| John Kerry could have made his case more forcefully in the first debate on Sept 30th. |
| John Kerry's task in a debate on foreign policy (which of course centered on Iraq) was to de-couple the war on terror from the invasion of Iraq. He never even mentioned that according to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil, Bush and his associates were making plans for an invasion of Iraq even BEFORE 9/11. He barely mentioned that Hussein had no alliance with Al-Qaeda or the 9/11 hijackers. He began by saying he would have applied his resources to find Bin Laden rather than for invading Iraq, but he didn't make a clear case for why that is the right plan (which it is.) He didn't emphasize that Iraq was not an urgent threat to the United States (which it wasn't.)
Once he de-coupled the war on terror from the invasion of Iraq, he could have then analyzed the real reasons that Bush invaded Iraq. They were (1) to distract the American public and the press from the dismal state of the economy under his tutelage and (2) to enrich Dick Cheney's cronies. Sure Bush is resolute in his pursuit of this invasion. It took the record setting economic downturn off of the front pages and replaced it with jingoism. It allowed the administration to confiscate the assets of Iraq and divide them between American companies. It also created an $87 billion (and climbing) slush fund of taxpayer money for the use of Halliburton and other Republican partners. Half of the money that is supposed to be going to the reconstruction of Iraq is being spent on insurance and security for contractors, who are making exorbitant tax-free salaries while American soldiers families go on food assistance and over 60% of Iraqis are unemployed. Meanwhile the security situation spirals out of control as Iraqis kill Iraqis with roadside bombs and RPGs, the first battles in an Iraqi Civil War. Bush says this foolishness makes us more secure. Meanwhile Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations offer this invasion as more proof that America has indeed targeted the Muslim world for occupation and domination. Bush described several times how the United Nations had demanded that Iraq relinquish its weapons of mass destruction and that Hussein had refused, forcing the US to invade. Kerry never countered with the fact that they never found any weapons of mass destruction, that Hussein HAD apparently disarmed and that the main reason for the invasion was based on a "complicated relationship with the truth." (He should have knocked that one out of the park.) The main rebuttal that Kerry had to make was that his Iraq policy has indeed been consistent. It has been, but he never really spelled it out, and he certainly didn't hammer it home. First, Kerry voted to give Bush the authority to use force in accordance with international laws and consensus as a lever to convince Hussein to allow UN inspections, which it did. Incidentally, Hans Blix (who must be chuckling to himself these days) told Bush that after 3 months of reliable inspections, he hadn't found any weapons, and that in 3 more months he could say definitively whether or not Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Bush alienated our U.N. allies by demanding that the U.N. inspectors vacate Iraq so he could start the bombing. He boasted that with U.S. troops on the ground, HE would find the weapons. Voting for this authority was the right vote, but the authority was mishandled and misused. The current conditions in Iraq demonstrate that conclusively. Later, Kerry voted against creating the $87 billion slush fund for the war profiteers. He was actually willing to vote for it if it included provisions to raise the money rather that borrowing it. Of course that goes against the general policy of the "Borrow & Spend" Bush administration. This was a vote of disapproval for the way that Bush has conducted the invasion. Those two positions are entirely consistent. The first vote triggered the U.N. inspections, which were good. The second vote protested the mishandling of the invasion, which was bad. If John Kerry is going to rally a skeptical electorate to his side, he's going to have to make a much better case than he made in the first debate. |
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