PoliSci prof compares Kerry's war stance to pro-war Humphrey in '68

[RichM]

Professor of Politics Stephen Zunes of USF analyzes the many ways in which Kerry has quietly accepted most of the premises underlying Bush's war in Iraq. He then concludes,

"..For there are millions of voters who would have been willing to actively campaign and vote for Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark or any other Democrat who opposed the invasion, but who have too much respect for the U.S. Constitution and the UN Charter to support someone like John Kerry. Should Senator Kerry get the nomination, these voters will raise the legitimate question as to why Americans should bother to defeat President Bush in November if he will simply be replaced by someone who essentially supports the same reckless foreign policy agenda.

The outcome of nominating the pro-war Senator Kerry, then, could be the same as when the Democrats chose the pro-war vice-president, Hubert Humphrey, as their presidential nominee back in 1968: by alienating the party’s anti-war majority, it could make possible a Republican victory in November. "

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0301-01.htm

OnEdit - Ironically, this article quotes Will Pitt, in a passage used to make a point against Kerry!

[aquart]

1. Say this to Zunes/Nader: if nothing else, judges.

[DrFunkenstein]

2. Zunes Has Already Been Doing Hit Pieces On Kerry

Taking a page out of the Sean Hannity playbook by selectively using ellipses (...) to change Kerry's positions. Not much respect left for this guy. It's a shame Common Dreams lets him hang around.

[RichM]

4. Oh sure. CommonDreams & USF can't judge integrity, but you can,

right?

Is any scholarly documented criticism of Kerry automatically a "hit piece?" :eyes:

[DrFunkenstein]

6. Why Do You Ignore What I Wrote

I said that Zunes used...to change Kerry's speech on Iraq in a previous article.

[DrFunkenstein]

5. Here's What I Found In Two Seconds

"(Kerry) then promised that if President Bush failed to do so, “I will be the first to speak out.”

However, Senator Kerry broke that promise. When President Bush abandoned his efforts to gain United Nations Security Council authorization for the war in late February 2003 and pressed forward with plans for the invasion without a credible international coalition, Kerry remained silent.

When President Bush actually launched the invasion soon afterwards, Senator Kerry praised him, co-sponsoring a Senate resolution in which he declared that the invasion was “lawful and fully authorized by the Congress” and that he “commends and supports the efforts and leadership of the President . . . in the conflict with Iraq.” "

---

Unfortunately the link to the Primary Monitor is dead, but if anyone knows where Kerry's statements on the eve of war can be found, it is clear that Zunes only cherrypicks quotes out of context.

I hate when my links go dead!!!

[CWebster]

31. Still on Kerry's payroll, Funkenstein?

I automatically skip over all the usual campaign operatives posts. You know the ones with the banners and fan pin-ups and the evangelizing speeches.

[HFishbine]

33. Here you go. Kerry's statement

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN KERRY


RE: COMMENCEMENT OF MILITARY STRIKES IN IRAQ

Thursday, March 20, 2003

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in response to the commencement of military strikes in Iraq:

“It appears that with the deadline for exile come and gone, Saddam Hussein has chosen to make military force the ultimate weapons inspections enforcement mechanism. If so, the only exit strategy is victory, this is our common mission and the world’s cause. We're in this together. We want to complete the mission while safeguarding our troops, avoiding innocent civilian casualties, disarming Saddam Hussein and engaging the community of nations to rebuild Iraq.”

http://kerry.senate.gov/high/record.cfm?id=191582

[HFishbine]

35. And then, there's this:

February 5, 2003

Washington, DC – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) issued today the following statement regarding Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation of evidence to the United Nations:

"I am gratified the Administration finally came to the United Nations and made its case to the world. I've said that the hard diplomatic work and the work of educating America and the world were too long in coming. The road could have been easier had we chosen a mutilateral strategy from the beginning, but nonetheless I am glad we've reached this moment in our diplomacy.

In his speech to the U.N.today, Secretary Powell made a compelling case, providing strong evidence, including human intelligence, satellite photography, and electronic intercepts that will only serve to strengthen our hand should military action be required to force Saddam Hussein to disarm. As I’ve said previously, convincing evidence of Saddam Hussein’s
possession of weapons of mass destruction should trigger, I believe, a final ultimatum from the United Nations for full, complete, immediate disarmament of those weapons by Iraq. Over the next hours, I will work with my colleagues in the Senate to fully examine the evidence offered by the Secretary for a complete and closer reading but, on it’s face, the evidence against Saddam Hussein appears real and compelling.

With such strong evidence in front of them, it is now incumbent on the U.N. to respect its own mandates, and stand up for our common goal of either bringing about Iraq’s peaceful disarmament or moving forward with the decisive military victory of a multilateral coalition. If Saddam Hussein does not disarm he will have chosen to make regime change the ultimate weapons enforcement mechanism. It is also incumbent on the Bush Administration to maximize international support so as many countries as possible share in the burden and costs of actions to come, and that the Administration makes clear its plans to deal with the aftermath of a post-Saddam Iraq and for continued efforts in the war against terrorism."

http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/cands/demrxns020503.html

[lcordero]

3. NO means NO

NO still means NO when the only thing that is different about the same GARBAGE policy is that there is a different face trying to peddle it.

NO means NO.

[Bombtrack]

7. HHH was rock-solid pro escalation of Vietnam, Kerry was never for this war

I'm not a Kerry supporter, but I'm tired about the misinformation about the congressional resolution and the stances of many democrats who voted for it. Kerry, and Dean, and Clark have each stated that they supported a process whereby the US exausted the diplomacy of the US to organize and international pressure to get Saddam to comply with UN res. 1441. Kerry never indicated any agreement with the Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld rushed/go it alone determination of regime change.

Humphry is not an apt comparison

[RichM]

9. As the article points out, this difference - limited to the degree of

international support & the exhausting of diplomatic efforts - still failed to challenge using the phony "WMD" excuse as pretext for the war. Kerry still pretends the war was to "disarm" Saddam Hussein. There is no challenge to the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war... and so on. Many of Bush's premises are tacitly accepted.

No one claims that the analogy to Humphrey, or to Vietnam, is exact. The main point is that in 1968, despite the efforts of the 2 major candidates to pretend that their policies would differ substantially, it turned out that Nixon & LBJ had very much the same policy. The lack of real difference may have caused a defection from the Democratic side. Certainly something to think about, in the present situation.

[zulchzulu]

8. USF must be lowering their standards for PoliSci professors

As soon as I read "...be replaced by someone who essentially supports the same reckless foreign policy agenda.", I knew the guy still probably has a Dean sticker on his rusty Volvo station wagon.

I wonder if this guy knows what the Biden-Lugar amendment is... probably not.

[jpgray]

10. As others do, this guy holds Kerry to a higher standard than the rest

This way he can write an article for why Kerry is bad and the rest are good. Anyone who says Howard Dean's or Wesley Clark's war stance is substantially superior to Kerry's is holding a torch for somebody. Commondreams has really been posting some crap lately. :(

[ozone_man]

11. So many good points, I don't know where to start.

I think this guy sums up why I could never vote for Kerry.

Should Senator Kerry win his party’s nomination, then, it will show that the Democrats – just like the Republicans – have no problems with rewarding a politician who lied about a foreign country’s military capabilities in order to justify invading it.

<snip>

In fact, on August 28, the Bush Administration stated that they would seek the ouster of the Iraqi government regardless of whether Iraq allowed weapons inspectors back in. On September 18, the administration formally rejected Iraq’s offer to allow the United Nations unfettered access to the country and instead called for “regime change.” On September 20, Bush publicly presented his new strategic doctrine of pre-emptive invasions of foreign countries.

In other words, Kerry knew that his vote to authorize U.S. military force was an endorsement of the Bush Doctrine that had nothing to do with whether or not Iraq allowed the United Nations to enforce its requirements for disarmament.

[paulk]

12. it's really surprising to find tripe like this at CommonDreams

it reads like something from Counterpunch - an unadulterated RW hit piece masquerading as leftist.

ok - so that's attacking the messenger, but I can't take this article seriously at all. Mr. Zunes bias is on his sleeve.

[RichM]

13. Oh ho ho! Another "expert" who's a better judge of progressives than

CommonDreams!!

Somehow, I think they know the subject better than you do -- and they've been publishing Zunes for years. As has The Nation, Z Magazine, et al. Chairman of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco... A pretty long & distinguished resume. He hardly needs to "masquerade" as left -- his progressive credentials speak for themselves.

[jpgray]

18. This article shows some bias

Kerry does not represent a massive shift from Dean, or Clark. He represents a massive shift from Kucinich or Sharpton. Since this writer doesn't make that distinction, he shows an anti-Kerry bias, holding the candidate to a standard he does not hold Dean or Clark to.

edit: Toned it down some--misread who RichM was replying to.

[RichM]

19. I hate to embarrass you, jp, after your big speech, but my post was not

addressed to you at all. It was a logical response to paulk in post #12. Now you've gone & gotten all huffy about me not responding to your points -- because, in fact, I was NOT responding to them.

Therefore, your first 2 paragraphs become irrelevant. I'll respond only to the third - by agreeing with you. Only Kucinich & Sharpton are different from the Dean-Clark-Kerry group. I did indeed notice that you'd raised that point above, & quietly agreed with it.

In fact, I wondered myself why Zunes had done this. I have met him, read quite a lot of his stuff, & know a fair amount about him. The last time I saw him was autumn of 2002. I don't know who he is backing for the nomination (primary season wasn't underway at that time), but I'd be 99.5% sure it's Kucinich. I just don't know what possessed him to include Dean & Clark in there -- it seems distinctly out of character to me. (He certainly is no admirer of Dean, having ripped him pretty well re Israel policy in this piece: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0226-04.htm )

[jpgray]

21. Yep, scanned the replies incorrectly--sorry

I usually don't make a point of stalking people if they don't respond to me. He is technically correct for the most part, but the implications make things seem to be what they aren't. For the argument he is making, it is useful to show Kerry as someone we'd be substantially worse off with than Dean or Clark concerning the IWR position. Dean for example *is* superior to Kerry on Iraq based on his statements--I just don't agree with the hyperbole:

"..For there are millions of voters who would have been willing to actively campaign and vote for Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark or any other Democrat who opposed the invasion, but who have too much respect for the U.S. Constitution and the UN Charter to support someone like John Kerry."

It aids Zunes in his argument, but it glosses over some of the key differences between Dean, Clark and Kucinich concerning Iraq in order to really nail Kerry.

So sorry about that, disregard the invectives--I thought you had dismissed my post without acknowledging the points I'd raised.

[RichM]

25. No problem-o.

When I first saw your post #10, I thought you'd raised a valid objection. My own eyebrows had been raised by the Dean-Clark reference in the article. My best guess was that maybe Zunes had included that to try to widen the appeal of his argument, which is mainly expressing distress that the Democrats are settling for a pro-war candidate.

But I, too, thought this Dean-Clark reference was a weakness, no matter why the author made it. I also thought it seemed out of character for Zunes. // He speaks often at conferences I go to, in the Bay Area. If I run into him again, I'll ask him about it.

[paulk]

23. I don't need to be an "expert"

to recognize propaganda. The title alone - "Kerry’s Support for the Invasion of Iraq and the Bush Doctrine Still Unexplained" is a dead giveaway. Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention knows that Kerry doesn't support Bush's preemptive strike doctrine. What nonsense.

Mr. Zune's argument is a compendium of distortions and outright lies. He may be a professor, but that doesn't excuse an article based on a worldview as polarized as any neocon's.

[Eloriel]

27. Here's a shocker for ya

AFAIC, Kerry's support for the war is STILL unexplained. He's been all over the board -- so much so that I no longer bother to pay attention. He's a sell-out. A wimp. A chameleon. A panderer.

You can call it propaganda if you wish, that doesn't make it so. NOR does it do anything to convince people who feel the same way otherwise.

[paulk]

28. Taking statements out of context for the purpose of distortion

when propagating a particular doctrine is propaganda.

Kerry's statement re:IWR

"If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize 'imminent'--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs . . .

Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this. I will support a multilateral effort to disarm him by force, if we ever exhaust those other options, as the President has promised, but I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible under any circumstances.

In voting to grant the President the authority, I am not giving him carte blanche to run roughshod over every country that poses or may pose some kind of potential threat to the United States. Every nation has the right to act preemptively, if it faces an imminent and grave threat, for its self-defense under the standards of law. The threat we face today with Iraq does not meet that test yet. I emphasize 'yet.' Yes, it is grave because of the deadliness of Saddam Hussein's arsenal and the very high probability that he might use these weapons one day if not disarmed. But it is not imminent, and no one in the CIA, no intelligence briefing we have had suggests it is imminent. None of our intelligence reports suggest that he is about to launch an attack.

The argument for going to war against Iraq is rooted in enforcement of the international community's demand that he disarm. It is not rooted in the doctrine of preemption. Nor is the grant of authority in this resolution an acknowledgment that Congress accepts or agrees with the President's new strategic doctrine of preemption. Just the opposite. This resolution clearly limits the authority given to the President to use force in Iraq, and Iraq only, and for the specific purpose of defending the United States against the threat posed by Iraq and enforcing relevant Security Council resolutions."

--------

I have highlighted the phrase Prof. Zune extracted to back up his argument that Kerry supports Bush's doctrine of preemption. Kerry's statement clearly rejects this notion.

An objective reader could easily find in the above statement several other instances that contradict Mr. Zune's contentions vis a vis Senator Kerry's position on Iraq.

--------

It saddens me to see the anger that burned so hot against Bush and the Republicans here at DU somehow transfer itself to Kerry and the Democratic party. You call Kerry a sell-out, a wimp, a chameleon, a panderer. These things are debatable, but it seems to me the only crime Kerry is guilty of is that of being a politician. Not a particularly honorable trade perhaps, but Kerry is not the ogre that demagogues like Prof. Zume make him out to be.

[John_H]

24. What? Common Dreams publishing a guy who's still bitter that

Eugene McCarthy didn't win? Shocking!

Zune's laughably obvious distortions of Kerry's position may work on the true believers over at Z magazine et. al and (probably not all of) the kids at USF, but a fifteen minute read of Senate proceedings shows that Kerry's position wasn't a tenth as guiless as Zunes wants us to believe.

[nomaco-10]

14. This will turn into another Kerry IWR vote thread......

and I will not participate, it's futile. The ABB crowd are determined to have their "electable" ham sandwich and that will be accomplished tomorrow.
I will always remember this time last year when I sat feeling very much alone and helplessly by while bush* took us into the sham war for oil with the signatures of those like Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman and Gephardt. I remembered seeing the polls on the news every night reporting approval for the blood letting that was to follow at over 70% and steady for months to come. I was definitely in the minority and angry words were occasionally passed between myself and my own family and friends, then I found du. I thought I finally found a place where my voice could be heard and I was proud and astonished at watching the passionate displays and pleas against this war that took place here daily. I felt like a patriot who had come home to the real ideals and values of this country not the ones being dictated by the neocons and the moral majority, it was great.

Now when I enter here, I don't even recognize the place. The one thing that had made us a force to be reckoned with was our unity against the duplicitous, indecent war waged by bush* and sanctioned by every vote that was cast to support it. What's even more astonishing is the very same posters that railed against the war with so much passion last year are now chanting words like electability and ABB the loudest. In fact, this board has been so busy playing my candidate's better than your candidate, that the war rarely ever even gets mentioned anymore. It's been hard to watch.

[Iverson]

15. a really good point

"Now when I enter here, I don't even recognize the place. The one thing that had made us a force to be reckoned with was our unity against the duplicitous, indecent war waged by bush* and sanctioned by every vote that was cast to support it. What's even more astonishing is the very same posters that railed against the war with so much passion last year are now chanting words like electability and ABB the loudest. In fact, this board has been so busy playing my candidate's better than your candidate, that the war rarely ever even gets mentioned anymore. It's been hard to watch."

Watch for the next big shift when the coronation ends and the purges begin.

[RichM]

17. I totally agree. I feel exactly the same way.

Which is why I find it so disgusting that Democrats are going to annoint a sellout like Kerry tomorrow, and that his supporters are so busy shouting down those who vividly remember last year's feelings of agony & helplessness.

The fact that they echo Kerry's contorted pathetic rationalization for his disgraceful cowardly vote -- I'm never, ever going to forget this.

[jpgray]

22. People should use the 'search' function to see all sides of that argument

The tit-for-tat is strictly a GD2004 thing. I think the primaries finally ending will be nice, so the only general waste of energy will be Nader-bashing threads and the vanity threads of anti and pro ABB folks. :D

[CWebster]

32. It's called compartmentalization. nt

[eileen_d]

16. That's what PoliSci professors do.

So who's Eugene McCarthy? Who's George Wallace?

[Iverson]

29. Ouch.

I hope you're just goofing around there.

[Duder]

20. Yup, deja vu

I agree with the professor because this year reminds me of 68 when the McCarthyites stayed home. The 'nuances' of positions aren't as important as are the real perceptions, simply put "for" or "against" the war.

[gottaB]

26. Arm yourself with half-truths?--I don't think so

Current Whitehouse Policy Regarding The Doctrine of Pre-Emption:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021001-6.html



Kerry's views:

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2003_0123.html

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/100days/fp_facts.html



Some more links

http://www.cfr.org/campaign2004

http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=598&issue_id=34

http://64.177.207.201/pages/8_391.html

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_marapr_2003/democrats.html


****

The phrase "imminent threat" is one to look for.

[CWebster]

30. Thanks for the reminder

of why I get physically repulsed everytime I look at Kerry. It all translates into revulsion of even his physical mannerisms.

One of the reasons Bush and his cronies were allowed such license is because of Kerry's silence or complicity. Kerry engaged in dirty tricks, insider connections and media allegiance to destroy viable competition since he couldn't legitimately claim the mantle of electibility any other way. His one rallying cry is ABB when he was one of the politicians who enabled Bush and his crew of thugs.

Why would anyone who knows better want to support him?

[Atlant]

34. A very poignant question!

"..For there are millions of voters who would have been willing to actively campaign and vote for Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark or any other Democrat who opposed the invasion, but who have too much respect for the U.S. Constitution and the UN Charter to support someone like John Kerry. Should Senator Kerry get the nomination, these voters will raise the legitimate question as to why Americans should bother to defeat President Bush in November if he will simply be replaced by someone who essentially supports the same reckless foreign policy agenda.

A very poignant question!

And a major part of the reasoon why Kerry is inelligable to receive my
vote. Plus the fact that he routinely dissembles about his vote.

Atlant