Kerry won't get the troops out, he sounds like a hawk

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56064-2004Apr6.html

As casualties and chaos mounted in Iraq, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) on Tuesday sharply questioned President Bush's decision to transfer power to the Iraqis at the end of June and suggested the decision was politically motivated by the election-year calendar.

"I think they wanted to get the troops out, get the transfer out of the way as fast as possible without regard to the stability of Iraq," Kerry told reporters after a campaign rally here. "It is a mistake to set an arbitrary date and I hope that date has nothing to do with the elections here in the United States."

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee criticized the president for what he said was a failure to seize earlier opportunities to bring the United Nations and more international allies into the U.S.-led coalition and said the administration needs to "get off high horse and show a little humility" to attract that assistance now to ensure stability in Iraq.

Kerry did not rule out advocating sending in more troops to quiet the uprising and said the United States should scrap a date-certain for transferring power. "Bottom line is we have to change the entire dynamic and that's going to require a very different form of diplomacy," he said.

Kerry has largely avoided commenting on daily developments in Iraq but stepped into the deteriorating situation on the ground there during a morning interview on National Public Radio and later on the campaign trail.

Quagmire.

Cheers
Drifter

He's said that he would work to try and bring in as many nations as possible to help with the Iraqi mess. Shrub has so screwed up our alliances with powerful countries, however, that this may be difficult to do. And if Kerry makes concessions to nations like Germany, the Reich Wing will jump on him as an appeaser.

Makes me sort of glad my hero Howard Dean dropped out of the race. It is going to be really tough to clean up the mess Shrub has made.

he will use them to try help improve relations around the world.

If Kerry or anyone else thinks we can bring democracy to Iraq, they are fucking crazy.

Yeah, maybe after a generation of occupation and tens of thousands of deaths.

We have to get out of their country, ASAP. We are the invaders.

but the grownups will have to clean it up. Unfortunately, we are in for a penny in for a pound thanks to the boy king. With Bush gone Kerry can salve the wounds with the UN and maybe we can get a "true" coalition to help stabilize the country. Or of course there are no guarantees, but this is the sitation in which Bush has left us.

an end to this insane and unjust "war" the reality is we CAN NOT pull out now. If we do Iraq will be overrun with hard right extremeists. It will be bad for the people of Iraq,the stability of the entire area and for the US because it will only serve to increase the power of terrorist organizations.

Sometimes when one goes down the wrong path there is no going back and I believe we have reached that point in Iraq.

my American families problem. The warmonger in Al Gore`s White House is. He and his billionaire buddies can be brought up for war crimes and pay for this bloody war that was based on lies themselves. You don`t gamble with other peoples lives as Bu$h Inc. has. Iraq is a lose-lose situation. I`ll take cutting and running like we did in Vietnam. It probably saved my life. Some guys in my boot camp platoon were not so lucky. And that war was a big lie too. Started by Eisenhower. Escalated by a texas oil connected prick. Further escalated by Tricky dick. Thank God for Watergate or Vietnam would have lasted to the 80`s. I was close enough to the situation to have that opinion.
Peace
Wildman
Al Gore is My President

A country run by al-Qaida or a similar group with <b>ten percent</b> of the world's oil. If that doesn't scare the hell out of you, nothing will.

Whoever the next president is--and I sincerely hope it's Kerry--is not going to have it easy getting us out of this mess.

the options are.

1. Pull out immediately and let Iraq go up in flames, probably ending up with a radical Shiite theocracy in charge.

2. Escalate the war which will mean more US fatalities, more terrorism and incrasing opposition around the world.

3. Try to bring in the rest of the world to help control the situation in Iraq (which is what he wants to do) The problem with this is that thanks to Shrub's arrogance, the rest of the world would like nothing better than to see us fall flat on our asses. It's going to take a lot of sweet talking from Kerry.

This is bad and it's going to get worse.

...the sentiment is "we like the U.S. but we can't stand George W Bush".

I think there will be more options on the table after November in terms of number 3 when Kerry wins.

...is limited to the current head of state.

...for Halliburton, etc. The genie doesn't go back into the bottle easily. The next 2-3 Presidents will be occupied by this "war".

Kerry will internationalize it, and that's the best anyone can do.

making us less dependent on oil and in turn making oil less profitable. it's one of his biggest plans.

No one wll bail us out until the US admits failure and defeat.

Frankly speaking, the situation in Iraq has deteriorated to the point that there remain no good options available to (future) President Kerry, or to (current) pResident Bush.

If we unilaterally pull out, Iraq becomes a seething hell hole of civil war which might, at BEST, become a fundamentalist Shiite theocracy, once it stabilizes.

If we seek to truly stabilize the country, we must put even MORE US troops in place and occupy it for years to come, while attempting to establish the institutions neccessary for a democratic society to emerge.

If we seek help from the international community to stabilize Iraq, we will be required to give them the 'pound of flesh' they will quite rightly demand.

Tell me that there are any other options, and also tell me why the one Sen. Kerry proposes is not the least-unpalatable of the three I have suggested.

with or without an international coalition. Also it is doubtful that other countries will be willing to join the Iraqi occupation at all. So what it boils down to is that we can either acknowledge that this was a bad idea and go home, or we can maintain that this is a winnable war and continue. The problem with trying to win is that we have no victory criteria. This is the kind of thing that happens when you enter a war with no exit strategy.

To anyone who advocates that we stay I ask: how will we know when we can leave?

This Iraqi quagmire is shaping up to play out like Vietnam did, where each succeeding President, Dem or 'Pug racheted up the stakes, just so they wouldn't appear to be "soft on defense". And like Vietnam, or any other imperial conquest, the US will only pull out after years of ruthless oppression, the death of millions, and stripping the country of it's natural resources and infrastructure. We will leave the country worse off than when we arrived, with problems affecting later generations.

And people wonder why many anti-war folks can't bring themselves to vote for Kerry. It is because we've seen this same scenario play out before, and we already know how this mummers play will end. Thus we don't want to vote in the same ol' same ol', and be responsible, albeit indirectly, for the death of any more innocents.

Get the US out of Iraq NOW!

....there will be troops in Iraq. The very basis of their plan for a global fascist state depends on a permanent military presence in the Middle East.

Read "Kerry wouldn't fall into our trap". Kerry's personal mix of experience can be trusted unlike LBJ's personal insecurity. With the situation so badly in flux here simply bugging out would be yet another cause of destabilization bloodshed and future danger. Yes, all options are bad thanks to W, not the least of which is withdrawing the Red States and a chunk of misled sheeple from the atrocity waged under our standard.

Whatever he says now, the true test can only come when he is behind the desk in the Oval Office. Personally, I trust him to make the best of it, and even if wrong, his intentions and goals will get back where WE belong. There is no such hope at all for anyone should Bush win. Nada and worse than nada.

Like many have said here, Kerry will at least be able to get the UN back in and internationalize the war.

To think that any candidate would just cut and run after the US destroying Iraq's infrastructure and leaving it to an obvious civil war is not only unthinkable but wholly irresponsible.

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