On the subject of George Bush calling Kerry out on his support for the Iraq Resolution. Josh Marshall and others are taking the tact that Kerry didn’t mean to sign on to a pre-emptive strike. Instead, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, they are suggesting you should promote the tragic notion that John Kerry considered George W. Bush (and his administration) to be trustworthy and cautious individual(s) deserving of the power to wage war without Congressional approval.
If a nobody like me knew that George & Co. was manipulating the press and the situation, marking the wimps and/or co-conspirators in Congress as targets of the public mania their lies and distortions created, certainly John Kerry was well aware that passage of the resolution was a death sentence for innocent Iraqi civilians.
If he was truly in the dark on this point he’s an idiot who, if courageous, would have fought the rising tide as this travesty escalated. He was provided with numerous opportunities to challenge this administration.
His silence, then and now, speaks volumes.
I agree. I think Kerry’s support of the invasion of Iraq was more a result of cowardice than stupidity. Kerry’s stance on Iraq was crafted at a time when the war was almost twice as popular as it is now. I find it hard to believe that a former Viet Nam vet and protester in his heart of heart’s supports this travesty, but after being a professional politician for a lifetime Kerry probably doesn’t have much heart left. So who knows …
Hi Joe,
I’m not as kind as you. I think Kerry arrived at his decision knowing that George & Co. would proceed and eager for that administration to bear the brunt of criticism for doing so. In its wake, an objective desired by him and other Democrats, sorting out the particulars of our new foothold in the Middle East would be more manageable without the onus of their creating it.
If they can convince us to fall for that line, anyway.
Your blog is terrific, by the way. Thanks for stopping by and posting your thoughts.
Diane, it would, indeed, be turning a blind eye to find argument with your post.
They say a picture can paint 1000 words.
This picture, http://iddybud.blogspot.com/2004_02_21_iddybud_archive.html#107738539903402744
although taken four months after the resolution was passed by Congress, still shows us what everyone who was paying attention already knew in October 2002.
This article by William Rivers Pitt http://truthout.org/docs_03/121003A.shtml will tell more of the truth.
That said, I’ll tell you why I will vote for Kerry in November. I know, as a citizen who wishes to forward progressive values in America, that the lifeblood of progressive politics will at least still be pumping (albeit clogged with right-wing cholesterol) if Bush is removed from office.
If he’s elected in November, progress screeches to a grinding halt.
Read more of my thoughts here.
http://iddybud.blogspot.com/2004_08_16_iddybud_archive.html#109270742166992560
One more additional related link.
http://iddybud.blogspot.com/2004_07_29_iddybud_archive.html#109111704130552714
Hi Jude,
Thanks for the links and the thoughts. Always appreciated.
Not so sure Pitt’s article isn’t more opinion than truth. He’s an interesting story in himself. For some time he was Kerry’s biggest promoter on the Democratic Underground forum. This was before the resolution and around the time I quit reading there. He didn’t catch my attention again until it was announced he was Kucinich’s press man.
Peace
Well said, Diane.
I remember watching the Senate debating the resolution to hand over their Constitutional powers. Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia certainly knew there was no reason to attack Iraq. Carl Levin, Dick Durbin, and a few others knew it as well.
Yet somehow John Kerry, John Edwards, and most of the other Democrats didn’t realize it was all a crock?
It’s a sad statement of the attention span and the consciousness of our society that they’re actually able to get away with such blatant bullspit.
Hi R.G.,
Something else that bothers me terribly is that neither the politicians nor the American people at large have apologised to those who deserve it most, the Iraqi people, all of whom were innocent and continue to deserve better than the world is handing them.
Underlying this worry about troops and establishing security, i.e., laying the groundwork for permanent residence in a country we have no right to occupy, is a continuing dismissal of the sovereign rights and immediate needs, values, and wishes of these people we brutalise.
It isn’t jealousy of what we have or hatred of our freedoms that drive anti-Americanism. It is our complete disregard and utter contempt for those who stand in the way of our needs.
Our values are plain to see. Whatever it takes to satisfy those needs. Further, if those people in our way happen to be of colour, we seem to possess no barriers to this automaticity in determining what’s in their best interests, even as it’s obvious, are only the crumbs from our table.
Peace