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Presidential Candidates and the Strategists who Lurk Within
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by Polly Mann, W A M M
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AIn an article in the Star Tribune, the “earnestness, wit and charm” of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee were attributed to be the reason he won the Iowa Republican Party’s nomination for president of the United States. Indeed, might not the same thing be said about the Democratic Party’s nominee? We might then compare the contest – not just the primaries but the presidential election itself – to the Miss America contest, which is no longer just a beauty contest but a contest in which the individual contestant’s charm, intellect, and wit are judged. What more could Americans possibly want in a presidential candidate?
Both Conservative candidates and those a hair left of Conservative candidates, called Democratic candidates, did their best to charm. They were short on issues, especially the details of issues. They were longer on domestic issues than international issues. True, there were some small differences between them. All would, of course, end the war – but in good time – carefully not defined. As for bringing U.S. troops home from the 730 bases they occupy all over the world, that was never mentioned. All are going to see that health care is cheaper and better, but how? All are going to work for an environmentally sound world – that is, if the 35,000 lobbyists in Washington don’t interfere too much.
The print and electronic media, as members of the corporate world, cover all political campaigns as horse races. Forget Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Ron Paul, or third-party candidates. They’re way back there in the back stretch. No matter what they have to say about the issues, they don’t matter. Listen to the clever little comments of Hillary Clinton. Note the grimace on John Edwards’s face. Listen to the Republican candidates compete in the intensity of their love for God and their desire to increase (yes, increase) the size of the military.
But then one noon a different perspective was provided to people fortunate enough to be listening to Democracy Now! on the radio—or seeing it on TV that same night. Amy Goodman and independent journalists Allan Nairn and Kelley Beaucar Vlahos discussed the advisers behind the various candidates. “They are the same old faces with the same old messages,” was what all contended.
Rudolph Giuliani’s advisers include the grandfather of neoconservatives, Norman Podhoretz, a former editor of Commentary magazine and one of the signatories of the Project for the New American Century. He can be found on You Tube, stating that the only way for the U.S. to settle its differences with Iran is to attack that country.
John McCain’s advisers include: 1) former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, deemed by some a war criminal for decisions affecting the deaths of thousands and thousands in Chile, Vietnam, Cambodia, and East Timor; 2) General Colin Powell; 3) former CIA Director James Woolsey, who, after the 9/11 attacks, called for an immediate ousting of Saddam Hussein, and 4) General Alexander Haig, who oversaw the U.S. policy of terror and killings of civilians in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. What a lineup!
One of Mitt Romney’s top advisers is Cofer Black, the former CIA official who was behind the invasion of Afghanistan. Author Jeremy Scahill writes about him in his book Blackwater! The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. In an earlier Amy Goodman interview, Scahill said that “Black was the man who stood before Congress and said there’s a before-9/11 and an after-9/11, and after 9/11 the gloves come off. He was a key figure in the extraordinary rendition program, the government-sanctioned kidnap-and-torture program, where prisoners like Maher Arar are sent to third-country hellholes to be tortured. Black is now a vice president at Blackwater USA, one of the key people behind a new privatized intelligence company called Total Intelligence Solutions that’s being bankrolled by Erik Prince, the head of Blackwater.”
Advising Mike Huckabee is Ed Rollins, who directed the Ronald Reagan 1984 reelection campaign and served in the administrations of Reagan, Ford, and Nixon. One issue that puts Huckabee in the gallery of people proclaiming the “same old message” is capital punishment. He ‘s a great believer in it. When Mitt Romney accused him of being “soft on crime,” Huckabee responded that during his governorship, “I executed sixteen people in Arkansas.” So while the governor of New Jersey has proclaimed a moratorium on capital punishment, Huckabee stands firm behind it.
Standing beside Hillary Clinton in several recent photographs is former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who was the main force behind the Iraq sanctions that killed approximately 500,000 Iraqi children. Other Clinton advisers are: 1) Richard Holbrooke, who during the Carter administration oversaw the shipment of weapons to the Indonesian military as they invaded and killed approximately one-third of the East Timorese population; 2) Strobe Talbott, who during the Clinton administration oversaw Russian policy, backing Yeltsin, which resulted in turning over the national wealth to the oligarchs, causing a drop in Russian life expectancy of about fifteen years.
Barack Obama’s advisers include: 1) Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Clinton, and former director of the Trilateral Commission. He claims that he created the Afghan jihadi movement that produced Osama bin Laden; 2) Anthony Lake, the main force behind the U.S. invasion of Haiti during the Clinton years, pledged to support the disastrous World Bank/IMF overhaul of that economy; 3) Dennis Ross, a key adviser on U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine during the Clinton administration and both Bush administrations, which did not address the needs and rights of the Palestinians. He was also an initiator of the attacks leveled against former President Carter and Archbishop Tutu of South Africa for their claim that apartheid as experienced by Black South Africans is akin to the situation of the Palestinians.
The advisers of John Edwards are not as easily categorized as those of the other candidates. While castigating the 35,000 lobbyists of Washington, D.C., Edwards has a few of them on his campaign team, including one from the military contractor EADS.
Among the groups making significant contributions to political campaigns are the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry. The pharmaceutical industry hired 1,274 lobbyists and spent a record $91.4 million on lobbying activities in 2002, an 11.6 percent increase from 2001, The health insurance industry hired 675 different lobbyists from 138 firms in 2002 – nearly seven lobbyists for each U.S. senator, according to federal lobbying disclosure records. Overall, health insurance contributions to the eighteen currently announced Republican and Democratic presidential candidates total an aggregate $12.8 million since 1989, over $3.7 million of that amount in the first quarter of 2007 alone. According to Allan Nairn the only candidate who has come out for a single-payer health plan is Dennis Kucinich, considered a “non-runner” in the race by the handicapping mainstream media.
All this means that I have a difficult time suppressing my cynicism when someone remarks that voting in an election can bring about the changes I think are essential for a peaceful world where resources are shared, opportunities are available to all, and people treat each other as they wish to be treated. These changes cannot come via one individual, even the president of the United States, but they can come via a minority dedicated to the good, and I do believe that we in WAMM constitute part of that minority |
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© 2008 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete February 2008 Index - click here
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