Maybe Chaffed-#ss should take a look at this before he opens his liberal pie hole:
John Kerry gave his first "All Iraq, All The Time" speech on Monday. This is part of a plan on Kerry's part to relentlessly hammer on the Iraq theme - using the problems in Iraq as a club to flog President Bush with in the hopes that by election day just enough Americans would be fooled to propel John Kerry into the White House. Lets take a look at what Kerry said.
Kerry said this about the Iraqi security forces:
The President should urgently expand the security forces training program inside and outside Iraq...He should recruit thousands of qualified trainers from our allies, especially those who have no troops in Iraq. He should press our NATO allies to open training centers in their countries. While the situation for the Iraqi security forces is:
"Iraqi police cadet Meqdad al-Izzawi once served Saddam Hussein as a navy officer. Now, he says he is taking one of the most dangerous jobs in the new Iraq because he wants to serve his people. " 'My hope is to execute the law in Iraq and restore stability to the Iraqi people, because we never enjoyed security, even under Saddam Hussein,' said the 28-year-old al-Izzawi, one of 1,559 Iraqi recruits attending basic police training at a U.S.-run camp in the Jordanian desert...
John Kerry has this to say about the attitude of the Iraqi people:
most Iraqis have lost faith in our ability to deliver meaningful improvements to their lives. So they’re sitting on the fence… instead of siding with us against the insurgents. While a recent poll of Iraqi's found this:
"More than 77% of respondents feel that 'regular, fair elections' would be the most important political right for the Iraqi people and 58% feel that democracy in Iraq is likely to succeed. When asked about the upcoming elections, 62.2% expressed confidence that their ballot selection would be kept secret and above 75% felt that the elections would reflect the will of the Iraqi people. "Iraqis remain optimistic about the future and committed to seeing Iraq through her democratic transition. 50% disagree with the statement that 'my life was better before the war.' In contrast to daily media reports of the hardships of today's Iraq, more than 70% of respondents would not leave their country if given the opportunity to live elsewhere. An overwhelming majority express an optimistic streak that belies foreign naysayers, with 75% expressing hopefulness about the future...
Kerry on Iraqs electricity supply:
Residents of Baghdad are suffering electricity blackouts lasting up to 14 hours a day. While the situation actually is:
"U.S. engineers have helped place seven generators on line this month in Iraq, bringing the national electricity capacity to more than 5,300 megawatts - a level that exceeds the country's pre-war capacity of 4,400 megawatts." On and on it goes - John Kerry either cherry-picks a bad situation out of a host of good things, or just downright misrepresents the facts altogether. The main thrust of Kerry's argument being that Iraq is an utter failure and that President Bush is personally responsible for this utter failure. The only thing which can derail Kerry's argument and plan is, well, reality. As the quotes I've posted above show, things are not all doom and gloom in Iraq...never have been. Even in the worst of it back in April and May, huge progress was being made - and more and more progress is made every day.
Kerry's speech does clarify precisely what Kerry is all about - defeatism on the issue of Iraq and by extension the larger war on terrorism; and in his speech he tells us what he would actually do. If we would follow Kerry's plane, then:
we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years. In other words, we can set our surrender for a date certain in the future and allow our enemies to know just when they can start their bloody massacre of all Iraqi's who have fought alongside us and yearn to breath free. This isn't a plan - its a plea for surrender; and for Kerry a surrender is ok if it will somehow elevate him to the White House. Thus we see now just how despicable Kerry is - after a youth urging us to surrender in one war in order to advance Kerry's political career, he hopes to cap it all off with one last surrender to advance himself to the highest post.
As for me, I'm delighted that the issue is fully joined - I am completely convinced that a debate over Iraq will help President Bush on election day. One has to keep in mind that the news has only appeared bad in Iraq because a bunch of anti-American, one-sided reporting is all we've gotten out of the place. Train the spotlight on Iraq and the whole truth will come out - and the truth about Iraq is that its been a major success in the President's strategy to win the War on Terrorism.
Lets have at it - Kerry's defeatism vs. President Bush's battle for victory.