Posted on 04/05/2006 8:51:04 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
Arguing that President Bush should have followed the strategy of diplomacy employed in the Cuban missile crisis by his brothers rather than to have launched a pre-emptive strike against Saddam Hussein, Sen. Ted Kennedy castigated the president for his attack on Iraq.
In his new book, "America Back on Track," his first since 1982, Kennedy claimed that his two brothers' refusal to launch a pre-emptive strike on Fidel Castro when it was learned back in 1962 that there were missiles in Cuba aimed at the United States was the proper approach to the crisis. Kennedy writes that they were right when they argued that "a first strike was inconsistent with American values," and would be a "Pearl Harbor in reverse," according to the Boston Globe.
While admitting that pre-emptive war may be justified if launched to prevent "an imminent attack on our country," he claims that the Iraq war fits into a different category, which he calls "preventive war," which he condemns.
"The premeditated nature of preventive attacks and preventive wars makes them anathema to well-established international principles against aggression," Kennedy writes in the book, which the Globe reports is due to be released April 18.
Kennedy, D-Mass., argued that "Preventive war is consistent with neither our values nor our national security. It gives other nations an excuse to violate fundamental principles of civilized international behavior, and the downward spiral we initiate could well engulf the whole planet."
Kennedy views Bush's decision to invade Iraq as an example of "preventive war" - of attacking a nation to prevent it from developing the ability to threaten the United States. He adds that a similar manner of thinking led the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, since Japan was seeking to block the U.S. military buildup in the Pacific.
Kennedy, who the Globe notes voted against the Iraq war, remains one of its harshest critics. He charges that Bush's national security strategy is "too extreme" in its reaction to Sept. 11, 2001, because it "legitimizes a first strike, and elevates it to a core security doctrine."
"War should always be our last resort," he writess, adding that the Bush administration, however, "made preventive war an option of first resort."
His anti-war stand is nothing new. In a speech at the Brookings Institution on April 6, 2004, he claimed that Iraq was never a threat to the United States and that Bush took the country to war under false pretenses, giving al-Qaida two years to regroup and plant terrorist cells throughout the world.
"Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam," Kennedy said.
According to the book jacket: "With his first major policy book in more than 20 years, Senator Kennedy takes an in-depth look at our modern political landscape and offers innovative policies that he genuinely believes will guide the country effectively to the future."
The Globe describes it as "a broad indictment of the Bush administration and its policies, noting that Kennedy accuses the president of engaging in an "unprecedented level of secrecy" about government operations. He adopts the current Democrat and attacking policies that he says are harmful to the environment, the economy and the education system.
It is a primer of Kennedy's far-left policy proposals that the Globe suggests will surprise few who follow liberal politics. Among his proposals: a higher minimum wage, billions of dollars in new education spending, higher taxes on the wealthy, equal rights for gays and lesbians and a universal national healthcare program that is nothing less than socialized medicine. He insists that most of his policies will somehow "pay for themselves" by boosting the nation's productivity.
Writes Kennedy in a shocking distortion of American history: "The blunderbuss demands of the right wing that we downsize all areas of government ignore 200 years of history - 200 years of partnerships between business and government that made America the largest and most productive economy in the world."
I don't know AD
I got one word for Ted
How about your brother was Sam Giancia b***h until he doublecross certain Rat Packer named Frank Sinatra LOL!
The real irony is that Chappaquidickk was a real quagmire.
Guess it took him that long to sober up.
Here's a sighting of Fat Ted on his way to another book signing:
Glad Bush is no JFK. Camelot was a hoax, had us all fooled until after it was over!
LOL...he's overloading that chopper.
OMG that pic is funny!!
The guy's brain must look like a lump of Swiss cheese by now. No way he can write a book. The last few times I've seen or heard him, he could barely speak coherently.
"Camelot was a hoax,"
Isn't that the truth. JFK's Monica was named Marlyn.
JFK as CIC under French command. Truly the worst case senario.
True, and the 'Rat Pack' supplied the others including a mob girlfriend!
Of course he's not. He doesn't go around bedding Hollywood stars while his wife sits in the White House.
Actually, Kennedy should have been reprimanded for letting his PT boat be rammed and almost killing his entire crew.
We all must never forget that DemOrat senate minority leader Harry Reid is from Nevada, the only state that has legalized prostitution in the U.S.! Imagine what special interests he represents, and where he entertains. I always thought he looked and talked kind of strange?
Did Rummie Kennedy somehow sleep through 12 years and 17 UN Resolutions with Saddam?
'Camelot' was made up by Jackie Kennedy and fed to friendly journalists, who were only too happy to embellish the idea.
Of course, he's no JFK. He has his zipper up.
If Ted Kennedy is so ignorant that he thinks an attack on Castro would have been "Pearl Harbor in reverse" then he is even more of a fool than I thought he was.
LOL, maybe he spent too much time in Vegas gambling and running around with 'fast women'!!

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