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DEAR PEGGY: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR                                                                  peggy-north@monthlyherald.com

BUSH IS A WIMP. REALLY?

Dear Peggy: A recent SRA Commentary by Chris Sanders drew attention to the astonishing swiftness with which Howard Dean’s candidacy was displaced by John Kerry’s. Now that the dark horse  candidate, Kerry, has indeed won the Democratic nomination, and given that he has campaigned against the Bush administration on the war on terror, what exactly are the foreign policy views of this man who, like Bush, is a member of the Skull & Bones society? Kerry’s position was made clear in two speeches, one at the University of California in Los Angeles on 27^th February 2004, and the other given on 3^rd December 2003 to the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. Both speeches show that Kerry subscribes to all the same doctrines of militarism, worldwide democratisation and interventionism as his rival, the incumbent president. Kerry told his audience at UCLA that, “Americans deserve a principled democracy … backed by undoubted military might … a diplomacy that commits America to lead the world toward liberty and prosperity.” He called for “a bold progressive internationalism that focuses not just on the immediate and imminent, but insidious dangers that can mount over the next years and decade, dangers that span the spectrum from the denial of democracy, to destructive weapons, endemic poverty and epidemic disease. These are not just issues of international order, but vital issues of our own national security.” Fine words. So fine, in fact, that they are effectively identical to those contained in George W. Bush’s National Security Strategy of September 2002, in which exactly the same claim is made that America cannot be safe until the whole world subscribes to American values, and until every possible source of tension, including things like AIDS and lack of education in third world countries, has been removed. Far from calling for a more humble foreign policy than that pursued by George W. Bush, Kerry in fact says he wants “a stronger, more comprehensive strategy for winning the war on terror than the Bush Administration has ever envisioned.” For Kerry, Bush is a wimp. He attacks George Bush for not having caught Osama bin Laden and blames the use of local warlords for this failure: the logical implication of this is that the West should take over that country directly (even though this is just what the current administration is trying to do in getting NATO involved in Afghanistan.) Interestingly Kerry adds that the current arrangements are insufficient to “bring the billion dollar drugs trade under control.” Surely he meant to say “eradicate it”? Kerry says, “I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the war on terror; I believe he’s done too little.” Neither the war on terror nor the Department of Homeland Security is enough for Kerry: in the war for American security, the Bush administration “has done nothing or been too little and too late.” George Bush has “weakened” the military, so Kerry promises 40,000 more active-duty Army troops. Kerry has even promised to “strengthen the capacity of law enforcement at home” and to “break down the old barriers between national intelligence and local law enforcement”, even though every first-year student of political science knows that one of the cardinal rules in a democratic state of law is precisely that there should be a firm division between law enforcement and intelligence. Kerry even reproaches Bush for weakness an Iraq. He said ten days ago, “Their (i.e. the Administration’s) sudden embrace of accelerated Iraqification and American troop withdrawal without adequate stability is an invitation to failure. The hard work of rebuilding Iraq must not be dictated by the schedule of the next American election.” Kerry promises to “stay in Iraq until the job is finished”--whatever the job is--and quotes Franklin Roosevelt against Bush, saying, “It is useless to win a war unless it stays won.” Kerry comments, “This Administration has not met that challenge; a Kerry administration will.” Astonishingly, Kerry even, in the CFR speech, attacked the Bush administration for “jeopardising the security of Israel” and “encouraging Palestinian extremists.” Such nonsense recalls Frank Gaffney’s lunatic attacks on Bush for frequenting “Muslim extremists” (in the form of Grover Norquist). Like Bush, Kerry promises to act against the “flow of terrorist funds”. Interestingly, he singles out Saudi Arabia for special mention in connection with the laundering of terrorist money, and he accuses George Bush of adopting a “kid glove” approach to that country. Kerry promises to launch a ‘name and shame’ campaign “against those that are financing terror” and to shut them “out of the US financial system”. He also, again like Bush, claims that “we must act immediately to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.” Kerry even has the cheek to say, in his CFR speech, that “the gravest threats” comes from “terrorists or unstable states” acquiring “weapons of mass destruction”. “As President,” he told the CFR, “ I will elevate non-proliferation to the top of the global agenda.” How could it be elevated any further to the top of the global agenda than under Bush?In considering all this, ask yourself the following question: if you were a neoconservative strategist, with all the huge plans for world-wide “democratisation” which that entails, who would you rather have in the White House? A red-neck Texan surrounded by a bunch of corporate war profiteers, whose very selves excite furious opposition from whole swathes of leftish public opinion in America and around the world, or a smooth multilateralist Patrician with a pleasing mix of patriotic and liberal credentials? Go figure. J. Laughland, Washington, DC, USA.