QUOTES OF THE MONTH
From Associated Press, June 10, 2007: “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq. And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.”
Sen. Joe Lieberman, (Ind., Conn.)
From the Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2007: “Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.”
“About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.”
Ned Parker, Times Staff Writer
SENSE AND NONSENSE – ON BEING LIBERAL
From the editor: It is truly ironic that any conscientious progressive liberal-thinking Democrat in 2007 could easily be mistaken for a conscientious, fair-minded conservative politico of the 1970s. As a card-carrying social Liberal with a capital “L,” I am an ardent defender of the Constitution and the “Rule of Law.” I am for a balanced budget and fiscal responsibility (meaning elimination of annual deficits and the national debt). I believe in the family as a spiritual unit as well as an economic one. I align myself four-square with the wisdom of our founding fathers and their ability to think long-term. I believe in a strong national defense without pledging loyalty to the “military-industrial” complex that President Eisenhower warned about. And to cap it all off – I believe in “The American Dream” where low-income working families and single-parent families trapped by the ravages of poverty can aspire to a comfortable middle-class or even upper class future without surrendering to the temptation of greed.
Why then, one might legitimately ask, do I call myself “Liberal?” I am a Liberal because I believe in “The Common Good.” Belief in the common good does not make me a “communist” or a “socialist.” Any taxpayer who believes -- it is smart to pay taxes for police and fire protection; for a strong military; for a Public education system to reinforce the idea that education is a right rather than a privilege; for passable roads and safe bridges; for a court system that administers justice without reference to class, race, gender or nationality; for a safe food supply; for a safe work environment; for clean air and water; and especially for a better world for future generations – is a taxpayer who believes in the common good.
I do not believe that the ends justify any means. I do not believe in pre-emptive war. I do not believe there is such a thing as a “free market.” And even if there was such a thing, that “market” would have no ethical framework except survival of the fittest. I do not believe that government is evil and I do not believe that the private sector is our savior. I do believe in public-private partnerships devoted to the common good.
In my view, the only legitimate spiritual or political reason one strives for success is so that one can help others be successful or – at the very least – have adequate food, clothing, shelter, and personal health.
For these reasons, I am incensed at Bush’s commutation of the prison sentence for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby; at Bush’s refusal to restore the integrity of the U.S. Department of Justice, at Bush’s violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); at Bush’s violation of our own laws against torture, not to mention the Geneva Convention; at Bush’s creation of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay; at Bush’s most recent threat to veto increased funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP); at Bush’s systematic replacement of experts and scientists with political cronies; at Bush’s signing statements slapped onto lawful legislation with which he disagrees; at Bush’s blind loyalty to the policy of privatization where corporate greed leads a headlong raid on the national treasury; at Bush’s War in Iraq; at Bush’s ignorance of the Middle East; at Bush’s veto of stem cell research; at the Bush administration’s documented violations of the Hatch Act of 1939 (prohibits federal employees from participating in partisan politics); and at Bush’s overwhelming simplemindedness. He is neither a reader or a listener. He is not a student of history. He is not a leader. He is a destructive “decider,” who is willing to sacrifice the future of my children (and his) in return for approval from smug, near-sighted, nihilistic neo-conservative thugs and demagogues. It is long past time for both Bush and Cheney to be impeached by the House of Representatives and put on trial by the U.S. Senate.
By Maynard Chapman
Editor, The Compass Newsletter
CALL TO ACTION ON ISRAELI/PALESTINIAN RESOLUTION
From Americans for Peace Now: Compass Society member Fred Bender of Santa Fe forwarded the following information on Senate Resolution 224 calling for appointment of a Special Envoy for Middle East Peace and “a robust diplomatic effort to engage the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and make a 2-state settlement a priority.” Following are excerpts from the resolution.
Reaffirms the Senate’s commitment to a true and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; based on the establishment of 2 states, the State of Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, with recognized borders;
Calls on President Bush to pursue a robust diplomatic effort to engage the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, begin negotiations, and make a 2-state settlement a priority;
Urges the President to consider appointing as Special Envoy for Middle East Peace an individual who has held cabinet rank and has extensive experience in the region;
Calls on moderate Arab states in the region to intensify their diplomatic efforts toward a 2-state solution and welcomes the Arab League Peace Initiative; and
Calls on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to embrace efforts to achieve peace and refrain from taking any actions that would prejudice the outcome of final status negotiations.
Bender writes, “Resolution of the Arab/Israeli crisis is time-critical to our energy and national security and Israel’s future. It is the one Middle East issue that the United States has the influence and leverage to mediate. It is a mandate of Iraq Study Group.”
“The Israeli/Palestinian conflict remains the seminal issue that underlies the antagonism of all Islam toward the United States that has fueled the growth of Islamic fundamentalism worldwide, and antagonism that has been exacerbated by our six year abandonment of leadership in brokering a two-state resolution.”
“Collapse of the Arab League peace initiative and the deterioration of the situation on all fronts around Israel make restoration of US leadership most urgent. King Abdullah of Jordan has warned that this may be the last opportunity for Mideast Peace.”
Please call your Senators. Urge them to cosponsor the updated version of S. Res. 224, also known as the Feinstein-Lugar resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To reach your Senators, call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Senator’s office.
“THE HISTORY BOYS” by DAVID HALBERSTAM
From Vanity Fair: Compass Society member Bill Hanna of Denver forwarded the following article by the late David Halberstam which appears in the August, 2007, issue of Vanity Fair magazine. Halberstam died in an auto accident April 23, 2007 in California. He was 73, and lived in Manhattan. He has written a triology of war histories: “The Best and the Brightest,” on the Vietnam War; “War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals,” and the Korean War book, “The Coldest Winter.”
Following are excerpts from the Vanity Fair article entitled, “The History Boys.” The preface to the article reads:
“In the twilight of his presidency, George W. Bush and his inner circle have been feeding the press with historical parallels: he is Harry Truman – unpopular, yet ultimately vindicated – while Iraq under Saddam was Europe held by Hitler. To a serious student of the past, that’s preposterous. Writing just before his untimely death, David Halberstam asserts that Bush’s “history,” like his war, is based on wishful thinking, arrogance, and a total disdain for the facts.”
The History Boys
By David Halberstam
Vanity Fair
“We have lately been getting so many history lessons from the White House that I have come to think of Bush, Cheney, Rice and the late, unlamented Rumsfeld as the History Boys. They are people groping for rationales for their failed policy, and as the criticism becomes ever harsher, they cling to the idea that a true judgment will come only in the future, and history will save them.”
“Ironically, it is the president himself, a man notoriously careless about, indeed almost indifferent to, the intellectual underpinnings of his actions, who has come to trumpet loudest his close scrutiny of the lessons of the past. Though, before, he tended to boast about making critical decisions based on instinct and religious faith, he now talks more and more about historical mandates.”
“I. The Truman Analogy”
“Recently, Harry Truman, for reasons that would surely puzzle him if he were still alive, has become the Republicans’ favorite Democratic president. In fact, the men around Bush who attempt to feed the White House line to journalists have begun to talk about the current president as a latter-day Truman.”
“Truman had been forced into the Korean War in 1950 when the Chinese authorized the North Koreans to cross the 38th parallel and attack South Korea. But (General) MacArthur did not accept the president’s vision of a limited war in Korea, and argued instead for a larger one with the Chinese. Truman wanted none of that. He might have been the last American president who did not graduate from college, but he was quite possibly our best-read modern president. History was always with him. With MacArthur pushing for a wider war with China, Truman liked to quote Napoleon, writing about his disastrous Russian adventure: ‘I beat them in every battle, but it does not get me anywhere.’”
“George W. Bush’s relationship with his military commander was precisely the opposite. He dealt with the ever so malleable General Tommy Franks, a man, Presidential Medal of Freedom or no, who is still having a difficult time explaining to his peers in the military how Iraq happened, and how he agreed to so large a military undertaking with so small a force. It was the president, not the military or the public, who wanted the Iraq war, and Bush used the extra leverage granted him by 9/11 to get it.”
“II. The New Red-Baiting”
“If Bush takes his cues from anyone in the Truman era, it is not Truman but the Republican far right.”
(Compass Editor’s Note: In this section of the article, Halberstam debunks Bush’s attempt to misrepresent the Yalta summit agreement of 1945 so that he (Bush) can draw false parallels between those who were soft on Communism, i.e., President Roosevelt, and those who are soft on Terrorism, ie., all Democrats.)
“III. The Perils of Empire”
“You don’t hear other members of the current administration citing the lessons of Vietnam much either, especially Cheney and Karl Rove, both of them gifted at working the bureaucracy for short-range political benefits, both highly partisan and manipulative, both unspeakably narrow and largely uninterested in understanding and learning about the larger world.”
“Still, it is hard for me to believe that anyone who knew anything about Vietnam, or for that matter the Algerian war, which directly followed Indochina for the French, couldn’t see that going into Iraq was, in effect, punching our fist into the largest hornet’s nest in the world. As in Vietnam, our military superiority is neutralized by political vulnerabilities.”
“I have my own sense that this is what went wrong in the current administration, not just in the immediate miscalculation of Iraq but in the larger sense of misreading the historical moment we now live in. It is that the president and the men around him – most particularly the vice president – simply misunderstood what the collapse of the Soviet empire meant for America in national security terms. Rumsfeld and Cheney are genuine triumphalists. Steeped in the culture of the Cold War and the benefits it always presented to their side in domestic political terms, they genuinely believed that we were infinitely more powerful as a nation throughout the world once the Soviet empire collapsed.”
“After the Soviet Union fell, we were at once more powerful and, curiously, less so, because our military might was less applicable against the new, very different kind of threat that now existed in the world. What we neglected to consider was a warning from those who had gone before us – that there was, at moments like this, a historic temptation for nations to overreach.”
The Compass Society Newsletter
Maynard Chapman, Editor
Published by The Compass Society
Copyright © 2007, The Compass Society
