current Spanish Prime Minister sought to tone down the rhetoric by stating that Chavez should be more respectful of duly elected officials, despite clear political differences, Chavez attempted to interrupt. His microphone was cut off, and King Juan Carlos expressed agitation by suggesting that Chavez should “shut up.”

An interesting point in these exchanges is that those responding to Chavez do not directly state that Chavez is out of line in the substance of his beliefs, but rather that he is radical and impolitic in his manner of expressing his views. In effect, the major criticism of Chavez lies in his lack of diplomacy. In response to the criticism by current Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, Chavez did not respond to King Juan Carlos, but later commented on Zapatero's speech stating that the legitimacy of a leader derives not only from his plebiscite or having been elected by the people, but from whether that leader’s actions are legitimate uses of authority. Chavez has long contended that the Invasion of Iraq was an illegal and illegitimate abuse of power by Bush and his allies. Chavez has also railed against the US abuse of power in bullying South American nations through exploitive trade policies and through unfair and discriminatory World Bank policies that the US effectively controls.

Chavez is currently on a bit of a tightrope in his own country as well. Current civil unrest in Venezuela over a push by Chavez and his supporters to name him President for life under a new constitution highlights questions of his standing to challenge the overreaching by other political leaders. While admitting that Chavez has done many good things in his own country and for the good of other South American nations, primarily through use of Venezuelan oil resources, his opponents challenge that maintaining regular democratic elections in Venezuela is essential to the country’s forward progress. Centralization and consolidation of power in one person, they argue, is an open invitation to the abuses of power that are a painful characteristic of the nation’s past.

Ironically, Chavez seems to be heading unwittingly down the same road to self-destruction that Bush has traveled. By taking actions to consolidate and abuse power in his own country, Bush undercut his own legitimacy to challenge or criticize others for allegedly “undemocratic” governmental actions. Chavez risks undermining the moral authority that he does wield, albeit undiplomatically, in his insistence upon speaking truth to power. As my grandfather used to tell me, when you point a finger, remember that there are several fingers on your hand pointing back at yourself. Chavez needs to heed that admonition and consider whether his own personal actions and political aspirations are consistent with the principles he applies to others in his public statements.

GOP + Giuliani = MOS

The qualities, judgment and character of the pretenders to the throne of the US Presidency pose vital questions for our future, and the American public must decide whether they want more of the same – MOS. As the run up to the 2008 election continues, the media and the press seem to be improving performance of their basic responsibilities to the public, the job of providing information upon which the public can try to make an informed decision. The task for the voters is to sift through the mountain of information, decipher the biases inherent in the news sources, and make an intelligent choice. These past years of cronyism, incompetence and corruption, which have been the hallmarks and will be the legacy, of the George W. Bush Administration are not times that bear repeating if the “Great Experiment” is to survive. Yet the GOP seems to be positioning a frontrunner who suggests that MOS is its preference.

GOP candidate Rudy Giuliani is the close friend and mentor of Bernard Kerik, the former New York City Police Commissioner. Mr. Kerik was allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of accepting costly renovations to his Bronx apartment and failing to disclose a $28,000 loan to help buy it. Mr. Kerik is now facing a 16-count federal indictment including allegations that a construction company with suspected organized crime ties paid for the renovations hoping that Mr. Kerik would help it obtain a city license. The indictment also charges that Mr. Kerik failed to disclose a $250,000 loan financed by an unnamed Israeli businessman and did not report as income more than $200,000 in rent paid by a developer on an Upper East Side luxury apartment.

Those actions show a blatant disregard for the principle that public office is a service and that officials must be held to a higher standard of responsibility and conduct. The venal abuse of office for personal enrichment is unfortunately not that uncommon in our times. This is especially true under the Bush Administration, where high officials from Treasury officials to the World Bank President have been ousted upon disclosure of their illegal self dealing. We must also keep in mind that President Bush nominated Kerik for the position of head of the Department of Homeland Security. His candidacy was withdrawn only after his corrupt dealings came to light and were made embarrassingly public.

Although lamentably too common, such conduct is not something to which we should aspire in the selection of public servants in high office. As someone mentored by the aspiring Presidential candidate Giuliani, we have to ask whether Rudy deliberately chose someone of such low character to mentor and whether Kerik’s conduct is a reflection of the standards of the candidate himself. Alternatively, we should question whether Giuliani is simply a lousy judge of character and his mechanisms for selecting his “team” are so flawed that they cannot ferret out the corrupt and the incompetent. In either case, Giuliani presents the clear prospect of following in the footsteps of George W. Bush. As the campaign manager for Presidential candidate John McCain (a candidate with credibility problems of his own) stated: “A president’s judgment matters, and Rudy Giuliani has repeatedly placed personal loyalty over regard for the facts.”

Giuliani rides a wave of popularity based upon an almost mythical public image of leadership following the Twin Towers disaster of September 11 in the city he governed. Yet the image is more myth than reality. Although it is true that Giuliani took charge immediately after the attack and helped to coordinate rescue operations, his role looked larger than life more because of its contrast with the ineptitude of President Bush than because of any extraordinary action of Giuliani himself. Following the disaster, history shows that more than 5 years later the huge amounts of charitable funds raised for the benefit of victims have still not reached the intended recipients, much having been diverted by opportunistic public and private schemers. The proposed memorial to those who died in the attack and the rescuers who gave their lives attempting to help survivors is still unfinished.

How great, then, are the actual talents of Presidential candidate Giuliani? Are we being fed a candidate of substance, of another figure that is essentially no more competent that Bush and similarly surrounded and supported by hype, cronies, incompetent loyalists and “spinmeisters?” Will the public again fall for the GOP formula that amounts to MOS?

Politics Over Principle - The Shame of Democrats

Politics Over Principle

The news that two Senators on the Judiciary Committee have now agreed to support the nomination of Judge Michael B. Mukasey as the next US Attorney General is a clear example of placing politics over principle. The controversy surrounding the nomination, and the issue that has caused a number of Democratic Senators to oppose the nomination, has been the unwillingness of the nominee to state unequivocally whether the “waterboarding” technique of “aggressive” interrogation constitutes “torture” that is unacceptable under the laws of this country as well as international law. The technique is intended to coerce the prisoner to reveal information through the experience of extreme pain and psychological pressure – the sense of death by drowning. There is no evidence of any beneficial use of the procedure for any therapeutic purpose.

It appears that all GOP senators are in support of the Attorney General nominee because he was put forward by the President, regardless of his qualifications to hold the position as top law enforcement official in the United States. One has to wonder whether a candidate like Josef Mengele would have been an acceptable nominee to these senators if President Bush had put such a person forward. Party loyalty and politics seem more important that any moral standards.

The argument put forward by Bush, that the nominee has not been “briefed” on the use of his Administration’s interrogation techniques is a senseless and facile one. In the first place, the Administration reuses to brief ANYONE on the techniques it uses. Second, the nominee is in a position to respond to the question whether he views waterboarding as torture precisely because he has not been briefed on specific instances. Had he the awareness of specific cases that might come before him, he would be obliged to decline comment. But the current question is asked in general and as a matter of moral judgment and principle in order to gauge his character and philosophy. These are legitimate questions to assess the fitness of a person to hold such an important position.

Does placing a plastic bag over a prisoner’s head and tightening it until the prisoner passes out from asphyxiation rise to the level of torture? How about use of the ancient “dunking” chair process used against reputed “witches” to force them to confess their possession by evil spirits – not entirely dissimilar to waterboarding – as a form of torture? How about electrode shocks, attack dogs, simulated execution by injection of solutions that the prisoner believes are lethal? If the nominee has an internal moral compass and a line that he draws regarding what he deems inhumane treatment, the Judiciary Committee is entitled to probe for an understanding of his character and philosophy before recommending him to the full Senate for confirmation.

That these Democratic senators have shirked their responsibility to press the nominee to disclose his beliefs and moral standards is lamentable. Unfortunately, in the US today we cannot rely upon elected officials to take a stand on principle rather than bow to political pressure. These days, when our elected representatives do take a stand and insist upon doing something because it is “right,” [based upon internationally accepted principles of human rights and decency] rather than because it is convenient or popular, it seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

“None So Blind As He Who Will Not See”

President George W. Bush, in one of his typically occluded public observations, announced that he sees “progress” in Iraq as the Iraqi people are “slowly but surely” reclaiming a “normal” society. He claims credit for this progress as a result of his troop buildup. Although even field commanders in Iraq have deemed the “surge” to be an abject failure in terms of its intended purpose, Bush still attempts to spin progress out of failure. Relying consistently upon the old P. T. Barnum maxim – “Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public” – Bush once again places his confidence in the stupidity and ignorance of the American populace. What remains unclear is whether Bush has become so accustomed to and comfortable in his lying mode that he cannot discern the truth from falsehood and fiction. Any objective view of the status of the populace and conditions in Iraq would lead inexorably to the conclusion that the state of Iraqi society is far from “normal” in any sense of that word.

Bush’s assertion that Iraqi society is slowly normalizing ignores that essentially human trait and instinct of adaptation. History has shown us that humans can adapt to very hostile and adverse conditions when necessity imposes those conditions. It is a survival instinct and not optimization as Bush would have us believe. The Japanese Americans adapted to the internment camps that they were forced to live in during World War II. Their conditions were adverse and they were not in any sense living in a “normal” society. Yet they adapted to daily life in imprisonment, carrying on such educational, social and recreational activities as they could under circumstances that violated international human rights precepts and the Constitution of the United States.

To contend that Iraqi society is normalizing is about as valid as calling Jewish society in the Nazi concentration camps or the daily life in Mogadishu or Darfur to be “normalized.” It is only when you adopt a very distorted and self-serving definition of normal, rather than an objective and honest definition, that you could begin to describe Iraqi society as returning to “normalcy.” The infrastructure of the country remains in a shambles, despite billions of dollars spent to allegedly rebuild. Basic services of water, power, education, health and public safety are unreliable, if available at all, in many areas. The country is in the throes of a civil war with tribal and ethnic factions fighting for control and territory.

Bush’s current claim, of course, ignores the fact that “normal” - status quo ante -must be compared to life under the dictator Saddam Hussein. Bush found that governance so abhorrent that he duped the US Congress into authorizing his violation of international law to unilaterally invade Iraq and install a US occupation force in Iraq. Any “progress” would have to be measured by whether the condition of the Iraqi people is improved over the conditions under which they lived under the prior regime. Even a blind man who can at least listen to the outcries from the Iraqi people for the US to get out of their country and the daily explosions from bombing of innocent civilians and periodic unprovoked slaughter of Iraqi civilians by US mercenary squads would have to concede that the situation is not better than before the US arrived. George W. Bush seems to be worst than blind. “There is none so blind as he who will not see.”

Attention: This just in…….. Pentagon numbers say we are winning in Iraq!

Attention: This just in…….. The numbers say we are winning in Iraq!

Recent Bush Government reports from the Pentagon through Associated Press [So they must be reliable, right?] show that the US military losses [deaths only - injuries, maiming and psychological damage don't count] so far this year are only 853. In contrast, the government reports that about 875 Iraqi civilians have been killed during just the month of October. We know that around 10-15% of the Iraqi civilians killed are the work of the mercenary Blackwater brigades, so the US military cannot really take full credit for the slaughter of Iraqi civilians. Nevertheless, when added to the slaughter of over 1000 Iraqis in September, the statistics show that the US is killing more Iraqis every month than American troops the Iraqi “enemy” has killed in almost a year. Therefore, we must be “winning” in the eyes of the Bush Government. No less than Robert Gates declares that the war effort is succeeding.

This report does not claim to be a complete body count. For example, many of the civilian women and children that our troops kill in Iraq are not counted (or at least they are not credited as whole number kills – a three year old might only be worth a credit of a ¼ kill by Pentagon statisticians). So the advantage of slaughter for our side is even greater. Of course, the Pentagon also does not include the deaths of employees of private contractors who supply the troops as that would unnecessarily inflate our statistical losses and unfairly suggest that the human cost of the war is greater than the Bush Administration is justified. They are not really soldiers, after all.

At the current rate of US military effectiveness, we are able to destroy the population of several Iraqi villages each year. The Bush Administration plan to continue the war effort for the next 20 years or more should enable the US military to decimate the Iraqi population. At the very least, the Iraqi civilian population will be driven into the major population centers. And military experts indicate that when grouped together in close quarters it is easier to slaughter more civilians with a single offensive strike. This not only increases our body count, but conserves ammunition.

Unless the noisome backlash of protests from some American activist groups who are still clinging to some “antiquated” notions of "morality" and "international standards of human rights" are able to derail the Bush Administration plans, the US should be able to succeed in annihilating or severely weakening the Iraqi population in the next two decades. That would enable the US government to step in and seize the Iraqi petroleum resources to feed the unabated demand for oil in the US. "The public relations side of things do present some challenges," say Pentagon officials. There is still some grumbling about whether it is appropriate to unilaterally invade a sovereign country and destroy its infrastructure and population. To date, however, no such moralistic or diplomatic factions have been very successful in interrupting the military mission.