Getting To "Yes" - Ongoing

The NY Times provides the latest on the Kerry campaign agoniste, as they struggle to deal with President Bush's ticking time bomb:

"My opponent hasn't answered the question of whether, knowing what we know now, he would have supported going into Iraq."

Previous follies are recounted here and here; from the latest:

...Mr. Kerry has struggled to convince his audiences that his vote to authorize the president to use military force was a far, far cry from voting for a declaration of war.

So far, his aides and advisers concede, he has failed to get his message across, as Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have mocked his efforts as "a new nuance" that amount to more examples of the senator's waffling.

Well, yes, and the Senator is in quite a box. If he admits that his vote was a mistake, he will immediately have thrown at him his famous question from 1971 - "How do [you] ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

And in trying to answer that, he will risk leaving the strong impression that his commitment to a democratic Iraq is unsteady, and that Kerry is the "cut and run" candidate (which a big part of his base will love him for, BTW).

So, he tries to pretend that his vote was not a mistake. And that it was not simply political positioning. And no one is convinced.

Leaving us where on Kerry and Iraq? No one can keep a straight face when he explains his votes. No one can keep a straight face when he explains his Iraq "plan".

Kerry's The One!

Comments

[Jeff]

Or, in the fashion of the President's avoidance of jobs, Afghanistan, Iraq, Osama bin Laden, et al, he could just refrain from sticking to the other team's talking points.

[Retread]

A commenter on a blog I read this morning (sorry, can't remember which one) said, 'Bush wants to win the war [on terror], Kerry just wants to win an election.' Succint. I like it.

[martin]

My question for Bush would be: knowing what we know about Iran NOW-which is exactly what we thought we knew about Iraq THEN-and given that with what we know about Iraq NOW you still would have invaded Iraq THEN-why are we not invading Iran NOW?

Of course, I'm sure Bush's response is that we are indeed going to invade Iran (you pussy). That's why I'm voting Kerry this election-I see no need to compund the original error (you idiot).

[The Monk]

What constantly amazes The Monk is how a man who is barely intelligent enough to blink his eyes can be the source and cause of all failures in the world. Iraq has terrorists = it's Bush's fault. Iran wants nukes = it's Bush's fault. Israel has Jews =it's Bush's fault. My cats have stinky poo = it's Bush's fault.

And what is more amazing is how this "moron" has outwitted Kerry into admitting he'd do the exact same thing that the dumbfark did, if Kerry had been in the same situation.

[Trevor Saccucci]

Jeff:

Iraq and Afghanistan are getting covered in the news pretty thoroughly, and while both places are hotspotsm they're both better than they were before we moved into them. Their improvement is pretty self-evident - I'd be delighted if you decided to argure that the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were better than Karzai and Allawi for Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively.

The economy isn't so bad, considering the effects of an inherited recession, multiple terrorist attacks, and fighting on several fronts to kill terrorists and establish nascent democracies and strategic troop emplacements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As for Usama bin Ladin, talking about him isn't going to get him caught or killed, or neutralize his influence. It's worth noting, though, that Hitler's Third Empire would have fallen even if he'd survived the war; with no infrastructure to command, he'd have been powerless. Just so with UBL; getting him would be nice, but destroying his infrastructure will achieve what is needed for us. And don't anyone bother citing Godwin's Law, here; it stifles reasoned debate unnecessarily.

martin:

One of your premises is flatly wrong; looking at a map will make it obvious that, geographically, the situation in Iran is far different from the situation in Iraq, and would be far more difficult to deal with militarily.

For you to equate the situations in Iraq and Iran is similiar to a surgeon treating brain cancer by amputating the left foot, because that's how he treated his last cancer patient - who had bone cancer in the left foot.

As for you referring to the Iraq War as a "mistake": In spite of missing WMD, the murderous regime of the Husseinis was ended (a good thing), there's a chance for democracy to grow there (also good), and the US can now base troops on either side of Iran, providing us with strategic and tactical options in dealing with it. If you want perfection in pre-war intelligence and execution of battle plans and post-battle plans, you'll have to stick to fiction; real life is far from perfect.

[The Kid]

I’m with you, Monk.

Some folks who think they’re pretty smart can’t understand why anyone would let Bush engage in chess on the world stage – he’s too stooopid to play the game of kings.

The problem is that in chess all the pieces are on the board, all the possible moves are known, and chance plays a miniscule role. Sure there’re feints, and each of the players has a strategy that depends on the other’s moves, but there are only two players.

The world doesn’t work that way, does it? There’s a bigger element of chance and a few more players at the table.

Imagine the world’s game room. As you prepare to enter, you smell the cigars, hear the clicks of the pieces, sense the tension as players takes their turns , watch them size each other up, then play what they’ve got.

Bush and Kerry think they are prepared for the game at hand. Bush has proven his skill at poker and is ready to take his place at the table. He knows that the key to winning in poker is to wait patiently until another player starts overplaying his hands, then move in.

Kerry is ready to sit down too. The problem is that he and his backers thinks that the game is Scrabble… In French.

[Toby Petzold]

"Kerry's the One"? Is that a jab at Nixon?

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Why wouldn't Kerry be a cut and run guy with Iraq? That's what he did with his Swift Boat duty. That's what he criticized Nixon for NOT doing in 1970 and 1971.

[martin]

Trevor-I did look at a map-we are already smack dab in the middle of a snake pit-and if you don't think Bush and company aren't planning to invade Iran-well I disagree. Indeed, Iran and all of Iraq's vicious neighbors have to be dealt with for iraq to have any chance. Otherwise, we're trying to raise a virgin in a crackhouse.
Political reality may well keep them from pulling the trigger-but if they had their druthers-we'd be there.
According to Bush logic-we should be there already. We could storm to Teheran just as well as Bagdhad-hell, Iran couldn't even kick Saddam's ass. What was it-an 8 year draw? I just think there are smarter ways to go about this.
Whether Kerry has them, probably not-but imho-Bush does not and when in a hole...

[The Kid]

The French and Germans recently joined the Brits in talking some sense to the Iranians and were told to pound pâté. The Iranians insist that building nuclear weapons is their Allah-given right and, by the way, pass the nuclear technology, please. No one knows how far along the mad mullahs are, but some guess that they’ll have a weapon or two to put atop their very fine missile in a year.

Of concern to some is Iran’s intention. Let’s see, what could Tehran do with a nuke? Cut off a big part of the world’s oil supply? ">http://www.jewishpost.com/jp0803/jpn0803a.htm"> Commit national suicide? They could do both simultaneously by attacking Israel and suffering the consequences. Much of the Middle East would glow.

Who would you like to have at the helm next September? A guy who will have pulled half our troops out of Iraq, sending the wrong kind of signal to the farking Farsi-speakers, or the incumbent who seems to know how to communicate with action?

BTW, have you heard about the new radical Islamicist microwave oven? It seats 10,000.

[Pouncer]

"knowing what we know about Iran NOW-which is exactly what we thought we knew about Iraq THEN-and given that with what we know about Iraq NOW you still would have invaded Iraq THEN-why are we not invading Iran NOW?"

We're waiting for the 14th UN resolutions calling on Iran to comply with all prior resolutions, and to co-operate with inspectors, and to accept the burden to proof to show that they HAVE disarmed (and not allow Iran to demand that the US and UN prove that arms exist.)

The UN should finish up with the necessary premliminaries in time for President Hillary Clinton to invade Iran -- as a lame duck in her second term, she'll need fear no objection from even the most vociferous of her anti-war base.

I happen to think that waiting is a mistake, but then I'm the sort of guy whose biggest objedtion to Shrub is that he's insufficiently hawkish ...

[Forbes Tuttle]

Funny, all along I thought the Iraq regime was toppled because it remained in constant violation of the 1991 Gulf War cease fire. Iraq was inviolation for 12 years after countless, toothless follow-up UN resolutions to insist upon Iraq compliance with the cease fire terms.

What is this "what we know now" crap? What we know now is that Iraq never complied, the US toppled the regime, and the process of ridding Iraq of WMDs is underway--exactly what was required under the terms of the Gulf War cease fire agreement, now 12-13 years late.

Why is this so friggin' complicated. If you're anti-Bush, so be it, if you're a pacifist, so be it. The only thing the US needed to point out is that Iraq was non-compliant. A record of non-compliance so strong that you had to have been asleep for 12 years.

The rest of these arguments are about window dressing--clear as day through the window was Saddam's non-compliance.

[robert0]

Since it seems like everyone here except me understands, could someone please explain to me what rewards we get from iraq in return for our risks? Our $200+ billion and 1000 soldiers (and counting) buys us what?

I mean, really, because personally, I could give a rat's fucking ass about democracy in Iraq.

[Monique]

Youre not the only one robert. I've heard a number of arguments what we're getting out of Iraq.

-We're making a democratic foothold in a bad place, creating what we consider to be civilization, so fewer crazy people will want to join terrorism. This doesn't make sense since the kids seem to be growing up with more terrorist inspiration than ever, but its kind of a noble goal. If it were possible. Which at the moment is not very obvious.

- We're doing a humanitarian thing and unseating a dictator. This one is weird because there are still so many dictators in the region, including in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, where they are our friends.

- We're getting a foothold in a big oil nation, putting bases there, so that we will have leverage to keep being top customers once China becomes a better customer than us, which is likely to happen within the next few years. This would be the one the terrorists would likely agree with, also the one that makes most sense in light of past US behavior in the region.

In any case, from reading the posts here, it's evident that "pacifist" is a pejorative term. So part of it is just the love and enjoyment of exercising military power, for the Bush supporters I mean. It's a trick that Goebbels had described very well, that all a leader needs to do is make the people think they are in danger, then call all who dissent with the leader's actions "pacificsts" and "unpatriotic". It seems to have worked very well here in the good old USA. For instance, even though there is absolutely no way to equate WWII and Iraq, a lot of militarist Bush supporters enjoy using the term "appeasers". It doesn't apply, but they like it anyway. "Pragmatists" might have been a more accurate term, but it doesn't have the same ring to it.

As for Iran, we will not be able to do anything about Iran, except maybe for surgical strikes of some kind, because our military is stretched to the breaking point right now, we have no money left to spend on it, and hatred for us in the region is already so white hot, we can hardly take any action without putting our troops, and our homeland, into greater danger.

So yeah, we've got a great leader there. Bang up job.

[Monique]

Youre not the only one robert. I've heard a number of arguments what we're getting out of Iraq.

-We're making a democratic foothold in a bad place, creating what we consider to be civilization, so fewer crazy people will want to join terrorism. This doesn't make sense since the kids seem to be growing up with more terrorist inspiration than ever, but its kind of a noble goal. If it were possible. Which at the moment is not very obvious.

- We're doing a humanitarian thing and unseating a dictator. This one is weird because there are still so many dictators in the region, including in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, where they are our friends.

- We're getting a foothold in a big oil nation, putting bases there, so that we will have leverage to keep being top customers once China becomes a better customer than us, which is likely to happen within the next few years. This would be the one the terrorists would likely agree with, also the one that makes most sense in light of past US behavior in the region.

In any case, from reading the posts here, it's evident that "pacifist" is a pejorative term. So part of it is just the love and enjoyment of exercising military power, for the Bush supporters I mean. It's a trick that Goebbels had described very well, that all a leader needs to do is make the people think they are in danger, then call all who dissent with the leader's actions "pacificsts" and "unpatriotic". It seems to have worked very well here in the good old USA. For instance, even though there is absolutely no way to equate WWII and Iraq, a lot of militarist Bush supporters enjoy using the term "appeasers". It doesn't apply, but they like it anyway. "Pragmatists" might have been a more accurate term, but it doesn't have the same ring to it.

As for Iran, we will not be able to do anything about Iran, except maybe for surgical strikes of some kind, because our military is stretched to the breaking point right now, we have no money left to spend on it, and hatred for us in the region is already so white hot, we can hardly take any action without putting our troops, and our homeland, into greater danger.

So yeah, we've got a great leader there. Bang up job.

[Paul Zrimsek]

In any case, from reading the posts here, it's evident that "pacifist" is a pejorative term. So part of it is just the love and enjoyment of exercising military power, for the Bush supporters I mean.

One of the things that makes "pacifist" a pejorative term is the tendency of pacifists to engage in this sort of frivolous non-thought. Of course you needn't enjoy exercising military power to realize that sometimes it ought to be done whether you enjoy it or not.

The last of your supposed rationales for the war is one I have never seen advanced by those in favor of it, though it is an enduringly popular strawman among those who were opposed. Given the existence of one big global oil market, it would be nonsensical for any one consuming nation to aspire to be a "top customer" of any one producer.

[Monique]

It's always easy for conservatives to dismiss opposing viewpoints as frivolous. It's harder though, to actually defend their own.

It is similar to the Bush/Cheney campaign which has spent its budget almost entirely on ridiculing Kerry or providing blurry touchy feely commercials about how great it is to be an American under George W. Bush. Because he's a good daddy, don't you worry your little heads about a thing. What no one has gotten from the Bushcheneys is any idea a. what the hell their plan is for Iraq ( a REAL plan, not just "we'll kill them all" and "we're bringing the joys of democracy to the ungrateful fanatics"), b. when the middle class is going to start enjoying the fruits of "this greatest economy in our lifetimes" , c. how we're going to pay for all this or d. how we're going to ever get ourselves free from our dependency on a part of the world that loathes us with a passsion we ourselves can't even imagine.

One of the Bush campaign weaknesses, ripe for the picking at debate time, is what positive plans they intend to put forward in their second term. Aside from the sales tax...err, scratch that. Or aside from making sure rich people continue to keep more of their unearned wealth. Or that they will continue to deregulate industry for the benefit of investors and at the expense of public health and safety. (Psst, they're trying to hide that one.) If I'm missing the attractive parts of the Bush/Cheney plan for America, I'd like to be informed.

In a similar vein, I haven't heard conservatives defend the first two rationales for Iraq in a way that makes any sense.

For the first, has democracy EVER been imposed upon a hostile population at the point of a gun?

For the second, what made this particular dicatator (of the 30 some in the world today, including many in the Arab world) the one we had to depose? Was it his relative weakness, both with his people and militarily that made him the easiest pickings? Did the White House do ANY planning as to how to win the peace? ANY????

I know Conservatives only address a question they feel assured of winning. That doesn't mean people forget that their questions haven't been answered.

[Paul Zrimsek]

Actually I find it very difficult to dismiss opposing viewpoints as frivolous, and I don't spend all that much time doing it. But that's only because, of the many people who hold different opinions from mine, very few are silly enough to suggest that the war in Iraq was ever promoted using an argument even faintly resembling "we'll kill them all" or "we're bringing the joys of democracy to the ungrateful fanatics". Or that all the wealth owned by the rich is ipso facto unearned. I've already given this puerile sloganeering more attention than it deserves. And now I'm done.

[Monique]

Paul, I do believe that's one of the Right Wing Engagement Points: i.e. when you have no legitimate rebuttal, ridicule the opposition. (If you don't think "kill them all" is a slogan, catch a Dick Cheney speech. If you don't think "joys of democracy" is another slogan, catch a George W. speech. If you don't like puerile sloganeering, why are you a Republican?)

I beleive the nation is in for a glut of such behavior when the RNC convenes. Let's see how much appeal it has for the generally well meaning, fair minded people who hopefully still make up the majority in this wonderful country.