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[Name removed]

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[wtmusic]

1. Even more pointless to describe Kerry that way

I think you know why. :D

[mb7588a]

2. Cheers! nt

:toast: :toast:

[Mz Pip]

3. Dean goes on and on

about being the "only" candidate to oppose the war, so I guess the label sort of comes with the territory.

IT's easy for Dean to say he was against the war since he didn't have to cast a vote on it. Who knows what he really would have done if he were faced with the same information Kerry, Edwards were given. Yeah, it was hyped but it's hindsite for anyone to say they should have known better.

I do not make voting for the resolution a make or break deal in determining who I will support. It's what they want to do now that counts for me.

MzPip
:dem:

[cprise]

7. Why on Earth should Dean be held to a hypothetical like that?

Dean began actively denouncing the war before it started.

[Mz Pip]

19. Because he makes

such an issue about it. It's easy to take the high moral ground when no one is shooting at you. I can only imagine what it was like in the Senate dealing with information that was supposed to be accurate and trying to make an informed decision on what do do next.

I'm glad Dean spoke out against the war, but he's not the "only" candidate who did. Kucinich did. Clark did but his opposition isn't pure enough for Dean.

I like Kerry and I like Edwards, too. I don't consider them soley on the basis of their IWR vote any more than I support Clark based on his opposition to the war. It's a point; it's just not the only one.

MzPip
:dem:

[cprise]

33. He wasn't a Senator, and he opposed the war before it started

I am sorry to burst your baloon but that is a solid basis for being an anti-war candidate.

Do you want to attack him for ignoring Kucinich? Fine go ahead. He's also ignoring Lieberman on other issues for that matter.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

25. "It's what they want to do now (about Iraq) that counts for me."

Great statement. I agree....

That's why, even though I support Clark that I could support Kerry, Gephardt and Edwards. Have Edwards and Gephardt made it clear that they would NOT be going for any more adventures in Syria, Iran, etc. and that Iraq was, in the end not the best idea? I'm pretty sure they feel that way but don't have any evidence of this myself...

[bigwillq]

4. I think that's one (anti-war) of the reasons why Dean hit a mark

with the public so Dean and his supporters are going to stick to their guns. Dean is still anti-war though and he supported Afghan. to get Bin Laden. If we had to go to war I agree it should been to gete BL. I am anti-war and I haven't attended a peace rally.

[Name removed]

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[bigwillq]

11. I hear you on that

and expected your response. What difference does it make if I attend a rally but a man who's running for prez. as the anti-war candidate should. Gottcha.

[cprise]

5. Nice try, but..

Dean was out there denouncing the war before it even started. His comments about Biden-Lugar amount to an academic argument in the face of this.

Kerry voted for the war. There is nothing academic here. He didn't start wailing about being deceived by Bush until after the invasion and his campaign got off to a bad start.

There will always be plenty of opportunities for neocons to beat the drums of war. This is not just about Iraq, but about the propensity for war.

Kerry and Dean both new the Vietnam war was wrong and said so. But then Kerry became a killing machine for it anyway.

In my mind there is no comparison.

[Name removed]

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[clarknyc]

10. Kerry made his choice.

He has to live with it. It's as simple as that.

[paulk]

27. If this is how you feel

How do you justify Dean's support for the first Gulf War and
Kerry's vote against it?

[mzmolly]

9. Please inform your candidate of this revelation as he continues to

paint HD as someone who approves of *simon says foreign policy* depending of course on the audience. :hi:

[Toot]

12. I never considered Dean anti-war, just anti-Iraq war unless with ....

concrete justification because he feels like I did and do, that there was no reason, at this point in time, to go to war with Iraq. Also, that by going to war with Iraq didn't further our fight against Al-Qaeda and the capture of Bin Laden.

Going to war with Iraq only diverted our resources from our greatest threat OBL and his followers.

[Name removed]

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[Terwilliger]

14. I agree

so the Kerry, Clark, and Lieberman people should stop saying that

If the Dean people are making a case that he is/was anti-war...that should be contested also.

[ClarkGraham2004]

15. The media has already defined him as the anti-war candidate

[quaker bill]

16. At some point you guys just have to pick

Either

Dean was for the war just like Kerry and therefore showed just as much "mature judgement on Saddam" as Kerry did and therefore is no less qualified to serve as President on this basis.

Or

Dean actually was against the war and therefore, to Kerry's imagination, did not have the "mature judgement on Saddam" sufficient to be qualified to serve as President.

Kerry has made both arguments over and over. You just can't have it both ways.

Personally, I think Dean was against the Iraq war because it was illegal under international law and based on lies and shallow manipulation. By seeing through this, Dean showed exactly the "mature judgement on Bush*" needed to serve as President.

[ClarkGraham2004]

18. Honestly, I think a lot of Iowa voters simply don't give a shit about it

This message baord isn't indicative of reality.

[quaker bill]

20. I do not know about Iowa, I haven't been there.

But voters in Florida do give a S**t about it in the broadest sense. The war is a major concern for most of the voters I have been canvassing. Honestly, it seems like it is the only issue of major significance to most.

Granted the parsing and fine points about Biden-Lugar and various other nonsense you might read here are at a level of detail most people never get to. I do agree that the hyperfocus on fine points gets a bit out of hand on this board.

[ClarkGraham2004]

22. Imagine Clark in Florida *salivating*

He can appeal to the military base types, the minorities and the anti-Iraq folks.



www.clark04.com

[MaggieSwanson]

29. I am an Iowa voter

and I give a shit, as do my friends all across the state who have stood in vigils against the war since early 2002, when Dennis Kucinich penned his "Prayer for America" denouncing the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, and the erosion of our civil liberties.

[DaisyUCSB]

21. the international illegality argument is well, arguable

Alot of people (more than Bush supporters) believe that UN resolution 1441 is what made the invasion legal, because the Saddam regime didn't comply with it(and I think it's obvious that he didn't comply with it).

It's a complicated issue, and too many people base there opinions on either anti-Bush or pro-bush biases.

[Terwilliger]

23. 1441 was about weapons?

what weapons? There have been no weapons found to back the claims that 1441 was violated. In fact, the only justification for bypassing the UN was because they were unwilling to "hold Iraq accountable to that resolution" even though it was BUSH and the US government that shut down inspections and invaded anyway.

Sounds illegal to me. Treaties that the US signs with other nations are binding law. The laws were violated and Bush is a criminal.

[DaisyUCSB]

32. He didn't account for weapons that every country's government agreed

he had. Including France, Russia, Germany, China, Belgium etc, all of the countries that blocked UN support for invasion.

It just makes one sound silly to say that because we haven't found any weapons, that they aren't or weren't there. If I wanted to hide all of those things in California without them being found, I could.

Iraq is as big as california

[quaker bill]

38. Guess what, they were not there.

We have had complete and unfettered access to any and all areas of Iraq, their documents and their scientists. The actual evidence is that none were there and that no attempt to construct them was made after about 1995.

In fact, we have now examined the places where Iraq reported that they destroyed bio-weapons on their own. Prior to the war, we did not accept this report of voluntary destruction because there were no international observers. Scientific analysis of residue found at the sites confirms that the bio-weapons were destroyed at these locations.

All of the evidence obtained to-date confirm the accuracy of the report Iraq submitted in compliance with UN 1441.

Read the actual evidence, there were no weapons, there was no ability to deliver them, therefore there was no imminent threat and the war was a violation of international law.

[Terwilliger]

39. just as big as Texas

but, no, dont change that. 1441 happed in 1991...not 2002 or 2003...Scott Ritter said that UNSCOM knew for certain that 95% of weapons had been destroed. To suggest "everybody thought he had weapons" is a joke. Hans Blix also said that there was never any substantive evidence that Iraq had any weapons last year, and Bush gave them a very short amount of time to look for anything.

And David Kay has found NOTHING in 6 months of searching...there is no "there" there.

[quaker bill]

36. Not according to Neo-Con IWR architect Richard Perle

International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.

In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html

It is not debatable. The man is admitting that he was an architect of a war crime. However, the administration complied with IWR, which was so poorly written that it did not even require compliance with international law.

[DaisyUCSB]

17. I think it's because he sort of grasped the the anti-war movement

that's where most of his orgainzation came from. It was already a huge grassroots and active community, without any leader, and he attempted to fill some of that space, without actually embracing many if not most of the views of the majority of the movement, but by using rhetoric

[debsianben]

24. Actually, Dean Strongly Supports the Iraq War

Dean supported the first Gulf War, had reservations about the initial phase of the current Iraq war (the invasion), but enthusiastically supports the current phase of the war. He has said over and over again that as President he will keep American troops in Iraq, that "now that we're there we have to stay and get the job done."

What does "staying to get the job done" mean in the real world? That there will still be American bombs falling on Iraqi neighborhoods that some military commander has decided are "guerilla positions," and there will still be nervous, heavily-armed 18-year-olds who don't speak Arabic ordering around Iraqis on the streets of Baghdad.

If words mean things, then Dean is a pro-war candidate. Sure, he wants to leave eventually once "the job's done," but the Idiot-Prince currently in the White House says the same thing. So if Dean's stance on Iraq makes him an anti-war candidate, then "President" Bush is an anti-war candidate as well.

[no name no slogan]

28. Great points (and WELCOME!)

Dean is ENTIRELY pro-war at this point.

The main reason for the violence in Iraq right now is the presence of American troops. We are perceived by the majority of Iraqis as an occupying army; therefore, the Iraqis are fighting a guerilla war against the Anglo-American troops.

If we truly want to turn Iraq into a quagmire of Vietnam-like proportions, we're on the right path. Howard Dean is hardly different from Bush in this respect: he would keep the US in control of Iraq, would keep our troops there, and would NOT turn over the control of Iraq to an international body such as the UN.

Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton are the only TRUE anti-war candidates in this race, and ONLY Dennis Kucinich has a concrete plan to replace the US occupying presence with internation peacekeepers.

The Iraqis do NOT trust the US to act in their best interests. We have hardly done so since the Saddam statue fell down: water and electricity are still sporadic, widespread crime continues, unemployment has gotten worse, and the general quality of life has degenerated to third-world levels-- all in a country that at one time enjoyed a western European-style standard of living.

Remember, Nixon ran in 1968 as the "Peace Candidate" who had a "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam. Instead, our troops stayed there another four years, another 25,000 US Servicepeople died, countless more SE Asians were killed, and we sure as hell didn't get "peace with dignity".

The Iraq plans of most of our candidates are not much different from the one Nixon had in 1968. We DON'T have to make the same mistakes. We NEED to get the UN into Iraq, and get our soldiers out. This is the only way we'll solve this mess.

[newyawker99]

34. Hi debsianben!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[sandnsea]

26. It has become political grandstanding

A Democratic party embarrassment. Don't think that won't be lost on the general population. They won't find a constant drumming of "Bush lied about the war" all year very appealing. They will want to know what Howard was going to do about Iraq and when they find out he wanted to go to war, that'll be the end of that.

[TLM]

30. I think that you're missing the point...

The argument is not that Dean=Anti-War, Kerry=Pro-War.


The argument is...

Dean = anti-war without justification.
Kerry = Pro-War if it helps my career, but if it hurts my numbers I'm anti-war again, until Saddam is captured then I am pro-war again... etc.

When Kerry thought being a hawk would help his career, his campaign said crap like:


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/25/opinion/lynch/main541905.shtml

Kerry's campaign manager, Jim Jordan, snapped at Dean's insistence on getting U.N. backing (a position supported by three-quarters of Democrats and 53 percent of Independents). "Gov. Dean, in effect, seems to be giving the U.N. veto power over national security decisions of the United States. That's an extraordinary proposition, one never endorsed by any U.S. president or serious candidate for the presidency," he told the Associated Press' Ron Fournier.



When he saw being a hawk hurting his numbers... suddenly he was against the war and he was tricked by that oh so clever W.

Then Saddam was captured and suddenly Kerry was a hawk again.

It isn't that Kerry is pro war, because at least that would be consistent. Wrong, but consistant... like Lieberman. But Kerry is a fence sitter who leans one way then tries to lean the other. That's what he has always done since lying about throwing his metals over the white house fence.

That's what he does... he plays both sides of a given issue and at times that shit is fucking annoying.

I think Kerry would be a fine status quo president, loads better than W, and I'll vote for him if he gets the nod. But he just bothers the hell out of me with his wishy washy bullshit.

[Name removed]

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[wyldwolf]

35. I agree

[w4rma]

37. point by point

1. He also supported Desert Storm.
2. That is true for Sen. Kerry also, btw.
3. ACLU Applauds Constitutional Checks in New Iraq Compromise
   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
   Wednesday, October 2, 2002
   
   WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today said that a bipartisan Senate compromise on a resolution allowing the President to use force to oust Saddam Hussein is far more faithful to the Constitution than the blank check resolution being lobbied for by the White House.
   
   "Thankfully, this compromise embodies the lessons learned from the Gulf of Tonkin incident," said Timothy Edgar, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "Granting the President a blank check to engage in overseas adventures is a recipe for human tragedy. This compromise resolution acknowledges those lessons."
   
   In its letter to the Senate, the ACLU reiterated that it is neutral on whether the United States should go to war. However, it told the Senate that it remains firm in its conviction that the Constitutional obligations on Congress to make decisions about war need to be respected, especially with foreign policy questions of this magnitude.
   
   The new resolution, negotiated by Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Former Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN), eliminates most of the similarities between the resolution the President wanted and the disastrous Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which led to a decade-long morass in which tens of thousands of Americans lost their lives.
   
   Specifically, the Biden-Lugar compromise:
   • Clearly identifies the enemy. The proposed resolution closes the door to regional adventures in the Middle East. Under the proposed compromise, the President would have to seek additional Congressional authorization if he wished to widen the conflict in the region.
   • Spells out clear military objectives. Congress would hold a tight leash on the current conflict. This would be in marked contrast to its role in the Vietnam War, which was lost in part because of nebulous war aims. The Biden-Lugar compromise realizes the folly of sending troops into harm's way without delineating the specific military objectives to be accomplished.
   • Reaffirms the American conviction that war-making power should lie with the people. In contrast with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, the Biden-Lugar compromise would respect the ongoing prerogatives of Congress during military engagement. The Constitution demands that American military decisions involving the use of force rest only with the people's representatives in Congress.
   The ACLU's letter on the Biden-Lugar compromise can be found at:
   http://archive.aclu.org/congress/l100202a.html
   http://archive.aclu.org/news/2002/n100202a.html
   http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=769599
4. The Dean Plan: As put forward by Kerry and Lieberman