Almost one thousand US soldiers have been killed in
the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking
_resident's foolish military adventure in Iraq, tens
of thousands US soldiers have been injured, many
maimed for life. The US is isolated in the world, it
has lost its credibility and its moral leadership. The
Western Alliance is seriously fractured. The future of
NATO is troubled. The Arab Street is on fire with
hatred. The White House and the Pentagon blew off the
Geneva Conventions and even our own military code and
federal laws to authorize a torture campaign (FOOLISH
as well as ILLEGAL) at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, exposing
US soldiers and (if there is justice in the
end) high officials to war crimes trials here at home
or in the Hague. Dear God, there are video tapes of
young boys being sodomized in US custody (although
wholly unreported by the "US mainstream news media").
There were no WMDs in Iraq. Even David Kay, their own
hand-picked WMD inspector, has rebuked them. They
lied about Niger yellow cake. GHW Bush's own
highly commended Ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson,
denounced them and revealed their lies about Niger.
And to discredit him and threaten anyone else who
might speak out against them, someone in their
operation, violated a sacred trust and Federal law to
out his wife as a CIA agent. Meanwhile, the Bush cabal
has done more for Al Qaeda recruitment than any sane
person could have imagined in the aftermath of 9/11.
Al Qaeda was not a force in Iraq before this foolish
military adventure, but they are now. And they have
brought forth demon spawn from Jakarta to Casablanca
with the ooze of stupidity from the neo-con wet dream.
Instead working with allies and friends to isolate the
infection and cleanse the wound, the Bush cabal has
spread the infection throughout the Moslem world...So
what does the WASHP headline read: Kerry on Defensive
about Iraq. What is happening in this country? The
WASHPs indulge in false "self-criticism" about their
complicity in the ramp up to the war, but they have
not changed their behaviour...Look at how they are
covering what is happening now...the chaos after the
"handover," the increase in the deaths of US military
after the "handover," the US military's inability to
gain control of either Falluja or Najaf, the
extraordinary evidence of corruption involving
Halliburton...Yes, they are still carrying the filthy
water of Rove and the RNC, both on Iraq and on the
campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta)...Here is an excellent analysis by William Saletan in Slate. The LNS does not agree with him on his caricaturization of JFK but we offer it as factually flawless and an example of what the propupunditgandists refuse to do -- tell the truth about a Democratic contender for the White House. They distorted, denigrated, defamed and deceived the US electorate about Al Gore in 2000 and they are doing it today...It's the Media, Stupid...
William Saletan, Slate: Lesley Stahl tells him: "You
voted for this war. Was that vote, given what you know
now, a mistake?" Kerry answers: "What I voted
for—Lesley, you see, you're playing here. What I voted
for was an authority for the president to go to war as
a last resort if Saddam Hussein did not disarm and we
needed to go to war." Stahl persists, "But I'm trying
to find out if you today, now that you know about [the
absence of WMD], think the war was a mistake?" Kerry
stonewalls, "I think I answered your question. I think
the way he went to war was a mistake."
Kerry sticks to his position. He doesn't answer
Stahl's question. But this time, somebody who can
speak English is sitting next to Kerry: John Edwards.
Seconds after the RNC cuts away from the interview,
Edwards steps in to rescue his running mate.
Edwards: I'm going to finish this. The difference is,
if John Kerry were president of the United States, we
would never be in this place. He would never have done
what George Bush did. He would have done the hard work
to build the alliances and the support system. …
Stahl: Why build an alliance if they didn't have
weapons of mass destruction?
Edwards: We would have found out.
Kerry: That is it.
Edwards and Kerry (in unison): That's the point.
Kerry: That is exactly the point.
There you have it. Edwards says if Kerry had been
president, we would have found out Iraq had no WMD,
and "we would never be in this place." Kerry
emphatically agrees with this translation. It makes
pretty clear that given Kerry's principles, and given
what we now know about the absence of WMD, Kerry
wouldn't have gone to war.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://slate.msn.com/id/2105096/
Would Kerry Vote Today for the Iraq War? No.
By William Saletan
Posted Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004, at 3:36 PM PT
Why won't he just tell us?
Last Friday, President Bush challenged Sen. John
Kerry: "My opponent hasn't answered the question of
whether, knowing what we know now, he would have
supported going into Iraq." On Monday, pressed by a
reporter to answer Bush, Kerry said, "Yes, I would
have voted for the authority. I believe it was the
right authority for a president to have."
Bush argues that this is yet another Kerry flip-flop
and that Kerry now endorses Bush's war. At a campaign
rally on Tuesday, Bush asserted,
My opponent has found a new nuance. He now agrees it
was the right decision to go into Iraq. After months
of questioning my motives and even my credibility,
Senator Kerry now agrees with me that even though we
have not found the stockpile of weapons we believed
were there, knowing everything we know today, he would
have voted to go into Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein
from power.
Does Kerry now agree with Bush's decision? Would Kerry
have gone into Iraq? Would he have voted to give Bush
the authorization had Kerry known what he now knows
about the absence of WMD and about how Bush would use
the authorization?
The answer, if you look closely at Kerry's statements
over the past three years, is no. But Kerry refuses to
make this clear, so let's go to the
videotape—specifically, a 12-minute videotape of
Kerry's statements, compiled by the Republican
National Committee and posted on the Web. These
statements, in the RNC's judgment, make the strongest
case that Kerry has flip-flopped on Iraq.
The first significant clip shows Kerry on The O'Reilly
Factor on Dec. 11, 2001. "We ought to put the heat on
Saddam Hussein," he says. Kerry adds that when U.N.
weapons inspector Richard Butler provided evidence
that inspections should continue, "I criticized the
Clinton administration for backing off of the
inspections."
Summary: Kerry wants pressure and inspections.
The next significant clip shows Kerry on Hardball on
Feb. 5, 2002. The host, Chris Matthews, asks Kerry
whether Iraq "can be reduced to a diplomatic
problem—can we get this guy to accept inspections of
those weapons of mass destruction potentially and get
past a possible war with him?" Kerry answers: "Outside
chance, Chris. Could it be done? The answer is yes. He
would view himself only as buying time and playing a
game, in my judgment. Do we have to go through that
process? The answer is yes."
Summary: Kerry doubts Iraq would comply with
inspections, but he thinks we have to go through the
process of trying.
The next significant quote comes from Kerry's speech
to the Democratic Leadership Council on July 29, 2002.
"I agree completely with this administration's goal of
a regime change in Iraq," Kerry says. He calls Saddam
a "renegade" who has betrayed the terms of his 1991
cease-fire. However, the RNC omits Kerry's next two
sentences: "But the Administration's rhetoric has far
exceeded their plans or their groundwork. In fact,
their single-mindedness, secrecy, and high-blown
rhetoric has alienated our allies and threatened to
unravel the stability of the region."
Summary: Kerry agrees that regime change is a "goal."
He doesn't clarify how he would pursue it. The part
edited out by the RNC suggests that Kerry doesn't like
the way Bush is pursuing the goal, particularly
because it "alienated our allies."
The video then shows Kerry speaking at a Democratic
presidential primary debate in South Carolina on May
3, 2003. Kerry tells moderator George Stephanopoulos,
"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 [Saddam]."
Stephanopoulos' question, edited out of the video,
was, "On March 19, President Bush ordered Gen. Tommy
Franks to execute the invasion of Iraq. Was that the
right decision at the right time?" Kerry takes the
question in two parts: No to the timing ("I would have
preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater
opportunity"), yes to the "decision to disarm." But in
his final sentence, Kerry conveys that his agreement
with Bush on the decision is more important than their
disagreement on the timing: "When the president made
the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact
that we did disarm [Saddam]."
This appears to be the first time Kerry endorses the
war as Bush conducted it.
It also appears to be the last. The next clip in the
RNC video shows Kerry on Meet the Press on Aug. 31,
2003. "In the resolution that we passed, we did not
empower the president to do regime change," says
Kerry. That's consistent with Kerry's previous
statements calling for "heat," "inspections,"
"process," and cooperation with "allies."
The video shows Kerry announcing his presidential
candidacy on Sept. 2, 2003. "I voted to threaten the
use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the
resolutions of the United Nations," he says. The video
omits Kerry's next sentence: "I believe that was
right, but it was wrong to rush to war without
building a true international coalition and with no
plan to win the peace."
No conflict here. Kerry thinks he was voting to turn
up the heat and get compliance with inspections. He
thinks Bush betrayed two of Kerry's principles:
process and allies.
The video shows Kerry on ABC's This Week on Oct. 12,
2003. The administration "rushed to war," Kerry
complains. "They did not give legitimacy to the
inspections. We could have still been doing
inspections even today."
This is a telling remark. Take Kerry's stated
principles: inspections, process, allies. Apply these
to the trends of the winter of 2002-03: restored
inspections and grudging Iraqi concessions. Combine
the principles and the trend with the evidence we have
today that Iraq's WMD programs had disintegrated. The
most plausible conclusion is that if Kerry were
president, we would still be doing inspections, as he
suggests.
The video shows Kerry again on Hardball on Jan. 6,
2004. Chris Matthews asks him, "Are you one of the
antiwar candidates?" "I am, yeah—" says Kerry. The
video cuts off the rest of the sentence, which
continues: "in the sense that I don't believe the
president took us to war as he should have, yes,
absolutely."
This is classic Kerry: emphasizing the right half of
his position when it's convenient, then the left half
when that's more convenient. But it isn't a change of
position.
At this point, the video takes us back to Kerry's
appearance on This Week on Feb. 22, 1998, when Saddam
was harassing U.N. weapons inspectors. "We have to be
prepared to go the full distance" to disrupt Saddam's
regime, Kerry says. Cokie Roberts asks him, "Does that
mean ground troops in Iraq?" Kerry replies, "I'm
personally prepared, if that's what it meant." The RNC
deletes the next seven sentences, so that Kerry's next
words appear to be, "He can rebuild both chemical and
biological, and every indication is because of his
deception and duplicity in the past, he will seek to
do that. So we will not eliminate the problem for
ourselves or for the rest of the world with a bombing
attack."
Sounds like a call for war. But let's read the whole
quote, including the part the RNC left out:
I am personally prepared, if that's what it meant. I
don't think you have to start there. I think there are
a number of other options. But what I hear from the
administration, thus far, is if he doesn't comply,
then we will hit him. The obvious question is, after
you've hit him, have you opened up your inspections?
Well, I think the answer is probably not, certainly
not in the near term. After you've hit him, is he
still in power, capable of building weapons again?
Every bit of intelligence John [McCain] and I have
says within various periods of time, he can rebuild
both chemical and biological, and every indication is
because of his deception and duplicity in the past, he
will seek to do that. So we will not eliminate the
problem for ourselves or for the rest of the world
with a bombing attack.
This is the same position Kerry has stated all along:
compliance, inspections, skepticism, process. He says
we shouldn't start with an invasion. He rejects
bombing not because it will fail to change the regime,
but because it will fail to restore inspections. And
look at the sentence the RNC cut in half, about Saddam
having the ability to rebuild the chemical and
biological weapons programs he had lost in the early
1990s. Notice what the RNC removed: Kerry's
attribution of that assessment to the "intelligence"
he had been shown.
If the basis of Kerry's concern about Iraqi WMD was
the intelligence, and the intelligence turns out to be
mistaken, does this change Kerry's view of the war?
That's the focus of the video's final clip. It shows
Kerry's on 60 Minutes a month ago. Lesley Stahl tells
him: "You voted for this war. Was that vote, given
what you know now, a mistake?" Kerry answers: "What I
voted for—Lesley, you see, you're playing here. What I
voted for was an authority for the president to go to
war as a last resort if Saddam Hussein did not disarm
and we needed to go to war." Stahl persists, "But I'm
trying to find out if you today, now that you know
about [the absence of WMD], think the war was a
mistake?" Kerry stonewalls, "I think I answered your
question. I think the way he went to war was a
mistake."
Kerry sticks to his position. He doesn't answer
Stahl's question. But this time, somebody who can
speak English is sitting next to Kerry: John Edwards.
Seconds after the RNC cuts away from the interview,
Edwards steps in to rescue his running mate.
Edwards: I'm going to finish this. The difference is,
if John Kerry were president of the United States, we
would never be in this place. He would never have done
what George Bush did. He would have done the hard work
to build the alliances and the support system. …
Stahl: Why build an alliance if they didn't have
weapons of mass destruction?
Edwards: We would have found out.
Kerry: That is it.
Edwards and Kerry (in unison): That's the point.
Kerry: That is exactly the point.
There you have it. Edwards says if Kerry had been
president, we would have found out Iraq had no WMD,
and "we would never be in this place." Kerry
emphatically agrees with this translation. It makes
pretty clear that given Kerry's principles, and given
what we now know about the absence of WMD, Kerry
wouldn't have gone to war.
Last Thursday, Kerry gave the RNC more comic material.
He told a conference of minority journalists,
I voted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable, because
had I been president, I would have wanted that
authority, because that was the way to enforce the
U.N. resolutions and be tough with the prospect of his
development of weapons of mass destruction. … Now,
might we have wound up going to war with Saddam
Hussein? You bet we might have—after we exhausted
those remedies and found that he wasn't complying, and
so on and so forth. But not in a way that provides,
you know, 90 percent of the casualties are American,
and almost all of the cost.
This is the kind of endless, backside-covering nuance
that earned Kerry two months of "Kerryisms" in Slate.
But it doesn't change his position: United Nations,
WMD, compliance, process. And it includes a very
important phrase: "[B]ecause had I been president, I
would have wanted that authority."
Only when you remember that phrase does the meaning of
Kerry's statement on Monday become clear. When Kerry
says he would have voted for war authority because "it
was the right authority for a president to have," the
president he's thinking of—"a president," as he puts
it—isn't Bush. It's himself.
So the question that now needs to be put to Kerry is
this one: "Knowing what you know now—not only about
the absence of weapons of mass destruction, but also
about the way President Bush would use the authority
given to him by that resolution—would you still have
voted to give him that authority?" Good luck getting
him to answer it.
William Saletan is Slate's chief political
correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How
Conservatives Won the Abortion War.
Photograph of John Kerry by Hyungwon Kang/Reuters.