All the leading Democratic candidates
are committed to the cause and
furtherance of U.S. global dominance
There's no real foreign policy difference
between the Republicans and the Democrats
when it comes to "doctrinal" questions
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If anything, the "neoliberal" Democrats'
main foreign policy claim is that they can do
a better job of conducting this imperialist
foreign policy than the "neoconservative" Republicans
Democrats claim to be better, more effective
and competent Men and Women of Empire
I’m hearing it from almost every liberal and/or Democrat I talk to: “let go” and “move on.”
The first thing I need to “let go” of is the demand for the investigation, impeachment and removal of war criminals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for fraudulent pre-Iraq war intelligence, illegal wiretapping, torture and extraordinary rendition among other high state crimes.
The second thing I need to move past is the demand for the de-funding of the criminal U.S. war on Iraq and for the rapid removal of U.S. troops, weapons and bases from that illegally and unjustly occupied nation.
“Get real,” the argument runs. “Pour your political energy into something that can actually win and make a difference – electing Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John Edwards and giving them more Democrats to work with in Congress.”
Left-wing calls for Bush’s removal and the end of the illegal occupation, I am told, are dysfunctional and dangerous. The Democrats don’t have the votes in Congress to win on either demand and so will end up looking silly and weak by pursuing impeachment or de-funding.
“Look,” Democrats tell me, “we’ve got Bush where we want him. People hate his war and his presidency. The evil Republicans are drowning in Iraq. Let’s not blow it.
"Let’s not seem to give Bush and Karl and other vicious Republican attack dogs any Swift-boating ammunition.
"Let’s not appear to provide them any basis for the charge that we ‘lost Iraq’ or that we are wasting government resources and public energy on a ‘Gotchya’ campaign that ‘hurts America’ and disrespects the presidency ‘in a time of war.’”
‘Keep cool. Calm down. Bush is going down in the history books as The Worst President Ever. His approval numbers are late-Nixonian. He’s sinking his party and setting up a Democratic realignment in 2008. History is turning in a progressive direction.”
“Keep your eyes on the prize,” I am told – “the 2008 elections. Bush will be gone by February 2009 and we can make America good and respected again by getting a Democrat into the White House and more Democrats into Congress.”
“And by the way we’ve responded to the American people by sending Bush and antiwar bill. Bush just defied U.S. majority opinion by vetoing it.”
Democrats & Republicans: Warmongers Unitied
The notion that everything will be AOK from a peace and justice perspective once we get Democrats into the White House and more deeply entrenched in Congress is incredibly naïve.
All of the “top tier” Democratic presidential candidates (Obama, Edwards and Clinton) doctrinally refuse to acknowledge the transparently criminal, mass-murderous and oil-imperialist nature of the U.S. war on Iraq.
Each embraced Congress’s tepid and immediately vetoed pro-war “timetable” bill.
Each argues that “all military options” should be “on the table” in regard to Iran – a position that amounts to embracing a possible future U.S. nuclear attack on that nation.
All of the leading Democratic candidates are committed to the cause and furtherance of U.S. global dominance.
There's no real foreign policy difference between the Republicans and the Democrats when it comes to "doctrinal questions. The leaders of both parties are equally committed to U.S. world supremacy.
Both wings of the narrow-spectrum U.S. party system strongly embrace U.S. interventionism, militarism and (when "necessary") unilaterialism in the name of spreading "democracy" and "free markets."
If anything, the "neoliberal" Democrats' main foreign policy claim is that they can do a better job of conducting this imperialist foreign policy than the "neoconservative" Republicans. "We are the better, more effective and competent Men and Women of Empire" is the basic claim. Such was the essence of the John F. Kerry "Reporting to Duty" campaign.
Currently, aggressive militarist neoliberals (Hillary Clinton is an especially dangerous example) are probably more influential within the Democratic Party than aggressive militarist neoconservatives are inside the Republican Party.
Although they now cast themselves as alternatives to President Bush, the fact is that prevailing Democratic doctrine is not that different from the Bush-Cheney doctrine...
Many Democrats, including senators who voted to authorize the war in Iraq, embraced the idea of muscular foreign policy based on American global supremacy.
With the presumed right to intervene to promote democracy or to defend key U.S. interests long before 9/11, and they have not changed course since.
Even those who have shifted against the war have avoided doctrinal questions.
But without a coherent alternative to the Bush doctrine, with its confidence in America's military preeminence and the global appeal of ‘free market democracy,’ the Democrats' midterm victory may not be repeated in November 2008.
Or, if the Democrats do win in 2008, they could remain staked to a vision of a Pax Americana strikingly reminiscent of Bush's.
Ordinary people at home and abroad will still have plenty to fear and worry about with a world-supremacist Democrat in the White House by February 2009.
In the meantime, we must not allow the lifeblood to be sucked out of the struggle for peace and justice by the cynical self-interest of pseudo-progressive vote-chasers who make peaceful promises they are certain to abandon on the assumption of power.
The top Democrats are not acting in accord with those promises even in advance of cherished electoral victories. Paul Street @ ZNet