Bush or Kerry? Look closely & the danger is the same

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Look closely & the danger is the same</div> <bR> <bR> <div> by John Pilger;</div> <div> New Statesman; March 04, 2004</div> <bR> <div> A myth equal to the fable of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is </div> <div> gaining strength on both sides of the Atlantic. It is that John Kerry </div> <div> offers a world-view different from that of George W Bush. Watch this </div> <div> big lie grow as Kerry is crowned the Democratic candidate and the </div> <div> "anyone but Bush" movement becomes a liberal cause celebre.</div> <bR> <div> While the rise to power of the Bush gang, the neoconservatives, </div> <div> belatedly preoccupied the American media, the message of their </div> <div> equivalents in the Democratic Party has been of little interest. Yet </div> <div> the similarities are compelling. Shortly before Bush's "election" in </div> <div> 2000, the Project for the New American Century, the neoconservative </div> <div> pressure group, published an ideological blueprint for "maintaining </div> <div> global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, </div> <div> and shaping the international security order in line with American </div> <div> principles and interests".</div> <bR> <div> Every one of its recommendations for aggression and conquest was </div> <div> adopted by the administration.</div> <bR> <div> One year later, the Progressive Policy Institute, an arm of the </div> <div> Democratic Leadership Council, published a 19-page manifesto for the </div> <div> "New Democrats", who include all the principal Democratic Party </div> <div> candidates, and especially John Kerry. This called for "the bold </div> <div> exercise of American power" at the heart of "a new Democratic </div> <div> strategy, grounded in the party's tradition of muscular </div> <div> internationalism".</div> <bR> <div> Such a strategy would "keep Americans safer than the Republicans' </div> <div> go-it-alone policy, which has alienated our natural allies and </div> <div> overstretched our resources. We aim to rebuild the moral foundation </div> <div> of U.S. global leadership ..."</div> <bR> <div> What is the difference from the vainglorious claptrap of Bush? Apart </div> <div> from euphemisms, there is none. All the Democratic presidential </div> <div> candidates supported the invasion of Iraq, bar one: Howard Dean. </div> <div> Kerry not only voted for the invasion, but expressed his </div> <div> disappointment that it had not gone according to plan. He told </div> <div> Rolling Stone magazine:</div> <bR> <div> "Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did? I don't </div> <div> think anybody did." Neither Kerry nor any of the other candidates has </div> <div> called for an end to the bloody and illegal occupation; on the </div> <div> contrary, all of them have demanded more troops for Iraq. Kerry has </div> <div> called for another "40,000 active service troops". He has supported </div> <div> Bush's continuing bloody assault on Afghanistan, and the </div> <div> administration's plans to "return Latin America to American </div> <div> leadership" by subverting democracy in Venezuela.</div> <bR> <div> Above all, he has not in any way challenged the notion of American </div> <div> military supremacy throughout the world that has pushed the number of </div> <div> U.S. bases to more than 750. Nor has he alluded to the Pentagon's </div> <div> coup d'etat in Washington and its stated goal of "full spectrum </div> <div> dominance". As for Bush's "pre-emptive" policy of attacking other </div> <div> countries, that's fine, too. Even the most liberal of the Democratic </div> <div> bunch, Howard Dean, said he was prepared to use "our brave and </div> <div> remarkable armed forces" against any "imminent threat".</div> <bR> <div> That's how Bush himself put it.</div> <bR> <div> What the New Democrats object to is the Bush gang's outspokenness -- </div> <div> its crude honesty, if you like -- in stating its plans openly, and </div> <div> not from behind the usual veil or in the usual specious code of </div> <div> imperial liberalism and its "moral authority". New Democrats of </div> <div> Kerry's sort are all for the American empire; understandably, they </div> <div> would prefer that those words remained unsaid. "Progressive </div> <div> internationalism" is far more acceptable.</div> <bR> <div> Just as the plans of the Bush gang were written by the </div> <div> neoconservatives, so John Kerry in his campaign book, A Call to </div> <div> Service, lifts almost word for word the New Democrats' warmongering </div> <div> manifesto. "The time has come," he writes, "to revive a bold vision </div> <div> of progressive internationalism" along with a "tradition" that </div> <div> honours "the tough-minded strategy of international engagement and </div> <div> leadership forged by Wilson and Roosevelt... and championed by Truman </div> <div> and Kennedy in the cold war". Almost identical thoughts appear on </div> <div> page three of the New Democrats' manifesto:</div> <bR> <div> As Democrats, we are proud of our party's tradition of tough-minded </div> <div> internationalism and strong record in defending America. Presidents </div> <div> Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D Roosevelt and Harry Truman led the United </div> <div> States to victory in two world wars... [Truman's policies] eventually </div> <div> triumphed in the cold war. President Kennedy epitomised America's </div> <div> commitment to "the survival and success of liberty".</div> <bR> <div> Mark the historical lies in that statement: the "victory" of the U.S. </div> <div> with its brief intervention in the First World War; the airbrushing </div> <div> of the decisive role of the Soviet Union in the Second World War; the </div> <div> American elite's non-existent "triumph" over internally triggered </div> <div> events that brought down the Soviet Union; and John F Kennedy's </div> <div> famous devotion to "liberty" that oversaw the deaths of some three </div> <div> million people in Indo-China.</div> <bR> <div> "Perhaps the most repulsive section of [his] book," writes Mark Hand, </div> <div> editor of Press Action, the American media monitoring group, "is </div> <div> where Kerry discusses the Vietnam war and the anti-war movement." </div> <div> Self-promoted as a war hero, Kerry briefly joined the protest </div> <div> movement on his return from Vietnam. In this twin capacity, he </div> <div> writes: "I say to both conservative and liberal misinterpretations of </div> <div> that war that it's time to get over it and recognise it as an </div> <div> exception, not as a ruling example of the US military engagements of </div> <div> the 20th century."</div> <bR> <div> "In this one passage," writes Hand, "Kerry seeks to justify the </div> <div> millions of people slaughtered by the US military and its surrogates </div> <div> during the 20th century [and] suggests that concern about US war </div> <div> crimes in Vietnam is no longer necessary... Kerry and his colleagues </div> <div> in the 'progressive internationalist' movement are as gung-ho as </div> <div> their counterparts in the White House... Come November, who will get </div> <div> your vote? Coke or Pepsi?"</div> <bR> <div> The "anyone but Bush" movement objects to the Coke-Pepsi analogy, and </div> <div> Ralph Nader is the current source of their ire. In Britain, seven </div> <div> years ago, similar derision was heaped upon those who pointed out the </div> <div> similarities between Tony Blair and his heroine Margaret Thatcher -- </div> <div> similarities which have since been proven. "It's a nice and </div> <div> convenient myth that liberals are the peacemakers and conservatives </div> <div> the warmongers," wrote the Guardian commentator Hywel Williams. "But </div> <div> the imperialism of the liberal may be more dangerous because of its </div> <div> open-ended nature -- its conviction that it represents a superior </div> <div> form of life."</div> <bR> <div> Like the Blairites, John Kerry and his fellow New Democrats come from </div> <div> a tradition of liberalism that has built and defended empires as </div> <div> "moral" enterprises. That the Democratic Party has left a longer </div> <div> trail of blood, theft and subjugation than the Republicans is heresy </div> <div> to the liberal crusaders, whose murderous history always requires, it </div> <div> seems, a noble mantle.</div> <bR> <div> As the New Democrats' manifesto rightly points out, the Democrats' </div> <div> "tough-minded internationalism" began with Woodrow Wilson, a </div> <div> Christian megalomaniac who believed that America had been chosen by </div> <div> God "to show the way to the nations of this world, how they shall </div> <div> walk in the paths of liberty". In his wonderful new book, The Sorrows </div> <div> of Empire (Verso), Chalmers Johnson writes:</div> <bR> <div> With Woodrow Wilson, the intellectual foundations of American </div> <div> imperialism were set in place. Theodore Roosevelt... had represented </div> <div> a European-driven, militaristic vision of imperialism backed by </div> <div> nothing more substantial than the notion that the manifest destiny of </div> <div> the United States was to govern racially inferior Latin Americans and </div> <div> east Asians. Wilson laid over that his own hyper-idealistic, </div> <div> sentimental and ahistorical idea [of American world dominance]. It </div> <div> was a political project no less ambitious and no less passionately </div> <div> held than the vision of world communism launched at almost the same </div> <div> time by the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution.</div> <bR> <div> It was the Wilsonian Democratic administration of Harry Truman, </div> <div> following the Second World War, that created the militaristic </div> <div> "national security state" and the architecture of the cold war: the </div> <div> CIA, the Pentagon and the National Security Council. As the only head </div> <div> of state to use atomic weapons, Truman authorised troops to intervene </div> <div> anywhere "to defend free enterprise". In 1945, his administration set </div> <div> up the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as agents of US </div> <div> economic imperialism. Later, using the "moral" language of Woodrow </div> <div> Wilson, John F Kennedy invaded Vietnam and unleashed the US special </div> <div> forces as death squads; they now operate on every continent.</div> <bR> <div> Bush has been a beneficiary of this. His neoconservatives derive not </div> <div> from traditional Republican Party roots, but from the hawk's wings of </div> <div> the Democratic Party - such as the trade union establishment, the </div> <div> AFL-CIO (known as the "AFL-CIA"), which received millions of dollars </div> <div> to subvert unions and political parties throughout the world, and the </div> <div> weapons industry, built and nurtured by the Democratic senator Henry </div> <div> "Scoop" Jackson. Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's leading fanatic, began his </div> <div> Washington political life working for Jackson. In 1972 an aberration, </div> <div> George McGovern, faced Richard Nixon as the Democrats' anti-war </div> <div> candidate. Virtually abandoned by the party and its powerful backers, </div> <div> McGovern was crushed.</div> <bR> <div> Bill Clinton, hero of the Blairites, learned the lesson of this. The </div> <div> myths spun around Clinton's "golden era of liberalism" are, in </div> <div> retrospect, laughable. Savour this obsequious front-page piece by the </div> <div> Guardian's chief political correspondent, reporting Clinton's speech </div> <div> to the Labour Party conference in 2002:</div> <bR> <div> Bill Clinton yesterday used a mesmerising oration... in a subtle and </div> <div> delicately balanced address [that] captured the imagination of </div> <div> delegates in Blackpool's Winter Gardens... Observers also described </div> <div> the speech as one of the most impressive and moving in the history of </div> <div> party conferences. The trade and industry secretary, Patricia Hewitt, </div> <div> described it as "absolutely brilliant".</div> <bR> <div> An accompanying editorial gushed: "In an intimate, almost </div> <div> conversational tone, speaking only from notes, Bill Clinton delivered </div> <div> the speech of a true political master... If one were reviewing it, </div> <div> five stars would not be enough... What a speech. What a pro. And what </div> <div> a loss to the leadership of America and the world."</div> <bR> <div> No idolatry was enough. At the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, the </div> <div> leader of "the third way" and of "progressive internationalism" </div> <div> received a long line of media and Blair people who hailed him as a </div> <div> lost leader, "a champion of the centre left".</div> <bR> <div> The truth is that Clinton was little different from Bush, a </div> <div> crypto-fascist. During the Clinton years, the principal welfare </div> <div> safety nets were taken away and poverty in America increased sharply; </div> <div> a multibillion-dollar missile "defence" system known as Star Wars II </div> <div> was instigated; the biggest war and arms budget in history was </div> <div> approved; biological weapons verification was rejected, along with a </div> <div> comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, the establishment of an </div> <div> international criminal court and a worldwide ban on landmines. </div> <div> Contrary to a myth that places the blame on Bush, the Clinton </div> <div> administration in effect destroyed the movement to combat global </div> <div> warming.</div> <bR> <div> In addition, Haiti and Afghanistan were invaded, the illegal blockade </div> <div> of Cuba was reinforced and Iraq was subjected to a medieval siege </div> <div> that claimed up to a million lives while the country was being </div> <div> attacked, on average, every third day: the longest Anglo-American </div> <div> bombing campaign in history. In the 1999 Clinton-led attack on </div> <div> Serbia, a "moral crusade", public transport, non-military factories, </div> <div> food processing plants, hospitals, schools, museums, churches, </div> <div> heritage-listed monasteries and farms were bombed. "They ran out of </div> <div> military targets in the first couple of weeks," said James Bissett, </div> <div> the Canadian former ambassador to Yugoslavia. "It was common </div> <div> knowledge that Nato went to stage three: civilian targets." In their </div> <div> cruise missile attack on Sudan, Clinton's generals targeted and </div> <div> destroyed a factory producing most of sub-Saharan Africa's </div> <div> pharmaceutical supplies. The German ambassador to Sudan reported: "It </div> <div> is difficult to assess how many people in this poor country died as a </div> <div> consequence... but several tens of thousands seems a reasonable </div> <div> guess."</div> <bR> <div> Covered in euphemisms, such as "democracy-building" and </div> <div> "peacekeeping", "humanitarian intervention" and "liberal </div> <div> intervention", the Clintonites can boast a far more successful </div> <div> imperial record than Bush's neo-cons, largely because Washington </div> <div> granted the Europeans a ceremonial role, and because Nato was </div> <div> "onside". In a league table of death and destruction, Clinton beats </div> <div> Bush hands down.</div> <bR> <div> A question that New Democrats like to ask is: "What would Al Gore </div> <div> have done if he had not been cheated of the presidency by Bush?" </div> <div> Gore's top adviser was the arch-hawk Leon Fuerth, who said the US </div> <div> should "destroy the Iraqi regime, root and branch". Joseph Lieberman, </div> <div> Gore's running mate in 2000, helped to get Bush's war resolution on </div> <div> Iraq through Congress. In 2002, Gore himself declared that an </div> <div> invasion of Iraq "was not essential in the short term" but </div> <div> "nevertheless, all Americans should acknowledge that Iraq does, </div> <div> indeed, pose a serious threat". Like Blair, what Gore wanted was an </div> <div> "international coalition" to cover long-laid plans for the takeover </div> <div> of the Middle East. His complaint against Bush was that, by going it </div> <div> alone, Washington could "weaken our ability to lead the world in this </div> <div> new century". Collusion between the Bush and Gore camps was common.</div> <bR> <div> During the 2000 election, Richard Holbrooke, who probably would have </div> <div> become Gore's secretary of state, conspired with Paul Wolfowitz to </div> <div> ensure their respective candidates said nothing about US policy </div> <div> towards Indonesia's blood-soaked role in south-east Asia. "Paul and I </div> <div> have been in frequent touch," said Holbrooke, "to make sure we keep </div> <div> [East Timor] out of the presidential campaign, where it would do no </div> <div> good to American or Indonesian interests." The same can be said of </div> <div> Israel's ruthless, illegal expansion, of which not a word was and is </div> <div> said: it is a crime with the full support of both Republicans and </div> <div> Democrats.</div> <bR> <div> John Kerry supported the removal of millions of poor Americans from </div> <div> welfare rolls and backed extending the death penalty. The "hero" of a </div> <div> war that is documented as an atrocity launched his presidential </div> <div> campaign in front of a moored aircraft carrier. He has attacked Bush </div> <div> for not providing sufficient funding to the National Endowment for </div> <div> Democracy, which, wrote the historian William Blum, "was set up by </div> <div> the CIA, literally, and for 20 years has been destabilising </div> <div> governments, progressive movements, labour unions and anyone else on </div> <div> Washington's hit list". Like Bush - and all those who prepared the </div> <div> way for Bush, from Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton - Kerry promotes </div> <div> the mystical "values of American power" and what the writer Ariel </div> <div> Dorfman has called "the plague of victimhood... Nothing more </div> <div> dangerous: a giant who is afraid."</div> <bR> <div> People who are aware of such danger, yet support its proponents in a </div> <div> form they find agreeable, think they can have it both ways. They </div> <div> can't. Michael Moore, the film-maker, should know this better than </div> <div> anyone; yet he backed the Nato bomber Wesley Clark as Democratic </div> <div> candidate. The effect of this is to reinforce the danger to all of </div> <div> us, because it says it is OK to bomb and kill, then to speak of </div> <div> peace. Like the Bush regime, the New Democrats fear truly opposing </div> <div> voices and popular movements: that is, genuine democracy, at home and </div> <div> abroad. The colonial theft of Iraq is a case in point. "If you move </div> <div> too fast," says Noah Feldman, a former legal adviser to the US regime </div> <div> in Baghdad, "the wrong people could get elected." Tony Blair has said </div> <div> as much in his inimitable way: "We can't end up having an inquiry </div> <div> into whether the war [in Iraq] was right or wrong. That is something </div> <div> that we have got to decide. We are the politicians."</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>