Kerry Shows True Colors
Kerry Gives Major New Speech: Shows his Thinking on Iraq
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I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.
John F. Kerry, May 3, 2003
We should increase funding [for the war in Iraq] by whatever number of billions of dollars it takes to win.
John F. Kerry, August 31, 2003
Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president.
December 16, 2003
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From Kerry’s Speech of
September 20, 2004
. . .
I know this dilemma firsthand. I saw firsthand what happens when pride or arrogance take over from rational decision-making. And after serving in a war, I returned home to offer my own personal views of dissent. I did so because I believed strongly that we owed it to those risking their lives to speak truth to power. And we still do.
(APPLAUSE)
Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in Hell. But that was not -- that was not, in and of itself, a reason to go to war.
. . . .
The president should convene a summit meeting of the world's major powers and of Iraq's neighbors, this week, in New York, where many leaders will attend the U.N. General Assembly, and he should insist that they make good on the U.N. resolution. He should offer potential troop contributors specific but critical roles in training Iraqi security personnel and in securing Iraqi borders. He should give other countries a stake in Iraq's future by encouraging them to help develop Iraq's oil resources and by letting them bid on contracts instead of locking them out of the reconstruction process.
. . .
The principles that should guide American policy in Iraq now and in the future are clear. We must make Iraq the world's responsibility, because the world has a stake in the outcome and others should have always been bearing the burden.
. . .
If the president would move in this direction, if he would bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and to train the Iraqis to provide their own security and to develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people, and take the steps necessary to hold elections next year, if all of that happened, we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring our troops home within the next four years.
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So Kerry believed the war was right then, but wrong now. We would be better off if Saddam was still in charge.
Kerry never uses the word “win” or “victory.” He wants to end the war by getting out.
So: this is Kerry’s solution to the problems in Iraq. Turn the matter over to the U.N. The same U.N. that managed the Food for Oil program. The same U.N. that is doing nothing about genocide in Sudan. The same U.N. that has already made it clear they are not going to send more men to Iraq.
We at least have a clear choice now:
Bush: perservere and win.
Kerry: Get out and turn the matter over to the UN. Who wants to be the last man to die for a profound mistake?
_________________________________________________________
I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.
John F. Kerry, May 3, 2003
We should increase funding [for the war in Iraq] by whatever number of billions of dollars it takes to win.
John F. Kerry, August 31, 2003
Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president.
December 16, 2003
______________________
From Kerry’s Speech of
September 20, 2004
. . .
I know this dilemma firsthand. I saw firsthand what happens when pride or arrogance take over from rational decision-making. And after serving in a war, I returned home to offer my own personal views of dissent. I did so because I believed strongly that we owed it to those risking their lives to speak truth to power. And we still do.
(APPLAUSE)
Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in Hell. But that was not -- that was not, in and of itself, a reason to go to war.
. . . .
The president should convene a summit meeting of the world's major powers and of Iraq's neighbors, this week, in New York, where many leaders will attend the U.N. General Assembly, and he should insist that they make good on the U.N. resolution. He should offer potential troop contributors specific but critical roles in training Iraqi security personnel and in securing Iraqi borders. He should give other countries a stake in Iraq's future by encouraging them to help develop Iraq's oil resources and by letting them bid on contracts instead of locking them out of the reconstruction process.
. . .
The principles that should guide American policy in Iraq now and in the future are clear. We must make Iraq the world's responsibility, because the world has a stake in the outcome and others should have always been bearing the burden.
. . .
If the president would move in this direction, if he would bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and to train the Iraqis to provide their own security and to develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people, and take the steps necessary to hold elections next year, if all of that happened, we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring our troops home within the next four years.
_______________
_______________
So Kerry believed the war was right then, but wrong now. We would be better off if Saddam was still in charge.
Kerry never uses the word “win” or “victory.” He wants to end the war by getting out.
So: this is Kerry’s solution to the problems in Iraq. Turn the matter over to the U.N. The same U.N. that managed the Food for Oil program. The same U.N. that is doing nothing about genocide in Sudan. The same U.N. that has already made it clear they are not going to send more men to Iraq.
We at least have a clear choice now:
Bush: perservere and win.
Kerry: Get out and turn the matter over to the UN. Who wants to be the last man to die for a profound mistake?
Comments
I think the work nuance is lost on you.
In the post 9/11 period, all politician, newsmen, and most Americans were caught up in a patriotic fervor that led to the Patriot Act, a two theatre war with neither concluded, huge deficeits, and anyone who critisized any of this was in danger of losing his elected office, or at least being branded a traitor by the right wing media. On the basis that anyone who changes his mind or upon reflections sees that we may have made a tremendous mistake in Iraq, is unfit for office, must think highly of Goveror Dean.
No one, not even the most flaming peacenik thinks that Saddam was a good man, nor that Iraq should put him back in office. However, I think your position is either 1) My president right or wrong or 2) I believe the US should preemptively attack any country with which we have major issues such as WMD's.
If the administration went after Iran, which probably was involved in 9/11 at least as a major facilitator of Al Queda, would you support it no matter what the cost in blood or treasure?
Our president went to the UN today and said shame on you. Does the administration see the world as subservient to US policy? Do you care if western powers begin to see the US as more than arrogant, but actually a problem? What if they signed non-agression pacts with other memembers of the Axis of evil? That's a stretch, but treating the rest of the world as though they don't matter isn't very smart in my opinion.
Do you think Iraq some day will be teaching Jefferson, Paine, Locke, Madison, etc. and the American Revolution? Do you think they will look back in 20 years and look at Bush as the American Lafayette? I don't think our style of republican government works in much of the middle east because of the strength of the clerics.
Now to address some of your quotes more directly, I wish Kerry didn't look a which way the wind was blowing. I didn't vote for him. However, the early quotes were made while we were still hot on the trail of the WMD's. David Kaye's report was delayed until September or later (I don't remember). Liberman was and still is a complete hawk...shame on him. The December quote isn't an affirmation of his support for the war; it states the obvious, Saddam was a very undesirable person....but mainly to Iraqis not us.
I remember, as do you, that during the Vietnam war, the country polarized between those who, like lemmings, would follow the president(s) over a cliff and those that recognized the war wasn't going well. In his winter years, will Colin Powell write the "Fog of War" about Iraq.
In other words Bob, other than the removal of Saddam, is there anything concrete that we can say was a direct positive result of this war as of Sept 2004. Libya? No Attack in the US in the last 3 years? A reduction in world wide terrorism? A quelling of fundementalist animus towards the west? A settlement of or positive movement in the Palestinian situation?
Your critics want to here more.