I like David Corn a lot - When other people in his magazine try to inflame

[Mass]

He succeeds explaining the issue with calm and honesty.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050831/george_bushs_original_sin.php

Yet Democrats ought not to be too gleeful. About half of congressional Democrats granted Bush the authority to wage this monumental screw-up. The other half did say, "Whoa," and even leading Democrats who voted to allow Bush to launch the war on his own say-so—such as John Kerry and Hillary Clinton—were not advocates of the invasion. Still, the Democrats are faced with the same either/or that confronts Bush—and that he ignores. And their party is being split in a manner that could have historical (and electoral) consequences. Several Democrats—including Sens. Russell Feingold and Ted Kennedy—have argued for some sort of withdrawal. Others, such as Joe Biden, have raised the notion that more troops might be needed to win the so-called peace. A passionate—and potentially nasty—debate is brewing within Democratic circles, and this face-off may come to shape the 2008 presidential race for Democrats. Whether they like it or not—whether it's fair or not—Democrats will be asked, "Well, what would you do now in Iraq?" Most Democrats, it seem, would rather not answer the question. Which hardly makes them look like leaders.

[beachmom]

1. Kerry HAS answered this question

And that has gotten him the wrath of many lefty freepers on the internet. But it shows leadership. The question that we must all ask ourselves is, if Kerry were president, what would he have done? There are various answers for the details, but I have no doubt in my mind, that Kerry would NOT be pulling out the troops now. He would be encouraging the Iraqis to follow the timeline -- write the Constitution, referendum on the constitution, elections in December. To the anti-war crowd, this would be "just like Bush". But what a Kerry administration would have done differently would be to put new minds at work as to how to defeat the insurgency and plant the seeds of democracy in Iraq. Don't underestimate "new minds". The problem is that we have people in the Bush Admin. who never learned the lessons of Vietnam. I think that while Kerry was in Vietnam, he truly wanted to "win the war". He just felt ambiguous about the policies at the top of the LBJ/Nixon administrations as well as the top military brass. But as president now, he would have let new ideas (and old ideas that worked) flourish. He wouldn't have been afraid to try new strategies, instead of mindlessly saying "stay the course" with no changes. His own experience in Vietnam would have been VITAL. Having that perspective allows you to grasp how a top down policy affects the troops on the ground. And, by the way, there are plenty of excellent battalion level officers (of Kerry's caliber, I would say), who would be able to execute these policies with total competence. And, of course, there's the fact that "he's not Bush", allowing an opening for the rest of the world and the U.N. to get together and put together a plan of how to solve this horrible problem. Regardless of who was president, it is obvious that this war will take probably 20 years or more to end completely, with or without American troops.

There's no doubt in my mind that Kerry was opposed to the invasion of Iraq in these terms -- the timing, the diplomacy (or lack thereof) that led to the isolation of America in Iraq, too few troops going in, poor post-war planning. To say that he would ALWAYS oppose a war in Iraq is not correct. He is not against all wars, just ill-conceived ones. And he knew that Saddam Hussein was a big problem.

Although I have total sympathy for the anti-war crowd, as well as Cindy Sheehan, I think they are naive in thinking we can just "pull out the troops now", put a blanket over our head, and we'll all be at peace. And the conspiracy theories, even if around the peripheries are true, bore me to death. I just don't care about the oil/Halliburton/revenge for Bush's Dad memes all over the liberal blogs. Whatever. We're there now, and it will be very difficult to get out. Yes, we need to come to terms with the past, and all the lies the Bush Admin. told us, but NONE of that changes the present mess we're in. And pulling out the troops will neither stop the killing in Iraq nor prevent the terrorists from attacking Europe and America. No matter what, the Islamist ideology is here to stay, until it can be fully discredited in the Muslim communities throughout the world. Having Bush as president only gives more credence to this hateful ideology.

Kerry for president '08!

[ginnyinWI]

2. The difference is the reason you go to war.

Kerry said you go to war because you have to--and we have to trust that he would have to have a very good reason to put troops in harm's way.
The real crime of this war is that, apparently, they went to war to help the military-industrial complex make a lot of profits, grab control of the Middle-East and its resources, and in general show the world that the U.S. is not to be "pushed around" by terrorists. Then they listened to the most inept of their advisors who assured them, despite military protests, that this would be a repeat of the Gulf War and could be done on the cheap with as few as 40K troops! And none of these characters have yet had to be accountable for that.

I support Cindy Sheehan in her call to end the war, because I don't think there is any way that anybody will actually bring all the troops home immediately in response--no danger of that--but it keeps open a dialog, and puts pressure on this administration, especially the Repubs in Congress, to do something to alter the administration's course. They're the ones who are going to have stand up, call for and end, take away funding like they did over the Vietnam war. Cause the WH sure doesn't want to end it. Their friends are making too much money, they don't have to stand for re-election any more, and they still think they can fix any problem by spinning their way out of it.

Since we are there now, the only thing left to decide at this point is whether we will be doing more harm by staying or by leaving. I don't think there is much hope of finding any middle ground, such as staying but running the war better. Not with this bunch of incompetents.

[karynnj]

3. Your comments are so interesting on this

Kerry would really be doing something far different from what Bush has done. From your comments, I think the military would have been pleasantly surprised at his willingness to listen, pushing back if he diagreed, but not completely disregarding as Bush did. In terms of how different he would be on diplomacy, the information he brought back from his ME trip that he gave to the Bush administration showing that both ME and European countries were prepared to do more hints at what he would have done as President.

I think some of the confusion of the difference between what Bush and Kerry would do, is that the Bush administration uses the same words, but fakes the action - while Kerry would really do it. (Examples - Bush has talked for probably 2 years about training soldiers and police - the number trained does not reflect a concerted effort. Diplomacy means interacting with other countries, not telling them what to do. Putting Bolton in the UN says we don't want to engage in diplomacy.)

[TayTay]

4. What are the withdrawal people asking for?

Feingold is asking for a plan that makes a withdrawal of most of the American troops by Dec 2006. This is a laudable goal. But unless significant planning is put into a better plan in Iraq, we can't do it. And Bush and company doesn't do planning, they seem to be incapable of it. (We don't want a repeat of the disasterous withdrawal of the US from VN and Saigon in '75. That was abandonment and caused a great deal of suffering.)

What did Kerry learn in VN? He learned that an insurgency is damned difficult to stop. He learned that an insurgency can mean that it is nearly impossible to tell friend from foe in wartime. He learned that unless the native population wants to defend itself from an insurgency, then you have little hope of stopping it. The South Vietnamese were notoriously difficult to train and keep in organized military units. (Read Tour of Duty, it's in there.) How do you fix the country when the native population doesn't show up for their own defense. (and in Iraq's case, they don't show up become they or their family might be targeted for death.)

I always saw Kerry's Iraq plan as a means of slowly withdrawing by placing US troops more and more to the margins of the country and slowly leaving the cities to defend themselves with native populations. (Cuz if the native people won't defend, we are so screwed.) US Troops can train Iraqis, patrol the borders and do air patrols and so forth. But the native population has to defend itself or rewrite it's own laws so that some other workable model emerges. Otherwise, the US will never leave, never resolve or fix anything, never be able to move on and negotiate with the next State that will replace the US imposed regime and so forth.

There is also very little that can be done to stop a civil war. This is very sad, but true. The factions want it, have armed for it and assembled their own outside help (Kurdish Turks help Kurds, Sunni's help Sunnis. Iran helps Shi'ites and so forth.) Everyone is armed to the teeth and the religious angle provides the fire to get it going. Sen. Kerry in VN knew that this was the case. He saw this up close and personal.