Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski faced off on CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer on December 26, 2004. Transcript available
here. I am going to say it again, Bush needs to invite Dr. Brzezinski to help him. Dr. Brzezinski named seven individuals or groups he holds directly responsible for the war Iraq that was not worth it because of its impact on tens of thousands of American families, the tens of thousands dead Iraqis, the billions of dollars, and the U.S. Isolation in the world. Now that America is in Iraq, the main problem is how to avoid failure. In Dr. Brzezinski's view, the problem is,
...this massive disproportion between objectives which are unrealistic and means which are very limited. If we are really serious about creating an Iraqi democracy, let's put in 500,000 troops and let's spend $100 billion, $200 billion. We're not going to do it. And therefore, we have to scale down our expectations.
Update [2004-12-28 21:38:54 by azindy]: Dr. Brzezinki further elaborated on the Lehrer News Hour, 12/28/2004, that it is "increasingly doubtful" whether anyone "can impose democracy by bayonets." According to Brzezinski, from the Iraqi's viewpoint, the sooner the election happens, the sooner the Americans will leave. But since Brzezinski believes the U.S. is not investing the necessary resources to "impose democracy" and the election will install a Shiite theocracy, not a democracy, will Americans leave after the election? What
new reason will Bush come up with? My guess is that first, last, and ultimately it will be securing the oil.
Dr. Kissinger suggests that Bush make one more attempt to involve the international community, especially countries like India, Russia, Turkey, Algeria and Egypt with large Muslim populations. Dr. Brzezinski strenuously objected to creating an anti-Islamic alliance. Dr. Kissinger countered that he was proposing an anti radical Islamic alliance.
It seems to me that any appearance of an anti-Islamic alliance would only make things very much worse. Both of these men have a ton of credibility, but Dr. Kissinger fully supports Bush, so I would expect Bush would be more likely to accept Kissinger's recommendations over Brzezinski's. Kissinger's recommendations would resonate with Bush's opinion that the war on terrorism is a war on Muslims. See this diary or a full explanation. The diary reminded me of some of Bush's debate comments. Some people have speculated that gays would be the Jews of an emerging American fascism. Kissinger's comments would indicate that the Muslims would be the scapegoats. Whether Jews or Muslims are targeted, it is still anti-Semitism. Biblically, both groups are "descendants of Shem."
Kissinger and Brzezinski furthered differed in that Kissnger believes that the war was justified by the if not imminent, then potential threat, to the U.S. Brzezinski says there was certainly no imminent threat and no short term potential threat to the U.S.
Next Republican Congressman David Dreier and Democrat Charles Rangel debated the war in Iraq. Dreier justified the war by saying that although there was no terrorist connection when we went in, "Iraq is center today [of terrorism]. He unequivocally supports Rumsfeld as "an expert in defense...a great man...doing a fine job..." Rangel want to impeach Rumsfeld. Overall, though they vigorously debated each other, they covered no new ground.
More interesting was their exchange about Social Security. After reviewing the Chilean plan, Dreier asserted.
I will tell you, African-Americans would be the greatest beneficiaries of this, as they would be able, with a shortened life span, they would be able to pass this on to future generations.
Rangel laughed out loud. The very idea! Rangel brought the discussion to a close by implying that it is a waste of time to discuss the Chilean plan; it's Bush's plan that is germaine. One question: Why would America look at a third world country as a model. I haven't followed the Chile privatization story.
Back to Iraq and three retired generals we seen a number of times: Joulwan, DeLong, and Grange. Highlights: The troops have no clarity of mission, their mission should be to secure the election, make it possible for utilities to resume and allow Iraqis to go back to their jobs, but 150,000 troops may not be enough to do all that. The exit strategy keeps changing because of our mistakes and events. The goal should be an "end state" but not necessarily an "end date."
One "end state" the administration is working towards is the uninterrupted pumping of oil. There was a comprehensive diary recently (I can't find the link) about Iraqi oil and American designs on it. Both Dr. Brzezinski and the generals seem to agree that the U.S. does not seem to be pursuing its stated goals in Iraq, at least it is using ineffective means. I would say oil best explains the U.S. Actions in Iraq. Similarly, the absence in America of America's first line of defense against domestic terrorism, the National Guard, indicates that the threat of terrorism is more rhetorical than real.
General Grange had an intriguing remark to the effect that the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism are essentially the same because
There is too much overlap not only geographically but also in intent of our adversaries, support of our adversaries, transportation, communication, money streams, et cetera, between places like Iraq and terrorist organizations.
The two wars have also been conflated because, as mentioned earlier, the right really sees it as one war against Muslims and because of the overlap in U.S. resources utilized. One puzzling statement from General Joulwan is that the all-volunteer military attracts a more intelligent recruit than the draft. Both data and demographics contradict this statement.
In a day of debates, Wolf closed with one between Jerry and Jesse. I let this incredible exchange speak for itself.
REV. JERRY FALWELL: I think that people disagree with him because of politics, and that's fair. I think that the people who really hate him, who really hate him, are those who hate the faith he espouses, the Christ that he knows and loves. And that is nothing knew. They've been doing that for 2,000 years.
BLITZER: You don't think they hate him because of the war in Iraq or some of the major policy or political decisions that he made irrespective of his own personal religious beliefs?
FALWELL: Well, when you consider the fact that because of George Bush, 3 million Afghan women voted for the first time in the history of the nation this year and that, a month from now or a little more, millions of Iraqi women and men, of course, will vote, as well, when you consider the fact that 50 million people have been liberated from the bondage of a monster, Saddam Hussein, and others like him, it's very difficult to understand why there would be hatred for him, except it be because of his genuine relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
BLITZER: All right.
What about that, Reverend Jackson? I'm sure you disagree.
REV. JESSE JACKSON: I think hatred is such strong language. I mean, the people I know grieved and we were hit 9/11, that the Taliban that hit us, a group that we had a relationship with, that we should hit them and that we should stop them. And the whole world joined us. United Nations, NATO, Cuba, Libya, the whole world said, "Stop bin Laden."
But then we made this unilateral move to Saddam Hussein on the pretense that there were weapons of mass destruction and an imminent threat and al Qaeda connection. We didn't find any of that. But we chose that route, a war of choice. And now, what, 1,300 Americans killed, 10,000 injured, 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqis killed. We've wiped out thousands of people, and yet we've found no moral justification for it. So people disagree with that policy strongly.
On the other hand, while we focus on Iraq and speak of liberating people, 4 million Congolese have been killed in the last six years -- 4 million. We never mention it. We've done very little to deal with the 1.5 million people, refugees, in the Sudan. And so I think we can disagree and agree, but we should not draw lines of hatred along religious lines.
I'm with Jesse. The U.S. could keep itself pretty busy fighting all the evil in the world. The evil we choose to fight is revealing. We occupied Iraq on a pretext of threat to ourselves, when possibly we could have done a lot more good if we had occupied the Congo or any number of other places. So why did we choose Iraq? The oil? Certainly not because we care about people. Not because we're out in the world doing good. Note too, that Jerry think Iraq is an
achievement.
Ironically, Bush himself has apparently never claimed the "born-again" relationship ascribed to him by others. There was a sort of conversion story in a book published in 1999 but not a word since. The one overarching characteristic of born again Christians is that they talk about it a lot. He never has, except for generic remarks about "talking to God." But of course Muslims and Jews do that, too. Apparently Russell Mokhiber (of the White House press corps?) had the same question. White House spokesman Scott McClelland had no answer.
Naturally, they next discussed morality. According to a recent CNN poll 64% of American believe the state of moral values is worsening. So much for Lynne Cheney's "nice Americans.".