Mr. Gaffney, let’s begin with you. What do you think is the meaning of Bush’s election victory? Is it a positive or negative development for the war in Iraq and the terror war in general at home and abroad?
Gaffney: The President's re-election, combined with expanded Republican majorities in the Senate and House, was a necessary precondition to victory in the War on Terror and its Iraqi front - albeit not, in and of itself, a sufficient one. Had things come out differently, our Islamo-fascist enemies would certainly have perceived the outcome as evidence that their strategy of sapping our will and ultimately vanquishing us was succeeding.
This, in turn, would have led to a redoubling of their terrorist attacks, certainly abroad and probably here. It would also likely have helped the enemy's proselytizing and recruitment operations around the world, greatly compounding the already ominous threat they pose to both their fellow Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Today, Mr. Bush has a mandate to mount not only the sort of sustained and robust military operations currently underway in Fallujah -- and do so wherever appropriate to defeat the terrorists and their infrastructures. He has also been empowered to make more effective use of other tools such as: vastly expanded international broadcasting and new techniques for denying the terrorists and their sponsors critical financial flows. The latter include: U.S. investors divesting stocks of companies that do business with such enemies and finally bringing to mass markets fuel and automotive alternatives to our present, reckless reliance on foreign oil - most of which is exported by our enemies.
FP: Dr. Chesler?
Chesler: President Bush's election sends a signals to the jihadic world that America will not give in to terror, will not sacrifice Israel to the howling mobs, will not rely on the United Nations of Tyrannies, (which did nothing to stop the genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, or Sudan), before it will act in the world, and that America and her allies are resolved that freedom, democracy, human rights, and women's rights are not concepts that belong to the western world only but are universal concepts that belong to everyone.
President Bush's election victory confirms that Americans are ready to fight and die to liberate Arab Muslims and Christians who are yearning to breathe free, who have been impoverished and tortured by their leaders for too long. Some say that America poses the greater jihadic danger and that democracy cannot be exported or imposed militarily. I say: Rubbish! America's critics live in a country that protects their freedom of speech and assembly--even though they've lost their moral compass and can no longer distinguish between a free society and a totalitarian one. America's critics view President Bush as the "real" Osama, hate and fear him more than they do those who attacked us on 9/11--whom they romanticize as freedom fighters.
FP: Mr. Estabrook, I take it you might not be in full agreement with Dr. Chesler and Mr. Gaffney?
Estabrook: There are some points of variance. The election of Bush means that much the same group of statist reactionaries (hardly conservatives, either neo- or otherwise) who are guilty of what the German leaders were condemned for at Nuremberg -- launching aggressive war -- are still in charge of US policy. Not that things would have been much different for Iraq, had the Democrats won. Kerry was committed (apparently) to equally murderous policies there; his foreign policy advisers seem to have taken Richard Clarke's position that the US should have killed different Arabs and killed them earlier (in spite of the fact that assassins from Oswald to Sharon hardly ever effect a change in policy).
In domestic matters there may have been some difference. Our two semi-official parties, similar as they are, respond to slightly different constituencies, and some of the Republican looting may have been lessened under a Democratic administration. Bush was as clear as he can be (that is, not too clear at all) at his first press conference, when he announced that he wanted to spend his "capital" on privatizing social security and revising the tax code. The transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, which proceeded apace under the first Bush administration, will only continue in the second; in fact there may be even more emphasis on it, as the administration possibly turns away from foreign to domestic concerns.
Edward Luttwak has pointed out that the recent history of US presidencies shows that second terms often bring changes in direction. The disastrous and incompetent occupation of Iraq, and the fiscal and financial mismanagement that means that foreigners must pony up about two billion dollars every business day to keep the US economy afloat, may put serious limitations on what the second GWBush administration can do. Concentration on the interests of those that Bush famously referred to as "my base," the very wealthy, may be the order of the day -- which may have the effect of lessening somewhat the torture -- figurative and literal -- of the rest of the world.
The historian of the Vietnam War, Gabriel Kolko, argued that a Kerry victory would actually be more dangerous for the world at large, because Kerry would have lessened the isolation of the US and thereby undercut opposition to US imperial policy from the EU and the rest of the world. The Iranian government seems to have brought that reasoning, letting on that they preferred the "known quantity" of the Bush people to a possibly more diplomatic Kerry administration, which might make it more difficult for them to play off the EU and the US, as they seem successfully to be doing.
In any case, almost three out of four eligible voters did not vote for Bush, in spite of an intense campaign of fear and misinformation in the corporate media. The result was a Republican victory far closer than that of 1972 -- which was followed by the end of a criminal war, the effective impeachment of a severely limited chief magistrate, and some of the most progressive social legislation (and even more progressive proposals) of any administration in living memory. Not a bad model.
Jensen: Defenders of the U.S. empire typically assume the assertion that the United States promotes freedom and democracy is adequate to prove the claim. That is, “we are fighting for freedom and democracy because we say we are.” That’s a smart rhetorical ploy, since any minimal investigation of the facts would reveal something quite different.
Is Bush’s election a positive or negative development in the war on Iraq? It’s clear the United States has lost the war on Iraq; such a colonial war cannot be won against a population that rejects foreign occupation. The only question is when the Bush administration will come to terms with that reality. If Kerry had won, the same question would be relevant.
Is Bush’s election a positive or negative development in the war on terror? It’s hard to know what to say, since the “war on terror” is an ideological construction designed to justify the use of force to advance U.S. imperial aims. I oppose terrorism, whether it’s being committed by al Qaeda, Israel, or the United States -- all of which have used violence against civilians for political purposes. But to talk about a “war on terror” is to accept U.S. propaganda, which obfuscates rather than advances understanding.
The importance of Bush’s election in this realm is that it communicates to the world that a sizable component of the U.S. population accepts the imperial project. We can assume that will increase the likelihood of additional attacks against U.S. citizens. -- Michael Pugliese