Oil For Food

Historical Methods student Danny P. sends his comments with this op-ed from the Wall Street Journal:

thank-God, john kerry was not elected!! he wanted to seek the wise counsel of the almighty UN, they have been stabing us in the back and underminding everything we are trying accomplish.

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A17

LENGTH: 1082 words

HEADLINE: Kofi Annan must resign: The UN secretary general must be held accountable for failing to stop 'the most extensive fraud' in UN history

BYLINE: Norm Coleman, The Wall Street Journal

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:

WASHINGTON - It's time for United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to resign.

Over the past seven months, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, has conducted an exhaustive, bipartisan investigation into the scandal surrounding the United Nations' Oil-for-Food program. That noble program was established by the UN to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people, then languishing under Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted rule, as well as the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations after the first Gulf War. While sanctions were designed to instigate the removal of Saddam from power, or at least render him impotent, the Oil-for-Food program was designed to support the Iraqi people with food and other humanitarian aid under the watchful eye of the UN.

Our subcommittee has gathered overwhelming evidence that Saddam turned this program on its head. Rather than erode his grip on power, the program was manipulated by Saddam to line his own pockets and actually strengthen his position at the expense of the Iraqi people. At our hearing on Nov. 15, we presented evidence that Saddam accumulated more than $21 billion U.S. through abuses of the Oil-for-Food program and UN sanctions. We continue to amass evidence that he used the overt support of prominent members of the UN, such as France and Russia, along with numerous foreign officials, companies and possibly even senior UN officials, to exploit the program to his advantage.

We have obtained evidence that indicates that Saddam doled out lucrative oil allotments to foreign officials, sympathetic journalists and even one senior UN official, in order to undermine international support for sanctions. In addition, we are gathering evidence that Saddam gave hundreds of thousands -- maybe even millions -- of Oil-for-Food dollars to terrorists and terrorist organizations. All of this occurred under the supposedly vigilant eye of the UN.

While many questions concerning Oil-for-Food remain unanswered, one conclusion has become abundantly clear: Kofi Annan should resign.

The decision to call for his resignation does not come easily, but I have arrived at this conclusion because the most extensive fraud in the history of the United Nations occurred on his watch. In addition, and perhaps more important, as long as Mr. Annan remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that took place under the UN's collective nose.

Mr. Annan was at the helm of the UN for all but a few days of the Oil-for-Food program, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the UN's utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses. The consequences of the UN's ineptitude cannot be overstated: Saddam was empowered to withstand the sanctions regime, remain in power, and even rebuild his military. Needless to say, he made the Iraqi people suffer even more by importing substandard food and medicine under the Oil-for-Food program and pawning it off as first-rate humanitarian aid.

Since it was never likely that the UN Security Council, some of whose permanent members were awash in Saddam's favours, would ever call for Saddam's removal, the United States and its coalition partners were forced to put troops in harm's way to oust him by force. Today, money swindled from Oil-for-Food may be funding the insurgency against American troops and other terrorist activities against U.S. interests. Simply put, American troops would probably not have been placed in such danger if the UN had done its job in administering sanctions and Oil-for-Food.

This systemic failure of the UN and Oil-for-Food is exacerbated by evidence that at least one senior UN official -- Benon Sevan, Mr. Annan's hand-picked director of the UN's Oil-for-Food oversight agency -- reportedly received bribes from Saddam. According to documents from the Iraqi oil ministry that were obtained by us, Mr. Sevan received several allotments of oil under Oil-for-Food, each of which was worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

To make matters worse, the actions of Mr. Annan's own son have been called into question. Specifically, the UN recently admitted that Kojo Annan received more money than previously disclosed from a Swiss company named Cotecna, which was hired by the United Nations to monitor Iraq's imports under Oil-for-Food. Recently, there are growing, albeit unproven, allegations that Kofi Annan himself not only understands his son's role in this scandal, but that he has been less than forthcoming about what he knew, and when he knew it.

As a former prosecutor, I believe in the presumption of innocence. Such revelations, however, cast a dark cloud over Mr. Annan's ability to address the UN's quagmire. Mr. Annan has named the esteemed Paul Volcker to investigate Oil-for-Food-related allegations, but the latter's team is severely hamstrung in its efforts. Mr. Volcker's panel has no authority to compel the production of documents or testimony from anyone outside the UN. Nor does it possess the power to punish those who fabricate information, alter evidence or omit material facts. It must rely entirely on the goodwill of the very people and entities it is investigating. We must also recognize that Mr. Volcker's effort is wholly funded by the UN, at Mr. Annan's control. Moreover, Mr. Volcker must issue his final report directly to the secretary general, who will then decide what, if anything, is released to the public.

Therefore, while I have faith in Mr. Volcker's integrity and abilities, it is clear the UN simply cannot root out its own corruption while Mr. Annan is in charge. To get to the bottom of the murk, it's clear that there needs to be a change at the top. In addition, a scandal of this magnitude requires a truly independent examination to ensure complete transparency, and to restore the credibility of the UN. To that end, I reiterate our request for access to internal UN documents, and for access to UN personnel who were involved in the Oil-for-Food program.

All of this adds up to one conclusion: It's time for Kofi Annan to step down. The massive scope of this debacle demands nothing less. If this widespread corruption had occurred in any legitimate organization around the world, its CEO would have been ousted long ago, in disgrace. Why is the UN different?

Norm Coleman is chairman of the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and a member of its Foreign Relations Committee.

GRAPHIC: Photo: Reinhard Krause, Reuters; Double Hit: Iraqis suffering under United Nations sanctions lined up for coupons to buy meagre amounts of food and medicine while the UN did nothing to stop Saddam Hussein from siphoning billions of dollars off the Oil-for-Food program.

LOAD-DATE: December 2, 2004

What is War in the 21st Century?

The other day in my U.S. History survey class one student -- a very bright young man who is bound for the military after graduation -- argued that there should be total media censorship of war and that in war anything goes, including the killing of civilians, the beheadings of kidnapped careworkers, even the attacks on the World Trade Center. I found his comments quite disturbing as they go against not only all civilized norms of warfare, but even the U.S. military's code, as I reminded him. THe comments came on the heels of a viewing of a documentary on the Vietnam War which showed the slaughter of unarmed villagers. Many people smarter than I have written about these issues, and I want to link to a few recent articles which raise some ideas for discussion. (This will be a long post.)

Iraq's Silent Dead
Jeffrey Sachs
December 02, 2004

November 2004 has the dubious distinction of being tied with April as the bloodiest months in Iraq for American soldiers. In both months, at least 135 U.S. servicemen or women died. But it's anyone's guess as to which months were the bloodiest for Iraqi citizens. No one is counting their deaths—and the American media isn't reporting on it, either. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University's Earth Institute goes where the mainstream media doesn't tread: deep into a war where civilians are targets as often as insurgents.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Evidence is mounting that America’s war in Iraq has killed tens of thousands of civilian Iraqis, and perhaps more than one hundred thousand. Yet this carnage is systematically ignored in the United States, where the media and government portray a war in which there are no civilian deaths because there are no Iraqi civilians—only insurgents.

American behavior and self-perceptions reveal the ease with which a civilized country can engage in large-scale killing of civilians without public discussion. In late October, the British medical journal Lancet published a study of civilian deaths in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began. The sample survey documented an extra 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths compared to the death rate in the preceding year, when Saddam Hussein was still in power— and this estimate did not even count excess deaths in Fallujah, which was deemed too dangerous to include.

The study also noted that the majority of deaths resulted from violence, and that a high proportion of the violent deaths were due to U.S. aerial bombing. The epidemiologists acknowledged the uncertainties of these estimates, but presented enough data to warrant an urgent follow-up investigation and reconsideration by the Bush administration and the U.S. military of aerial bombing of Iraq’s urban areas.

America’s public reaction has been as remarkable as the Lancet study—for the reaction has been no reaction. The vaunted New York Times ran a single story of 770 words on page 8 of the paper (October 29). The Times reporter apparently did not interview a single Bush administration or U.S. military official. No follow-up stories or editorials appeared, and no New York Times reporters assessed the story on the ground. Coverage in other U.S. papers was similarly frivolous. The Washington Post (October 29) carried a single 758-word story on page 16.

Recent reporting on the bombing of Falluja has also been an exercise in self-denial. The New York Times (November 6) wrote that “warplanes pounded rebel positions” in Fallujah, without noting that “rebel positions” are actually in civilian neighborhoods. Another New York Times story (November 12), citing “military officials,” dutifully reported that, “Since the assault began on Monday, about 600 rebels have been killed, along with 18 American and 5 Iraqi soldiers.” The issue of civilian deaths was not even raised.

Violence is only one reason for the increase in civilian deaths in Iraq. Children in urban war zones die in vast numbers from diarrhea, respiratory infections and other causes owing to unsafe drinking water, lack of refrigerated foods, and acute shortages of blood and basic medicines at clinics and hospitals (that is, if civilians even dare to leave their houses for medical care). Yet the Red Crescent and other relief agencies have been unable to relieve Fallujah’s civilian population.

On November 14, the front page of The New York Times led with the following description: “Army tanks and fighting vehicles blasted their way into the last main rebel stronghold in Fallujah at sundown on Saturday after American warplanes and artillery prepared the way with a savage barrage on the district. Earlier in the afternoon, 10 separate plumes of smoke rose from Southern Fallujah, as it etched against the desert sky, and probably exclaimed catastrophe for the insurgents.”

There is, once again, virtually no mention of the catastrophe for civilians etched against that desert sky. There is a hint, though, in a brief mention in the middle of the story of a father looking over his wounded sons in a hospital and declaring that, “Now Americans are shooting randomly at anything that moves.”

A few days later, a U.S. television film crew was in a bombed-out mosque with U.S. troops. While the cameras were rolling, a U.S. Marine turned to an unarmed and wounded Iraqi lying on the ground and murdered the man with gunshots to the head. (Reportedly, there were a few other such cases of outright murder.) But the American media more or less brushed aside this shocking incident, too. The Wall Street Journal actually wrote an editorial on November 18 that criticized the critics, noting as usual that whatever the United States does, its enemies in Iraq do worse—as if this excuses American abuses.

It does not. The United States is killing massive numbers of Iraqi civilians, embittering the population and the Islamic world, and laying the ground for escalating violence and death. No number of slaughtered Iraqis will bring peace. The American fantasy of a final battle, in Fallujah or elsewhere, or the capture of some terrorist mastermind, perpetuates a cycle of bloodletting that puts the world in peril. Worse still, America’s public opinion, media and election results have left the world’s most powerful military without practical restraint.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, November 2004.

What Is a Just War?
By Garry Wills

Arguing About War
by Michael Walzer

Yale University Press, 208 pp., $25.00
Jus in Bello

The traditional theory of the just war covers three main topics—the cause of war, the conduct of war, and the consequences of war. Or, in the Scholastic tags: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. But most attention is given now to the middle term, the conduct of war. That is where clear offenses are most easily identified, though only occasionally reported and even more rarely punished. The two main rules of jus in bello have to do with discrimination between combatants and noncombatants, the latter to be spared as far as possible, and proportionality, so that violence is calibrated to its need for attaining the war's end. The claims of morality here are recognized with difficulty in actual combat, and disputed when recognized. Why should that be?

This is the beginning of the article; click on the link for the full piece.

From the L.A. Times:

PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror
The use of misleading information as a military tool sparks debate in the Pentagon. Critics say the practice puts credibility at stake.
By Mark Mazzetti
Times Staff Writer

December 1, 2004

WASHINGTON — On the evening of Oct. 14, a young Marine spokesman near Fallouja appeared on CNN and made a dramatic announcement.

"Troops crossed the line of departure," 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert declared, using a common military expression signaling the start of a major campaign. "It's going to be a long night." CNN, which had been alerted to expect a major news development, reported that the long-awaited offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Fallouja had begun.

In fact, the Fallouja offensive would not kick off for another three weeks. Gilbert's carefully worded announcement was an elaborate psychological operation — or "psy-op" — intended to dupe insurgents in Fallouja and allow U.S. commanders to see how guerrillas would react if they believed U.S. troops were entering the city, according to several Pentagon officials.

In the hours after the initial report, CNN's Pentagon reporters were able to determine that the Fallouja operation had not, in fact, begun.

"As the story developed, we quickly made it clear to our viewers exactly what was going on in and around Fallouja," CNN spokesman Matthew Furman said.

Officials at the Pentagon and other U.S. national security agencies said the CNN incident was not an isolated feint — the type used throughout history by armies to deceive their enemies — but part of a broad effort underway within the Bush administration to use information to its advantage in the war on terrorism.

The Pentagon in 2002 was forced to shutter its controversial Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), which was opened shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, after reports that the office intended to plant false news stories in the international media. But officials say that much of OSI's mission — using information as a tool of war — has been assumed by other offices throughout the U.S. government.

Although most of the work remains classified, officials say that some of the ongoing efforts include having U.S. military spokesmen play a greater role in psychological operations in Iraq, as well as planting information with sources used by Arabic TV channels such as Al Jazeera to help influence the portrayal of the United States.

Other specific examples were not known, although U.S. national security officials said an emphasis had been placed on influencing how foreign media depict the United States.

These efforts have set off a fight inside the Pentagon over the proper use of information in wartime. Several top officials see a danger of blurring what are supposed to be well-defined lines between the stated mission of military public affairs — disseminating truthful, accurate information to the media and the American public — and psychological and information operations, the use of often-misleading information and propaganda to influence the outcome of a campaign or battle.

Several of those officials who oppose the use of misleading information spoke out against the practice on the condition of anonymity.

"The movement of information has gone from the public affairs world to the psychological operations world," one senior defense official said. "What's at stake is the credibility of people in uniform."

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said he recognized the concern of many inside the Defense Department, but that "everybody understands that there's a very important distinction between information operations and public affairs. Nobody has offered serious proposals that would blur the distinction between these two functions."

Di Rita said he had asked his staff for more information about how the Oct. 14 incident on CNN came about.

One recent development critics point to is the decision by commanders in Iraq in mid-September to combine public affairs, psychological operations and information operations into a "strategic communications" office. An organizational chart of the newly created office was obtained by The Times. The strategic communications office, which began operations Sept. 15, is run by Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, who answers directly to Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Partly out of concern about this new office, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, distributed a letter Sept. 27 to the Joint Chiefs and U.S. combat commanders in the field warning of the dangers of having military public affairs (PA) too closely aligned with information operations (IO).

"Although both PA and IO conduct planning, message development and media analysis, the efforts differ with respect to audience, scope and intent, and must remain separate," Myers wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Times.

Pentagon officials say Myers is worried that U.S. efforts in Iraq and in the broader campaign against terrorism could suffer if world audiences begin to question the honesty of statements from U.S. commanders and spokespeople.

"While organizations may be inclined to create physically integrated PA/IO offices, such organizational constructs have the potential to compromise the commander's credibility with the media and the public," Myers wrote.

Myers' letter is not being heeded in Iraq, officials say, in part because many top civilians at the Pentagon and National Security Council support an effort that blends public affairs with psy-ops to win Iraqi support — and Arab support in general — for the U.S. fight against the insurgency.

Advocates of these programs said that the advent of a 24-hour news cycle and the powerful influence of Arabic satellite television made it essential that U.S. military commanders and civilian officials made the control of information a key part of their battle plans.

"Information is part of the battlefield in a way that it's never been before," one senior Bush administration official said. "We'd be foolish not to try to use it to our advantage."

And, supporters argue, it is necessary to fill a vacuum left when the budgets for the State Department's public diplomacy programs were slashed and the U.S. Information Agency — a bulwark of the nation's anticommunist efforts during the Cold War — was gutted in the 1990s.

"The worst outcome would be to lose this war by default. If the smart folks in the psy-op and civil affairs tents can cast a truthful, persuasive message that resonates with the average Iraqi, why not use the public affairs vehicles to transmit it?" asked Charles A. Krohn, a professor at the University of Michigan and former deputy chief of public affairs for the Army. "What harm is done, compared to what is gained? For the first year of the war, we did virtually nothing to tell the Iraqis why we invaded their country and ejected their government. It's about time we got our act together."

Advocates also cite a September report by the Defense Science Board, a panel of outside experts that advises Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, which concluded that a "crisis" in U.S. "strategic communications" had undermined American efforts to fight Islamic extremism worldwide.

The study cited polling in the Arab world that revealed widespread hatred of the United States throughout the Middle East. A poll taken in June by Zogby International revealed that 94% of Saudi Arabians had an "unfavorable" view of the United States, compared with 87% in April 2002. In Egypt, the second largest recipient of U.S. aid, 98% of respondents held an unfavorable view of the United States.

The Defense Science Board recommended a presidential directive to "coordinate all components of strategic communication including public diplomacy, public affairs, international broadcasting and military information operations."

Di Rita said there was general agreement inside the Bush administration that the U.S. government was ill-equipped to communicate its policies and messages abroad in the current media climate.

"As a government, we're not very well organized to do that," he said.

Yet some in the military argue that the efforts at better "strategic communication" sometimes cross the line into propaganda, citing some recent media briefings held in Iraq. During a Nov. 10 briefing by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, reporters were shown a video of Iraqi troops saluting their flag and singing the Iraqi national anthem.

"Pretty soon, we're going to have the 5 o'clock follies all over again, and it will take us another 30 years to restore our credibility," said a second senior Defense official, referring to the much-ridiculed daily media briefings in Saigon during the Vietnam War.

According to several Pentagon officials, the strategic communications programs at the Defense Department are being coordinated by the office of the undersecretary of Defense for policy, Douglas J. Feith.

Peter Steinfels writes the "Beliefs" column in the Saturday NY Times, and he always has something interesting and important to say. Here are a couple of his latest thoughtful articles:

December 4, 2004
BELIEFS
The Truth About Torture
By PETER STEINFELS

The coming week's celebration of Hanukkah revolves around the delightful story of a tiny amount of consecrated oil that miraculously burned for eight days in December 164 B.C. when the Maccabees recaptured and rededicated the Temple after it had been desecrated by the Syrian ruler Antiochus Epiphanes.

There is another celebrated story, however, this one grim rather than delightful, connected with the persecution by Antiochus and the saga of the Maccabean revolt. The story of Hannah and her seven sons appears in various sources but most extensively in the Second Book of Maccabees, a Greek translation of a Hebrew text eventually incorporated into the Christian Bible and found in Roman Catholic Bibles today although not included in Hebrew scriptures or, later, in Protestant Bibles.

As part of Antiochus's campaign to break the fidelity of the Jews to their way of life, Hannah and her sons are ordered to eat swine. When they refuse, each of them, one by one and in view of the others, is successively subjected to gruesome mutilations, scalding in oil, and death. All modern English translations feature, in these passages, one of the ugliest words in the language: "torture."

It is a reminder that torture opens one of the greatest chasms in morality. In even the most morally unsophisticated forms of popular storytelling, it is certainly not violence in itself, not even killing, that unmistakably separates good guys from evil ones. It is torture. Heroes may kill; villains torture - Nazi commanders, soulless drug dealers, despots on this planet or in outer space.

In debates among contemporary ethicists about the notion of acts that qualify as "intrinsically evil," torture has always been a prime candidate. Within Roman Catholicism, the discussion of intrinsic evils has recently focused on abortion and euthanasia. But when Pope John Paul II weighed in on the question in his 1993 encyclical "The Splendor of Truth," the list of other actions he described as evil "in themselves, independently of circumstances" included, along with genocide and slavery, "physical and mental torture."

But, really, is this a topic to bring up on the eve of a season of sparkling candles, childlike exuberance and family gift-giving?

One could reply that the issue is posed by the nomination of Alberto R. Gonzales, who as White House counsel helped frame the administration's policies about treatment of prisoners of war. Or that it is posed, more recently, by the International Committee of the Red Cross's newly reported findings that practices "tantamount to torture" have continued at the United States' prison at Guanatánamo Bay.

But is this a topic that anyone wants to examine ever? Last April, the photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world and put the treatment of prisoners in the headlines for several weeks. Then, Congressional hearings faded, military investigations were begun in all directions, a few individuals were tried without great publicity - and attention shifted to the presidential campaign, where no one was going to touch the issue.

As Mark Danner points out in his book "Torture and Truth" (New York Review Books), in the end the lurid photos may have deflected the central question of what role torture may have played, or yet be playing, in American policy for waging a war on terror into the question of individual indiscipline and sadism - "Animal House on the night shift," as former Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger called the Abu Ghraib atrocities.

Mr. Danner's book is valuable because to the 50 pages of articles he originally wrote for The New York Review of Books, the volume adds hundreds of pages of the relevant Justice and Defense Department memorandums, the photos, prisoners' depositions, Red Cross reports and the military's own major investigations of Abu Ghraib. Motivated readers can judge for themselves.

Although the question of torture has justly become part of the debate about the war in Iraq, the question cannot be reduced to differences over that war. The Guantánamo prisoners, after all, were captured in Afghanistan, in a military action that had overwhelming support from the citizenry.

Gathering intelligence is clearly crucial to the entire war on terror. Long before the invasion of Iraq, voices here and there began to ask about the legitimacy of torture, sometimes treading a fine line where it is hard to tell whether the aim is to uphold a moral precept or undermine it. It became imperative to define what constituted, in government talk, "aggressive interrogation" or "exceptional techniques" and what was, in blunt talk, torture.

In this regard, the documents in "Torture and Truth" seem to operate on three levels. At the highest level, the thrust of the Justice Department memorandums seems entirely toward giving interrogators maximum leeway rather than worrying about setting limits. At the middle level, the Defense Department spells out permissible methods of increasingly aggressive interrogation with a degree of detail, benign examples and insistence on safeguards that mostly suggest approaches definitely this side of torture.

At the lowest level, however, the appalling reports from the field give an entirely different picture of what "sleep adjustment," "stress positions," "environmental manipulation," "removal of clothing" and "increasing anxiety by use of aversions" can mean in practice.

In an analysis of the torture question written this week for Religion News Service, David Anderson notes that "nearly absent from the three major administration reports on the abuse at Abu Ghraib is any discussion of the ethical issues involved."

The report from Mr. Schlesinger's panel has eight appendices, the last of them rightly described by Mr. Anderson as "a cursory 2 1/3 pages on ethical issues." The panel calls for more "ethics education programs" without suggesting what their substance might be.

Mr. Danner notes how much of the 9/11 commission's much-admired reconstruction of the World Trade Center plot depended on information from high-level Qaeda conspirators held in places and interrogated in ways that no one, apparently even top officials of the government, wants to know more about.

The most disturbing aspect of "Torture and Truth" is not anything it reveals that has been hidden but how much it reveals that is not hidden - but that the nation chooses not to look at.

And this one, from a couple of weeks ago, available through Lexis-Nexis:

SECTION: Section B; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk; Beliefs; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 1069 words

HEADLINE: In the brutality of war, the innocents have become lost in the crossfire.

BYLINE: By Peter Steinfels
BODY:

Warfare is so brutal that it is easy to understand the cynicism that doubts whether the words war and morality even belong in the same sentence.

That is not the way that the military looks at it, however. In the years since the war in Vietnam and revulsion at events like the My Lai massacre, leadership of the armed forces has probably been way ahead of civilian policy makers in giving heed to traditional standards of ethical conduct in battle. No one imagines that these standards will be perfectly observed in the heat of combat, but they provide precious barriers against the descent into utter inhumanity.

Most of this growing ethical concern has centered on sparing civilians. The principles are simple, even if observing them is not. First, civilian casualties must be an unavoidable side effect of military action, not an intended and purposeful part of it. Second, there must be some proportionality, however hard to define precisely, between the military objectives and the extent of civilian death and suffering.

World War II saw a breakdown of this kind of traditional distinction between enemy forces and civilian populations. The civilians were finally judged to be as liable to direct attack as the former. The bombings of Germany and Japan were extended not only to hit traditional military targets, but also to wreak widespread death and destruction on civilians in hopes of breaking the enemy's morale.

That wartime collapse of an ancient moral distinction carried over into cold war military planning, which often contemplated civilian deaths in the millions as a consequence of direct nuclear attacks or even biological warfare against population centers.

Attitudes have changed. One reason, admittedly, is the existence of more discriminating weaponry. Another reason is the sense that much of what distinguishes the legitimate uses of military power from terrorism hangs on the special moral consideration given civilians. It is true that in the 1991 Persian Gulf war or the intervention to block ethnic cleansing in Kosovo the destruction of dual-use public works like power plants and communications and transportation systems raised a new category of moral questions. But the postwar suffering of civilians that resulted would scarcely have gnawed at Western consciences to the extent it did had not the goal of sparing civilians become so vigorously affirmed.

This evolution in attitude appears all to the good. Unfortunately, the recent debate about tallying civilian casualties in Iraq has raised questions about its seriousness.

Three weeks ago, The Lancet, the British medical journal, released a research team's findings that 100,000 or more civilians had probably died as a result of the war in Iraq. The study, formulated and conducted by researchers at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University and the College of Medicine at Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, involved a complex process of sampling households across Iraq to compare the numbers and causes of deaths before and after the invasion in March 2003.

The 100,000 estimate immediately came under attack. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain questioned the methodology of the study and compared it with an Iraq Health Ministry figure that put civilian fatalities at less than 4,000. Other critics referred to the findings of the Iraq Body Count project, which has constructed a database of war-related civilian deaths from verified news media reports or official sources like hospitals and morgues.

That database recently placed civilian deaths somewhere between 14,429 and 16,579, the range arising largely from uncertainty about whether some victims were civilians or insurgents. But because of its stringent conditions for including deaths in the database, the project has quite explicitly said, ''Our own total is certain to be an underestimate.''

It has refrained from commenting on the 100,000 figure, except for noting that such a number ''is on the scale of the death toll from Hiroshima'' and, if accurate, has ''serious implications.''

Certainly, the Johns Hopkins study is rife with assumptions necessitated by the lack of basic census and mortality data in Iraq. The sampling also required numerous adjustments because of wartime dangers -- and courage in carrying out the interviews. Accordingly, the results are presented with a good many qualifications.

Ultimately, the researchers are saying that these are the best estimates available and that better ones could be obtained if the occupying forces and the Iraqi authorities wanted them.

''This survey shows that with modest funds, four weeks and seven Iraqi team members willing to risk their lives, a useful measure of civilian deaths could be obtained,'' the researchers wrote in The Lancet. ''There seems to be little excuse for occupying forces to not be able to provide more precise tallies'' that could be confirmed by independent bodies like the International Red Cross or the World Health Organization.

What is Washington's response to this argument? The dismissive statement by the head of the United States Central Command, Gen. Tommy R. Franks of the Army, that ''we don't do body counts'' has been repeatedly quoted as more or less the final word on American policy. (An official at the Defense Department confirmed this week that American casualties were ''as far as I know the only casualty information we track.'') General Franks's dictum implies that the method, often disparaged as a measure of progress in Vietnam, is equally irrelevant or unreliable for measuring tragedy elsewhere.

Can this position withstand scrutiny? To a lot of ears, it sounds like a pharmaceutical company that swears it doesn't want to market drugs with dangerous side effects but then avoids the studies that might determine just how dangerous those side effects might be. What would one think of doctors who stressed the importance of combating fever but refused to take anyone's temperature?

To be sure, the morality of waging war in Iraq is not automatically resolved by establishing whether 4,000 civilians have died as a consequence or 17,000 or 100,000. But whether one figure or another is closer to the truth is surely relevant. Doesn't it mock any otherwise admirable moral concern for civilian losses not to want to find out?

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

LOAD-DATE: November 20, 2004

I am reading a few more articles on these issues right now and will have more to say in the near future; right now I would love to hear what readers think about all this.

"Like A Rolling Stone"

Fantastic op-Ed from yesterday's NY Times:

December 3, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Hit We Almost Missed
By SHAUN CONSIDINE

IT'S official, I guess. Forty years after he recorded it, Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" was just named the greatest rock 'n' roll song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, a tribute it had previously been given by New Musical Express, Britain's leading pop-music weekly. Quite an honor, considering that the single was almost never released.

"Like a Rolling Stone" was recorded on June 15, 1965, in Studio A at 799 Seventh Avenue, then the New York headquarters of Columbia Records, where I worked as the coordinator of new releases, scheduling every step of a record's production. (On the top floor of the building, the modest studio had been used by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Barbra Streisand.) When the edited tape was played a few days later for Mr. Dylan and his manager, the reaction was unanimous: it would be a hit and should be released immediately.

But before that could happen, the song had to be presented at Columbia's weekly singles meeting, and that's where the trouble began. Though just about everyone from the A & R (artists and repertoire) and promotion departments loved it, the sales and marketing people had a different opinion. And their opinion mattered, for sales and marketing was the engine behind the label's success.

Their objection to the song came on two levels. The unstated reason was that they just didn't like raucous rock 'n' roll. The sales and marketing people had made Columbia a winner by selling mainstream American music - pop, jazz, country, gospel, the best of Broadway and Hollywood. But rock? No way. It was this thinking that had led the label to turn down Elvis Presley in 1955 and the first American album by the Beatles in 1963.

Of course, none of this was raised at the meeting about "Like a Rolling Stone." What did come up was the length of the song. In 1965, three minutes was the average time for singles played on national radio. "Like a Rolling Stone" clocked in at one second under six minutes. The solution? Cut the baby in half, the wise Solomon of Sales decreed.

When presented with this edict, Bob Dylan refused, fully prepared to engage in yet another fight with the giant, wholesome label. (In 1963, Mr. Dylan had failed to persuade Columbia to release "Talkin' John Birch Society Blues.") Except there was no one to fight with. The big guys were engaged in a more important drama.

Columbia Records, which had always remained autonomous from its parent, CBS, was moving into the corporation's new building on Sixth Avenue (soon to be known as Black Rock), where our vice president of sales and marketing was taking over the A & R department, and soon, it was rumored, the second-in-command position, under our much beloved president, Goddard Lieberson. That vice president and his staff had never expressed any great fondness or attached any future importance to Mr. Dylan - who performed at one of their mammoth sales conventions but never "mingled." With all the distraction over the move to CBS headquarters and the intrigue of the executive power play, the matter of Mr. Dylan's epic rock song was quickly taken care of. A memo was sent out saying that the single was to be moved from an "immediate special" to an "unassigned release." Translated, it was in limbo, soon to be dropped, no doubt, into the dark graveyard of canceled releases.

After that, the tumult of the move to Black Rock filled our days. Decades of memorabilia from 799 had to be discarded because the welcoming notice from CBS clearly stated that clutter would not be allowed in the new building, a temple to spare modernism.

During my last trek through what remained of the A & R department, I was invited to sort through a stack of records and demos that were to be junked. Among them I discovered a gem: a studio-cut acetate of "Like a Rolling Stone." Carefully packing it into an empty LP jacket, I carried it home and that weekend played it more than once in my apartment. The effect was the same as it had been the first time I had experienced it. Exhilaration. Heart pounding. Body rolling - followed by neighbors banging on the walls in protest. Then, on Sunday evening, it came to me. I knew exactly where the song could be fully appreciated.

At the time, the hottest new disco in Manhattan was a place called Arthur, on East 54th Street. Sybil Burton, whose husband had run off with Elizabeth Taylor a few years before, was the creator of the uniquely egalitarian club, which was on the site of the old El Morocco. Some of Arthur's owners were famous - Mike Nichols, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein - and some weren't (me). When it opened in May, no one except the fabulous Sybil expected that Arthur would cause such a sensation, and that everyone would want to go there - including Bob Dylan. Late in June, dressed in wine-stained, beer-splattered Army-Navy store couture, he and his rowdy male friends had tried to get in. They were turned away.

His rejected single had better luck. Perhaps because I was a "club member," the D.J. was very polite when asked if he would kindly play the acetate during a free moment. Deliberately neglecting to mention the name of the singer, I did say that the song was rather long and that he should feel free to stop it if the dancers got bored or tired.

At around 11 p.m., after a break, he played the acetate. The effect was seismic. People jumped to their feet and took to the floor, dancing the entire six minutes. Those who were seated stopped talking and began to listen. "Who is it?" the D.J. yelled at one point, running toward me. "Bob Dylan!" I shouted back. The name spread through the room, which only encouraged the skeptics to insist that it be played again, straight through. Sometime past midnight, as the grooves on the temporary dub wore out, the needle began to skip.

But not before the song had been heard by two important guests. One was a D.J. at WABC, then the leading Top 40 radio station in Manhattan. The other was a music programmer at the equally powerful WMCA. The next morning both called Columbia Records and demanded to know where their copy of the new Bob Dylan record was. Staff meetings were hastily called. Goddard Lieberson, who had recently met with Mr. Dylan during his concert tour in England (only to be chastised backstage by Mr. Dylan's protective former girlfriend, Joan Baez, for allowing Columbia to "exploit and commercialize Bobby"), was brought into the dispute over the length of the song. Standards and rules were dandy, said "God," but they should never interfere with the evolution of an artist.

The release memo came shortly thereafter. On July 15, a month after it had been recorded, "Like a Rolling Stone" shipped to stores and D.J.'s. The latter were put on alert that this was a hot Columbia single, because it was pressed on red vinyl. On side one of the red promotional disc, the label read: "Like a Rolling Stone (Part 1). Timing 3:02." Side two said: "Part 2. Timing 3:02." The song had been cut down the middle. Sales and marketing had struck again.

But they didn't win. Some D.J.'s simply recorded both sides of the disc on tape and spliced the whole thing together and - voila! - came up with the complete song (with five seconds added).

The following week "Like a Rolling Stone," full version, entered the Billboard charts. By August it was in the Top Ten, rising to No. 2. Bob Dylan performed it live at the Newport Folk Festival (they booed the rock 'n' roll half of the show) and at a concert in Forest Hills, Queens (loud cheers).

The electronic folk-rock revolution spread quickly after that, and Bob Dylan began to dress accordingly - he was no longer the prince of folk, but a rock 'n' roll star. Arriving at Arthur with the model Sara Lownds (whom he would marry that November), the stylishly mod and extremely polite Bob Dylan was promptly admitted.

"Like a Rolling Stone" remained on the charts for three months, carrying Columbia into what was then called "the New Rock." (The music, not the building.) Our omnipotent vice president of sales, however, did not lead that transition. Instead, a lawyer with no A & R training and no claim to having "ears" was given the job of administrative vice president under Goddard. His first task was to renew Bob Dylan's contract with Columbia. The artist's demands exceeded those of the top Columbia stars, Andy Williams and Barbra Streisand. His requests were met.

Shaun Considine is writing a book about New York and the creative revolutions of the mid-1960's.

"The hate our policies, not our freedom"

I am going to post this whole thing from the Christian Science Monitor. You can get the links for the articles they cite by going directly to their story:

'They hate our policies, not our freedom'
Quietly released Pentagon report contains major criticisms of administration.
by Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Late on the Wednesday afternoon before the Thanksgiving holiday, the US Defense Department released a report by the Defense Science Board that is highly critical of the administration's efforts in the war on terror and in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

'Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies [the report says]. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.'

The Pentagon released the study after The New York Times ran a story about the report in its Wednesday editions.

The Defense Science Board, reports Disinfopedia, is "a Federal advisory committee established to provide independent advice to the Secretary of Defense."

'The current Board is authorized to consist of thirty-two members plus seven ex officio members': the chairmen of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Policy, Ballistic Missile Defense Advisory Committee, and Defense Intelligence Agency Science and Technology Advisory Committee. 'Members, whose appointed terms range from one to four years, are selected on the basis of their preeminence in the fields of science, technology and its application to military operations, research, engineering, manufacturing and acquisition process.'

China's Xinhuanet reported that the board's report criticized the US for failing in its efforts to communicate its military and diplomatic actions to the world, and the Muslim world in particular, "but no public relations campaign can save America from flawed policies." The report also takes the administration to task for talking about Islamic extremism in a way that offends many Muslims.

In stark contrast to the cold war, the United States today is not seeking to contain a threatening state empire, but rather seeking to convert a broad movement within Islamic civilization to accept the value structure of Western Modernity – an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a 'War on Terrorism,' [the report states].

MSNBC notes that the report, in a comment that directly goes against statements made by President Bush and senior cabinet members, says the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have united otherwise-divided Muslim extremists and given terrorists organizations like Al Qaeda a boost by "raising their stature."

In fact, Wired News reported the board as saying, the US has not only failed to separate "the vast majority of nonviolent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists," but American efforts may have "achieved the opposite of what they intended."

Al Jazeera reported Thursday that the board called for the creation of a strategic communication's "apparatus" within the executive branch and "an overhaul of public diplomacy, public affairs and information dissemination efforts by the Pentagon and State Department."

If we really want to see the Muslim world as a whole [the report states], and the Arabic-speaking world in particular, move more toward our understanding of moderation and tolerance, we must reassure Muslims that this does not mean that they must submit to the American way.

As columnist Thomas Freidman of The New York Times wrote Monday in an opinion piece, the lack of planning and a 'clear channel of communication to the Muslim world' means that the US is losing the PR war to people that "saw off the heads of other Muslims."

Wars are fought for political ends. Soldiers can only do so much. And the last mile in every war is about claiming the political fruits. The bad guys in Iraq can lose every mile on every road, but if they beat America on the last mile – because they are able to intimidate better than America is able to coordinate, protect, inform, invest and motivate – they will win and America will lose.

The New York Times reported last Wednesday that although the board's report does not constitute official government policy, it captures "the essential themes of a debate that is now roiling not just the Defense Department but the entire United States government."

The Red Cross? The Defense Policy Board? Ah, this wont be the first report the Bush Administration ignores. If only every home across the world had Fox News we wouldn't be in this sort of trouble.

You can get the full report at http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2004-09-Strategic_Communication.pdf

PC, multi-culti mumbo jumbo

The latest from Michelle Chen:

I just can't seem to keep my mouth shut these days. Here are some musings on identity, gender, cultural difference and all that other hippie crap ...

The double agent

UN, NGOs Battle to Back Women in Conflict Areas

Why should these days be any different, Michelle? You have never been able to keep your mouth shut. Folks at home: read and learn.

Press coverage of the Iraq War

Tom Engelhardt at TomDispatch has had some of the best analysis of the issues I have been writing about over the past several months. This week he has the latest Michael Massing article from the upcoming New York Review of Books on the press coverage of the Iraq War and why it didn't sway the election. Well worth reading.

From the war fronts

A couple of NY Times articles today worth checking out:

Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo. An excerpt:

The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo.

The team of humanitarian workers, which included experienced medical personnel, also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at Guantánamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in what the report called "a flagrant violation of medical ethics."

Doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, the report said, sometimes directly, but usually through a group called the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, or B.S.C.T. The team, known informally as Biscuit, is composed of psychologists and psychological workers who advise the interrogators, the report said.

The United States government, which received the report in July, sharply rejected its charges, administration and military officials said.

NOte that the government received this report in July and this is the first we are hearing about it. And this stuff about the medical professionals helping prepare prisoners for torture is truly disturbing (though this is not the first time it has been reported).

U.S. Officials Say Iraq's Forces Founder Under Rebel Assaults. The article begins:

MOSUL, Iraq, Nov. 29 - Iraqi police and national guard forces, whose performance is crucial to securing January elections, are foundering in the face of coordinated efforts to kill and intimidate them and their families, say American officials in the provinces facing the most violent insurgency.

Then check out this tidbit:

Given the weak performance of Iraqi forces, any major withdrawal of American troops for at least a decade would invite chaos, a senior Interior Ministry official, whose name could not be used, said in an interview last week.

A decade???? A decade???!!?!?!?!%&^%*%*&

Stephen P. plants tongue firmly in cheek...

This comes from Historical Methods student Stephen P.:

The recent oil for food program has come under fire for allowing many in the United Nations to profit from unethical business relations while Iraq suffered under United Nation sanctions. While the extent of the corruption remains unseen, it’s clear that Kofi Annan has lied about his son’s involvement and has had to “clarify” his statements. The following articles show the hypocrisy and secretive nature of the United Nations. A supposed model of world government, tasked with promotion human rights and international law lacks the simplest assurance when it comes to freedom of information. Here by allowing its members to secretly prosecute their agendas without fear of public knowledge. Behind a mask of internationalism the United Nations continues to pick and choose what aspects of the world it chooses to ”help” but surely the United Nations’ calling of internationalism out weighs its minor errors?

http://www.nysun.com/article/5372

“(…) One of the next big chapters in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal will involve the family of the secretary-general, Kofi Annan, whose son turns out to have been receiving payments as recently as early this year from a key contractor in the oil-for-food program. (…)”

What the press fails to realize is those who answer the call of world unity and peace do not fall prey to such trivial notions of personal gain. The future must be forged from a homogeneous position of international law and human rights and the men and women of the United Nations wield the hammer of international law and have the anvil of human rights.

“(…) But investigators are now looking into new information suggesting that the younger Annan received far more money over a much longer period, even after his compensation from Cotecna had reportedly ended. (…)”

“(…) The Wall Street Journal reported that even after Kojo Annan's Cotecna consultancy ended in 1998,he continued to receive payments from Cotecna through the end of 1999, as well as having use over that same period of a company credit card. (…)”

Clearly continuing to pay officials in the United Nations would not affect any decisions they are bound to make during their tenure at this esteemed institution. Clearly the press does not understand the personal integrity of a high member of the United Nations.

“(…) The pattern in this scandal has been that Secretary-General Annan, until confronted by the press, has either failed to spot or failed to disclose timely information about Cotecna's paychecks for his son. (…)”

But why should he? Surely the United Nations is above the press and lesser sovereign governments? The very idea that one would question this higher institution of the civilized world is absurd. After all aren’t they the ones who stopped the genocide in Rwanda and Kosovo? A reputation and moral high ground above question, such petty inferences from the press and partisan governments only delay more important matters of internationalism.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2920140

“(…) The paper listed about 270 former government officials, activists, journalists and U.N. officials from more than 46 countries suspected of profiting from oil sales. (…)”

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=285035

“(…) Kojo Annan, the U.N. leader's son, was paid $2,500 monthly — a total of $125,000 — by Geneva-based Cotecna from the beginning of 2000 through last February, as part of an agreement not to compete with Cotecna in West Africa after he left the firm, U.N. chief spokesman Fred Eckhard said. (…)”

“(…)The United Nations had previously disclosed that Kojo Annan was given monthly $2,500 payments only through the end of 1999 after leaving Cotecna at the end of 1998. Cotecna approved the payments just days after the contract was awarded. Kofi Annan and the United Nations have previously denied any wrongdoing or ethical lapse in awarding the contract. (…)”

Paying Kojo Annan $2,500 a month is totally consistent with the skills he brings to the company. Just look, he was able to help the company win a very profitable contract with the United Nations oil for food program. What company would want someone like that working for the competition?

“(…) Congressional investigators say Saddam Hussein's regime reaped over $21 billion from kickbacks and oil smuggling before and during the time the now-defunct program was in operation. (…)”

If not solely for the moral obligation to allow a government to provide for its people, any money which found its way to Saddam Hussein’s regime surely increased the stability of the progressive secular government of Iraq.

One day the people of the world will realize the importance of a homogeneous international utopia and forget these petty flea bites. One day an international body and court will rule all peoples and such “liberal” ideas of liberty and freedoms will no longer interfere with the greater good of the human race. What archaic society would not forfeit its sovereignty for the creation of such a benevolent international body? These worthless claims of abuse in the United Nations only stress the need for such a body to exist and to police the actions of all those around, as to avoid such partisan divides amongst governments. It’s amazing that after the twentieth century, the bloodiest in the history of man what anyone could argue against the creation of larger more powerful government bodies.

How come so many of my best students are such reactionary wingnuts? :)

Where is Al Sharpton?

Historical Methods student Danny P. sends in this nugget:

this is a small example of the reason why the left lost the election. here is an absolutely insulting racist cartoon of condi rice. my question is, why is al sharpton and jesse jackson not defending this african-american women??
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/uclickcomics/20041116/cx_po_uc/po20041116 target="_blank"

Post-election thoughts

I don't have enough insight in to how to win a campaign to really criticize Kerry, so I have stayed away from bashing him -- though others haven't. But one thing really sticks out, and I can't get over how he mishandled it continually. You remember the famous line, "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it."? This was used time and again by Bush against Kerry. But there is a really simple explanation.

When Kerry was going to vote for the $87 billion bill for additional appropriations for the military in Afghanistan and Iraq, the bill he supported was paid for by rescinding some of the tax cuts on the upper class. And Bush said he would VETO that bill. Only when the Republican version did away with actually paying for the $87 billion, instead of adding it to our debt (the ceiling for which, btw, the Republicans just yesterday raised for the 3rd time in the last four years), did Kerry vote against the bill.

Now how difficult is that to explain? Why didn't Kerry explain it simply? And I would have emphasized Bush's threat to veto. I don't know why.

Another post-election quote comes in from a reader, and I can't resist posting it:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

First Americans

First Americans may have crossed Atlantic 50,000 years ago

The intrepid Jon Wiener fights on

I just found this from an email I got last month from NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE (Vol. 10, #40; 8 October 2004):

Historian Wins FOIA Access Suit: On 28 September 2004, U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi gave University of California at Irvine historian Jonathan Wiener a significant win when he ordered the FBI to turn over the remaining 10 pages of the secret files on Beatle John Lennon to Wiener. Judge Takasugi rejected government arguments that releasing the last 10 pages of Weiners request would pose a national security risk because a foreign government secretly provided the information (the government that provided the information was not publicly identified though Great Britain is obviously the most likely source). The battle for the Lennon records started in 1983, when Wiener sued the Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act. Through a settlement in 1997, Wiener received 248 pages of the Lennon records. These files, which were gathered from 1971 to 1972,included memos detailing Lennon's donations to a group planning to demonstrate at the 1972 Republican National Convention. The Justice department is considering whether to appeal the District Court decision.

EVENT on campus November 22nd

Second World War Symposium Series and Graduate Colloquium

Wilfried Wilms, Assistant Professor of German from Union College speaking on "The Bombing of Germany: Taboo, Repression, and the Politics of Memory."

Professor Wilms will help us understand how different nations have constructed their own particular histories and memories of the War. In this case, he looks at the devastating Allied bombings of German cities that have until very recently been excluded from German accounts of World War II and shaped by the politics of a an occupied and divided Germany after 1945.

We will be meeting in Atrium 126, or with overflow in Atrium Y144 on Monday, November 22 between 6-7 PM.

EVENT on campus Tuesday, November 16th

The Struggle for Democracy in Latin America: The View from Three Scholars

Claudia Baez-Camarago, Ph.D., adjunct professor William Paterson University
Jennifer Collins, ABD, adjunct professor William Paterson University
Martin Weinstein, Ph.D. Professor of Political Science

Tuesday, November 16, 2004
2:00 p.m.
Raubinger 1

Reception to be held after presentations
Sponsored by the Department of Political Science and Latin American Studies

Event on campus Wednesday, November 17th

ELECTION 2004: THE AFTERMATH
A Public Forum Discussing the
Outcome of the 2004 Presidential Election

With

Wartyna Davis - Chair Dept. Political Science, WPU
John Mason - Prof. Dept. Political Science, WPU
Christine Kelly - Prof. Political Science, WPU
Philippe Coste - US Correspondent, l’Express, France
Michael Thompson (Chair) - Dept. Political Science, WPU

Wednesday, November 17th 2004
ROOM: SCIENCE 200A

2pm - 3:30pm

My readers inspire me...

Two comments to my "Holy War" post have inspired me to continue the conversation, and I thank these students for their contributions:

Take a good look at this post and those articles, because they are the very reason the Democrats lost. Why did they lose the election? To many Democrats it’s simple; everyone was too stupid to know that Democrats know how to run their lives. I don't think the Democratic Party or most Democrats live in the same world anymore. They lost because they're detached from most Americans, to the point where they can’t even communicate. Most Americans are religious and I know if you're Democrats religion has become a horrible disease and I am sure one day we'll have a cure for it but until then you have to convince those people to vote for you. Calling them ignorant and insulting their beliefs translates into a lost presidential campaign, a Republican house, a Republican senate, and your own minority leader ousted. These articles just reinforce that, comparing religious Americans to Muslim fanatics, replacing keystone Democratic class warfare with religious warfare. If you really believe these articles look forward to many more years of Republican control because you don't have the slightest idea why you lost or why you'll never win like this.
Steve
# posted by Anonymous : 11/6/2004 12:48:35 PM

I don't agree with Cathy and Kerry that America needs to unite to face the next four effectivly. I think that would be BAD. If Bush bashers did unite with supporters it would be like saying Bush is tolerable. He's not. Bush has screwed up too offen and in capacities too great. Nothing he does or says can make me see otherwise or forgive him. If anything we should continue bashing him left and right and in an ideal world, convict him of war crimes. Let's interegate Bush like the Republicans did to Clinton and see how he likes it. At least the trial would be legitimate. Or even better, let's all invite Uncle Tecumseh to make a personal visit with Mr. Bush! That'll solve the problem of the administration's monsterous figure head. Hey, it's a start.
ABT
# posted by Anonymous : 11/8/2004 12:46:17 PM

Well, I am not sure what direction the Democratic Party should go in order to win the Presidency. Remember that if Kerry had taken Ohio we would all be talking about the election in completely different ways, drawing completely different lessons about the campaign and about the country as a whole. I don't know why Bush won and Kerry lost -- whether it was the women vote, the youth vote, the rural vote, the suburban vote, terrorism, religion, "moral values," stolen votes, better get out the vote efforts, the economy, the media, personal qualities.... All of these have been bandied about and this question is not really my interest or bailiwick. I was most interested in this election because I thought the Bush administration has so squandered American power and influence and the world is in much worse shape because of that. As for what Democrats should do, my instinct and political beliefs lead me to wish they would become more progressive (what Stephen might call "class warfare"); but whether that will help them win I don't know. Check out Richard Kearney's insights on his new blog Future's So Bright. He -- like ABT -- makes the case that the Democratic Party is not the only game in town.

Stephen makes a good point that at some level the liberal analysis simply says Bush voters were stupid. As the already famous London Daily Mirror cover asked the day after the election, How Can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB? The only comfort I draw is that 56+ million were "smart" enough to vote for the other guy. But I do not believe that stupidity is the reason people voted for Bush. Obviously, there are many reasons, some of them having to do with Kerry being unable to convince enough people that he would be a better leader. And I know that some of my smartest students supported Bush, and I respect their intelligence and have to grapple with that. But I do remain baffled. I have spent a few months on my blog demonstrating the mendacity, incompetance and ideological zealotry of this administration and I am frustrated that not everyone sees things my way. I remain frustrated that what I see as the overwhelming evidence against Bush did not persuade enough people to reject his second term.

I do believe people were duped -- and that does not make them stupid -- by a sophisticated public relations campaign, by an anemic (at best) media, and, above all, by appeals to fear and intolerance. Religion is not the issue. A specific way of using religion to appeal to voters and, ultimately, to reshape our nation is what is at stake. Evangelical Christians have a divorce rate of 35%, as high as any group in our country, yet apparently right-wing evangelicals believe that making sure homosexuals can't get married (and divorced) is a more important issue than security, jobs, etc. I agree with ABT that simply rolling over is not the solution right now for Democrats and others who oppose Bush. He did not receive an overwhelming mandate, and we need to continue to oppose the policies we disagree with. That, after all, is the essence of democracy.

A final note: you may have noticed a decrease in postings from me. This is not only because of my post-election blues. I have a number of other writing projects that I have been putting off (to spend time on this blog) and that I need to get cracking on. Don't despair! I am not quitting, and I am not leaving the reality-based community -- I have decided against that whole four-year-opium-haze solution despite the fact that this year's poppy harvest in Afghanistan is the largest ever. I will be posting, just less frequently. And please feel free to fill in the gaps with your own postings and comments.

The Media and the Election

James G., a student in Historical Methods, send these comments:

I have never been into politics before this election year. I never voted before this election either. When I did watch TV. or listen to the radio and hear the media talk about politics, I let them decide how I felt or what I thought without even knowing it. A couple weeks before this year's election, I heard on the news someone say "we depend on the media so much it has become our referee, telling us who and what is wrong or right in the world." This made me think how I have depended on the media when I rarely and briefly pay attention to them, what justifies my thinking and beliefs about certain countries, people, parties, or administrations and mainly if America is doing good or bad in world. Why can't politicians or the administration think the way average citizens think? I guess they have to think differently so that causes a lot of critics. in my opinion the criticism turns a lot of people away from getting involved or listening to politics. The media beats points to death, all the news channels talk about the same thing at the same time. The majority of the people in the United States have given a lot of power to the media, more than we know or want to admit. The media is to tell us what we should think and what to believe. I find it ironic when Dan Rather was in that mess with CBS, it was a time bomb. The media went crazy over it and for what I don't know. I don't care if President Bush flew a plane or whatever happened because I forgot what the fuss was about. This is my point, I got turned away so fast because the media beat the issue to death, I don't even want to know the story because I don't care. If the president was in the Air-force or not, his personal life doesn't matter to me. As long as he can stop an attack on this country or terrorist from killing anyone, that's what I care about. The way I see it, he's not the only president not have military service or the only president to cause drama or personal attention to himself. Remember Bill Clinton or Slick Willy, he didn't get this nick name just in politics. The media as our referee or the lazy way of saying let the talking heads think for me and what ever they say I agree.

Let me add a couple of links that address the issue of the media and the election:

Deford on Politics and Sports
from Morning Edition, Wednesday, November 10, 2004

A sports journalist covers each passing season like a close presidential race. They ask the tough questions to powerful people, challenge authority, and dissect post game interviews like Presidential stump speeches. Commentator Frank Deford thinks that political reporters could learn a thing or two from wide world of sports reporters.

From Freepress.com a series of articles on the media and the 2004 election.

And Robert McChesney, a brilliant historian of the media and journalism, has written an article entitled On Media and the Election.

Holy War

So you guys really do care, eh? This comes from regular participant ABT:

A day and a half of no Blog?! That's got to be a record. Time to put away the tissue box and start addressing your felow Bloggers about what went wrong. Just a suggestion. We'll make it through together utilizing the power Blog. This hurts for me too.
ABT

Cathy writes in the day after the election:

As Americans we are part of a truly great society. I like to think of America as a work in progress always changing and evolving; some changes we agree with and some we don’t. What defines us most as Americans is our ability to band together in times of tragedy and the ability to put our differences aside for the good of our country. Whether we are democrat or republican we need to put the election in the past and work together to build a stronger country.
In his concession, Kerry showed grace and dignity and I for one was proud to say I voted for him. His speech today showed his integrity and character and I found myself wishing he showed this side of himself more often during the campaign. My 12 year old daughter is beside herself with grief. She came home from school, told me she was moving to Canada until her 16th birthday and preceded to dress in black and play sad tunes on her clarinet. In trying to console her, I pointed out that we have the duty to keep a close watch on President Bush and find a way to speak up when we don’t like his policies. Make calls to your Senators and Congressman, call the White house directly, but don’t sit back for the next 4 years complaining.

And Cathy follows up a couple of days later:

I noticed you haven't written nything on your blog since Tuesday and I was wondering why? Please don't tell me it's because Bush won the election; as you told me many weeks ago that would be a cop out! Your blog says its about foreign policy, the election and there was something else that escapes me at the moment.
Anyway, I have a few other thoughts for you(like it or not). This is from the Record on Wednesday in regards to the daily interruptions into the lives of New Yorkers since September 11th. Security didn't matter as much (in the election) to people in N.Y., Pa., and Washington, D.C. They didn't vote their fears, maybe because they get it, that the new reality means you never know and the White House doesn't either (when the next attack will occur). The experts get to work and do their jobs and the rest of us keep on going. This from Tom Freidman's column on Thursday- The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral and spiritual sources of American politics. They will never recover as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral and spiritual yerning- but turn them to progressive purposes in domestic policy and foreign affairs. The Democrats must make a comeback because they have nominated a candidate who can win with a positive message that connects with the American heartland.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, I believe the Democrats had such a person in John Kerry, they however didn't allow him to run the campaign the way it should have been run. They tried to play the Republican game and that just doesn't work for the Democrats. In his concession speech on Wednesday, I saw something in John Kerry that I didn't see when he was campaigning; there was an honesty and a sincerity that somehow didn't come across.
We need to move past the election now, nothing is going to change the results. But we can keep a close watch on President Bush and his administration. I don't think one voice will make a difference but if many voices speak up perhaps we can. So, you can continue to be in mourning but I choose to move forward.

Be well,
Cathy

Well, yes, I confess, mourning is not too strong a word. But I have also been trying to collect my thoughts and see if I have something intelligent to add to the conversation that is going on across the country right now. I do have a few things to say, but let me first guide readers to some excellent articles I have come across. The Times has had several great op-eds over the past few days. See:

Two Nations Under God
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 4, 2004

No Surrender
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 5, 2004

The Red Zone
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: November 4, 2004

There will be a battle within the Democratic Party over how to respond. Richard Kearney in his welcome new blog, Future's So Bright has some thoughts written on election night (perhaps written in the heat of impending doom) where he essentially declares himself to be fed up with the party. Digby argues, in this typically insightful and acerbic style, much the opposite in a series of posts over the last few days -- he says that the Dems have to get better at showbiz while not giving up their core beliefs (which, he hastens to add, they DO have).

Another interesting front will be what happens to the Republican party. Fiscal conservatives and international realists have been chafing under the Bush/Rove leadership. Will they continue to be so smitten by the ability to win power that they further eviscerate their own principles? Will someone like William Safire return to his lifelong commitment to civil liberties? Will David Brooks ... ah, forget David Brooks, he has made his career out of thin and facile pop psychologizing; he chose conservatism because he correctly discerned that was where he could gain celebrity.

On election night I was watching ABC and their commentator Fareed Zakaria (a man whose analysis and opinion I always respect and value, though most often disagree with) mentioned that because we are so overstretched in Iraq, Bush and Co. will have to become more realistic about international diplomacy, etc. Peter Jennings replied that he was not so sure, but that is a conversation for another day. I am inclined to agree with Jennings here, and Bush's claim to have earned "political capital" from the election seems to confirm that view. But pay attention to the people who leave and those who come into the new administration. The new appointments will signal very clearly which direction the country will be going.

A couple of other articles I want to make special mention of -- Thomas Frank convincingly continues his argument from his book What's the Matter With Kansas in Why They Won.

And Garry Wills, an eminent historian and brilliant thinker spells out the larger view of what the election means. He describes a trend I have been noticing over the past several years that I find very frightening and that Neil Postman wrote an excellent book about a few years back called Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth century. Here is the full Wills article followed by my brief comments:

November 4, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Day the Enlightenment Went Out
By GARRY WILLS

Evanston, Ill.

This election confirms the brilliance of Karl Rove as a political strategist. He calculated that the religious conservatives, if they could be turned out, would be the deciding factor. The success of the plan was registered not only in the presidential results but also in all 11 of the state votes to ban same-sex marriage. Mr. Rove understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of evolution.

This might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in which William Jennings Bryan's fundamentalist assault on the concept of evolution was discredited. Disillusionment with that decision led many evangelicals to withdraw from direct engagement in politics. But they came roaring back into the arena out of anger at other court decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag and, now, gay marriage. Mr. Rove felt that the appeal to this large bloc was worth getting President Bush to endorse a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (though he had opposed it earlier).

The results bring to mind a visit the Dalai Lama made to Chicago not long ago. I was one of the people deputized to ask him questions on the stage at the Field Museum. He met with the interrogators beforehand and asked us to give him challenging questions, since he is too often greeted with deference or flattery.

The only one I could think of was: "If you could return to your country, what would you do to change it?" He said that he would disestablish his religion, since "America is the proper model." I later asked him if a pluralist society were possible without the Enlightenment. "Ah," he said. "That's the problem." He seemed to envy America its Enlightenment heritage.

Which raises the question: Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?

America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.

The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.

Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.

It is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We torture the torturers, we call our God better than theirs - as one American general put it, in words that the president has not repudiated.

President Bush promised in 2000 that he would lead a humble country, be a uniter not a divider, that he would make conservatism compassionate. He did not need to make such false promises this time. He was re-elected precisely by being a divider, pitting the reddest aspects of the red states against the blue nearly half of the nation. In this, he is very far from Ronald Reagan, who was amiably and ecumenically pious. He could address more secular audiences, here and abroad, with real respect.

In his victory speech yesterday, President Bush indicated that he would "reach out to the whole nation," including those who voted for John Kerry. But even if he wanted to be more conciliatory now, the constituency to which he owes his victory is not a yielding one. He must give them what they want on things like judicial appointments. His helpers are also his keepers.

The moral zealots will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to nonfundamentalist Republicans. Jihads are scary things. It is not too early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment.

Garry Wills, an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University, is the author of "St. Augustine's Conversion."

So are we in the midst of a Holy War, both within our nation and against the Muslim world? And what can we predict for the next four years? Goodbye Roe v. Wade. Hello Patriot Act II, III, and IV. Is it too early to raise the dreaded F-word, the one I have so far avoided because it is bandied about too easily. No not that F-word, the scary one -- fascism.

The State of Rock

The NY Times last Sunday had an interesting article on the state of rock today,

October 31, 2004
The Rap Against Rockism
By KELEFA SANNEH

I have been thinking about this question for some time, and will get some comments out when I collect my thoughts.

Cronkite on the Election of 1964

I just heard an extraordinary report by Walter Cronkite about the election of 1964 and the loss of the south from the Democratic Party (which he links back to FDR's challenge to Southern Dems in 1938. Go listen to Walter Cronkite on the Landslide Election of 1964

for those who can't wait

Just heard third-hand from Joe Lockhart (Kerry's campaign man) that these early polls are real. K way head in pa and 4 pts ahead in fl and ohio.

See how plugged in I am!

some thoughts on voting

From Cathy:

I just came from casting my vote and I have to tell you I am amazed at the amount of people I saw coming and going from the polls. Women with small children, elderly who need the use of a cane, and it occured to me that moe than anything this election I hope for a record voter turnout. You mentioned how angry you were with Bush for taking September 11th away from the American people, but what I am angriest about es the Republican attempts to scare people out of voting or the outright attempt to block valid votes. There was an article today in the Times about a judge in Ohio who denied the Republicans the right to challenge the validity of voters and I say THANK GOD!

Update: the Supreme court upheld the ability of challengers to be inside the polling places.

The Return of Cathy -- and My Election Endorsement

Cathy returns, with some important and incisive comments and questions, to which I reply below:

I wanted to ask you about a conversation we had back in May. You had mentioned that General Clark(is that his name) was the man you wanted to win the nomination and you weren't a strong Kerry supporter. Here's my question, are you going to vote for Kerry because you are so against Bush or because you believe in Kerry and what he has to say or because Kerry is the Democratic choice? Also, have you ever voted for any Republican, if not do you think you ever could?

I ask these questions because I believe too many people vote strictly for their party and not for who they feel will make the best choice. I believe that the biggest problem our country faces now is the politics that goes on behind the scenes, the deal making that occurs. I'm not sure anyone can make decisions or choices based on what they feel is the best course for our country.

I worry that Kerry won't be able to make any decision without taking a poll to find out how the public will react and I worry that Bush will make decisions without having any concern for the long term effects on our country. To put it bluntly, I worry that it doesn't matter who I vote for, each candidate scares me for different reasons. I also feel the election process has turned into a three ring circus, are we even taken seriously in the world community? Whatever the outcome, I hope we have a clear majority for the winner.

Look forward to your insight,
Cathy

First, my thoughts on Bush, most of which readers of this blog will already know. But I will try to be brief and to the point.

To me, the most shameful moment of Bush presidency occured when he gave his famous "Bring 'em on!" remark. Remember? He was talking about terrorists and opposition fighters in Iraq. The macho-ness aside, what filled me with shame and rage was this: Weren't we supposed to be liberating the poor, oppressed people of Iraq? And here Bush is inviting foreign terrorists into their land to wage war and further decimate their country.

The whole idea that we can defeat terrorism by luring the bad guys into one place is not only insensitive to the Iraqi people, but stupid. Do you really think that more terrorists are not simultaneously planning to attack the U.S. and U.S. interests elsewhere? As every report has shown, the war in Iraq has created more terrorists worldwide, it has been Osama Bin Laden's recruiting dream come true. In every way, the war has made us less safe.

I remember waking up at 4 oclock one morning in April 2003 and seeing liberated Iraqis dancing in the streets of Baghdad. I started dancing around the room myself, I was so elated. As I like to say, I am a sucker for freedom and democracy. But, apparently, sucker was the operative word here. The failure to commit enough troops to not only secure the weapons we knew were there, but to secure the country so that the Iraqis could begin to live better lives makes me wonder. It is too complex an issue to get into here -- the many reasons why the war was poorly planned from the beginning -- but there is no way around the conclusion that, whatever the reasons, the Commander-in-Chief failed miserably. And his flight-suit photo-op and premature announcement of "mission accomplished" sickens me as I read of young Americans and Iraqis killed every day.

My final indictment of Bush -- and I think this goes to the heart of so much of the rage against him, not only mine -- is that he has stolen September 11th from the American people. I was sitting in my office off Times Square on the morning of September 11th. I wondered briefly if Times Square could be next, but I was fortunate to have escaped any direct personal involvement. But after watching the attacks all morning on tv at my desk, I wandered the city, trying to figure out how I would get back to New Jersey, back home to my family. I took a ferry across the Hudson on the most beautiful September morning and watch the towers burn as we all sat silently in mourning. And I wandered the city over the next weeks, reading the posters covering every available fence space, especially in Union Square Park, as flyers appeared, desperately, and ultimately futilely, hoping for word of lost loved-ones. Those signs told the life stories of the people of New York and its suburbs, they told the stories of Americans who had been killed by a gang of murderous, fanatical thugs. And I ached for those people, and I raged at Bin Laden and his jihadist f*ckers.

And I believe Bush has stolen September 11th from me and from the American people who had not been so united in generations. He has used our unity and resolve to advance a radical agenda (and I haven't even mentioned the Patriot Act, energy policy, environmental policies, Halliburton and on and on) that rewards his cronies, restricts our rights, debases our democratic discourse, and weakens us in the world. I resent him for stealing American from us, and I fear what he and his people will do to us and the world with four more years. I fear for our democracy and I fear for our security. The Bush Administration has not made us safer, only more fearful.

So, on this level, I am an "anyone-but-Bush" supporter.

But, I am also impressed with John Kerry and believe he can be an excellent President. The man volunteered for the US military during the Vietnam War; he then volunteered to be sent overseas to Southeast Asia; he turned his boat around into enemy fire in order to rescue a fallen comrade. These actions demonstrate his courage and character. He returned home and spoke the truth about the war, again demonstrating his courage and character. I know many people are angry with him for "aiding the enemy" with his comments, but I don't accept that. First, a healthy democracy depends on courageous people speaking up. Second, he was right. Go read his testimony before the Senate. He does not indict individual soldiers; he condemns the political and military leaders who did not know what they were doing, who did not know how to win a war that could not be won, who were sending young American men to die because they couldn't figure out how to get out of the mess they had created. And, just like now, he is demanding that the men who sent our soldiers into battle be held accountable.

As for the credentials he brings to the office of the Presidency, I will quote Brad De Long's pithy summary:

Kerry's ability to work with open-minded Republicans like McCain, Lugar, and Hagel; Kerry's record as a deficit hawk working hard to strengthen the safety net; Kerry's issue advisors--Rubin, Altman, Tyson, and Blinder on Treasury issues, Bianchi and Thorpe on HHS issues, Beers and Holbrooke on security issues--are picked from those who have proved themselves highly competent and effective; Kerry's successes as a boss of prosecuting lawyers, as an investigator of BCCI and POWs, as a member of the Democratic senate caucus--these tell us who Kerry is: a Massachusetts liberal believing in fiscal prudence and an active government, understanding both soft and hard power, and personally brave--both in Vietnam and after, in his courage to say what he believed needed to be said about our war in Vietnam. He's one of the thousand or so people in America best-qualified to be president.

Kerry also has a far better understanding of the enemy we now face than Bush does. Look at the articles I posted a couple of days ago about Kerry's almost single-handed crusades against the links between international drug dealers, money launderers and terrorists. He has been aware of these links for nearly two decades now and has fought against entrenched interests (including Bushes and their financial associates). And he is right that the only way to defeat the jihadists is to kill the ones who are already committed, and to keep our policies from contributing to making new converts. And to do these things we must restore what Joseph Nye calls our "soft power" -- that is, our ability to lead the world through moral suasion backed up by moral policy. We have been called the "indispensable nation," and I think that is still true. And Kerry understands that, and nothing is more important to keeping that position than that we be respected in the world. People are fond of quoting Machiavelli to the effect that it is better to be feared than loved; but people leave out the next part of the quotation which says that to be hated is to court one's own downfall. While it may be comforting to see the world in black and white, the real world of international politics calls for a whole bunch of diplomacy, engagement, negotiation and all the ugly, sticky, and difficult work of leading an imperfect world. Kerry will bring in competant, experienced people in his administration, people who are prepared to engage with and change the real world, not enact an ideologically-based fantasy of the way the world should be.

I remember once, Cathy, I expressed my concern to you about President Bush's religious zealotry. You replied something to the effect that you, too, believed that God does His work in the world. But my problem with Bush is that he claims to KNOW what God wants, he seems to face no doubts about what God wants for him. That scares me. All the great religious leaders who left the world a better place than they found it have been wracked with doubt, with questioning -- about what God wants, about whether they are deserving, about their own faith, about whether they are living up to God's will. How can any man claim to know for certain God's will? Isn't that the same thing that motivates Osama Bin Laden's hateful nihilism?

Don't be fooled by the labels on Kerry -- liberal, flip-flopper, etc. And don't believe that Bush never goes by the polls or focus groups -- that is what all politicians do all the time. But look at how strong Kerry has seemed over the past months; he did not wilt under the barrage of lies from the Swifties; he did not stumble under the lights in the debates. He has been focused and resolute in his campaign strategy while every other Democrat was screaming "do this" or "do that". And because he has waged his campaign with such strength and resolve, because he has spoken to the American people with intelligence and, yes, maybe even "nuance," because he has shown himself to be eminently qualified to be Commander in Chief, the American people will resoundingly choose him tomorrow to be the 44th President of the United States.

And I can think of nothing better to happen to our country at this moment when we so desperately need a change of leadership.