This editorial first appeared in the October 2006 issue of Socialism and Liberation magazine.
Howard Dean. John Kerry. Dennis Kucinich. Hillary Clinton. John Murtha.
Over the last few years, Democratic Party bigwigs have offered progressive people an assortment of politicians who
 Senate hopeful Ned Lamont is not anti-war when it comes to Palestine. Photo: Stan Godlewski |
In each instance, these representatives have turned out to be false prophets. Far from a left-wing alternative, Dean became the chairman of the party’s National Committee following his 2004 presidential bid in the primaries. Kerry, the party’s standard-bearer in 2004, ran on a platform of sending more troops to Iraq. Kucinich, who claimed an anti-war platform throughout his primary bid, ultimately endorsed the pro-war Kerry.
Clinton—only anti-war in so far as she criticizes Bush’s inability to “win” in Iraq—is now a war hawk when it comes to Iraq, Palestine and Iran. Murtha, the Pennsylvania congressperson who made a splash in November 2005 by calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, later explained his plan as a “strategic redeployment” of troops throughout the Middle East.
Now, with congressional elections looming in November, Democratic Party leaders are once again crafting ways to channel mass anti-war sentiment into their decidedly pro-war electoral program. The openly pro-war and pro-big business Republican Party is vulnerable to losing seats in the House and Senate for its association with unpopular White House policies.
Some in the anti-war and progressive movement are whipping up enthusiasm for “taking back Congress.” A growing number of people know that Bush lied, consider Iraq a mistake and want the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.
But misplaced hopes are destined to be dashed. The Democratic Party machine has refined its language to capture the majority resentment for President Bush. But it shares the foreign policy objectives of the Bush government. The two war parties are competing over who will administer the “war on terror.”
The ‘war on terror’ and elections
The Republicans’ electoral strategy is to scare the country out of its mass anti-war sentiment with images of Sept. 11 and the threat of “Islamic fascism.” On Aug. 31, Bush said that withdrawal from Iraq would help the “successors to fascists, to Nazis, to communists and other totalitarians.” Two days earlier, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared criticism of the Bush administration to the “cynicism and moral confusion” that in the 1930s “set in among the Western democracies” and abetted the rise of Nazism.
On Aug. 27, one of the Republican incumbents facing a challenge, Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, made this political scare tactic concrete by conjuring up images of war in the United States. “We either fight them there [in Iraq] or we fight them in the supermarkets and streets here.”
But the Republicans, too, feel the pressure of anti-war sentiment. That is why New Jersey Republican candidate for Senate Thomas Kean, Jr. called for Rumsfeld’s resignation on Sept. 3.
The Democratic candidates are orienting their electoral strategy toward the mass anti-war sentiment and national security. By and large, they are continuing the line that the Bush administration mismanaged the Iraq war. Now, though, they are claiming that the Iraq war is a distraction from the greater “war on terror.”
The U.S. government should focus on greater enemies like North Korea and Iran, the Democratic Party line goes. The Democrats are in fact vying to be more pro-war in other arenas of the phony “war on terror.”
The Democrats and the Middle East
Democratic Party leaders portray the Iraq war as the brainchild of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other neoconservatives currently in office. It does not matter that Democratic politicians overwhelmingly voted for the war and the subsequent war appropriations bills. They claim they were deceived by “bad intelligence” on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, the administration’s lies and Bush’s arrogance.
The fable promoted by the Democratic Party propagandists and repeated by some in the anti-war movement is that the war drive is just a product of one party, one administration or one president. History shows a different story.
In 2002, the Bush administration officially adopted the “National Security Strategy,” which identifies domination of the Middle East as a foreign policy necessity. That strategy in fact emerged in the administrations of Democratic presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. In the wake of World War II, the Democrats in the White House aimed to at once replace British interests in the Middle East and prevent the spreading influence of socialist and national liberation movements.
Later Democratic administrations followed through on this “National Security Strategy.” Democratic president John F. Kennedy backed the overthrow and assassination of Iraqi president Qasem in 1963 by a right-wing coup.
President Jimmy Carter ardently supported the brutal dictatorship of the Iranian Shah. In Iraq during the late 1970s, Carter supported the Baathist government’s repression of communists. The Carter administration also initiated a strategy of establishing permanent U.S. forces and bases in the Gulf region.
The Clinton administration supported eight years of deadly sanctions on Iraq, which according to U.N. reports claimed the lives of 1.5 million Iraqis, including 500,000 children. In 1998, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday resigned, saying that he did not want to “administer a program that satisfies the definition of genocide.”
Each of these Democratic administrations financed and endorsed Israel’s expulsion campaign against the
 50,000 protest against the war in L.A., Sept. 24, 2005. Photo: Kelly Wine |
‘Anti-war’ Democrats
Sadly, after six decades of supporting the colonial subjugation of the Middle East with a slew of massacres, coups and dictatorships under their belt, the Democrats still manage to dupe some progressives with the help of some liberal organizations.
This fall, Democratic politicians have increased the pitch of their voices, but their message remains unchanged. They want to stamp out any semblance of self-determination for the Arab people and the other peoples in the Middle East.
Although a majority of the country is calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, the most that Democratic Party politicians offer is a “strategic redeployment” of U.S forces into Kuwait. John Murtha—the main spokesperson for this strategy—calls this putting the troops “over the horizon.” This means out of sight, but not out of the region.
But some anti-war organizations have taken it upon themselves to turn this message into something different. After Murtha’s initial announcement, United for Peace and Justice declared, “Slowly but surely, our movement’s pressure is pushing Congress in our direction” (Nov. 18, 2005). A statement by the group CodePink read, “We’re thankful that Congressman John Murtha has joined us in calling for an end to the occupation of Iraq.”
This fall’s latest anti-war messiah is Ned Lamont, who defeated incumbent Joe Lieberman in Connecticut’s Democratic Senate primary. Lamont’s victory was largely fueled by his attacks on Lieberman’s support of the Iraq war. The corporate media portrayed Lamont as the “anti-war challenger.”
Lamont is a strange ally for the mass movement that has taken to the streets against the war. To begin, Lamont is a multimillionaire television executive and no friend to working people. The great-grandson of a J.P. Morgan chairman, Lamont’s personal fortune amounts to $300 million.
Lamont’s position on the Iraq war is close to Murtha’s plan. He is another voice in the Democratic chorus calling for a “timetable,” instead of immediate withdrawal.
Like Lieberman, Clinton and the rest of the Democratic Party establishment, he pledged unequivocal support for Israel in its campaign of destruction against the people of Lebanon and Palestine.
In a section of the UFPJ website explaining why electoral interventions are important, they use the example of Lamont’s campaign as one that “got the attention of every member of Congress.”
Most important, Lamont is only liberal window dressing for the Democratic Party’s staunchly pro-war establishment. Hillary Clinton, firmly in this establishment, does not even give the lip service that Lamont does to withdrawal. Important elements within the Democratic machine are backing the openly pro-war Lieberman campaign despite his primary loss.
It is true that capitalist politicians—of both big business parties—respond to pressure from the masses. But when they respond, they always do so in the manner that best serves their own interests.
With an independent and clear program, the anti-war movement has the potential to develop into a decisive and explosive force in U.S. politics. From within our own ranks—not from the ranks of the capitalists—we will find and develop the leaders and spokespeople to give voice to the aspirations of the country’s millions of working people.
