The Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party
Much has rightly been made of the Downing Street Memo, and the implications of how Bush "fixed" the intelligence to justify his war with Iraq. But we should not let the Democratic Party off the hook, because the Democratic Party establishment was largely complicit in this war.
Counterpunch has published a couple of interesting articles that, once again, illustrate the moral bankruptcy of the Democratic Party.
One is an excerpt from Joshua Frank's book, Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush. The article is an excellent and pointed exposé of how the Democratic Party brought about its own demise by collaborating with Bush on the Iraq war and by shoving the antiwar movement aside during the presidential campaign.
Frank begins the article with a quote from John Kerry on October 9, 2002, in which Kerry explained that he was voting to authorize war with Iraq. As Frank pointed out,
Frank points out that "with political interests and propaganda in mind, most establishment Democrats" left "the millions of protesters who took to the streets across America prior to the invasion with few representatives in Washington, historically or otherwise." He further points out that by the time the war stated, "the Democrats, who had failed to articulate any basis for citizens to vote for them as opposed to their Republican rivals regarding the Iraq situation, had lost control of the Senate as well as many seats in the House. They didn't challenge Bush on any major issue." By that, he refers specifically any major foreign policy issue, including the war in Iraq.
Frank concludes his article with the following passage:
Counterpunch has published a couple of interesting articles that, once again, illustrate the moral bankruptcy of the Democratic Party.
One is an excerpt from Joshua Frank's book, Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush. The article is an excellent and pointed exposé of how the Democratic Party brought about its own demise by collaborating with Bush on the Iraq war and by shoving the antiwar movement aside during the presidential campaign.
Frank begins the article with a quote from John Kerry on October 9, 2002, in which Kerry explained that he was voting to authorize war with Iraq. As Frank pointed out,
Despite what the spin doctors say, Democrats are largely to blame - not only for discounting the peace movement but also for laying the groundwork Republican hawks needed to justify attacking Saddam's regime and waging Bush's greater "War on Terror."To illustrate this point, he further points out that Dick Gephardt helped draft the war resolution, Tom Daschle actively supported it, and Hillary Clinton "hitched a ride on the war-wagon". Democrats, every last one of them. Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, had been beating the war drums against Saddam Hussein for some time before Bush took office. (I personally find it amusing when Bush apologists use Clinton's anti-Hussein rhetoric as a justification for Bush's having gone to war. Not only is it bizarrely ironic that many of these same Republican yahoos who passionately hated Clinton would use Clinton's views on any subject as a justification for a given position, but it also reflects a certain simplistic conception of bipartisan duality--as if the Democratic and Republican party establishment defined the limits of acceptable public opinion).
Frank points out that "with political interests and propaganda in mind, most establishment Democrats" left "the millions of protesters who took to the streets across America prior to the invasion with few representatives in Washington, historically or otherwise." He further points out that by the time the war stated, "the Democrats, who had failed to articulate any basis for citizens to vote for them as opposed to their Republican rivals regarding the Iraq situation, had lost control of the Senate as well as many seats in the House. They didn't challenge Bush on any major issue." By that, he refers specifically any major foreign policy issue, including the war in Iraq.
Frank concludes his article with the following passage:
Needless to say, claims that this war has made the United States - and we the people - any safer are laughable. Democratic henchmen Al From and Bruce Reed must have been hallucinating when they proclaimed Kerry would protect America from all that is evil. Kerry, of course, has proven to be no different from Bush on foreign policy issues, save for the "D" next to his name on the ballot in 2004.This is, alas, so true. Now that the election is over, and support for the war continues to drop among Americans, the problems with the Democrats become ever more apparent. As John Walsh points out in his Counterpunch article, in which he analyzes a recent Gallup poll on the Iraq war,
An aggressive unilateral policy only breeds terrorism, and Kerry's foreign policy would have only nurtured future terrorist activity, as Bush's is surely doing now.
Unfortunately, the same cretins continue to control the Democratic platform. They dictate what is or is not acceptable discourse within the party. Being antiwar, as we know, is most definitely unacceptable, which explains why those who listened did not hear Kerry breath even the faintest sigh of peace rhetoric along the campaign trail.
Although 82 percent of registered Democrats believed the war to be a grave mistake, according to a 2004 USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll conducted on June 21-23, Kerry was steadfast in his support for the Iraq war. His own campaign platform was a glaring memento of the Democrats' inability to offer significant alternatives to George W. Bush. They simply believed they could manage the situation more astutely. "This administration did not build a true international coalition," Kerry's campaign platform proclaimed. He simply would have done it better.
In the context of a party hell-bent on war, whose foreign policy is essentially identical to the Republican policy, it doesn't matter how many MoveOn members donate money to the Democratic Party. In the end, such reformers are left with nothing. No party. No money. No hope. And - perhaps worst of all - no unity.
The least popular option in this poll, viz, sending more troops (10%) which has been least popular since Gallup first asked this question in August, 2003, is the stance of the Democratic leadership! When John Kerry ran for president, he was for sending 40,000 more troops, as was the "anti-war" Howard Dean, and that remains their stance to this day. So the Democratic leadership has managed to adopt a stance on the war less popular than Bush's quite an achievement.Walsh's question about whether we are surprised that Kerry lost the election is rhetorical. There is no surprise here. Kerry offered no principled leadership in opposition to the war, and without a principled opposition to Bush and the reactionaries in the Republican Party, the voters will simply not be drawn to him or his party. This is a lesson that the Democratic Party is unlikely to learn any time soon.
In fact Gallup also asked: "If President Bush were to send more troops to Iraq, would you be upset or not?" 56% said they would be upset, up from the still substantial 40% last September before the U.S. Presidential election. Are you surprised that Kerry lost the election?
You have to hand it to these Dems; they are men and women (let's not forget Hillary) of principle. Having voted for a criminal and illegal war, they are willing to sacrifice as many Iraqi and American lives as necessary to win that war as long as their children are not part of the carnage.
Some very good constructive criticism. Definately food for thought for the Democrats.
marie
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afb |
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