Regime Change

The War Today was the last time I was able to write coherently about the war, on 31 March. Until yesterday, it has been impossible to determine what was going on in Iraq; the news reports were wildly different and impossible to reconcile. One could only conclude that the war was joined, little more.

Yesterday morning, however, it appeared that the war will end soon, at least in the parts of Iraq that USUK forces decide to control (they'll probably ignore the deserts and concentrate on the cities and, of course, the oil fields). Whether that means the end of resistance is another matter, and one that will be determined largely by the effectiveness with which the USUK attempt to govern the country and the role the UN is permitted to play. I offer no predictions.

In a previous piece, War in Iraq, I closed by discussing the need to end the war and to remove George W. Bush from the presidency. In this piece we consider how Bush can be lawfully removed. It is clear (see reference below) that war crimes have been committed by Bush; starting the war in the first place was a crime under international law.

Alas, impeachment seems to be used only for sexual dalliance, not for "high crimes and misdemeanors" as the framers of the Constitution intended. We should still call for impeachment, but we must focus our efforts on protecting the 2004 election. What are the issues, and what must be done?

Who Are These People?

These people are so certain that their ends are just that they will adopt almost any means necessary to realize their agenda. Election theft, war, slander and smear, the endless harassment of Bill Clinton, fraud - none of these pages are missing from their play book.

The USA has never seen a period in which so many of the fundamental institutions of democracy were so bloodied and bruised. The news media are almost entirely in the hands of corporations with an extreme-right agenda that includes the protection of their corporate interests. Most Americans no longer seem to understand what democracy is or the foundations upon which it was built, with so much blood, sweat, and tears over a span of more than two centuries. The notion of compromise and tolerance has been replaced by absolutism and narrow self-interest. Winning is all that counts; the rest of the world be damned. Corporations lie, cheat, and fudge the books. They buy, with campaign contributions to Republicans and Democrats alike, whatever favors they need from Washington. Campaign finance reform is essential to restore a functioning democracy, yet it cannot be enacted without a functioning democracy. The challenges are enormous, the stakes huge.

We need these folks out of Washington as quickly as possible. We need a vigorous Democratic party that can be distinguished from the current crop of Republicans (I'll promise now never to say another bad word about Barry Goldwater). We need millions of Americans on the ground working for good candidates. This is the only way to beat the Republicans. If the next campaign is fought on television through the highly effective medium of commercials, the outcome is almost a foregone conclusion: four more years of wrecking international cooperation, four more years of the dismemberment of pluralistic American society, four more years of fundamentalist absolutism. I'm not sure the USA can withstand this assault - the damage this administration has caused in little more than two years is stark and stunning. We need to be thoughtful and hard working if we are to beat the menace to freedom, democracy, and the rule of law that is George W. Bush.

I have always been shocked by the failure of practically anyone to respond strongly to the 2000 election fiasco. Even Al Gore failed to say anything useful about how he was deprived of a presidency that was rightfully his. It was as if Americans thought their democracy so fragile that it could not withstand a serious discussion of what happened and how Bush got away with it. By far the greatest threat to the continuation of democracy in America is precisely this failure to engage in broad public discussion of vital issues.

The 2000 Election

I will say flatly that Bush and his cohorts stole the 2000 election with malice aforethought. What did the Bushies do? Consider this partial list of crimes:

• Bushies illegally removed overwhelmingly Democratic voters from the rolls in Florida. The dirty work was done by a private contractor in order to provide some sort of "deniability" for Jeb Bush, but this was clearly a hatchet job that, all by itself, was far more than enough to throw the election to Bush.
• The Bushies sent congressional staffers to riot in the Dade County office building where the recount was being conducted, in a successful effort to intimidate election officials and stop the recount. Bush's "Brown Shirts" wear ordinary clothes, but they act like Hitler's shock troops. This was perhaps the most unbelievable episode in the entire theft, and one that has received almost no attention; most Americans are unaware of it.
• Bushies encouraged military voters to cheat and send in ballots after the election. Bush and his henchmen then played games in the Florida counties as to which ballots to challenge and which not to. They used contrary arguments in different jurisdictions to sway the case one way or the other, depending on what they thought was in their interest in that county. Other tricks were played with absentee ballots before the election.

One final point: if Gore hadn't been in such a hurry to concede what was obviously an extremely close race, he might well be president today. Let's be sure not to nominate someone with only a passing interest in the presidency.

In the aftermath of the 2000 fiasco, many steps were taken to prevent a recurrence. Alas, most of what was done actually makes it easier to steal elections, not harder. Basically, what happened is that the centuries-old paper trail simply disappeared as paper ballots were, in many case, removed from the process, and in other cases it was made illegal to conduct a recount by any means except to use the computers that were used for the first counting. These changes avoid the "mess," but do nothing to help assure honest elections.

The 2002 Election

The respected Washington, DC publication The Hill has confirmed that former conservative radio talk-show host and now Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel was the head of, and continues to own part interest in, the company that owns the company that installed, programmed, and largely ran the voting machines that were used by most of the citizens of Nebraska.

Back when Hagel first ran there for the U.S. Senate in 1996, his company's computer-controlled voting machines showed he'd won stunning upsets in both the primaries and the general election. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November election." According to Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.com, Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely Black communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska.

Six years later Hagel ran again, this time against Democrat Charlie Matulka in 2002, and won in a landslide. As his web site says, Hagel "was re-elected to his second term in the United States Senate on November 5, 2002 with 83% of the vote. That represents the biggest political victory in the history of Nebraska."

What Hagel's website fails to disclose is that about 80 percent of those votes were counted by computer-controlled voting machines put in place by the company affiliated with Hagel. Built by that company. Programmed by that company.

"This is a big story, bigger than Watergate ever was," said Hagel's Democratic opponent in the 2002 Senate race, Charlie Matulka. "They say Hagel shocked the world, but he didn't shock me."

Also in 2002, by some incredible subterfuge, Florida governor Jeb Bush managed to keep the voters who were improperly disqualified in 2000 off the rolls until after the 2002 election. How he managed to get away with this I cannot imagine.

None of this bodes well for the 2004 election.

Protecting the 2004 Election

So we are turning our attention to defeating Bush in the 2004 election - that is, if the election is not canceled by Bush, his Republican Congress, and his Republican Supreme Court.

Bob Fertik, co-founder Democrats.com [unofficial web site]

A genuine election must be held in 2004. If Bush is not thrown out, then I fear the looming end of more than two centuries of democracy in the USA. Already, Bush has done so much to dismantle the American pluralistic democracy that its continuation seems, for the first time ever, to be in serious doubt. What must we do to prevent this tragedy?

Poll Watching

The use of these tools can help assure a fair election, but it will not, by itself, be enough.

Voluntary Vote Registration

The scheme is simple. As people leave the polling place, they are invited to drop a token of some sort into a collection can, black for Bush, white for the Democrat (say). These tokens would be counted independently. If the unofficial tally shows one candidate getting more votes than the official tally, then cheating can be suspected. (Not everyone will agree to register their vote, so the only positive indication of cheating is if the official tally for one candidate fails to reach at least the level of the unofficial tally.) If large, systematic errors are revealed, it is nearly certain that the legal count was corrupted in some way. This will have no legal standing but will have a huge influence on public opinion, if it turns out that the election has been stolen.

International Election Monitors

Restore FCC Fairness Doctrine

After Bush

Because of the nature of this problem, Americans suddenly bear the weight of the world on their shoulders. Only Americans can vote in this election, and only Americans can take the necessary steps to protect the election against an almost certain attempt by Bush to steal it. It's a heavy responsibility, and, for most Americans, the first thing in their lives that really makes a difference to history. Americans must rise to the challenge and take back their country from the grip of right-wing extremists who represent less than a quarter of the country (only 17% of eligible voters chose Bush).

Some Quotes and Links

 
Scott Ritter, former chief weapons inspector in Iraq
Meeting, Amsterdam
16:00 on 9 April 2003 (not the 20:00 public meeting, which I did not attend)

Mr. Ritter is a former US Marine and proud of it. He characterizes himself as a "conservative Republican," but definitely not a neo-con. He was certain that UN resolution 1441 was not an adequate basis for attacking Iraq and that the invasion constitutes a violation of international law. He held that a USUK military victory in Iraq was always inevitable, and that it was just as inevitable that the USA would ultimately have to withdraw in defeat.

He is terribly concerned by the breakdown of the rule of law that Bush's invasion represents. He believes that all lawful means must now be used to remove Bush, starting with impeachment (which he thinks will fail) and the 2004 election.

 
This War Is Not Working
by Peter Arnett
1 April 2003 [right after being fired]

I am still in shock and awe at being fired. There is enormous sensitivity within the US government to reports coming out from Baghdad.

They don't want credible news organisations reporting from here because it presents them with enormous problems.

I reported on the original bombing for NBC and we were half a mile away from those massive explosions. Now I am really shocked that I am no longer reporting this story for the US and awed by the fact that it actually happened.

That overnight my successful NBC reporting career was turned to ashes. And why?

Because I stated the obvious to Iraqi television; that the US war timetable has fallen by the wayside.

...

Just like in Afghanistan and Vietnam, the US is bringing enormous firepower to bear which it believes will grind the Iraqis down. I have seen it before and it has been enormously effective. The US optimism is justified.

On the other hand, at what cost to civilians ?

During the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, I entered a US-held town which had been totally destroyed.

The Viet Cong had taken over and were threatening the commander's building so he called down an artillery strike which killed many of his own men.

The Major with us asked: "How could this happen?" A soldier replied: "Sir, we had to destroy the town to save it."

 
It Can't Happen Here - Or Can It?
by Richard L. Clinton
8 April 2003

Two old friends of mine -- a Jewish couple in their 80s, both retired university professors who fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and eventually became U.S. citizens -- made a stunning remark to me a few months ago: "You know, all our lives we have blamed our parents and our parents' generation for allowing Hitler to gain control. Now we're beginning to see how powerless they must have felt to stop what was happening all around them."

My friends' melancholy comment came back to me and a palpable chill ran down my spine when I read about the Gestapo-style arrest of U.S. citizen Maher "Mike" Hawash. Two weeks ago, police took the 38-year-old Intel software contractor from his Hillsboro home and put him in solitary confinement (according to his wife) in a federal prison. No charges have been filed against him, and his attorneys reportedly are forbidden to discuss the case. What is happening to our country?

I already had heard on National Public Radio a New Jersey attorney's account of having been appointed as counsel for Jose Padilla, the U.S. citizen arrested in Chicago nearly a year ago for supposedly planning to concoct a "dirty bomb" -- radioactive materials packed around a conventional explosive. After only one or two brief meetings, she was abruptly denied access to her client, who was transferred to a brig somewhere in South Carolina, where he remains in solitary confinement to this day, unindicted for any crime and unable to see or speak with his lawyer. Can this really be happening in the United States?

The "war on terrorism" -- the surrogate for the Cold War so desperately needed by the military-industrial complex to justify its hugely disproportionate bite out of the federal budget -- has, of course, served as the oh-so-convenient excuse for the erosion of our freedoms. And the contemptible timidity of our elected representatives, who rushed to pass the ill-named and patently unconstitutional U.S. Patriot Act unread and undebated, helped to provide a fig leaf of legality for this abridgement of our civil liberties.

Never has the plaintive confession of Pastor Martin Niemoeller sounded so relevant: "They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. . . . Then they came for me, and by that time, nobody was left to speak up."

 
Which country is next on the list?
The neoconservative agenda
by William Pfaff
10 April 2003

The Bush administration, determined to remake the Middle East by remaking Iraq, now has the bit between its teeth.

...

Given that possession is nine-tenths of the law, the government of Iraq will undoubtedly be taken over by former General Jay Garner - a protégé of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a unilateralist - and his shadow cabinet of former diplomats and businessmen named as interim authority for Iraq.

The more important question is what country will be next.

Until now the existence of a "next" has been in some doubt. But unless victory in Iraq is marred by a punishing irregular resistance, or a persisting political breakdown and factional struggle, the Bush administration seems likely to proceed with the neoconservatives' program for remaking, by military means if necessary, the political culture of the Muslim Middle East.

That means building on the political reconstruction of Iraq to cause eventual "regime change," spontaneous or otherwise, in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt and Libya. (North Korea is another problem.)

The neoconservative publicist and Washington columnist Charles Krauthammer says that if Iraq becomes "pro-Western and if it becomes the focus of American influence," an American presence in Iraq "will project power across the region, [suffusing] the rebels in Iran with courage and strength, and [deterring and restraining] Syria." (I am quoting a summary of his views recently published in the Israeli daily Haaretz.)

This will "enhance the place of America in the world for the coming generation." The outcome "will shape the world for the next 25 years."

This is not good news. There are three things to be said about the neoconservatives and what they want.

The first is that they act out of fear. They are motivated by fear of terrorist bands, armed by Islamic states, wielding weapons of mass destruction, even though this is politically, technologically and militarily highly implausible.

There is an element of hysteria in this fear, as there was a quarter-century ago when Washington convinced itself that a victory by peasant insurgents in Vietnam would lead to world domination by "Asian communism" and to the isolation and destruction of the United States.

Second, they are naive. Krauthammer says it is "racist" to think that "Arabs" can't govern themselves democratically. The problem in the Middle East is not "Arabs." The problem is a powerful historical culture that functions on categories of value absolutes and religious certainties hostile to the pragmatic relativisms of Western democracy. Military conquest and good intentions will not change that.

Finally, the neoconservatives are fanatics. They believe it is worth killing people for unproved ideas. Traditional morality says that war is justified in legitimate defense. Totalitarian morality justifies war to make people or societies better.

The Last Refuge
by Paul Krugman
8 April 2003

In 1944, millions of Americans were engaged in desperate battles across the world. Nonetheless, a normal presidential election was held, and the opposition didn't pull its punches: Thomas Dewey, the Republican candidate, campaigned on the theme that Franklin Roosevelt was a "tired old man." As far as I've been able to ascertain, the Roosevelt administration didn't accuse Dewey of hurting morale by questioning the president's competence. After all, democracy — including the right to criticize — was what we were fighting for.

It's not a slur on the courage of our troops, or a belittling of the risks they face, to say that our current war is a mere skirmish by comparison. Yet self-styled patriots are trying to impose constraints on political speech never contemplated during World War II, accusing anyone who criticizes the president of undermining the war effort.

Last week John Kerry told an audience that "what we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States." Republicans immediately sought to portray this remark as little short of treason. "Senator Kerry crossed a grave line when he dared to suggest the replacement of America's commander in chief at a time when America is at war," declared Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Notice that Mr. Racicot wasn't criticizing Mr. Kerry's choice of words. Instead, he denounced Mr. Kerry because he "dared to suggest the replacement of America's commander in chief" — knowing full well that Mr. Kerry was simply talking about the next election. Mr. Racicot, not Mr. Kerry, is the one who crossed a grave line; never in our nation's history has it been considered unpatriotic to oppose an incumbent's re-election.

...

Some timid souls will suggest that critics of the Bush administration hold off until the war is over. But that's not the American tradition — and anyway, when will this war be over? Baghdad will fall, but during the occupation that follows American soldiers will still be in harm's way. Also, a strong faction within the administration wants to go on to Syria, to Iran and beyond. And Al Qaeda is still out there.

For years to come, then, this country may be, in some sense, at war. And all that time, if Mr. Racicot and his party are allowed to set the ground rules, nobody will be allowed to criticize the president or call for his electoral defeat. You know what? If that happens, we will have lost the war, whatever happens on the battlefield.

 
How Bush Betrayed Our Troops
by Paul Rockwell
7 April 2003

Peace activists are often asked to show support for American troops abroad. Yet it is the Bush administration, not the peace movement, that betrays our men and women in uniform.

The cutting of taxes for the super-rich in time of war; Republican attempts to cut disability payments for soldiers; the Pentagon's ongoing attempts to hide accountability for Gulf War Syndrome, due in part to the lethal chemicals which American firms sold to Saddam Hussein in the 80s; the high-profit sale of arms to dictators who often turn their weapons against U.S. personnel; the Pentagon's use of depleted uranium, a radioactive material known to create environmental destruction, birth defects, disabilities and death even years after wars conclude-these are just some of the manifestations of reckless disregard for the dignity, health, welfare, legal rights and conscience of American troops at home and abroad.

The betrayal of American troops under the Bush administration is profound. It concerns nothing less than the social contract that makes us one nation.

The ways in which President Bush defies his oath of office, violating the trust of American soldiers, are manifold.

Bush refuses, as President Lyndon Johnson refused before him, to provide American troops with a formal declaration of war from Congress, as required by the Constitution. The war powers clause in the Constitution protects all soldiers as well as civilians from Presidential abuse of power. In itself a war declaration does not make any war legitimate. But a formal declaration is a precondition to a legal war. "In the Constitutional sense," wrote Justice William O. Douglas, "a foreign nation is not an enemy until and unless war has been declared against it." In October, Congress unlawfully ceded its war-power responsibility to the President, an act as cowardly as the infamous Bay of Tonkin Resolution that launched the holocaust of Indochina.

In the Constitution, all treaties are part of the supreme law of the land. The use of American troops in defiance of the U.N. Charter is a degradation of military service. Bush is subjecting our troops - once viewed as defenders of the sovereignty of states-to condemnation of world opinion. It is a humiliation.

With the invasion of Iraq in defiance of the U.N., Bush has forced American troops to violate everything for which their grandparents fought in the great war against Hitler. American soldiers sacrificed their lives in order to end the scourge of empire. Even before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans were outraged by Hitler's premeditated bombing of the city of Guernica, his attempt to shock and awe the people of Spain into submission.

It was not just Hitler the individual, notorious for his arrogance, ultimatums, and contempt for the League of Nations, that Americans rejected. It was the menace of Hitler's imperial ideology - the doctrine that big nations are superior to lesser states, that small, insignificant nations have no sovereign rights, that great nations are exempt from the rule of law - that aroused the world to fight for its survival.

The allied victory in World War II, brought about a new world order of treaties and international law. The lofty principles of the United Nations - the sovereignty of states, the right of all peoples to self-determination, prepared the way for the end of colonialism, the end of European rule over countries of color. Our parents fought the Great War in order to measure human rights by one yardstick.

To treat the United Nations with contempt today is to betray the American soldiers who gave their lives for a more peaceful, democratic world. The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war, the doctrine under which our troops now occupy Iraq, was explicitly repudiated by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal in 1946. As a presiding Judge between 1945 and 1949, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson wrote: "War is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy." The Tribunal concluded: "To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." In 1953 when his advisors mentioned the concept of pre-emptive war, President Dwight Eisenhower (who led the military campaign against Hitler in Europe), remarked: "All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler...I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."

And with each new stage of empire - the testing of new weapons on defenseless populations; the use of riot gas in defiance of the Geneva Conventions; the revival of cluster bombs and depleted uranium; forged letters submitted to the U.N. as evidence; wiretaps in the homes of U.N. officials; blackmail and bribery of small governments to betray the will of their own people; the dumping of journalists who dare to tell the truth; American denunciations of foreign TV for showing footage of the actual carnage of the U.S. invasion - with each new phase of empire and realpolitik, we all inch closer and closer to the total breakdown of moral constraint. We descend toward fascism.

It is our responsibility to protect our troops from the Presidential abuse of power so that their forefathers shall not have died in vain.

 
Chemical Hypocrites
As It Struggles to Justify Its Invasion, The US is Getting Ready to Use Banned Weapons in Iraq
by George Monbiot
8 April 2003
Monbiot contends that the USA is preparing to use tear gas and other chemical weapons in Iraq. The use of even these "benign" agents is prohibited, but the USA has apparently moved stocks of them to Iraq. Scott Ritter (see above) says that any effort to plant WMD in Iraq will fail because these weapons have what he called a "DNA of their own" and that an attempt at this subterfuge would be transparent.

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