Bush beats back the cries for peace

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Robert L. Jamieson Jr.

Monday, March 17, 2003

Bush beats back the cries for peace

By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

President Bush needs to have his ears checked.

He is not hearing what Joe Katroscik has to say.

"You have to listen to other countries," the 52-year-old construction worker told me. "If they come to the table with other opinions, then those opinions might just be valid."

Mark Etringer, holding a giant U.S. flag, says he can't yell it any louder: "I have a strong feeling the whole world is against this Iraq thing. And this crazy fool here wants to go against the rest of the world."

Curtis Johnson is flummoxed -- he can't get through to the big guy.

"We don't," Johnson said, "support this war."

Call it a giant, throaty "Just Say No!" -- a collective message thousands of people in Seattle sent the president at peace gatherings over the weekend.

Not that Dubya gave a damn.

"Tomorrow," Bush twanged yesterday from the Azores, "is a moment of truth for the world." High noon, in gunslinger lingo.

War in the mind of the president seems to be a fait accompli. A done deal.

Judging from Bush's language at the media briefing in the Azores -- where the president, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the leaders of Spain and Portugal fled to avoid world peacemongers -- one thing is clear: Bush is itchin' to play cowboys and Indians on the big stage.

Saddam is one bad hombre. Eventually, Saddam -- along with the rogue's gallery of North Korean President Kim Jong-Il, Osama bin Laden and Middle East ignoramuses Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat -- has got to go.

But there has to be a better way than dropping thousands of bombs on Baghdad. Not only would such a barrage kill innocents -- and civilians will die no matter how smart the bombs -- it also would touch off a powder keg of anti-U.S. sentiment in the Muslim world.

But bully Bush won't listen.

Not to Seattleites such as Etringer or Johnson. Not to millions of people across the state, country and world, who said in recent days they want to pursue other options: give Saddam more time to disarm; or bring more nations on board to support an armed conflict; or avoid war altogether for now.

Heck, the voices of dissent never really stood a chance. Dubya won't even listen to dear old dad, George Herbert Walker Bush.

You would think the 41st president of the United States would know a thing or two about such matters. Recently, in a little-publicized speech at Tufts University, the elder Bush said any push for Middle East peace would be destroyed unless a war in Iraq had widespread international backing.

"You've got to reach out to the other person," the elder Bush told the audience at the university in Boston. "You've got to convince them that long-term friendship should trump short-term adversity."

More crucially, according to The Times of London, which had the courage to report on the speech, the elder Bush said he would have been able to achieve nothing if he had jeopardized future relations by ignoring the United Nations.

"The Madrid conference would never have happened if the international coalition that fought together in Desert Storm had exceeded the U.N. mandate and gone on its own into Baghdad after Saddam and his forces," the 41st president said.

Hey, junior, you listening?

"Bush Sr. just basically told his son, 'Sit down, boy!' " Rep. Jim McDermott, a Seattle Democrat, told me at a protest at the Federal Building Saturday. He said the elder Bush gently dressed down his son to "save the kid's dignity."

McDermott said the words of the elder Bush were not widely reported, suggesting the current presidential administration is having its way with the media. "There's self-censorship," he said. "Reporters are fearful these days."

The congressman makes a good point. Remember the president's super-scripted March 6 prime-time news conference?

Reporters lobbed soft questions: "Why don't our allies want war?"

Bush ducked and stayed on message: "Saddam has had 12 years to disarm. . . ."

Afterward, an ABC News correspondent rightfully concluded that the president had not been "sufficiently challenged" by reporters who were left "looking like zombies."

Then consider the message the Bush administration sent reporter Kate Adie of the British Broadcasting Corp. She was told that any uplinks or TV signals coming from independent journalists in Iraq during combat would be "targeted down" -- which means taken out.

When Adie questioned senior Pentagon officials about the consequences of firing on journalists, she was reportedly told: "Who cares? They've been warned."

So when self-censorship doesn't work, U.S. missile censorship will.

Maybe President Bush's ears are fine. The real problem is he's banging the drum so loudly for war that he cannot and will not hear the plaints for peace.

P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. can be reached at 206-448-8125 or robertjamieson@seattlepi.com

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