However, I could not find a plan about how to deal with post-pre-emptive invasion Iraq on Mr. Bush's web site.
That makes one wonder about why the administration whose blindingincompetence got us into this Iraqi misadventure in the first place isn't being held to account for a plan to get us out on the same level Mr. Kerry is.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
In a nutshell, Kerry's Iraq plan is to accelerate Bush's exit plan. There may be other parts, but Kerry's kept his promises high and his specifics low so there's really no way to know beyond what he says minute-to-minute.
To pay for the acceleration and manage it, he'll have summits and talks and dinner parties and such wherein he will somehow manage to acquire additional support from the same countries he's made fun of and who have already said that no matter who wins the election, they aren't coming to the party. And he'll make the coerced and bribed start paying back their bribes by footing more of the bill to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That, of course, will make sense to them, because whereas they now support a right-place right-time thinker with bribes, a wrong-place wrong-time thinker who refuses to bribe them will naturally be their cup of tea.
From perusing his 263 page manifesto, it appears that the same basic theory holds true for most of his plans. There's little hard substance, but the basic idea is often to take the ideas from the Bush administration, do "more" and spend way more on it, add a little needless bureaucracy, and hope to hell that it works somehow.
He's citified-Bush plus pie-in-the-sky, sold on a platter of doom and gloom. Or maybe it was cake in the sky. Yes, it's cake in the sky. I've said so for years. What? What do you mean I said pie? Well, I was simply saying it was a threat of pie, not pie itself . . . it was really cake, and has always been pie. I never said it was cake. I mean pie. I've been completely consistent that it is pie.
Kerry's primary advantage is that he's not Bush. However, given the old "devil you know vs. devil you don't thing", that's also his greatest disadvantage. Why? Because whereas Bush might suck in many respects, he does so consistently . . . he's the devil we know. Kerry's the devil we can't possibly know, because he changes with the polls. He may have won the Democratic primaries by flip-flopping, but it isn't working for the nation at large.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Un....I know of no instance when Kerry "made fun of" any other country.
Please cite an example of this.
It's amazing that people consider re-thinking a situation as new evidence (or lack thereof) surfaces: it's madness to "stay the course" when your startegy does not work and your resaons for going to war are proven in error.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Um, first rule of politics: Never admit errors or you'll never get respect again. Bush follows this idiom with junkyard-dog obstinateness, yet he seems to have forgotten that the second rule of politics actually is in play now: it's only wrong if you get caught.
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
I think maybe what G2K was getting at was that Kerry has minimized the contributions of other countries (the whole US taking 90% of the casualties thing) or impugned their motives (the coalition of the coerced and bribed, as if they were forced into Iraq or joined for mercenary reasons).
As for WizArtist's saying Edwards was avoiding questions (if I am reading that post correctly), perhaps this is the kind of question in mind:
quote: IFILL: Senator Edwards, new question to you, and you have two minutes to respond.
Part of what you have said and Senator Kerry has said that you are going to do in order to get us out of the problems in Iraq is to internationalize the effort.
Yet French and German officials have both said they have no intention even if John Kerry is elected of sending any troops into Iraq for any peacekeeping effort. Does that make your effort or your plan to internationalize this effort seem kind of naive?
EDWARDS: Well, let's start with what we know. What we know is that the president and the vice president have not done the work to build the coalition that we need � dramatically different than the first Gulf War. We know that they haven't done it, and we know they can't do it.
They didn't, by the way, just reject the allies going into lead- up to the war. They also rejected them in the effort to do the reconstruction in Iraq, and that has consequences.
What we believe is, as part of our entire plan for Iraq � and we have a plan for Iraq.
They have a plan for Iraq too: more of the same.
We have a plan for success. And that plan includes speeding up the training of the military. We have less than half of the staff that we need there to complete that training.
Second, make sure that the reconstruction is sped up in a way that the Iraqis see some tangible benefit for what's happening.
And by the way, if we need to, we can take Iraqis out of Iraq to train them. It is not secure enough. It's so dangerous on the ground that they can't be trained there. We can take them out of Iraq for purposes of training.
We should do whatever has to be done to train the Iraqis and to speed up that process.
That works in conjunction with making sure the elections take place on time.
Right now, the United Nations, which is responsible for the elections in January, has about 35 people there. Now, that's compared with a much smaller country like East Timor, where they had over 200 people on the ground.
You need more than 35 people to hold an election in Cleveland, much less in Iraq.
And they keep saying the election's on schedule, this is going to happen.
The reality is we need a new president with credibility with the rest of the world and who has a real plan for success. Success breeds contribution, breeds joining the coalition.
Not only that, I want to go back to what the vice president said. He attacks us about the troops. They sent 40,000 American troops into Iraq without the body armor they needed. They sent them without the armored vehicles they needed. While they were on the ground fighting, they lobbied the Congress to cut their combat pay. This is the height of hypocrisy.
I think what Iffil was trying to do was to get Edwards to talk about the specifics of what a President Kerry was specifically going to do to get countries like France and Germany (and maybe Spain, Russia, New Zealand, or India) to send troops to Iraq. The crux of his argument (second to last paragraph, second sentence, I think) seems to be something like If we can win these battles, countries that once opposed our intervention will want to be on the winning side. That's a respectable argument to make, but it would have been much clearer and more persuasive to put it up at the top. (Hell, I had to read the transcript twice before I realized he had given an answer, and I'm a lawyer.) I don't think it's terribly persuasive (my impression was that the UN wasn't there for security reasons), but if Edwards wants to hinge their diplomatic strategy on a contingency (not trying to make that sound pejorative), he could have just come out and said it without going into what he wants improved intranationally.
WizArtist: if you had another question in mind, feel free to correct my guess.
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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quote:Because whereas Bush might suck in many respects, he does so consistently . . .
I have a very hard time understanding this line of argument.
Basically it means that despite the fact that Mr. Bush has driven the country into a ditch, some people want give him the keys, pat him on the head, and say 'go ahead and do it again.'
Isn't it time to take the training wheels off of Mr. Bush's bike of state?
After 3� years, we know what the practical application of his foreign and domestic policy is like. Should we not hold him accountable for his demonstrated incompetence?
And finally, I think it's wrong to think of Mr. Bush some stalwart-I-never-change-or-play-politics sort politician. I think nearly every action of this Administration is calculated and politically motivated.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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It's a rather stinging criticism. Despite the Administrations �Sunshine Policy� about Iraq, the reality of the security situation is such that even the U.N., which had bigger presence in war torn East Timor, is afraid to send it's people there.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Are they afraid or just willing to let the US fail before the world for defying their resolutions? To hear Kofi Anon decalre the war in Iraq as "illegal" it sure seems that way.
The UN has sent observers, inspectors, troops and humanitarian aid into situations worse than Iraq -and without the US troop presence to act as protection before, why not now? A UN presence would certainly improve the idea that the interim government is the US's puppett.
If Kerry wins, the situation will have to eiher improve drastically or Kerry have to go to the UN -hat in hand begging- before the UN offers any real assistance. Bush has snubbed them and now they want no part of Iraq's troubles.....of course, they are'nt doing anyhing about the Sudan or anything else either so mabye it's their M.O.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Bush has snubbed them and now they want no part of Iraq's troubles....
Something the 'what's Kerry's plan' crowd seems to fail to recognize.
Cowboy diplomacy only goes so far.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Jay the Obscure: [QUOTE]Bus Cowboy diplomacy only goes so far.
But the thought of Kerry fighting himself and Cheney being revealed as a masked sniper in a "Scooby-Doo ending" to the election is amusing.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Sure! the US should provide most of the UN's military coverage and pay dues like everyone else... That's fair, right.
I dont see the US as "Israel's bitch" as much as "Israel's only friend in the UN". Dont kid yourself that theres no anti-semitic element among UN members either....how many muslim countries vote for any resolution against Israel as a matter of policy, regarless of the provocation?
Sure, Israel is a part of the problem and they refuse to use "proportionate retaliation" but we cant really judge a people that live with that kind of terrorist threat every day.
Besides, I was just watching Clinton's former middle-east negotiator explaining how many times they offered Arafat a cherry deal for a Palistenian state and how often he responded with bombings.....it keeps him in power (and wealthy).
We sure should ratify Kyoto though! Leave it to Bush's "science advisors" to undermine anything without the word "God" in it.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I just don't find Kofi Annan saying the war was illegal to be that persuasive. To repeat from an earlier string, if even the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton (no right-wing shill) can say the war was "illegal but legitimate" in the New York Times, I think there is room for rational people to disagree.
As for the snubbing of Europe, I have a difficult time separating their indignation over the "frank exhange of viewpoints" Bush has brought to the international scene from an emerging corporatist state that has so much interest in its own economic advantage. (I know there are lots of exceptions that can be cited, but that seems to be the trajectory of European constitutionalism--faith in harmonizing centralization and synergy between the economic and political sectors.)
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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"...how many muslim countries vote for any resolution against Israel as a matter of policy, regarless of the provocation?"
And how many countries veto any resolution against Israel as a matter of policy, regardless of the situation? Oh, right, us.
Israel is just as much to blame for the ongoing problems over there as Palestine is. Sure, some Palestinians are blowing up innocent Israelis. But, when the Israeli government responds by blowing up innocent Palestinians, my sympathy starts fading.
Registered: Mar 1999
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