Home > Howard Dean Moves On—The Selling (Out) of the Antiwar Movement

Howard Dean Moves On—The Selling (Out) of the Antiwar Movement

by Open-Publishing - Friday 25 March 2005
17 comments

Edito Wars and conflicts International USA

by JOSHUA FRANK

It was just over two years ago that I learned a little-known "antiwar" Democrat from Vermont was planning to run for President. At a rally on the eve of Bush’s Iraq invasion, a fellow protestor handed me a leaflet touting the now infamous Howard Dean, hoping that the propaganda would entice me to support his forthcoming candidacy.

Of course, I was intrigued. Few other Democrats were speaking out against the imminent war on Iraq. Luckily, I ended up not taking the bait. Nevertheless many other activists unabashedly latched onto the Dean campaign in hopes he would represent their interests in Washington. Luckily for Howard, they all had credit cards and Internet access. But as the story goes, Dean was embarrassingly sacked during the primaries and his followers were told to traverse the pro-war Kerry trail instead.

Howard Dean isn’t dead yet, however, as he has safely landed himself a lofty position within the establishment as chair of the Democratic National Committee. Unfortunately Dean’s nomination means little to the peace movement as his antiwar convictions have vanished.

The second anniversary of the Iraq war came and past, yet the most popular "antiwar" Democrat remains speechless. Dean has said nothing about Bush’s potential forays in Iran and Syria. He has not muttered a single word about ending the US occupation of Iraq. Should we be surprised?

Nope. Howard Dean’s "antiwar" convictions haven’t vanished — they never existed to begin with.

Looking back into the dirty Dean files, we find that the good doctor has had a long pro-war history. He praised the first Gulf War, NATO’s intervention in Bosnia, Bill Clinton’s bombing of the Sudan and Iraq. He even went so far as to write President Clinton a love letter praising his foreign policy in 1995 as the US waged a brutal air attack on Serbia, bringing death and destruction upon civilians and the infrastructure that provided their only life support.

As Dean told to President Clinton: "I think your policy up to this date has been absolutely correct ... Since it is clearly no longer possible to take action in conjunction with NATO and the United Nations, I have reluctantly concluded that we must take unilateral action." According to most post-war accounts, US air bombardment left the Serbian military relatively unscathed, while ethnic cleansing and violence increased drastically.

Nonetheless, Governor Dean supported Clinton’s deadly policy without a wince of shame.

Candidate Dean was no different. Despite voicing his opposition to Bush’s war when he entered the race for the White House, he never wholeheartedly opposed overthrowing Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. In September 2002, Dean had announced that if Saddam failed to comply with the demands of the United Nations, the US reserved the right to "go into Iraq." Dean claimed he would gladly endorse a multilateral effort to destroy Saddam’s regime. In fact, Dean wasn’t even opposed to a unilateral effort lacking the support of the UN, NATO, or the European Union (see Part Two forthcoming).

On CBS’s Meet the Press in July 2003, Dean told Tim Russert that the United States must increase its pressure on Saudi Arabia and Iran. "We have to be very, very careful of Iran" because President Bush "is too beholden to the Saudis and the Iranians," he explained. But later in the broadcast, he conceded, "I support the president’s War on Terrorism." Dean even went so far as to tell Russert: "I believe that we need a very substantial increase in troops. They don’t all have to be American troops. My guess would be that we would need at least 30,000 and 40,000 additional troops."

In a New York primary debate two months later, Dean elaborated: "We need more troops. They’re going to be foreign troops [in Iraq], not more American troops, as they should have been in the first place. Ours need to come home." Dean, it seems, would have had the disorder in Iraq go on at all costs, though he wasn’t quite sure whose soldiers should do the occupying.

When Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich grilled Dean during that same debate about Bush’s $87 billion Iraq package, Dean claimed that he would support it since "we have no choice ... we have to support our troops."

So do we support our troops by bringing them home, or by financing the occupation? The self-proclaimed antiwar candidate never clarified.

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank03...

Forum posts

  • You must understand that Dean never called himself the "anti-war" candidate...the media did. It was common knowledge that he supported military action of the 1991 Gulf War and Afganistan in 2001. He felt (as so many of us do) that the latest Iraqi War is unjust and the public was lied to about the reasons for going to war.

  • Howard Dean never ran from his position on the war in Iraq. His position was allways clear. He did not support the invasion of Iraq. He ALLWAYS pointed out that he had supported all the other wars that are mentioned in this article. He has ALLWAYS maintained that he is more of a centrist than a liberal. He is now working hard at his "lofty" position as head of the Democratic Party to raise money to be able to compete with Republicans, and eject them from office.....and that my friend is a "lofty" and noble goal.

  • We love Howard!! He has been up front about his record and beliefs on this war and others. He is quietly devisivg a strategy to deal with defeating the Repubs in 2006 and wii be out in the limelight again soon.
    Go Howard!

    • Most George Bush supporters don’t really understand him or pay real attention to his policies. They just know that he is their guy. They can’t be bothered to dig into what he says or believes. He’s the man.

      The same is true of Howard Dean supporters. They have never been able to see the forest for the trees. They feel thrilled to say that Dean is their guy. Don’t bother them with the facts about what he is or what he stands for. If the Democrats defeat the “Repubs” in 2006, it won’t be because of anything Dean does. And it most certainly will not make any difference to the average American. Or world citizen. But Dean is the perfect leader for the Democratic Party.

    • Clearly you have been duped by what passes for press coverage in the US. Most of Dean’s supporters knew perfectly well that he was not truly an anti-war candidate. (That was Kuchinich) Dean was the spokesperson for plain-spoken common sense that headed down what used to be the center. My policy views were and are much closer to Kuchinich, but I supported Dean — Sadly press coverage of the Iowa scream effectively ended his chances. (I was there in the front row, and saw firsthand the huge gap between what really happened and what the press said about it.)

      My new-found connections to fellow Dean supporters give me hope that progressive voices can re-enter politics in the US from inside the system and become a puissant force inside the Democratic Party, instead of pursuing hopeless strategies outside the 2-party system or ignoring politics altogether.

    • What was done to Dean in Iowa by sabotaging him and relentlesly playing that scream scene ad nauseum, only proves that the Dems and Repubs are all the same. That was the same thing the Repubs did to Kerry.
      Dean is from the Northeast and a straightshooter. His supporters ARE informed, and that is why they support him. Unlike W’s who if they truly knew what he stood for would NEVER support him. If they knew that he is stripping the less fortunate and elderly of their benefits so he can give his wealthy Corporations more tax cuts. If you remember Dean accused Kerry of being in with the Corporations, as he is.
      Face it we have a one party system in this Country, that disguises itself as two to give the pretense that we have a Democracy. Hopefully Howard will form a TRUE second party, for the people, not the Corporations!

  • Howard Dean, Extortion, Bribes and other problems

    DNC Chair Howard Dean’s problems with the Bill of Rights, the Law and Ethics.

    In 1997 Howard Dean announced his desire to appoint judges willing to subvert the Bill of Rights or in Howard Dean lingo “legal technicalities”. Two judges appointed within months of Dean infamous 1997 statement have been found guilty of civil rights violations by a federal court in Manhattan. (fn1) Dean’s top appointee and lawyer, Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell, was defense counsel for the corrupt government employees in this case where Sorrell has expended vast public funds to forward the goal of undermining the First Amendment in Vermont.

    To get a true feeling of the judicial and law enforcement climate fostered by Dean in Vermont, it is instructional to look at his # 1 Vermont appointee and life-long friend, William Sorrell. Dean owed a great debt to the Sorrell family for mentoring his ascent in Vermont politics. Dean’s first notable gubernatorial appointment in Vermont was to install Sorrell as Secretary of Administration in 1992. In 1997, it became time to thank the Sorrell family again and Dean attempted to appoint Sorrell as the chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court. As Sorrell had no judicial experience, Dean’s zeal to appoint his favorite crony was met with a legislative roadblock. Dean had a backup plan, appoint the Attorney General to the Supreme Court and then appoint Sorrell to fill the Attorney General vacancy. All was well with Vermont Cronies. (fn2)

    In describing Sorrell, Dean was quite generous with his praise of his friend’s character and abilities, illustrating the nature of their relationship: “I have an enormous amount of respect for Sorrell as a human being and as a really smart lawyer.”

    A subordinate of Sorrell’s issued the following prosecutorial written threat in a Vermont state court proceeding,

    "The last claim involves a statement made to attorney Capriola warning that the defendant would be charged with additional crimes if he did not clam down. The statement is a reference to the defendant’s continued harassment of the victim and the investigating officer in this case through the court process. The defendant has filed a civil action against the victim because of his participation in this criminal case. The State is currently reviewing a contempt charge against the defendants because of this activity. The statement was a proper warning made through the defendant’s representative."

    Sorrell approvingly has stood behind and defended the above threat which now has become part of a prosecutor’s toolbox in Vermont. The above threat is the epitome of the government’s coercive use of the power of criminal prosecution to influence and manipulate civil court proceedings tantamount to extortion and obstruction of justice concerning a matter before a federal court. Dean’s “really smart lawyer” and top appointee at work.

    Sorrell’s conduct doesn’t stop there, his subordinates followed up the above threat with a plea agreement that specified the dismissal and non-pursuit of civil lawsuits against the prosecutors themselves. The dismissal of a lawsuit is an item of monetary value benefiting Sorrell’s underlings – or to put it bluntly this conduct is tantamount to acceptance of a bribe by state prosecutors. Dean’s “really smart lawyer” strongly approved and defended the conduct. One can’t assign full responsibility concerning this government corruption to Dean’s friend alone because two of Dean’s hand-picked anti-“legal technicality” judicial appointees presided over and approved the government misconduct.

    Then there was the police shooting of Robert (“Woody”) Woodward in Brattleboro, Vermont in 2001. The massacre involved 7 shots from police revolvers fatally wounding Mr. Woodward – with some of the shots fired into his body while he was bleeding on the ground in the fetal position. Dean and Sorrell, both irrationally obsessive police advocates, put the cover-up machine into gear. Sorrell authored a biased report overlooking much of the testimony and evidence. When Dean was asked to appoint a special independent investigator he backed up his old crony and stated that Sorrell was a “really smart lawyer”. One of Dean’s so-called “legal technicalities”, the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits a biased decision-maker. Something as trivial as the Constitution didn’t stop Dean from deciding not to usurp his friend’s report by refusing to appoint an independent investigator regardless of his very public conflict-of-interest with Sorrell. Pursuant to the constitution, Dean should have disqualified himself. (fn3)

    Sorrell has lately kept busy in the courts fighting to keep Howard Dean’s gubernatorial records sealed. In light of the foregoing, one can only imagine what vile government conduct Sorrell and Dean are covering up in the sealed records lawsuit. Sorrell’s friendship with Dean is still costing the Vermont taxpayers thousands of litigation dollars and Dean’s “really smart lawyer” friend apparently flunked attorney ethics which prohibit Sorrell’s representation of Dean under attorney conflict-of-interest principles. (fn4)

    In Sorrell’s possession is a sworn transcript and audio tape of a major U.S. corporation’s quite illegal conduct constituting extortion and other crimes. To date, the reason is unknown for Sorrell’s cover-up of the criminal enterprise set forth in the audio tape aside from the fact that any such reason would be incompatible with law enforcement. Also in this questionable category is Sorrell’s cover-up of an alcoholic beverage retailer’s activities who operated without federal or state licenses for 8 years during the Dean/Sorrell decade in Vermont despite a report from Vermont’s own liquor investigator that the illegal conduct existed. Dean’s appointee response – cover up.

    It appears that neither Dean nor his lawyer crony have any respect for the Bill of Rights, ethical considerations or the rule of law when it doesn’t fit into their dubious agendas. Recently, Dean has labeled the members of an entire political party as “evil” and “brain-dead”. Perhaps Dean should look in the mirror and look at the condition he left Vermont in after a decade of his appointments prior to disparaging others. The man who said 95 percent of people charged with crimes are guilty anyway so why should the state spend money on providing them with lawyers should indeed criticize very carefully from his anti-constitutional corrupt glass house. (fn5)

    Scott Huminski
    111-2c Killam Court
    Cary, NC 27513
    S_huminski@hotmail.com

    (fn1)
    http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,535358,00.html
    http://chapelhill.indymedia.org/news/2005/02/13685.php
    http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Frank_Dean-Sorrell-Corruption.htm
    http://toughenough.org/huminski.html
    http://victimsoflaw.net/Scott_Huminski.htm
    http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2003/10/543.php
    (fn2)
    http://yconservatives.com/Guest-54c.html
    http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/8836.php
    (fn3)
    http://www.justiceforwoody.org/
    http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/12/277164.shtml
    http://la.indymedia.org/print.php?id=96372
    (fn4)
    http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2005/03/11/fight_over_howard_dean_papers_goes_before_vermonts_high_court/
    http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/dean/articles/2003/12/05/deans_unseemly_secrecy?mode=PF
    (fn5)
    http://www.prisonactivist.org/pipermail/prisonact-list/1996-September/000600.html
    http://talkleft.com/new_archives/003199.html#003199
    http://talkleft.com/new_archives/003144.html#003144
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A1907-2003Jul2&notFound=true

    • I always love it when the Bush Butt Kissers try to discredit Dean, it proves they are afraid of him. They make up shit about Dean or they spread lies about him that they got from Limburger, Hannity, O’Reily et.al, and they expect someone to take them seriously even when there is no proof. But on the other hand they see and hear for themselves what the rest of us do about Bush, ruining our economy, allowing his cronies to rip off the taxpayers, and now not wanting to repay social security for looting the trust fund to do his warmongering around the planet. He is destroying our liberties, our news media amounts to a wing of the republican party, he is instrumental in shoving religion down everyones throat and wrecking the environment to rape the earth, but the Butt Kissers refuse to see any of this and instead they focus their attention on fabricating things about others, what a laugh.

    • Howard Dean’s papers contained many communications from persons who would prefer to keep their identities out of the public eye. The correspondence occurred when Dean was working on civil union legislation in VT. I find it admirable that personal correspondence from his constituents is held in such high regard by the former Governor. It’s a matter of principle. If it disturbs anyone that Dean is principled and makes no apologies for it, that’s life. It’s a lot better than the GOP personal vendettas that ruin lives for no other reason than pure malice.
      Dean released most of his papers. Only personal info from OTHER people was held back. Everything pertaining to official work is out in the open. One must wonder why some people have to know EVERYTHING. Could we all see Bush’s personal correspondence? Nope. It will be kept a big secret for eons, per a secret midnight ruling in his early occupation of the White House.

    • The ONLY thing that will save the U.S. now is C.P.R. This spreading malignancy, otherwise known as the G.O.P. has metastasized and if not treated soon will cause all vital functions of this Country to cease.
      The Doctor will save the day!!

  • Howard Dean is a gun lover. So what, another American .sshole!

    • If the anti-war movement was a for-profit organisation the poiticians would be queing up to be a part of it.

    • Does anybody actually think that there will ever be another real "election" in this country? Howard Dean, the DNC and any "candidate" for either Congress or the Presidency in 2006 or 2008 will be CHOSEN by the necons who are in control. Any thought to the otherwise is simply wishful thinking.

    • Its hilarious. This site is so far out in wacko left field that the Howard Dean supporters actually seem lucid in comparison.

    • exactly! And where is Howard Dean and the DNC on the vote fraud issue? Why do they expect the grassroots to send them money to advovate the values of the corporations, not the people?

      They just recieved millions of dollars leftover from John Kerry’s campaign, who also did not stand up on vote fraud issues(and that’s putting in nicely) so why is Howard Dean and the DNC constantly asking for more money from the dems? They don’t need more money, they need to do their jobs of representing the democratic party. Represent the people! THAT is how you win an election.

      Who is representing the majority of people in this country that are against this war in Iraq? THAT is how you win an election. Who is representing the clear majority of people that want universal health care? I’ll tell you who... Dennis Kucinich!

    • We have a one party system in this country and sadly we must accept that or go find a new party that is not corrupt. Why would anyone knowing what goes on here, go and vote in these rigged elections? It is time for real Americans to do like Nancy Regan said and "Just say No" to voting. If enough of us refuse to vote, and we do so vocally, it will highlight to the world that we do not have a democracy in the U.S., at best we have a military dictatorship supported by a bunch of stooges all on the take, or at the worst, we have a theocracy imposed and shoved down the throats of all by the fanatical right wing church armageddonists (Bush’s religion).

  • Joshua Frank is 100% correct. Dean was "anti-war" like Bush was born a poor black child. Even Iowa farmers were smart enough to see through that ploy.

    Dean is a conniving opportunist who gets his talking points from his hero Karl Rove. Only after Rove nailed Kerry and Edwards with his catch-22 IWR vote did Dean decide to set himself up as a war critic.

    Keep it up Howard and maybe you’ll finally make it into to the White House. But don’t forget to bring your Talon News press pass.