Bruce I tracked you down because I wanted you to read and comment on the following post which came to me from some friends today in e mail.
Best to you.
..Recently I opened a dialogue with my brother Dennis on the issue of the upcoming election. He's a wonderful fellow, and we've long agreed to disagree on the issue of politics. But recently I sent him a September 28, 2004 article by John Eisenhower (son of President Dwight Eisenhower) describing why he's left the Republican party after fifty years and now intends to vote for Kerry. If you haven't seen that piece and are interested, go to: theunionleader.com
Like everyone else in my family (except me), Dennis is a long-time Republican, but he's also a plaintiff's lawyer and a Vietnam Vet who thought that war was awful. In my email message accompanying the Eisenhower article link, I told my brother "I thought I'd share the following with you. If you don't want to hear anything from me about politics. Just delete the message and tell me to dry up." The same message applies to you. If you don't want to hear anything more about politics during this media-saturated pre-election circus, just delete and tell me to buzz off. I won't be offended.
In response to my first message, Denny said that he does find Bush a bit scary, and he welcomed my additional thoughts on the election. That prompted the following more lengthy message. [Dennis and his wife live in Pensacola and sustained some damage to their home during the last big hurricane.]
The reason I'm sending this is that I forwarded a copy to Christa (our daughter), and she urged me to circulate it more widely. So that's what I'm doing. Again, if you're offended to receive such stuff from me, I apologize. But I figure that the issues are too important not to be the subject of discussion among people of good will.
David
-------- Original Message --------
Subject:
Re: of possible interest.
Date:
Tue, 12 Oct 2004 22:29:30 -0400
From:
David Larry <davidlarry@goboone.net>
To:
Dennis Larry <DLarry@cphlaw.com>
References:
<231E7BE2B4E2DD48A6129032469529ED1DA0D0@woodstock.cphlaw.com>
Denny:
I'm sorry to hear that things are still in some disarray at your house. What an incredible thing to live through (and thank goodness no one in our family was injured). Is Keith with you at this point, or has he returned to New York? We had several trees come down during the last hurricane, but nothing hit the house.
You invited me to share my thoughts, so here goes.
Despite the Bush Administration's attempt to spin its invasion of Iraq as "justified" because Saddam was a very bad man, that invasion violated a principle that the United States considered sufficiently sacred to make it the cornerstone of our prosecution of Nazi war criminals. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the U.S. representative to the International Conference on Military Trials, articulated that principle on August 12, 1945: "We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."
If the principle was valid at the end of the Second World War, it is equally valid today, yet President Bush has embraced the very course of action that made Hitler and his cronies war criminals – he resorted to aggressive war as an instrument of policy. Indeed, what was once considered the conceptual basis for war crimes prosecution is now being called the "Bush Doctrine of preemptive attack."
The rejection of aggressive war is a principle we should have been willing to die for rather than violate, yet it has been tossed aside as lightly as yesterday's old toy. And now, when the evidence shows the Administration's justifications for invading Iraq were false or overblown, the Administration blithely defends its violation of the principle on the grounds that the world's a better place without Saddam. That rationale is simply a more articulate version of the old Texas defense to a murder charge: "he needed killin.'" But if our policy reason for going to war is just a fancied-up version of gunslinger mentality, how can we ever again -- on grounds of "principle" -- condemn a nation that launches an aggressive war based on the possibility that its neighbor might be fixin' to do something bad, or simply because the neighbor is bad.
In addition to George Will and Pat Buchanan, consider the words of William F. Buckley during a June interview in the New York Times: "Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extraterritorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war." And conservative TV host Tucker Carlson told the Times, "I supported the war and now I feel foolish."
When you were in Vietnam, one of your favorite songs was Steve Miller's "I'll never kill another man." Only if there's no other choice. Over 10,000 civilians have died since we invaded Iraq, and daily life there is a nightmare. One of my friends from college is John Kifner, a New York Times reporter who was embedded with the Marines during and after the invasion. Farnaz Fassihi, one of his counterparts at the Wall Street Journal, still is in Iraq and sent the attached message, which apparently is making the rounds of his reporter colleagues in New York. I've attached it as an example of the kind of insight that doesn't get enough play in this country.
Under the so-called leadership of our President, our nation -- in the eyes of much of the world -- has surrendered its moral compass, in part because the President and his pals have cast that surrender in terms of national self-interest and democratic nation-building.
In January 1999, Mr. Bush told Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, "I believe that God wants me to be president." On June 28, 2003, an article by Arnon Regular (entitled "'Road map is a life saver for us,' PM Abbas tells Hamas") appeared in Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz, "Israel's leading daily newspaper" whose "English-language edition" Haaretz states is a "joint project with the International Herald Tribune," which in turn "brings to the partnership its own highly-distinguished staff of journalists and the vast reporting resources of its prestigious parent newspaper the New York Times." Haaretz is a respected journalistic voice in the Middle East. The article was based on "[s]elected minutes acquired by Haaretz from one of last week's cease-fire negotiations between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and faction leaders from the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular and Democratic Fronts." According to last paragraph of the article, Mr. Abbas told these leaders that President Bush, during the then-recent recent summit in Aqaba, stated: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."
Mr. Bush's notion that he is God's chosen candidate and warrior is extremely worrisome. If the President believes God prefers him to be president, or that God approves of his military strategies, how can anything he does to remain president be wrong? How can anything he does while in office be wrong? And who are we to criticize God's hand-picked man? Anti-Christ, perhaps, or at least, blasphemers? As someone who has defended journalists' First Amendment rights, aren't you concerned that this administration finds some of our constitutional protections a bit of a nuisance? Are you aware that people who attend Bush or Cheney rallies must essentially sign a "loyalty oath" (or be registered Republicans) and those who ask hostile questions are ushered out? See, for example, boston.com
I strongly believe the invasion of Iraq is just the beginning. If Bush is re-elected, he will spin the victory, no matter how close, as a mandate (or a God-send). If my son or daughter were killed or injured in one of Mr. Bush's "holy wars," my reaction would be far more Old Testament than New. I notice that Mr. Bush has not volunteered his daughters to be heroes in America's current quagmire.
Apparently Kerry is for some sort of tort reform. According to his campaign's website:
As president, John Kerry will require that a qualified specialist certifies a medical malpractice case's merit before it is allowed to move forward. He will also work with states to ensure the availability of non-binding mediation in all malpractice claims before cases proceed to trial. John Kerry will make the system fairer for doctors and patients alike by preventing and punishing frivolous lawsuits. Lawyers who file frivolous cases would face tough, mandatory sanctions, including a "three strikes and you're out" provision that forbids lawyers who file three frivolous cases from bringing another suit for the next 10 years. John Kerry also opposes punitive damages - unless intentional misconduct, gross negligence, or reckless indifference to life can be established. Finally, John Kerry will work to eliminate the special privileges that allow insurance companies to fix prices and collude in ways that increase medical malpractice premiums.
However, one article I read said that "the Association of Trial Lawyers of America was thrilled by Kerry's selection of former trial lawyer Edwards as his running mate, and that article quoted ATLA President David S. Casey, Jr. as saying "t is refreshing that one presidential candidate has chosen a running mate whose priority is fighting on behalf of individuals, workers, and families, as opposed to a vice president whose priority is secretly working behind the scenes to serve the special interests of and expand the rights of large multi-national corporations at the expense of American families."
Indeed, an article in today's Christian Science Monitor says that "Bush is presenting Kerry as an out-of-the-mainstream liberal who would hurt the economy - and the middle class - by raising taxes, increasing government spending, and opposing tort reform." See csmonitor.com and wjla.com (the second link is to an article entitled "Bush Ads Target Kerry on Malpractice, Tort"). In contrast to Mr. Kerry, Bush, from his days as Texas governor, has been one of the strongest and most aggressive proponents of tort reform. Didn't his campaign viciously assail John Edwards with the sneering pejorative label "plaintiff's lawyer," as if that were enough to motivate any God-fearing individual to view the Kerry-Edwards ticket as an instrument of Satan?
Bush's criticisms of how Kerry's liberalism would hurt the econmony strike me as something out of Wonderland. Does he really think that massive spending on war while cutting taxes can be good for the economy over the long haul. Perhaps if we don't care whether you and I can collect Medicare and Social Security (and I for one will need to do so), we can be cavalier about the issue, but I'm very concerned that we've so quickly gone from a surplus during the second Clinton term to a record deficit before the end of Bush's first term.
Look, I don't consider Kerry a saint or even my favorite politician, and I'm still angry that he and Edwards voted to support the Iraq authorization. While I agreed that we should go after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the Administration was never even close to making the case that circumstances in Iraq justified invasion. But I do think Kerry's an even-handed, thoughtful, and intelligent person who's committed to the importance of an America that is a partner in the world scene, rather than a go-it-alone gunslinger. I didn't like Mr. Clinton personally, and I think his personal judgment was awful, but he was probably our brightest president and he was a master politician. I think Kerry's almost as smart as Clinton, and I don't think we'd have to worry about him womanizing. But more than that, I think he's solid and courageous and sensible. My sense of Bush is that he's far less substantial, and he only fantasizes about being a tough guy. He does have a brain, and his name is Dick Cheney. On the question of whether Bush was wired for the debates, see techreview.com and isbushwired.com and embedded links. Interesting, but we'll probably never know.
I believe this is the most important election since 1860, and that the future of our nation is as much on the line now as it was then. No matter how "liberal" John Kerry may be, I believe he's far more like a Grandfather Ketler / Abraham Lincoln type of conservative than George Bush is.
Well, that's enough for tonight.
My best to Barbara.
David |
