Spot the difference. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

The liberal heartland is on the move and putting its traditional leaders on notice, writes Sue Roffey, co-founder of the Mosman peace group on Sydney’s North Shore. See also Tony Abbott to eyeball North Shore against the War: Truth possible.

 

I’m a pretty ordinary sort of person. I love my kids, work hard, like to spend time with friends with a bottle of wine and good music and hate being cold. I also hate injustice, cruelty and hypocrisy. And I certainly don’t like being misled, misrepresented and manipulated.

It has become increasingly obvious to anyone that this is what has been happening over the past year, to me and to every other Australian in this wonderful sunny country. We have been implicated in one of the biggest scams of all time. Is anyone now in any doubt that the current US Administration had its own agenda about invading Iraq? It had nothing to do with Saddam’s despicable dictatorship, or with the terrorist threat. It was about control of oil and a strategic power base in the Middle East, not to mention the money that might be made from the arms and oil trade.

The prewar rhetoric intimated that if we didn’t obliterate Saddam he would (definitely? probably? perhaps?) attack us. Most Americans believed that Saddam was at least partly to blame for September 11, and no one was in a hurry to put them right. We were all supposed to be so terrified by this unspecified threat that we either gave the nod to the bombing for our “own protection” or turned a blind eye. Once the war started the rhetoric changed to it being “unpatriotic” not to “support our troops”. Manipulation, deception – disgraceful. The Australian Government was either lying to us about why it joined this illegal and dangerous invasion or was totally gullible. Either way this undermines its fitness to lead.

John Howard talks about the 88 people who were killed in Bali. Two hundred and two people died in that atrocity, but people who are not Australian don’t seem to count. Iraqi children who lost limbs, parents, clean water and homes are dismissed as “collateral”. Violence is only considered wrong if it is perpetrated by those we can label terrorists. Nuclear weapons are only wrong if they belong to regimes that are (currently) not on our side. Children who are locked up for years in detention don’t matter. Lying about desperate refugees is OK – so long as the politicians can get away with how they present the story.

Never mind that this inhumanity will come back to bite us in the future as it fuels anger against the West – only the next election matters, not the next generation. Hypocrisy rules! The continuing political rhetoric tries to make us forget our basic values of humanity, honesty, democracy and frankly just plain decency – and it is in danger of working.

But I’m not the only ordinary Australian to be both bloody angry and really worried. Up in the Liberal heartland of Sydney people are asking questions, questions that will determine the sort of society we have in the future.

North Shore Peace and Democracy has organised a forum tomorrow night with their local MP Tony Abbott, Sydney Labor Left federal MP Tanya Plibersek, former state independent Peter Macdonald, and Donna Mulhearn, who was in Iraq as a human shield.

All 220 seats are already booked. There is a glimmer of hope that people do care. They mind that they have been lied to and perhaps also care about the fate of people who share this planet with us – not just those who share our barbecue. Saddam gained power initially with US support and I’m not sorry to see the back of him. But if we are to go to war on grounds of ousting brutal dictators then let’s look around us and see how many others there are who defy human rights. Let’s have a strong international consensus with clear criteria for when it is appropriate to take action – and exhaust all non-violent means before further devastating an already oppressed people.

Let’s have an international consensus for rebuilding. Let’s be responsible for a change. I know this is idealistic – but if you don’t keep your eye on the ball then you have no direction to go in. The Penrith Panthers didn’t think winning was an impossible dream, despite the odds! I don’t have much hope at the moment for a top-down commitment to values of honesty and humanity. Even Simon Crean seems prepared to give Bush a standing ovation. How can he? What sort of leadership is that?

If the politicians won’t behave properly, the people must challenge them – again and again. They are not ethereal beings but fallible, the same as the rest of us.

Can we please be a democracy rather than just pretend we live in one? Can we please start talking together rather than behaving as if discussing politics or human values is the equivalent of parading dirty underwear? Our politicians are answerable to us. Put your head above the parapet. Write to them, demand answers, ask them how they justify their decisions, organise your own forum. Don’t let them get away with murder.

How long have the major parties flip flopped on ending superannuation discrimination against same sex couples? Before a fascinating rundown from Polly Bush on the possibility that the Democrats will join the cant parties just as – because? – it finally got the Senate numbers to apply real pressure for reform, a blast from the past.

New Lib row on ‘family’ looms

by Margo Kingston

Sydney Morning Herald 29-12-1995

The Shadow minister for small business and women, Ms Judith Moylan, reignited Coalition tensions over the definition of “the family” yesterday when she publicly backed the removal of all superannuation discrimination against gay couples and single people.

Ms Moylan said marital status should be irrelevant when deciding returns on any investment, and “who you leave the equity of your policy to”. Until now, the Coalition has been intransigent in maintaining the traditional definition of “spouse” and “family” in all legislation.

Ms Moylan told the Herald: “My personal view is that the law should not interfere in this. The question of same-sex couples and single people shouldn’t enter into it. “My own personal viewpoint is that this ought to be rectified, and that superannuation should be treated like any other accumulated saving. I don’t see why something you’ve contributed to for a long period of time should be withheld on the basis of your marital relationship or otherwise.”

Ms Moylan endorsed the recommendations of a recent Senate Committee superannuation report, which urged an end to the payment of benefits only if the deceased contributor had a wife or child. It said all contributors should be allowed to nominate a beneficiary. At present, no death benefit is payable when a contributor who has no wife or child dies before retirement. This applies to government or private schemes.

The (Labor) Government has stalled for years on the issue while promising a review when the Democrats periodically propose reform through amendments to superannuation bills. Government sources said yesterday that no change was contemplated.

But the committee, led by Senator John Watson (Liberal, Tasmania), recommended a revision, not by extending the definition of family, but by offering the “nominated beneficiary” option to people without a wife or child. Senator Watson, who crossed the floor to vote against the sexual privacy bill, is a respected superannuation expert and is influential on Coalition superannuation policy.

Senator Watson said the rules should change “so that those in a bona fide domestic relationship and single people are treated in the same manner as married and de facto superannuants”.

The committee said homosexuals and single heterosexuals were “subsidising the benefits to other members of their superannuation funds purely on the basis of their marital status”. The committee said that despite Government commitments to non-discrimination, including its signature to an International Labor Organisation convention outlawing workplace discrimination on the ground of sexuality, it was the worst offender.

The Treasury department admitted that fund managers risked losing their official status if they paid out to same sex partners.

*

Same sex super rundown

by Polly Bush

Polly wrote a timely backgrounder in Same sex super: how we value love, just before Democrats Senator John Cherry unilaterally ripped up party policy by announcing the Dems would pass a super bill even if the government refused to accept same sex amendments. She reported the beginning of the fallout in Coalition heat melts Democrats on same sex super. Here’s her fascinating rundown of what’s gone down since. The Democrats crunchtime is now scheduled for October 27.

There are few guarantees in politics. There are particularly few guarantees for gay and lesbian couples when it comes to the major political parties changing the gender specific terms enshrined in federal superannuation laws.

While frustrating for Government, the Australian Democrats have had a long-held commitment to vote against any superannuation reforms unless the laws include amendments to recognise same sex couples. This is one of the party’s principles, and part of the party’s history.

But this commitment has been doubtful in recent weeks, with the Democrats Superannuation spokesperson Senator John Cherry announcing the party many back down on these amendments to pass the Government’s Superannuation Bill 2003 through the Senate.

Two weeks later, asked by Webdiary for a “straight” answer on whether he would back down, Senator Cherry said: “Wait and see”.

A backdown would pose a dilemma for at least two Democrats senators. West Australian Senator Brian Greig, who has himself been in a same-sex relationship for 18 years, is expected to not vote with the Party if it backs down on this legislation. It is also understood that former Democrats leader Senator Natasha Stott Despoja will defend the party’s long-held commitment to recognising same-sex couples by insisting on the amendments. Senator Stott Despoja was a guest presenter of the Gay and Lesbian Awards (GALAs) held in Adelaide last Friday night.

Here is a rundown of the events so far:

September 2003

Labor, the Democrats and the Greens join forces in the Senate to attach amendments giving same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples to a Federal Government superannuation package . Greens leader Bob Brown describes the vote as historic:

“All states and territories have moved to modify their laws to remove discrimination but the Howard government has been dragging its feet. The Senate is now moving the Government into the modern world.”

It is historic, as this is the first time the Australian Labor Party has supported such amendments. The amendments recognise both same-sex and interdependency relationships.

In the past, the minor parties, particularly the Australian Democrats, have led the way in pushing these amendments, refusing to vote for any federal legislation through the Senate without same sex couple recognition.

October 3, 2003

The Age political correspondent Annabel Crabb reports a potential back down on the amendments for the current legislation, with Democrats superannuation spokesperson John Cherry saying his party is prepared to leave same-sex rights to another day:

“We think this particular package stands alone. I think it was worth doing for the moral victory of getting Labor on the record (but) there are plenty of other bills coming up that these amendments can be attached to.”

Australia’s first gay and lesbian community radio station, Melbourne’s JOY-FM, leads its news bulletins with Crabb’s report. Greens leader Bob Brown later expresses his disbelief in the story:

“I can’t believe the Democrats will back off on this they have been such champions of this cause. I hope that this report will be found to be untrue.”

October 4, 2003

Webdiary reports a potential split emerging within the Australian Democrats should the Party back down on the amendments. Senator Greig says:

I will not vote for this Bill if the same-sex amendments fail.

However other senators indicate they are willing to back down. Victorian Senator Lyn Allyson tells the Herald Online:

I will be (reluctantly) not insisting on the amendment.

October 5, 2003

Former Western Australian division president of the Democrats Tracy Chaloner responds to Webdiary’s reports of a split emerging within the Party:

Now they (Meg Lees’ gang of four – Cherry, Allyson, Aden Ridgeway and Andrew Murray) are derailing an 11-year campaign that finally got up with the support of the ALP and Greens – superannuation equity for same sex couples – doing a backflip of epic proportions and abandoning this important amendment to the superannuation legislation now before Parliament. The Democrats had a long and proud tradition of fighting for the rights of same sex couples. It is an extremely important principle, one of equity and anti-discrimination.

October 7, 2003

A joint press release is issued by Democrats Senators John Cherry and Brian Greig. Senator Cherry argues the benefits of the current bill for low income earners:

“Workers earning less than average earnings will now be eligible for a dollar to dollar top-up for voluntary superannuation savings to a means tested maximum of $1,000.”

Senator Greig appeals to the Federal Government to support the same sex recognition amendment:

“The Government talks about the importance of choice in superannuation, but refuses to deliver choice on what happens to death benefits. It is inconsistent and hypocritical.”

The same day in the Upper House, Democrats leader Senator Andrew Bartlett attempts to “clear up any confusion” about the Democrats position. On the superannuation amendment recognising same-sex couples, Senator Bartlett says:

It is an issue which the government will need to continue to confront, particularly if the ALP’s position remains consistent in removing discrimination against same sex couples. Whether or not that approach will continue consistently on bills that the ALP support as opposed to bills the ALP oppose, we shall have to wait and see. But that is part of the unknowns that we will be seeing in the near future in this chamber and that, amongst other things, will determine what the Democrats’ approach will be to the future outcome of this legislation should the government not agree to the amendments that the chamber makes. But that, as is not uncommon, is an issue to be considered down the track rather than predetermining what we will do.

The amendments are moved and passed in the Senate, and the Bill is sent back to the Lower House.

October 8, 2003

The House of Representatives debates the superannuation amendments to recognise both same sex and interdependency relationships. Ross Cameron, the Liberal Member for Parramatta, says the amendments are irrelevant as the Bill “only applies to an individual”.

Labor Member for Grayndler Anthony Albanese, who in the past has introduced private members bills arguing for the recognition of same sex couples in superannuation law, pleads to the Australian Democrats to not back down on the amendments when the Bill reaches the Senate again:

I call upon the Australian Democrats – if they have a sliver of integrity left – to ensure that when this amendment goes back to the Senate they actually vote to remove this discrimination.

The Labor Member for Melbourne Ports, Michael Danby, also appeals to the Australian Democrats to not back down, quoting Tracy Chaloner’s response to Webdiary:

Tracy Chaloner, the leading member of the Australian Democrats in Western Australia, says that it is a result of ‘the gang and the faceless cabal’ who are the real power behind the Democrats, who have to do with nothing more than political opportunism and who have abrogated the policy of the Democrats as it was originally formed.

The Member for Melbourne, Lindsay Tanner, expresses his disappointment in the Government’s refusal to support the amendments:

This is a simple matter of basic human rights and decency. It is very distressing that the Government regards this as some sort of direct threat to the sanctity and security of the institution of marriage.

The print media covers the potential split within the Australian Democrats, with Annabel Crabb reporting that former Democrats leader Natasha Stott Despoja will be joining Senator Brian Greig on insisting on the amendments:

Senator Stott Despoja has told her colleagues she opposes the deal because it contains tax breaks for the wealthy, and she also believes the party should not let the legislation go through without proposed amendments that would finally give gay couples equal treatment under Commonwealth superannuation legislation. Even with the defections of senators Stott Despoja and Greig, the deal will pass the Senate on the votes of the other five Democrats.”

Website moneymanagement runs the headline ‘Democrats to support Govt despite same-sex veto’, reporting:

A senior Australian Democrats adviser has indicated that while the Party is disappointed by the Government’s veto of the same-sex amendments, this will not alter the Democrats support of the co-contributions legislation when it returns to the Senate.

October 10, 2003

Victoria and Tasmania’s gay newspaper MCV runs the front-page headline ‘SUPER SELLOUT’. The article reports:

The Democrats must choose between passing the unamended Bill and holding on to principle, or finalising the superannuation deal. “I think it would be very hard difficult for me to explain to a gay and lesbian community why I did not insist on these amendments on this occasion,” Senator Greig said about his voting intentions.

October 13, 2003

Debate resumes in the House of Representatives. Anthony Albanese refers to Senator Brian Greig’s comments to the Sydney Star Observer, issue no. 683:

Greig said he hoped the credibility of Democrats would not be damaged. Bad luck, Brian, because you are incredibly damaged by this sell-out. He said: “I encourage the community to look at this issue in its complexity … It’s not as black and white as our critics are making out.” It has been black-and-white in the past for Senator Greig and the Australian Democrats who have refused to be a part of broad campaign and have chosen a sectarian road on this issue in attacking people who support reform.

Albanese also attacks Prime Minister John Howard, but his use of language is rejected by the Deputy Speaker:

ALBANESE: The government, led by a bigot in the Prime Minister when it comes to issues of sexual preference, is refusing to allow this much needed reform.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. D.G.H. Adams) Order! The honourable member has used the word bigot to describe the Prime Minister. I understand that the word bigot is unparliamentary.

ALBANESE: I note that no-one on the government side objected, but I withdraw the term bigot and use prejudiced in terms of sexual relations.

Keen to be clear on what language is ‘parliamentary’, Labor Member for Sydney Tanya Plibersek seeks clarification:

“Mr Deputy Speaker, before I start I want to seek your advice. The honourable member for Grayndler was pulled up for using the term bigot. I just wondered whether or not homophobe is parliamentary language?

In her address, Plibersek said the Government’s stance is designed to try to shore up votes:

“Remembering what the Prime Minister did when he raised the issue of lesbians having access to IVF (a summary of that debate is at Sperm for singles – round three) it is not difficult to draw the conclusion that this government sees protecting the rights of same-sex couples as not just politically unpopular but also, perhaps, sees attacking the rights of these people as a vote winner. I must say it really shocks me that the Democrats are prepared to be part of this hatchet job.”

The Member for Melbourne Ports, Michael Danby, believes the discrimination in superannuation law is more suited to the 1950s. Mr Danby says:

By not amending this legislation we are discriminating against people who are simply trying to pass on their retirement incomes to a person with whom they are living in a loving and long-term relationship. This is not the kind of Australia that I believe is fitting for the 21st century.

With the Government having the numbers, the amendments are rejected and the bill heads back to the Senate.

October 15, 2003

The Sydney Morning Herald runs Gay rights threaten super windfall on its front page. Mark Riley, Annette Sampson and Aban Contractor report:

“The Federal Government’s $1.3 billion superannuation package, offering benefits for both high and low wage earners, was in peril last night amid a political bunfight over rights for same-sex couples. A landmark deal between the Government and the Democrats to secure tax breaks for high-income earners and government-matched contributions for the low-paid is at risk of unravelling. The Government has warned that the package will be doomed if the Democrats, Labor and the Greens back amendments in the Senate today to give gay and lesbian couples the same superannuation rights as heterosexuals. The Democrats have called a special party room meeting for this morning to thrash out its final position. The party had trumpeted the agreement with the Government as a major breakthrough for the low paid, but now faces having to shelve its long-held support of equal rights for same-sex couples to see the changes become law.”

SMH Online runs a poll on the issue, asking, “Should same sex couples get the same rights?” Of the 4063 respondents, 68% answer yes.

The story of the split gathers momentum, with the ABC online reporting:

“The Democrats’ leader Andrew Bartlett says it is difficult for Democrat senators to decide whether to force the issue on equal superannuation for gay couples or to help low income earners. ‘What we’re seeing is the Labor Party holding up significant gains for low income earners and using gay and lesbian people as the missile to shoot down that package,’ he said.”

Meanwhile, debate on the Bill resumes in the Senate. The ALP’s Senator Nick Sherry attacks Ross Cameron’s take in the House of Reps:

“His claim that the governments so-called choice of fund legislation overcomes the fundamental discrimination in law against same sex couples is grossly misleading. It is not the superannuation funds that are at the heart of the problem; it is the law that the superannuation funds are required to meet that is at the heart of the problem.”

The shots come firing back, with Liberal Senator John Watson accusing the ALP of hypocrisy:

“It is interesting that, in order to try and get some additional support for its opposition, the Labor Party has joined with some minority senators in using the same-sex couples debate to try and destroy this legislation.”(Margo: Rich as, John, given your support for reform in 1995.)

Democrats Senator John Cherry plays to both sides, talking up the Bill’s benefits to low income earners, as well as promoting the amendments to support both same sex and interdependent relationships:

“I cannot see why we cannot ensure this package moves through because it is such a good and important package. I cannot see why we cannot also deal with the issue of discrimination because it is a fundamentally important issue.”

Senator Ron Boswell provides a different argument, complaining of the problems in recognising ‘interdependent relationships’ and refusing to support same sex relationships recognition (although he had a little difficulty expressing this). In his address, he drew on a personal example:

“Unfortunately in my case, the same thing happened when my son passed away. The money was taxed when he passed it on to his nephew. I thought that was a bit rough at the time. I hope this legislation gets the support of the Democrats and that we do not get hung up on an issue that we would find, particularly in the Nationals, very difficult to support.”

Senator Sherry: Property rights are difficult for the Nationals!

Senator Boswell: No, it is not property rights. It is the other thing that I am referring to and you know it quite well – same sex couples. We would find it very difficult to support it. I plead with the Democrats.

Senator Brian Greig has the final word on the Bill before it is adjourned, attacking both the Labor and Coalition parties. Of the Labor Party’s recent support of the amendments, Senator Greig said:

“To see the amendment from Labor their first ever on this issue come out of the blue as it did, was, as Senator Watson correctly said, to see Labor using the issue of same-sex couples as a torpedo or a weapon to sink a bill that they are ultimately going to vote against. I regret that.”

In terms of the Government’s refusal to support the amendments, Senator Greig points the finger at the Prime Minister:

“The blame for that rests with the Government and its ridiculous position on this issue. We know where it comes from. I do not think it comes from Senator Coonan. I think her heart is in the right place. It comes directly from the Prime Minister and cabinet.”

October 16, 2003

The Sydney Star Observer’s David Mills covers the week’s debates in the Senate and the House of Representatives, quoting the Sydney Labor MPs Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek. It also reports the response from Somali Cerise, the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby co-convenor:

“This clearly demonstrates that the Howard Government is out of touch with the community, and definitely out of touch with the gay and lesbian community,” she said. The Lobby would be “extremely disappointed” if other Democrats senators voted for the bill without the amendment, Cerise said. “The Democrats are a party with a long history of taking a principled stand on gay and lesbian issues,” she said. “We expect unwavering commitment.”

Debate on the Superannuation Bill 2003 is expected to return to the Upper House when the Senate resumes on October 27.

 

Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

Is Australia your deputy sheriff in the region, Mr President?

“No. We don’t see it as a deputy sheriff. We see it as a sheriff. There’s a difference.” He’s outsourced policing South East Asia to us. What an honour! Umm, but doesn’t that bin our latest insurance premium? Who we gunna turn to, John? Who we gunna turn to?

The occasion of the emperor’s announcement of this enormous responsibility? A closed press conference with seven hand-picked journalists from Australia and the Asian region.

Wild. Just wild. John Howard sort-of-called Australia a deputy sheriff to the Yanks in our region in a 1999 Bulletin interview, then ran a mile from it when the shit hit the fan from our Asian neighbours. Not helpful in the region. Not helpful at all, especially now, when we need cooperation from our neighbours to combat terrorism and don’t need terrorists in our region targetting us. (For reaction in Asia see Asia unhappy with Bush’s sheriff comments and Australia is ‘puppet, not ‘sheriff’)

Howard hadn’t told us about our promotion – as usual he left it to the boss.

It puts Howard’s decision to expel the public from their own parliament when George addresses our representatives in a new light. I’ve never heard of that happening before, but we’ve never been the US President’s sheriff in South East Asia before.

The symbolism is obvious. Democracy has no place in the world of Bush, supreme commander and Howard, sheriff. The world as fashioned by Bush – Howard as echo chamber – is too dangerous for democracy. They’re creating a world in which they wield absolute power. In America, George’s thugs are making sure of that by rigging the voting system with the help of his big corporate mates (All the President’s votes? in The Independent). In Australia, Howard’s put Senate reform on the table and is trying to crush skeptical media voices by handing control of what’s left of Murdoch and Packer’s competition to the big two.

In America, the Democrats and many, many Americans are fighting back hard, led by Democrat presidential candidates General Wesley Clark and Howard Dean, both trenchant critics of Bush’s war. The US Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have just published a piece in praise of Andrew Wilkie, One Person Can Make a Difference. Yet in Australia, Labor opposition leader Simon Crean lies low, popping up only to tell his MPs to applaud Bush even before hearing what he’s got to say to a Parliament from which the Australian people are locked out.

While George was putting the gold star on Howard’s lapel and Crean was dressing down his rebellious MPs, former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating urged us not to put all our eggs in the Bush basket.

United States foreign policy would lead Australia into a “Mad Max world” where the US would shield itself behind missiles, he said. He criticised the US policy of pre-emptive strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan, which gave other countries the signal to walk away from multilateral agreements and treaties, and said small nations like Australia had a vested interest in a rule-based system around multilateral agreements.

“There is every chance that the American policy will lead us into a Mad Max world, while the US seeks to cocoon itself behind a screen of national missile defence,” Mr Keating told the 2003 CPA Australia congress in Melbourne.

He also warned against sole reliance on the US for security and trade. It was not a “smart policy” because China would soon eclipse the US as a superpower. “China is a phenomenon and it’s in our backyard and it is one of the reasons why we should look long and hard at free trade agreements with the United States. Back-lane, backdoor agreements never work in trade. They are always for the stronger party.”

Australia should embrace its own identity and find security within Asia. “We [should] maintain our alliance structure with the US, but essentially make our own luck. We should go to these places not as some kind of vicar of empire, or deputy of the United States, or borrowing the monarchy of another country, rather as a nation confident in ourselves . And that’s not falling in love with every American administration. It’s about fundamentally having a number of relationships at once. “It’s a bit promiscuous, I know.” (Beware Mad Max world of US.)

Simon, please read Harpers magazine’s The revision thing: a history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies. “All text is verbatim from senior Bush administration officials and advisers. In places, tenses have been changed for clarity.” Why should Labor applaud the man who lied to the world about invading Iraq and ignored prescient warnings from experts across the board that it would increase the risk of terror.

Simon, please read this piece, recommended by Scott Burchill:

Iraq War Swells Al Qaeda’s Ranks, Report Says

By Peter Graff

LONDON (Reuters) – War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant group’s will, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Wednesday in its annual report. The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank’s annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance, said Washington’s assertions after the Iraq conflict that it had turned the corner in the war on terror were “over-confident”.

The report, widely considered an authoritative text on the military capabilities of states and militant groups worldwide, could prove fodder for critics of the U.S.-British invasion and of the reconstruction effort that has followed in Iraq. Washington must impose security in Iraq to prevent the country from “ripening into a cause celebre for radical Islamic terrorists,” it concluded. “Nation-building” in Iraq was paramount and might require more troops than initially planned.

“On the plus side, war in Iraq has denied al Qaeda a potential supplier of weapons of mass destruction and discouraged state sponsors of terrorism from continuing to support it,” the report said. “On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al Qaeda’s recruiting power and morale and, at least marginally, its operating capability,” it said. “The immediate effect of the war may have been to isolate further al Qaeda from any potential state supporters while also swelling its ranks and galvanizing its will.”

Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism expert at Britain’s St Andrew’s University, told Reuters the report’s findings would drive home the importance of rebuilding Iraq and other conflict zones. “Military planners and the law enforcement community are fully aware of the consequences of failed states,” he said. “I think it’s probably worthwhile for politicians to keep in mind our responsibility to provide sustained and long term reconstruction in war-torn countries, so they don’t fly back into anarchy or become incubators of terrorism.”

Washington blames al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, for the 2001 U.S. airliner hijack attacks which killed 3,044 people. A crackdown had netted some al Qaeda leaders and deprived al Qaeda of bases in Afghanistan. But it also “impelled an already highly decentralized and evasive international terrorist network to become even more ‘virtual’ and protean and, therefore, harder to identify and neutralize,” the IISS report said.

It said 18,000 veterans of al Qaeda’s Afghan training camps were still probably operating worldwide “with recruitment continuing and probably increasing following the war in Iraq”. Al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden, are mostly still at large and continue to incite followers over the Internet and through pronouncements on Arabic-language television. Because of its extreme religious world view, al Qaeda “cannot be tamed or controlled through political compromise or conflict resolution,” the report said.

But Western countries need to do more to reach out to Muslim countries and their own Islamic minorities to “eliminate the root causes of terrorism,” especially after the Iraq war “almost certainly further alienated Islam from the West.” Efforts should be redoubled to resolve local conflicts, such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so regional radical groups such as Hamas do not fall into al Qaeda’s embrace, it said.

Simon, why won’t you question John Howard about why he’s blindly following Bush down his road to hell? No ticker? Don’t care? Maybe you could donate to the cause of a colleague, former Labor Senator Margaret Reynolds, to ease what’s left of your conscience:

Greetings to all those concerned about the direction of Australian foreign policy! An ad hoc group of people who wanted to make a strong statement about the need for an independent foreign policy have organised a half page advertisement in the Australian on Wednesday 22 October,the day that U.S. President George Bush arrives for a brief visit and speech to the Federal Parliament. Rather than design an advertisement of words we have obtained the generous creativity of a number of national cartoonists, (including Bruce Petty, Bill Leake, Alan Moir and Fiona Katauskas), who can so eloquently present a message which will stimulate debate and challenge some of the assumptions inherent in the Australian/U.S. alliance. We aim to promote serious discussion through the good humour and style of the political cartoon.

We seek contributions to help with the cost of this project which hopefully will gain both national and international coverage as we are not aware that cartoons have been used quite like this before. The message accompanying the cartoon advertisement will simply read:

AUSTRALIANS FOR AN INDEPENDENT FOREIGN POLICY FOR GLOBAL PEACE AND JUSTICE…….

On this occasion we are not using the space to record the names of financial contributors because we want to maximise the impact of the cartoonists’ message. I very much hope you will consider a small or larger donation to help us assert our national identity and desire for independence. Donations are to be sent to:

Now We the People, P.O. Box K941, Haymarket N.S.W. 1240. Any queries please phone me 0418181843. An email indicating the level of support would assist in our planning.

***

Poor fellow, America

by Brian Bahnisch

Early on in the Iraq campaign some writers drew attention to the stress copped by the American people through scarce public resources directed to military ventures. It was suggested that people would die in the US because of failing public services.

It has even been suggested that part of the neocon strategy was to squeeze welfare right out of the system as the war effort sucked in the diminishing tax dollar.

A few months ago I heard a report on the radio that many ambulance officers in the US were having to work two jobs because they could not live on their wages.

Last week I heard an assessment of US domestic readiness for a major terrorist strike. The biggest problem, it seems, is that the frontline services like fire, ambulance, SES etc have been pared back and shredded through Bush’s tax cuts. The US would be less able to respond now than it was on 9/11.

Jay Shaft, editor of The Coalition For Free Thought In Media, has just done a couple of articles on poverty, hunger and homelessness in the land of the free. See Living on the edge of disaster: being a poor working mother in America, published in Dissident Voice on October 9, 2003. It gives brief case histories of single mothers living on the edge and links to Homeless and starving in the Land of the Free: US homelessness and poverty rates skyrocket while billions are spent overseas on occupation. It begins:

As I watch far away images of body bags being filled, I see much closer images of bodies. I went by a local park the other day and it looked like a concentration camp crossed with a mass murder scene.

There were people in rags and covered with filth lying scattered all over the place. At least twenty people were on crutches, had parts bandaged, or with open wounds not even covered. They were all hungry and a large majority were sick.

All around this city I live in, and nation-wide, the level of homelessness and poverty is growing alarmingly. From the last counts and estimates nation-wide, there has been at least a 35-45% increase in homelessness and poverty. The increases have come over the last two years with the biggest increases being in 2002 and especially in the first six months of 2003.

Add to that the barely subsisting or borderline homeless/poor, and we start to see a very alarming trend that shows no sign of going away. Over 30% of Americans are on the borderline of poverty. A lot just do not quite make the cut to receive food stamps or some kind of benefits and live on a razor edge of desperation and starvation.

I’ve recently heard that official poverty in the US has reached 35.7 million. Shaft tells us that about 40 million are “food insecure or hungry or at risk of hunger “. 3.9 million, 39% of them children are homeless, with the biggest increases from single mothers with children. Many more are “precariously housed”.

Things seem to have rapidly gone pear-shaped from about mid-2002, the time the Bushies started to sell the Iraq war to the American people. From other sources it appears that much of this increase seems to stem from the Newt Gingrich-inspired Clinton welfare reforms. Limits were placed on life-time entitlements to welfare. These appear to be cutting in about now.

Nevertheless Bush’s public purse parsimony is amplifying the problem and reducing the capacity of other agencies, both government and non-government, to cope. Charities are working with reduced resources and increased demand. Not all requests, even for food, can be met.

Words truly fail me about all this. I know we in Oz are also creating our own internal third world, but the scale of the problem in the US seems staggering. Shaft again:

If the US spent just three months occupation costs [in Iraq and Afghanistan], they could wipe out hunger and homelessness completely for ten years. However, it does not seem like feeding and sheltering our own citizens has a very high priority.

If the US took just 25% of their annual military budget, it could go a long way to wiping out hunger and homelessness around the world. Just 10% of our military budget spent yearly on America could give every high school graduate a college education for four years.

It seems like it is not a priority to protect our children from starvation and living on the streets.

You would think that Bush does not stand the faintest chance of re-election in 2004. However, given the alienation of the marginalised, together with the cynical manipulation of their fears, you can never be sure. Still it does leave Bush vulnerable to an opponent offering even a modicum of hope.

*

Living on the edge of disaster: being a poor working mother in America

by Jay Shaft

Dissident Voice, October 9, 2003

To be a borderline poverty level working mother is becoming a reality for more and more single, hard working mothers. The edge of financial disaster is becoming familiar territory for millions of women and the families they struggle to support. A desperate scramble for survival is the way a growing sector of the America that is the real backbone of our workforce has to deal with.

These are the stories of five single mothers and the families they are forced to raise all on their own. This is their voices and feelings on the America that has left them behind and seemingly forgotten them. They have all felt the pinch of our economic hard times as a crushing burden they were unfamiliar with until the last two-three years.

Never before has this level of borderline and actual abject poverty existed in America. The disparity between the working class and the ultra rich is becoming more apparent week by week. More companies layoff workers and still manage to give their corporate executives enormous profits and dividends as the low level virtual peasants are discarded by the millions.

Let me take you into the daily lives, the minute-by-minute struggle, and try to get you to live in their footsteps as they walk the path of worry, fear, desperation, and insecurity. Take just a few minutes of your time to read this and maybe you will know what it is like to live as a single mother on the edge of disaster.

Karen is a 27 year-old mother of two who just last year in November was fired from a computer consulting firm where she worked as a mid-level manager. With a degree in communications management she made a very respectable salary. It enabled her to keep her family in comfort and enough luxury to feel a part of the American dream.

Now she works two jobs and has gone hungry many times to make sure that her children have proper nutrition. Sometimes she has even watched as her children missed some meals and went to sleep with empty stomachs and restless dreams of abundant food and a secure home.

“I went from a three bedroom custom built home to a three room studio that I can barely pay for. I have had to juggle my rent, electric bill, car payments, food expenses, and buying decent clothes for my kids. I have had to make the minimum payments on my light bill and had three shutoff notices in a week. I would scrape up $50 or a $25 check from Daystar just to keep my

balance below $200.

“I have not been able to actually pay off my whole bill since January. I know at least fifty other women in the same situation because we all have seen each other going around to all the places like Urban League, Daystar, Salvation Army, We Help, or anyone else that can give us the little checks to keep the lights on. I never thought that something as simple as paying a $200 bill would be beyond my reach.

“I have to pay my rent in chunks every week or so and haven’t been able to make a full monthly payment in over six months. Thank god my landlord has kids and is in the same position I am at times. Only another working mother can fully realize what my life has become. I probably will have to file for bankruptcy as a last resort this month.”

Daria is a 36 year-old mother of one who has lost five jobs in the last ten months. She moved from up north to Florida on word of mouth about all the jobs available. Little did she know before moving that the jobs she heard about were vanishing onto thin air. The factory jobs and manufacturing jobs that were so prevalent just two years ago have been eliminated or moved to other cities or sectors.

All that seems to be available are low income service industry jobs or temporary fill in jobs. What little jobs that become available are sought by hundreds of unemployed workers desperate for any position no matter how menial.

She has struggled to be hired only to be eliminated due to economic setbacks within weeks of getting into the job and setting herself up for some sort of job security. After getting the prospect of financial security and the hope of catching up with her bills, she sees the job disappear and has to start her employment search all over again.

“It’s an exercise in tenacity at best” she sighs. “Thank you George Bush, we ‘re really seeing our bright future and prosperity!” As she puts on a dim and vague smile she describes her worries and fears. You can see her desperation and fear for tomorrow etched in the worried lines of her face.

She has rarely found reason to smile in the last year and the laughs are few and far between. The ability to relax and have a truly enjoyable time has been yanked out from under her and her good times have dried up.

“I have never had to live like this in my life. This never seemed possible to me before I moved down here. I had to live in a motel for two months and in various shelters before I got a permanent apartment.”

She now lives in a two-room studio that is barely big enough for her and her daughter.

“This is no way for my kid to live. No kid should have to go through this. I mean I feel so bad sometimes that I can’t give her more security and the things she really needs. I tried to file bankruptcy after being forced to live on my credit cards rather than be homeless and have my kid out on the street. I am so broke I can’t even afford to pay the lawyer the filing fee for the bankruptcy so the bills keep coming in.

“My neighbors watch out for me and it kind of makes me slightly embarrassed, like I can’t take care of my kid. I never had it where my neighbors have to help me, but I’m not going to turn it down. Everybody has to take help sometimes and it helps me get by with a little extra food to feed my kid.”

Melissa is a 21 year-old mother of one who has been homeless or in emergency shelters numerous times in the past two years. At first her husband struggled side by side with her to provide for their child. After being on unemployment for almost a year and bouncing from job to job, her husband finally just left one day.

Because he left out of necessity she now qualifies for state child care benefits and barely enough food stamps to feed her and her daughter. She has not seen her husband for months and knows if he comes back she will lose her benefits and fall back into the pit of poverty and hopelessness.

“I cannot see my husband anymore and it hurts so bad he had to go away. He is working a great job and saving quite a bit of money. I am even scared to let him mail me a few hundred dollars a month. If it wasn’t for that coming in I would be back on the streets with my three year old.

“I have not been able to really explain to her where her daddy is. She can’t really grasp why we have had to live in overcrowded shelters for weeks at a time. She keeps getting settled in somewhere and then we have to move on to another temporary housing shelter.

“I have kept a single room apartment for three months now, but I am $400 behind in my rent. I manage to pay $80-$100 a week and that just keeps me in the place. I had to live at my friend’s house for a week after the landlord locked me out until I could come up with $200.”

Mary is a mother of four who has never been married and had no problem keeping a well paying secretarial/ data entry job until about a year ago. She fits the pattern of single women losing good jobs and being forced over the brink of poverty.

She has been among the 60% recorded increase in single mothers between the ages of 19-32 becoming newly homeless. This figure is growing everyday as more single mothers are forced onto the street with their children.

She has managed to keep a room in a Christian based woman’s halfway house so she can save up enough rent for an apartment or small house. The halfway house has extended the rule on the length of stay for the 20 women and their 47 children from 3-6 months to a full year upon proven necessity.

“I have four kids between five and twelve. It is almost impossible to clothe them, feed them, and buy the small things they need to be reasonably happy and content.” She sits in a wooden chair and hugs herself as she recounts the woes that have overridden her simple life, and take away any sense of a future with even a small measure of security.”

The tears flow freely down her face as the hurt and anger boil out of her.

“Just to have someone listen to me and try to let my voice be heard is overwhelming. I just feel myself sinking deeper into hopelessness and the worst depression I’ve ever felt. No one wants to listen to me or give me an outlet for my simple worries and let me cry it out.

“My twelve year old daughter knows how close we are to being separated from each other. I have almost had my kids taken from me three times. I love my kids with all my heart and have always been able to provide for them. I want my kids to be able to go to college if they want to get a better life for their kids, if they have them.

I have to move out of this shelter next month. I will have just enough for a decent apartment or small house for a few months. I will have a small window where my rent is paid and I can try to get everything back on track. All I hope for is to keep my place and put my kids back in a good school and give them some stability. If I can make it through the first three to six months it will all get better. That is my only wish right now. It’s that simple.”

Amy is a 25 year-old mother of three. Her story is slightly different, but also all too familiar with the daily struggle increasing with each setback she encounters. She has just filed for filed for bankruptcy and lost her small, prosperous business.

Her house is in mortgage repossession and she is fighting the bank over a $2000 missed payment. She says she has paid almost half of the mortgage and never been late on a payment until a few months ago. Now she has less then a month to come up with the late payment. She must also come up with the next quarterly payment a few weeks after that.

The only comments she had was a bitter tirade against George W. Bush and his “Leave No Child Behind” promise, and all the promises of economic revival and prosperity for the working class.

“I actually voted for that lying asshole and gave that whole scamming party my confidence. I believed the promises and new riches they dangled in front of us like an empty pipe dream. I damn sure will not ever vote for or support a Republican again!

“George Bush ought to try living my life for a week. He should come down from his high horse and bust his ass like most of the people I know. Brighter future my ass. What a sick joke on all the hardworking Americans.

“I had my own business that I built up since I was nineteen. I had a real dream that became my entire life. I was living the promise of the American small business owner. Two years ago I had a huge profit margin and was about o open another small craft and deco boutique. Now I don’t have a pot to piss in and I had to sell my business to a rich guy who is just interested in turning a profit. He doesn’t care about the personal touch that I put into it for years to get my customer’s loyalty.

“All I have to say to theses rich guys that took over our country is that the little people are getting raped and chewed up and spit out. They have no interest or concern for all the drowning real life people that still believe the lies about an economic recovery.”

I could include many more personal stories of single mothers in crisis but the stories are all strikingly similar. All the interviews I did for this article portray a tale of the skyrocketing poverty rate.

Here are some harsh facts about the children that have become the true victims of this great depression that is engulfing our country. Their mothers are slipping below the surface of poverty but they are the ones who suffer without understanding why or being able to fully comprehend the nature of the situation.

18% of American children, almost 15 million, live in poverty, meaning their parents’ income is at or below the federal poverty level. 8% of America’s children, 6 million, live in extreme poverty. 39% of American children, 28 million, live in low-income families. That means that over half of all children in America are facing this growing crisis of starvation, insecure housing, and an uncertain future. (census/poverty, census/income)

3-5 people in food lines and having to use soup kitchens or supplemental food resources are children. 18 million children are estimated to have to miss at least one meal a day. Without the basic services provided by America’s Second Harvest and other food distribution groups, many children would not eat at all.

Now that you have heard some of the voices of the affected single mothers you might be able to feel their desperation and agony. Through their words and the stark facts that are all too real for many, I have tried to take you into the problem. I have tried to let you experience it first hand so that you may have greater understanding.

If you are in similar circumstances you are not alone. If you are one of the Americans still living comfortably with little or no worries, just remember how easy it is to fall into the same trap many are in.

Most Americans are now within a few paychecks of losing their homes and everything that goes with their normal lives. Something as simple as losing a job for even a few weeks is enough to start the long slide into poverty and starvation that is facing millions of Americans.

Maybe together we can change the current trend of disenfranchising even more Americans. It is time for us to take back the control of our destiny and future. If our current leaders choose to ignore our plight they should be replaced with leaders that will ensure the future of America’s children.

The bottom line is that a huge majority of the children are now affected by the crisis facing single mothers in poverty or at the borderline. If we choose to ignore their fate then we truly have failed as a nation.

We are not following the “Leave No Child Behind” promise. We are making sure we leave all of them behind. Leaving them behind to go hungry and live on and off the streets until the state steps in and places them in just as shaky and unstable situation of foster care.

The promise George Bush repeated for months on end is now echoing empty and broken. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of the needy Americans who are raising our very future. They hear all the promises while the children go to bed hungry and not knowing where the next meal will come from.

If this is what America has become then we need a true change. If this is all that we can expect of this once great nation then the dream of all hopeful Americans is now dead.

 

Jim Cairns and soulmate Tom Uren. Jim Cairns, leader.

Jim Cairns led the greatest, most successful Australian campaign against a war in the twentieth century, writes Peter Botsman. If Cairns’ views and ideas had been accommodated within a more open Labor Party conference, it would have been hard for the Democrats and the Greens to have commanded a million voters at the last Federal election.

There were two Australian Labor icons of the seventies: Whitlam and Cairns. One remains an icon. Two years ago, you might have found the other alone, on a street corner, selling pamphlets. The books of one are beautifully stitched and presented, the books of the other are remaindered, printed with cheap glue; the pages often fall apart as you read them.

Yet who will history remember best?

What is distracting about these two are the circumstances of their political demise. Kerr’s coup distracts us from Whitlam’s politics and ideas and, as Phillip Adams wrote on Tuesday, Cairns’ love affair with Junie Morosi and his ambitious flirtation with Arab financiers as Federal Treasurer distract us from his intellectual legacy.

There are bigger judgements to make about these men.

When Whitlam accepted Cairns’ resignation and appointed Hayden Treasurer in 1974, he set an ideological course for the Labor party and its Federal Parliamentary Caucus which remains dominant. Labor was to be an unashamedly pro-free market party with a reformist social welfare reform agenda. It was hard to argue against the electoral logic at the time, even Cairns most loyal supporters, including his lieutenant Tom Uren, accepted this fate.

Now, Cairns critique of Whitlam and the Labor Party makes compelling reading and a case can also be made that it is of some significance electorally.

Since 1975 Labor has been in power for 13 of 28 years. But if Cairns’ views and ideas had been accommodated within a more open Labor Party conference, it would have been hard for the Democrats and the Greens to have commanded a million voters at the last Federal election.

Labor might have won the last two elections if it had been able to hold a broader alliance together. Further, having lost the confidence of a million Green and Democrat voters, Labor is destined to stay in the middle of the road in a competitive struggle with the Liberal-Nationals for conservative, aspiring, middle class Australia. As Cairns sarcastically noted of Labor’s lethargy:

Radicals in Australia are few and far between. Only once in my life time have we Australians had a real shock. It was the fall of Singapore, when we thought nothing would stop the Japanese. But something did and everything was alright.

Re-reading Cairns and re-thinking his legacy is important. He led the greatest, most successful Australian campaign against a war in the twentieth century. In 1968 he was, hands-down, the Australian orator and activist. Much more than Whitlam ever could, he held audiences then in the palm of his hand. His quiet sincerity and integrity turned war-mongers into believers in peace.

The multi-dimensional nature of the protest against Vietnam with its roots in millions of young activists, made Cairns believe in a new politics. His experiences within the Labor Party, both at a parliamentary and administrative level, appalled him. He wanted more fundamental change. A revolution is not a change of management. It is a change in man, he wrote in 1979.

The problem with the professional Labor Party was that it was, of course, all about simply changing the management of the country. Cairns wrote:

A Labor Prime Minister ‘born to be a king’ is destined to produce a ‘powerful Governor-General’, ‘a bunyip aristocracy’. Whitlam arriving, Kerr could not be far behind.

As with Don Chipp’s rejection of the Liberal Party, for Cairns the modern Labor Party was fundamentally dishonest. The Labor Party and the unions are “first interested in jobs especially their own and with the status and power which comes with those jobs and its principal problem is that it has never defined a culture of its own”.

From 1975 Cairns set about defining a new political culture. It all seemed pretty loopy at the time and many of Cairns ideas border on a fundamentalist psychology. But with a Green vote doubling every Federal election, and a growing wave of disillusionment with the major parties Bob Brown, for one, knows there is electoral punch to the Cairns vision.

The most interesting of Cairns’ ideas was to move beyond the “wealth/welfare limitation”. He wanted politics to go beyond the idea that increasing the amount of public and private expenditure was the source of all prosperity. Now with three quarters of total government expenditure devoted to social spending and increasing concern at the environmental growth limits of private industry, Cairns’ idea of voluntary simplicity is positively mainstream.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians have opted to move outside the cities to the regions in the inland and along the coast to find a better balance between work and life. TV series and films are made on these themes, and the demography of the future, both in Australia and other western countries, seems destined to be built on the concept of a simpler, more fulfilling existence.

People may still titter about Cairns view that the key to the depravity of public life was repressed sexuality. But the Australian’s popular columnist Ruth Ostlow and her many readers might disagree. Again it seems that time is on Cairns side.

The great thing is it is still a challenge to read Cairns. He was the last grass roots intellectual of the left that the Labor Party produced. When he departed in the late 1970s it was the Labor Party’s loss. If Labor is ever to be the force of change and progress that it was in the 1890s and 1940s and 1970s, the party men will have to take time out from their public relations mills and electoral machines, and read and understand Jim Cairns.

 

The righteous garden. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www,daviesart.com

How low can Bush go? As Simon Crean refuses to ask Howard the big questions on Iraq and presses Labor MPs to give Bush a standing ovation next week – for what, exactly? – Bush’s regime hawks pro-war form letters to his long-suffering troops in Iraq and sends them to home town newspapers.

The power of the net exposed Bush’s latest fraud on the American people and their soldiers after US newspaper The Olympian received identical letters from two soldiers and a news service searched the net for more and contacted confused soldiers and their families. A taste:

The letter talks about the soldiers’ mission, saying, “one thousand of my fellow soldiers and I parachuted from ten jumbo jets.” It describes Kirkuk as “a hot and dusty city of just over a million people.” It tells about the progress they have made.

“The fruits of all our soldiers’ efforts are clearly visible in the streets of Kirkuk today. There is very little trash in the streets, many more people in the markets and shops, and children have returned to school,” the letter reads. “I am proud of the work we are doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well.”

Sgt. Shawn Grueser of Poca, W.Va., said he spoke to a military public affairs officer whose name he couldn’t remember about his accomplishments in Iraq for what he thought was a news release to be sent to his hometown paper in Charleston, W.Va. But the 2nd Battalion soldier said he did not sign any letter. Although Grueser said he agrees with the letter’s sentiments, he was uncomfortable that a letter with his signature did not contain his own words or spell out his own accomplishments.

“It makes it look like you cheated on a test, and everybody got the same grade,” Grueser said by phone from a base in Italy where he had just arrived from Iraq.

The ‘letters’ arrived just before the Pentagon began studying why so many US soldiers were committing suicide in Iraq.

Melody Kemp found US Soldiers to America: “Bring us home now; were dying for oil and corporate greed!”, an interview with an American soldier who served in Iraq. An extract:

USA (nom de plume): I would like to thank Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Congress for is that nice huge cut they made to Veterans Benefits as soon as the war started. I am in the Reserves after years of active duty and now I cannot get PTSD counselling or many medical benefits I used to take for granted. I knew I would have the benefits because I was laying my life down for my country. Now my benefits are cut by around 2/3 and I have to go to either group therapy or pay for a private counsellor out of my own pocket. What happens when someone like me has been through enormous battle stress and combat fatigue and then comes home to no counselling?

I’ll tell you what is going to happen, he will either kill himself or take a bunch of people with him. Some of the guys coming back are going to have gone through the worst time of their lives with their buddies dying and getting hurt, and then they’ll find out they got screwed out of any counselling. It is the greatest disservice America is committing against soldiers who fought for this country and may come back wounded or horribly scarred. Medical services, school aid to dependents, school aid for the vets, all slashed to the bare bones; mental health and drug and alcohol counselling are being eliminated or the waiting lists will be years long for whatever services manage to survive.

That is one thing the American people still have not really caught on to is the fact that while they were screaming out Support Our Troops the current regime makers were fu..ing the military and veterans out of almost every social program and non essential service that would make life easier. Bush really fu..ked us while we were gone. We found out about it after being in the middle of heavy fighting for several weeks. It was one of the first things I read in Stars and Stripes, and I thought it was a joke because it was just to hard to believe Congress and our leaders would screw us that bad while we were fighting and dying.

Peter Funnell wrote: “Noticed the steadily, ever increasing number of US soldiers being killed in Iraq? There is no let up. How long can Bush keep the lid on this? And here we are, our niche military capability having done its job and returned home and as good as no military presence of note in Iraq to deal with the ongoing but deadly low level conflict. I never thought we should have been involved in this mess and my view has not changed. But we have been part of causing the mess and are nowhere in sight to help finish it all. The whole thing just stinks. Where to next?

Marilyn Shepherd sent The Guardian list of Coalition casualties since Bush dressed up as a soldier and declared victor. War without end.

Don’t you feel safer these days? The US didn’t want Turkish troops before the war, but now they’re begging for them, against the unanimous resolution of the Iraqi Governing Council and the wishes of most Turks (seekurdistanobserver). Democracy, Bush-style. Israel’s launched a preemptive strike on Syria with US approval (The painful truths that now confront Syria’s reformists) and has reportedly put nuclear warheads in its submarines (Israel won’t confirm or deny it has nuclear weapons and international inspectors aren’t allowed to find out.) Russia has signed up to Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, warning that it “must be prepared for a growing number of conflicts – such as the US-led war in Iraq – waged outside the authority of the United Nations, and wars increasingly motivated as much by economics or the interests of what it termed ‘big transnational companies’ as by national security” (Moscow prepared to stage pre-emptive strikes).

Brian McKinlay writes:

Watching Tony Jones on ‘Lateline’ last Thursday night I must have nodded off. When I awoke he was talking about journalists receiving top secret info from the government in breach of the criminal law, and I guessed he was talking about the big Washington Scandal – how ‘conservative’ columnist Bob Novak named Valerie Plame, wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, as a CIA operative, thereby blowing her cover and her career (see A Q&A on Leakgate). This has led to charges that Novak has breached National Security regulations and acted as a conduit for a vengeful White House which wanted to hurt Wilson because he wouldn’t come to the party on the White House’s false claims that Iraq had bought Yellowcake from Niger. All old hat, I thought, as I woke from my power-nap. But no! Jones was asking Alexander Downer how the Federal police investigation was coming along into the leaking of a top secret document written by Andrew Wilkie, the former ONA analyst who has been such a burr under Howard’s saddle, to columnist Andrew Bolt, government supporter and friend of right-wing causes. Downer hadn’t spotted any activity to date from the AFP. At least in Washington, Bush is going through the motions of an investigation. Stay awake, Brian, and don’t confuse Canberra with Washington – despite the similarities!

I saw that interview, and boy oh boy did Downer squirm when Tony popped the leak question at the end. It came as no surprise that the AFP STILL haven’t got around to questioning him or his staff – we’re talking a seriously compromised AFP here, just like the Government wants its police/defence force/public service to be. I reported on September 14 in Howard on the ropes: Labor’s three chances for a knockout blow that the AFP sat on ONA’s reference of the leak for NINE WEEKS without interviewing Bolt and only decided to actually investigate after the scandal got top billing in question time:

The leak of intelligence whistleblower Andrew Wilkie’s top secret ONA report on Iraq to Government-friendly journalist Andrew Bolt in June began to haunt Howard last week after his government brazenly briefed government backbencher Sandy Macdonald on its contents to hit Wilkie over the head with in the parliamentary inquiry into Howard’s pre-war intelligence.

The leak of Wilkie’s report is a serious breach of security and a criminal offence which went unnoticed back in June. The Macdonald drama lifted the lid on the scandal, revealing that ONA had referred the leak to the Australian Federal Police for investigation on July 4. NINE WEEKS later, the AFP had not interviewed Bolt! The AFP now joins Australian Electoral Commission as an ‘independent’ body under strong suspicion of having been so politicised under John Howard that it no longer performs its duty without fear or favour.

I rang the AFP last week to ask when the investigation began and why Bolt had not been interviewed. The reply: “Following a thorough evaluation, the AFP moved into investigation phase YESTERDAY.” The AFP said it was also investigating the use of top secret material by Macdonald. In other words, a government MP is under criminal investigation and the leaker could well be a government staffer or minister guilty of a serious crime and a serious breach of security in a security-conscious Australia.

I was the subject of an AFP investigation many years ago when I was leaked a Simon Crean Cabinet submission. These types of leaks – unlike leaks of classified security documents like Wilkie’s – are usually ignored, because often it’s politicians doing the leaking. I was interviewed at the Canberra headquarters of the AFP within days of Crean’s referral, and said “no comment” to all questions asked because my source was confidential. But the police had good reason to interview me. I could have got the document anonymously in the mail or found it in a rubbish bin, and in either case could and would have been frank with the AFP. So why wasn’t Andrew Bolt interviewed? Two reasons spring to mind – either the police already knew who leaked it and didn’t want to pursue the matter, or had decided not to investigate at all.

This is an intolerable situation and, as other writers have pointed out, makes a despicable comparison with Australian defence force officer Merv Jenkins, who took his own life in Washington after vicious government retaliation for his failure to obey a directive not to give US intelligence contacts information on East Timor prior to the independence vote despite government-to-government agreements to do so (see Mike Carlton’s A leak by the bucketful and Michelle Grattan’s It’s no secret: let he who is without spin…).

But the significance of the Government’s Bolt play is much greater than further proof of its entrenched double standards and dangerous politicisation of Australia’s core democratic institutions. If it’s OK to leak intelligence to discredit the whistleblower, why isn’t it OK to release intelligence to refute Wilkie’s accusations that Howard lied about his reasons for invading Iraq? Why not declassify the intelligence which would prove Howard’s constant claims in arguing the case for war that invading Iraq would REDUCE the risk of terrorism, REDUCE the risk of WMDs finding their way into the hands of terrorists, and make the world a SAFER place forAustralians? Why won’t Howard disprove Wilkie’s assertions by proving his own case?

See Wilkie-v-Howard: who’s the villain, who’s the hero? for the Senate debate last month – meant as a warning by Labor that it would expect answers from the AFP at Senate estimates committee hearings next month. But has Labor got the backbone for it?

In many ways, on many things – economic, environmental, social, political – Bush and Blair are soul mates. Breach national security for a cheap trick? Sure. They play dirty, these two. And so does Blair – his denials of involvement in the outing of scientist David Kelly blew away after the head of the defence ministry revealed Blair had chaired the meeting which decided to throw him to the wolves (Blair chaired meeting that led to unmasking of Kelly, inquiry told). Truth? These three think truth is for suckers. Their endless lies and relentless, casually unethical attempts to ruin honest people who don’t sing their corrupt tune are starting to look pathological.

Here’s the transcript extract:

TONY JONES: Finally, another issue related more distantly to Iraq, and it relates to the question of whether you or any of your staff members passed Andrew Wilkie’s ONA assessment or information contained within it over to the journalist Andrew Bolt. Have you or any of your staff been questioned on this matter or provided statements to the Federal Police?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, no, not at this stage. But obviously we’re happy to cooperate. And you know, if the Federal Police have questions to ask us and any other ministers’ offices or officers of my department or ONA, everyone will cooperate with them on that.

 

TONY JONES: Can you state to us right now that to your knowledge no-one in your office passed on any such material?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, look to the best of my knowledge no-one gave the document to Andrew Bolt. But, look –

TONY JONES: Or information related to the document, taken from the document in some detail and then passed on?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, look, you know, in the end I think the best thing to do here is to allow people in my office to talk to the Federal Police and in my department and in other ministers’ offices … it’s the best way to handle it.

See CIA scandal tars everybody, In (partial) praise of Robert Novak and Does administration want to find leaker? for a taste of the intense media discussion in the US about Novak’s position and that of the media in general. There’s been virtually no discussion of Bolt’s role or the medias dilemmas on this issue in the Australian media. Our media is much too clubby and timid for that.

Chris Murphy in Southport, Queensland, discovered that vice-president keeps lying even after Bush admitted there was no line to Saddam and Osama before the war.

“Twelve years of diplomacy, more than a dozen Security Council resolutions, hundreds of U.N. weapons inspectors, thousands of flights to enforce the no-fly zones and even strikes and against military targets in Iraq, all of these measures were tried to compel Saddam Hussein’s compliance with the terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire. All of these measured failed.” U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, addressing the Heritage Foundation on 10 October 2003 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8205-2003Oct10.html, registration required.)

Chris writes:

Funny that. Sanctions and inspections “failed”, did they? So where’s the proof that they failed, Dick? No weapons of mass destruction have been found. Not a hint. Not a whiff. This means one of two things: either Hussein had in fact destroyed all his WMD or they have now been dispersed to parts and to people unknown. In either case, it is the United States who has “failed”. If the WMD did not exist, then America has inflicted appalling damage on itself (destruction of lives, financial cost, national morale) in a futile campaign that may well become another Vietnam. If the WMD did exist, then the United States has only succeeded in making the world one hell of a lot scarier than it was before the nutters in the White House, including Dick, summarily set upon Saddam Hussein in their insane “war on terror”.

Cheney also persists with the claim that Saddam Hussein was connected with Al Qaeda:

“Saddam had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. He cultivated ties to terror, hosting the Abu Nidal organization, supporting terrorists, making payments to the families of suicide bombers in Israel. He also had an established relationship with Al Qaida, providing training to Al Qaida members in the areas of poisons, gases, making conventional bombs.”

This last sentence is a blatant lie, an assertion disproven time and again and even disowned by the President himself, yet Cheney repeats it whenever possible. It is, in large part, the reason a majority of Americans continue to believe that Hussein was involved in the attacks of 11 September 2003.

The Kay reports rejected Howard’s last-ditch defence of his claims on WMDs – “the trailers”. Scott Burchill notes this line from the Kay Report:

“Kay had to back down from a claim that two mobile trailers found in Iraq were intended for making weapons. Now he says they were not well suited for that purpose.”

Crean has not asked ONE QUESTION of Howard about the Kay report’s findings. Not one.

How many lies, and how big? See Yes, Bush lied. Former Webdiarist Tim Dunlop, now in Washington, does a great job regularly recording the Bush regime’s daily lies about its lies at roadtosurfdom.

Jacob A. Stam in Narre Warren, Victoria has been tracking civilian deaths. He writes:

I’ve pasted below some notes I’ve made on the topic of civilian casualties of the Iraq war. Being a survey from notes and clippings I’d amassed over the period and have been meaning to boil down for some time, you might find something of interest.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still working through my feelings of disgust, rage, etc. etc. etc. regarding our country’s part in the bloodbath. All the ins and outs have been argued and re-argued ad nauseam, yet after all we’re still left with 5-10 thousand needless dead, with untold thousands maimed and brutalised, and with a humanitarian nightmare still remaining in Iraq with no end in sight. While all that was going down, I remember going into work every day where none of this was mentioned, as if nothing was happening over there, and yet we all knew in our bloody trembling hearts that THE COUNTRY IS AT WAR. (I work for the government, by the way.)

Such was the division in our country, produced in large part by a mendacious national leadership and its failure to honestly and morally map out this country’s war aims (they still haven’t quite made up their minds what these were!!), we could not even discuss it in our workplaces in order to find meaning and strength from each other in such a terrible and momentous time. This, after the war crimes against a helpless people, is the Howard crew’s most egregious moral failure.

Was it all worth it? I’m so grateful for those fellow citizens who have the superior moral compass to tell me: Yes, of course, put your mind to rest, sleep easy.

In a just world, the Bush-Blair-Howard Axis of Egos would be hauled before a tribunal at The Hague for their commission of an illegal war of aggression against the people of Iraq. Yet even assuming that the legal and moral underpinnings of the decision to go to war may be defensible, even if only in a qualified sense, the conduct of the war cannot. (Margo: The war was illegal. For the latest evidence see Goldsmith ‘scraped the legal barrel’ over Iraq war, reporting a leading legal peer labelling the British Attorney-General’s opinion that the war was legal “risible”.)

Amnesty International raised the spectre of war crimes charges in a news release of early April:

Amnesty International is deeply concerned about the high toll of civilian casualties and the use of cluster bombs in US military attacks in heavily populated areas. On 1 April, at least 33 civilians including many children were reportedly killed and around 300 injured in US attacks on the town of al-Hilla. Amnesty International is particularly disturbed by reports that cluster bombs were used in the attacks and may have been responsible for some of the civilian deaths. “The use of cluster bombs in an attack on a civilian area of al-Hilla constitutes an indiscriminate attack and a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” Amnesty International emphasized today.

AI has identified an “indiscriminate attack” that constitutes a “grave violation of international humanitarian law” in short, a war crime. Being undoubtedly cognisant of the nature of the world in which it must operate, AI stopped well short of suggesting that charges should be laid, let alone prosecuted.

We all know, however, with whom the buck stops it stops with thee, George, Tony and John! The “coalition of the willing” ignored repeated calls by AI and other organisations such as Medicins Sans Frontieres for a total moratorium on the use of cluster bombs, depleted uranium armaments, landmines and other indiscriminate weapons. For such conduct alone, a dock awaits the Axis of Egos in The Hague at least, in an ideal world, perhaps in some parallel universe…

Although John Howard has cunningly managed to suppress discussion on the topic, his reinvention of himself as “the great wartime leader” has come at the cost of the lives of five- to ten-thousand Iraqi civilians. (We’ll arbitrarily leave aside the matter of perhaps as many as 30,000 dead Iraqi soldiers many of them teenage conscripts.)

In early April, Howard was asked by Lateline’s Kerry OBrien what he considered an “acceptable number” of civilian deaths, at least as regards the Iraq adventure. Howard replied:

Kerry, I can’t ever put a figure on that. Any death is tragic, and I also said that last week. I note, by way of an independent observation, that a spokesman for the International Red Cross said on the ABC AM program this morning that the hospital system in Baghdad appeared to be coping quite well with the level of civilian casualties. Now, I thought that was an interesting comment, because the International Red Cross is a respected, neutral organisation; it can’t be accused of painting it one way or the other. I do know the efforts being taken by the coalition to avoid casualties is quite unprecedented. I believe those efforts should go on, and certainly, as far as Australia is concerned, the targeting policies that we have adopted in relation to the bombing we’ve participated in, those policies are going to be maintained; and I would expect the Americans and the British would stick to their approach, because there are ethics of war and they do need to be maintained.

Thus, his only specific reference to civilian casualties – buried amid the dross of bland reassurance and the crocodile tears of “any death is tragic” cant – was given a positive spin in that Baghdad’s hospital system appeared “to be coping quite well”. As Alan Ramsey commented at the time, Howard seemed to be suggesting that “it matters less how many civilians are killed or maimed, just so long as the Iraqi medical system and its hospitals can cope with the casualty lists”.

Getting a realistic accounting of civilian deaths in the Iraq war is difficult enough, but arriving at a count upon which all the “players” can agree is probably impossible. Staunchly pro-war commentators predictably have tended to avoid any mention of actual numbers, preferring to obfuscate with vacuous, alternately triumphal or dismissive statements about “relatively few civilian casualties”.

At the sceptical or critical end of debate, the web project iraqbodycount currently tallies a minimum 7,377 and a maximum 9,179 civilian deaths from the outset of the war to the present.

In the UK in early April, ‘The Independent’ reeled off the following facts and figures:

130,000 British and American troops are in action in Iraq from a total force of 250,000 in the Gulf. The Allies have launched 725 Tomahawk cruise missiles, flown 18,000 sorties, dropped 50 cluster bombs and discharged 12,000 precision-guided munitions. There have been an estimated 1,252 Iraqi civilian deaths, 57 Kurdish deaths and 5,103 civilian injuries. 88 Allied troops have been killed in the conflict, 27 of whom are British. At least 12 Allied soldiers are missing, 34 Allied soldiers have been killed in ‘friendly fire’ incidents or battlefield accidents. 9 journalists have been killed or are unaccounted for. There have been 2 suicide attacks on US troops, killing 7 soldiers. 8,023 Iraqi combatants have been taken prisoner of war. So far, 0 weapons of mass destruction have been found. 1,500,000 people in southern Iraq have no access to clean water. 200,000 children in southern Iraq are at risk of death from diarrhoea. 17,000,000 Iraqis are reliant on food aid, which has now been stopped. 600 oil wells and refineries are now under British and American control. 80bn dollars has been set aside by US Congress to meet the cost of war. A capital city of 5,000,000 people now stands between the Allied forces and their objective: the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Locally in a mid-April column, Alan Ramsey reeled off a bunch of facts and figures:

When Baghdad fell on the 22nd day of the Anglo-American invasion, with Australias tiny force no more than the military tea lady, the outcome in numbers, as reported from US central command at Doha, Qatar: US forces 255,000; British forces 45,000; Australian forces 2,000. Casualties: US 101 dead, 11 missing, seven captured; British 30 dead; Australian nil. Iraqi military, between 5, 000 and 10,000 dead (estimate); Iraq civilians, 600 dead and 4000 wounded (estimate).

The air “campaign”: 30,000 sorties flown by 2000 US/British aircraft from five aircraft carriers and 30 land bases dropped 20,000 “total munitions” on Iraqs cities, infrastructure, its military and its civilian population. There is, and was, no Iraqi air force. The US/British aircraft were unopposed. To call what this aerial armada did a “war”, as distinct from unchallenged slaughter, is to debauch language.

Ramsey also noted that the Red Cross was by then contradicting Howards faith in Iraqs hospital system, that in fact hospitals “are struggling to cope with a deluge of wounded that is causing growing chaos”. This was also noted by Carmen Lawrence, who wrote that “the Red Cross reported this week that the number of casualties in Iraq is so high that the medical staff have stopped counting and the hospitals are overwhelmed”. These statements, it should be noted, do not seem to distinguish between civilian and military casualties.

With regard to Iraqi military casualties, Robert Manne remarked (early April): “Even though the protection of ones own troops and the destruction of the enemy is an inescapable dimension of waging war, the deaths of so many young Iraqi men, in such technologically uneven battles, seems to me tragic and pitiful in the extreme.”

In early May came the following report from Associated Press:

The battle for Baghdad cost the lives of at least 1,101 Iraqi civilians, many of them women and children, according to records at the city’s 19 largest hospitals. The civilian death toll was almost certainly higher. The hospital records say that another 1,255 dead were “probably” civilians, including many women and children. Uncounted others who died never made it to hospitals and now are buried in shallow graves that have been dug throughout the city in cemeteries, back yards, hospital gardens, city parks and mosque grounds. More than 6,800 civilians were wounded, the hospital records show.

In early July the ABCs 7.30 Report carried a report from the BBCs Newsnight program featuring a project called “Survey of Civilian Deaths in Iraq”, founded by 26-year-old Marla Ruzicka. The project has 150 volunteers “working all across Iraq to scrupulously document” civilian deaths during the war. Presenting the report, the BBCs Paul Wood reported that so far “the volunteers have counted 2,652 deaths”. He added that these are “preliminary findings” and that “the final number will probably be a little over 4,000”.

In an interview Ms Ruzicka stated, “We go door to door, we go neighbourhood to neighbourhood and we check hospital records, we get death certificates to verify. Our work is very accurate. We know that, if we’re trying to get assistance to people and we have one false claim, it could throw out all of our claims.” While Ruzickas project is undoubtedly a worthy endeavour with apparently impeccable methodology, the question remains of how many civilians will remain unaccounted for, whose fate was not recorded owing to the chaos and confusion of war, and hence for whom no death certificates or gravestones exist to trace their brutal end.

George, Tony, John we’d love to see you at The Hague. Given, however, that we do not live in a just world but in a quite different one of your creation, we won’t hold our breaths.

Brian McKinlay sent me a recent BBC on Afghanistan. For yet more proof that the earnest Blair many of us once believed was in good faith is just another snake oil salesman, see his solemn promise to the people of Afghanistan just before the war on October 22, 2001 in a speech that gave me hope then and now makes me feel sick. Up yours to the Iraqi people, and to the people of the world who want us to work for peace, not endless war:

To the Afghan people we make this commitment. The conflict will not be the end. We will not walk away, as the outside world has done so many times before. If the Taliban regime changes, we will work with you to make sure its successor is one that is broad-based, that unites all ethnic groups, and that offers some way out of the miserable poverty that is your present existence.

… So I believe this is a fight for freedom. And I want to make it a fight for justice too. Justice not only to punish the guilty. But justice to bring those same values of democracy and freedom to people round the world. And I mean: freedom, not only in the narrow sense of personal liberty but in the broader sense of each individual having the economic and social freedom to develop their potential to the full. That is what community means, founded on the equal worth of all. The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause.

And now?

Afghanistan ‘out of control’ (BBC)

Britain should be doing more to restore law and order to Afghanistan, the government has been warned. Large swathes of the country are under the control of warlords where people live under the daily threat of violence, said Christian Aid. The charity, which is running aid projects in the country, wrote to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warning him conditions were only getting worse. Nato takes command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the capital Kabul on Monday, but that security should be extended to the whole of the nation, says the charity. And the push for a change in Nato and United Nations policy towards the war torn country should come from Britain, it adds. Growing criminality is further compounding the insecurity felt by the Afghan population.

“As we are sure you are aware, the security situation in Afghanistan has shown a marked deterioration in recent months,” said the letter, which was backed by other aid agencies. Only a properly trained Afghan National Army and police force can bring stability and security but they are years away, the agencies say. “In the meantime, radical elements seek to undermine both the transitional government and the reconstruction process,” the letter states. “In addition, local struggles for power, fuelled in some areas by the opium trade, are leading to a growing fragmentation of the country. While efforts to create a national army, police force and judiciary remain at an embryonic stage, the ongoing climate of impunity means that there is no protection for the individual from the arbitrary use of power. Growing criminality is further compounding the insecurity felt by the Afghan population; there are numerous examples of robberies, thefts and assaults even in (supposedly) one of the most secure regions, Herat.”

The multinational Nato force should be in place before the next Loya Jirga gathering of tribal chiefs discusses a constitution in October, according to the agencies. The letter was signed by Martin Kyndt, Christian Aid’s acting director, along with AfghanAid’s UK director Fraser Mackay, Care International UK’s programme director Raja Jarrah, Ken Caldwell of Save the Children and TearFund’s Graham Fairburn.

What the are the values our ‘liberal democracies’ stand for? Whatever they are, they’re not what Bush, Blair and Howard are championing. To end, Webdiarist Mike Lyvers responds to the extract of Paul Berman’s examination of the values of fundamentalist Islam in We open our eyes, keep loving and go on. Berman wrote:

The followers of (Islamic revolutionary philosopher) Qutb speak, in their wild fashion, of enormous human problems, and they urge one another to death and to murder. But the enemies of these people speak of United Nations resolutions, of unilateralism, of multilateralism, of weapons inspectors, of co-ercion and non-coercion.

This is no answer to the terrorists. The terrorists speak insanely of deep things. The anti-terrorists had better speak sanely of deep things.

Presidents will not do this. Presidents will dispatch armies, for better or worse.

But who will speak of the sacred and the secular, of the physical world and the spiritual world? Who will defend liberal ideas against the enemy of liberal ideas? Who will defend liberal principles in spite of liberal society’s failures?

President George W Bush, in his speech to Congress a few days after the September 11 attacks, announced that he was going to wage a war of ideas. He has done no such thing. He is not the man for that.

Philosophers and religious leaders will have to do that on their own. Are they doing so? Armies are in motion, but are the philosophers and religious leaders, the liberal thinkers, likewise in motion?

There is something to worry about here, an aspect of the war that liberal society seems to have trouble understanding – one more worry, on top of all the others, and possibly the greatest worry of all.

Mike Lyvers

Margo, thanks for including that piece by Paul Berman in Webdiary. I found it fascinating and could comment extensively on various aspects of it – but I’ll spare you that. Permit me one comment though.

The split between religion and science that has occurred in European culture – and which ultimately allowed that culture to become so much more successful than any other – has put the West in closer touch with reality than ever before, but at the expense (for some) of satisfying spiritual yearnings. I think a closer examination of exactly what “spiritual yearnings” really are is called for.

For some people, spiritual yearnings boil down to the loss described in the story of Adam’s fall. With his metaphorical coming of age, Adam enjoyed freedom and independence but lost the comfort and security of the loving parent symbolized by an anthropomorphic God. In Western culture the Church once satisfied these yearnings and kept existential angst at bay by telling fables about a loving father-figure in the sky who watches over us at all times, and warded off the inevitable fear of death by positing a heavenly afterlife in eternity. These days, such fables are unconvincing to most thinking people in the West.

However, there is a deeper dimension to spiritual yearnings in some people, and that is a yearning for transcendence, or knowledge of ultimate Reality. This yearning goes beyond the simple need for an anthropomorphic father – figure; rather, it goes to the very core of our being. Several religious traditions have evolved various practices aimed at addressing this deeper dimension of spirituality (eg., sufism in Islam, kabbalah in Judaism, Zen in Buddhism, Vedanta in Hinduism) and thus it is no surprise that Westerners are turning to such practices in ever-increasing numbers.

On the other hand, those who suffer the simpler type of spiritual yearning are turning in increasing numbers to fundamentalism, both in the West and in the Islamic world.

Fundamentalism is ultimately a life-denying philosophy that rejects Reality in all its aspects, esoteric and exoteric, and its increasing popularity constitutes a very sad development indeed.

 

Fragmented atmosphere, by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

I was about to fire off a protest message to you! I was about to say that I am not reading or contributing to Webdiary for a week. Big time hissy fit thing. I wanted to take this direct action because you were publishing Chomsky again after a welcome hiatus. Then something funny happened.

I read Chomsky.

I feel chastened by Chomsky. Ouch. I am not prepared to get into the same political bed, but I am intrigued.

Oh, and I am not a late bloomer as suggested by your Webdiary artist in Waking up to strange bedfellows: a dirty capitalist’s lament. I just like to keep an open mind – there is a difference. I am NOT converting to Chomsky – I am merely intrigued. Maybe intrigued is not the right word. “Concerned” might be a better one.

As you well know, I am an Ameriphile. There is not even such a word for rare birds like that. I suspect Bob Carr is one, but I’d rather not identify with him right now (see In bed with developers, Carr tops Toaster with harbour as theme park). Francophiles and Anglophiles abound, but us Ameriphiles are quite rare.

So I become concerned when I find myself agreeing with some of Chomsky’s assertions. I become concerned that America is “losing its way”. I put this in quotes because that phrase was once used quite a bit in America. I haven’t heard it used in recent times, but I am sure the phrase is embedded in the minds of the average American. The American public have a better radar for detecting this uncomfortable “we’re losing our way” thing than they are credited for.

America has lost its way at many points in history and has often corrected itself. There are now 290 million people calling themselves US Citizens. My view is that the momentum is such that the current administration will be eliminated at the next election. Only a tiny percentage will kick out George Bush because of the reasons Chomsky cites. The reasons will be many but in the end, George Bush will be flown back to Crawford, Texas, never to return to the White House but for the rare state dinner where former presidents are invited.

It is not going to work for him to play the national security thing over and over. That plays large in the wider world, but it is not the only thing we should consider. The average American won’t get caught up in the philosophical underpinnings of the current foreign policy. What will they do? They will simply look at the overall picture, conclude it is not working out and replace the President and his administration with a viable alternative. That alternative will be Howard Dean.

The reasons why George Bush is “not working” are myriad. Chomsky says that the dominance presents dilemmas, and that is true. Only a zealot could say things are gong “well”. Clearly they are not. People are not buying the rationale that “the world is a better place without Saddam”. That is simply not good enough, and it is an absurd slap in the face to those who supported the war in “good faith”. When I say good faith, I mean that they thought the basis for it was really there.

Of bloody course it is better that Saddam has gone. What about the cost though? A lot of voters in America will be counting this. How many billions does Bush want this week? How many lives does he need to spend this month? These questions are gnawing into the psyche in America.

George Bush Snr visited Australia before he left office. He watched fireworks from Kiribilli with the relatively new Prime Minister Keating. In 1991 it was inconceivable that one day Howard would preside over a veritable era from Kiribilli and that one day the son George Bush would visit as President. History doesn’t always turn out as you expect.

Soon George W Bush will visit Australia, and like his father he will be a single term president. They both presided over wars in Iraq, lack lustre economies and lasted one term. George W Bush will be toasted at the inevitable state dinner in Canberra just as his father was. In just over a year’s time, his political death warrant will be signed by the American people.

The first Clinton campaign focused on the economy. Campaigners were reminded of the main issue in clear terms: “It’s the economy, stupid”. Recall that in 1992, no one gave a damn anymore that George Bush Snr had defeated Saddam and kicked him out of Kuwait. They were just angry, tired of him and wanted him out.

There will be some similarity in 2004.

The powerful people in the current administration may have some of the designs for the world as feared by Chomsky. Maybe they really do have an idea to track every vehicle in every foreign country.

That’s all well and good but what if you live in Kansas City, and you are pissed off about your underhanded school? What if you see a link between a “train wreck” of a budget and declining services all around you?

Howard Dean likes to remind people that they have the power.

They do. They are about to exercise it and no amount of campaign money will change their minds in the numbers required. It is a year away but it is clear. Last time the Democratic Party Candidate won the popular vote. He will again, but this time it will result in a Democratic President: Howard Dean.

I am going to Washington for President Dean’s inauguration and will be happy to be the Webdiary correspondent for the happy day. Mr Heidelberg Goes to Washington.

PS: I just checked deanforamerica What was on the front page? Today he was in Council Bluffs, Iowa talking about prescription drugs today. PEOPLE CARE ABOUT THIS SHIT AND THEY WANT TO BE BLOODY WELL HEARD. They do NOT want some grand design against the bloody world – they want to be able to afford their medicine in the richest country in history. I know Council Bluffs quite well. It is the butt of jokes for people living in Omaha, as it is on the wrong side of the tracks just over the state line.

It is all well and good to be the butt of jokes, but Iowa is important in the primaries. These people will be heard. Some of the states will be the battleground. The average person in these kinds of places are salt of the earth. They just want a fair go. And don’t dare paint these people as ordinates. Iowa and Illinois are FAR from that. These people are going to be heard. Do the maths. 80 million people live within a days drive of Kansas City and they are NOT all Republican.

Look at the psychology of Dean’s web site. Do you see fancy flash ammunitions and such like? No. Does it look slick and corporate? NO. He has the money and resources to do anything like that but he makes it look ordinary because he is smart. He is the next president and as an Ameriphile I am hanging out for his inauguration.

I will stand in the background on a frigid January day in Washington and smile. The new era will begin. Europe, and the world will like this guy and as one who likes America I care about that

And what about the way Dean goes into COMBAT? (See The power is in your hands – contribute!) He doesn’t placate people – he has views and fights for them. That part is also different, a plain talking thing. He almost seems to go out of his way to disagree with people in audiences that come to see him. I LOVE THAT. It is so EXACTLY the opposite of what we know as normal American politics, which becomes so superficially civil that it becomes meaningless.

*

Affordable Prescription Drugs

October 14, 2003

COUNCIL BLUFFS: Speaking last night at a town meeting here, Democratic presidential candidate Governor Howard Dean, M.D., announced his plan to lower prescription drug costs in the United States. “Today U.S. citizens spend approximately $200 billion on prescription drugs, twice as much as just five years ago. Government programs and large healthcare providers negotiate deep discounts on prescription drug prices, and Canadian citizens pay far less for prescription drugs than U.S. citizens. Yet senior citizens and other Americans who have no health insurance coverage pay the highest prices for prescription drugs,” Governor Dean said.

Richard Perle, a leading Bush propagandist for invading Iraq to rid the world of his Weapons of Mass Destruction, now says it doesn’t matter if there were none. Like most big political players in Bush’s war, he’s connected to a US defence company whose profits depend on war, but unlike most he was forced to resign this year from the Pentagon’s advisory Defense Policy Board after the New Yorker exposed a conflict between his public and business interests.

The Anglo Coalition now reckons it doesn’t matter that its stated reason for war was false, and that the factual basis for the stated reason was, to put it generously, severely beaten up. Perle suggested this week that the stated reason was adopted so the Coalition could argue that invading Iraq was legal. Lie to be legal!

“The war was appropriate, even if no weapons are found, and even if there were no weapons – because we liberated 23 million people and opened the door to a tremendously important change in the region. The policy of containment had failed. Saddam was a brutal dictator who used weapons of mass destruction [in the past], and leaving him in place would have been dangerous.”

So where does that leave the people of Australia – the victims of the scam?

Australia’s democracy looks pretty darn hopeless compared to the British and US democracies in getting the truth about the real reasons we invaded Iraq and in achieving accountability from the perpetrators of the big lies.

John Howard’s got help, of course. Start with a paralysed opposition and abjectly compliant ministers and backbenchers who collectively turned their backs on the people who elected them. Add his media propagandists – Rupert Murdoch and a bevy of talkback radio boosters – and a press gallery more intent on scoring the game than getting the truth. Toss in a weak Parliamentary committee system and Howard’s willingness to ignore or subvert its processes and presto, he’s getting away with it scot free.

What are disappointed Australians supposed to do? Give up? Retreat to the garden or the home renovations? Howard’s won everything if they do. He wants a detached electorate which has given up on honesty in politics, because then he’s a shoe-in next election on the devil-you-know principle.

I’ve been brooding on an email from K.E. last week:

This government frightens and outrages me. I smell Nazism every day in the news and I want to know where to go to meet like-minded people to talk, to protest, and if necessary in the long run, to revolt. I don’t know where to find people like this. Most of my friends seem passive and only minimally concerned. Do you know of any action groups or how one can become politically active?

So when I got an email from the North Shore Peace Group network offering a seat at a war forum starring Tony Abbott I decided to find out exactly how they’d managed to get a senior minister to front voters on Truth and Democracy: Casualties of War?, to my knowledge a first! He’ll join Sydney Labor left MP Tanya Plibersek, Peter Macdonald – the independent who gave Abbott a run for his money at the 2001 election – and local human shield Donna Mulhearn at North Sydney’s council chambers on Monday to front 200 local residents with tough questions to which they expect answers.

David and Sue Roffey, of the wealthy Sydney North Shore suburb of Mosman, decided to give direct democracy a go in January. Sue was concerned that no-one in Mosman seemed to have known about last November’s march against the war, “so I put a small ad. in the Mosman Daily saying ‘I oppose the war, anyone else?'” Six people met round the Roffey dinner table soon after, and the Mosman peace group was born.

The power of the Mosman group, like other North Shore peace groups, is that it’s genuinely cross political. Most active members don’t belong to any party and they vote Green, Labor, Democrats and Liberal. The group’s most prominent political supporter is John Valder, a former head of the NSW Liberal Party and Howard backer, who’s attended many of the group’s functions and will ask a question at the forum. The Mosman peace group has found common ground, and local activist groups who can boast that have enormous power to get a yes from their local MP.

To let Mosman know they’d arrived, group members attended local markets with placards and purple ribbons which sold like hotcakes. The $600 they raised bought T-Shirts. ‘North Shore against the war” and “Think again, John”, were the polite, very North shore slogans. Sue, a psychologist, said the groups modus operandi was “respect for other people’s points of view”.

“We wanted to stand up and be counted – if individuals don’t do it then groups don’t do it and people’s don’t do it,” she said. A Mosman student created their website, now a bulletin board for peace groups across the North Shore. Its motto is a quote from Martin Luther King: “Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter.”

The group’s goal was to see 100 Mosman residents at the February March. They knew they’d succeeded when the ferry was packed to the rafters on the day.

As the tanks neared Baghdad in April, David and another member of the group asked for an appointment with their federal MP, Tony Abbott. To his credit, Abbott didn’t insult his constituents with form replies. They had a long conversation in which Abbott revealed that he’d been mugged by Cabinet for daring to say in Parliament that invading Iraq could increase the risk of terrorism. Think about that for a minute. Still trust John Howard with our national security? We found out much later that the British Joint Intelligence Committee, the premier intelligence adviser to Tony Blair, thought exactly the same thing. Howard claims our intelligence body, the ONA, didn’t bother to send him the JIC report and instead threw it “into the mix”, a mix he has not yet disclosed.

David and Sue asked Abbott if he’d be on a panel to debate the issues when the war was over. He agreed.

The Roffeys, along with many other Australians, were deeply frustrated with John Howard’s pretence that he hadn’t promised George Bush Australia was all the way with the USA if it invaded Iraq even without UN sanction, and that Howard used that pretence to refuse to discuss issues arising out of possible UN refusal to endorse the war. Howard had stymied Australia’s premier journalists with that ploy, and thus the Australian people’s desire for debate on an issue of grave concern to us all. David – a retired telecommunications consultant now studying political economy – and many others emailed their questions to the PM. His method of avoiding answers is grotesque in its contempt. Howard’s people replied to all emails with questions on the war by saying he’d referred them to the foreign minister Alexander Downer. Downer didn’t reply. Not ever.

Now Tony Abbott will. All the journos, columnists, Labor ‘strategists’ and newspaper editors who think Australians don’t care about the war any more might be interested to learn that all 200 tickets for the war forum were taken before David and Sue got around to placing ads in the Mosman Daily. People are interested, alright, if they think there’s a chance they’ll get answers.

The Mosman Group isn’t interested in catching out the pollie or in stunts or oneupmanship. They’ve modelled the forum on a BBC radio show which brings together pollies, experts, and activists for a weekly discussion on big issues with interested voters.

Everyone on the Mosman group mailing list was asked to submit questions. The organising committee distilled six themes, composed six questions and assigned someone to ask them. The panelists know them in advance, and they are published on the website. Pollies who want to avoid question can be picked up by subsequent speakers or by the questioner, who has a right of reply. The questions are:

1. Since it is now clear that WMD was only a pretext for the US to invade and occupy Iraq, what safeguards need to be in place to ensure that in future such a momentous decision is not left to one person or a small group? How can there be more accountability for such actions?

2. A US Army manual defines terrorism as: “The calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature. This is done through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear.” Do you agree? How broadly can this definition be applied?

3. Many Australians feel profoundly dis-empowered and disillusioned by the process that led to Australia’s involvement in the attack on Iraq. What prospects are there for the restoration of people’s faith in democracy?

4. How have the past policies of developed western countries (particularly the US and UK) towards the Middle East played a role in fostering the problems we now face, such as the terrorism of Islamic groups such as al-Qaeda?

5. Have Australia’s long term interests been served by our involvement in the war against Iraq? What is our future as a nation if we continue our current allegiance to the US agenda at the expense of broader international relationships?

6. How has Australia been served by its media and how they have covered these issues?

What’s the point?

Sue: “I believe our culture is determined by discourse. What people talk about and the way they talk about it determines their actions. We need to maintain an alternative way of talking about the war at a time when a uniform, government-led discourse is dominating the media.”

After the first phase of the Iraq war, when Saddam’s statue fell, the Mosman group decided not to oppose the occupation because it was pointless to do so. “We’re solutions focused,” David said, so they now focus on what the government’s behaviour means for democracy in Australia and the relevance of truth in our political discourse. They hope their next forum will be on the media’s role in the mess.

But David and Sue have a bigger goal – to inspire voters in other seats to ask their MPs to front the people who voted them in and answer their questions. If our leaders play clever avoidance games with media questioners and bestow most of their media time on their media cheerleaders, then what’s a voter to do but seek accountability direct?

David maintains the website and is happy to help anyone who’d like to start their own group. His email is mail@sydneypeace.com

***

Details of the Don’t Be Bush Whacked! hoedown at Prince Alfred Park on Sunday afternoon are at NSWpeace

For Bush events in other states see: Melbourne, Adelaide, ACT, Perth, Launceston, Hobart

There’s a list of national contacts at vicpeace

**

Sue Roffey’s field in psychology is “emotional literacy” and “emotional intelligence”. This is her outline of an emotionally literate community:

* shows that it values the diversity of its members

* gives people a chance to be heard

* provides opportunities for participation

* encourages and provides for the establishment of support networks

* uses conflict resolution techniques to manage differences

* makes consequences for wrong doing fair and clear

* makes decisions that are in the community interest rather than in the interest of one (powerful) sector

* provides equal opportunities in reality as well as on paper

* expects all individuals to be aware of community responsibility

An emotionally literate society:

* has transparent government

* has laws based on values of humanity and equality

* has politicians who are solution focused, not blame focused

* is pro-active in early intervention for issues that may have a negative and often expensive outcome

* makes efforts to understand and address the reasons why people behave the way they do

* treats people with respect and humanity even while disapproving of behaviour

* acknowledges the importance of feelings and emotional literacy – gives this a high profile and provides education at every level

* has a media which is responsible, provides balance and is aware of its impact on feelings and public discourse

 

Black, white and the read in between. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

 

Noam Chomsky is professor of linguistics at MIT and author of the media classic ‘Manufacturing consent’. He is the American international relations commentator the US right most loves to hate. This is an extended version of an article which appeared in Le Monde diplomatique in August 2003.

The past year has been a momentous one in world affairs. In the normal rhythm, the pattern was set in September 2002, a month marked by several important and closely related events. The most powerful state in history announced a new National Security Strategy asserting that it will maintain global hegemony permanently: any challenge will be blocked by force, the dimension in which the US reigns supreme. (See Manifesto for world dictatorship.)

At the same time, the war drums began to beat to mobilise the population for an invasion of Iraq, which would be “the first test [of the doctrine], not the last,” the New York Times observed after the invasion, “the petri dish in which this experiment in pre-emptive policy grew.” And the campaign opened for the mid-term congressional elections, which would determine whether the administration would be able to carry forward its radical international and domestic agenda.

The new “imperial grand strategy,” as it was aptly termed at once by John Ikenberry (a leading US academic on international relations) presents the US as “a revisionist state seeking to parlay its momentary advantages into a world order in which it runs the show,” a “unipolar world” in which “no state or coalition could ever challenge” it as “global leader, protector, and enforcer”. These policies are fraught with danger even for the US itself, he warned, joining many others in the foreign policy elite.

What is to be “protected” is US power and the interests it represents, not the world, which vigorously opposed the conception.

Within a few months, polls revealed that fear of the United States had reached remarkable heights, along with distrust of the political leadership, or worse. As for the test case, an international Gallup poll in December, barely noted in the US, found virtually no support for Washington’s announced plans for a war carried out “unilaterally by America and its allies”: in effect, the US-UK “coalition”.

The basic principles of the imperial grand strategy trace back to the early days of World War II, and have been reiterated frequently since. Even before the US entered the war, planners and analysts concluded that in the postwar world the US would seek “to hold unquestioned power,” acting to ensure the “limitation of any exercise of sovereignty” by states that might interfere with its global designs. They outlined “an integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for the United States” in a “Grand Area,” to include at a minimum the Western Hemisphere, the former British empire, and the Far East, later extended to as much of Eurasia as possible when it became clear that Germany would be defeated.

Twenty years later, elder statesman Dean Acheson instructed the American Society of International Law that no “legal issue” arises when the US responds to a challenge to its “power, position, and prestige”. He was referring specifically to Washington’s post-Bay of Pigs economic warfare against Cuba, but was surely aware of Kennedy’s terrorist campaign aimed at “regime change,” a significant factor in bringing the world close to nuclear war only a few months earlier and resumed immediately after the Cuban missile crisis was resolved.

A similar doctrine was invoked by the Reagan administration when it rejected World Court jurisdiction over its attack against Nicaragua. State Department Legal Adviser Abraham Sofaer explained that most of the world cannot “be counted on to share our view” and “often opposes the United States on important international questions.” Accordingly, we must “reserve to ourselves the power to determine” which matters fall “essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States” – in this case, the actions that the Court condemned as the “unlawful use of force” against Nicaragua; in lay terms, international terrorism.

Their successors continued to make it clear that the US reserved the right to act “unilaterally when necessary,” including “unilateral use of military power” to defend such vital interests as “ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources.”

Even this small sample illustrates the narrowness of the planning spectrum. Nevertheless, the alarm bells sounded in September 2002 were justified. Acheson and Sofaer were describing policy guidelines, and within elite circles. Other cases may be regarded as worldly-wise reiterations of the maxim of Thucydides that “large nations do what they wish, while small nations accept what they must.”

In contrast, Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell and their associates are officially declaring an even more extreme policy. They intend to be heard, and took action at once to put the world on notice that they mean what they say. That is a significant difference.

The imperial grand strategy is based on the assumption that the US can gain “full spectrum dominance” by military programs that dwarf those of any potential coalition, and have useful side effects. One is to socialise the costs and risks of the private economy of the future, a traditional contribution of military spending and the basis of much of the “new economy.”

Another is to contribute to a fiscal train wreck that will, it is presumed, “create powerful pressures to cut federal spending, and thus, perhaps, enable the Administration to accomplish its goal of rolling back the New Deal,” a description of the Reagan program that is now being extended to far more ambitious plans.

As the grand strategy was announced on September 17, the administration “abandoned an international effort to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention against germ warfare,” advising allies that further discussions would have to be delayed for four years. A month later, the UN Committee on Disarmament adopted a resolution that called for stronger measures to prevent militarisation of space, recognizing this to be “a grave danger for international peace and security,” and another that reaffirmed “the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of poisonous gases and bacteriological methods of warfare.” Both passed unanimously, with two abstentions: the US and Israel. US abstention amounts to a veto: typically, a double veto, banning the events from reporting and history.

A few weeks later, the Space Command released plans to go beyond US “control” of space for military purposes to “ownership”, which is to be permanent, in accord with the Security Strategy. Ownership of space is “key to our nation’s military effectiveness,” permitting “instant engagement anywhere in the world… A viable prompt global strike capability, whether nuclear or non-nuclear, will allow the US to rapidly strike high-payoff, difficult-to-defeat targets from stand-off ranges and produce the desired effect… [and] to provide warfighting commanders the ability to rapidly deny, delay, deceive,

disrupt, destroy, exploit and neutralise targets in hours/minutes rather than weeks/days even when US and allied forces have a limited forward presence,” thus reducing the need for overseas bases that regularly arouse local antagonism.

Similar plans had been outlined in a May 2002 Pentagon planning document, partially leaked, which called for a strategy of “forward deterrence” in which missiles launched from space platforms would be able to carry out almost instant “unwarned attacks”. Military analyst William Arkin comments that “no target on the planet or in space would be immune to American attack”.

“The US could strike without warning whenever and wherever a threat was perceived, and it would be protected by missile defenses.” Hypersonic drones would monitor and disrupt targets. Surveillance systems are to provide the ability “to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.” The world is to be left at mercy of US attack at will, without warning or credible pretext. The plans have no remote historical parallel. Even more fanciful ones are under development.

These moves reflect the disdain of the administration for international law and institutions or arms control measures, dismissed with barely a word in the National Security Strategy; and its commitment to an extremist version of long-standing doctrine.

In accord with these principles, Washington informed the UN that it can be “relevant” by endorsing Washington’s plans for invading Iraq or it can be a debating society. The US has the “sovereign right to take military action,” Colin Powell informed the January 2003 Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, which also strenuously opposed Washington’s war plans. “When we feel strongly about something we will lead,” Powell informed them, even if no one is following us.

Bush and Blair underscored their contempt for international law and institutions at their Azores Summit on the eve of the invasion. They issued an ultimatum – not to Iraq, but to the Security Council: capitulate, or we will invade without your meaningless seal of approval. And we will do so whether or not Saddam Hussein and his family leave the country. The crucial principle is that the US must effectively rule Iraq.

Since the mid-1940s, Washington has regarded the Gulf as “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history” – in Eisenhower’s words, the “most strategically important area of the world” because of its “strategic position and resources”. Control over the region and its resources remains a policy imperative.

After taking over a core oil producer, and presumably acquiring its first reliable military bases at the heart of the world’s major energy-producing system, Washington will doubtless be happy to establish an “Arab faade,” to borrow the term of the British during their day in the sun. Formal democracy will be fine, but only if it is of the submissive kind tolerated in Washington’s “backyard,” at least if history and current practice are any guide.

To fail in this endeavor would take real talent. Even under far less propitious circumstances, military occupations have commonly been successful. It would be hard not to improve on a decade of murderous sanctions that virtually destroyed a society that was, furthermore, in the hands of a vicious tyrant who ranked with others supported by the current incumbents in Washington: Romania’s Ceausescu, to mention only one of an impressive rogues gallery.

Resistance in Iraq would have no meaningful outside support, unlike Nazi-occupied Europe or Eastern Europe under the Russian yoke, to take recent examples of unusually brutal states that nevertheless assembled an ample array of collaborators and achieved substantial success within their domains.

The grand strategy authorizes Washington to carry out “preventive war”: Preventive, not pre-emptive. Whatever the justifications for pre-emptive war may sometimes be, they do not hold for preventive war, particularly as that concept is interpreted by its current enthusiasts: the use of military force to eliminate an invented or imagined threat, so that even the term “preventive” is too charitable. Preventive war is, very simply, the “supreme crime” condemned at Nuremberg.

That is widely understood. As the US invaded Iraq, Arthur Schlesinger (historian and biographer of John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt) wrote that Bush’s grand strategy is “alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor, on a date which, as an earlier American president said it would, lives in infamy.” FDR was right, he added, “but today it is we Americans who live in infamy.”

It is no surprise that “the global wave of sympathy that engulfed the United States after 9/11 has given way to a global wave of hatred of American arrogance and militarism” and the belief that Bush is “a greater threat to peace than Saddam Hussein”.

For the political leadership, mostly recycled from more reactionary sectors of the Reagan-Bush I administrations, “the global wave of hatred” is not a particular problem. They want to be feared, not loved. They understand as well as their establishment critics that their actions increase the risk of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terror. But that too is not a major problem.

Higher in the scale of priorities are the goals of establishing global hegemony and implementing their domestic agenda: dismantling the progressive achievements that have been won by popular struggle over the past century, and institutionalizing these radical changes so that recovering them will be no easy task.

It is not enough for a hegemonic power to declare an official policy. It must establish it as a “new norm of international law” by exemplary action. Distinguished commentators may then explain that law is a flexible living instrument, so that the new norm is now available as a guide to action. It is understood that only those with the guns can establish “norms” and modify international law.

The selected target must meet several conditions. It must be defenseless, important enough to be worth the trouble, and an imminent threat to our survival and ultimate evil. Iraq qualified on all counts. The first two conditions are obvious. For the third, it suffices to repeat the orations of Bush, Blair, and their colleagues: the dictator “is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons [in order to] dominate, intimidate or attack”; and he “has already used them on whole villages leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or transfigured….If this is not evil then evil has no meaning.”

President Bush’s eloquent denunciation surely rings true. And those who contributed to enhancing evil should certainly not enjoy impunity: among them, the speaker of these lofty words and his current associates and those who joined them in the years when they were supporting the man of ultimate evil – long after he had committed these terrible crimes and won the war with Iran with decisive US help.

We must continue to support him because of our duty to help US exporters, the Bush I administration explained. It is impressive to see how easy it is for political leaders, while recounting the monster’s worst crimes, to suppress the crucial words “with our help, because we don’t care about such matters.”

Support shifted to denunciation as soon as their friend committed his first authentic crime: disobeying (or perhaps misunderstanding) orders by invading Kuwait. Punishment was severe – for his subjects. The tyrant escaped unscathed, and his grip on the tortured population was further strengthened by the sanctions regime then imposed by his former allies.

Also easy to suppress are the reasons why Washington returned to support for Saddam immediately after the Gulf war as he crushed rebellions that might have overthrown him. The chief diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times explained that “the best of all worlds” for Washington would be “an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein”, but since that goal seems unattainable, we must be satisfied with second best. The rebels failed because Washington and its allies held that “whatever the sins of the Iraqi leader, he offered the West and the region a better hope for his country’s stability than did those who have suffered his repression”.

All of this is suppressed in the commentary on the mass graves of the victims of Saddam’s US-authorized paroxysm of terror, crimes that are now offered as justification for the war on “moral grounds.” It was all known in 1991, but ignored for reasons of state: successful rebellion would have left Iraq in the hands of Iraqis.

Within the US, a reluctant domestic population had to be whipped to a proper mood of war fever, another traditional problem.. From early September 2002, grim warnings were issued about the threat Saddam posed to the United States and his links to al-Qaeda, with broad hints that he was involved in the 9-11 attacks. Many of the charges “dangled in front of [the media] failed the laugh test,” the editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists commented, “but the more ridiculous [they were,] the more the media strove to make whole-hearted swallowing of them a test of patriotism”.

As often in the past, the propaganda assault had at least short-term effects. Within weeks, a majority of Americans came to regard Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat to the US. Soon almost half believed that Iraq was behind the 9/11 terror. Support for the war correlated with these beliefs. The propaganda campaign proved just enough to give the administration a bare majority in the mid-term elections, as voters put aside their immediate concerns and huddled under the umbrella of power in fear of the demonic enemy.

The brilliant success of “public diplomacy” was revealed when the President “provided a powerful Reaganesque finale to a six-week war” on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on May 1. The reference, presumably, is to Reagan’s proud declaration that America was “standing tall” after conquering the nutmeg capital of the world in 1983, preventing the Russians from using it to bomb the US. Reagan’s mimic was free to declare – without concern for skeptical comment at home – that he had won a “victory in a war on terror [by having] removed an ally of Al Qaeda.”

It is immaterial that no credible evidence was provided for the alleged link between Saddam Hussein and his bitter enemy Osama bin Laden and that the charge was dismissed by competent observers. Also immaterial is the only known connection between the victory and terror: the invasion appears to have been a “huge setback in the ‘war on terror’, by sharply increasing al-Qaeda recruitment, as US official concede.

More astute observers recognized that Bush’s carefully-staged Abraham Lincoln extravaganza “marks the beginning of his 2004 re-election campaign,” which the White House hopes “will be built as much as possible around national-security themes.” The electoral campaign will focus on “the battle of Iraq, not the war,” chief Republican political strategist Karl Rove explained : the “war” must continue, if only to control the population at home.

Before the 2002 elections, he had instructed Party activists to stress security issues, diverting attention from unpopular Republican domestic policies. All of this is second-nature to the recycled Reaganites now in office. That is how they held on to political power during their first tenure in office, regularly pushing the panic button to evade public opposition to the policies that left Reagan the most unpopular living President by 1992, ranking alongside Nixon.

Despite its narrow successes, the intensive propaganda campaign left the public unswayed in more fundamental respects. Most continue to prefer UN rather than US leadership in international crises, and by 2-1 prefer that the UN, rather than the United States, should direct reconstruction in Iraq.

When the occupying army failed to discover WMD, the administration’s stance shifted from “absolute certainty” that Iraq possessed WMD to the position that the accusations were “justified by the discovery of equipment that potentially could be used to produce weapons”. Senior officials suggested a “refinement” in the concept of preventive war that entitles the US to attack “a country that has deadly weapons in mass quantities”. The revision “suggests instead that the administration will act against a hostile regime that has nothing more than the intent and ability to develop [WMD].” The bars for resort to force are significantly lowered. This modification of the doctrine of “preventive war” may prove to be the most significant consequence of the collapse of the declared argument for the invasion.

Perhaps the most spectacular propaganda achievement was the lauding of the president’s “vision” to bring democracy to the Middle East in the midst of a display of hatred and contempt for democracy for which no precedent comes to mind. One illustration was the distinction between Old and New Europe, the former reviled, the latter hailed for its courage. The criterion was sharp: Old Europe consists of governments that took the same position as the vast majority of their populations; the heroes of New Europe followed orders from Crawford Texas, disregarding an even larger majority in most cases.

Political commentators ranted about disobedient Old Europe and its psychic maladies, while Congress descended to low comedy. At the liberal end of the spectrum, Richard Holbrooke (whoi was Bill Clinton’s Balkan’s expert) stressed “the very important point” that the population of the eight original members of New Europe is larger than that of Old Europe, which proves that France and Germany are “isolated.” So it does, if we reject the radical left heresy that the public might have some role in a democracy. Thomas Friedman (New York Times columnist) urged that France be removed from the permanent members of the Security Council, because it is “in kindergarten,” and “does not play well with others”. It follows that the population of New Europe must still be in nursery school, judging by polls.

Turkey was a particularly instructive case. The government resisted heavy US pressure to prove its “democratic credentials” by overruling 95% of its population and following orders. Commentators were infuriated by this lesson in democracy, so much so that some even reported Turkey’s crimes against the Kurds in the 1990s, previously a taboo topic because of the crucial US role – though that was still carefully concealed in the lamentations.

The crucial point was expressed by (Bush deputy defence secretary) Paul Wolfowitz, who condemned the Turkish military because they “did not play the strong leadership role that we would have expected” and did not intervene to prevent the government from respecting near-unanimous public opinion. Turkey must therefore step up and say “We made a mistake…Let’s figure out how we can be as helpful as possible to the Americans.” Wolfowitz’s stand is particularly instructive because he is portrayed as the leading figure in the crusade to democratize the Middle East.

Anger at Old Europe has much deeper roots than contempt for democracy. The US has always regarded European unification with some ambivalence, because Europe might become an independent force in world affairs. Thus senior diplomat David Bruce was a leading advocate for European unification in the Kennedy years, urging Washington to “treat a uniting Europe as an equal partner” – but following America’s lead. He saw “dangers” if Europe “struck off on its own, seeking to play a role independent of the United States”.

In his “Year of Europe” address 30 years ago, Henry Kissinger advised Europeans to keep to their “regional responsibilities” within the “overall framework of order” managed by the United States. Europe must not pursue its own independent course, based on its Franco-German industrial and financial heartland.

In the tripolar world that was taking shape at that time, these concerns extend to Asia as well. Northeast Asia is now the world’s most dynamic economic region, accounting for almost 30% of global GDP, far more than the US, and holding about half of global foreign exchange reserves. It is a potentially integrated region with advanced industrial economies and ample resources. All of this raises the threat that it too might flirt with challenging the overall framework of order which the US is to manage permanently, by force if necessary, Washington has declared.

Violence is a powerful instrument of control, as history demonstrates. But the dilemmas of dominance are not slight.

Nine hundred people attended St Brigid’s Catholic Church in Marrickville on Saturday night for a Bali memorial service. Some knew the community members who died in Bali – Debbie Borger and her daughter Abbey, 13, Robyn Webster and Louisa Zervos.

I was one of the many who didn’t know them. I’m new in Marrickville, and a loner to boot. Someone I met briefly at a local cafe a while ago rang last week to suggest I come along. Regular church goers said there were an awful lot of people there they hadn’t seen before. Abbey was a student at the local Catholic school. The school opened and blessed a garden for her today. Since her death, the school’s theme has been peace.

The beauty of the mostly Tongan choir’s voice was itself enough to make you cry. Marrickville is the first stop for many migrants to Australia and it felt like every nationality on earth was in church.

My father wanted to be a Methodist minister and preached his way through his teens. He lost his belief when he applied his logical engineering mind to his religion. He sent his children to Sunday School, and I lost my belief when my teacher didn’t answer my question: “If God tells us not to murder why did he kill all all those people by flooding the river after Moses crossed it with the chosen people?”

I wasn’t planning to go to Church. I found myself doing so after reading an article in the Good Weekend by Paul Berman, author of Terror and Liberalism W.W.Norton). Berman is a left winger who supported the overthrow of Saddam but despised Bush’s case for war, which he believes was so mendacious and incompetent the world was now in greater danger than before the war. Berman has studied the works of the Islamic philosopher Sayyid Qutb, hanged by Nassar in Egypt in 1966:

Qutb is not shallow. Qutb is deep. In the shade of the Qur’an is a masterwork, in its fashion. Al-Qaeda and its sister organisations are not merely popular, wealthy, global, well connected and institutionally sophisticated. These groups stand on a set of ideas, too, and some of these ideas may be pathological, which is an old story in modern politics; yet, even so, the ideas are powerful. We should have known that, of course. But we should have known many things…

‘The truly dangerous element in American life, he believed, was not capitalism or foreign policy or racism or the unfortunate cult of women’s independence. Instead, it lay in the separation of church and state. As Qutb saw it, under Christianity’s influence Europeans began to picture God on one side and science on the other. Religion over here, intellectual inquiry over there. The church against science, the scientists against the church. Everything that Islam knew to be one, the Christian Church divided into two. And, under these terrible pressures, the European mind finally split asunder. It was the fateful divorce between the sacred and the secular.

Their scientific and technical achievements allowed the Europeans to dominate the world. And the Europeans inflicted their “hideous schizophrenia” on peoples and cultures in every corner of the globe. That was the origin of modern misery – the anxiety in contemporary society, the sense of drift, the purposelessness, the craving for false pleasures. The crisis of modern life was felt by every thinking person in the Christian West. But then again, Europe’s leadership of mankind inflicted that crisis on every thinking person in the Muslim world as well, which could only make the experience doubly painful – an alienation that was also a humiliation.

That was Qutb’s analysis. In writing about modern life, he put his finger on something that every thinking person can recognise, if only vaguely – the feeling that human nature and modern life are at odds…

And so, Qutb produced his manifesto for Islamic revolution:

We keep learning how well educated these people are, how many of them come from the upper class, how wealthy they are. And there is no reason to be surprised. These people are in possession of a powerful philosophy, which is Sayyid Qutb’s. They are in possession of a gigantic work of literature, which is his In the shade of the Qur’an.

These people believe that, in the entire world, they alone are preserving Islam from extinction. They feel they are benefiting the world, even if they are committing random massacres. They are certainly not worried about death. Qutb gave these people a reason to yearn for death. Wisdom, piety, death and immortality are, in his vision, the same.

It would be nice to think that, in the war against terror, our side, too, speaks of deep philosophical ideas. It would be nice to think that someone is arguing with the terrorists and with the readers of Sayyid Qutb.

But here I have my worries. The followers of Qutb speak, in their wild fashion, of enormous human problems, and they urge one another to death and to murder. But the enemies of these people speak of United Nations resolutions, of unilateralism, of multilateralism, of weapons inspectors, of co-ercion and non-coercion.

This is no answer to the terrorists. The terrorists speak insanely of deep things. The anti-terrorists had better speak sanely of deep things.

Presidents will not do this. Presidents will dispatch armies, for better or worse.

But who will speak of the sacred and the secular, of the physical world and the spiritual world? Who will defend liberal ideas against the enemy of liberal ideas? Who will defend liberal principles in spite of liberal society’s failures?

President George W Bush, in his speech to Congress a few days after the September 11 attacks, announced that he was going to wage a war of ideas. He has done no such thing. He is not the man for that.

Philosophers and religious leaders will have to do that on their own. Are they doing so? Armies are in motion, but are the philosophers and religious leaders, the liberal thinkers, likewise in motion?

There is something to worry about here, an aspect of the war that liberal society seems to have trouble understanding – one more worry, on top of all the others, and possibly the greatest worry of all.

I went to Church.

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No media. Such a relief that the Church decided not to publicise the event. No outer eye – exploitative or otherwise – to milk it, sentimentalise it or reduce it to just another ‘package’. Regulars said there were an awful lot of people there who’d never been to St Brigid’s before. Of many faiths. The power of word of mouth.

The priest, Father Tom McDonough, asked us to hold each other’s hands while we said the Lords Prayer, I held the hand of an old man on my right and a young woman on my left. We sang this hymn:

Let there be peace on earth

and let it begin with me

let there be peace on earth

the peace that was meant to be

with God as our father

children all are we

let us walk with each other

in perfect harmony

Let peace begin with me

let this be the moment now

with every step I take

let this be my solemn vow

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Parish priest Father McDonough delivered this homily:

There have been so many reminders these last weeks as October 12th drew nearer; so many articles, documentaries, examining how the survivors of that terrible bombing have survived, asking families how they have managed to get on with their lives without the presence of the loved ones who had made life worth living.

And as sentences were handed down these last weeks on those who did the bombing and those who did the planning there comes the realisation that retribution and revenge can never bring satisfaction.

As you families dealt so much more immediately with the intensity of your pain and grief and loss, like everyone else in Australia we in the parish and in the local community also have had to come to terms with what had happened.

Those of us there will not forget the crowds at St. Clement’s for Robyn or the cloud of butterflies released outside the Church; nor the crowds here at St. Brigid’s for Debby and Abbey. I will never forget Debbie and Abbey’s funeral mass here and the procession down Livingston Road passing by the whole of Casimir College standing silently and weeping in a Guard of Honour. Mr. McCormack told me that afterwards the whole school walked back to the college in complete silence, gathered in their homes rooms in complete silence, trying to absorb what had happened.

Two weeks ago at our Year 12 graduation, our school captains reflected that Year 12’s primary responsibility this year was trying to help the school community deal with tragedy years before such young people should ever have to face it. They felt they had to be a model for the school community, grappling between anger and the desire for revenge and the gospel values that they had been taught.

Only those who were there, only those of you who had lost someone, can stand in each other’s shoes and really know what it is like, Most of us don’t know how you have survived.

The rest of us, all we have been able to do is to be near, we have tried to stand close, to be there if you needed us. Being there for each other is all we could do.

One thing Bali taught us is that we can only survive by supporting each other and looking after each other. We have learned that family and friends are all we’ve got.

Community after community, colleges and schools municipalities and country towns, football clubs and surf clubs, factories and firms have been brought together, helping each other grieve, helping each other accept what can’t be changed, helping each other not to be destroyed by the pain helping each other to live.

We’ve been reminded how careful we have to be never to take things for granted, about what the important things in life really are, and I guess we have also learned how unimportant much really is. We’ve also learned that we have to go on doing the ordinary things, the normal things, the daily things, and not to let hate or bitterness or despair or distrust or suspicion bring us down.

If they did, then the terrorists would really have won – they would have destroyed not only the people we’ve loved but also the love and the laughter. They’d have stopped us from living.

So many people who died in Bali were so young, but I know at our school one thing we learned – how even such a short life as Abbey’s was in fact really full and that she had touched so many people in such a short time.

I said at Abbey and Debbie’s funeral that they had so much living to do and that it was up to us to do that living for them. And it is true of them and of all who died at Kuta, Bali: We can shed tears that they are gone or we can smile because they have lived.

We can close our eyes and pray that they’ll come back or we can open our eyes and see all they’ve left.

Our hearts can be empty because we can’t see them or we can be full of the love we’ve shared.

We can turn our back on tomorrow and live yesterday or we can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

We can remember them and only that they’ve gone or we can cherish their memory and let it live on.

We can cry and close our mind, be empty and turn our back or we can do what Debbie, Abbey, Robyn and Louisa would want: smile, open our eyes, keep loving and go on.

 

Wretched liberty, by Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

To end the week, rays of hope for warriors against the neo-cons. Webdiarist Philip Gomes reports on the recent election results in Ontario, then a Washington Post report on the psychology of the campaign style of anti-war Democrats US presidential candidate Howard Dean.

 

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Philip Gomes in Redfern

The recent election results in Ontario, Canada might serve as an interesting template for the Labour Party. The voters overwhelmingly rejected eight years of reactionary conservatism based on the American model; Canada more than any other country feels the weight of American interests and ideology.

The interesting thing about the election was the collective reasoning of the Ontario voter in rejecting the Tories. They wanted a return to public funding of the Health and Education systems. The decline in Government and social services was created a ‘tipping point’, according to my brother Nicholas, who lives in Toronto.

I believe that Canada can serve as a bellweather of sorts for Australia. Because of our shared historical context, there is much we can learn from each other. The following articles will give interested Webdiarists a broader understanding of the thinking in Canada. Just substitute Liberals with Labor, NDP with Greens/Democrats and Tories with Liberals. I also believe this stands in bright contrast to the celebrity election in California. My brother wrote:

You must have heard that the Tories (our Liberals) were completely swept out of power. Unfortunately the NDP (Democrats/Greens) lost official party status as well, which is a shame because Howard Hampton was the best performing of the three candidates. Everyone was scared of a split left vote and just wanted to see the Tories out of office before they did any more damage, so like me they voted Liberal (our Labor).

Now I wish I did vote according to my conscience because I would have preferred to see a minority Liberal government with NDP opposition. But who knew? The main point of this election was to get the Tories out and mission accomplished – overwhelmingly.

You heard people talking a lot about the Tory Republican style. Up here people do see how twisted the US now is. We see them as backward and ignorant and as a result there is a resurgence in Canadian values – the Canadian system.

Even The Economist seems to think Canada is getting very cool with our “liberal” tendencies. The magazine did however criticise our tax structure and low military spending. On the former, Canadians don’t want to see an increase in personal taxes but neither do we want a decrease at the expense of social services – the Liberals won on that platform alone.

The Liberals also brought up the fact that the Tory’s failed to collect $400 million in corporate taxes, and average Canadians are questioning why it is that the middle class carries the tax burden while corporations fly free. People are figuring out via US politics that neo-con tax cuts really benefit the corporations and the rich.

As for Canada’s low military spending, one reporter summed it up with this; “We don’t need to spend on the military because we don’t piss off anyone.”

See the Toronto Star: Liberal majority a victory for hope and Voters weary of Common Sense Revolution

***

Dean pitches voter power

Democratic presidential hopeful inspires, injects psychology into politics

By Laura Blumenfeld/Washington Post

PORTSMOUTH, N.H: The candidate walked into a party with shaving nicks on his neck, uneven fingernails and wrinkles from a hanger creasing his suit at the knees. He has been known to stuff pretzels into his pockets.

“He’s short,” said Teresa Pierce, 40.

“Reminds me of someone my mother might date,” muttered Denise Mallett, 33.

Yet half an hour later, as Howard Dean finished his stump speech, Pierce stood up, joining the crowd in a hooting ovation.

The Democratic presidential hopeful had moved her, she said, made her feel like recruiting friends to vote for him. As she reached for Dean’s hand, her eyes lit up. “He inspired me,” she said.

How? What did Dean do to enchant Pierce and stir up thousands of avid supporters?

Despite the buzz surrounding retired Gen. Wesley Clark’s late entry into the campaign, and mounting attacks from some of his other eight rivals, Dean has raised the most money and leads the polls in New Hampshire and Iowa.

Conventional wisdom credits Dean’s Bush-bashing and his stoking of Democratic anger. But to follow Dean on the stump is to see something more subtle at work.

Political therapy

While the other candidates focus on their humble roots or heroic feats, Dean inverts the telescope: He talks about the voters.

He tells them they’re OK. Instead of trying to get them to love him, he tells them to love themselves. A doctor by training, he injects psychology into politics.

“I liked it when he said the election wasn’t about him, it was about us,” Pierce said. “He’s empowering me.”

This is the intended effect, the candidate said in an interview. “People feel horribly disempowered by George Bush,” he said.

“I’m about trying to give them control back. This is not just a campaign,’ it’s a movement to empower ordinary people. I don’t say, Elect me.’ ”

Instead, Dean says the election is in their hands. Delivering a series of exhortations, he’ll turn a garden party into political group therapy:

“Stop being ashamed.”

“Stand up and say what you think.”

“You ought to be proud.”

“The power to change this country is in your hands.”

“You have the power.”

“You have the power.”

Managed anger

Yes, there is anger. But it is tightly managed. “It’s raw energy, an energy I know could be channeled,” Dean said. “It’s similar in a patient relationship, helping them channel their energy into something better for them. ”

Which, notably, has fed a river of campaign contributions. As of last week, Dean had raised $14.3 million, surpassing the $10.3 million President Bill Clinton raised in the third quarter of 1995.

On his Web site, DeanForAmerica.com, he said: “Time will tell whether the special interests and the Bush administration have underestimated me. But I know in my heart that they have underestimated you.”

Don’t get mad, he urges; get even. It has been a recurrent theme in insurgent campaigns, but Dean’s has capitalized on the Internet, where those who feel alienated can instantly connect: “The power is in your hands – contribute!”

Frustrations grow

Perhaps one reason Dean connects so well with supporters is that on a gut level, he feels the way they do – frustrated.

The former Vermont governor said he decided to run for president while fuming over a newspaper article about Bush: “I said, am I going to do something about it, or shut up? Given the choice, I’d rather talk.”

Like Dean, Andrew Fairbanks, 45, seethed when he read about Bush.

“Oh, God, he was yelling at the TV news, yelling at me,” said his wife, Kim Fairbanks, 36. “I said, Andrew, you need to go find other people who feel like you do, you need to channel the energy positively.’ ”

One day he heard a radio interview with Dean.

“The anger evaporated,” Andrew said.

“Dean makes you feel like you matter,” Kim said.

As the couple talked, Dean stood at a nearby podium, talking to several hundred people gathered under the stars outside a house in Milford.

Contrary to popular depictions, he didn’t flail his arms or rant. His expression wasn’t angry; it merely threatened anger. He described Bush’s handling of the economy and Iraq as losing policies.

“Now I’m going to tell you how to win,” Dean said, with clinical precision. “The way to beat Bush is we stand up and be proud of who we are.”

Unconventional approach

If the emotional leitmotif of Clinton’s campaigns was empathy – “I feel your pain” – Dean’s is empowerment – “We’ll fix your pain.”

“The power to take this country back is in your hands,” Dean said to the crowd. “Not mine.”

Dean’s appeal is not based on traditional political charisma. His presence isn’t commanding. He isn’t a backslapper, or a world-class speaker. His smile looks more like a baring of teeth. Asked how he relaxes, he said he mows the lawn and does his taxes.

Yet at a recent New York rally, women cried, “I want to have your baby!” His supporters are so passionate they have organized themselves in areas where no campaign infrastructure exists, calling themselves Dean Heads, Deanie Boppers and Deanie Babies.

“Most politicians treat voters like consumers,” said Karen Hicks, Dean’s New Hampshire state director. “Dean treats people like participants.”

He does that, in part, by debating those who come to see him. While some politicians pander, Dean seems to go out of his way to disagree with audience members.

At a fund-raiser for the abortion rights group NARAL in Manchester, he declared, “I have a number of supporters in my campaign who are pro-life, and we have to respect them.”

At a labor union picnic, his style won praise from people who knew little about his policies.

“I don’t even know his background, but I get sincerity from him,” said Rusty Goodwin, 68.

Doris Bauters, 69, said, “Dean’s a regular working guy, just like us.”

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Webdiary’s Harry Heidelberg wrote about the Dean vibe on August 4 in Will Howard beat Bush?