Kerry: Democrats relevant on war

[sabra]

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/13937520.htm

Kerry: Democrats relevant on war
Ex-candidate brings views to DFLers today

TWIN CITIES
Are Democrats losing the war in Iraq — at least as a political issue?
February has been a tough month for two Democrats widely known for their critical stances regarding terrorism and the war in Iraq.

FBI whistle-blower Coleen Rowley is drawing a primary challenge in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District. Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett, who has said the war hasn't been "worth the price," was forced out of the U.S. Senate race in Ohio, saying he had been double-crossed by Democrats supporting U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown.

But former presidential candidate John Kerry, who is in Minnesota today for a fundraiser, said those developments don't signal a waning of the war issue for his party.

"I think the war remains a central issue for Democrats … I think people need to be reminded that there were better choices and that there are better choices now," the Massachusetts senator said Wednesday. He ran his own unsuccessful campaign in part as a referendum on the war in 2004 and even launched a billboard campaign last fall calling for a partial troop withdrawal.

[punpirate]

1. John still doesn't get it...

... and he ought to remember his words from 1971, because they still apply with the current situation.

Until then, he's a part of a corrupt system, not defying that corrupt system.

Hard words, I know. But, he can't sit on the fence on this one, as he's been trying to do for years.

[zulchzulu]

2. Good points from my President

I wish I was there. And no, Kerry is not "sitting on the fence" on the issue of the war. He would have never gone into Iraq in the first place and has been calling for troop withdrawals for months.

[stepnw1f]

4. Thank You

[Exiled in America]

14. Then why did he support the war?

He would never have gone into iraq? He just, decided to vote for the IWR giving the president the authority to...go into Iraq.

The war was just as dead wrong during the election when Kerry could only say that he would "prosecute the war differently than Bush" not say the war was wrong from the beginning. You don't get extra credit points in my book for finding "courage" when it becomes fashionable. With a president at at 39% approval rating, suddenly calling for troop withdrawl looks "fashionable." Where was John when it the war was still wrong two years ago?

[VegasWolf]

20. Exactly! nt

[karynnj]

22. Did you forget "Wrong war, ...." that he said constantly

Kerry did as far back as 2003 say the war was wrong. He said so BEFORE the invasion and he called for regime change here when Bush invaded. (this was when Bush's polls were above 70 % - Kerry was trashed for saying this.) In late 2003, when he met with liberals - he said the war was wrong. Here's a link:
http://truthout.org/docs_03/121003A.shtml

In 2004, Kerry addressed the question from the point of view of what will you do if you win. The plan he laid out would likely have had us nearly out or out. Because we were at war, the issue for the next President wasn't "should we be", but what would he do. Kerry's plans going back to 2004 were for stabalizing things and withdrawing. His Sept 2004 plan was very different than what Bush was doing, but the media simply reported they were similar - without explaining what Kerry recommended or noting that Bush didn't tell us what he was doing. (In fact, in July 2005 when Bush put out an "outline" of his plan supposedly written in 2003 and showed they were on target, someone here noted that the author was hired in early 2005(?))

He was among the first to talk of withdrawal - and when Kennedy mentioned it earlier, Kennedy made the point that what he was suggesting was very close to what Kerry was speaking of. It was not "fashionable at that point" even at the point that Kerry gave his plan. Look at where the other potential candidates are:

- Biden has a plan to be out in 2 years
- Dean is behind the Korb plan - that has soldiers in Iraq through 2007, and then redeployed in the region
- The DLC seems to be converging behind the Korb plan (so Hillary, Bayh, Warner etc are likely to end up here).
- Murtha's plan is like the Korb plan, but gets us out of Iraq in 6 months (not 2 yrs), but the soldiers are redeployed in the region.
- Clark's plan had us in Iraq and in the region for a very long time per a NYT op-ed he wrote.
(Edwards had a WP column but it's not clear what his plan was - but I assume that you have a problem with him being for the war, even 9 months after the invasion.)

Feingold proposed a flexible target to get out at the end of 2006. He spoke about hoe it would be contingent on political/military goals (unspecified) being met. Kerry's plan when introduced had a similar time frame and differed in suggesting how to change how we operate over there. A major first step was to hand policing and search & destroy to the Iraqis as Bush was claiming something like 200,000 people trained. This in conjunction with a clear statement that we were getting out in a reasonably short time and had no intention to have permanent bases, would help us lose the "occupier" label. Feingold spoke of Kennedy, Kerry, Levin and himself being in the forefront on this.

So even now bringing the troops home soon is not the "fashionable" policy. In reality, Feingold and Kerry are alone on this.

[rodeodance]

3. yet, dems (as says below)--do not seem to 'connect' on the war with

the polls.

.....A new Gallup poll this week suggests 55 percent of Americans believe the war in Iraq was a mistake. Only 31 percent of poll respondents think the United States and its allies are winning in Iraq, the lowest ebb for that measure to date.

But Democrats can't seem to capitalize on such sentiment, Republicans note.

"It seems like the (Washington) D.C. power brokers are forcing out the Paul Hacketts and the Coleen Rowleys," said state GOP spokesman Mark Drake. "Instead, they're getting kind of conventional 'blue suit, red tie' Democrats."

Drake suggests it's a concession that the "Michael Moore and Howard Dean approach to foreign policy" didn't resonate with voters and indicates the lingering weakness of Kerry's "permanent campaign for president."

[midnight]

5. Why not? And who is Drake speaking for? Not me!!!!!

I think Michael Moore,and Howard Dean say things that need to be said. Both of these individuals have been ushering in a call to wake up America.

[karynnj]

11. Maybe the article demonstrates why

The writer frames a Democratic interview to fit the RW conventional wisdom. The introduction matches the conclusion, ignoring Kerry's comments. Kerry's answers were obviously to questions that were trying (unsuccessfully) to bait him into bashing other Democrats. Sherrod Brown IS as anti-war as Hackett and as Kerry points out there are other issues.

Maybe if the press covered Kerry's withdrawal plan (or other Democratic plans) last year with even 1/10 the minutes given to the Halloway coverage the Democrats would have gained some traction.

[blm]

6. This article's purpose is to conflate the issues to make it divisive for

Dems. Kerry had nothing to do with Hackett pulling out. But the article uses the GOP spokesman to hang Kerry as responsible - completely oblivious to the FACT that Kerry submitted an Iraq withdrawal plan last year. If the article had been SERIOUS about the antiwar issue, they would have included Kerry's efforts to craft a withdrawal plan.

The only purpose of this article is to give the GOPer a chance to spin.

[AlGore-08.com]

7. Interviewing somebody who voted for the war on this issue does the same

It opens the door wide open for charges of hypocrisy and flip-flopping on the part of Dems.

I'm just sayin'...

[blm]

8. But intelligent people should recognize when they're being spun.

BTW... I do recall all the tough talk Gore made about Iraq during the 2000 campaign - he said he would be tougher on Iraq than Clinton was. Well, those words would have been hung around Gore if he were in a position sticking his neck out at the time. Fortunately for Gore, media forgot about his words back in 2000, but I doubt Rove or any of his people forgot.

Doesn't mean that Gore OR Kerry would have gone INTO Iraq after weapons inspections proved no WMDs, though. No Dem president would.

[AlGore-08.com]

15. Actually Gore spoke out against this war when Congress was debating

Whether to authorize the invasion or not. Gore's first speech on it was given about two weeks before the vote, and he specifically said in that speech that the Congress should not authorize the invasion. He was asked a few days after the Congress authorized the invasion how he would have voted if he were still in Congress, and he said he would have voted "No". Gore has consistently opposed the war from the moment it was proposed through today. (Gore has said on a number of occasions that he would have never invaded Iraq after 9/11; instead he would have used the national unity to get us off fossil fuels and tackle global warming.)

The main point I am making, however, is that because Kerry and a number of other Dems in Congress voted for the war, that vote will always be an albatross for them when they speak negatively about the war, or are interviewed about opposition to the war, or even if/when they call for withdrawal from Iraq. There is no way to alter the fact of that vote, and there is no way to explain or excuse that vote which sounds credible to people who don't already support them (or continue to support the war). It's just a fact that intelligent people should all recognize: people who voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq are not the ideal spokespersons when the subject is opposition to the war in Iraq.

Also, IMNSHO intelligent people should and do recognize that a person can have supported the first Gulf War, and/or have believed that Saddam was a dangerous despot, and still have opposed the current war. Especially when the reason for opposing the current war was not "all war is bad" or "Saddam is good" but "this war is a very bad idea".

[blm]

17. Kerry spoke against a rush to war, too, before the vote and after. He

wanted weapons inspections to get in there to get current info from on the ground in Iraq.

My point was that Gore's own words about getting tough on Iraq would have hung him up as inconsistent on Iraq just as easily as any other Dem if the GOP controlled media pushed that meme.

[karynnj]

18. I actually think that authorizing the first Gulf war was just as bad

Bush I sent mixed signals via April Gillespie (US ambassador) to Saddam before he invaded Kuwait. Bush 1 then submitted a resolution that if Sadddam didn't back down by a given date there would be war - no opening at all for negotiations. Because the war was short, few Americans died and we won, people then said it was a good war.

But Bin Lauden's anger over US Saudi Arabian bases was a key factor in his jihad against America. It also put the punitive sanctions in place - which killed many poor Iraqi children because they couldn't get parts for water purification plants. These sanctions were kept in place through Clinton's entire administration.

Kerry has said that he should never have trusted the President to keep his word. From all of Kerry's statements from mid 2002, where he was one of the strongest critics through his floor speech where it seems clear he thought they gained something in Bush's promise (after all it was publicly stated) to go to the UN and to let the inspectors have a chance. When Saddam was destroying his best missiles and no weapons were found, it looked like war could be avoided. This is what should have happened if Bush would have been honest with why he wanted war. But he wasn't. Bush would have gone to war with or without the resolution. Without it, he likely would have gone to war 4 or 5 months earlier, the troops were already there.

Kerry did speak out against invading before the invasion. He would never have attacked Iraq if he was President. The IWR was not an unconditional ok to go to war. The Republicans, with the help of anti-war people labeled it as a vote for war.

It's now years later, Kerry had the first detailed exit plan that he proposed in Oct 2005. It had roughly the same length of time to get troops home as the flexible target date that Feingold proposed in August, 2005. In fact, in Nov 2005, Feingold indicated that he thought Kerry, Kennedy, Levin and himself were the leaders on this issue. Boxer and Dean spoke well of Kerry's plan - though Dean later backed the Kolb plan that seems to be becoming the conservative plan. (It has the US there through 2007 and then they will be deployed in the area.)

I don't know what plan if any Gore is behind. But if the choice is a (future) modified version of Kerry's plan supported by Kerry, Kennedy, Feingold, Boxer etc and the Kolb plan, supported by the DLC, which would you choose. The third alternative - Murtha's has a 6 month rather than 12-15 month of Kerry's plan, but it deploys the soldiers in the area rather than brings them home. (Kerry's plan also removed the soldiers in Iraq from the direct confrontations - so they were in a sense "re-deployed" just not outside Iraq.

So the answer on whether Kerry could lead on Iraq is "Yes" if you like his plan best. I don't know if Gore has an exit plan. I have tried to read those I have seen, but I really don't remember anything he has said about getting out.

[The Roux Comes First]

27. I agree with you on Gulf I, especially since the US and Israel

had been bankrolling and arming both Iraq and Iran for a good spell before that, stoking the fires and pouring munitions of all sorts in for reasons that certainly included war-profiteering by the friends of the corrupt faction in the CIA. And I've never seen anything definitive, but I can understand how Iraq might have been more than unhappy if Kuwait was actually extracting their oil via angular drilling, as was claimed. Back before we went truly whacky, with the idea of pre-emptive war, we were just criminally warmongering.

[karynnj]

12. Kerry spoke out against the war before it happened

He is neither flip flopping or quilty of hypocrisy.

[AlGore-08.com]

16. But when push came to shove, he voted to authorize it

That is my point.

[karynnj]

19. He bought the argument that Powell and Bush PUBLICLY stated

that this was needed to give the President the leverage to get the inspectors in and to be able to say to Saddam that the entire US was behind him in saying that Iraq had to be proven clean of WMD. From Kerry's statements he was skeptical of the WMD claims, but he didn't have proof they were false. (Consider that Gore had information from 1992 - 2000 that Kerry didn't) The real question was what did Gore want to do with Iraq - the status quo of continuing the sanctions was not feasible.

The conservative (in the real meaning of the word) action was to get inspectors in to eliminate any possibility that there were WMD. By the time Bush invaded, it was obvious that there were not WMD and that that was not Bush's true motive.

I happen to believe that Kerry voted as he did because he thought that through dipolmacy which the IWR did not preclude the war, that was otherwise imminent, could be delayed and possibly avoided. There is nothing in anything he said that justifies labelling him as pro-war.

[AlGore-08.com]

23. Except, again, that he voted "yes"

All I'm saying is you have to step out of your own POW and try to look at it from the view point of somebody who doesn't read DU, and wouldn't agree with most of it even if they did. And also to look at it without involving Kerry, or Gore, or even this particular vote but just an imaginary Person A, who voted for a Bush policy that was very popular in 2001, but has become very unpopular since then (or if they were not in a position to vote, who said at the time that they supported it), and a second, imaginary Person B, who voted against that same policy (or if they were not in a position to vote, who said at the time that they opposed it).

Person B will always look better on this issue than Person A does. Person B will look like they were ahead of the curve, and they took an unpopular stand on principle. Person B doesn't have to spend five minutes explaining why it looks like the supported the policy when it was popular but oppose it now that it's unpopular. Person B just has to say: I opposed it from the beginning. (And if they can show a public record made at the time explaining why they opposed it, they look even better on this issue.)

Do "the shoe on the other foot" test. If Person C were a Republican, and back in 2001 they voted "yes" for a Bush policy that was very popular then - - but now that the policy is unpopular, Person C claims that their "yes" vote really meant "no", would you believe them? I suspect that most DUers would be suspicious of Person C's motives, to say the least.

To take it back to the specifics of the war, just because Person A voted for the invasion, does not make them "pro-war". It means they voted to authorize the invasion. And that means, at the time of the vote, they agreed with the bill. If Person A felt that, if all diplomatic attempts failed, an invasion were not acceptable, then Person A should have voted "no". To claim that Person A's "yes" vote really meant "no" cannot appear to be anything but intellectually dishonest to people who do not already support Person A.

I repeat: it's got nothing to do with the individuals involved. It's just politics 101.

[leesa]

26. He never said it was illegal or immoral which it clearly was.

He authorized this endless war in an unnecessary haste. He made a pretty speech saying it was wrong and then voted for the war. He knew exactly what he was doing.

[dolstein]

9. Message to Kerry: If you have to declare your own relevancy . . .

then, chances are, you're irrelevant.

[blm]

10. Message to dolstein: Recognize a biased headline when you read it.

.

[karynnj]

13. Thanks BLM

If Kerry is so irrelevant why do you wrote so many posts against him - Wouldn't that be a waste of your time and effort? I think in the back of your mind you fear that he is relevant and you wish he weren't. At minimum, Kerry is a Democratic Senator with considerable senority. If he opts to stay in the Senate, he is very likely to be a Senior Senator in 2013 with enough senority to outrank all but about 10 or so Senators.

[VegasWolf]

21. True. True. True. Well spoken. I've had it with the current "leadership"

of this party. I'm not voting for anyone who is not in favor of an immediate end to this neocon OIL war.

[politicasista]

24. Too bad we'll still trash Dems over Blinky's war

Not directed at the OP but can we stop blaming dems for this war and letting Blinky off the hook? Blinky would have invaded anyway.

[leesa]

25. You lost your moral authority concerning the war...you didn't have the

courage to say, "No, this is WRONG and this is ILLEGAL" You STILL can't say it!!