Page 1 of 2 DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA The horror: Vietnam defines another election
By Julian Delasantellis
You certainly couldn't say that a World War II-era US Army general didn't have
style; legendary is the image of the towering, Brobdingnagian conqueror
striding the battlefields of North Africa and Western Europe with a holster
holding two ivory-handled, cowboy movie-style, six-shooter Colt pistols. It's a
good thing that retired four-star US Army general Wesley Clark, the former
supreme NATO commander during the 1999 Kosovo air campaign, a short-lived 2004
Democratic presidential candidate, and, up until about 9:22am last Sunday,
possible vice presidential choice for Senator Barack Obama, does not follow in
George S Patton's sartorial style. This week, he would have blown his feet
right off.
With all that's going on these days, all the trials and travails that
the average American must face on a daily basis, you'd think that the American
public might be hungry for a substantive, serious debate on current issues.
Gasoline pushing US$5 a gallon is forcing massive changes in the nation's most
cherished cultural traditions; just imagine the frustration of the high school
boys out on summer vacation forced to cruise on a city bus the hotspots where
the girls hang out.
The US economy continues its long, steady, inexorable march into the recession
of 2008 and beyond. The S&P 500 stock index just suffered its worst June
since 1930, pulled down by the continuing crash in the shares of the US
financial sector. Taken together, the stock market capitalization of America's
12 largest "money center" banks now totals around $500 billion, impressive
until you realize that China's official foreign exchange reserves grow that
much every eight months.
The stock of General Motors just sank to its lowest level since 1954. Back in
1952, GM chief executive "Engine" Charlie Wilson said that "What is good for
the country is good for General Motors, and what's good for General Motors is
good for the country." As US automakers cut back on production of their big,
gas-hogging SUVs in favor of the smaller, more fuel-efficient cars that
Americans would rather purchase from Toyota and Honda, as the state of
Michigan's unemployment rate passes 8.5% (three points above the now rapidly
rising US national unemployment rate), and as Wall Street cocks an eager ear to
listen to rumors that Chrysler, taken private and saddled with debt in last
year's private equity buyout by Cerberus Capital management, will soon be
heading to bankruptcy court, we now see that Wilson's hoary aphorism works just
as well in reverse - what's bad for General Motors, and, by extension, the rest
of the US auto industry, is really bad for America.
With all the distress and dejection facing the country (Merrill Lynch analyst
David Rosenberg reports that up to 4% of the recent government stimulus rebates
went to gambling at state lotteries and casinos) every morning in America, with
pollsters now reporting that over 80% of the nation's citizens now feel that
the country is on the "wrong track" (presumably, that would be the one with the
speeding freight train bearing down towards them), one might find it surprising
that it now appears obvious that this fall's US presidential election is going
to be contested on the same issue that every election since at least 1980 has
been contested on - the Vietnam War. That, even though now over 40% of the
American population has been born since the pullout of the last US combat
troops in 1973 and so have no direct memory of the events that their elders are
telling them should be so central to their current lives and futures.
Wesley Clark eschewed the opportunity to join the chattering Democratic horde
traipsing around the cornfields of Iowa and frozen forests of New Hampshire in
advance of this year's primaries and caucuses; an initial supporter of Hillary
Clinton, he switched his allegiance to Obama after the Illinois Senator wrapped
up the nomination in early June.
With Obama's core weakness, his seeming lack of experience in foreign and
defense policies, matching up poorly against his opponent, Vietnam-era prisoner
of war Senator John McCain's presumed strengths, the American media's
professional parasitic pundit plenum had been suggesting that Clark, winner of
the Silver and Bronze Stars as a young officer in Vietnam - along with fellow
decorated military veterans senators James Webb of Virginia, and Jack Reed of
Rhode Island - might be on the interminable "short list" to be on the ticket as
the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee.
Clark probably thought he was advancing towards this end, aiding and assisting
Obama against McCain, when, on Sunday, June 29, he appeared on one of the five
American Sunday newsmaker interview shows, the CBS network�s Face the
Nation, hosted by Bob Schieffer.
Most of McCain's recent attempts to advance policy positions on current issues
ranging from home foreclosure relief to healthcare have degenerated into
furtive fumbling failures, so now he is running back true to form, continually
asserting that his service as a Vietnam-era naval aviator and the five years of
torture and depravations he suffered at the hands of the North Vietnamese after
being shot down over Hanoi in 1967 are qualifications sufficient to be
president.
Clark, evidently hoping that his own meritorious service in Vietnam (his Silver
Star was earned by taking four rounds from a Viet Cong AK-47 in 1970) might
allow him the leeway to criticize McCain in a way that Obama's civilian
supporters can't and won't, demurred from the McCain thesis that what happened
a third of a century ago on the other side of the world matters more than
what's happening today in America in deciding who should be the next president.
Schieffer: "You went so far as to say that you thought John McCain was,
quote, and these are your words, 'untested and untried'. And I must say I, I
had to read that twice, because you're talking about somebody who was a
prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the
Navy. He's been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for lo, these many
years. How can you say that John McCain is un- untested and untried? General?"
Clark: "Because in the matters of national security policy-making, it's
a matter of understanding risk. It's a matter of gauging your opponents, and
it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that
in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war.
He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in
Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed
Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held
executive responsibility. That large squadron in Air - in the Navy that he
commanded, it wasn't a wartime squadron. He hasn't been there and ordered the
bombs to fall. He hasn't seen what it's like when diplomats come in and say, 'I
don't know whether we're going to be able to get this point through or not. Do
you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it? ...
I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a
qualification to be president."
Even with nothing in these words even remotely challengeable in terms of their
truthfulness, this statement has consumed the entirety of American political
debate this past week.
It is said that American politicians will never discuss substantive changes in
Social Security, the federal government's old-age pension support program,
making that issue the "third rail" (the electrified power conduit in most
subway systems) of US domestic politics. If Social Security is the third rail,
what Clark did was worse; he, in effect, walked into the broken container of
Sarin gas supply room, closed and locked the door behind him, and, as a result,
has poisoned and suffocated to death the remainder of his political career.
So just what was it that Clark said that was so bad?
Whatever it was, the American mainstream media, an institution that looks upon
the subtlety and shades of gray inherent in all human affairs the same way a
dog looks upon a fire hydrant, quickly decided that it was really, really bad.
If they couldn't make that much actual hay in what Clark actually said, there
were fertile fields of obfuscation to be harvested in what could be claimed
Clark supposedly meant.
Los Angeles Times writer Peter Nicholas claimed that Clark "didn't pay proper
homage to McCain's greatest sacrifice: five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of
war in North Vietnam". In the New York Times, Jeff Zeleny uncritically repeated
comments by McCain supporters that the comments by Clark "impugned
McCain�s patriotism".
But the response of the American print media was a veritable debutante
cotillion compared with the dark alley mugging Clark would face on America's
cable television news networks. Led by Fox News, but with CNN and MSNBC nipping
enthusiastically at its baying heels, Clark was said to have been guilty of
"dissing" McCain, his truthful comments comparable to the lies of the "swift
boat" attacks leveled against Democratic nominee John Kerry in 2004.
A Fox News anchor claimed that Clark was "ridiculing" McCain's record; Fox News
contributor Oliver North called the remarks "petty and small, like Clark
himself". On MSNBC, reporter Andrea Mitchell claimed the remarks were "going
after the very thing that made John McCain a hero, an iconic hero to everyone".
When an Obama supporter tried to explain what Clark really said to Fox News'
Laura Ingram, she cut him off, proclaiming "I just don't want to hear this - as
an American, it makes my blood boil."
On right-wing talk radio, Clark has been christened with a new given name; he
is now almost universally called Weasel Clark. On the Free Republic website,
poster "boblonsberry" opined that "Wesley Clark isn't worthy to wipe up the
blood in John McCain's cell. And yet this ambitious little Obama lackey has so
whored himself to a shot at the vice presidency that he's willing to mock
another warrior's service. And not just any warrior. But a genuine, bona fide
American hero. You may not want to vote for John McCain, but you can't
disrespect him. At least not his military service. That's beyond the pale.
That's not what honorable or decent people do. You don't mock the shedding of a
man's blood. You don't ridicule his torture at the hands of a savage enemy."
Perhaps the lone voice of something roughly recognizable as reason here
belonged to Fred Kaplan of the online magazine Slate. He put Clark's comments
in the context of the hostility that the Vietnam-era US ground soldiers down in
the jungle mud - such as Clark - had for the high-in-the-sky glamour-puss
flyboys soaring over them - such as McCain. This animus is real and ongoing;
even today, it is the cause of numerous teeth, both real and false, regularly
being deposited on the floor of the watering holes that rely on Vietnam
veterans as patrons.
So is the operating principle here that McCain, representing the service of
America's Vietnam veterans, cannot be challenged, or even questioned?
When his turn came to enter the ring as part of the Fox News anti-Clark tag
team, former George W Bush chief political strategist and current Fox News
contributor Karl Rove opined that "this was an outrageous comment by General
Clark, who knows better than this. Shame on him, this smear, this libel ...
This was beyond the pale." Rove's comments must carry particular gravitas in
this manner, for, if there's one person in America who knows what an outrageous
smear and libel of McCain is, it's Rove.
In early February of the year 2000, it was looking pretty grim for the young
dauphin George W Bush trying to reclaim his father's stolen throne. McCain had
just drubbed Bush with a surprising thumping in the New Hampshire Republican
primary; with the South Carolina primary soon upcoming, the pundit class
was
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
