Was Kerry's war vote explanation on MTP really this muddled?

[ProfessorPlum]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=153481


Liberal Oasis is pretty pro-Dean, and rated Kerry's overall performance pretty highly. But there was this:

-snip-
more than a quarter of the interview -- was spent on understanding his position on the war.

Why? Because his explanation doesn’t make any sense. It simply isn’t defensible.

Often, the media are incapable of explaining a legitimately nuanced position to the public -- either oversimplifying it or treating it like a cynical waffle.

And in theory, there’s nothing inconsistent with believing war was right, but would have been best accomplished with a true coalition (and without all that lying).

But yesterday, Kerry gave a defense full of holes and contradictions. It's spin that makes your head spin.

He said:

The bottom line is that we voted on the basis of information that was given to us, that has since then been proven to be incorrect.

OK then, you got had. Not your fault. Perhaps we shouldn’t have gone to war and you should retract your original position.

But Kerry won’t go there:

…it was right to hold Saddam Hussein accountable, absolutely correct.

And anybody who doesn't believe it wasn't correct ought to go dig around in those graves or even make a judgment about what would happen if you left Saddam Hussein alone to do this.

Alone to do what exactly, if the info on WMD was incorrect?

And Saddam’s cruelty towards his own people wasn’t Kerry’s rationale going in. In his own words yesterday:

I didn't base it on the nuclear, but the most important and compelling rationale were the lack of inspections and the non-compliance of Saddam Hussein.

Even Hans Blix at the United Nations said he is not in compliance.

Essentially, chem and bio weapons it would seem was Kerry's concern (that was Blix’s jurisdiction). Not mass graves. Not nukes.

But hold on again. Just before that answer, Russert aired a clip of Kerry's Oct. ’02 Senate floor speech explaining his position then:

According to the CIA's report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that they are seeking nuclear weapons. There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop them.

It’s just a mess. He’s talked himself into a hole that now he can’t get out of.

He should have either taken the Joe Lieberman route, somewhat downplaying the Bush lies, as Lieberman did on CBS’ Face The Nation yesterday:

…the president and the administration, I'm afraid, did overstate the case in some ways.

And what bothers me about that is that it wasn't necessary. has threatened to give a bad name to what I'm convinced was a just war.

Or, you can take the claim that you were given “incorrect” info to its logical conclusion and renounce your vote.

Of course, the Lieberman route would pull Kerry farther to the Right than he wants to be.

And to renounce the war completely would peg him an “anti-war” candidate (and, perhaps more unfairly, a “flip-flopper”).

That’s not part of the Kerry game plan.

So Kerry’s made his bed, and he’s chosen to lie in it, messy as the bed may be.

He can only hope that after repeatedly hearing him give this spiel with a straight face (which he did pretty well, for what it's worth), people will eventually tire and move on.
-snip-

Anyway, it highlights my only remaining substantive problem with Kerry: does he think the war was right or wrong? Is it, on balance, a good thing or a bad thing? Did he make the right (symbolic) vote? If there are no WMDs, doesn't that essentially destroy the rationale for this war?

[virtualobserver]

1. When a politician can't be wrong......

Doublespeak is the only option.

The Republicans will eat him alive for it, while manufacturing their own endless streams of it.

[Egnever]

2. Seemed to be to me

Trnscripts still arent out yet?

[DJcairo]

3. First of all

Kerry never said anything about a "just war." Go read the transcript. Second of all, his main reason for voting was clearly that he tought Hussein should be held accountable. He pressed the Clinton administration to go to the UN and say the same thing back in 1998. His vote was a vote forinspections. Nowhere in the IRW is their a declaration of war. The right to start and end war is saved only for the President by the constitution. Kerry clearly hoped his vote would provide a United American front at the UN behind a resumation of teh inspections process and would put pressure on Saddam to comply if he knew he would be unable to divide opinion in the United States. Kerry has said repeatedly that he would never have rushed to war the way this president has and knowing his stance after his return from Vietnam, I tend to believe that he does not treat war lightly.

[virtualobserver]

4. you did not counter any of the assertions in that article.

and only Congress can declare war.

[Pavlovs DiOgie]

9. You are scary

This is the 3rd time you've said the president can start a war. You are fucking amazing, and I don't mean that as a compliment. I guess if you keep repeating the same bullshit, it will eventually become true.

P.S. The right to end a war is in Congress's hands too. It's in the form of something called a treaty.

[ProfessorPlum]

11. I don't believe he treats war lightly either

the "just war" quote was from Lieberman, see above.

What does "held accountable" mean?

And I agree with the others here that you really should get it together about Congress declaring war. That's a weird, rookie kind of mistake to make more than once.

[dfong63]

13. who decides accountability?

Second of all, his main reason for voting was clearly that he tought Hussein should be held accountable.

who decides what countries or leaders should be held accountable, for what crimes, by what standards of evidence? today Iraq, tomorrow Cuba? Kerry has obviously bought into the Bush administration's "pre-emptive war" idea, and it sucks.

[CWebster]

5. He can't

He is forced to tap dance because it either appears that he was an easy mark on an obvious con, or it shows him to have known better- but put poor political strategy in pursuing political ambitions above the country's best interests---not to mention the truth.

He is disconnected from reality outside the beltway, and too dependent on advise and polling to develop strategy. This is the same mistaken course that brought down Gore, when Gore could've rallied broader support had he stuck with his own instincts.

[DrFunkenstein]

6. Thanks For Putting This On The Table

I'll agree that the media seems incapable of putting 2+3 together. But Kerry's position is easily defended. One of the big misunderstandings Liberal Oasis has is how those mass graves got filled. Saddam Hussein pretty much ended the (insanely) bloody border war with Iran by threatening to use chemical weapons. Iran flinched, and Saddam was free to turn his attention to the Kurdish population in the North. Saddam then proceeded to kill whole urban areas with chemical weapons. One moment they had a bad taste in their mouth, the next moment they were dead. Corpses littered the streets in the first major use of chemical weapons ever.

After the Gulf War, Saddam signed a UN peace treaty that demanded he submit to unfettered inspections (UNSCOM). For several years, despite brutal sanctions (which Kerry came to oppose), Saddam jerked around UNSCOM, even forcibly detaining them at one point. Although they had many successes, ultimately they were pulled out to begin Operation Desert Fox in 1998. Since then, all intelligence has come from satellites and exile testimony.

Saddam had been in the process of putting together a nuclear program. Ironically, if he had not invaded Kuwait, he might have suceeded. It was no secret that Saddam wanted to become a nuclear power, especially after successfully deterring Iran with chemical WMDs. Saddam maintained his nuclear scientists, and continued to search for means of advancing his program. Before the vote, Kerry maintained that Saddam had the desire but not the means - not for a couple years, absent a foreign supplier.

Let me make this clear. Kerry did NOT believe Iraq was an imminent threat, even with the intelligence (later proved incorrect) he was given. This where Liberal Oasis in confused. Although he did not pose an imminent threat, Saddam Hussein had a record of instability and miscalculation, and a proven willingness to obtain and actually use WMDs.

In the post-9/11 world, Kerry argued, following a policy of containment (Dean's argument at the time, later retracted) was simply unacceptable. We needed truly unfettered inspections, and -given Saddam's history - the threat of force was the only effective means of achieving this. This was Kerry's argument in 1997, it is his argument today.

About a month after the IWR vote, Hans Blix and UNMOVIC were on the ground. Although largely compliant, Saddam continued to petty obstructions about Presidential Palaces and interviewing scientists. Kerry argued for giving the inspections time, and building a coalition based on America's good intentions. Everyone wanted Saddam disarmed, but Bush's insistence on talks of invasion, regime change, and pre-emption (rightly) brought great opposition.

Including from Kerry. While he was forceful about the need for disarmament, he vocally opposed Bush's unnecessary and harmful war talk. Although ultimately Saddam's games allowed it, the invasion was unnecessary and on the eve of war Kerry was still asking for at least 30 more days.

The confusion for Liberal Oasis, I suppose, revolves around their inability to comprehend the support of disarmament despite faulty intelligence. I don't think it is that difficult to understand.

Was war a good thing? No, it was unnecessary, at least at that point. Was disarmament a necessity? Absolutely. Even Dean conceded that after realizing containment was insufficient. Does the abscence of WMDs destroy the rationale for unilateral invasion? Yes. The rationale for disarmament? Kerry doesn't think so, and neither should Dean.

[Name removed]

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[ProfessorPlum]

12. Thanks, doc, I knew you could illuminate this somewhat

I guess I still have two sticking points.

The first is the implicit assumption that letting this war go forward would be better for the US and the world than not invading and letting Saddam squirrel around with his (then unknown) supply of WMDs.

It's kind of like, "Well, we all suspect that Saddam could make a bunch of Americans very unhappy and/or dead. So we are going to do something to prevent that which will definitely make a bunch of Americans very unhappy and/or dead (not to mention a bunch of Iraqis)."

It's the choice of a definite evil over a possible evil.

Even if you try to temper that by saying that Kerry really really was sure that Saddam was a threat (though not imminent), then it turns out Kerry was really wrong about that.

The second sticking point is that all of those conclusions make some measure of sense - IF anyone but this administration was at the helm. Kerry had to figure in the obvious warlust, the lying, the profiteering, the blatant incompetence of this administration in, didn't he? I just can't see how he came to his positions, given the actual facts of who was going to be in charge.

There is a passage in Norman Schwartzkopf's book that makes it pretty clear that Dick Cheney was not only a warmonger, but he was really delusional about the safety of American soldiers and what could be accomplished. He had some vision of Tom Clancy-esqe movie-like invasions of Iraq by special teams to take out Saddam. It was pretty clear the guy was a danger, and Norman S. and Powell had to continually handle him. Read this old but funny take on it: http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/09/01/daily.html
Kerry had to have known about this, that Cheney was dangerously delusional about the force necessary, and that PNAC and those guys were out to lunch on what real war was about. How could he have trusted that they wouldn't make a hash of this situation?

I'm really trying here - I want to believe!

[library_max]

8. "My Candidate Sucks So Bad That I Have To Attack Yours"

All hail CoffeePlease1947! He has come up with the perfect formula for dispelling all these negative campaign threads! All you Dean-bashers, Kerry-bashers, any-Democrat-bashers, please repeat after me: “MY CANDIDATE SUCKS SO BAD THAT I HAVE TO ATTACK YOURS.”

If I were a Bush supporter, I would be ROFLMAO to see all these Democrats ripping each other to pieces. My candidate in the general election is Anybody But Bush. As for the primaries, I haven’t decided yet. Amazing, ain’t it? Considering that the primaries are only six months away.

Come on, ladies and gentlemen! Unity, please! Eyes on the prize! BUCK FUSH!

[Ediacara]

10. I wish Kerry...

would just say, "Bush lied to Congress to get us to aprove the war. The administration used both incorrect and forged inteligence documents, as well as false promises of a wide international coalition."