So here's what Kerry had to say about Hussein's capture

Bush's rivals mostly pleased by news of Saddam's arrest
Sunday, December 14, 2003

12-14) 07:44 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/12/14/politics1044EST0508.DTL

Democratic presidential candidates welcomed news Sunday of Saddam Hussein's capture, saying the arrest of Iraq's former dictator marked a great day for U.S. soldiers, the people of Iraq and of the world.

"I supported this effort in Iraq without regard for the political consequences because it was the right thing to do," Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt said in a statement from Sumter, S.C., where he was campaigning. "I still feel that way now, and today is a major step toward stabilizing Iraq and building a new democracy."

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who supported the Iraq war but has become increasingly critical of its aftermath, also looked to the future.

"Capturing Saddam Hussein and ensuring that this brutal dictator will never return to power is an important step toward stabilizing Iraq for the Iraqis," Kerry said in a statement from Iowa.

He also urged the Bush administration to involve more U.S. allies in the rebuilding of Iraq and criticized a Pentagon memo that prohibited companies from countries that did not provide troops for the war from bidding on lucrative reconstruction contracts there.

"We need to share the burden, bring in other countries and make it clear to the world that Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people," Kerry said.

...more...

Need you any more evidence that John Kerry is a Bush enabler? Way to fight the power, John.

and has been dancing for months trying to make some post-hoc sense of it

What would yo have him say? That it doesn't matter at all and that we should ignore Iraq until we win and Dems can fix it? How many soldiers will die between now and then. Kerry is a Senator and is in a position to have an effect on how things happen NOW. Why wait. Your spin on this is incredible and has earned you a place in my lovely IGNORE LIST. Not that you weren't on your way already.:mad:

Thanks, I'll wait on your answer.

I've never used that feature, and never will.

EVERYONE has something valuable to say, even if I don't agree with it.

If I only read/listen/watch just those items that I agree with, I lose so much. I've only cheated myself.

Don't mean to rant - but we must think of the bigger picture. And I would like to apologise ahead of time if you are somehow offended by my statements - they are meant in the light of friendship and family.

If my blood begins to boil - I just give myself a "time out".

Today, for example - I plan to watch a lot of TCM and Discovery, etc., play with my doggies, and to tune out the enveloping orgasmic f--k fest for our "great fuhrer".

I tried not to use it at first and i only have about 3 people on it. I found that there were some people who are here only to damage reputations and to spew hate. I can't allow people to ruin my day like that. I have to leave here and be able to have fun with my kids rather than stew all day over some people's opinions. I lOVE opposing opinions, but some people go beyond that.

straight. Unfounded and weak arguments against issues and public persons should not go unchallenged.

Just my 2 cents. :-)

Gep's on other hand.... Well, I wouldn't go there ;-)

"I supported this effort in Iraq without regard for the political consequences because it was the right thing to do. I still feel that way now and today is a major step toward stabilizing Iraq and building a new democracy." — Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo.

Gephardt 04!!!

ROTFL

And then what did he dream?

He just gets slimier and slimier. I suppose that Rose Garden photo op with Fearful Leader wasn't political, either.

Amazing. The hypocrisy is just amazing.

And what, pray tell, has he done about Joyce Aboussie?

It's amazing how much fire gets trained on Kerry...but it was Gephart who short-circuted the Iraq war debate in the House by sprinting out to say "We will pass this no matter what." That killed Biden/Lugar and led to a sense of inevitability about the vote in the Senate. Gep seems to avoid getting clobbered here, though.

just doesn't make a whole lot of sense- considering what Gephardt has done.

I've never understood it.

Kerry's statement is/was great :-)

You remember, curse10, how things were a yar and a half ago: Supporters of other candidates (and many who no longer post under their old handles or have since been banned) made like Kerry was the aloof bonesman to poison the well. Then, after Big Al dropped out, all the stops were out and Kerry became a war monger. Things intensified after Ho-Ho said Bush-Lite, even thogh Coward Dean has more in common with Bush than Kerry, a Liberal Democrat in the fighting Democratic tradition of belief in applying government to solve problems for ALL Americans. And that's what many people fear — someone unafraid to change the status quo and redistribute wealth from the rich to the middle class and the poor, someone like John Kerry.

The others aren't or haven't been so far. That's why the vote is thrown at him every single time. Even though he led the way in criticizing Bush in July 2002, when Howard was saying we shouldn't criticize the President in a time of war.

It is with the labor unions in Iowa, SC, NH etc. I like Gep. Then again, I like Lieberman. Both of them have principles they're willing to stand by. If we had that in Daschle, there'd be a lot less to worry about.

someone said that Kerry had apologized for his IWR vote, and that it was reported in your article.

Is that accurate?

They also said that in an interview with Tom Brokaw that unprompted, he volunteered the fact that he had voted for the IWR.

To trust him to handle the whole thing correctly. He continued that today in his statement. Bush was not diplomatic, did not build the coalition correctly, etc. Consistent.

He's also always said he voted to hold Saddam accountable, to get him to disarm. The threat of force with war as a last resort. With proper diplomacy, etc.

He hasn't changed one iota since July 2002. Except to say that it was a mistake to trust Bush that war would be a last resort.

unpromted.

That was one person's misinterpretation to attack Kerry, because he's the threat. Kerry has always said he voted to hold Saddam accountable, always. He's always said Bush failed in the diplomacy and said it in his statement and on every program today. In his interview, he said it was a mistake to trust Bush to do that. There is nothing inconsistent in anything he's said.

fucking riight to hold Saddam "accountable," esp when the UN was saying HELL NO??!!??

That is a Bush admin argument for the war. THAT'S wht Kerry and others get labeled REpug-Lite. And then people come here to DU to cheerfully and proudly help propagate that stinking meme amongst DUers.

Jesus H Christ, people, get a fucking clue! Support Kerry if you must, but Lord Have Mercy, have enough sense to utterly reject his pitiful rhetorical suck-ups that can ONLY help Bush in the end, no matter who gets nominated -- most especially your candidate ('cause why vote for Bush-Lite when you can have the real thing?).

to be honest i don't understand how we expect anything from any of these politicians who have PROVEN, by a long history of abuses and missdeeds, that they have little regard for actually changing ANYTHING of real importance to the people they aledgedly serve.

if agreeing with the PNAC agenda is the only way to win ellections anymore then we are ALL doomed.



peace

There were bigger expectations of Kerry, given his record, I think.
That will sound weird, but I think Kerry gets more flame targeted at him exactly because people like him/respect him more, and are accordingly more disappointed when he does things they believe are wrong. I think this was certainly the case for me --- I mean, why would I be disappointed in Gep, when I never really even considered supporting him?

Kerry would have been my first choice in 2000 if he had challenged Gore.

Some of his decisions since 2000 infuriated me, however.

I would have been for Kucinich, if Dean had not appeared. But I would not have believed that he could win.


It isn't enought to be a good person, and vote your conscience.
You have to know how to win elections.

He started going after Bush in July 2002 on his war rhetoric. He played a huge role in getting Bush to back off that rhetoric and go to the UN and agree to a proper process with inspectors etc. After having accomplished that, isn't it the right thing to give the vote and clarify that it was ONLY to pressure Saddam to get the inspectors in with war as a LAST RESORT. If you put the whole thing in proper perspective and understand Kerry has been heavily involved in exposing the way terrorists and rogue nations operate for YEARS, then his vote makes absolute sense.

Why drag up a has been?

I know that's harsh, but he's over. Even if he were to win Iowa (which I doubt), realistically he ain't goin' anywhere.

Sen. Kerry helped expose the criminality of the BFEE by uncovering the BCCI and BNL affairs in the 1980s. The Reagan-BUSH White House armed Iraq during its war with Iran (whom the US Government also helped arm) and made billions in profits in the meantime. How? Through US taxpayer-guaranteed "loans" laundered through the global institutions Bank of Credit and Commerce International and Banco Nazionale del Lavoro, used by arms merchants, international terrorists, money launderers, the KGB, CIA, Abu Nidhal and Ollie North.

DUers: Spread the word of the BFEE complicity in arming Saddam. And his enemies.

The fallout fromt this capture is not yet clear for all parties, here and in Iraq.

... to get through their corporate masters' heads. Doing it now will help a LOT in November.

Behind the Bushes

THE NEW GENERATION

ROBERT MUELLER

The BNL investigation



GULF WEB: The focus of Gonzalez's investigation was a massive $5.5 billion bank fraud that the Justice Department pinned on Christopher Drogoul, the lowly Atlanta branch manager of Italy's state-owned Banca Nazionale del Lavom. Benefiting from U.S. government export credit guarantees, the Atlantic bank lent the money to companies all over world that were supplying Saddam Hussein with weapons manufacturing gear and other goods. In his defense, Drogoul - backed by Gonzalez - claimed he was merely the instrument of a secret U.S. policy to aid Saddam Hussein. Rejecting that notion, the Justice Department indicted Drogoul on 347 counts of fraud and related charges in 1991. As the presidential campaign heated up, Gonzalez bombarded the White House, the State Department, and the intelligence agencies with subpoenas, obtaining reams of sensitive diplomatic cables and internal memos documenting the U.S. "tilt" toward Iraq. It was these documents (as well as Brent Scowcroft's secret trip to China only weeks after the Tianananmen massacre in June 1988) that prompted Bill Clinton to charge, during the final days of the campaign, that President Bush had been "coddling dictators."

Nearly four years and several grand juries later, however, the Clinton administration has swept its "Iraqgate" investigation under the rug. The Final Report, issued by attorney general Janet Reno on January 17, 1995, and written by Reno deputy John Hogan, amounts to little more than a whitewash of the entire affair. In every case it examined, the report concluded there had been no violation of law. And in a classified addendum, subsequently rendered public, the intelligence community and the executive branch were exonerated of having "illegally armed Iraq," despite extensive evidence of intelligence community involvement unearthed by the Gonzalez investigation and the U.S. Customs Service.

SAM SMITH, SHADOWS OF HOPE, 1994: appears willing to ignore the great residue of Reagan-Bush offenses, especially those growing out of the war on drugs and attempts to gag and intimidate government and defense workers. And he seems similarly disinterested in unclosed cases of political racketeering such as those involving BCCI and BNL. Said one activist lawyer who has met with Attorney General Reno: "She's closing her ears to all of that." Reno, who was clearly more interested in protecting law enforcement agencies than in finding the truth about the Waco massacre, also early bought the Bush administration line in the BNL bank case. She agreed to a plea bargain by Christopher P. Drogoul, the former Atlanta manager of the Italian bank who had claimed that US intelligence officials were aware of loans made to Iraq. Reno declared that she did not think the case had been mishandled by the Bush administration, despite a federal judge's charge that Drogoul and his Atlanta bank colleagues were "pawns and bit players" in a secret deal to provide arms for Iraq and that the Clinton administration's exoneration of its predecessors was only possible "in never-never land."

SNIP...

CHRISTOPHER DROGOUL STATEMENT TO HOUSE BANKING COMMITTEE: My efforts at cooperation with the US Attorney's office were frustrated by their continued unwillingness to allow me to tell them the truth. They would pose a question, and when I began to tell them an answer which was inconsistent with their theory of the case, they would either say we're not interested, or you're lying. My then attorney kept pulling me out of the room and warning me to just say what they want to hear, so you can get them to write a letter seeking a downward departure in my sentence. I finally accepted this premise and limited my responses to say yes, you're right.

CONTINUED...

http://prorev.com/bush4.htm#mueller

How could detractors of BushII and Reagan's complicity in Saddam's regime not vote to oust Saddam? Wouldn't that no vote be hypocritical? Especially for Kerry, who led the investigation into our nation's support of Saddam's regime. Was there a way for Kerry to oppose the war resolution and still be consistent in his opposition to Hussein?

... BNL is how the US armed Iraq. And Pakistan was Saddam's friend in a big way. And it wasn't just Poppy. Dim Son has paws dirtied by BCCI. Kissinger is still a player, with his associate Bremer the Viceroy. A good overview:

Recovered History: BCCI – BNL - Kissinger – Bush & Iraq

CHRIS FLOYD, COUNTERSPIN

The opening of a long-delayed civil suit in a . . . involves our old friends, BCCI, the international bank that served as the front for a global crime ring involving top officials and Establishment worthies in dozens of "civilized" nations. BCCI ran guns to Saddam and other heavies, funded Pakistan's illegal nuclear weapons program, laundered drug profits, peddled prostitutes, doled out bribes, served as a conduit for covert CIA operations--and, through its connections to the bin Laden family, gave George W. Bush a sweetheart loan of $25 million to bail out one of his many business failures.

One of the respectable organizations tainted by the ring was the Bank of England, which was the financial regulator for BCCI when the front finally collapsed in 1991--leaving its legitimate creditors some $11 billion in the hole. Not surprisingly, some of these victims filed suit against ye olde B of E, claiming that its oversight of BCCI left something to be desired. But successive British governments--including the plagiaristic poodle-led pack currently in power--have fought for years to quash the lawsuit, the Observer reports.

That's because the trial could open a can of particularly grubby worms concerning the UK government's extensive canoodling with BCCI. A host of worthies are expected to be grilled in the dock, including John Major, former UK prime minister and current business partner of George Bush I in yet another secretive international front that profits from war, weapons, violence, repression and the greasing of highly-placed palms: the Carlyle Group. . .

The Italian bank BNL was one of BCCI's main tentacles. BNL's Atlanta branch was the primary funnel used by the first Bush Administration to send millions of secret dollars to Saddam for arms purchases, including deadly chemicals and other WMD materials supplied by the Chilean arms dealer Cardoen and various politically-connected operators in the United States like, weapons merchant Matrix Churchill. (As always with the Busha Nostra, geopolitics--in this case, helping Saddam wage aggressive war against Iran--and crony profits go hand in hand. Once the war was over and Iran was left a shattered hulk, with millions dead and displaced, the useful idiot Saddam was expendable, swiftly morphing from good buddy into budding Hitler.)

CONTINUED...

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0302/S00119.htm

BTW: Thanks bigtree! Armed with the truth, we'll clobber the BFEE!

for not using the event to trumpet his IRW vote, as Gep did. And for keeping the focus of his statement on the current failures of Bush&Co.

Also known as a flip-flop. I would hope that he learned his lesson the first flip.

"He also urged the Bush administration to involve more U.S. allies in the rebuilding of Iraq and criticized a Pentagon memo that prohibited companies from countries that did not provide troops for the war from bidding on lucrative reconstruction contracts there."
"We need to share the burden, bring in other countries and make it clear to the world that Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people," Kerry said.

This man is incoherent. Voted for the war and APOLOGIZED for it, then votes against providing funding for building up the country so that "Iraq can belong to the Iraqi people". Now he wants to give my money to the fucking French. Why should we give them anything? Haven't we done enough for the duplicitous bastards? If you had any hope in your heart that this guy wouldn't get flattened by Bush, this should convince you he would.

GEPHARDT '04!!!

get french troops and other foreign troops involved in keeping order in iraq and give those nations bidding rights on contracts. makes sense. it's what kerry has always said and continues to say.

for you be drunk, well at least your logic is as warped as that of some one on the sauce.

Especially the bolded part. He's still got a lot of support with me.