This installment appears again a few days earlier because I shall be attending another international conference on clinical neurophysiology later this week. The main advantage of these meetings is that it keeps the mind grounded in science, which is conducive to realistic rather than wishful thinking. The disadvantage of this particular one is that I shall be literally in the air, flying over Quebec, during the first of the three Presidential debates.

As every one knows the upcoming election is one of the most crucial ones Americans have faced in the past fifty years. Yet, it is also one of the most polarized and voters can find significant problems with either of the two main contenders. These render an intelligent decision so difficult. Let us, therefore, look at the two candidates in the light of what we know rather than how they wish to be seen. 

When President Bush came into office on January 20, 2001 he stated in his inaugural address, “And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity. . . .  We will reclaim America’s schools. . . .  We will reform Social Security and Medicare. . . .  We will reduce taxes. . . .  We will build our defenses beyond challenge. . . .  We will confront weapons of mass destruction.  . . .  I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage, to speak for greater justice and compassion, to call for responsibility and try to live it as well.”

This was the agenda of “compassionate conservatism” Governor Bush had campaigned on. The speech dealt entirely with domestic issues and the problems of foreign policy were notably absent. No other country was mentioned by name and neither was the word terror or terrorism.

The President’s lack of interest in foreign affairs became soon apparent when he refused to engage constructively in the Middle East’s hot spot – the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Furthermore, as Richard Clarke, President Clinton’s chief advisor on international terrorism noted, “al Qaeda just wasn’t a priority.” When the President was briefed on August 6 about bin Laden’s plan to attack the “homeland” the message was disregarded and he continued with his vacation for the rest of the month. While everyone is entitled to a vacation there is hardly any American who can afford to take off for four weeks. Even if it was a “working vacation”, as it has been billed, one might have expected that he would call the man with the greatest experience in the area of counterterrorism, Richard Clarke, to the ranch in Crawford; order him to get to the bottom of that threat and provide recommendations as to what should be done about it. There are no records to indicate that the President did so.

With the tragedy of 9/11 the country rallied and we were for one brief moment indeed “one nation under God.” This was the opportunity to look into the causes of the disaster; to come up with a measured response that fit the crime and begin work that would minimize the chances for a reoccurrence of a similar one. This course was not pursued. Instead a policy of “liberating countries that harbor terrorists” was initiated.

Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership was rapidly eliminated and a regime friendly to the U.S. installed in Kabul. This would have been fine had the President subsequently concentrated on pacifying and rebuilding the country. This was not done because the neoconservative agenda, the President and Vice-president had endorsed, demanded pre-emptive wars on the model of Israel to “secure the realm” (see The Neocons’ Leviathan on this site). Thus, the focus shifted immediately to Iraq. The reasons for this shift in policy have been discussed at length in previous installments and sad to say practically everything I have written from October 2001 on has come to pass. Afghanistan is still a battle zone and its main export consists of opium and heroin. This keeps warlords in business and finances international terrorist organizations. We are told that Afghans will be able to vote for a democratic government next month but what powers this government is going to have in the provinces is far from clear. In Iraq Saddam sits in jail but there is also for all practical purposes a guerilla war going on against which our “smart weapons” are useless.

The current chaos in Iraq was entirely predictable and the President was told beforehand, not only by our state department but even by his friends the Saudis, that an invasion of Iraq would be a serious danger to the region. The BBC News of February 17, 2003 (available on the Internet) carried the headline, “Saudis warn US over Iraq war.” The article quoted Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud-al Faisal as saying that “any unilateral military action by the US would appear as an ‘act of aggression.’ . . .  ‘Independent action in this, we don’t believe is good for the United States. It would encourage people to think . . . that what they’re doing is a war of aggression rather than a war for the implementation of the United Nations resolutions. . . . If change of regime comes with the destruction of Iraq, then you are solving one problem and creating five more problems. . . .  If the choice is you destroy Iraq in order to get Saddam Hussein, it is a self-defeating policy, isn’t it? I mean, you destroy a country to get a person out – it doesn’t work. We are living in the region. We will suffer the consequences of any military action.’”

This well meant advice was ignored and so was bin Laden’s exhortation as to how the Iraqis should meet the imminent military threat. His taped message published by BBC on February 12, 2003 encourages Iraqis to first let the Americans roll over them and then start a guerilla war in the cities because that is what Americans are afraid of. The Iraqis should also “build trenches.” He cited the effectiveness of this strategy during the battle for Tora Bora, “We were about 300 mujahideen. We dug 100 trenches that were spread in an area that does not exceed one square mile, one trench for every three brothers, so as to avoid huge human losses resulting from the bombardment.” He continued saying that in spite of the most intense around the clock bombardment by America’s most sophisticated weapons the attack was a complete failure. According to bin Laden only 6% of his people were injured and, “If all the world forces of evil could not achieve their goals on a one square mile of area against a small number of mujahideen with very limited capabilities, how can these evil forces triumph over the Muslim world?”  He then used this event as an example for the “mujahideen brothers in Iraq.” “The smart bombs will have no effect worth mentioning in the hills and in the trenches, on plains, and in the forests. They must have apparent targets. The well-camouflaged trenches and targets will not be reached by either the smart or the stupid missiles. There will only be haphazard strikes that dissipate the enemy ammunition and waste its money. Dig many trenches.”

He stressed also “the importance of martyrdom operations.”  “Whoever supported the United States, including the hypocrites of Iraq or the rulers of Arab countries, those who approved their actions and followed them in this crusade war by fighting with them or providing bases and administrative support, or any form of support, even by words, to kill the Muslims in Iraq, should know that they are apostates and outside the community of Muslims. It is permissible to spill their blood and take their property. God says: ‘O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends and protectors: they are but friends and protectors to each other.’ And he who turns to them [for friendship] is one of them.”

I have quoted extensively from bin Laden’s tape because it is crucial to our understanding of the events as they are now unfolding not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but in wider regions of the world. The quoted sura from the Koran (5:51) should be seen in its historic context. The prophet Muhammad had been forced to flee from Mecca to Medina. The Jewish members of that city supported him initially but when it was besieged by a superior force from Mecca in 627 AD they switched sides. This betrayal had a terrible consequence. When the besieging army retreated to Mecca, after what is regarded as a miraculous victory by the prophet, only a few Jews were granted a pardon. The vast majority was, according to Karen Armstrong, “tied together in groups and beheaded.” Her book: Muhammad. A Biography of the Prophet deserves to be read by everyone who wants to understand the times we live in and especially by media pundits and politicians. Bin Laden’s exhortation to “build trenches,” also dates from that period. It was trenches that enabled the faithful to withstand the siege.

But our President is not well versed in history and refused to listen to advice by those who were aware of it. We are now facing the results of that ignorance that led to wrong choices. It is abundantly clear that the foreign policy of the President was based on a series of mistaken assumptions and has left our country without any real friends in the world. As I said earlier in these pages: to make mistakes is human, unavoidable, and mistakes can be forgiven but they must be owned up to. To deny them, to persist that one was right all along and promise to continue on the same course with “strong leadership” is tragic. It reveals a subjective reality that cannot be squared with the facts as they appear on the daily news. Even if bin Laden were to be captured now, a few weeks before the election, it would only be a propaganda victory. The seeds he has sown have borne abundant fruit and the extremist Muslim jihad is going to continue even if he were killed. With the 9/11 attack he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams because he is bankrupting our country. Our resources are being spent on foreign and domestic “security” and regardless who is voted in, or appointed as the case may be again, this process is now irreversible.

This is the legacy the President has left us with on the world scene. What has he achieved domestically? He did cut taxes; he signed the “no child left behind” bill; a prescription drug benefit bill for seniors was passed, and most recently he has begun to deploy a “missile defense shield” in Alaska. The civility he had promised for his administration has been notably absent and those who disagree with his views tend to be denounced as “leftist liberal extremists” or even unpatriotic Americans.  Although testing for academic progress was mandated for public schools, the program was not appropriately funded. Even if it were it would not address the most fundamental problems of the public schools. These are: poor quality of teachers, inadequate curricula, rampant drug use and sexual activity. This happens not only in inner city schools but the parents of our own school age grandchildren are forced to send them to private schools at great financial sacrifice. While Martha and I only had to pay for the college education of our children they now have to pay from practically grammar school on for theirs. Is this the progress and promise of America? The prescription drug benefit is also a fraud. We are seniors and the deduction the drug cards offer are in percent of the cost of the drug. This leaves the pharmaceutical industry free to manipulate their prices upward so that even the same drug might now cost more with the deduction than it did before. So is the missile defense deployment. The interceptors have not yet been adequately tested and even the “patriot” missile has been shown to have serious problems. It shoots down our planes or explodes on some other target, yet this deficiency is not discussed in Congress or the media. This is the record upon which President Bush wants to be re-elected and in his acceptance speech before the Republican Convention he promised essentially the same domestic agenda as he did in his inaugural address. Although he likes to drape himself in the mantle of Ronald Reagan he cannot afford to ask the voters Reagan’s question of 1980 in regard to Jimmy Carter’s policies, “Are you better off then four years ago?” The answer from practically all of us would be a resounding: No!

How does Senator Kerry stack up? He is well versed in foreign affairs, has lived abroad and is acquainted with the views of the world outside the U.S.  This is a plus he banks on in his assurances that he would be able to bring more allies to help us out of the Iraq quagmire. Domestically he is being portrayed as a leftist “tax and spend liberal” who will ruin the economy; he will appoint “progressive” judges to the Supreme Court who will re-interpret the Constitution according to their socio-political ideas and he will put the country on a thoroughly socialist course. In addition we are told over and over again that he is a “flip-flopper” who can’t be trusted because he adjusts his positions to whatever is politically opportune at a given moment. There is also controversy about his conduct during the Vietnam era. Everybody agrees that he volunteered for service, performed well under fire, but some of the purple hearts he won for having sustained wounds in battle are questioned.  Were they severe enough to merit the decoration or were they simply a way to get back to the U.S.? He is also being harshly attacked for having joined and led the “Veterans against the Vietnam War” organization after his discharge from the Navy. What galls some of his detractors most was his Senate testimony where he supposedly accused the U.S. servicemen for committing atrocities and war crimes in Vietnam. These are not trivial issues because they go to character and deserve public airing.

There are several books out that deal with Kerry’s past, most of them blatantly partisan. The one I found most helpful in understanding the man was: John F. Kerry. The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best. The book places the Vietnam situation in perspective. Kerry volunteered for Navy service, although he had doubts about the wisdom behind the war, because his group of close friends did so and it was unthinkable that they would not go together. Dick Pershing, the grandson of General Pershing who had commanded the American forces during WWI, was Kerry’s closest friend, and while Kerry was on a frigate in the Pacific heading for the Gulf of Tonkin he was told that Pershing had been killed in action. This had a profound impact on Kerry and may well have flavored his subsequent conduct, including the desire to get out alive as soon as possible from that hell hole. It also led, in all probability, to his vigorous anti-war stance thereafter which brought him to public attention and the testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971. It is now used to stamp him as a disloyal person who smeared his comrades and helped the North Vietnamese to win their victory. I don’t know how many people who use these catch phrases have actually taken the time to read the transcript of that hearing, which is available on C-Span.org. If they had they would be more circumspect in their judgment. The testimony covers 35 pages and I shall present only some highlights.

The meeting was for the purpose of “Legislative Proposals Relating to the War in Southeast Asia” with Senators Fulbright, Symington, Pell, Aiken, Case and Javits in attendance. In the opening statement the Chairman, Senator Fulbright, said that he was glad to hear from Kerry and some of his fellow protesters because, “These are men who have fought in this unfortunate war in Vietnam. I believe they deserve to be heard and listened to by Congress and by the officials in the executive branch and by the public generally. You have a perspective that those in government who make our Nation’s policy do not always have and I am sure that your testimony today will be helpful to the committee in its consideration of the proposals before us.” Fulbright added, “I want also to congratulate Mr. Kerry, you, and your associates upon the restraint you have shown, certainly in the hearing when there were a great many of your people. I think you conducted yourselves in a most commendable manner throughout this week. Whenever people gather there is always a tendency for the some more emotional ones to do things which are even against their own interests. I think you deserve much of the credit because I understand that you are one of the leaders of this group.” This set the tone for the meeting and the crucial question was: how do we get out of this war, we shouldn’t be in anyway? This is also the reason why we have to face Vietnam again today.

Kerry started out with recounting a meeting that had been held in Detroit during the previous January where, “over 150 honorably discharged and many highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to- day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command .” He went on to detail stories of people who “had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam  in addition to the normal ravages, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.” These are the charges that are now held against Kerry although he merely recited what he had heard and some of it may well have been exaggerations.

The essence of his testimony was that Vietnam was not a threat to the United States; that the South Vietnamese lived under an unpopular government; that the war was part of a longstanding national liberation movement and the Americans were simply seen as successors of the French whom the Vietcong had defeated a few years earlier. It was impossible to tell friend from foe, body counts were inflated and unimportant battles over hills that were evacuated a few weeks later were hailed as military triumphs. The war cannot be won the way it is waged, it is unpopular here and abroad, innocents are dying daily for no good cause and a country is being destroyed “in order to save it.” Those who sit at their desks in Washington and order our troops into battle where atrocities are unavoidable are the real culprits and not the soldier on the ground who fights for his very life and gets at times carried away by his emotions.

What was the reaction of the senators? Did they condemn him for speaking out? No! When Kerry had finished his testimony he thanked the panel for listening and for having, “put a resolution on the floor, to help us in the event we were arrested and particularly for a chance to express the thoughts that I have put forward today. I appreciate it.” Fulbright’s response was, “You have certainly done a remarkable job of it. I can’t imagine their [Vietnam Veterans against the War] having selected a better representative or spokesman. Thank you very much.”

This was the testimony the senators were grateful to hear at the time and for which he is put through the wringer in the current campaign. Arrest was clearly a danger because Kerry was investigated by Nixon’s staff for his conduct. He did urge an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam because we would eventually have to leave anyway and further sacrifice of life and property was useless. We all know what happened: within a couple of years Congress cut funding for the war; Nixon resigned before being impeached and removed from office; the South Vietnamese were no match against the North; the country was overrun; a massacre ensued in Cambodia and today we have friendly relations with a still communist united Vietnam.

And what does Kerry do with this part of his past? He tries to write off his Senate testimony as due to anger and immaturity. I believe this to be a mistake on his part and regard it as evidence that he listens too much to his advisers rather than standing on his own two feet. It would be so simple. All he would have to say is, “Yes, I was angry and I had reason to be. If you had seen what I saw in Nam you would have been too. That the war was sold to the American public under false pretenses (the Gulf of Tonkin resolution) is a fact everyone agrees on nowadays. I did not castigate the soldiers who committed acts which violate the Geneva conventions, because they were under duress. I did chastise those who ordered them into those situations where acts of the type described by some, rather than the majority of individuals, are bound to occur. This is what I was against then and this is why I am against the Iraq war now.”

This simple statement would have gone a long way to define his character. Instead he has unfortunately chosen to play it safe and go the “Me too” route. He is trying to outBush Bush and his campaign up to now could be summed up in the simple statement from Annie Get Your Gun, “Anything you can do, I can do better.” I admit that he has finally said most of the things about the Iraq war and America’s overall foreign policy I have published here for the past couple of years but he, just as Bush, has failed to come to grips with the Israeli problem which fuels the hate against us in the region. The reason is obvious: he has been told that this will cost him votes. Yet this may not be entirely true. The American people want to hear the truth and the equation of criticism of Likud policies with anti-Semitism should no longer be tolerated.

This is terribly important because the next act of war, against Iran, is already preprogrammed. Iran’s budding nuclear reactor has to be destroyed. The official reason is that the mullahs would export the bomb to our shores because they hate us, when they actually might want to have a counterweight against the nuclear threat from Israel. Instead of insisting to make the entire Middle East (including Israel) a nuclear free zone it has just been reported that we are exporting “bunker busters” to Israel. You couldn’t possibly give a greater present to bin Laden and his followers as proof for the sura he quoted from the Koran.

Kerry’s promised domestic policies also seem to outspend Bush, who has verbally adopted most of the traditionally democratic agenda. Kerry might yet win the election if he would really show us strength of character. Here is a small example of what he might have done last week. The Republicans have just come out with a new TV ad which shows Kerry constantly tacking back and forth on his windsurfer to indicate that he just keeps “flip-flopping.” The ad is cute, effective, and the Democrats are fuming. Instead, Kerry might have immediately countered with something like, “Yes I am a sailor and a windsurfer! But both of these take skill and require one to learn to read the weather properly. The sailor knows that you can’t sail directly into the wind. Sometimes you have to tack, even back and forth, to get to where you want to go. I have always kept the goal of the journey in mind and brought whatever boat I was captain of, including its crew or passengers, safely back to port. This is who I am; I am a sailor and you can accept or reject these qualities! But, you can also pick an analogue of Captain Edward John Smith who ordered his ship on her maiden voyage to go “full steam ahead,” even after he had been told by his officers that there was fog and icebergs ahead. He ignored the warning because he wanted to make history and break a trans-Atlantic record. He did make history, but not in the way he had imagined. He lost his ship, his life, along with more than 1500 others who had been entrusted to his care, and I don’t have to tell you the name of that ship. My opponent claims leadership, but true leadership is not a stubborn refusal to listen to experts and plowing ahead regardless. True leadership is not ordering other people around. True leadership is the example you set so that others will follow willingly and this is what I shall provide.”

This is what Kerry might have said. If he did, it wasn’t reported.  Instead there were only complaints about dirty politics. Kerry’s next and final test will be the debates and we’ll see how he handles himself there although they are already highly scripted. But Kerry has an additional burden. Not only will he inherit a massive financial and economic problem, which is bound to limit his abilities on keeping domestic spending promises but there is another ghost of Vietnam that will come back to haunt him. In his 1971 testimony before the Senate he had also said, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” It was relatively easy to tell President Nixon to pull out of an unpopular war in Southeast Asia but how do you, as President, get out of a war in the Middle East that was clearly a mistake, when there are not only lives at stake but oil and the entire global economy? This is what he faces and why he may not at all be enamored by the prospect of having to become responsible for the mess a previous administration has created and from which there is no easy way out.

So what are our choices on November 2? We can vote for whomever we consider less harmful regardless of flaws; cast a protest vote for Nader; or stay home altogether because under the current electoral system our vote is meaningless anyway apart from “battleground states.” Maybe one way to register our dissatisfaction would be to vote for the Presidential ticket of one party and for Senators and Representatives from the other. This would mitigate the damage either branch of government can inflict upon us and is after all the reason why the framers of our Constitution so wisely insisted on a separation of powers.

Buckle your seatbelts; we are in for a rough ride. Who knows what kind of “October surprise” Karl Rove might have up his sleeve if re-election were to become doubtful. There is even some talk about postponing the elections in case of an assumed or genuine terrorist threat. As they say, “stay tuned.”