Kerry had the edge / Corruption in the military

It was a debate all right, sizzling, gripping, riveting, often a battle between brain and brawn, between two contrasting and formidable personalities, who would succor America from the gathering darkness of the 21st century. President George Bush sought to impress mainstream America with his raw physical and psychological power. He oozed courage and the granite character of prairie America that could stay any course. He would remain in Iraq, smash international terror to the wall then behead it as he would a snake.

George Dubya Bush was sure this was the right and only course.

John Kerry battled back mostly with his instincts, with his brain. The Democrat presidential candidate accused the US president of lying and misleading America into war against Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction were found. Bush won the war all right because of overpowering military might. But Kerry said George Bush had no plan to win the peace. And now America was helplessly mired in Iraq against an insurgency that had more heads than a heaving sea of gorgons. He, Kerry, once elected president, would extricate a "go it alone" America from Iraq and still win the war against international terrorism.

John Kerry was sure he had the intellectual armor for the job.

Bush’s final argument was that a wishy-washy, flip-flopping, indecisive John Kerry could not be trusted to lead America. Kerry’s final argument was that George Bush was a dangerous man, because his main weapons were "weapons of mass deception".

It was not easy to dismiss the US president. He was imposing.

The myth of the Lone Ranger, the John Wayne syndrome, James Bond, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the lone cowboy marching into the sunset after shooting all his enemies dead is so powerfully lodged in the American psyche and culture. Many Americans indeed believe George Bush can do the job much better than Kerry. That was what the US president projected during the second debate. His body language was that of power, the American pioneer sweeping the badlands, his six-shooter able to outgun and outshoot anybody in the neighborhood.

It was not easy to dismiss John Kerry either. Intellectually, he bristled.

His was the legacy of the framers of the American constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, the great thinking mind that tamed the the lawlessness of primitive America, drew up its institutions, made America great. This too was what he projected during the second debate. He refused to be boxed in and boxed out. John Kerry contended only skilled international diplomacy could bring back America to where it was before, respected at home, respected abroad, a great intellectual light in the darkness of a 21st century threatened by international terror.

It is between these two that America will have to choose November 2

Oh yes, there were other issues. Health, abortion, taxes, the national budget, the national deficit, stem-cell research bristled alongside Iraq. And they too illumined the contrast between the two men. Asked whether he would take exception to the knuckle-fisted laws against abortion, Kerry said that while he was a devout Catholic, he was also a legislator for all of America. And he would have to agonize and think it over if a girl, raped and impregnated by her father, could rightfully and morally resort to abortion. Bush said the law against abortion was the law. Sed lex dura lex.

The same on embryonic stem cell research. Kerry would encourage this if it could eventually lead to cures for diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and the like. The greater needs of a humankind seeking respite from the ravages of a cruel and unkind death would have to be served, Kerry said. President Bush countered swiftly. He said slaying the human embryo by divesting it of its stem cells was murder. The law was the law. He could never condone this kind of stem cell research which slew life. Again, sed lex dura lex. The law may be hard, but it is the law.

* * *

And so there they were, each impressive in his own right, two political giants locked in bitter combat in the exciting race to lead the world’s most powerful nation in the next four or eight years.

President George Bush bounced back, true, after a dismal first round. This time, he showed masterfully he was a bruiser, who could be relied upon when the going got rough, who could look international terror in the face, not flinch, and deliver the killing punch. But the best he could do in the second debate was draw even. Kerry was the elusive mongoose, able to escape the savage lunges of a spitting cobra. But it was a good fight, a great fight even.

{It showed two faces of America battling against the dangers of the 21st century. It was a world where nothing stood still, where China, India and the rest of a resurgent Asia were booming, and where North Korea, with its growing arsenal of nuclear weapons, presented a "clear and present danger."}

Who could tame Kim Jong-il? Bush or Kerry? Who could effectively revive the Atlantic Alliance, sundered when the US president waged pre-emptive war on Iraq? Here, Kerry certainly had the edge. He had repeatedly argued America could not wage the fight against terror alone, and badly needed the assistance of its old allies who had flown the coop. Bush, according to Kerry, ignored all of them, left them high and dry because he was fixated on Iraq.

Kerry never addressed Bush as Mr. President. His was always a curt "This President". Here he was the aristocratic Boston Brahmin feeling superior to the Texan.

There will be a third and last debate this Wednesday (Thursday morning in Manila). It will focus on domestic issues, a strong card of the Democrats. The odds are that John Kerry will again have the edge. Then the campaign hits the homestretch. But as the saying goes, "There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip." Who knows? American combat troops may catch Osama bin Laden before the elections in which case George Bush becomes unbeatable. But this is a long, long shot.

Me, I’ll just hang on, savor the presidential battle to the last drop.

* * *

With the exposé that our military and police establishment is riddled with corrupt generals and top officers, our political earth is beginning to shake. The perception is this corruption could not have happened without the knowledge and possible complicity of Malacañang, not to mention President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself. We have long known that the majority of our politicians are corrupt, what with pork barrel roosting at the top of the totem pole.

But our generals! We say generals because we take it for granted that Gen. Carlos Garcia’s revolting misdeeds – if the reports are true and we believe they are true what with his blabbermouth of a wife – were not only widely known but widely practised. The President by this time should have run down many of the evil-doers. But no, she has limited herself to general statements that her administration will not tolerate scalawags in the army and police.

The President must now realize there is no way out now outside of cutting off heads and a largescale revamp of the military and police. She is the commander-in-chief and if she does not move fast to see that justice swiftly takes its course, she may not last long in Malacañang. Since she took over as President, she has pampered the top ranks of the military and police, given them right-of-way when they had no right of way.

Whither then?

If she was complicit, the shuddering earth under us could well crack up. One thing I am sure of is that the military establishment can no longer wage or launch a succcessful coup d’etat. By establishment, I mean top officers with the rank of colonel and general. The majors and the captains could very well try again (a replication of the Oakwood mutiny) but I see no popular support for such a move.

The doors are now wide open for civil society to move, link up if this is still possible with patriotic army and police officers who have preserved their integrity, and gun mightily for popular support. The new leadership can come from this civilian-young military merger propped up by idealistic Church elements. Oh yes, there is Bro Eddie Villanueva who again shepherded over a million just recently to the Luneta with his flag of political " righteousness " all over the place.

I tell you the whole thing has become very scary.