The Democratic Response, or, I hope I don't piss John off too much

My presentation went well last night. I do well with PowerPoint because the slides keep me focused on points, but I can also be free to talk about other things that aren't on the slides as well. Now comes the hard part, writing the paper.

The title of this post has to do with John's friend Ken's post on the subject of Fahrenheit 9/11 and his reaction to it. I will lay this on the line: I've never met Ken in my life. When he was here last fall I believe I was probably at work, or looking for work, or in Kalamazoo. I know of Ken, only through what John, Karen, Jean and Rhea have said. I know we believe vastly different things politically. I read Ken's blog every now and then, as it's linked from John's. I do not know if he reads mine, as he has never met me. Presumably he disagrees with a lot of what I say if he does, and obviously that is his right. Unlike Ken, I have not served this country in uniform. I thank and admire Ken for doing so, because I likely wouldn't go myself. If that makes me a coward, fine, then I'm a coward.

I don't have problems with what Ken says about the film itself, I haven't seen it, and thus cannot speak to its merits. I know that unlike Ken I can't give you my experiences about what life was like on the front during the war.
Michael Moore is what he is, a documentarian. He admits freely that this film is more of a filmed version of an op-ed piece than straight documentary. He has his points to make and he makes them. Can he seem condescending? Yes, but then nearly every documentary is. Michael Moore has spent the last twenty five years living and writing about politics. He founded one of Michigan's first alternative newspapers, he edited one of the leading liberal magazines, Mother Jones. He has gone after the corporation that literally built and then destroyed the city of his birth. His weekly TV series that used to air on Fox made being a muckracker and a gadfly cool. Not many people would have the DC Gay men's chorus show up at Jesse Helms' door. Moore made one of the funniest black comedies of the post-Cold War era, Canadian Bacon. He's published books, campaigned for Ralph Nader, done a ton of work to investigate the fascination our country has with guns, attack both parties and, of course, go after GWB. Can Michael Moore talk down to his audience? Yes. Does he often make his subjects, particularly those of lower social classes, subjects of humor? Yes. These are his failings as a film maker, not as a person.
Michael Moore is well within his rights to paint George Bush any way he wants to, so long as he doesn't say anything libelous. Bill Clinton has nothing to do with George Bush and his presidency. Everyone knows Bill Clinton lied, its been well established. George Bush promised to restore honor and dignity to the White House. He is himself, I will admit, very likely an honorable and decent man. His journey from Prince Hal to Henry V is incredibly interesting. But on the left, we will still see him as a man governed too much by a seemingly Apocalyptic Christian worldview, one that doesn't allow him to see the world in shades of grey. Steadfastness and doggedness are admirable qualities in a leader, but so is the ability to admit mistakes and change course if poliy isn't working. Bush has not shown the ability to do this. His obsession with his own ideological purity doesn't give the opportunity for nuanced poicies or compromise, the very bedrocks of our government.

Moore uses Craig Unger's book "House of Bush, House of Saud" to source his claims about the link between the Bin Laden family (which disowns Osama), the Saudi royal family and the Bush family. As far as I know, the only people who believe truly that 9/11 was staged are those in the Muslim world, who believe it was done by Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency. Getting Bush out of the classroom wouldn't have necessarily meant projecting his own cowardice or panic. If he had left, it would have said to the nation that the commander and chief is ready to get back to DC and do his job. The Bush team had to know that once the planes hit, the coverage would be from New York, not his appearance in Florida. The networks literally would have said what the President was doing, that he was at a school, he heard about what happened, and that he and the Secret Service left immediately, to try to get back to DC, or the bunker. If Bush had left, it wouldn't have said anything negative about him at all.
Iraq had never been a threat to attack the US. Saddam's plan to kill Bush's father was to be sprung when he visited Kuwait, after Bush had been out of office for a year. He wasn't trying to kill the sitting president of the United States, that obviously would have been cause to attack, and killing a former president would have been as well. Assassination plots are hatched daily and never get off the ground, or are foiled, these aren't direct attacks on the United States.

Was Saddam an awful man who did incomprehensibly terrible things to his opponents? Ye she did. The Iraqi people suffered terribly under his rule, especially during the sanctions, when Saddam took the aid given to the nation and built palaces for himself and his sons. There are terrible men like this all over the world. But we didn't go to war with them. Were Saddam's crimes, as terrible as they were, justification for invasion. Yes, they are, but only now. This is the only time we have preemptively invaded a country on the basis of liberating its people from suffering under tyrannical leadership. We didn't go after Japan and Germany until after being directly attacked and Germany declaring war on us. We didn't go after Mao, after Stalin, after Pol Pot, or Idi Amin (Who Ate People). I find, and for 99% of our history, our country has found,preemptive war to be a moral evil. Republicans opposed operations in Bosnia and Kosovo for these reasons. The church condemns it as such. The Pope condemned this war because of it. We are currently allies with a military dictator who seized power in a coup (Pakistan), a man who tortures political opponents and is rapidly becoming a despot (Uzbekistan), and others who commit terrible acts. It typically has taken a lot to get us to go to war, and no matter how terrible Saddam was, his brutality against his own people would not have justified war in past generations.

I do not believe the administration lied about what they saw as Iraq's capabilities as far as WMD's. What I do believe is that those in power at the Pentagon, the civilians at DoD, not the Joint Chiefs, selectively took the intelligence they wanted, and used it to justify war. WMD's, in general, is a more compelling case to present to Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public than Iraqi atrocities. Had the UN been able to complete the inspections process, perhaps hundreds of American lives, and thousands of Iraqi lives would have been saved, because the idea of Saddam as an imminent threat would have been extinguished. I simply believe that we rushed into war without exhausting all diplomatic opportunities. The neocons at the Pentagon operate under a dangerous worldview that the projection of American power abroad can only be made via force. They believe, I firmly think, in the idea of an American empire. This is an anathema to everything our foreign policy, and our country, has stood for for 228 years. They are the danger. The troops are heroes. The military acted bravely and brilliantly. Lives have been lost in Iraq because the civilian leadership in Arlington didn't do its job, because "men go to Baghdad, Real men go to Tehran" is the way they think. The Powell doctrine of overwhelming force has been cast aside. Perhaps its use would have saved many lives.
It generally is liberals who point out the undemocratic way the military is structured. In an all-volunteer army, the underclasses are more likely to go because in a lot of places, its the only opportunity to get out, to get a college education, to see the world. Children of privilege, on both the left and the right, I doubt too many children of Fortune 500 CEO's, Heritage Foundation board members, or kids getting sent to Hillsdale are in the military, have more opportunity. The military becomes like the priesthood for many of these people, a calling only to be undertaken by only those truly called, not the doorway to a future career or education. We on the left don't want to see anyone fight, and if they have to only at an instance of last resort. We love the troops, well most of us anyway, the Chomskyites generally are pushed to the periphery anyway. It's he people at Heritage, at the National Review, in the Pentagon who don't do the troops the service they need. They put them in harms way, needlessly.

I hope I haven't made anyone upset, especially John or Ken. I've tried to be even handed. If you feel I've attacked you, I'm sorry, I haven't gone out of my way to do that, I've only stated my own opinions.

Regarding the state of conservatism today, Mr William F. Buckley (Founder of the National Review) said there was an ongoing debate about the war in Iraq which clashed with the traditional view of the right that American foreign policy should only seek to protect its vital interests. "With the benefit of hindsight, Saddam Hussein was not the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago," he said. "If I knew then what I know now ... I would have opposed the war."