Two Fridays ago, I was driving around and tuned in to my favorite show, "Radio for people who think," hosted by Dan Lynch, to hear me lambasted on his program; his objection was that he was being labelled a conservative (by me) on a left-wing anti-Bush website. I immediately engaged him in the following dialogue. (Mr. Lynch's responses are paraphrased, as this was a private correspondence. I will post only my e-mails, and you can judge for yourselves whether or not the questions were adequately addressed.)

Mr. Lynch,

Glad to know you read my blog at www.thiscenturysucks.com. The reason for the e-mail (rather than calling you up) is that I would like to know what you think about several things relating to the war in Iraq without first being drawn into a corner and automatically given a political litmus test on the air before you get a chance to address my questions. Am I left wing? Yes. Am I a liberal? Yes. Do I have a prescripted ideology? No. Did I live through Vietnam? Yes I did. For someone who spends a lot of time bashing the credibility of politicians, you seem to be giving warmakers the benefit of the doubt with regard to Iraq, which is why I referred to you as a conservative. You have a right-wing position on this, on the rightness of it and the justness of the cause. I'm not going to argue about why we went to war, but rather ask a question: What do you think will be accomplished by the occupation, in reality? What outcome do you foresee? I know your position well (getting rid of a ruthless dictator who posed a threat), but you have yet to make the case that America should, as a matter of foreign policy, go into the business of deposing ruthless dictatorships worldwide that potentially pose a threat to us, by any means necessary, including assassination. I have a story to tell you with regard to this, given to me firsthand by the US ambassador to Chile during the Allende overthrow some years ago. 9/11, as you no doubt know, is also the anniversary of a much less celebrated occasion in American history -- 1973 -- the year we officially got into the business of overthrowing democratically elected governments at the behest of American corporations with ties to an administration that doesn't stop at kidnapping and assassination of foreign leaders. CIA insider Peter Kornbluh (who can be heard on Fresh Air, September 9, 2003 at http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml;jsessionid=BA2HMWIU5YBRLLA5AINSFFA?todayDate=archive) discusses our now infamous covert action in Chile to overthrow Allende and install August Pinochet, a tyrant whom Kissinger defends as key to American interests, even though he murdered thousands of people every two weeks and orchestrated car bombings in Washington. Some of this is covered in The Trials of Henry Kissinger, a movie that features, among other things, an interview with my late friend, Edward Korry.

Korry was the U.S. ambassador to Chile during the Allende overthrow and he was a friend of my family. I remember in 1976 he was having what turned out to be a nervous breakdown, because at the time, he didn't know about Track 2: the nefarious CIA planning against Allende, and Kissinger's and Nixon's involvement in his planned assassination. I remember Ed pacing back and forth in our living room, strands of spittle in the corners of his mouth, as he obsessed (he could talk for hours on end, uninterruptedly) about our government's complicity and his role in it, as a dupe. I became so involved with his story that I ended up taping him for about four and a half hours in 1976 for a high school history project, and sat mesmerized as he recounted all of this. He didn't know anything about the CIA undermining him at the time, that's how covert it was. (Now, of course, the whole thing seems quaint. Disgusting, huh?) Well, what surprised me more than anything was that when I started telling people about what we as a country were doing in Chile, and what was going on in our own State Department (Nixon almost did away with the Constitution, he came that close), nobody listened, and if they did, they yawned. Nobody cared. They looked at me with their eyes glassed over, waiting for me to shut up so they could change the subject. People my own age didn't care. I think that's what truly sent Korry over the deep end -- testifying to Congress (Richard Helms, at the time head of the CIA, pinned the whole sordid affair on Korry and made him the fall guy) and getting nowhere. (I read every page of his long, long testimony, which is no less than an indictment of American international corporations such as ITT and Anaconda Copper, who feel they have a right to every natural resource in South America and continue to kill people for it, at the time with the aid and encouragement of the Nixon administration, and, it turns out, Congress.) Frank Church featured prominently in the hushing up and public tarring of Korry. Church is tainted and complicit, despite his hero status among the American liberal left. After that dead end, Korry brought his story to the New York Times, who refused to publish a word about it. That's when he started having his breakdown. The Times didn't get around to publishing it until seven years later, at which point it was old news. They even admit as much in Korry's obituary (he died earlier this year). That proved to me as early as 1976 how complicit the so-called liberal media is in our illegal foreign exploits. The truth is, the media is a business like any other, and it has to stay in business, and you don't do that by running stories like this, because Americans just don't want to hear about it. So administrations get away with it.

Korry recounted two moments in particular: He insisted on seeing the president after finding out about Track 2, and Kissinger intercepted him, intoning gravely, "Mister Ambassador, do you think your country would lie to you?" Ed responded urgently, "I have to see the president." When finally Korry was admitted to the Oval Office, Nixon sat behind the desk punching his fist into his hand, saying over and over, "We're gonna get the sonofabitch! We're gonna get the sonofabitch!" and Korry thought, Oh no.

That was my introduction to insider politics, at the tender age of 16. OK, we're in Iraq, by ourselves. To Iraqis this is an occupation, with an unelected governing body supervised by the occupying power, at least for now. The United Nations is unenthusiastic about helping out, for various reasons. Your stated position is that the only thing fundamentalist regimes understand is an overwhelming show of power that says essentially, what happened here will certainly happen to you: wherever you are, we're coming after you and we're gonna get you. My confusion about your position is that it doesn't work, and never has. You're basing everything on the assumption that they have everything to lose should they continue to practice terrorism, and that a military invasion will act as a deterrent. Where's your proof? That Saddam is gone? Well, is he? Our troops are dying every day. Somebody's killing them, and these somebodies don't seem deterred, at least not to me, no matter how many of 'em we kill. When was a military presence in the Middle East ever a deterrent to violence? If history is any guide, terrorists are encouraged by such activity; in fact, it is their lifeblood and gives them a cause to rally around.
I'd like to share with you two letters I wrote to different columnists at the New York Times to see what you think (part of it was derived from the blog you read), which forms the other part of my question to you:

"I can't help but notice how every single escalation of violence is reported in the news as part of the 'peace process' -- as if our invasion of Iraq weren't triggering a guerilla war against yet another American occupation. Now we're hearing the opening salvos of an Arab-Israeli war, thanks to the utter abandoning of diplomacy and a relentless militarism. Since Reagan, Republicans have talked to us as if we were collectively three years old, and our foreign policy now is sold to us along the same lines -- that we intervene wherever we want militarily "to teach the governments who sponsor terrorist groups a lesson." The plan, we are told, is that our big stick in Iraq will produce soft talk between Israelis and Palestinians, who are no doubt ready and willing for a two-state solution, all thanks to an American president who, when confronted with dismal past policy failures, always chooses to ignore them.
I have a huge problem with this kind of thinking. First, we're talking about Cain and Abel. This is blood hatred that defies all reason, all fear, and all consequences, going back to before the ink was dry on the Old Testament. For as long as people have known history, one group has dedicated itself to annihilating the other, this is how they define themselves, to themselves. Second, it is utterly irrational and not a little patronizing to try to "solve the problem" of the Middle East. To look at this as a problem that has a solution is the difference between a country only 200 years old and a place that, for all intents and purposes, is the cradle of human existence. There is no solution. There are islands of peace, and episodes of war, and everlasting hatred. The national borders are all fictions, based on the last 100 years of British and American imperialism, and the warlords and heads of state were all set up by their European and Continental masters. So these arguments of statehood are all bogus, to the extent that any one group is indigenous. It's a hypocritical argument any way you look at it, this idea of "we were here first." Nobody was anywhere first, except maybe Africa 160,000 years ago, and take a look at Africa.
Third, why do conservative-minded political thinkers think that violence solves problems? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that violence begets violence. How can we be invading countries and bombing modern cities with the most advanced technology of war making available and talk about peace, to the very people we are bombing and murdering? How is that a "solution"? I keep imagining an Arab radio call-in show discussing in a pseudo-rational way why Americans would be better off dead, "because that's the only thing we understand." And what's with all this morality? The equivocation and moral relativism used in the Middle East arguments are completely disturbing. The Palestinians are evil and cowardly because Hamas hides among women and children, and the Israelis have every right to kill them all in massive bombing raids, but Israeli blood is shed indiscriminately, and thus immorally, because the suicide bombers target public places and don't distinguish between combatants and civilians. Well, what about us? We bomb the daylights out of whomever we please, wherever and whenever we please, for money. What does that make us, in the moral scheme of things? Why is it America's job to "do the right thing" and "solve" the world's problems? We can't even deliver a budget in Albany. The reality is, the Middle East will never, ever, in a hundred million years be free of hatred, war, and blood feuds. Bush has dragged us -- screaming and kicking -- straight into the world's oldest quicksand, where we will be mired for years and years and years, enough to make Vietnam look like a mud puddle. In the meantime, newspapers are splitting hairs about rationales. Tell it to the dead.
What we're doing in Iraq is spreading to all points north, south, east, and west. Anybody can invade anybody, anytime, any place, for any reason. That's what our "trust us, we know better" leadership has brought to the world. The Palestinians and the Israelis are at war, not peace. This is the war process. Why can't the news media call it what it is? By the time the Bush crowd is finished there will be wars everywhere on earth. Isn't this the definition of world war? As for the Pax Americana, I say, Caveat Pre-emptor."

And here's a letter I sent to Thomas Friedman when he gave out his e-mail and asked for people to write to him, that bears on the issue:

"Guilt was the cause of a disagreement, I suppose you could call it, between me and a friend of more than 30 years, that almost ended in a fistfight right before the start of the last Iraq war. I was born and raised a Jew. Guilt is not unknown to me. It is the source of many problems. But guilt isn't always a bad thing; in fact a little of it can go a long way toward preserving lives, of people whose only crime is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet it's complicated. I think my friend had a point, I'm just trying to understand it. Here's the background: He is Jewish and half his family lives in Israel, he frequently visits them and has dual citizenship. Politically he is right-leaning, and when it comes to Arabs, his eyes cloud over with hate and he begins making his point in a highly agitated manner (not unlike me arguing). Now, this was before we officially invaded Iraq, so I was asking him how he felt about starting an unprovoked war against an Arab country, since I felt that Israel and its existence was implicitly involved in the outcome. Not only did his eyes light up at the prospect of killing, he began to vehemently justify the invasion using all the official administration arguments -- in other words, he swallowed them all hook line and sinker. Everyone's entitled to their viewpoint, especially in my house. So I pointed out that perhaps these arguments were specious, since they ran counter to intelligence reports about Iraq and how much of a threat Hussein was to the U.S. (don't forget, we knew it at the time -- there was some question about WMD, but nothing solid, and zippo evidence or proof positive, but this can be argued). Moreover, I suggested that perhaps the preemptive invasion was a cynical ploy on the part of a White House administration that would stop at nothing -- not even mass murder -- to get their man reelected, using lies and a spirit of national pride and revenge to do it. That someone, somewhere in Arabia, was going to get it, even if they had absolutely nothing to do with the actual perpetrators of 9/11. And how cool were you with that? That noncombatant civilians -- i.e., families -- living in Iraq were going to die in mass numbers for a phony reason, and it hasn't happened yet, and when it does -- as it certainly will (it did) -- won't their blood be on all of us? Especially if we're gung ho? How can you support that action? Don't you remember Vietnam, the pointless killing for the sake of a handful of egos? And that at this point in America, Arab lives have zero value? Well, at that point he thought (maybe rightly) that I was calling him a murderer, and he got in my face, and I thought he was going to start swinging. Luckily it didn't come to blows. We have been arguing for 30 years, this is no different. It was never a question of the friendship.
But here is my question: It is now known that Bush lied about the war and the threat Iraq posed, and he's lying again about another Arab country, Iran, in order to launch another invasion. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands or more will certainly die. In my view, we are awash in this blood, which I regard as innocent, and this has been true about America for hundreds of years, but in my lifetime it started with Vietnam and civil rights and then broadened to much elsewhere, places we are never even told about. We are guilty of being murderers, right? And that's immoral, isn't it? This isn't about hawks and doves, it's about killing people who have done absolutely nothing to me. Why did my friend get in my face? My only point to him was that if we admit our guilt and complicity, maybe it won't happen the next time, maybe some people will be spared the useless cruelty and death. Or am I dreaming? His original justifications are proven false, yet he persists in his views. It's all about killing Arabs, isn't it? I hate to put it in those terms, but I can't see it otherwise. Why else is everyone getting so patriotic about organized slaughter and meaningless deaths?
Why can't old friends have a blunt discussion about mass murder without going at each other's throats? It seems we as a country do what we do without calling it
by its name, and when somebody does, they get attacked for it. I was wondering if indeed I was calling it by its name, or if I had somehow got it
wrong -- that we really should go and kill all those people, for some reason that was never quite explained to me truthfully. I'll take the
honest explanation and live with it. But if I'm wrong about my view, I need to know why. I asked another version of this question long ago, about why exactly we were going to invade Iraq, and I got a mixed bag of answers from my friends. A lot of people who didn't do anything to me are dead since that discussion, and it hangs over me, over
all of us. Is this the price of having my American life? I think it is. I just want to hear somebody say so. To stand up for once and say, yeah, that's exactly
what it is. Instead of lies. But I'm trying to have an open mind. A lot of places in the world are a whole lot more terrifying and meaner than we are,
we just happen to be the baddest asses on the block right now. What happens when we aren't, though? Look at history:
power never stays in one place, and the way things look to me right now, we are totally isolated, geopolitically. Why is this a good thing? NEED AN EXPLANATION."

I never got one.

Mr. Lynch wrote back that too many conservatives characterize as anti-American anyone with
doubts about this war, and too many liberals are unwilling to support any
military action for any reason, especially as the president is a
conservative. He points out that between these two extremes, sensible people can have
conversations.

I wrote:

Mr. Lynch:

So I take it that too many conservative viewpoints and too many liberal viewpoints are not sensible, hence a dialogue between the two extremes is
impossible. The only sensible position is a moderate independent one?


By the way, while you may consider me self-deluded about not having a prescripted ideology, you should know that although I frequently post to that website I mentioned, my own belief is that the Left should mobilize its members around something other than hating Bush. For one, it should reclaim common sense and use it to forge a dialogue in a public forum, issue by issue, focused like a laser, to reframe the argument as it were, rather than to demonize and label the opposition. To me, hate is a demon that must be constantly fed, with terrible consequences for everyone. This may or may not strike you as pie in the sky. I despise our culture of fear. It cows the public and allows the powerful elite to be given carte blanche, which I consider dangerous and a domestic threat if allowed to continue unopposed, and here is where we disagree about American policy in Iraq. In this regard I believe I'm the cynic and you're the idealist. I'm all for hunting down terrorists, but I don't see how toppling that particular dictator and occupying his country accomplishes that goal, which is why I asked you the question in the first place. In Afghanistan, most of the terrorists got away, then came back in. A lot of them are in Pakistan. Why then aren't we bombing Pakistan, which is also run by a dictator? To an American soldier in Iraq right now, everyone's a terrorist, and therein lies the tragedy, because the killing continues from that point forward, with no end in sight. A big military occupation exacerbates that situation daily. Have we learned nothing from Vietnam? The only lesson I can see is, keep the media out of the field. As a journalist, how does that sit with you?
I listen to your program because I lament the death of public debate in my lifetime and at least there is a remnant of it on your show, despite your sometimes bullying tactics, which is another staple of the conservative talk show host. I don't much mind if you belittle people or ridicule them, but you shouldn't push them around. I realize that a lot of the time they're trying to push you around and there's a natural inclination to push back, but I guess what I'm referring to is when you manipulate them into your corner, label them, and stick them in a jar as soon as you get a whiff of anything resembling ideology. That's when the wall comes down and the dialogue ends. But it's your show and you can do whatever you want.
Regarding Vietnam and its modern-day parallels to Iraq and the American government's foreign policy, I strongly recommend Daniel Ellsberg's book Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. It is compelling and well worth reading, from someone who was inside the corridors of power at a turning point in American history, which is where I believe we are now.

And in a following e-mail:

The relevance of Chile with regard to Iraq seems pretty clear: in one case, covertly toppling a foreign
government by plotting with generals to stage a coup, by means of kidnapping
and assassination, to prevent nationalization of Chile's natural resources
(as we are now doing in Venezuela -- this is fact, not theory, as a matter
of historical record); and in the case of Iraq, overtly toppling a foreign
governent up to and including assassination in order to "remake the Middle
East" -- which also happens to award no-bid contracts along the way
exclusively to American corporations with ties to the administration that
waged the war (all perfectly legal) -- in each case resulting in hundreds of
billions for said corporations, a pretty good motivation to go to war if you
ask me. Krugman's column today is all about this. To say that one is
entirely irrelevant to the other is like looking up at the stars on a clear
night and saying, Well, I see each one, but none has anything to do with the
other -- and gravity is just a theory (which it is); I only deal in facts.
But don't take my word for it. You still avoided answering two key
questions: What do you think will be accomplished by the occupation, in
reality, and what outcome do you foresee? I am truly interested in listening
to your answer, as someone with a mind open to possibilities and views other
than my own.

Lynch responded that a difference exists -- "perhaps even a moral and ethical difference,
if you live in a democracy" -- between analysis that is rational and the best
truths available and unthinking blind adherence to political dogma.

So in other words, he avoided the question. I put it to him again: Where's your proof that the presence of an occupying army acts as a deterrrent to the escalation of violence in the Middle East? And how is this not triggering wars north, south, east and west?

- Michael 2:44 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Some More Site Mottos

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt



"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make fitting response."
 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt



"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson



"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."

"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree."
- James Madison



"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy



"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.