Politics

Two excellent articles have popped up over the past couple days examining Bush’s mind-numbingly painful inability to actually work with the global community to accomplish his goals, putting America in a position of being the agressor ‘rouge state’ that the rest of the world fears.

First, from Newsweek, The Arrogant Empire. This was first given to me at work by one of my co-workers, I also saw it posted by Tom Negrino. It’s a long and very in-depth article, and shows well how pitiful Bush is in comparison to his predecessors:

In diplomacy, style is often substance. Consider this fact: the Clinton administration used force on three important occasions — Bosnia, Haiti and Kosovo. In none of them did it take the matter to the United Nations Security Council, and there was little discussion that it needed to do so. Indeed, Kofi Annan later made statements that seemed to justify the action in Kosovo, explaining that state sovereignty should not be used as a cover for humanitarian abuses. Today Annan has (wrongly) announced that American action in Iraq outside the United Nations will be “illegal.” While the Clinton administration — or the first Bush administration — was assertive in many ways, people did not seek assurances about its intentions. The Bush administration does not bear all the blame for this dramatic change in attitudes. Because of 9-11, it has had to act forcefully on the world stage and assert American power. But that should have been all the more reason to adopt a posture of consultation and cooperation while doing what needed to be done. The point is to scare our enemies, not terrify the rest of the world.

Secondly, from Slate, Turkey Shoot: How Bush made enemies of our allies, also posted by Tom Negrino. While the Newseek article compared Bush to the administrations of the past fifty years, the Slate article focuses more on comparing Bush’s administration to Clinton’s. Bush doesn’t come out looking any better.

Rather than make the most of the extraordinary support the world offered the United States after 9/11, the Bush administration seems almost willfully to have squandered it. In the months after Sept. 11, the administration withdrew from one international agreement after another, from the ABM treaty to the International Criminal Court. It refused NATO’s offer of help in Afghanistan, eventually accepting some troops from NATO-member countries but no shared NATO decision-making. Though German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder braved a no-confidence vote to win parliamentary approval to put German combat troops in Afghanistan, he received little thanks from Bush. Nor was he seriously consulted as Bush formulated his Iraq policy, despite (or perhaps because of) growing signs of German discomfort with that policy. Cut out of the loop, Schröder then began to exploit the anti-Iraq war backlash among German voters and become a fierce opponent of Bush on Iraq.

Gov. Howard Dean has been crossing my radar more and more recently. As it turns out, in addition to his official site, his campaign has an official weblog active (the first time a Presidential candidate has had any form of weblog, as far as I know), and there is also a privately run ‘Howard Dean in 2004’ weblog active.

I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on all of these sites, and — in a first for me — I’m seriously considering making my first ever campaign contribution. The boilerplate for the contribution request letter follows (slightly edited)…

(Via Tom Negrino and Rick Klau in the comments to Tom’s post)

I’m ~~writing all my friends on my email list~~ [posting this message on my website]{.underline} because there is something that is very important to me personally and should be important to the country. [From what I’ve seen so far,]{.underline} Howard Dean is the only candidate running for President who says what he thinks, and acts on what he says. I think he’s dead on, and he’s the only candidate making sense about foreign policy, [and probably]{.underline} health care and fiscal responsibility[, I just need to read more about those before I’m sure]{.underline}. I also think he can win [(though, admittedly, at the rate Bush is going, soon enough people will realize how much of a goob he is that the pretzel he almost choked to death on would be able to win — but I’ll still take Dean over Bush, the pretzel, or anyone else I’ve heard from so far)]{.underline}. If you don’t know about him, visit his website, read his speeches, and ~~call~~ [e-mail]{.underline} me if you want to talk about it.

I [think that I]{.underline} want ~~you~~ to get involved and contribute to his campaign. He doesn’t have the deep pockets of most of the other candidates, but I believe he will make the best president — and I ~~don’t want money to~~ [wish that money didn’t]{.underline} decide who leads this country.

Even if this is the first time you have heard of him, or if you are unsure about your support, your donation at this time will allow his voice to be heard. Please help me and others take the big money out of politics. Please contribute whatever you can — \$10.01 [(like me, since I don’t have much to spare right now)]{.underline} to \$1000.01 (a penny for the internet) — and pass it on to your friends who might be interested. Every dollar you give up to \$250 will be matched (this is only true if you tell the campaign your employer and occupation). Feel free to modify this letter [(not that anyone would do something like that, of course)]{.underline}. Do it now [dammit]{.underline}! March 31^st^ is the big FEC deadline, and we are running out of time to show the power of early netroots support.

Contribute at Dean’s website.

I [think that I]{.underline} feel so strongly about this that I’ve [kind of]{.underline} decided to take the time to ask for money for the campaign, and I hope you will also take the time to make a contribution. I’m [becoming]{.underline} convinced that if we do this, Howard will never let us down.

Thanks for considering this.

PS: If you want to get more involved, visit Howard Dean’s Call To Action blog.

(Disclaimer: The above edits are in no way meant to make fun of or belittle Howard Dean or his campaign — as I said above, I’m very strongly considering making a donation myself, and I do believe that it’s worth considering. However, as I’m still mulling it over, and can’t ever seem to quite completely kill my [possibly overly-]cynical sense of humor, I had to make my mark. So sue me.)

Most major Democratic presidential candidates also said they would abandon their criticism of Mr. Bush’s diplomatic efforts and support him now that it appeared the nation was about to go to war. One Democrat, former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, broke from the pack.

“This is not Iraq, where doubters and dissenters are punished or silenced — this is the United States of America,” Dr. Dean said in a statement issued shortly after Mr. Bush spoke. “We need to support our young people as they are sent to war by the president, and I have no doubt that American military power will prevail. But to ensure that our postwar policies are constructive and humane, based on enduring principles of peace and justice, concerned Americans should continue to speak out.”

Good for you, Dean. Speak out we will.

48 hours for Saddam to step down, or the US goes in with guns blazing.

Wasted Irony has a good concise rundown of why a war in Iraq is a bad idea.

(Via Tom Tomorrow)

Evergreen College student Rachel Corrie, a peace activist/”human sheild” in the Gaza Strip, was killed yesterday when she was run over by a bulldozer.

Joseph Smith, 21, of Kansas City, Mo., said he, Corrie and five other British and American protesters who are part of the pro-Palestinian “International Solidarity Movement” had spent the afternoon “trying to disrupt the work of the Israeli bulldozers” at the Rafah Refugee Camp.

Wearing a fluorescent orange vest for visibility, Corrie then “sat down in front of them like we had done all day,” Smith said. “But this time the bulldozer didn’t stop.” Protesters heard her scream, then “we were hollering and waving our arms.” The bulldozer then backed over her again and retreated, he said.

On the one hand, this is a tragic incident, and my condolences go out to Rachel’s friends and family.

On the other hand — and I’m certainly not trying to belittle Rachel, her ideals or work, or her death — I have to admit that I’ve always found the idea of “human shields” to be naïvely optimistic, at best, and quite possibly downright suicidal at worst. You’re placing yourself in an extremely volatile and dangerous situation, between two factions that have repeatedly shown very little regard for human life, be it military or civilian. As horrible as any resulting deaths may be, I can’t see them as unexpected or surprising in the least. If you’re going to stand in between two warring sides, you’re knowingly taking the chance that one or the other (or both) is going to end up killing you.

I’m very sorry this happened, but some of the indignation I’m hearing from other people strikes me as a rather ludicrous response to an event like this. Being sad, upset, or even angry makes sense — being indignant doesn’t. At least, not to me.