September 23, 2003
Rangel an unlikely ally
Rangel an unlikely ally of Clark
As a native New Yorker, I am thrilled that Charlie Rangel, representative for New York's 15th Congressional District which comprises East and Central Harlem, the Upper West Side, and Washington Heights/Inwood, is among the first in Congress to endorse WKC. He's truly one of the good guys. And he's anything but an unlikely ally of Clark. If anything Colin Powell is an unlikely ally of Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. Congressman Rangel, who bootstrapped himself into a position of prominence in the Democratic Party and the House, understands that the odds of lawyers, doctors, and bankers emerging from Harlem are a bit better than those of Rhodes scholars and world citizens hailing from Arkansas. Their mutual concerns geo-politically are basic to "acting locally": education, health care,voter registrationnn, bullet-proof voting machines, tolerance, and equal economic opportunity. These are all fundamentals of democracy that tend to be neglected or abused when a region is impoverished and beknighted. Genuine public servants, Charlie, Wes, and Bill will never be truly wealthy, but they will have legacies that survive in the communities they helped to improve. A true Democrat, Rep. Rangel is all about transcending differences, a regular Great Society kind of a guy. Thanks to www.citizenonline.net for this excellent profile.
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) did not study foreign policy at invitation-only seminars underwritten by major foundations. Nor was he ever the favorite protege of a powerful, senior diplomat. For him, there was never to be a junior year abroad.
No, as a 20-year old high-school dropout from Harlem, Cpl. Charles Rangel had a total immersion course in foreign policy in a place called Korea, when his outnumbered Army unit was overrun in combat by Chinese communist forces. For valor under fire, Charlie Rangel earned the Bronze Star. For wounds he sustained from enemy fire, Charlie Rangel was awarded the Purple Heart.
Rangel is no professional veteran: “I got shot. I got out. I went back to high school. Never looked back, and I have never had a bad day since.”
Thanks to the GI Bill and his own hard work, he graduated with honors from New York University and St. John’s Law School before winning election to the House in 1970. Today, Rangel, with unconcealed passion, speaks on two intimately related subjects: how much he opposes the entire U.S. war against Iraq, and how strongly he supports former Gen. Wesley Clark for president.
“This war hurts and scares and pains me more than anything except combat,” he admits. Speaking almost sadly, he tells of half a dozen nearly identical personal exchanges with President George W. Bush. Each time the president, with obvious sincerity, asks the same question: “Do you know, Charlie, why we’re hated so much?” After Rangel confesses, “I really don’t know, Mr. President,” Mr. Bush answers his own question: “Because they’re evil, Charlie. Because they’re evil.”
Rangel believes the president and some close to him “decided that Saddam Hussein on Sept. 11 offered the perfect target to cut this evil of animosity out of civilization, democracy and the world.” But there was one major problem, according to the New York Democrat: “They had no idea what the hell they were doing. They had no idea what it would cost – no idea that little countries with no money and a lot of pride would tell us to go straight to hell.”
The onetime Army enlisted man detests the big picture, big thinkers who argue that, for the United States, “the only way to have credibility is to be willing to kill and to die.”
Of such theoreticians, Rangel asks: “Do you know anyone who is going to die? Who the hell are you talking about? Some nameless, paid gladiators?”
Would a reinstituted military draft, advocated in legislation by Rangel and Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings (D-S.C.) have made any difference in the pre-war debate or the vote on the war in Congress? (What's that about? Ed.)
“You bet your bottom dollar,” says Rangel, offering the typical reaction from a Hill colleague: “’I believe we have to fight. I believe we have to die. But good God, man, you mean my son? My grandson? You mean someone in my neighborhood? I’m going to have to go to the funeral? Let’s take another look at this.’”
But then, Rangel saw “this general on TV, and the general is not a right-wing Republican.” But why Wesley Clark? “Most of all, I want someone to say to the world: ‘I’m an American. I’m a former four-star general. I love my country. I’m president of the United States. Can we talk?’”
And what would the reaction be? “They’re going to fall all over themselves, saying, ‘Thank you, buddy, I’ve been waiting for you.’ They’re even going to say, like after a marital spat: ‘I said some hurtful things I didn’t mean. I was only trying to get your attention.’”
How important is military service to his candidate’s chances? “Clark is intimidating to anyone who did not serve our country.”
Clark should know this about Rangel. In 1984, Rangel endorsed Walter Mondale for president over Jesse Jackson, who drew enormous support from African American voters. Many African American politicians, anxious to avoid accusations of disloyalty to a presidential candidate of their own race, rushed to jump on the Jackson bandwagon. Not Charlie Rangel. He stuck with Fritz Mondale. He’s the kind of guy you want to have with you in a foxhole.
Would you like an exit strategy with your jobless recovery?
Would you like an exit strategy with your jobless recovery?
The deaths of US and British soldiers, the continuing violence and economic sabotage, and the rising popular resentment at the Western presence are just the first cracks in the facade of postwar American-British occupation. Every student of Iraq issued a warning about the aftermath of war: deep fault lines between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds, with additional tensions caused by Islamic extremists, Baathists and Arab nationalists, would make it difficult to hold the state together. The questions are, is this effort "winnable?" If so, how? And at what cost?
Let's be realistic: measured against the objectives, we haven't done so well yet.
Weapons of mass destruction have not yet been found - but the intelligence suggested, at a minimum, that Saddam Hussein had some chemical and biological capabilities. Weapons may have been hidden in Syria, buried underground, or given to terrorists - or perhaps the intelligence simply overestimated the threat. We must continue the search - we have most of the resources we need to be successful in place already - but each week increases the likelihood that some of these weapons may end up in the wrong hands.
Good point: the Anyone But Bush league tend to imply that if the weapons existed Blix would have found them, which is potentially almost as dangerous a position as the demagogic gun Rumsfeld and Cheney pointed to our heads. I think it's safe to assume that Saddam had WMDs he could employ locally, and that just as we can assume he and Bin Laden are still at large, someone knows where they are. WKC speaks realistically, not moralistically, and hence claims the non-partisan high ground.
As for regime change, Saddam and his sons no longer occupy their palaces or control the Government. Yet their survival feeds fears of a Baathist return, sparks continued resistance, and undercuts efforts to establish new institutions.
Has the capture of the sons made any difference. I'm sure I don't know.
Efforts to locate and track the Baathist leaders must continue. But this requires deep penetration into Iraqi society. We have radio and telephone listening devices and are working to recruit additional agents, but there are no guarantees of success. Each unsuccessful week of effort reveals the limits of US intelligence and influence, and each week is likely to see the Baathist resistance grow.
To my mind there's a big difference between WKC saying "intelligence doesn't know everything" so we can't count on them for all of the answers, and Cheney telling Tim Russert, "We don't know," but trust us on this.
(MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it's not surprising that people make that connection.
MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don't know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn't have any evidence of that.)
Meanwhile a deeper, private struggle is ongoing between various factions in the Shia community. Will they secure dominance over their Shiism from the Iranians, and re-centre the sect on Najaf? Will they succumb to pressures from Iran? Will they demand a fundamentalist theocratic state, or some form of "modern" theocracy that combines Islamic law with limited democratic forms? The Shia issue is potentially the most explosive. If they are able to move together, they will dominate Iraq. But in the press here we see only the barest surface ripples from the major movements underneath.
Nuance is all as WKC might say, but will he be able to make arguments this subtle as commander-in-chief? Why isn't Gen. Clark sending the press to these stories?
Shia leaders know the threat of the Baathists. Even now they must be assessing the options. They could help the coalition to defeat the Baathists, and then ask the coalition to leave; remain neutral, and wait for both the Baathists and the coalition to exhaust themselves; or work with the Baathists, on their own terms, seeking control inside the Baathist organisation and building pressure against the Americans and Brits. Right now, some of this is likely occurring.
Regardless of the twists and turns of internal Islamic activities, the outcome seems clear - the US and the Britultimatelyutimately be invited to leave; how soon depends upon our effectiveness in the occupation. The manner of our departure may follow from a quiet series of meetings with Iraqi clerics, it may be in massive street protests that shut down commerce and traffic; or it may be punctuated by violence on a scale far greater than yet seen against Americans and the Iraqis who have co-operated with the coalition.
And in the north are the Kurds. They are armed and largely self-governing. Independence will be the next step, should Western nation-building efforts falter.
And unless other measures are taken, independence will be accompanied by internal violence and possible conflict with Iran or Turkey. As for all those other grandiose dreams - transforming Arab society, inspiring democracy, finding the key to peace in the Middle East - well, it comes down first to whether we can handle the challenges of dealing with the here and now in Iraq.
Success is not impossible, but it will be difficult, and it grows more so with each passing day.
It is simply not possible to maintain this occupation by force, even if we doubled the forces committed there. The actions against the Baathists - the sweeps, strikes and searches - risk the kind of popular ire that resulted in six British soldiers being killed near al-Amarah.
So what can be done now? A successful outcome would be to solve the mystery of the WMD, suppress the Baathist resurgence and hold Iraq together, leaving it self-governing in some semblance of secular democracy, secured by its own armed forces, free from domination by other regional powers or terrorists. Winning in Iraq requires working with the existing forces in that society, not against them. Representative Iraqi institutions - national, regional and local councils - need to be established to work with the US and UK civilian administrators. These institutions must leave no one out, including former Baathists, who should be given an opportunity to renounce their former loyalties.
The internal squabbling and scheming must be forced out into the open and the press invited in. We must propose responsibilities, procedures for decision-making, and standards for protecting the rights of the various factions in the councils, and retain the authority to admonish, remove or hold accountable leaders who don't follow the rules.
The art will be to govern fairly, to create common interests and to lay in these early institutions the seeds for democratic, tolerant and limited government.
There should be no democratic elections until much later. Incidentally, let's make no mistake about oil revenues, impounded Iraqi funds, or profiteering by US and British companies. We must continue to set aside any idea that this occupation could be Iraqi-financed.
Another example of WKC's unique pov: on one hand he debunks the ever-pollyanna-ish notion that Iraq could, would or should support our war. On the other he appears to be agreeing with the administration against the French that Iraq is a long way from voting for a democratic government, which dictates our being there for years, not months.
The US and UK must also recruit and equip tens of thousands of Iraqis to handle the security and reconstruction responsibilities of the occupation. Yes, they must be trained and vetted - but this must be done quickly. Iraqis must be put in uniform and on to the streets alongside the US and British Forces as soon as possible, and thousands of translators must be brought in. Iraqi faces must be seen to carry out some of the tougher chores like the searches for weapons, responses to complaints, guarding facilities and pursuing criminals. And there should be a prohibition of searches in the absence of translators.
So far Clark is the only politician stressing the need for translators (corrections welcome), which is so commonsensical and yet innovative, it deserves to be discussed in a separate article.
Communications with the Iraqi public is crucial. Western forces must take extraordinary measures to combat rumours, fears and suspicions. This means more transparency in decision-making and complete reporting on the results of the patrols and searches. Why can't we have our own 24-hour news channel in Arabic? Military forces must find new ways to provide this transparency without it hobbling operational methods and aims.
Where is the Voice of America in all this?
Do we have the staying power for what we're facing in Iraq? First, let's be honest with ourselves. We went into this mission with a myopic focus on the Iraqi threat - we underestimated the strength of the Baathists, inadequately anticipated the resistance during the fighting, underresourced the force required to deal with military "success" and failed to plan fully how to create "regime change". The American and British public need to hear it from their leaders; they need to understand why these mistakes were made and see that those responsible are held accountable. And then we've got to persuade others to help us to shoulder these burdens - the mission is simply bigger than the US and UK can handle. We should be asking the UN and other international institutions to take a greater role.
Sounds like a position to me.
While the civil administration in Baghdad would likely agree with most of these ideas, it has not implemented these programmes with the required urgency nor has it specified the end state it seeks.
If we are successful, the cost of this mission will be measured in years, tens of billions of dollars and dozens more soldiers' lives lost. But failure will be more expensive, and a premature pull-out will exacerbate regional conflict and undercut the War on Terror. So, we need to lock in a defined exit strategy, as we've done in Bosnia, to bring the British and American people and the international community on board: we need to create a matrix measuring progress in political development, economic reconstruction and security, and to announce the report card quarterly. But above all, honesty, and remember, when the Iraqis ask us to go, the mission is over.
I thought the mission would be over when Cheney said, "You may be excused." By requiring a "report card," WKC is certainly following normal organizational practice when one has a boss to satisfy. Too bad Bush Inc. seem to think they're accountable only to each other, and not the world.
Positions? We Got 'Em! yin.blog-city.com
yin.blog-city.com Notes on Gen. Wesley Clark's appearance in Iowa
Tung-yin of "The Yin Blog" offered some good news at the end of a tough week. What a difference 24 hours makes, or maybe the general prefers to pontificate over lunch rather than in flight. My choice of words is deliberate: if a president can't pontificate (and hopefully Wes is using his Shakti Gawain affirmation training to imagine himself there) who can? A little bit of Bryan's "cross of gold" rhetoric never goes amiss on the trail to the White House (I know Bryan lost - three times! But for Iowa and the primaries Wesley needs to awaken his Inner Populist).
As I mentioned previously, retired Gen. Wesley Clark came to Iowa today to deliver the annual Levitt Lecture at the University of Iowa. . . . He had lunch at the law school with the faculty, and I was lucky enough to be at the table he came to. I say "lucky" because I had plenty of opportunity to ask Gen. Clark questions and to follow up on some of them in this informal environment.
Here are some quick thoughts on various issues discussed at the lunch table, during the informal Q&A session just afterward, or during his Levitt Lecture:
* On social security, he seems to think that the solution to the anticipated deficit was to raise the cap on the Social Security taxes (i.e., currently, only the first $87,000 or so of income is subject to the payroll tax). He is against raising the retirement age, because that is the same as a cut in benefits. At the same time, he recognizes that the "lockbox" concept is nonsense, because the government has a "unified" budget.
* On the kinds of judicial nominees he would aim for, he said that he would look for ones who bring balance and no ideological agenda; he identified Justices Breyer and Souter as examples.
* He thinks that Bush v. Gore was a bad decision because the Supreme Court shouldn't have intervened into such a matter. I pointed out that his ideal Justices both agreed with the big 5 that the Florida recount process violated the Equal Protection Clause, and he agreed that the standard was problematic and wrong. When Randy pressed him, he suggested that the courts should have used an "intent of the voter" standard, as illustrated by the ballots by Jewish voters with the double votes for Buchanan and Gore (meaning, I suppose, that the voter intended to vote for Gore but messed up at first and picked Buchanan). This was actually not a very good answer, since Randy pointed out that there was no way to know whether a given voter was Jewish, a point that Gen. Clark conceded.
* On whether the Chinese government should be forced to revalue the Yuan (unit of currency), he agreed that it would need to be done in the long run, but thinks it can't be done right now because there are too many underperforming loans in the Chinese economic system. Essentially, the Chinese economy needs to be fixed before revaluation can be done.
* He likes the French. In fact, just before he stepped down as the NATO Supreme Commander, a French political leader told him, "You should have been French!" Coming from the French, that sounds like high praise. He did note that the French suffer from a similar problem to what he believes the current administration suffers from, namely, too narrow of a view of self-interest.
* He believes that going into Iraq was a mistake because Iraq posed no imminent threat and there was time to take other measures. He would not have voted for a measure allowing the President to go to war (over Iraq), although he would have voted for a resolution to give the President "leverage" provided that the President would have had to come back to Congress. [This was not at the lunch table, so I didn't have a chance to ask him what kind of resolution he had in mind. It sounds like maybe what he meant is that the resolution would have allowed the President to seek U.N. approval, which would then be followed by an actual vote by Congress to authorize military force.]
* However, now that we are in Iraq, we can't just pull out -- that would lead to chaos and all but invite Al Qaeda to move in.
* He believes that preemptive strikes are warranted under appropriate circumstances, though they should be subject to extremely stringent standards of proof. He would not want the President to say, in response to a threat, "Gee, let's wait and see if it really is anthrax, and when people get sick in New York, then we'll get mad."
* On gays in the military, he believed at the time that the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy was okay, but he also pointed out that back in the days of the draft, being gay would not get you excused. He now believes that the policy should be reevaluated because it does not seem to be working well. He favors the British policy, which is "Don't ask, don't misbehave." Interestingly, he explained that "Don't ask, don't tell" seemed to work better in the Army than in the Navy or Air Force. The Army, he said, was constantly short on resources and hence did not have time to spend on determining whether a soldier was gay. The Air Force, in contrast, was full of "spooks" who were going around intimidating airmen and airwomen.
Fascinating, but why alienate the Air Force brass? The general's a loquacious sort.
* He sees three major issues in the election: (1) the war on terrorism; (2) the economy; and (3) the future of the American presidency.
* "How did we get here?" He traces the current split between the U.S. and continental Europe not to Iraq, but rather to the end of the Cold War. "What happened is we won . . . and we lost. We lost our mission, our sense of purpose. It had been to contain the expansion of communism, to deter Russian attacks, to help fledgling democracies." Now, he says, we are "rudderless." What should be our direction?
If Bush Inc. didn't have Weapons Of Mass Destruction to revive the Cold War, it would have had to find another us vs. them paradigm to fuel their morality-driven crusade. Probably faith vs. atheism. Doesn't what's left of the Republican center realize that the evangelicals and neo-cons have more in common with radical Islam than the center of either party? Did these guys miss the lectures on the Constitution because their frat parties ran too late the night before?
1) Inclusiveness: "You don't make us safer by erecting walls to keep others out, but by building bridges. . . ."
2) International organizations: "We have to use international institutions, not condemn and abuse them." We need the U.N., and the U.N. needs us, he said.
3) Use of force: We should believe in a strong and effective military, but we should also realize that force is to be used as a last resort. "It's very difficult to change people's minds when you are bombing and killing them."
Who in the administration wants to change their minds? Looks like we just want to bomb and kill 'em.
* On terrorism, he favors focusing on the terrorists and funding, as opposed to countries. However, in probably the most controversial part of his speech, he singled out Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt as the "central fronts" -- Saudi Arabia because of "hatred spewing out of" the country, Pakistan because of its madrassas, and Egypt to a lesser extent.
Now we're speaking Truth to Power. As long as our "allies" in the region find it politically expedient to support groups that demonize us, our bombs, and boots on the ground will never give Americans their money's worth, much less squelch terrorism.
* On whether U.S. soldiers should serve in U.N. missions led by non-Americans, he was skeptical. The U.N. was fine for observer or peacekeeping missions, but for missions with the serious potential for military conflict, the U.N. had no military command capability. He prefers a NATO command, because "we trust NATO commanders." But he emphasized the need for the U.N. imprimatur because around the rest of the world, what the U.N. says is law.
* He did realize that aspects of the U.N. were less than perfect. He refused to defend the fact that Syria is chairing the U.N. Disarmament Commission and that Libya is chairing the U.N. Humans Rights Commission, labeling those as "absurd."
. . . I have to say that given the breadth of questions he was getting, he showed remarkable command of factual matters and political issues. What I was most impressed with was his willingness to accept reality and to state clear opinions.
I've read across the blogosphere that Gen. Clark comes across as cold and impersonal, but here in Iowa he did not seem that way.
So if one agrees that the above represents a satisfactory exposition of WKC's current positions, why aren't they emerging from the past week's encounters with the press? Is the press suppressing the general's views, or has he simply failed thus far to reduce them to slogans? One of Wes' favorite words seems to be nuance. It reminds me of what my dad, a retired corporate executive and employment counselor has always told me, "Getting the job and doing the job are two completely different things." Heck, in this economy, even the best resume isn't as important as acing the interview. Welcome to the club, Gen. Clark. We'll do our best to make sure you aren't underemployed.