Never thought I'd say this, but I'm really coming to prefer candidates for public office who speak in sound bites. The longer the speech, the more difficult it is to decide what's actually being said and, more particularly, to isolate what's designed to deceive and mislead.
Indeed, after going through Barack Obama's rationalization for not using military force against Iraq, I swore off parsing his speeches line by line because the result was even more of a muddle than the original.
Now John Edwards has caught the logorrhea bug (one might suspect it's become embeded in the woodwork of the Senate chamber, but Obama seems to have caught it before he even got there) and I wouldn't bother parsing his pronouncement on Iraq and Iran either, if it weren't for the fact that it's misleading and deceptive right off the bat.
But I promise not to dissect the whole speechlike some college freshman essay and will limit myself to a few of the most egregious examples.
Learning the Lesson of Iraq: A New Strategy for Iran
That's his title and that's the first problem. By putting Iraq and Iran in the same sentence, John Edwards perpetuates the false implication that, aside from being geographical neighbors, these nations have something in common, which it behooves a potential President of the United States to address. Since the original axial connection with nuclear weapons has been disproved, one might think that the Lesson of Iraq might be to mind one's own business or, at least, not invade another nation to satisfy a suspicious nature. But, that's apparently not the lesson John Edwards wants to take away from this debacle.
It's not telling the truth either, as his opening paragraph attests:
Five years ago, the Bush Administration went to war with Iraq, a war we all know now we did not need to fight. Today, we see the results of that fateful decision -- a civil war with no end in sight... a black hole in our budget... and nearly 4,000 brave men and women in our military who have paid the ultimate price.
The Bush Administration didn't go to war. The President of the United States was authorized by Congress to use force against a nation, whose leaders had refused to follow our inclinations and directives, and that President then ordered the military to launch an invasion--one that had been planned long before George W. Bush was ever elected. And John Edwards knows it. Because, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he was able to review and approve funding for the Pentagon's planning efforts, including the fourteen "enduring" bases we are still funding with black budgets. (If he didn't know it, then John Edwards' vote to authorize the use of force was the result of gross negligence; not a mistake).
Moreover, If there is a civil war in Iraq (a condition that's virtually impossible to validate when the news is censored and most hard date are classified as national secrets), then the cause lies squarely with the invaders being welcome by some and resisted by others. Be that as it may, a presidential candidate whose interest in solving the problem of Iraq (problems the invasion has clearly caused) should be aware that Iraq's leaders have already agreed on what needs to be accomplished, as formally announced in theHelsinki Agreement
Political Objectives
1- To be rational in political speeches, for the national interest, and to move away from sectarian and ethnic dispute.
2- To bring an end to the displacement of Iraqi people and work to take care of those displaced, and secure their safe return, with guarantees of their safety by the national forces in co-operation with political parties and tribal leaders.
3- To deal with the subject of militias under the following procedures:
A- Arming, supplying, training and making sure that the security forces (army/police) are capable of undertaking their duties efficiently. Make sure that the security forces are equipped to adequate levels to achieve an effective national force.
B- Activation of economic development across the country, to contain youth unemployment and use the efforts of young people to rebuild in order to improve the quality of life for all citizens.
C- Those working outside the law and using military resources inappropriately shall be brought to justice, with no differentiation.
4- The emphasis on the common vision for all Iraqi political entities on the importance of termination of the presence of foreign troops in Iraq through the completion of national sovereignty and rebuilding a national army and security apparatus according to a national vision within a realistic timetable.
5- An emphasis on the continuation of constructive dialogue between different political groups aiming to fulfill national goals.
6- To convince political groups that are currently outside the political process to initiate and activate a constructive dialogue to reach common understandings.
7- To deal with armed groups which are not classified as terrorist, encouraging them to use peaceful political means to address the conflict and to provide their members with jobs and opportunities within state administrations.
8- Working towards correcting the misunderstanding that accompanied the political process and encourage all Iraqi political parties to participate in building Iraq in all aspects.
9- The cessation of the violation of the human rights of Iraqi citizens and their properties by continuous bombardment and military actions by foreign forces. The Iraqi government must take responsibility to protect innocent civilians.
In his second paragraph John Edwards resorts to an historical allusion to provide context.
A famous philosopher once observed that those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it. Unfortunately, the war in Iraq isn't even history yet, but the Bush Administration is repeating the march to war with Iran -- and they're getting help from people who should know a lot better.
But, since Edwards is evidently aware that people tend to do the same stupid things over and over, it would help if he considered that it's not a lack of memory that's the probelm, but rather the all too human tendency to think that one can "do better" without recognizing that the "better" of bad is not good, but "worse." This is not a matter of fortune, but of hubris. It's what led the Kerry/Edwards duo to argue during 2004 that the mess in Iraq was the result of incompetence. The American people didn't buy it then; they shouldn't buy it now either.
We need a new direction -- one that will defuse the Iran threat, rather than aggravate it, one that will make America safer, not make the world more dangerous.
John Edwards' call for a new direction is, no doubt, welcome. But, how do we know it's not just empty verbiage, since the Bush biased perspective of Iran as a threat obviously informs his thoughts. Wouldn't a new direction at least allude to the Central Asian and Egyptian effort to expand a nuclear weapons free zone in the region, instead of promising to replace a sledgehammer with a scalpel--an instrument that's not only harder to ward off, but more likely to be wielded by an expert who knows just where to slice?
But, the main reason this speech deserves to be dissected is because the promise to remove combat troops is fundamentally deceptive.
When I am president, I will immediately withdraw 40-50,000 troops, launch a diplomatic offensive to invest all local, national, and regional parties in the comprehensive political solution that will end the violence, and will completely withdraw all combat troops within 9 to 10 months.
Aside from the fact that it's easy to make promises about the future whose parameters are unknowable and unknown, the withdrawal of combat forces while 100,000 technicians and special forces are esconced on the bases would be grossly irresponsible. By ignoring that the Helsinki Agreement calls for the removal of ALL foreign forces and the "cessation" of "continuous bombardment"--a clear violation of human rights since there are NO military assets left to be destroyed--John Edwards continues to participate in deceiving the American people. )The people of the region know full well what's going on and so do their neighbors. "Continuous bombardment" and military planes taking off every five minutes, every hour and every day, is pretty hard to miss).
Still, I'm willing to take him at his word. So, when he says,
I believe every candidate for president owes the American people a clear and specific plan for ending the Iraq War, and I have done my part. You deserve to know exactly where we stand.....
I take that as an invitation to ask, once again,
When you were a member of the United States Senate and served on the Select Committee on Intelligence, did you receive information from the Pentagon about the plan to establish as many as fourteen "enduring" bases in Iraq from which the region could be monitored with radar installations and communications intercept facilities?
If so, did you approve of these plans and their funding as well as the effort to get basing rights from Saddam Hussein by diplomatic or other means?
Do you still think that deployment of over a hundred thousand non-combat forces on the bases that have been built (some as large in area as the island of Manhattan) is a good idea and is that why you anticipate leaving a significant number of these troops behind after the combat forces are removed?
Don't you think that these matters should be truthfully discussed with the American people? Don't you think that the intelligence agencies of other nations in the region have a good idea of what's going on on these bases where our troops are virtual sitting ducks for missiles from Iran or Syria?
So when John Edwards says,
What's more, Senator Clinton wants to keep combat troops in Iraq to perform combat missions in Iraq. She will extend the war. I will end the war. Only in Washington would anybody believe that you can end the war and continue combat. On a matter as serious as Iraq, we need honesty and real answers -- not more double-talk.
all I can say is, Speak for yourself, John.