[Peace-discuss] re: Kerry support premature

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Laura Flanders concentrates on who these people are (as she does in her
new book on the Bush administration), and she makes it clear that if
there's Democratic administration in the new year, as I think there may
be, we'll have to work as hard as we are now in opposition to it.  --CGE]

Not Quite A Dream Team  

**Laura Flanders is the host of "Your Call" heard on KALW-FM in San
Francisco, and on the Internet, and author of Bushwomen: Tales of a
Cynical Species, forthcoming from Verso Books in March 2004.**

 John Kerry's primary victories are mounting and "anyone-but-Bush" voters
are hankering for a show-down with the Resident. The Massachusetts
Senator's "bring it on" victory speeches get big-d Democrats fired up, but
when it comes to foreign policy, Kerry is hardly the anti-Bush many are
longing for.

As the jockeying begins among those who fancy a government job should
Kerry beat Bush in November, it's never too early to give the hopefuls
currently advising the candidate a serious look.

Consider Kerry's foreign policy advisers. Ask the candidate's supporters,
and the advisor they mention first is Joe Wilson, the Clinton-era National
Security Council member who investigated claims that Saddam Hussein was
trying to buy weapons-grade uranium from Niger. Wilson won battle stars
from progressives for going public with his findings, which contradicted
the Bush administration's claims. Wilson's wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame,
was outed by a White House source or sources as a consequence.

Wilson may be a white hat, but it's hard to say the same about Richard
Morningstar, Rand Beers and William Perry, three other members of Kerry's
foreign policy team.

Morningstar, a former advisor to President Clinton on Caspian energy, was
instrumental in pushing for the controversial Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan oil
pipeline. The plan has strong support on both sides of the political
aisle.

A consortium of oil companies are deeply invested, including Britain's BP,
and the U.S. firms Unocal and Amerada Hess. In the 1990s, the Clinton
administration did all it could to clear the way for BTC, including
extending U.S. Export-Import Bank financing, and recruiting Dick Cheney,
James Baker and others to lobby local governments. James Baker's law firm,
Baker Botts, represents BP. Dick Cheney's Halliburton, an oil-industry
supplier, won the contract to build refineries for several Caspian states.
As a member of its Board of Directors, Condoleezza Rice helped negotiate
Chevron's deal to drill the Caspian's purportedly richest field, the
Tengiz.

In 2003, Morningstar explained to the Harvard University Caspian Studies
program that the pipeline, which would run through Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Turkey, is expected to be used by Caspian Sea states to bring their oil
west to market. As Morningstar explained to the Harvard project's members,
it advances various regional policy goals, among them, promoting energy
security and ensuring that neither Russia nor Iran can develop a monopoly
over pipelines from the Caspian. (Harvard's Caspian Studies program is
sponsored by, among others, Chevron, Unocal and Amerada Hess.)

With Turkey's agreement, work on the BTC pipeline began in September '02.
The World Bank agreed last November to provide $250 million in financing,
but human rights groups and environmentalists are still hoping it can be
stopped. Last year, Amnesty International released a report noting that
the project would violate the human rights of thousands of people and
cause severe environmental damage. Amnesty International alleges that the
pipeline's backers' agreement with the Turkish government strips local
people and workers of their civil rights.

A Kerry administration with Morningstar as national security advisor could
be expected to keep the BTC on track. Nothing much would change in the
worlds of agribusiness and trade either. In 1999, as U.S. ambassador to
the European Union, Morningstar issued a scathing attack on EU policy
barring genetically modified foods. "Politics and demagoguery have
completely taken over the regulatory process," he said. Bush's Agriculture
Secretary, Ann Veneman, uses virtually the same exact words.

Another of Kerry's foreign policy advisors is Rand Beers. Sean Donahue of
the Massachusetts Anti-Corporate Clearinghouse wrote a revealing account
of Beers' career for the Counterpunch Web site last month.

Suffice to say that Beers was the public face of Clinton's deadly
crop-fumigation program in Colombia. He once said under oath that
Columbian terrorists had received training in Al Qaeda camps in
Afghanistan. (A claim he later had to withdraw.) "If John Kerry lets Rand
Beers continue to guide his foreign policy, a Kerry administration will be
no better for rural Colombians than a Bush administration," wrote Donahue.
Voters who want Sen. Kerry to offer a humane alternative to Bush should
demand that the senator pledge now not to make Beers secretary of state.

Rounding out Kerry's team is William Perry. As Clinton-era secretary of
defense, Perry spearheaded a post-cold war plan to restructure the defense
industry, but the Perry plan wasn't quite the "peace dividend" Americans
had in mind. Perry pushed a government program that paid military
contractors to consolidate, arguing that only vast conglomerates would
have what it takes to compete in the 21st Century. The Pentagon provided
partial underwriting for defense industry mergers. In what critic Bernie
Sanders, I-VT, dubbed "payoffs for layoffs," Perry's Pentagon picked up
the costs of moving equipment, dismantling factories and providing golden
parachutes for top executives. Foreign Policy in Focus reports that Perry
had to get a conflict of interest waiver before he could greenlight the
merger-subsidy program. He worked as a paid consultant for Martin Marietta
immediately before joining the Clinton administration.

Today, Lockheed Martin, which was created in a merger announced just
months after the start of Perry's policy, is the nation's top weapons
maker. Its component parts include Martin Marietta, Loral Defense and
General Dynamics. The mergers shrank company payrolls, but hugely expanded
their political influence. When he retired in '98 Perry joined the board
of one of the biggest -- the Seattle-based Boeing Corporation. For those
who are interested, Perry also joined the Carlyle group, the Saudi-based
firm whose partners include no end of world leaders, including former
British Prime Minster John Major, former secretary of state James Baker
and the first President Bush.

Anyone but Bush maybe, but many voters might also want to see in
government anyone but Morningstar, Perry and Beers.

***