Posted on 06/23/2002 7:43:25 PM PDT by ejdrapes
Kerry blasts Bush on war, Mideast Democratic contender
assails Bush policies,
sees U.S. military failure
in al-Qaida escape
June 23 — Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a contender for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, let loose a blistering critique of President Bush's Middle East policy Sunday, saying the president had made a catastrophic mistake by not building on President Clinton's Camp David negotiations and by sending confusing signals to Israeli and Palestinian leaders. “THERE’S NO CONTINUITY,” Kerry complained to NBC’s Tim Russert on “Meet the Press.” “There is no fundamental plan, and they have restrained the State Department and Colin Powell from effectively being the State Department and being the Secretary of State. I think they’ve got to announce a vision. They’ve got to put something on the table and take advantage of this new dynamic that exists in the Arab world.” WHAT BUSH SHOULD DO Kerry said Arab leaders are now willing to negotiate a settlement of Israeli-Palestinian disputes because they are under pressure from their own people. He said Bush should open intensive negotiations with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Abdullah floated a proposal that would ensure normal relations between Israel and Arab states in return for the acceptance of a Palestinian state. “There is a completely different dynamic in the Arab world ... because of what happened here on Sept. 11,” Kerry said. “They suddenly have a new urgency about making peace because they need to cope with their own set of problems. If you had an election tomorrow in Saudi Arabia or Egypt, Osama bin Laden would win. They know it. ... Therefore, they are prepared to be a different kind of partner in the peace process.” Kerry dismissed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat: “Arafat is not a partner in this process. He cannot be a partner.” He also criticized the Bush administration’s military operations in Afghanistan, implying that if he had been president, he would not have allowed al-Qaida forces to escape.
“The prime target, al-Qaida, has dispersed and in many ways is more dangerous than it was when it was in the mountains of Tora Bora,” Kerry said. “The strategy failed at Tora Bora and (in Operation) Anaconda. I believe we didn’t complete the task of killing those 1,000 people or capturing them in that mountain. We didn’t shut off the back door.” Kerry also defended his 1991 vote against authorizing military action against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, saying “It was a legitimate judgment based on the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell’s, assessment to us, privately, and based on my notion that the country was still very divided. One of the lessons I learned in Vietnam is you want to have the country support you. You want to have a broad consensus when you start a war.” Looking to the prospect of U.S. military action in the months ahead against Saddam Hussein’s regime, Kerry said Bush was required to get authorization from Congress before ordering an attack on Iraq. Kerry heads to Iowa next weekend to campaign for Democratic congressional candidates. It will be his ninth trip to either Iowa or New Hampshire in the past 18 months, an indication of his drive for the Democratic presidential nomination. Those two states are the venues for the first events of the 2004 nominating process. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle on Sunday visited Iowa, which holds the nation’s first 2004 caucus the week before New Hampshire’s primary.
Another of Kerry’s likely rivals for the nomination, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, made a three-day jaunt across New Hampshire that ended Sunday. He wooed party activists at a pig roast and a series of backyard parties on his second visit to the state that holds the nation’s first primary 19 months from now. Edwards urged a partial rollback for the richest Americans of Bush’s $1.3 trillion tax cut and questioned the rush to make a proposed homeland security reorganization a top priority. But mostly he talked and listened to potential supporters, performing the ritual of face-to-face voter courtship that has become New Hampshire’s trademark in the presidential nominating process. Edwards already has been to Iowa four times, with return trips to Iowa and New Hampshire planned within two months.
A key part of the presidential game right now is cultivating friends and allies in Iowa and New Hampshire. In a recent special election for the Iowa state Senate, Kerry’s campaign fund chipped in $1,000 to Democrat Amanda Ragan’s campaign. Kerry also dispatched a campaign staffer to help Ragan in the final weeks of her run. Ragan won — and now has a reason to work for Kerry when he seeks her help in 2003. Repeat Ragan’s story in the 98 other counties in Iowa and you’ve got the strategy — not only for Kerry but for Edwards, who also helped Ragan’s campaign. Allies wooed and won over in the next few months can give Kerry, Edwards or some other Democrat their on-the-ground expertise and foot soldiers who can get out the vote in the January 2004 caucuses. If Kerry wins the Iowa caucuses, he will establish himself as the Democratic front-runner. In a field that might include Daschle or Iowa sentimental favorite Dick Gephardt, if Kerry finishes second — or even a respectable third — he’ll have won a moral and tactical victory.
That’s what another Massachusetts Democrat, Michael Dukakis, did in 1988, when he ran a strong third to Gephardt and Sen. Paul Simon in Iowa. But mention of Dukakis’ name raises a potential liability. Do Democrats want another Massachusetts liberal going up against a Republican named Bush? That was the formula for disaster in 1988. Despite some similarities, Kerry is no Dukakis. For one thing, he’s skilled at hand-to-hand political combat when that’s called for, as he showed in his tough 1996 re-election fight against GOP Gov. William Weld. Yet as Democratic strategists look at the 2000 Electoral College map and see the Southern and border states that Gore lost, such as West Virginia and Tennessee, they might wonder whether Kerry — who is for abortion rights, gun control and gay rights — can win those blue-collar, conservative voters who rejected Gore.
What has Kerry got to offer Democrats that Gore or Gephardt don’t? He has military experience. After graduating from Yale in 1966, he joined the Navy, served on a gunboat in the Mekong Delta, was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. From the point of view of Democratic-allied environmental advocacy groups such as the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters, Kerry has impeccable environmental credentials, having led the fight against oil and gas drilling on the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Kerry could pay for his own campaign, if he and his wife, Teresa Heinz, decide to tap her fortune, estimated to be more than $600 million. Teresa Heinz is the widow of Sen. John Heinz, the Pennsylvania Republican and heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune who was killed in a 1991 airplane crash. Kerry said on NBC that he will use his wife’s money if she thinks it is necessary. “She has said publicly that if she thinks people engage in tactics that she finds completely reprehensible, she’ll respond to defend herself,” Kerry said. |
How can you follow up on a failed policy especially after the rules have changed so drastically?
As to Kerry's tactics in Tora Bora I guess Kerry would have personally charged the caves (al a San Juan Hill) before any bombing had been done so as not to allow the cowardly al-Qaida to flee at the first sign of danger.
Kerry is a laughingstock.
He has about as much chance of being elected President as Dukakis had.
Thank God the Democrats have people like this running around, they will never get back the White House.
What does this mean?
Whoever said the inevitable result (not goal) was perpetual war wasn't too far off. This generation never had it and as a result we are all crapping our pants. That too will pass, the markets will recover and the war will continue. We will adapt. We survived the 60's, remember.
True but shhhh..... We should all be spewing misinformation such as "I think Kerry could beat Bush by 20 points nationwide." LOL!
(You're probably right about that, Mo, though it is beside the point.)
The countenance of George W. Bush will one day grace Mount Rushmore. And that will be one of the lesser tributes of history and the world to this man.
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