Just so nobody has any illusions, here’s ’s version of Kerry’s position on the Iraq War:
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said on Monday he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing force against Iraq even if he had known then no weapons of mass destruction would be found.
Taking up a challenge from President Bush, whom he will face in the election, the Massachusetts senator said: “I’ll answer it directly. Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it is the right authority for a president to have but I would have used that authority effectively.”
And what’s his take on how the war was conducted? He told Stars and Stripes magazine:
Stars and Stripes: The charge is out there, that Republicans are much better suited to handle defense issues. How do you counter that?
Kerry: My record counters that, and my friends counter that. My message to the troops over there? Help is on the way. Help is on the way in every respect. The Guard and the Reserves have been overstretched. [The Bush team] have conducted a back-door draft by the stop-loss provisions and the lengthy deployments. People have been overextended, and stretched too thin.
They went into Iraq in a brilliant military strategy, which we all adopted and supported, but they didn’t have a plan to win the peace. They didn’t bring other [countries] to our side. They didn’t give our troops all the equipment — the body armor and the armored Humvees, and things they need and deserve. And I believe they didn’t go in with enough people to make it secure.
So I think our troops are at a greater risk than they had to be, and I think we have borne greater costs than we needed to. Furthermore, I have a plan for a Military Families Bill of Rights. My Military Family Bill of Rights will provide greater guarantees with respect to education, health care, deployment schedules, and pay.
And I think we can do a better job of helping our troops. I’ll make sure that they have state-of the-art equipment. I will make sure we can actually grow the military. I’m going to create two new active divisions in the Army. I’m going to double the number of special forces troops we have to fight terror.
So, I will do a better job protecting our troops, and a better job of making America safe than George Bush has.
There’s a great tradition of Democratic presidents who’ve led us in war. From Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, to President Kennedy — Bill Clinton who, managed to do Kosovo without any casualties at all.
So, to summarize: Kerry believes that even though there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq until the U.S. brought their own, the president should still have had a blank-check authorization to invade and occupy at his whim. Furthermore, although the brutal “shock and awe” campaign was “a brilliant military strategy, which we all adopted and supported,” he thinks that the invasion should have been conducted with more countries, more equipment, and more troops. So that he can back up this “more, more, more” talk, he plans on growing the military, in part by creating two new active divisions and doubling the number of special forces troops deployed “to fight terror.”
Oh yeah, and he believes Bill Clinton “managed to do Kosovo” — get this — “without any casualties at all.”
“In their moral justification, the argument of the lesser evil has played a prominent role. If you are confronted with two evils, the argument runs, it is your duty to opt for the lesser one, whereas it is irresponsible to refuse to choose altogether. Its weakness has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget quickly that they chose evil.” ―Hannah Arendt
Those of you who are choosing Kerry (even enthusiastically supporting him and urging others to do likewise) believe me when I say I understand you and can sympathize with your reasoning. But if Kerry wins will you forget that you chose evil and that evil was victorious? Will you celebrate victory? Will you say “good enough, then”?
