"Choose Your Neo-Con Poison" - The very latest from the DLC

[Tinoire]

Well...! No wonder the DLC's advice to Kerry was "shaft the Left" ((see very end)). No wonder no antiwar banners at the convention. No wonder Medea Benjamin dragged off the convention floor and antiwar protestors penned up in a "speech-free zone". No wonder. And now the DLC is fighting for its domination of the Democratic Party because they full well know they do NOT represent the majority of us and that Democrats are ANGRY.

October 31, 2004

“We're not going to beat George Bush by being Bush Lite. The way to beat George Bush is to give the 50% of Americans who quit voting because they can't tell the difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party — give them a reason to vote again.”

-- Howard Dean


(snip)

The DLC promotes a philosophy they call “progressive internationalism” -- a slight variation of neo-con ideology. In the run up to Iraq war, the DLC launched a campaign to enlist Democrats in Bush’s march to war. Will Marshall, The President of the Progressive Policy Institute, the DLC’s think tank, led the charge. In an article titled ‘Making the Case On Iraq’, he laid out the “progressive internationalist” position on the war.

“For starters, Democrats need to resist the argument that only the discovery of new evidence against Saddam -- the acquisition of nuclear weapons or clear involvement in anti-U.S. terrorism -- would justify action against the dictator. That reasoning implies that a statute of limitations has expired on Saddam's long catalogue of past crimes. What we already know is bad enough: Saddam is a serial aggressor -- he's attacked no fewer than four neighboring countries -- and an implacable enemy of the United States who is desperately seeking nuclear weapons to complement his deadly arsenal of biological and chemical weapons. Democrats should make it clear to the public that the status quo is intolerable, that the old policy of containing Saddam has failed, and that leaving him free to acquire nuclear weapons is a risk that neither we nor or the civilized world can afford to take.”

Marshall’s article was published in Blueprint Magazine -- a plagiarized edition of Commentary. Now you would think that these “progressive internationalists” would be chastened by the turn of events in Iraq. But Marshall not only remains an adamant supporter of the war; he is now a militant proponent of escalation.

Here is what he wrote more recently in a Blueprint article published on January 8, 2004] ((PPI: Stay and Win in Iraq by Will Marshall)).

“What the United States needs now is not an exit strategy but a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. The key elements of such a strategy are more supple military tactics, more money, and more allies. But that requires more troops, not fewer, and it means deploying them in ways that could raise the risk of U.S. casualties. The administration has rightly made the democratic transformation of the greater Middle East the grand American project of the 21st century. That job starts in Iraq. If we fail here, our hopes for liberalizing the region will be stillborn. To create a stable, representative government in Baghdad, we need to show total commitment to quelling a motley insurgency that includes remnants of Saddam's security and intelligence services, disgruntled Sunnis, and foreign jihadists. Yet the timing of the administration's troop cuts seems dictated by the campaign calendar, not strategy.”

Notice that Will Marshall never bothers to suggest that Iraq was part of the “war on terror.” Even though he repeats the neo-con’s outlandish claims about Saddam’s non-existent WMDs, he makes it clear that the DLC didn’t need illicit weapons or an Al-Qaida link to justify a “pre-emptive” war against an emaciated Iraqi army. Like other DLC fellow travelers, Marshall was certainly aware that Saddam Hussein was fully contained. But he couldn’t resist the urge to indulge in a little bit of old fashioned imperialism and tinker with ‘regime change’ to transform the “Greater Middle East.”

Now that his neo-con wet dreams have resulted in a tenacious native insurgency against the foreign occupation forces, Marshall proposes to up the ante. Instead of taking pause and reflecting on how much blood and treasure have already been squandered at the neo-con roulette table, he suggests we ignite other fires in the region. For Marshall, “the job starts in Iraq.” When and where does it end? That’s for the neo-cons to know and the rest of the world to find out.

Like the Bush administration, the DLC and Marshall still subscribe to the idiotic notion that Saddam loyalists and foreign jihadists are at the core of this insurgency. As the intelligence community has often pointed out, very few ‘foreigners’ have been found among rebels arrested by the Anglo-American occupation forces. Besides, Iraq was home to millions of immigrants from other Arab countries. They are the Iraqi equivalent of permanent residents -- very much like the Green Card holders in the US military who serve their country without the benefit of citizenship. As a fully integrated part of the population, it is not surprising that some of these Arab ‘foreigners’ have joined the Iraqi resistance. Moreover, the insurgents are hardly Saddam loyalists. While they have often demanded the release of Iraqi prisoners -- they have never once bothered to ask for Saddam Hussein. And one suspects that the deposed president would fight extradition to Fallujah or Najaf. The only part of Saddam the insurgents might want is his head.

(snip)

The DLC’s web site also promotes the foul produce of Bernard Lewis, a rabid anti-Arab racist who was convicted in French courts of intellectual dishonesty on account of his denial of the Armenian Holocaust. Incidentally, Lewis has also served as a private part-time personal tutor for Dick and Lynn Cheney to bring them up to speed on the “dysfunctional Arab mindset.”

(snip)

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct04/Amr1031-2.htm

Blueprint, a magazine single-handedly financed by Bernard Schwartz, the chairman and CEO of Loral Space and Communications and DLC Board of Trustees, can be found here: www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=250855&kaid=132&subid=193 (2002)

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ka.cfm?kaid=132 (current)

===

Will Marshall's latest offering begins like this:

DLC | Blueprint Magazine | January 8, 2004
Stay and Win in Iraq
By Will Marshall


Are Dennis Kucinich and Donald Rumsfeld secret allies? You'd think the Democrats' most vocal peacenik and the GOP warlord would have little in common, but both seem to be in a hurry to get U.S. troops out of Iraq. Even with Saddam Hussein in the bag and awaiting trial, that's a bad idea.
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=450004&subsecID=900021&contentID=252289


===

Shaft the Left

John Kerry is doing exactly what he should be doing right now. He is in a post-primary molting season. He's emerging from the shadow of Howard Dean and becoming more like the policy twin of Joe Lieberman: a pro-trade, fiscally conservative centrist Democrat who is willing to pour more troops into Iraq to win the war. . . .
Kerry is absolutely correct to take some time off, retool the message and play the quadrennial game that smart nominees play: Shaft the Left.

http://www.centristcoalition.com/blog/archives/000569.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/04/opinion/04BROO.html?pagewanted=print&position=