A Tiny Ripple of Hope

Open Letter to Rep Dennis Kucinich

UPDATE: In the Question & Answer session after his speech to the Minnesota ACLU, Howard Dean expounds upon his comment -- "I hope the President's plan succeeds." You can hear it for yourself at the PBS tape of Dean's speech. The Q&A session is after his speech. http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/news/midday/2005/04/21_midday2.ram You need to use RealPlayer to hear this audio clip.

It's obvious that that newspaper reporter or editor or both truncated Dean's comments on our current situation in Iraq and his view of our responsibilities there.
This is why Dennis Kucinich should not have attacked Howard Dean directly. I would have had no problem with Mr. Kucinich criticizing all Democrats, who support staying in Iraq for whatever reasons they have, but to single out Howard Dean and to use a truncated quote of Dean by a newspaper reporter was wrong.

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May 5, 2005

Dear Mr. Kucinich,

I'm responding to your Open Letter to Howard Deanthat was posted on the Internet on May 4, 2005. This letter along with links to the original version of your letter and to the revised one will be in this letter. I think it's time someone chastises you out for your hypocrisy, and as a member of my town's Democratic committee, I feel obligated to do so and that is why I'm posting my Open Letter to you on the Internet.

I'm not a constituent of yours, but thanks to being inspired by Howard Dean, I'm now the secretary of my town's Democratic Committee.

While I'm not interested in running for elected office, I'm interested in rebuilding the Democratic Party from the grassroots up. Howard Dean gave me hope that there are Democratic leaders, who saw the Democratic Party in a state of atrophy and are willing to work with Democrats, both rank-and-file and local Democratic leaders, like my committee members, to resuscitate the Party from the grassroots up. That's why I asked my Democratic Committee to publicly endorse Howard Dean for DNC Chair, and my Committee responded by unanimously endorsing him.

I have read both your original and revised open letters to Howard Dean. It was very sloppy of you and your staff for publishing the original letter on the Internet with the major error -- the home state of Paul Wellstone, the only senator to vote against the war. We both know that 23 senators voted against the Iraq War Resolution. I also found it interesting that the Left-wing Media web sites, which posted both your letters, posted the revised one without noting that they were doing so, but fortunately, I saved a copy of the original letter and am posting a link to my copy of it at the end of this open letter. I will gladly show it to everyone, who uses your revised edition to attack Howard Dean, to prove that you are far from the perfect progressive your portray yourself as.

In both your Open Letters, you make the same mistake that you made about Howard Dean during the primary campaign. You assumed that Dean was totally anti-war and that is why anti-war progressives swarmed to his campaign.

You quoted Howard Dean, "Now that we're there [in Iraq], we're there and we can't get out.... I hope the President is incredibly successful with his policy now." And then you rhetorically asked, "Did these words really come from the same man who claimed to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, and who had recently campaigned on the antiwar theme? What's changed?"

If you had paid attention to what Howard Dean had said during the primary campaign, you would know that nothing has changed in regards to Dean's position on the 2003 Iraq war and its aftermath.

Here is a quote from PBS Online Newshour interview of Howard Dean on Sept. 4, 2003 -- http://www.pbs.org/newshour/debate03/part2.html -- that sums up Dean's position on Iraq:

I supported the first war in Iraq because one of our allies was invaded, and I thought we had a responsibility to defend them. I supported the war in Afghanistan; 3,000 of our people were murdered?As commander in chief of the United States military, I will never hesitate to send troops anywhere in the world to defend the United States of America. But as commander in chief of the United States military I will never send our sons and daughters and our brothers and sisters to a foreign country in harm's way without telling the truth to the American people about why they're going there. And that judgment needs to be made first, not afterwards.

We need more troops. They're going to be foreign troops, as they should have been in the first place, not American troops. Ours need to come home.

This was Dean's position during the primary race as well as after he bowed out of the race. Howard Dean never said during the primary that he was totally anti-war and I dare you to prove it.

Contrary to the distortions you spread in your Open Letter, Mr. Kucinich, Howard Dean's position on Iraq is consistent with what he said during the primary -- that we can't just pull out and abandon Iraq to chaos. The basis of Howard Dean's position is Afghanistan post-Soviet withdrawal, not Dean becoming "Republican-lite." Remember, Presidents Reagan and Bush I abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out, and Afghanistan turned into a "failed" state, which played host to Al Qaeda, who attacked us on 9-11-2001. Howard Dean's position makes valid points and must be considered when we decide to withdraw from Iraq. Iraq is much closer to Europe and Saudi Arabia, our major source of foreign oil, than Afghanistan is, so if Iraq followed the same path as Afghanistan, it won't just be the US who has a serious security issue to deal with.

After reading your letters, I drew the conclusion that you are just trying to pump up your ego to run for President again in 2008, and you're trying to paint yourself as the only "pure" anti-war hero in Congress. What I detect in your letter, Mr. Kucinich, is jealously towards Howard Dean's pre-primary success and the continuation of his popular support from many Democrats and progressives who opposed the 2003 Iraq war.

Another major flaw in your argument against Howard Dean is that you assume that the anti-2003-Iraq-War protester = longtime anti-war advocate. You are completely wrong about who makes up the anti-war and progressive groups today. While there are still elements of anti-war elements from the Far Left, the ones whom you court, many of us prefer to evaluate each situation as it arises on whether or not military action is the best or worse way to respond to the crisis. While we are reluctant to support war, we know that we live in a dangerous world and that military power is still needed to defend this nation and to help protect our allies. It just happened that with George W Bush's 2003 Iraq War, the Far Left and many moderates joined forces to oppose that war and the precedent it would set, but that doesn't mean that moderates have become members of the Far Left Wing.

You also need to consider that some Far Left anti-war advocates continue to support Howard Dean, even if they disagree with him on some of his positions. One anti-war/pacifist advocate, who is a Dean supporter to this day told me that she still supports Howard Dean because "Howard Dean is always who he says he is and Howard Dean knows how to look at a problem and fix it."

Just because us, moderates, and the Far Left joined forces to protest the 2003 Iraq War, does not mean that we are united on our opinion of "what to do now in Iraq." I believe that the United States is in a Catch-22 position, thanks to President Bush. There is no easy way out, however, I do believe that we need to send a message to our troops that torture is morally wrong, and they should stop it immediately, even if it means disobeying orders from a superior. We also need to rein in our corporations, who are squandering ours and Iraqi resources, get Iraqis employed with meaningful work, and stop trying to convert Iraq into an American colony.

Mr. Kucinich, many of us who protested the 2003 Iraq War don't and never have supported you or many of your positions, like your long history of anti-abortion votes. As a former Catholic myself, I am aware that you are or were a Catholic and voted on abortion in accordance with Catholic teaching. Your change on abortion started happening when you were getting a divorce and you discovered that the Catholic Church frowns upon divorce too. It also helped your 2004 Presidential ambition and campaign purse to be pro-choice. This proves that you yourself are not a pure progressive and are susceptible to dark motives.

But since you consider yourself a Progressive Crusader and man of integrity, I wonder, Mr. Kucinich, if you will write a public letter commending Howard Dean for diversifying the DNC management team. Have you not seen the following article in The American Prospect?

The Chairman's Colorful Cabinet
Howard Dean is bringing minorities to the top of the minority party. That's rarer than you might think.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9647

Rebuilding the Democratic Party from the grassroots up to be a viable opposition party is a Herculean effort. I do not envy Howard Dean's task at doing so, but unlike you, Mr. Kucinich, Howard Dean is appealing to a broader group than just the Left Wing extremists and the Democrats in your own district in Ohio. Howard Dean is working for the good of all Democrats regardless of their position on Iraq. It's hypocritical for you to chastise Howard Dean in public when you will not do the same to all the Democrats who voted for the 2002 Iraq War Resolution, like Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Sen. John Edwards. Remember former Senator Edwards? He was one of the pro-war senators whom you asked your supporters in Iowa to throw their support to if you did not achieve viability in the Iowa Caucuses. Was that tactic due to your jealousy towards Howard Dean's pre-primary success or was it a sign of your hypocrisy about the 2003 Iraq War?


Sincerely,
Terry Barton, secretary of Killingly, CT Democratic Committee


Links to Rep Kucinich's revised letter from Commondreams.org http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0504-21.htm

Here's the link -- http://tinyrippleofhope.blogspot.com/2005/05/kucinichs-original-letter-open-letter.html -- to a copy of the original Kucinich letter that I got from IndyMedia web site.

posted by Hopewellian_Magi @ 2:27 PM 8 comments

Kucinich's original letter: An Open Letter to Howard Dean

http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/149374/index.php


Dear Chairman Dean,

Speaking before an ACLU crowd last week in Minnesota, the home state of Paul Wellstone, the only senator to vote against the war, you were quoted as saying, "Now that we?re there [in Iraq], we?re there and we can?t get out.... I hope the President is incredibly successful with his policy now." Did these words really come from the same man who claimed to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, and who had recently campaigned on the antiwar theme? What?s changed?

Perhaps you now believe that an electoral victory for Democrats in 2006 and beyond requires sweeping this war under the rug. If so, you are only the latest in a long line of recent Democratic leaders who chose a strategy of letting "no light show" between Democrats and the President on the war. Emphasize the economy, instead, they advised, in 2002 and again in 2004.

Following this advice has kept us in the minority. During the 2002 election cycle, when Democrats felt they had historical precedent on their side (the President?s party always loses seats in the midterm election), the Democratic leadership in Congress cut a deal with the President to bring the war resolution to a vote, and appeared with him in a Rose Garden ceremony. The "no light" strategy yielded a historic result: For the first time since Franklin Roosevelt, a President increased his majorities in both houses of Congress during a recession.

The President went into the 2004 election with tremendous vulnerability on the war, which the Democratic Party again sacrificed: by avoiding the issue of withdrawal from Iraq in the party platform, omitting it from campaign speeches and deleting it from the national convention.

Why does failure surely follow from sweeping the war and occupation under the rug? Because the war is one of the most potent political scandals of all time, and it has energized grassroots activity like few others.

President Bush led the country into war based on false information, falsified threats and a fictitious estimate of the consequences. His war and the continuing occupation transformed Iraq into a training ground for jihadists who want to hunt Americans, and a cause célèbre for stoking resentment in the Muslim world. His war and occupation squandered the abundant good will felt by the world for America after our losses of September 11. He enriched his cronies at Halliburton and other private interests through the occupation. And he diverted our attention and abilities away from apprehending the masterminds of the September 11 attack; instead, we are mired in occupation. The President?s war and occupation in Iraq has already cost $125 billion, nearly 1,600 American lives, more than 11,000 American casualties and the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis. The occupation has been more costly in this regard than the war.

There is no end in sight for the occupation of Iraq. The President says we will stay until we?re finished. A recent report by the Congressional Research Service concluded that the United States is probably building permanent military bases in Iraq. The President refuses to consider an exit strategy. The Republican Congress gives the President whatever he asks for.

We can draw no clearer distinction with the President than over this war. He cannot right a wrong (unjustified war) by perpetuating a military occupation. Military victory there is not possible. General Tommy Franks concedes that. The war will end when we say it?s over. The Democratic leadership should be pressing for quick withdrawal of all troops from Iraq.

That?s what most Democrats want, too. Your performance in the early stages of the primary, and your recent chairmanship of the party, were made possible by many, many progressive and liberal Democrats. It was their hope and expectation that you would prevent the party from repeating its past drift to the Republican-lite center. They hoped that this time the party would not abandon them or its core beliefs again.

Yet you say that you hope the President succeeds. With no pressure exerted from the leadership of the Democratic Party, the past threatens to repeat itself in 2006. We may not leave Iraq or our minority status in Washington for a long time to come.

Dennis J. Kucinich

posted by Hopewellian_Magi @ 12:34 PM 0 comments