Guardian: Playing the war card and Kerry attacks Bush foreign policy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1226948,00.html

Kerry attacks Bush foreign policy

Staff and agencies
Friday May 28, 2004

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry last night accused the Bush administration of undermining the safety of the American people with its foreign policy.

He characterised Bush's approach as excessively belligerent, saying the administration's national security team had "looked to force before exhausting diplomacy".

He said: "They've made America less safe than we should be in a dangerous world ... In short they have undermined the legacy of generations of American leadership."<snip>

He criticised the government for a dogmatic approach to foreign policy, claiming that the administration disregarded the advice of professional military officers and ended the careers of those who gave honest assessments at odds with the White House view. <snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1227011,00.html

Playing the war card

John Kerry's campaign has gained new momentum with his attack on the Bush administration's foreign policy, writes Philip James

Friday May 28, 2004

It's taken a while, but John Kerry is showing signs of a spine in his battle to beat George Bush. After weeks of avoiding opportunities to take him to task on his failed adventure into Iraq, Kerry's speech on Thursday - flagged as a keynote foreign policy address - finally laid out the case against Bush.

Coming days before the 60th anniversary of D-Day, Kerry yearned for an America that Americans could be proud of again, an America that inspired nations, instead of bullying them. "America led instead of going it alone," Kerry said. "We extended a hand, not a fist. We respected the world - and the world respected us."

He rightly characterised the Bush administration as an extreme aberration, putting forward a rational alternative to the Dr Strangelove presidency, a return to sanity in the White House: "As president, I will listen to and respect the views of our experienced military leaders - and never let ideology trump the truth."

And crucially he tied Bush's continued failure to bring peace to Iraq to America's sense of safety at home: "Our troops will be in greater peril, the mission in Iraq will be harder to accomplish, and our country will be less secure. <snip>"

Kerry has recognised a paradigm shift in the way Americans view US Iraq policy in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, a shift that has put the war back in play as a campaign issue.



"It's time to let America be America again."

Heh heh!

What a pack of idiots who call themselves journalists. Kerry is NOT a Rottweiler groomed to attack. He is an intellectual AND a strategic warrior. He knows exactly how to win, and following the wishes of some columnist who dumbly presumes that spines are only present when bombs are being thrown is a oneway ticket to Loserville.

http://www.counterpunch.org/goff07032003.html
A Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops
"Bring 'Em On?"

By STAN GOFF

In 1970, when I arrived at my unit, Company A, 4th Battalion/503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, in what was then the Republic of Vietnam, I was charged up for a fight. I believed that if we didn't stop the communists in Vietnam, we'd eventually be fighting this global conspiracy in the streets of Hot Springs, Arkansas. I'd been toughened by Basic Training, Infantry Training and Parachute Training, taught how to use my weapons and equipment, and I was confident in my ability to vanquish the skinny unter-menschen. So I was dismayed when one of my new colleagues--a veteran who'd been there ten months--told me, "We are losing this war."

Not only that, he said, if I wanted to survive for my one year there, I had to understand one very basic thing. All Vietnamese were the enemy, and for us, the grunts on the ground, this was a race war. Within one month, it was apparent that everything he told me was true, and that every reason that was being given to the American public for the war was not true.

We had a battalion commander whom I never saw. He would fly over in a Loach helicopter and give cavalier instructions to do things like "take your unit 13 kilometers to the north." In the Central Highlands, 13 kilometers is something we had to hack out with machetes, in 98-degree heat, carrying sometimes 90 pounds over our body weights, over steep, slippery terrain. The battalion commander never picked up a machete as far as we knew, and after these directives he'd fly back to an air-conditioned headquarters in LZ English near Bong-son. We often fantasized together about shooting his helicopter down as a way of relieving our deep resentment against this faceless, starched and spit-shined despot.

Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the 'non-existent' Iraqi guerrillas to "bring 'em on," the first image in my mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile marriage, who'd been away from home for 8 months. He participated in the initial invasion, and was told he'd be home for the 4th of July. He has a newfound familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he knew last year is now under revision. He is sent out into the streets of Fallujah (or some other city), where he has already been shot at once or twice with automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw. He is wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar helmet, a load carrying harness with ammunition, grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, and assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven pounds, ten with a double magazine. His boots are bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt is buttoned at the wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. He's been eating MRE's three times a day, when he has an appetite in this heat, and even his urine is beginning to smell like preservatives. Mosquitoes and sand flies plague him in the evenings, and he probably pulls a guard shift every night, never sleeping straight through. He and his comrades are beginning to get on each others' nerves. The rumors of 'going-home, not-going-home' are keeping him on an emotional roller coaster. Directives from on high are contradictory, confusing, and often stupid. The whole population seems hostile to him and he is developing a deep animosity for Iraq and all its people--as well as for official narratives.

This is the lad who will hear from someone that George W. Bush, dressed in a suit with a belly full of rich food, just hurled a manly taunt from a 72-degree studio at the 'non-existent' Iraqi resistance.
(snip)

These are some of the best chosen succinct words I've heard in Kerry's speeches:

"As president, I will listen to and respect the views of our experienced military leaders - and never let ideology trump the truth."

for his "hawkish" stance let's not forget the "missile gap" nonsense that helped Kennedy and vanished after election day. Bush is doing all the work of Kerry for him in this regard, destroying all options that would entice us into the quagmire for any possible good that might be done.

Of course, a lot more innocent people are dying in the bungled process, but that's Bush's way.

The big difference is that Bush is distracted with one big hand always trapped in the Iraq cookie jar trying to have it all. He can't achieve anything that way at all, but he certainly didn't sacrifice his popularity just to give Iraq back to its own people.

The problem is that Bush is such a lousy president it is hard to game his incompetent chaos or present alternatives when the ground suddenly shifts.

It is getting close to just throwing up one's hands and saying we'll straighten out whatever mess we're left with somehow. But Democrats of course are never allowed to have secret plans that say "trust me".

when we can rid the White House bullies.