It’s going to be worse than I had expected, this period of vitriol
masquerading as a presidential election campaign.
Voters
should be so appalled by the Republicans’ demagoguery that they flock to Kerry.
But that doesn’t seem likely to happen. There was confidence beneath the taunts
and muscle-flexing at the Republican convention last week. The Bush campaign
wouldn’t turn Zell Miller loose in prime time if
there were any risk of a backlash.
Bush and
Cheney, it is clear, will base the last two months of their campaign on lies,
convinced that voters will believe anything if it’s repeated often enough.
Listen to
the statements from MadisonSquareGarden:
“Businesses
are creating jobs,” said Vice President Dick Cheney. “People are returning to
work.”
“The Bush
tax cuts are working,” said Cheney.
This in the face of continued reports that there’s been no increase
in jobs during the Bush presidency. And this on the heels of the Census
Bureau report that the number of people living in poverty grew last year, as it
has every year since President Bush took office. That median family income has
fallen, with poor and middle-income people hurt the most. That the disparity
between rich and poor has grown.
“Our nation
has the best health care in the world,” said Cheney, “and President Bush is
making it more affordable and accessible to all Americans.”
The Census
Bureau report told a different story. The number of people without health
insurance grew to a record level last year. In New York,
the uninsured rate over the past three years has averaged 15.5 percent; in Texas
and New Mexico, more than 20
percent.
“America
is safer with George W. Bush as president,” said Arnold Schwarzenegger. This
despite increased terrorism around the world, continued instability and
violence in Iraq,
the serious nuclear threat from North Korea
and Iran.
Of all the lies, the most serious is that the nation is safer because we invaded Iraq.
In the current issue of Atlantic magazine,
James Fallows gives a damning assessment of that claim. Fallows
has spent part of the past two years interviewing people he says are “at
the working level of America’s
anti-terrorism efforts.” Most, he says, “are in the military, the intelligence
agencies, and the diplomatic service; some are in think tanks and nongovernmental
agencies.”
Most, he
said, “tend to see America’s response to 9/11 as a catastrophe.”
Some of his
sources believe the United States had no choice but to go to war, based on what
was thought to be good intelligence. “But about the conduct and effect of the
war in Iraq,” writes Fallows, “one view prevails: it has increased the threats
America faces, and has reduced the military, financial, and diplomatic tools
with which we can respond.”
“It is hard
to find a counterterrorism specialist who thinks that the Iraq war has reduced
rather than increased the threat to the United States,” writes Fallows.
Among
the concerns voiced by Fallows’ sources: From the outset, the Bush
administration was preparing to invade Iraq,
even as it went after Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Among the results:
• We
diluted our energy, focus, and resources in Afghanistan, permitting Osama bin Laden to escape. He is at large today, directing
and inspiring terrorism.
• We did
not stabilize Afghanistan, diverting resources — including personnel
knowledgeable about Al Qaeda — to the pending
invasion of Iraq. Now, the Taliban continues to fight in Afghanistan. Money
from drug trade there is believed to be funding terrorist groups.
• Although
North Korea and Iran posed a much larger threat — most serious, the threat of
nuclear weapons, which they were developing — the Bush administration was
focused almost exclusively on Iraq. “If the very worst pre-war suspicions about
Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction had turned out to be true,” writes
Fallows, “the nuclear stakes would still have been lower than those in North
Korea or Iran.”
“With the United
States preoccupied by Iraq,”
writes Fallows, “these two other countries surged ahead…. Because it lost time
and squandered resources, the United States
now has no good options for dealing with either country.”
“Before America
went to war in Iraq,”
says Fallows, “its military power seemed limitless. There was less need to
actually apply it when all adversaries knew that any time we did so we would
win. Now the limits on our military’s manpower and sustainability are all too
obvious.”
“The North
Koreans, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Syrians, and others who have always
needed to take into account the chances of US
military intervention now realize that America
has no stomach for additional war.”
• We have
increased the hostility of the Islamic world toward the United
States, and fostered terrorism throughout
the world.
• We have
not adequately focused on and funded essential anti-terrorism measures in this
country. US borders continue to be sieve-like. Writes Fallows: “Some nine
million shipping containers enter American ports each year; only two percent of
them are physically inspected, because inspecting more would be too expensive.”
The war’s
cost extends far beyond foreign policy and homeland security. It is driving up
the budget deficit. It will shortchange desperately needed domestic programs.
This is not complicated stuff. But
Bush and Cheney, hoping to deflect voters’ attention from the facts, have
launched a campaign of fear. They are pounding away at the message that John
Kerry isn’t concerned about terrorism and can’t be trusted to lead the nation
at this critical time.
Are voters
willing to do the tough citizens’ work of analyzing issues? Or will we let the
harsh, fear-based message of the Bush-Cheney campaign overwhelm us?
Republicans
say John Kerry is not fit to serve. He is, of course. But will we be fit to
vote?
This article appears in Sep 8-14, 2004.
