The Nation

Two months ago, I wrote a piece for the "The Los Angeles Times" proposing that Afghan civilians who had lost relatives, limbs, homes and businesses due to errantly-targeted U.S. bombs receive compensation from Washington. The article was reprinted; I talked up the idea on television and radio. And never have I received more hate mail, with my assailants virulently accusing me of being anti-American and pro-terrorists. Bill O'Reilly bashed me for demanding the United States pay "reparations." But my point simply was that when the United States accidentally inflicted damage upon civilians (such as one young boy who lost his right arm, his left hand and his sight when U.S. bombs struck his home near Tora Bora), it should try to help those harmed. Now, I am happy to note, the C.I.A. is on my side, for the Agency in the past few days has been handing out cash to relatives of Afghan soldiers mistakenly slaughtered by the United States.

On January 24, U.S. Special Operations troops attacked two small compounds in Haraz Qadam, a town 100 miles north of Kandahar. At least eighteen people were killed. Twenty-seven were captured, and the Pentagon announced its prisoners were Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. The daring operation was front-page news. But days later, media reports, based on interviews with local residents, undermined the official account. The townspeople said one of the compounds was being used as a weapons depot for a local disarmament drive and that the Afghans killed and snatched by the Americans were not Taliban or al Qaeda but troops loyal to the interim government of Kabul. According to local Afghans, the bodies of two individuals had their hands tied behind their backs. About a week later, C.I.A. officers were in the field working with tribal leaders to pay $1000 to the family of each Afghan wrongfully killed.

What is interesting is how the Pentagon at first tried to deny a tragedy had taken place. When Craig Smith of "The New York Times" wrote a story questioning the raids on January 28--after interviewing dozens of local folks whose testimony was compelling--the Pentagon, in automatic-pilot fashion, defended the operation. "We take great care to ensure we are engaging confirmed Taliban or Al Qaeda facilities," Maj. Bill Harrison, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, told the newspaper. "As a result of this mission, we detained 27 individuals, and believe that our forces engaged the intended target."

Rare is the evening when we would suggest that turning on the television set could represent the best way to study up on a vital issue -- especially so complex an issue as the damage done to workers, the environment and democracy by the North American Free Trade Agreement. For the most part, we would argue that reading a newspaper or magazine would be the better route to knowledge.

       But Tuesday, February 5, is different.        Author and commentator Bill Moyers, whose rare, documentary-style reports are the closest thing to serious investigative reporting on broadcast television these days, will focus his attention on one of the least-examined stories in America today. "Bill Moyers Reports: Trading Democracy" (PBS stations on Tuesday, Feb. 5, at 10 p.m. EST, check local listings) examines the way in which NAFTA restrictions on barriers to trade are being used by multinational corporations to overturn environmental protections enacted by governments in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

       "When the North American Free Trade Agreement became the law of the land almost a decade ago, the debate we heard was about jobs," explains Moyers, in a discussion of the program. "One provision was too obscure to stir up controversy. It was called Chapter Eleven, and it was supposedly written to protect investors from having their property seized by foreign governments. But since NAFTA was ratified, corporations have used Chapter Eleven to challenge the powers of government to protect its citizens, to undermine environmental and health laws, even to attack our system of justice."

Few presidents in the history of the United States have been given the opportunity handed George W. Bush to lead the nation to higher ground.

No president, with the possible exception of the current chief executive's father, has ever blown so great an opportunity so completely.

Maintaining an approval rating that "popular" presidents such as Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton would have gladly traded a vice president to register, Bush could have used last week's State of the Union address to turn a moment of rare national unity and resolve into the stuff of greatness.

He sure didn't leave the Democrats much room to maneuver. When George W. Bush delivered his first State of the Union address--a two-ply speech divided between a so-called war on terrorism and a supposed war on the recession--he depicted himself as a Rooseveltian president, as in both (Republican) Teddy and (Democrat) Franklin Delano.

In Speech One, Bush warned the war on terrorism--now targeting "tens of thousands of trained terrorists" throughout the world, in jungles and in cities--has only just begun and may extend for years beyond his time in office, and he declared himself a roughrider ready to take this war to nations that are "threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction." Never referring to Osama bin Laden by name, he announced that North Korea, Iran and Iraq--especially Iraq--were in his crosshairs and noted, "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer." In other words, if those wimpy coalition partners don't have the stomach for this, if Americans, as heroic as they were on and after September 11, are not be ready to invade Baghdad, none of that will matter. Bush will still lead the charge.

In Speech Two, he came across as a New Dealer. Without providing details, he called for extending unemployment benefits and direct assistance for health care coverage, for strengthening Head Start and early child development programs, for enhanced teacher training and recruitment, for a Patient's Bill of Rights, for extending Medicare to include coverage of prescription drugs, for protection of 401(k) plans and pension fund protection (without mentioning a certain belly-up energy company), for greater accountability within corporate America. He said he was in full favor of "jobs." There was no standard-fare GOP rhetoric about the need to limit big-government or the wonders of unfettered, entrepreneurial capitalism.