ALL OVER THE MAP ON IRAQ

New York Post ^ | 8/11/04 | ERIC FETTMANN

[kattracks]

August 11, 2004 --

JOHN Kerry finally defined his position on the war in Iraq — or his latest one, anyway.

It took a direct challenge from President Bush, who asked if Kerry would still have voted to authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein if he knew that no weapons of mass destruction would be found. Kerry's reply: "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have."

Even at that, Kerry could be parsing words here: Stressing his support for "the authority" echoes his bizarre earlier distinction (which he made after Howard Dean's campaign started taking off) that he'd only voted to "threaten the use of force," not actually to use it.

Still, Kerry's answer likely will raise some eyebrows among people who believed the Democratic nominee when he agreed that he was one of the "anti-war candidates" — someone who is "unhappy with this war [and] the way it's been fought," someone who charged that Bush "misled every one of us" with his "rush to war."

Of course, Kerry has been all over the political map when it comes to ousting Saddam. He certainly showed no hesitation when Bill Clinton was the president threatening to use force in Iraq. (Back then, Kerry even endorsed unilateral action against this "grave threat to the well-being of our nation.")

[Hugin]

That flip-flop was hilariously brought out when one of Kerry's constituents accidentally was sent copies of two letters from the senator — one targeted at anti-war constituents and one at those who supported the war.

The first stressed Kerry's demand that "economic sanctions be given more time to work" and how he'd warned the Senate "that a decision to go to war was 'rolling the dice' with our future."

The second, dated just nine days later, emphasized how "I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established . . . in standing up this shocking aggression in the Persian Gulf."

So actually he oppossed the war, before he supported it. What a brilliantly nuanced, intellectual position.

[OESY]

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But his latest statement raises an important question: If ousting Saddam now was justified, even if we knew in advance that there were apparently no WMDs, why did Kerry so vehemently oppose moving against Saddam after he invaded Kuwait and was a much greater military threat?

Back in 1991, John Kerry was a leader of the movement to keep America from fighting in the Persian Gulf — at one point begging the first President Bush to send someone to Baghdad for a "face-to-face meeting" with the Iraqi despot.

And Kerry's rhetoric in throughout that debate was one long Vietnam flashback.

"In a country that still struggles with Agent Orange, outreach centers, post-traumatic stress disorder, homeless veterans — is this country ready for the next wave?" Kerry asked. " 'Mom, is that you?' Are we ready for the changes this war will bring — changes in sons and daughters who return from combat never the same, some not knowing their families and their families, not even recognizing them? Are we ready?"

Indeed, Kerry's Senate speeches sounded like the broken soundtrack from a Jane Fonda film.

[OESY]

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Kerry even held a congressional hearing at which an official of the left-wing Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War flatly predicted that U.S. military casualties in that first Gulf War would reach 45,000 — including 10,000 dead.

And the senator himself predicted that any U.S. invasion of Iraq would "lead to renewed terrorist attacks on America as a result of our having killed innumerable Arab civilians."

In other words, Kerry took it for granted that U.S. soldiers would behave like war criminals — just like they did in Vietnam, right? — and that the Arab world would make us pay for our barbarism.

Operation Desert Storm went ahead anyway, and none of Kerry's dire predictions came true.

[Dilbert56]

From Gulf War I, to Nulcear Freeze, to Nicaragua's communists, John Kerry has been on the wrong side of major foreign policy issues.

For Vietnam and Operation Iraqi Freedom he was obviously on both sides.

From weapons systems to intelligence funding he has consistently voted for a weaker America. Other than trying to cripple us, he has almost no legislative record.

On terrorism he was asleep at the switch. He got a warning letter that Logan Airport's security was so lax that terrorist could hijack multiple planes at one time. He sent it to an agency that had already ignored it.

On 9/11 he was paralyzed into inaction.

What a swell President he would make. /S