Posted on 11/23/2003 3:38:48 PM PST by Political Numbers Guy
From Howard Dean's official campaign blog...
Rall: Howard Dean for President
Ted Rall, in his Universal Press Syndicate column today, explains why so many third party voters are coming to Dean:
Howard Dean has the best chance to beat Bush.
Brilliant, aggressive and moneyed... Dr. Dean has a corner on the single most important issue to Americans: health care. His politics are surprisingly centrist... He's got traditional Democratic constituents (he just stole the biggest AFL-CIO union's endorsement away from Gephardt) and fresh new ones (twentysomething bloggers have mailed him $25 million in crisp twenties).
Dean's got lots more going for him, not the least of which is running as an insurgent small-state governor disliked by his own party's top leaders (the ex-governor thing casts him as even more of an outsider). Polls show Dean leading his nearest rival, John Kerry, 33 percent to 19 percent in the crucial New Hampshire primary. Coming out early and hard against the war in Iraq wins him major props with the liberal base and makes him seem ahead-of-the-curve to everyone else. Most importantly, he's his own man. "He doesn't really owe his current standing to any of them...," says Darrel West, a political science professor at Cornell.
But the rubber would really tear up the road at the presidential debates, where Dean's dry, sardonic Long Island wit would devastate the hapless Bush--and charm television viewers. His natural pugnacity could help Dems deal more aggressively than usual with the nasty attack ads they can expect in the campaign ahead. Frankly, the other Democratic contenders don't have what it takes to stand up to Karl Rove's brutal war machine.
Maybe it's premature to endorse Gov. Dean. But right now, given the information we have available, he's the preferred candidate of us Anybody But Bushies.
Help Dean stand up to the "nasty attack ads" that the RNC is launching today by contributing to the bat.
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To get more of an idea of what Ted Rall is all about, read his column from two weeks ago, told from the point of view of an Iraqi Ba'athist fighter...
Why We Fight
NEW YORK--Dear Recruit:
Thank you for joining the Iraqi resistance forces. You have been issued an AK-47 rifle, rocket-propelled grenade launcher and an address where you can pick up supplies of bombs and remote-controlled mines. Please let your cell leader know if you require additional materiel for use against the Americans.
You are joining a broad and diverse coalition dedicated to one principle: Iraq for Iraqis. Our leaders include generals of President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s secular government as well as fundamentalist Islamists. We are Sunni and Shia, Iraqi and foreign, Arab and Kurdish. Though we differ on what kind of future our country should have after liberation and many of us suffered under Saddam, we are fighting side by side because there is no dignity under the brutal and oppressive jackboot of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority or their Vichyite lapdogs on the Governing Council, headed by embezzler Ahmed Chalabi.
Because we destroyed our weapons of mass destruction, we were unable to defend ourselves against the American invasion. This was their plan all along. Now our only option is guerilla warfare: we must kill as many Americans as possible at a minimum risk to ourselves. As the Afghan resistance to the Soviets and the Americans' own revolution against our former colonial masters the British have proven, it will only be a matter of time before the U.S. occupation forces become demoralized. As casualties and expenditures rise, the costs will outweigh the economic and political benefits of occupation. Soon the American public will note that the anticipated five-year price tag of $500 billion, with a probable loss of some 4,000 lives and 10,000 wounded, is not a reasonable price to pay to get our 2.5 million barrels of oil flowing to the West each month. This net increase, of just 0.23 percent of total OPEC (news - web sites) production, will not reduce U.S. gasoline prices. At an average of 35 attacks each day, an hour does not pass without an American soldier coming under fire somewhere in Iraq. Ultimately the American public will pressure their leaders to withdraw their harried troops from our country.
It is inevitable. Our goal is to make that day come sooner rather than later.
It is no easy thing to shoot or blow up young men and women because they wear American uniforms. Indeed, the soldiers are themselves oppressed members of America's vast underclass. Many don't want to be here; joining America's mercenary army is the only way they can afford to attend university. Others, because they are poor and uneducated, do not understand that they are being used as pawns in Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s cynical oil war.
Unfortunately, we can't help these innocent U.S. soldiers. They are victims, like ourselves, of the bandits in Washington. Nor can we disabuse them of the propaganda that an occupier isn't always an oppressor. We regret their deaths, but we must continue to kill them until the last one has gone home to America.
In recent months we have opened a second front, against such non-governmental organizations as the United Nations (news - web sites) and Red Crescent. A typical response of the Bush junta to these actions was issued by National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice: "It is unfortunate in the extreme that the terrorists decided to go after innocent aid workers and people who were just trying to help the Iraqi people." Do not listen to her. True, many aid workers are well intentioned. However, their presence under American military occupation tacitly endorses the invasion and subsequent colonization of Iraq. Their efforts to restore "normalcy" deceives weak-willed Iraqi civilians and international observers into the mistaken belief that the Americans are popular here. There can be no normalcy, or peace, until the invader is driven from our land. From the psychological warfare standpoint, the NGOs represent an even more insidious threat to fight for sovereignty than the U.S. army.
In this vein we must also take action against our own Iraqi citizens who choose to collaborate with the enemy. Bush wants to put an "Iraqi face" on the occupation. If we allow the Americans to corrupt our friends and neighbors by turning them into puppet policemen and sellouts, our independence will be lost forever. If someone you know is considering taking a job with the Americans, tell him that he is engaging in treason and encourage him to seek honest work instead. If he refuses, you must kill him as a warning to other weak-minded individuals.
Take to heart this warning of Cuban revolutionary Ché Guevara: "The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition. This is clearly seen by considering the case of bandit gangs that operate in a region. They have all the characteristics of a guerrilla army: homogeneity, respect for the leader, valor, knowledge of the ground, and, often, even good understanding of the tactics to be employed. The only thing missing is support of the people; and, inevitably, these gangs are captured and exterminated by the public force." If the Americans are right about us, and we enjoy no popular support, we deserve to be annihilated. Fortunately, the U.S. has adopted Israeli-style retaliatory bombing, cordoning off whole villages and other tactics that are turning civilian fence-sitters to our point of view.
To victory!
(Ted Rall is the author of the graphic travelogue "To Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Back," an award-winning recounting of his experiences covering the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. It is now available in a revised and updated paperback edition containing new material. Ordering information is available at amazon.com.)
Yea, surprising to say the least.
You haven't been paying attention.
AINO alert.
Ted Rall was given a week-end radio talk host job at a station in So. Cal during the mid 90's. I listened to Rall while I was restoring a car in my shop. At the time, he was just about all that was on the radio at 9PM Sunday. Rall may not be a "traitor", but on the radio, Rall exposed himself as being a world class idiot - which is almost as bad. I would not let Ted Rall put gas in my car or walk my dog.
Ted Rall and his ilk are willing, even eager, to see Americans get killed if it increases the chances that Bush will be defeated in 2004. If an American had written something along these lines encouraging the Germans to resist the Allied invaders in March 1945, or the Okinawans to resist the U.S. invaders in April 1945, would he have been considered a traitor? I don't think Rall has to worry about any charges being filed unless he goes to Iraq with a weapon and starts taking potshots at U.S. troops, but he has the mind of a traitor.
Oh, good. Describing Bush as "hapless" is the first step in getting him elected.
It doesn't say Dean welcomes the endorsement, but Dean's website is bragging about the endorsement and that is a huge mistake. If David Duke endorsed Dubya do you think a Bush website would include a link bragging about it?
and what makes Ted Rall an anti-American traitor?
Oh, just read him a few times, or look at some of his horribly drawn "cartoons". He's way off the deep end.
BTW, are there any financial ties between America's Green Party and the international Greens?
Ted Rall is a self-confessed socialist-anarchist, as such he opposes our constitutional form of government.
Ted Rall supported Bill Clinton's impeachment and removal (even just on the perjury charge). I guess that the Democrats' respect for Ted Rall is like a Chinese menu, pick some views from column A and some from column B.
Probably to his liking. Everytime someone calls him a boob or a dolt, he has them for lunch.
NEW YORK—Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, opposes war with Iraq. Despite this stance, he suggests that Americans should set aside their political differences once the Mother of All Bombs starts blowing up munitions dumps and babies in Baghdad.
"When the war begins, if the war begins," says Kerry, "I support the troops and I support the United States of America winning as rapidly as possible. When the troops are in the field and fighting—if they're in the field and fighting—remembering what it's like to be those troops—I think they need a unified America that is prepared to win."
Fellow presidential candidate Howard Dean, who calls Bush's foreign policy "ghastly" and "appalling," is the Democrats' most vocal opponent of a preemptive strike against Iraq. But once war breaks out, he says, "Of course I'll support the troops."
This is an understandable impulse. As patriots, we want our country to win the wars that we fight. As Americans, we want our soldiers—young men and women who risk too much for too little pay—to come home in one piece. But supporting our troops while they're fighting an immoral and illegal war is misguided and wrong.
An Unjust Cause
Iraq has never attacked, nor threatened to attack, the United States. As his 1990 invasion of Kuwait proved, Saddam is a menace to his neighbors—Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel—but he's their problem, not ours. Saddam's longest-range missiles only travel 400 miles.
Numerous countries are ruled by unstable megalomaniacs possessing scary weaponry. North Korea has an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the western United States and, unlike Iraq, the nuke to put inside it. Pakistan, another nuclear power run by a dangerous anti-American dictator, just unveiled its new HATF-4 ballistic missile. If disarmament were Bush's goal, shouldn't those countries—both of which have threatened to use nukes—be higher-priority targets than non-nuclear Iraq?
Iraq isn't part of the war on terrorism. The only link between Iraq and Al Qaeda is the fact that they hate each other's guts. And no matter how often Bush says "9/11" and "Iraq" in the same breath, Saddam had nothing to do with the terror attacks.
That leaves freeing Iraqis from Saddam's repressive rule as the sole rationale for war. Is the U.S. in the liberation business? Will Bush spread democracy to Myamnar, Congo, Turkmenistan, Cambodia, Nigeria, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan or Laos, just to name a few places where people can't vote, speak freely or eat much? You be the judge. I wouldn't bet on it.
Of course, it would be great if Iraqis were to overthrow Saddam (assuming that his successor would be an improvement). But regime change is up to the locals, not us. George W. Bush is leading us to commit an ignominious crime, an internationally-unsanctioned invasion of a nation that has done us no harm and presents no imminent threat.
Germans in the 1930s
We find ourselves facing the paradox of the "good German" of the '30s. We're ruled by an evil, non-elected warlord who ignores both domestic opposition and international condemnation. We don't want the soldiers fighting his unjustified wars of expansion to win—but we don't want them to lose either.
Our dilemma is rendered slightly less painful by the all-volunteer nature of our armed forces: at least we aren't being asked to cheer on reluctant draftees. Presumably everybody in uniform knew what they might be in for when they signed up.
"I'm horrified by this war," a friend tells me, "but once it starts we have to win and win quickly." For her, as for Kerry and Dean, our servicemen are people performing a job. They go where the politicians send them.
The thing is, we don't really have to win. Losing the Vietnam War sucked, but not fighting it in the first place would have been smarter. Losing to Third Worlders in PJs led Americans to decades of relative humility, self-examination and taking the moral high ground in conflicts such as Haiti and Kosovo. Our withdrawal from Nam was mainly the result of antiwar protests and public disapproval that swayed our elected representatives. It also saved a lot of money that would otherwise gone to save more "domino" dictatorships from godless communism.
Most Americans who didn't actively protest the war at least sat on their hands during Vietnam. We should do the same during Bush's coming unjust war of aggression. Members of our armed forces don't deserve insults, but their role in this war doesn't merit support. Cheering them as they leave and holding parades when they return would certainly be misinterpreted by citizens of other countries as popular support for an inglorious enterprise—and it would make it easier for Bush to send them off again, to Iran or Libya or wherever. Let's keep our flags under wraps.
I want our troops to return home safely. I want them to live. Like a good German watching my countrymen march into Poland and Belgium and Luxembourg and France, I don't want them to win and I don't want them to lose.
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