I challenge you to produce any statement from Kerry or Edwards that would back up the claim that they intend to fight it the old way - a.k.a. no war on terror whatsoever. That's a position none of the candidates have taken.
Kerry has proposed a new sort of war on terror - more new even than Bush's plan. Rather than relying on the conventional use of unilateral military force, Kerry has offered forward a plan in which the war on terror is reformulated as a truly global effort that attacks terrorism from all angles. From Kerry's own website:
quote:Today, we face three great challenges above all others - First, to win the global war against terror; Second, to stop the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; Third, to promote democracy, freedom, and opportunity around the world, starting by winning the peace in Iraq. To meet these challenges, John Kerry's national security policy will be guided by four imperatives:
Launch And Lead A New Era Of Alliances The threat of terrorism demands alliances on a global scale - to utilize every available resource to get the terrorists before they can strike at us. As president, John Kerry will lead a coalition of the able - because no force on earth is more able than the United States and its allies.
Modernize The World's Most Powerful Military To Meet New Threats John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to transform the world's most powerful military to better address the modern threats of terrorism and proliferation, while ensuring that we have enough properly trained and equipped troops to meet our enduring strategic and regional missions.
Deploy All That Is In America's Arsenal The war on terror cannot be won by military might alone. As president, John Kerry will deploy all the forces in America's arsenal - our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas - to make America more secure and prevent a new generation of terrorists from emerging.
Free America From Its Dangerous Dependence On Mideast Oil To secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Mideast oil. By tapping American ingenuity, we can achieve that goal while growing our economy and protecting our environment.
What could be more different from the post-9/11 Bush and pre-9/11 Clinton approaches? Whereas Clinton likely placed terrorism far down the list, Kerry has made it first priority. And whereas Bush has made this a war fought largely unilaterally and with military force front and center, Kerry is promosing a subtler, more strategic war, in which diplomacy is wielded as a primary weapon. It's a "sensitive" strategy, to contrast with Bush's more blunt simplification.
The Kerry camp might not like the word "sensitive" and the Bush camp might not like the word "simplistic" but that is, in fact, what these two sides are proposing, when you get down to the heart of it. Having no war has not been proposed, though.
quote:Right back at ya Scott. Do you believe in anything that can't be broken down into 10 simple words?
Yes.
quote:Show me where he says that he supported the war. I've yet to see any quote that explicitly says that. Instead, I've seen him say that he supported the president when he decided to go to war.
Kerry says he supported the invasion in the link that I posted. Hey, you quoted it too!
Now it's your turn to back up your statements. How do you gather that Kerry supports the idea of giving the presidential office military carte blanche?
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Scott, No, he didn't say he supported the war. As I pointed out, in what you referenced, he declared his support for two things. 1) Disarming Saddam Hussein and 2) The President. He never said he supported the war.
And the big "flip-flop" accusation comes from him responding to the question that if he knew then what he knows now, would he have voted to give the President the authority to go to war.
From the Washington Post's article on this:
quote: Bush challenged Kerry to answer whether he would support the war "knowing what we know now" about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction that U.S. and British officials were certain were there.
In response, Kerry said: "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have."
John Kerry has never said that he supported the decision to go to war. In fact, at least once one of his advisors speculated that had he been in President Bush's place, he would likely have done the same thing, only to quickly disassociate those remarks with any sort of offical position.
The Republican party line is that John Kerry has slip-flopped on the war, saying that he supports in, then saying he doesn't. Taking a simplistic either-or look at it, you can support this story, but not, I think, if you actually look at what he's said. Of course, as I've said, I think what he said is even worse and it actually moved me into the absolutely not voting for him column.
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The threat of terrorism demands alliances on a global scale - to utilize every available resource to get the terrorists before they can strike at us. As president, John Kerry will lead a coalition of the able - because no force on earth is more able than the United States and its allies.
See, to me, this just sounds like buzzwords for "We aren't going to do things that will upset sovriegns." He doesn't make allowances for the idea that some nations will only align with us in hanging back from the fight.
Because he can't seriously be suggesting that he will be able to pull out the magical "Create allies" wand in the secret drawer in the oval office, and make everybody come on board with what we want to do. The only way to gain more allies is to align your actions more with their desires.
In other words, fight the war they way the French and the Germans want, just so we can say they're on our side.
This is the way we fought terrorism before, never taking a step more than we thought the international community would accept. Clinton would have loved to do more against terrorism, but he was, among other things, afraid of jeapordizing our situation in the international scene (read the 9/11 report).
quote:Modernize The World's Most Powerful Military To Meet New Threats
John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to transform the world's most powerful military to better address the modern threats of terrorism and proliferation, while ensuring that we have enough properly trained and equipped troops to meet our enduring strategic and regional missions.
So this would be why he voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it.
Seriously, this is just more of the same. Every President says he's going to be strong on defense, amass troops and get good weapons. This is hardly innovative thinking.
quote: Deploy All That Is In America's Arsenal
The war on terror cannot be won by military might alone. As president, John Kerry will deploy all the forces in America's arsenal - our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas - to make America more secure and prevent a new generation of terrorists from emerging.
Again, this sounds like political speak to me, code words that basically mean, "We're going to be real nice and hope the terrorists will start to like us. When Islamist propaganda bombards potential recruits about what a bunch of infidels the Americans are, it will be rendered powerless by the sheer force of our good will."
Again, this is old, pre 9/11 thinking. We thought that if we stayed out of their business, they would stay out of ours. It's hard for some people to grasp that, just like the High School Quarterback, some people hate and resent us just for who we are, irrespective of what we actually do.
No matter how many kids we help who are picked on, no matter how many kids we tutor or hang out with, there are still going to be kids who hate and resent us.
As for the "diplomatic and intelligence" statments--this basically says if specific information is recieved, we'll take specific action against individual threats. Again, that's what we've always done. He's just saying we're going to try to do it better than we used to.
quote:Free America From Its Dangerous Dependence On Mideast Oil
To secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Mideast oil. By tapping American ingenuity, we can achieve that goal while growing our economy and protecting our environment.
Environmentalism is hardly new. But believe it or not, this is the one I'd most support him in. I'd love to see us get away from our reliance on oil.
I drive a car that, while not a hybrid, gets over 30 miles to the gallon. My dad rides a scooter that, while not electric, gets just over 8 million miles to the gallon, or something along those lines. We're both seriously looking at hybrids.
What all of that says, though, is that this is already happening. When enough of us want to use less oil, somebody's going to provide it for us.
Kerry can either force production of these cars, which could cause companies to lose money if they produce more than what is consumed, or he could illegalize or tax gas vehicles, which again, I would see as an imposition, my distaste for our oil dependence notwithstanding.
It just comes across as more environmental feel-good talk to me.
posted
Just saying, "He never said the actual words "X X X X," does not a convincing argument make.
Can you provide evidence that Kerry feels the way you say he does-- i.e., that the office of President should have rubber-stamp powers when it comes to military action?
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docmagik, You've missed the critical difference between the "old way" and Kerry's proposal: Terrorism was not a priority in 1999. Clinton didn't really fight it, because people didn't really care that much. In contrast, Kerry stated he will make it a top priority, along with preventing the spread of WMDs.
The ideas may be "pre-9/11" ideas, but that is becuase Bush has ruled ever since 9/11, and has used his simplistic policies ever since. To equate a sensitive war on terror with no war whatsoever is not reasonable.
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So your argument is basically, "He's going to fight terrorism the old way really, really well?"
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No, my argument is he's going to fight the war on terrorism in a new way, rather than in the simplistic, blunt fashion Bush has or not at all as Clinton did. And it's not my argument - it's simply what the man says.
The old way to fight terrorism was to conduct no war on it at all. Kerry has never proposed this.
posted
Then to qualify--your argument is that the old philosphies, the old ideas of how a war on terror should be fought, were never really tried.
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No. The old philosophy on how to fight terrorism was to conduct no war on it at all. Kerry has, again, never proposed this.
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quote: In Washington, Republican Party chief Ed Gillespie criticized Kerry for saying in an interview in The New York Times Magazine that, "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." He appeared to equate terrorism to prostitution and illegal gambling, saying they can be reduced but not ended.
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