Monday, September 13, 2004

John Kerry on the Iraq War: Sounds clear to me

John Kerry gave a major speech to the American Legion on September 1 describing his position on the Iraq War.  Despite all the carping criticism from the Big Pundits, largely echoing GOP spin points, on Kerry's alleged vagueness on the war, his criticisms seem pretty clear to me.

I've summarized major points that I found in my own words in bold.  The parts in italics are quotes from Kerry's speech.  For what does Kerry fault the Bush administration on the Iraq War?

* No plan to win the peace

They were unprepared for the looting, insecurity, and insurgency that burst out with the fall of Saddam’s regime.

They failed to secure Iraq’s borders, and so allowed thousands of foreign terrorists, Islamist militants, and intelligence agents to penetrate and destabilize post-war Iraq.

Amazingly, they had no real plan for post-war political transition.  All of this happened despite clear and precise, bipartisan, warnings from Congress, and regional experts.

* Not enough troops for a successful occupation/countinsurgency

* Poor response when insurgency appeared

* Too few international allies

The bottom line is that if I don’t believe we had to be shouldering nearly the entire financial cost of this war – more than $200 billion – and shortchanging investments in education, health care, and our safety at home.

* Too few Iraqi allies

They rushed and short-changed the training and equipment of the Iraqi police; they failed to recruit enough experts in the language and culture of the region and used those they had ineffectively.

* Failed to insure the most basic civil order and security after the initial combat phase

The civilian leadership [of the occupation govenrment] disbanded the Iraqi military completely so there was no internal structure to maintain order; chose consciously to put an American, instead of an international face on the occupation; failed to preparefor a large number of prisoners; and most significantly, failed even to guard nuclear waste and ammunition storage sites, despite the fact that weapons of mass destruction was their fundamental reason for the war.  And some of the weapons we didn’t guard are the very weapons being targeted at our troops today.

* The situation in Iraq is going badly

* Bush ignored the best advice on the war

* Bush and Rummy let Bin Laden get away at Tora Bora

I would have relied on American troops in Tora Bora when we had Bin Laden in our sights.  I never would have diverted resources so quickly from Afghanistan before finishing the job.

* Kerry would not have gone to war in Iraq when Bush did

I would’ve given the inspectors the time they needed to do the job.

* Our troops in Iraq are inadequately supplied

* We need to get realistic about the GWOT (global war on terrorism)

In an interview two days ago, the President said we can’t win the war on terror. I absolutely disagree. …

To win the war on terror, we will add 40,000 active duty troops – not in Iraq, but to strengthen American forces that are now overstretched, overextended, and under pressure. We will double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist operations. We will provide our troops with the newest weapons and technology to save their lives – and win the battle.  And we will end the backdoor draft of National Guard and reservists.

* We need better intelligence on terrorism than Bush’s administration has provided

We need the best intelligence in the world – so that policy is guided by facts and facts are never distorted by politics.  And to get that, we need to have the best cooperation you’ve ever had from every country in the world.  I know we can do a better job of building that cooperation.  But to do so, we must use every tool in the American arsenal: our diplomacy, our economic policy, our non-governmental organizations, our humanitarian organizations, our values and our ideals.

And this part of his speech provides a good summary of Kerry's positon on the Iraq War:

So when the president says we have the same position on Iraq, I have to respectfully disagree.  Our differences couldn’t be plainer.  And I have set them out consistently.  When it comes to Iraq, it’s not that I would have done one thing differently, I would’ve done almost everything differently. ...

But the question now is not just what we should have done, but what we can and must do now in Iraq. We do not need what President Bush has called "catastrophic success.” We need real success.

We need to bring our allies to our side, share the burdens, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers.  And together, we need to more rapidly train Iraqi police and military to take over the job of protecting their country.  That's what I’ll do as Commander-in-Chief – because that’s the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you know what makes me sick?  Do you know what makes me so angry I just want to take a Bush bumper sticker and shove it in Bill O'Reilly where the sun doesn't shine?  It's these media pundits who contintually say Kerry needs to talk about the issues.  He's done nothing but talk about the issues, including the war and domestic issues but all they can do is give us Swift Boats Swift Boats Swift Boats.  If I hear one more person tell me how Bush won the debates over Gore last year I may just slap some sense into them.  It was the media telling people that Bush won the debates because they didn't discuss any of the issues talke about.  What did they tell us:  Gore sighed too often, Gore changed his clothes, Gore was too angry, Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah.   And they'll do the same thing to Kerry because they've already been doing it.  They were nothing but critical during the Democratic Convention, and for the Republican Convention they left everything unchallanged and gave them a free pass.  Of course with everybody wanting to be like Fox News what can you expect.?  Whew!

I'm glad I got all that off my chest, for now.

http://journals.aol.com/eazyguy62/AmericanCrossroads

Anonymous said...

All the points he's made in that speech were crystal clear to me, too.  Unfortunately, our lazy press doesn't want to bother covering all those points.  Being the echo chamber that our press is, they would rather cover and repeat easy-to-remember slogans.  How about this:  Bush failed us?

I continue to read your excellent blog on a daily basis.  Congrats btw, on being linked by the wildly popular Atrios re: your Chuckie series.  I'm about to quote your two latest entries on the TANG memos in my purely political blog, De Profundis (which you might prefer to link in your journal instead of Amused):
http://journals.aol.com/musenla/DeProfundis.

Anonymous said...

Sorry to interrupt the media bashing, but let me say this:  yes, Kerry HAS been talking about the issues.  Even Bush has been talking about the issues.  Yes, the media is usually out for the best "soundbite."  Most newscasts are a half-hour, and most newscasts try to get in more than a single story in that amount of time.  I hope most people are getting their news from more than television; TV was never designed to be one's SOLE source for news.

Beyond that, though, let's keep this in mind as we bash the media for being lazy:  John Kerry is no idiot.  He's a smart man.  He is well-aware of how the media operates, as is any successful politician, since reaching success involves using the media in the same way most people would accuse the media of "using" the candidates.  Kerry is well aware, as are most politicians, that the best "soundbites" are the ones that will get the most air...that the most dramatic moments are the ones that will be broadcast more than others.  To me, Kerry has chosen, for the most part, to allow criticisms of Bush's service record, the defense of his own, or moments like the "reporting for duty" entrance to make up his best soundbites.  It's no wonder that people have the impression that this is most of what his campaign is about.  If Kerry would FOCUS on other issues, the country would hear more about those issues from broadcast outlets.  Instead, he chooses what to FOCUS on, Bush responds, and the WRONG issues get the coverage.  Kerry is certainly sharper than Bush.  (I'm sure there are those on BOTH sides who would agree with THAT!)  This concept cannot be beyond his imagination.

Patrick

Anonymous said...

Ah, Patrick, are you going to spoil our little round of trashing the mainstream media? :)

Your're right about TV being poor as a sole source for news.  But in fact, it is the main source of news for large numbers of voters.  And so the quality of TV reporting does have a major effect on public understanding of issues.

But on the side of the candidates getting their message out, the Democrats and Republicans have different challenges.  The major problems of today's press corps play more to the Republicans' strengths than to the Democrats.  The Bush dynasty and the Republican Party generally use ginned-up scandals - often pseudoscandal would be a better word - as a major political weapon.  And the national media eats those up far too uncritically.

I'm actually not quite so worried as many Democrats that Kerry has been too far "off message," although his focus from here on out needs to be Iraq War, jobs, Iraq War, health care, Iraq War.

But there a good argument to be made - and I think it's so - that the Swift Boat Liars' episode did little damage to Kerry.  And by countering the way he did, he established the idea that "the Bush campaign fights dirty," which he can exploit for the next seven weeks.

Remember that the Bush meme on Kerry is that he's a "flip-floper." Probably what Karl Rove intended to set up with the Swift Boat Liars was to first trash his service record, then trash his antiwar activities in the early 1970s.  The idea would be to use the two to create new doubts about Kerry: "See, he's always been a flip-flopper."

I think Kerry's response shot down that tactic.  He can't afford to be only reactive, of course.  But he needed to set up the idea that the Bush campaign slings dishonest claims. - Bruce

Anonymous said...

And today I see CNN is going to have a Crossfire show about Bush's National Guard service......not really.....it's about whether the CBS documents are real or fake of course.  Sigh!

Anonymous said...

Today the *Washington Post* carried another hack story pumping the "forgery" claims.  Not surprisingly, Howie Kurtz's name was one of the two on the byline.

By the way, Eazyguy, I've determined that your last comment was a forgery.  Look, I can duplicate it exactly:

<< And today I see CNN is going to have a Crossfire show about Bush's National Guard service......not really.....it's about whether the CBS documents are real or fake of course.  Sigh! >>

It's obvious, isn't it?  If I can reproduce that sentence exactly, your sentence must be a forgery!

This, unfortunately, is the level that the rightwing's instant document experts are operating on.  And pathetic "reporters" like Howie Kurtz play right along.

For comparison, Bob Somerby (www.DailyHowler.com) has been looking at the Swift Boat Liars book that the same press corps found credible enough to be treated as serious claims.  You see the same laziness, the same unwillingness to raise obvious questions, the same lack of even basic analysis.  And, of course, the GOP slime machine exploits it all to the hilt.

We should keep in mind, though, that Al Gore faced an even more hostile press environment in 2000 - and he still won the election decisively! - Bruce

Anonymous said...

Yep, you got me.  Just don't send it to Bosell or Limbaugh!