Freedom's Fidelity

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Kerry and War

(via Stephen Green) George Will notes more troubles for the Kerry campaign:

In his speech last week to the American Legion convention, Kerry said that in Iraq he, as president, would have done "almost everything differently." The indisputable implication is that if he had been president since 2001, America would be in Iraq.

But when pandering to Iowa's Democratic activists last winter, Kerry placed himself among the "antiwar candidates." More recently he has said that even knowing what we do about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, he would still have voted to authorize force. But on Monday he said Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." He has said that "it would be unwise beyond belief" for America "to leave a failed Iraq in its wake" -- and that too few U.S. troops are there. But he has also said that he will bring some of them home -- "where they belong" -- in his first term. Then he said in his first year. Then in his first six months.

A bigger problem with setting an advance date (rather than an advanced condition) on when we'll be out of Iraq is it lets the insurgents and derailers of democracy know just how long they need to hang on. It says 'lay low for a few months/years, we'll leave and you can take over.' I still don't understand why Kerry didn't take a "me too" position in the war on terror and simply say, "yes it was right to rid the world of Saddam, but now we need to build and lead Iraq to democracy. George Bush is not the man to do that, I am." Instead Kerry has chosen nothing but vagaries when it comes to outlining any sort of future for the Middle East. Bush has at least defined a vision for freedom and functional societies eventually emerging in the region. It's an ambitious project to be sure, but if Kerry has a better plan to make the world safer, let's hear it already.

Here is what Kerry said last month with regard to going to war, even knowing what we do now about weapons of mass destruction.

GRAND CANYON, Ariz. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said on Monday he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing force against Iraq even if he had known then no weapons of mass destruction would be found.

Taking up a challenge from President Bush, whom he will face in the Nov. 2 election, the Massachusetts senator said: "I'll answer it directly. Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it is the right authority for a president to have but I would have used that authority effectively."

That's about as clear as one could get, I wonder though, how that plays with his anti-war constituency and if his worry that they would jump to Nader is the primary reason he hasn't repeated it.

posted by Paul  permalink | |