[Peace-discuss] Memo to a senator

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Jude Wanniski was an editor at The Wall Street Journal in the
1970s and coined the term "supply-side economics."  In 1998,
Wanniski promoted a dialogue between Louis Farrakhan and those
who had labeled him anti-semitic. He arranged for Farrakhan to
be interviewed by reporter Jeffrey Goldberg who had written
for the Jewish weekly The Forward and the New York Times.
Since the extensive interview was never published in either
publication, Wanniski decided to post the transcript on his
website in the context of a memo of Senator Joseph Lieberman.
 Although a "conservative," he was an opponent of the US war
with Iraq from the beginning, endorsing Kerry because "Mr.
Bush has become an imperialist -– one whose decisions as
Commander-in-chief have made the world a more dangerous
place." --CGE (from Wikipedia)]

   Aug 21 2005
   Memo on the Margin
   Are We Really Better Off Without Saddam?

   Memo To: Sen. Trent Lott [R MS]
   From: Jude Wanniski
   Re: All Things Considered, Maybe Not

Dear Trent…. I caught you on “Meet the Press” this morning and
of course agree with you completely that your Republican
colleague, Bill Frist, betrayed you back in 2002 when he
announced he would run for Majority Leader at a point when you
might have survived in that post. You may disagree, but I
still think it was the White House that pulled the plug on
you. It was not the President, but the neo-cons in the Vice
President’s office. It was exactly at the time when they were
planning to take the country to war in Iraq, to get rid of
Saddam Hussein so they could play their imperial game. You
should remember the memo I sent you on July 31 of ’02,
”Richard Perle’s Puppet Show.” I’m sure you received it, but
here is how it opened:

    I'm still expecting that you will be true to your word,
Trent, and dissent from any plans to make war on Iraq unless
you have a "smoking gun" that persuades you Saddam Hussein is
a real threat to our national security. Please note Senator
Biden announced BEFORE his Foreign Relations hearings this
week that Saddam must be removed from power in Baghdad. It is
of some comfort that the top brass at the Pentagon is telling
the defense reporter of the Washington Post that Saddam is no
threat and can be contained, as he has been since the Gulf
War. But I am afraid President Bush still does not understand
that he has become a marionette in Richard Perle's continuing
puppet show in the Middle East. It really is up to you to do
everything you can to break those strings as I do not see
anyone else around who can do it. It had been my hope that
Colin Powell as Secretary of State could outmaneuver Perle,
who chairs the Defense Policy Board, and his gunslingers –
Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condi Rice and their minions
at the Pentagon and the National Security Council. Not so far. 

In a sense, I may have been part of the reason you were
jettisoned, because I do know Perle and his gang monitored
these memos and the margin, and would have been rattled by
your promise to me that you would need a smoking gun to lead
the charge in the Senate to go to war. You may also recall
that I personally briefed you a number of times in your office
that critical issues on your mind about the nature of Saddam
Hussein’s regime were pure propaganda – his alleged gassing of
the Kurds, for example. I’m sure you were shaky as far as the
neo-cons were concerned because you told me how our mutual
ally in the supply-side wars, Jack Kemp, had also weighed in
with you about things being said about Saddam Hussein that he
knew were not true. Bill Frist, who you considered your
protégé, without any doubt got the green light from the White
House to undercut you, because they need a rubberstamp in that
spot and Frist has been exactly that.

In your “Meet the Press” interview this morning, I noticed you
made the obligatory remark that “Of course we are all better
off without Saddam Hussein.” Practically every politico in
every party makes that exact statement on all the talk shows
in recent weeks and months. Maybe if I were a politician I
would also include it in my litany. Which may be why I've
rejected every suggestion that I should be a politician. It is
dismaying to me, even disgusting, to see your congressional
colleagues prattle on about how Iraqis are better off without
Saddam, when more than 100,000 of their sons and daughters
would still be alive if we had not gone to war. Are the dead
"better off"? Are their families?

It would have been refreshing, Trent, if you had realized by
now that after your wings were clipped by the neo-cons, you
were a zero in the Senate discussions in the first months of
2003, when your questioning could have made a difference. In
your heart, I think you know that all things considered, we
are not “better off” without Saddam Hussein. If we could roll
back the clock and do it all over again and accepted his
invitation to prowl Iraq in perpetuity in search of weapons of
mass destruction, we would be a lot better off. I noticed this
morning that you again cited Saddam’s “rewards” to the
families of Palestinian suicide bombers as evidence of his
evil nature, as if that is the best reason you can come up
with for the war.

Sorry again, Trent, but the Palestinian leaders themselves
have vehemently argued that Americans who made that charge
against Saddam were “racist,” a term I know you abhor. What
they meant was that Muslim fathers and mothers are not so
inhuman as to encourage their sons and daughters to blow
themselves up in order to get a $25,000 check from Baghdad.
That’s how you characterized Saddam’s gesture, which in any
case was commonplace in countries we consider our Arab allies.
The Saudi royal family also encouraged gifts to the families
of those who were bereft, having not only lost their children
forever, but also the financial support they would have had
from them in their old age. In recent months, I noticed that
you have supported increased financial benefits to the
families of our fighting men and women who have died in Iraq
and Afghanistan.

As I noted, you are not alone in using the fig-leaf phrase,
“We are all better off without Saddam Hussein.” Senator Joe
Biden, a Democrat who supported the war unconditionally
against Saddam when he was ranking Democrat on the Foreign
Relations Committee, never fails to mouth that rationale for
the war. He’s running for President in 2008 by criticizing
Republicans for not prosecuting the war effectively enough,
practically promising more American fighting men and women
into the maw if he had his way. When last seen, Hillary
Clinton has been parroting the same line. Her political
counselors have been “positioning her” for a presidential run,
I guess. Disappointing to me, as I have been coming to admire
her progress since she came to the Senate.

Remember, Trent, more than 2000 Americans have died in Iraq,
including the private contractors. Another 25,000 have been
wounded, with a high percentage losing arms or legs or both.
If it is to be “all things considered,” I’d hope you would
shed a tear for the 100,000+ Iraqi dead, military and
civilian, who would still be alive if not for the war. There
are probably another 200,000 at least who have been mutilated
in the combat, or in the insurgency, and you can’t chalk their
suffering up to the insurgents if you are honest, because if
it were not for the war, there would have been no insurgents.

To be honest, Trent, if I were you I would take stock of the
situation and instead of throwing good money and blood after
bad. I’m not saying “bad blood” to demean our armed forces, of
course. I’m with Cindy Sheehan, who still doesn’t understand
why we continue to send young men and women into the Iraqi
meat grinder. She suspects it is because President Bush and
his team simply think because our government has invested so
much in Iraq that we might as well throw a few thousand more
into the maw and hope it all turns out right in the end.

The fact that I’ve known you for 35 years, back to your
earliest days in the House, and that I’ve never steered you
wrong with my advice, should count for something, shouldn’t
it. There was a time when I really believed you were
presidential timber, back when you spoke your mind and it was
always nice to hear what it was that was on your mind. The
fact that you won a majority of the black vote in Mississippi
in your first re-election bid as a Republican was simply
astonishing. How insane it was that you would be ousted as
Majority Leader because of a joke you told at a party for
Strom Thurmond. You’re a good man, Trent. You could never be
otherwise, but you should clear your head about why you were
bounced as Majority Leader. It wasn’t Bill Frist. It was
Richard Perle and his puppets, including the Veep.

* * * * *