February 1, 2004

RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION



This is an anniversary of sorts because it has been three years since the Hot Issues were first started. As such it is an appropriate time to look back not only in terms of what has transpired but also to find out where my opinions have been proven wrong.

The most glaring error was, of course, my faith in the incoming Bush administration but it would have required a personal acquaintance with the president to foresee how he would really conduct himself in office. Furthermore, ordinary citizens who are far distant from the levers of power, could not have predicted the 9/11 catastrophe. On the other hand the probable results of the policy decisions after this tragedy could be inferred by reasonable people. Thus, the Hot Issues clearly fall into two sections. The first one deals with events from February - October 2001 and the second part with those that occurred thereafter. They demonstrate clearly how one Bush voter was first full of hope and then became progressively more and more disenchanted with the conduct of our current administration. This is important not because of my vote, which does not matter in the large scheme of things, but the reasons for my disenchantment have wider implications as will become apparent later on.

For now let us start, however with the first essay entitled "The Ashcroft Nomination." In it I defended the appointment of Senator Ashcroft to Attorney General of the United States against attacks by Democrats. They had complained about Ashcroft's statement that "Jesus is our King," because he thereby violated the separation of the Church and State amendment of the Constitution. Ashcroft had done so in a setting of a speech before students at a religious university with an unusually strict moral code and I did not regard it as objectionable in that setting. As matter of fact it brought to mind the same phrase uttered by Cardinal Innitzer from the pulpit of St. Stephens Cathedral in Vienna in October 1938, after he had seen what Hitler and the Nazis really stood for. But this is also the point where the comparison ends. Innitzer had held worldly power prior to March 13, 1938 and lost it thereafter while Ashcroft ascended to it in 2001. Innitzer became a genuine Christian by helping victims of Nazi persecutions, while Ashcroft became a persecutor especially after 9/11. I don't doubt his personal devotion to his faith but his life merely shows that it is difficult, if not impossible, to follow Jesus' teachings while holding political office.

Let us stay with John Ashcroft for a moment. Even if he had not personally crafted the so called "Patriot Act," he condoned it and now continues to defend its practices. The very name of this piece of legislation is inaccurate and simply a propaganda tool because true patriots guard our liberties rather than destroy them in the name of national security. We do not need laws which allow the government to enter our homes without a search warrant, to find out which books or videos we check out from libraries, to arrest and hold us incommunicado without charge for an unspecified time and similar insults simply because somebody thought that we might be "terrorists." Mr. Ashcroft has even seen fit to allow the establishment of a concentration camp, which is obviously not called by that name. Everybody knows that "Camp Delta" exists in Guantanamo, just as we knew in Nazi Germany that Dachau existed. But neither did we know then what really went on in Dachau nor do we know now the conditions of the prisoners in Guantanamo. As a matter of fact Himmler did allow the Red Cross to visit Dachau and Theresienstadt after they had been spruced up for the visit. Mr. Ashcroft has yet to do so. Not only are the Red Cross and Red Crescent barred but so are the media. The main difference between Camp Delta and the Nazis seems to be that the fences are not electrified and the prisoners are not worked to death, just caged. In both instances the prisoners are regarded as undesirables and national security risks by the government. In the Nazi era they were considered opponents to the regime either on religious or political grounds, while here they are labeled "Taliban," "Al Quaeda" or simply "terrorists." The names of the people who are held in Guantanamo or the actual crime they are accused of having committed have never been published and they are simply held under the mentioned generic terms, just as Jews or communists could be sent to KZs (as they were called) not for anything they had actually done but simply on a "pre-emptive" basis.

The German and Austrian people have been, and to some extent still are, accused by some that they tolerated the repressive unjust regime, and especially the concentration camps, without speaking out. The people who do so have never lived under a totalitarian system of government because it would have meant volunteering for KZ or death by guillotine which had been renamed "Fallbeil." What I find so remarkable, however, is that in our country where we still have some freedom of speech there is hardly anyone in the media or even among Democrats in Congress who brands Guantanamo as a disgrace on America's honor. Consider for a moment the massive outcry that would have resulted if the prisoners were Jews instead of Arabs. There is a double standard in regard to human rights and we must face up to it. Once you label somebody his fate is sealed, his individuality and with it all civil rights are gone. To order or even condone these abuses of power is incompatible with the Christian religion and this is the tragedy of Attorney General Ashcroft's tenure.

The second mistaken belief on my part was that I thought politicians in our country are reasonable people who listen to their constituents. This is why I published Whither Zionism? as a short booklet, which provides facts that they can read on the plane to and from their constituencies. This would allow them to cast intelligent votes on matters pertaining to the Arab-Israeli conflict which was bound to get worse unless the United States made its weight felt. To make sure that they had access to the publication I put my money where my keyboard was and sent it to everyone in power. The result was, of course, predictable. The booklet got intercepted by the various staffs and promptly disappeared in the proverbial circular file. But even if you have the good luck to be able to see your Congressman or Senator in person and hand it to him he'll still ignore the contents as documented in the June 2001 issue "Metaphysical Guilt," and the September 2002 issue "October Surprise?."

Nevertheless these efforts were not totally in vain because losing illusions and facing reality is always helpful. There was another aspect where my prognostications have not yet come true. Yassir Arafat has proved more resilient and Sharon less determined than I had assumed in April 2002. The Israelis abstained from killing or deporting him although they were on course in regard to the other aspects mentioned in that article entitled "Palestinian State or Israeli Protectorate." Arafat clearly proved himself a survivor and if Sharon were indeed to lose his job over the bribery scandal, which wends its way currently through the Israeli legal system, he would have outlasted yet another Israeli Prime Minister. One is reminded of Castro in this respect. They stare down their respective superpower for decades and retain the loyalty of a fair proportion of their people in spite of providing mainly misery for them.

The Afghan invasion, which I regarded as unfortunate has not brought about the result the administration had hoped for. The Taliban are regrouping and although the Afghans now have a Constitution on paper, Karzai is still mainly the mayor of Kabul and international relief agencies are weary of going into the provinces, which are ruled by warlords. The Iraq predictions were unfortunately on target and the outcome of that experiment to bring democracy to the Arab people is still highly doubtful.

In all of these events the Bush administration has shown its true colors. In retrospect it has become obvious that our president had no intention to ever bring the Palestinians and Israelis to the peace table and that he espoused a hands-off policy, which has turned into a disaster for all parties concerned including us. Our policies are now hated by most of the Arab world because our "honest broker" stance has been exposed as a sham. In addition it has become obvious that we really have no use for genuine democracy in the Arab world not even in Iraq. A caucus system of election, as espoused by our government and resisted by the Iraqis, is no substitute for one person one vote, cast in secrecy, which is the true hallmark of democracy. We don't want democracies in the Middle East; we want client states that do what they are told, especially in regard to their oil resources. In addition we are very happy to have a dictator like Musharraf in charge of Pakistan rather than democratically elected Mullahs who would then have their fingers on atomic weapons. The administration was also not very pleased with Turkey's democracy when their lawmakers refused to allow our troops to invade Iraq from the north. While the White House justifies its conduct with "bringing democracy to the oppressed" it has become obvious that this is merely a slogan in order to gain public approval. To tell the truth to the American people about the much more mundane reasons for invading other countries or pressuring them by other means into obedience is simply not feasible politically. You can't get elected to public office, or if appointed retain it, when you speak the truth as you see it.

This brings me to David Suskind's book about the experiences of the former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill. The Price of Loyalty has received some praise in Democratic circles and vituperation from Republicans especially in the weekly journal Human Events. Although not all the details and impressions contained in the book may be accurate there are important aspects, which shed light on the Bush administration in general and the president in person. According to the book Mr. O'Neill was about to retire as Chairman of the Board of Alcoa when he was approached by his long-term friend Dick Cheney to join the Bush administration. O'Neill had served with Cheney under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Bush senior but was reluctant to enter public service again. He had a good job, made lots of money and his wife was against a move back to Washington. His main reluctance stemmed, however, from the fact that he was an outspoken person who told the truth as he saw it, did not mince words and he didn't know how this would work in Washington's politicized climate. As it turned out he should have listened to his wife because his tenure lasted only two years. The reason why was so unceremoniously fired by Dick Cheney in December 2002 was a profound disagreement with the administration about fiscal policy. O'Neill and his long-standing friend Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, were fiscally conservative. They disliked deficit financing and were never enthused about the Bush tax-cuts, to rescue the economy from the doldrums. They did not trust the fanciful projections of massive surpluses over the next ten years and suggested that if taxes were to be cut provisions should also be enacted that if the surplus projections were proven wrong the cuts would no longer be continued. When O'Neill stated that he saw no reason for a further tax cut after the November 2002 election, especially with the Iraq war on the horizon, he had exhausted the president's patience with this "maverick."

As it so happens The Salt Lake Tribune published last week the actual surplus and deficit figures from 1970-2004 as well as the projections for 2005-2008. There were only four years of surplus from 1998-2001 and as expected from the administration's response to 9/11 the deficit not only resumed in 2002 but is expected to soar to 477 billion dollars during the current fiscal year. A Secretary of the Treasury is supposed to be prudent but that was not tolerated by Bush, and the conservative Human Events praises the new Treasury Secretary Snow for going along with the wishes of the administration. Some of the tax cuts slated to expire soon are, according to the president's recent State of the Union speech, to be made permanent in spite of the fact that we may not be able to afford them. A federal tax cut, which not only leads to higher state and local taxes but also progressively higher interest payments on the massive debt can't be good for the average tax payer. But politicians are not swayed by reality; electoral votes count and John Q Public is not supposed to think.

All of this would not necessarily have raised substantial Republican ire had O'Neill abstained from giving his impression on how our president governs and compared it with the habits of previous presidents he had served under. Mr. Bush II's stature as chief executive of the US does not come off well even in comparison with his father. Although there may be a case of "sour grapes" in his assessment there are nuggets which suggest the type of person our president really is.

O'Neill had not known George W. Bush personally before he was summoned to Washington by Dick Cheney in December of 2000 to meet with the President-elect. The message was clear: O'Neill's concerns were noted but dismissed and the $1.6 trillion tax cut Bush had promised during the election campaign was carved in stone. "You've got to pursue what you said you're going to pursue. And I I'm not going to negotiate with myself. I don't do that." Keeping promises is obviously an admirable trait, and so is steadfastness but when it turns into obstinacy, an inability to change one's mind when circumstances demand a different approach it becomes dangerous in a chief executive and especially when he is president of the United States. O'Neill allowed himself to be persuaded to take the job in the hope that he might be able to steer the new and relatively inexperienced administration onto a responsible course. The second time he met the president was in the Oval Office on January 24, 2001 where he was confronted with reality. O'Neill had known about the president's penchant to affix nicknames on everybody but to be greeted with "Pablo" was somewhat of a shocker. Although it may have been meant as a gesture of friendliness it was inappropriate because it showed lack of respect for a person who was clearly his senior in age as well as professional experience in the field. Henceforth he was Pablo until a year or so later he became the "Big O" which was likewise no compliment because it is the trade mark of an automobile tire company. Little things like that matter; they allow one to take the measure of a person.

O'Neill reported that he had come prepared for the January meeting with answers to questions he had expected to be asked but none were forthcoming from the president. Bush sat impassively listened to his Treasury secretary's monologue for more than fifty minutes and when the hour was up the meeting ended with Bush telling O'Neill: "Get me a plan on global warming." Global warming had simply been an afterthought on O'Neill's mind to fill the time for the last five minutes of what was supposed to have been a discussion on how to best manage the country's economy and finances. Sure, global warming is important and has financial implications but it really was in the bailiwick of the Environmental Protection Agency under Christie Whitman.

The president's defenders attacked O'Neill for his characterization of Bush being aloof during meetings and leaving the cabinet ministers in doubt about what he was really thinking, but I am inclined to believe O'Neill because his experience with Bush as related above was identical to mine with our Congressman as reported here in the June 2001 installment on "Metaphysical Guilt." I was granted an interview where I explained to Mr. Matheson that America's policy toward Israel is short-sighted and he should take the contents of Whither Zionism?, which I put in his hand, to heart. He sat impassively like a Buddha for twenty minutes, then thanked me and that was it. There was not a single question why I thought the way I did or on anything else. This was the attitude of my congressman, but I thought that the president at least would be more inclined to a give and take exchange of views with his cabinet officers who after all are supposed to have the expertise he cannot be expected to have in all areas. That he did not do so is troubling.

So is Mr. Bush's management style. As reported previously he is disinclined to read newspapers and magazines but relies on "Condi" or "Dick," as the case may be, to feed him the information he is supposed to have. Independent verification of their opinions does not seem to have a priority for our president. At the first National Security Council meeting on January 30, 2001 the president announced: "Condi will run these meetings. I'll be seeing all of you regularly, but I want you to debate things out here and then Condi will report to me. She's my national security advisor."

This stance is highly problematic. The president is responsible for the security of the United States, not a political appointee regardless of how gifted she or he may be. Not to know first hand the discussions which these meetings are supposed to provide and to rely on a filtered version may border on dereliction of duty. I believe this may be the basic reason why the White House is not releasing pertinent documents to Congress and the Independent Commission which has been created to elucidate the antecedents of the 9/11 tragedy. The administration is also dead set against extending the term of the commission, which is supposed to have its report ready during the spring of this year. Under those circumstances the American public cannot expect to have the truth revealed because under the guise of National Security documents are withheld and underlings blamed. Who makes the decisions, apart from the president, as to which documents can and should be released? As far as we know these persons are: Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Karl Rove and possibly Karen Hughes. Each one of these people has their own agenda and divulging the truth to Congress or the media may not be on the list.

This situation carries even greater danger in the current election campaign where the main Republican issue is likely to be a "proven strong national security policy." If vital issues of national security and the economy are indeed ideology driven, as Suskind's book suggests, a second term for the president may lead to even greater difficulties for the country than we are experiencing already. Secretary of State Powell has indicated that he may not want to continue in another Bush administration, which given the facts as they have evolved over the past three years is perfectly understandable. It has also been reported in the press that Paul Wolfowitz may be his likely successor. This would be in all probability a disaster because he has little or no credibility abroad.

When one looks at the current field of Democratic contenders for the Presidency there is also reason for concern. Senator Kerry seems to be a decent and competent person but to what extent he would pursue as president the leftist positions he has espoused in the campaign is an open question. My colleague, Dr. Dean, has in my eyes disqualified himself by his inappropriate outburst in Iowa. He had come in third and acted like a coach whose high-school football team had just had just won a game and they are now on the road to a national title. Senator Edwards is not likely to get any votes from physicians because as the foremost trial lawyer specializing in suing them he will not win friends in those circles. More importantly, his political position seems to be even further to the left than that of Kerry. General Clark, the latecomer, did not handle himself well in the New Hampshire debate among Democratic contenders. The question why he became a Democrat after having previously supported the Republicans could have been answered in a straightforward manner. All he needed to have said was, that the Republican Party had been highjacked by the neoconservatives and led down a road many Republicans cannot condone. The question why he did not distance himself from Roger Moore, when the latter asserted that president Bush had deserted from the National Guard during the Vietnam war, could also have been answered more cogently. The issue arose from a report that Bush had not shown up for duty when he was supposed to have; but this report has never been followed up. General Clark could have pointed to that report and said: "I don't know if this report is true or not, but I shall inquire and let you know what the facts are." Those answers would have given him credibility, which the General currently lacks. The other three remaining candidates: Senator Lieberman, Dennis Kucinich and the Reverend Sharpton are not in serious contention and are likely to drop out from the race within the next month or so.

In sum and substance, the U.S. voter will be confronted with a very difficult choice. The Bush administration with its hallmark of secrecy, the manner how vital decisions are reached and false assertions to get the country into the Iraq war does not inspire confidence. Unless the Democrats manage to put forth a candidate and a goal most Americans can agree with, the turnout in November may be even lower than in past elections.

In the meantime promises will be made by both sides, the country will be allowed to drift and the oligarchy in the White House will concentrate on re-election. If the outcome were to be in serious doubt the country and the world might even have to brace themselves for another foreign policy adventure. Going gently into the night does not seem to be the White House's style. I am saying this because of two small items in Suskind's book. There seems to be a vindictive streak in the administration which the country has usually associated with President Nixon's enemy list. Suskind reported in the Epilogue that the former head of the "Faith-based Initiative" John Dilulio had sent him a memo: "articulating his concerns that the administration lacked even the most basic policy apparatus and was being run by the 'Mayberry Machiavellis,' his description of the political operation directed by Karl Rove." This memo formed the centerpiece of an article Suskind had published in Esquire. As a result of that publication DiIulio received calls from the White House and retracted the statements he had made calling them "groundless and baseless," which were the identical words White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer had used earlier in a press conference. Suskind related the story to O'Neill with the obvious implication how he would react when pressure was put on him by the powers for the statements he had made to Suskind about the administration's modus operandi. O'Neill reflected and then said to Suskind: "'But here's the difference. I am an old guy and I'm rich. And there's nothing they can do to hurt me.'"

After the book was published O'Neill gave an interview on Sixty Minutes, where he repeated the statements made here. I saw the interview and felt that he had handled himself in a somewhat detached manner to the extent that he even waved a document before the camera which had "Secret" stamped on it. Next day the storm broke. He was threatened with a law suit for distributing secret government documents, and the former Secretary who thought that he had nothing to fear for telling the truth as he saw it, recanted. As we said in our family when we discussed the situation: "They got to him!"
 
 
 
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