E D I T O R I A L

Massive Repudiation of War

America’s Congressional elections that struck a deadly blow to President Bush and his Republicans are just not an internal American affair. Since stakes for world peace were high, the world watched it intently. The results are a massive repudiation of attack on Afghanistan and Iraq. American voters showed their displeasure and rejected the methods adopted by the American led coalition to fight terrorism. Massive victory of the Republicans had been turned into massive defeat of the Bush and company and a triumph for the Democrats and all those who opposed the new dictatorship and imperial hubris of a section of the American elite; the neoconservatives and war industry. America also voted against the filling the pockets of a small section of the super rich, denial of jobs, price rise, poor health care and above all an attack on their personal liberty and building a sense of fear and insecurity worldwide.

Democrats took 24 of the 33 senate seats at stake and winning seven million more votes than Republicans. For the House of Representatives, Democrats secured 53 pf the two party votes and total control with seats. 12 year old Republican dominance over the Congress is effective over. This majority is as big as Republicans ever achieved. It could also be more effective due to regional realignments that this election has thrown up. Democratic control no longer is under threat from those in the party whose sympathies lay with the Republicans. Bush now a lame duck president is highly dependent upon the Democrats.  But the real task before the Democrats would be to get rid of the conservatism, a vicious disease in the American polity making it authoritarian and undemocratic by the day. The polity needs to be injected with a liberal doze to make America a democratic and liberal society not torn by paranoia. This would help it gain its lost image and make the world a more livable place.

Rarely has an election defeat been so resoundingly cheered in its country of origin and around the world. Bush has finally united most of the planet. The ayatollahs of Iran, the chancelleries of Europe, the majority of Americans and even some Republicans who thought their party deserved punishment, all felt that Bush and party must go. This was a clear damning verdict on the catastrophic mess made in Iraq. Ballot has blown up the dream to construct perpetual right-wing hegemony over the world.

The optimistic way to understand these elections could be that the United States takes less of unilateralist approach to the rest of the world. There are mixed signals.  The war monger Donald Rumsfeld has finally been dispatched. Bush, aware of Democrats majority sounds more conciliatory and yet more mischievous.  But can he be a different President. If he keeps to the same confrontational lines as before, that will paralyse Capitol Hill. Both the President and the Congress would waste themselves in bickering and make the world less safe and Americans less happy.

These hard fought elections had a clear agenda. America must withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan and stop the sham dance of establishing democracy. It must also forget attacking Iran and North Korea. Diplomacy must work to produce positive results. On domestic front the government must address issues of health care, unemployment, tax benefits for the middle and poor classes and make education affordable. Spying on American citizens must end and their privacy respected.

So what is really happening? No exist from Iraq as for now and so with the Afghanistan. Involve two countries, Syria and Iran, once part of the axis of evil. Ask them to help America get out of the mess and yet keep control over oil. And at the same time tell Israel to keep batting the heads of Palestinians and Iranians.

Look at these reports from the mainstream media now advising against the impeachment of the President. The talking points of elite like Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean are reverberating across the political spectrum - no impeachment of Bush, no investigation of Iraq and no independent inquiry into 9/11. The proto-dictatorship could never have been put in place without the seminal event of 9/11 and it is imperative that the 9/11 truth movement not be pacified by a sham re-arranging of the deck chairs. We must push like never before for a new independent investigation of 9/11.

So what now with Iraq? In Washington, the blue-ribbon bipartisan commission trying to devise a new course for the war in Iraq has met Bush and other White House officials. The New York Times reports: "After meeting with a panel examining the war, the president said that military options “depend upon conditions on the ground.” The Iraq Study Group plans to announce its recommendations to Bush and Congress by the end of the year. The President is banking on a slick James Baker shake outmaneuver…But former CIA analyst Ray McGovern says the real message is NO EXIT:” Those expecting the Baker-led Iraq Study Group to propose any kind of pullout will be sorely disappointed.

What is good for America in Iraq is not necessarily good for Iraq. Controlling Iraq and using its strategic position, oil and status within the Arab-Muslim worlds is part of America’s plans and the weaker Iraq is through religious and ethnic divisions the easier it is to control. What the democrats particularly the progressive section that has been strengthened thinks.

And in Iraq on November 14 as many as 154 persons lost their lives including four Americans and next day gunmen wearing the uniforms of Iraqi security forces kidnapped 100 to 150 employees of Iraq's Higher Education Ministry. The killing spree goes unabated and America knows it can not last there for long. America wishes to leave Iraq as messy as it is now or more and wants to keep its control over oil and rest of the Middle East intact.

Can Democrats take those big decisions for which they have been voted to control the Congress? They can use their control of all the committees on Capitol Hill to subject the remainder of the Bush presidency to inquiries about the Iraq war. That course is bound to be very tempting, given the scale of the mistakes, given the extreme partisanship that now disfigures so much of American political conversation, and given what a Republican Congress did to Bill Clinton in his second term. There are many scores waiting to be settled on Capitol Hill. Will they?

The Democrats during the campaign declared America needs a 'new direction' in Iraq. But nothing is visible.  It is not the case that America and Britain have no options in Iraq. There is a large range of options provided there is a will. United Nations is still there to work out a solution.

There is an urgent need to end to the dogmatic, polarising, incompetent and hubristic approach of this President and evolve more liberal and democratic approach.

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