About Kerry's vote for war...

[KaraokeKarlton]

I found this and thought it was something that anyone who opposed the war should see. Some Kerry supporters have been trying to explain away Kerry's war vote by saying that he was just trying to force Bush to go to the UN first. Apparently that's not the case at all seeing as he referred to the UN resolutions as "paper tigers". He clearly has no respect for the UN and it sounds that he voted for the war not because he was fooled or was trying to make Bush go to the UN...he signed it because he supported going to Iraq all along.
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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee met to discuss the division within the United Nations Security Council over how to handle Iraq. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) called the proposed U.N. Security Council resolutions paper tigers dealing with the Saddam Hussein that we compared to Hitler. Chairman Jesse Helms (R-NC) observed that Saddam Hussein seeks to acquire weapons of mass destruction regardless of any cost to the Iraqi people, and called on the administration to unify the UN Security Council in its resolve to maintain sanctions. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) went further, calling on the administration to give financial support to Iraqi opposition groups.

Thesaurus entry for "paper tiger": http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=paper%20tiger



 http://www.aipac.org/result.cfm?id=373

[oasis]

1. "Mr. President, do not rush to war" who said it? what does it mean?

:shrug:

[KaraokeKarlton]

2. messed up on the Thesaurus link

If you know the definition of "paper tiger" it sure implies that Kerry is talking out of both sides of his mouth...one in private and one in public.

[oasis]

3. Private? Meaning he reveals his true ideology only to Teresa?

Kerry is very much a "public" figure. Is there anything of importance that we should know about Kerry that is not already public record?

[sandnsea]

4. 1999

Here's the link, here's the words, here's the consistency.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/HearingsPreparedstatements/SFRC-hearing-9-28-99.htm

"Mr. Ambassador, welcome, and thank you very much for being here with us. I appreciate the many conversations you and I have had. I appreciate your confidences during that period, and I also want to express my respect for the great effort that you made under difficult circumstances to try to see that the words spoken in the U.N. and by politicians had some meaning, and that can sometimes be a difficult task....

I think we are exactly in the same situation we were when all of this urgency was expressed by so many people. We are in exactly the same situation, except that we have had now 1 year without any inspections. You were concerned during the time that you had inspections that he was capable of continuing to employ subterfuge and guile and all kind of tricks in order to continue to build weapons. And I think the assumption of most people in the intelligence community is that that is exactly what he has been doing, is that correct? ...

So what has happened? Have we been bamboozled? Is our policy simply a failure? Are we frightened? Is there something that has changed in the nature of this threat? Because I really do not understand it.

And it seems to me that for the cause of nonproliferation, whether it is with respect to Iraq or any other number of countries about which we have enormous concerns, the message that comes out of this is that maybe the forces aligned to try to hold people accountable are in fact paper tigers, and not serious about it....

Now, that was sufficient to bring all of us to believe, though timing was questioned, that we had to be prepared to use force. And we ultimately did. It seems to me that a Saddam Hussein who has the ability to develop potentially more threatening weapons of mass destruction, notwithstanding — I mean, it was the show of force and the determination of the United States that really took away from him that option previously. If that determination is not there, then the use that he put it to previously in other circumstances could become far more attractive again in the future, which I think is the bottom line of what you were saying...."

He's consistently held that the UN should hold Saddam Hussein accountable to the UN resolutions and that Saddam Hussein only responds to a threat of force. Consistent, consistent, consistent.

[unfrigginreal]

11. So you agree that we should have premptively struck Iraq?

You feel that the USA was correct for going to war with Iraq?

[DemBones DemBones]

5. Posting a story from 1999 (when Clinton was president and no

war on Iraq was proposed) is very misleading, particularly when you are trying to use it to discredit a candidate. I clicked on your link to AIPAC and it clearly identified this as happening in 1999. Please be more careful with your posts. I'm sure you wouldn't want this done to your candidate.

[KaraokeKarlton]

6. It's done to my candidate every day by several Kerry supporters, actually

I was angry when I posted this so I missed the date. I apologize for that.

[Egnever]

7. never the less

I think you are right on kerry and this war. Just today i actually read the speach he gave before placing his vote for the war and I dont think it leaves much doubt as to how he felt about saddam or the situation in iraq.

[DemBones DemBones]

8. If you read the entire transcript of the meeting (link posted

above by sandnsea), you'll find it interesting. Ambassador Richard Butler (former head of UNSCOM) was there and the members of the committee were asking him questions. They all seemed to believe that Saddam was building more weapons, and this was in 1999. Concern was expressed that no one was really reining him in, that he was essentially "playing" the UN and the international community. There was also concern that the American people knew nothing about what was going on in Iraq (hello, media!) Wellstone raised questions about the sanctions against Iraq but the main concern of the meeting, I would say, was to discuss the then-current situation in Iraq and how to control Saddam.

I agree that Kerry was pre-disposed to want to do something about Saddam, but I'm not sure he wanted that "something" to be war.

[Egnever]

10. your right i did find it interesting

Especialy article 94

Mr butler was sure full of piss and vinegar but article 94 wasnt nearly so confident.

[Bombtrack]

9. actually some people were proposing it

Leiberman and a couple other dem senators signed the Iraqui liberation act in '98

Rove and co. have been pretty successful in turing dems and liberals against each other, particularly with the war. Their propaganda machine likes to reinforce the naderite-BS about how if a dem doesn't appose every GOP-favored annitiative always, that they don't stand for anything etc. And many liberals believe it, because it's kind of a liberal trait to believe that you're always more enlightened than the non-liberals.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a liberal. But a liberal who know's knee-jerk liberalism and manipulation when I see it. A liberal dem who doesn't show pride by obeying to the sterotype's of people with my worldview. I'm not insecure about any of my beliefs because I know it's not an orthidoxy, but rather an informed assessment, because I always listen to both sides of an argument.

You wouldn't have such an anti-pro-iraq-war democrat sentiment, if the liberal american assessment of the war was based on real research

[Jacobin]

12. The difficulty in trying to "have it both ways" is that some people will

google your conflicting statements and find out that you are trying to have it both ways.

:-)

[IndianaGreen]

13. It's not just the vote, but the lies about WMD that Kerry repeated

It's not just the vote, but the lies about WMD that Kerry repeated in his disgusting Senate speech in support of the Iraq war resolution.

Kerry's performance on Meet the Press this past Sunday was another example of Kerry's strengths and fatal weaknesses. On the Iraq issue in particular, Kerry failed to denounce the Bush doctrine of "pre-emptive" wars, a key component of the PNAC agenda. Kerry left a clear impression with this poster that he supported Bush invasion of Iraq, and the ongoing occupation (not the mention the plundering of Iraq's oil by US oil companies). Kerry's criticism of Bush was based on Bush's handling of the occupation!

Kerry sounded like those Israeli politicians that oppose Sharon because he wasn't tough enough on the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank!

As to Kerry's lies about WMD in Iraq, which Tim Russert was quite eager to show the viewers, made Kerry as big a liar (or a fool) as Tony Blair. I got ill listening to Kerry repeat every lie the Bush regime had told about WMD, including the 45 minute launch claim that has gotten Blair in such hot water in the UK.

As President, Kerry will not withdraw the troops from Iraq, nor end the rape of Iraqi people and the pillaging of its resources. As President, Kerry will merely fatten the pockets of his corporate sponsors.

Kerry will not end the war. Kerry will not end Bush's "pre-emptive" wars, but merely rename them.

While Kerry is NOT Bush-Lite by any stretch of the imagination, Kerry is clearly as much into the warmongering and the "axis of evil" mantra as his Skull & Bones pal Bush is!

Published on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Kerry’s Deceptions on Iraq Threaten His Presidential Hopes
by Stephen Zunes

In a speech on the Senate floor immediately prior to the October vote, Senator Kerry categorically stated that Saddam Hussein was “attempting to develop nuclear weapons.” However, there appears to be no evidence to suggest that Iraq had had an active nuclear program for at least eight to ten years prior to the U.S. invasion. Indeed, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in 1998 and subsequently that Iraq's nuclear program appeared to have been completely dismantled.

To justify his claims of an Iraqi nuclear threat, Senator Kerry claimed that “all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons.” The reality, of course, was that much of the U.S. intelligence community was highly skeptical of claims that Iraq was attempting to acquire nuclear materials.

Indeed, despite unfettered access by IAEA inspectors to possible Iraqi nuclear facilities between this past November and March and exhaustive searching by U.S. occupation forces since then, no trace has been found of the ongoing Iraqi nuclear program that Senator Kerry claimed existed last fall.

In addition, Senator Kerry stated unequivocally that “Iraq has chemical and biological weapons.” He even claimed that most elements of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons programs “are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War.” He did not try to explain how this could be possible, given the limited shelf life of such chemical and biological agents and the strict embargo against imports of any additional banned materials that had been in place since 1990.

The Massachusetts senator also asserted that authorizing a U.S. invasion of that oil-rich country was necessary since “These weapons represent an unacceptable threat.”

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0826-03.htm

[bigtree]

16. The CD article was a cheap shot

disguised as news. It attempts to paint Kerry as the inventor of the bogus rational for war. Everyone knows that Bush manipulated Congress and the American people's justified concern about Saddam flouting the new UN resolution by promising to seek broad international support and then, instead, racing to war. A miscalculation, a tragic betrayal of our trust in the integrity of the word of our commander-in-chief, but there was no intention on Kerry's part to decieve anyone. We were all mislead. Not just Kerry.

[IndianaGreen]

17. I wasn't misled, and neither were millions of people around the world!

A miscalculation, a tragic betrayal of our trust in the integrity of the word of our commander-in-chief, but there was no intention on Kerry's part to decieve anyone. We were all mislead. Not just Kerry.

Kerry has no excuse! Kerry was privy to secret intelligence briefings and he knew that the estimates of Saddam's threats have been exaggerated. Kerry is as big a liar as Tony Blair, and equally complicit in this criminal war!

If you want me to believe that Kerry truly believed anything that Bush said, then he is too stupid and naive to be President!

[Karmadillo]

18. That leaves us with Kucinich

It appears Dean, too, was misled by Bush. I doubt either Kerry or Dean believed Bush, but I doubt either would have the courage to make the case directly to the American people why we went to war with Iraq. Still, either would be an improvement over Bush, even if one considers them too stupid and naive to be President.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=108&topic_id=24284&mesg_id=24451

Russert: What did you think of Senator John Kerry's comments that President Bush misled the country.

Dean: Well, I thought it was Senator Bob Graham that said that and I agree with that. And Bob Graham is in a position to know. He's a senior senator on the Intelligence Committee and...

Russert: No, John Kerry said the president misled us and...

Dean: Well, I wasn't aware that Senator Kerry said it. I knew Senator Graham had said it in Iowa. But I believe that. I think we were misled. Now, the question is did the president do that on purpose?

Was he misled by his own intelligence people? Was he misled by the people around us? Or did he, in fact, know what the truth was and tell us something different.

I've called for an independent investigation headed by Republicans and Democrats who are well respected in the country to find out what the president did know and when he knew it.

more...

[poskonig]

21. Dean repeatedly said only nuclear would merit intervention.

And there was no evidence that Iraq has nuclear capability, which Dean also said repeatedly.

[bigtree]

19. not so fast IndianaGreen

You don't address the threat from Saddam, or the effort to get the UN to reign him in. According to Kerry, that's what his vote was about. To hold Saddam accountable to the UN with a threat of force.

Secret intelligence briefings to Senators are worthless if the info is bogus. The Senator had a right to expect that the info was accurate and true. And although you and I have never believed a thing the Bush admin. says, it was reasonable to expect that treasonous lies would not be passed off as sound intelligence. And until Congress develops its own intelligence gathering operation, they will have to rely on the ones in place.

Expose the lying moles, boot them out. Fine. But it doesn't make sense to condem the recipients of the phony intel. as if they orchestrated it.

[oasis]

20. "intelligence briefings to Senators are worthless if the info is bogus"

So true, have a brew, and welomme to DU. :toast:

[blm]

14. Baloney....Clinton and Kerry were trying to preserve the UN by encouraging

them to ENFORCE their own resolutions. The rightwing in this country was determined to abolish the UN and they were using the lack of enforcement in Iraq in 98 as their justification. They were tring to eliminate that talking point of the right that was gaining traction with the American people.

Guess you have a short memory and cannot recall the tactics of the right, pushing the idea that the UN was irrelevant way back in 98 and continued throughout, ramping up the rhetoric last fall.

Be glad that those who were actually working behind the scenes with the UN, men like Clinton and Kerry, were working to assure the UN was preserved as an international institution.

[bigtree]

15. Bush and co.lied to all of us

about building an international coalition. As evidenced by the Secutity Council vote that was about to take place before Bush quashed it, the UN would have slowed this thing way down to a point that perhaps would have made it impossible for Bush to invade.

So, Kerry and others, voted for this thing to go to the UN, backed up by the threat of force. Remember, the the threat of force was the only way to get the inspectors back in there. Saddam had kicked them out.

The vote was a crap shoot with regard to Bush's intentions. He lied about involving the UN, and he lied about getting broad international support. The American people were duped.

It is important that we allow those who believed Bush and supported the invasion to now denounce his actions as a sham. We shouldn't condem them for changing their view (isn't that what we are trying to do with the public at large?) or bury them because they bought into Bush's doubletalk.