The third candidate you haven't heard of: Democracy

By Kyle Callahan

Over the course of the past six months, we have heard President Bush critique Senator Kerry for flip-flopping on the Iraq war for political purposes. The President has continually said something along the lines of, "Senator Kerry looked at all the same evidence as me and he agreed that we needed to go to war in Iraq to protect the security of America."

What this statement doesn't take into account is the influence of the neoconservative movement in the Pentagon.

According to the Statement of Principles found on the Web site of their think tank, The Project for a New American Century, the necons promote an aggressive approach to foreign policy that supports, "a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities." The Bush Doctrine of preemptive war and the current war in Iraq are direct results of the neoconservative influence in the White House.

But this influence extends beyond the White House and into the halls of the Pentagon. On March 10, 2004, Salon.com published "The New Pentagon Papers," which was written by Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired lieutenant colonel with over 20 years service in the U.S. Air Force. Kwiatkowski wrote:

"From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans [OSP] and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq…I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president. …Many of us in the Pentagon, conservatives and liberals alike, felt that this agenda, whatever its flaws or merits, had never been openly presented to the American people."

Where Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski says that the OSP provided distorted intelligence to the President, the fact that the White House created the OSP and appointed its members displays the failure, if not of the President, then at least of his Administration. The reason I bring this is up is because it is disingenuous for the President and his Administration to assert that Senator Kerry had access to the same intelligence they did, when, in fact, Senator Kerry (and the rest of America) only had access to the intelligence the Bush Administration was willing to reveal, which was only the intelligence that supported its pre-determined plans.

Our democratic nation requires one thing to ensure a smooth operation: a public that is well-informed about the world and its government's dealings with that world. Because our revolutionary founders had experienced what it was like to live under an openly aggressive government, they established a balance of power among the three branches of our government to ensure that the United States never fell under the sway leader who only had their own self-interest at heart. They went even further and gave us the First Amendment to provide a free press (an unofficial fourth branch) to guard us against the power of our guardians. As James Madison wrote, "A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

If one branch of government is distorting intelligence and misrepresenting the facts, then that branch is acting in a way that contradicts the very values that make America great. Such were the actions of the OSP and the Administration that supported it.

Such actions run counter to the values of democracy, regardless of your liberal or conservative leanings. It is for these reasons that I believe a vote for President Bush is a vote against democracy.

There is a fundamental difference between being a voter and being an informed voter. And our Constitution is built on the idea of the informed voter. Anything less goes against our core values as Americans.

This White House has gone out of its way to misinform the American voter. A report released on Oct. 21, 2004 by PIPA (a joint program of the Center on Policy Attitudes and the University of Maryland) shows that, even after the recent publication of the CIA-sponsored Duelfer Report confirmed that Saddam had not had WMDs since the mid-1990s, 72% of Bush's supporters still think that most experts believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction before the current war. 82% of Bush supporters perceive the Bush administration as saying that Iraq had WMDs or a major WMD program. Likewise, 75% say that the Bush administration is saying Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda. In other words, almost half of the American people (Bush supporters) believe these things because this is what they think the President is telling them.

These numbers show that President Bush and his administration are keeping the public misinformed about the reality of the war on Iraq. Keeping a public misinformed is contrary to the idea of a democratic America.

As Thomas Friedman wrote in his Oct. 21 column in the NY Times, "Conservatives have failed their own test of patriotism. In the end, it has been more important for them to defeat liberals than to get Iraq right."

If you are thinking about voting for President Bush, don't think about defeating liberals the way the Red Sox (used to) think about defeating the Yankees. Instead, please think about the precedent the actions of this White House are setting and reconsider your support for his anti-democracatic administration.

For an extended version of this article, including links to the neocon Statement of Principles, "The New Pentagon Papers," and the Duelfer Report, see "A view from the center?" on my blog www.fluidimagination.com.