On John Kerry
Press Action
Sunday, February 22, 2004
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/mitchell02222004/
And the Marginalization of Emboldened Democrats
By David H. Mitchell
As a draft resister during the Vietnam War there is part of me almost yearning to be able to support Senator John Kerry as an “electable” alternative to President Bush and his policies.
There is a feeling of connection with Kerry from the Vietnam period. I went to prison in 1967 after an attempt to create a forum by my trial where America’s policies could be judged in violation of international law and treaty obligations — including the standards and precedents we implemented to try the Germans in the Nuremberg trials pursuant to the Treaty of London. As Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in voting for Supreme Court review of my case, the Treaty of London “purports to lay down a standard of conduct for all the signatories.”
After serving in Vietnam, John Kerry returned to become a leader in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and we watched as he threw his Vietnam medals over the White House gates in a protest. (At least we thought they were his at the time.) He eloquently condemned the Vietnam War in his April 23, 1971 statement before the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations.
Among other things, Kerry testified about “war crimes” in Vietnam in violation of international conventions that also revealed an underlying racism towards Vietnamese. He testified: “These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with full awareness of officers at all levels of command.” And he said: “Each day … someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can’t say that we have made a mistake.”
We now face another war and attempted occupation in Iraq. Initially, in desperation for a viable candidate there seems to be a temptation to rationalize Kerry’s vote authorizing the Iraq War as a passing “act of commonplace political cowardice,” or just “that he was so easily conned” by Bush’s lies, and that he is “good” on Iraq now (as Marty Jezer has argued in a Jan. 24, 2004 piece in Common Dreams).
However, it is difficult enough just to get past Kerry’s vote authorizing the war for whatever reason — whether it was out of opportunism or uninformed consent. As Howard Dean wrote in Common Dreams on April 17, 2003, the “Bush Doctrine” has turned our relationship with the world community on its head. Dean wrote:
“The people of this country must understand that this administration has a far different concept of the role of America in the world. This concept involves imposing our will on sovereign nations. This concept involves dismantling the multilateral institutions that we have spent decades building. And this concept involves distorting the rule of law to suit their narrow purposes.”
Actually, we have spent hundreds of years developing international laws and conventions to try to stabilize international relations, safeguard the sovereignty of nations, and keep the peace under the rule of law. The prohibition against aggressive war is an essential and fundamental tenet of international law. Under the United Nations Charter war is permitted only for self-defense (Article 51) or when authorized by the UN Security Council in pursuance of its role to “maintain or restore international peace and security”(Article 24). Otherwise, the UN Charter prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” [Article 2(4)]
Since the UN Charter is part of the “supreme law of the land” under our Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2), we trample our own law as well as international law by our attack and occupation in Iraq. Without an imminent threat of attack or UN authorization, the congressional authorization for war and the attack on Iraq is lawless and aggressive under international law — constituting a crime against peace under the Nuremberg precedents. We are unlikely to be safer by alienating the world community and shredding the endeavors over centuries to create a more peaceful and secure world. And, as stated by Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (America’s leading prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials):
“If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”
But even if we can get past the tremendous significance of the congressional vote authorizing war, closer examination does not show Kerry now “good” on Iraq. Recent statements actually show Kerry has embraced the Iraq war and much of the dangerous ideology behind it — as he now seems to embrace and emphasize his Vietnam service rather than his opposition to the war in Vietnam when he returned home. To justify his policies that ignore international law, the UN and world opinion, President Bush simplistically declared in his January 20, 2004 State of the Union: “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.”
A month before on December 16, 2003 John Kerry gave a major address about Iraq at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. In attacking Howard Dean and other antiwar voices within the Democratic Party, Kerry claimed that they “threaten to take us down a road of confusion and retreat,” that they would “permit a veto over when America can or cannot act,” and “would have given others the power to prevent America from defending its interests or its ideals.” He accused Howard Dean of having “a ‘Simon Says’ foreign policy where America only moves if others move first.”
This attack and misrepresentation of the positions of Kucinich, Dean and other antiwar forces within the Democratic Party is an attempt to now marginalize the very forces that revitalized and emboldened Democrats. (Kerry’s unwarranted attacks against Kucinich and Dean on other issues have been detailed by others in essays on Common Dreams, e.g. John Nichols on the issues of NAFTA and free trade on Sept. 30, 2003 and Stephen Zunes on many issues including Israel, the September 11 investigation, etc. on Jan. 7, 2004. While I am mainly focusing on the war here, I do not mean to minimize the importance of Kerry’s votes for the Patriot Act, NAFTA, No Child Left Behind, etc.)
While Kerry regrets that President Bush did not work for more international backing before going to war and while he wants America to seek the aid of other countries for the occupation, he does not criticize the war itself. In fact, Kerry’s Dec. 16, 2003 speech reiterates his belief in the soundness of his vote authorizing war and even comes across as celebrating the war and the occupation of Iraq by “the greatest military in history” as an “advance of our ideals” that with the overthrow and capture of Saddam sees “Jefferson’s promise was fulfilled again.”
Those presenting a clear difference from President Bush resuscitated the Democratic Party, but the Kerry momentum has swamped that difference and threatens to offer little choice about the war in the coming election. Many of us remember 1968 when the grassroots campaign of Eugene McCarthy drove President Johnson from the presidency over Vietnam. However, thereafter the establishment Democrats reasserted themselves and we ended up with Hubert Humphrey as the Democratic candidate. Humbert Humphrey 20 years before had been a cutting force in the Democratic Party for civil rights and labor rights. In 1968 he represented Johnson Vietnam policies. Instead of a change for the better in 1968, we ended up with the streets of Chicago at the Democratic Convention, disaffected Democrats, the election of Nixon, and seven more years of war.
As the centrist Democratic Leadership Council now reasserts its control of the Democratic Party, we face similar tensions. While personally I would probably hold my nose and vote for Kerry over Bush if necessary, many won’t. It would be better if we did not have to face that choice and could cast a real vote for change.
David H. Mitchell lives in Rockland County, N.Y.