[lbo-talk] Kolko on the 'Lesser Evil', Part 2

Brad Mayer Bradley.Mayer at Sun.COM
Tue Aug 31 11:59:48 PDT 2004


Putting the piece de resistance up top:

"In this [the Bush] context, it is far more likely that the nations allied with the U.S. in the past will be compelled to stress their own interests and go their own ways. THE DEMOCRATS ARE FAR LESS LIKELY TO CONTINUE THAT EXCEEDINLY DESIRABLE PROCESS, A PROCESS ULTIMATELY MUCH MORE CONDUCIVE TO PEACE IN THE WORLD. They will perpetuate the same adventurism and opportunism that began generations ago and that Bush has merely built upon, the same dependence on military means to solve political crises, the same interference with every corner of the globe as if America has a Divinely ordained mission to muck around with all the world's problems. The Democrats' greater finesse in justifying these policies is therefore more dangerous because they will be made to seem more credible and keep alive alliances that only reinforce the U.S.' refusal to acknowledge the limits of its power. In the longer run, Kerry's pursuit of these aggressive goals will lead eventually to a renewal of the dissolution of alliances, but in the short-run he will attempt to rebuild them and European leaders will find it considerably more difficult to refuse his demands than if Bush stays in power - AND THAT IS TO BE DEPLORED."

"Critics of American foreign policy will not rule Washington after this election regardless of who wins. As dangerous as he is, Bush's reelection is much more likely to produce the continued destruction of the alliance system that is so crucial to American power in the long-run. Facts in no way imply moral judgments if we merely identify them. One does not have to believe that the worse the better but we have to consider candidly the foreign policy consequences of a renewal of Bush's mandate, not the least because it is likely."

I agree. Given that the two parties do not differ precisely on strategic foriegn policy issues, the traditional Democratic Party tactics here will only extend the world's agony while still dishing out in same measure the extreme violence.

http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/smh27.htm

"If the Democrats win they will attempt in the name of "progressive internationalism" to reconstruct the alliance system as it existed before the Yugoslav war of 1999, when the Clinton Administration turned against the veto powers built into the NATO system. There is important bipartisan support for resurrecting the Atlanticism that Bush is in the process of smashing, and it was best reflected in the Council on Foreign Relations' vague and banal March 2004 report on the "transatlantic alliance," which Henry Kissinger helped direct and which both influential Republicans and Wall Street leaders endorsed. Traditional elites are desperate to see NATO and the Atlantic system restored to their old glory. Their vision, premised on the expansionist assumptions that have guided American foreign policy since 1945, was best articulated the same month in a new book by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Carter's National Security adviser. Brzezinski is far more subtle, rejecting the Bush Administration's counterproductive rhetoric that so alienates former and potential future allies. But he regards American power as central to peace in every part of world and his global vision no less ambitious than the Bush Administration's. He is for the U.S. maintaining "a comprehensive technological edge over all potential rivals." It is a call to "transform America's prevailing power into a co-optive hegemony -- one in which leadership is exercised more through shared conviction with enduring allies than by assertive domination." And because it is much more saleable to past and potential allies, this traditional Democratic vision is far more dangerous than that of the inept, eccentric melange now guiding American foreign policy." (3)

"America's traditional allies, of which Australia is one of the closest, have to decide if they are willing to give a carte blanche to what is - and will remain regardless of who wins next November's election - an increasingly dangerous adventurism. We know a great deal of how American foreign and military policies are formulated, and they are less and less predictable and increasingly likely to alienate an ever-larger part of the world. Cynicism, unrealizable ambition, deliberate but also self-inflicted illusions are crucial to the byzantine way crucial decisions for war or peace are reached. (4) But to proclaim that the alliance with the U. S. is sacrosanct is to encourage an increasingly irresponsible American foreign policy. That, too, is an issue the Australian people must consider."

"Kerry voted for many of Bush's key foreign and domestic measures and he is, at best, a very indifferent candidate. His statements and interviews over the past months dealing with foreign affairs have mostly been both vague and incoherent, though he is explicitly and ardently pro-Israel and explicitly for regime-change in Venezuela. His policies on the Middle East are identical to Bush's and this alone will prevent the alliance with Europe from being reconstructed. On Iraq, even as violence there escalated and Kerry finally had a crucial issue with which to win the election, his position has remained indistinguishable from the President's. "Until" an Iraqi armed force can replace it, Kerry wrote in the April 13 Washington Post, the American military has to stay in Iraq - "preferably helped by NATO." "No matter who is elected president in November, we will persevere in that mission" to build a stable, pluralistic Iraq - which, I must add, has never existed and is unlikely to emerge in the foreseeable future. "It is a matter of national honor and trust." He has promised to leave American troops in Iraq for his entire first term if necessary, but he is vague about their subsequent departure. Not even the scandal over the treatment of Iraqi prisoners evoked Kerry's criticism despite the fact it has profoundly alienated a politically decisive segment of the American public."

and therefore the austere domestic policy follows:

"His statements on domestic policy in favor of fiscal restraint and lower deficits, much less tax breaks for large corporations, utterly lack voter appeal. Kerry is packaging himself as an economic conservative who is also strong on defense spending - a Clinton clone - because that is precisely how he feels. His advisers are the same investment bankers who helped Clinton get the nomination in 1992 and then raised the funds to help him get elected and then defined his economic policy. The most important of them is Robert Rubin, who became Treasury secretary, and he and his cronies are running the Kerry campaign and will also dictate his economic agenda should he win. These are same men whom Stiglitz attacks as advocates of the rich and powerful."



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