I've seen lots of people saying how inconsistent Kerry is... and so far, from what I've been able to gather, that statement has only been a highly misleading republican campaign that's been fairly effective at damaging Kerry. I'm pretty sure that Kerry has been consistent with his environmental position (here's a post from the environmental forum: http://hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=456592&postcount=1) but I'm not sure about some of his position regarding certain other issues. As far as the war on Iraq goes, I'll use the site that Cheney recommended to get your facts straight... "Kerry has never wavered from his support for giving Bush authority to use force in Iraq, nor has he changed his position that he, as President, would not have gone to war without greater international support. But a Bush ad released Sept. 27 takes many of Kerry's words out of context to make him appear to be alternately praising the war and condemning it. This ad is the most egregious example so far in the 2004 campaign of using edited quotes in a way that changes their meaning and misleads voters." http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=269
What about Kerry slamming Dean during the primaries for denying that we were safer with Saddam in custody and now basically parroting Dean on Iraq? Kerry also said that he would've still voted for the war resolution if he knew everything we know today. How does that make any sense?
My personal take on the Dean situation is that Kerry has always said that the world is safer without Saddam, he's always stated that.... what Kerry argues is that we shouldn't have gone to war without exhausting all our other options first, ie: letting the inspectors finish do their job and analyze their findings to determine whether Saddam was an imminent threat, which appears to have not been the case. the actual quote is: "Yes, I would have voted for the authority [to go to war]. I believe it's the right authority for a president to have. But I would have used that authority as I have said throughout this campaign, effectively. I would have done this very differently from the way President Bush has." The resolution was not a vote to go to war. Kerry did not say that he would have invaded Iraq even if he knew no WMDs would be found. He only said that he would have voted to affirm the president's authority to handle the situation.
He now argues that the war has made us less secure. He can't have it both ways, unless he's hiding some great plan by which we could've captured Saddam without invading Iraq. The whole impetus for the resolution was to disarm Saddam. How could he support such a resolution if he knew there were no WMD?
Saddam was a threat, but that doesn't mean removing him makes us any more secure. Kerry says we are less secure domestically because for one, we don't have Bin Laden, and for two, our borders and airports are not secure. Plus, right now, we are not gaining any favor with the rest of the world.
Here's exactly what Kerry said during the primaries: "Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president.''
"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure." - http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0920.html The problem is that during the primaries he didn't just express "satisfaction" at Saddam's capture. He said that we were clearly safer because of it and that anyone who denied this was unfit for the presidency.
I think he illustrates that yes, the world is safer without Saddam; but the way that the we went to war, and the way the war has been, and is being conducted by Bush is making our country less secure because, while taking Saddam out (which yes, was a good thing), we could have done an even better thing by focusing on other, more credible targets....
He says that Iraq war itself was a "grave distraction" from the war on terror, which is basically what Dean has said all along. Of course, during the primaries, Kerry said that this made Dean unfit for the presidency.
Should we go over everything Bush and Cheney have flip-flopped on? Face it, people's minds change, times change, circumstances change. If a person never changes their mind or position as new information presents itself, couldn't that be a bad thing?
I wish he'd take a solid war stance. I think he supports the war, just thinks it was done the wrong way. But if this is his stance, he should explain it more clearly.
Sure. The timing and frequency of Kerry's "mind changes" don't make you the least bit suspicious of political opportunism?
In my opinion, he has. The inconsistencies appear to be primarily a republican spin attack to make him look that way because it's a complicated issue. The whole thing could be thrown right back at the Bush camp if they wanted to; I mean, look at this (and you gotta give it up, the man had foresight): "If we'd gone on to Baghdad, we would have wanted to send a lot of force. One of the lessons we learned was don't do anything in a half-hearted fashion. When we committed the forces to Kuwait, we sent a lot of force to make certain they could do the job. We would have moved from fighting in a desert environment, where you had clear areas where we knew who the enemy was. Everybody there was, in fact, an adversary -- military, and there was no intermingling of any significant civilian population. If you go into the streets of Baghdad, that changes dramatically. All of a sudden you've got a battle you're fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques. You probably would have had to run him to ground; I don't think he would have surrendered and gone quietly to the slammer. Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq. Now what kind of government are you going to establish? Is it going to be a Kurdish government, or a Shi'ia government, or a Suni government, or maybe a government based on the old Ba'athist Party, or some mixture thereof? You will have, I think by that time, lost the support of the Arab coalition that was so crucial to our operations over there because none of them signed on for the United States to go occupy Iraq. I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today, we'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home. And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional US casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq." Dick Cheney, 1992 http://mediaprima.com/nv1962/archives/2004/09/29/dick_cheneys_speech_to_the_discovery_institute.html it's toward the bottom
A threat to who is the question, the answer is a resounding not us. Hey, I looked up the definition of troll and it said: Karl Hungus...imagine that.
You think Saddam has something to do with this CD of the schools? You know he has been in custody, right?
Here's an apt commentary on Kerry's inconsistencies: http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200410151203.asp A divorced supporter of same-sex unions, abortion, and research cloning should at least be intellectually honest enough not to pretend to be a devout Catholic.
