Editorial by Allen Lang
11/6/06
The Bush regime systematically lies about its actions and agenda, while the major media and leading Democrats allow the Bush program to frame the overall discussion. At a time when people are told their voice can actually be heard; the issues and reality of what is going on in the world fade even farther into oblivion.
It was only two years ago when the photos of a hooded man being tortured in a Abu Gharib prison revealed to the world the illegal and depraved nature of Bush’s ” war on terror”. The photo forced many Americans to confront the fact that human beings were being tortured in their name and had a profound impact on how the world viewed the U.S. What many people don’t know is the person behind the hood; that his name was Satar Jabar and that he was not in Abu Ghraib on charges of terrorism, but rather for carjacking. The country has grown disturbingly accustomed to the daily images of brutalized Arab men paraded around in matching jumpsuits and black hoods that hide their faces from the world. The Bush administration has gone at great lengths to strip thousands of Arab and Muslim men of their humanity and present them to the world as faceless animals with no voice or conscious. The systematic lying and dehumanization of “those people” has been ratcheted up to even more appalling levels in the current election season with the victims of the Bush regime fading out of the public’s eye.
While words like ” Iraq “, “terror”, “security” and “family” are being repeated at nauseam by major candidates, you probably haven’t heard the word “Katrina” unless you live in Mississippi or Louisiana.* I guess when a center for African American culture and a home to over 400,000 people remains in ruins for over a year it doesn’t fit into the “hot issues” of the campaign trail.
What are the big issues for single women in this year’s election? According to Celinda Lake , president of Lake Research Partners, a Democratic strategy firm in D.C., ” Iraq tops their agenda, followed by the economy — especially jobs, wages and gas prices.” Her article “The Single Woman: The X Factor in the 2006 Elections”, that was published Nov. 3rd in the San Francisco Chronicle, succeeded at describing what single women are facing in their lives with absolutely NO mention of abortion or contraception. Suggesting Celinda; “get a clue and talk to the women of South Dakota ” would be missing the point. Political strategists like Celinda Lake are well aware that South Dakota and Louisiana have state-wide bans on abortion; she is simply singing the chorus of the Democratic Party that has agreed that abortion is a “tragic choice” and an expendable issue that would jeopardize the Democrats chances of taking back the House.
In writing about the upcoming election as a referendum on war, Helen Thomas noted, “it’s a rare opportunity to weigh in on the nation’s foreign policy and to send a message to the president who led the country into an unnecessary war.”** What exactly would we be weighing in on? What kind of message can the American people send to the President in an election where “64% of the Democratic candidates in the 45 closely contested House Congressional races oppose a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq “? ***
I would also recommend to those seeking to “weigh in on the nation’s foreign policy” to re-look at a map of the world to remind themselves that Iraq is not an island. How does Iran fit into this picture? Recently, former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter stated on Democracy Now that, “the most important thing is to understand the reality that Iran is squarely in the crosshairs as a target of the Bush administration” You see, this isn’t a hypothetical debate among political analysts, foreign policy specialists. Read the 2006 version of the National Security Strategy, where Iran is named sixteen times as the number one threat to the national security of the United States of America , because in the same document, it embraces the notion of pre-emptive wars of aggression as a legitimate means of dealing with such threats.” And where does Howard Dean, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, stand on war with Iran ? “The United States has to … take a much harder line on Iran and Saudi Arabia because they’re funding terrorism.”
Behind every polished speech, behind every political strategist’s calculations and behind every heartwarming television ad lies a blindfolded Arab man being beaten by a U.S. soldier in a secret prison.
While the upcoming election holds out the possibility of different outcomes and possible scenarios, two things can be said for sure:
1) Everything the Bush regime does is intolerable.
2) A victory by the Democratic Party would not represent or even signify a step towards ending the very horrors and atrocities that are driving people to seek out an urgent and dramatic change away from an intolerable situation.
To find solace in the Democrats sweeping the elections is like observing the charred ruins of your family’s house after it has been engulfed in flames and finding comfort in the fact that the outhouse has remained unscathed.
Is this more ” doom and gloom” from a left wing purist? Or is this the reality the world faces right now?
When humanity faces such a defining moment it becomes even more necessary to act on principle and truth, rather than accommodation and compromise. In organizing resistance to the Bush regime many people have remarked that this outlook is just foolish idealism. But, really how “idealistic” is it compared to hoping for change in Democratic leaders who have explicitly spelled out that they are not going to pursue impeachment and have refused to condemn the Iraq war as an immoral act of aggression?
Was it inevitable that the U.S. war in Iraq turn out so incredibly unpopular and deemed illegitmate in the eyes of millions? It must be said flat out that whatever statements being made against the war in Iraq by candidates and voices in power were shaped by (1) the indomitable resistance of the Iraqi people to the unjust U.S. occupation and (2) the massive protest movement against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Societal wide upheavel and opposition against the war was not sparked from words of John Murhta, but from the determined stands taken by ordinary people like Cindy Sheehan as part of the swirl of a groundshaking resistance movement aimed at stopping the war.
It only takes a quick scan of the past century to remember that history turns when the people rise up from below and go up against tremendous odds for what is fundamentaly just. Desegragation, the right to have an abortion, the end of an illigetimate war in Southeast Asia…it is the images of massive crowds of people taking to the streets in protest that reflects the truly decisive actions taken to end intolerable situations.
*”Political Amnesia?”, By William Fisher, Published on t r u t h o u t.org 11/03
** “Election a Referendum on War and on Administration’s Credibility”, by Helen Thomas, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Washington) 11/03
***”The Book of Rahm”, By John Walsh Publishes on Counterpunch.org 10/24