The Presidential Debate: Mr. Tall and Mr. Small
/Thursday September 30, 2004
By Greg Palast
Our President told the debate audience, "You cannot lead if you send mexxed missiges." I certainly hope not.
But that's exactly what we got. You watch our President, the
nervous hand-hiding, the compulsive water-glass-fondling, the panicked
I-wish-I-had-a-whiskey look, and you think, "My god, this is the guy
who's supposed to save us from al Qaeda."
And how are we going to win the War on Terror, Mr.
President? "First of all, of course I know Osama bin Laden
attacked us. I know that," he said. Well, that's a start, I
suppose.
But it doesn't have to stay this way. This is America, home of
the brave and where, I remember from school, we could vote for
president and the votes would count. So we looked to the tall man
next to him to show us the way out.
In Iraq, "We don't have enough troops there," said the tall one.
Really, Senator? We should send MORE? Not exactly: Mr.
Tall's got a plan to get our troops out. He'll have a big
meeting of "allies," and after he talks with them, they will all jump
up and volunteer to send THEIR kids to Fallujah. France and
Indonesia and Kuwait can't wait to ship in soldiers and extra body
bags. Right. We love you, John, but there's no band of
Hobbits coming to the rescue -- that's just a movie.
Well, he looked kind of "presidential." But given the line-up includes Nixon, Ford and two Bushes, that's not a big trick.
I'm sorry. I know I'm supposed to stand up and cheer that John
Kerry didn't get Gored. In fact, if you look at
presidential debates the way the media plays it, as something akin to
Olympic figure skating, where you score for the competitor's style, you
could say Kerry won.
But I don't feel WE won anything.
I mean, when Jim Lehrer asked how the candidates would make America
safe from terrorists, Mr. Tall said he'd hire more firemen. And
add more cops. Maybe he thought he was running for mayor.
It was disappointing, but then Mr. Small's answer was downright
frightening. We have to "stay on the offensive," and "stay on the
offense," and "I repeat, stay on the offense." We have no doubt
that Mr. Small can be extraordinarily offensive, but even he can't take
his offensiveness to the bad guys if he doesn't know where they
are. And on that point, he's clueless.
There were two words I was hoping to hear from Mr. Tall: "Saudi"
and "Arabia." Imagine if he laid it on the line, "The
terrorists didn't put the hijackings on a credit card, Mr.
President. Their Saudi sponsors are fattening on the bloated
war-driven price of oil. But you can't touch your buck-buddies in
the Gulf, can you, Mr. President?. As Commander-in-Chief, I'd
cut'm off at the spigots, beginning with the release of oil from our
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And then I'd seize their fat assets
in the USA to compensate the victims of terror attacks."
When Mr. Tall was asked what whoppers the President has told us, surely
there was something a bit more memorable than Mr. Small's failing to
win over allies for his whacky crusade.
Here's what Mr. Tall said
in my dreams:
* "Beginning in March 2001, your Administration began a series of
meetings with oil company executives to map the conquest of Iraq and
its oil, a plan Americans would pay for in blood. You originally
called this scheme, 'Operation Iraqi Liberation' -- O.I.L. We
don't appreciate your little joke, Mr. Small."
* "One month after seizing Baghdad you fired General Jay Garner,
the man you put in charge of Iraq, after he called for rapid elections
in Najaf; after he refused to impose your plans to sell off Iraq's oil
fields. In Najaf, citizens denied ballots, turned to
bullets. And then, as General Garner predicted, the seizure of
Iraq's assets resulted in the type of war one expects -- when seeking
to impose colonial control."
* "Mr. Small, you claim we've given a thousand lives to bring
democracy to the Mid-east. But so far, your democracy, Mr. Small,
comes down to a puppet prime minister, we've installed in Iraq and a
puppet government, the Saudis have installed in Washington."
OK, I can't expect all that in a presidential debate, where the message
has to fit through a tube. But still, Mr. Tall could have won my
vote with two words. It's the two-word answer John Kerry gave
three decades ago when asked the same question -- "How can we get our
troops out of a disastrous war?"
Then, the clear-minded, tall young men said, "In ships."
==================
View Greg Palast's exclusive interview with General Jay Garner for BBC
Television in the film, "Bush Family Fortunes," available this week on
DVD in an updated edition from Ryko at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/video/39944000/rm/_39944105_iraq_palast19mar_vi.ram
