The Importance of Being Kerry

[bigtree]

TONY CASTRO, Columnist 11.FEB.04
The significance of Senator John Kerry in the presidential campaign belies the obvious. The fact that he has become the overwhelming front-runner for the Democratic nomination is secondary to what Kerry brings not to the campaign but to the country. Whether he wins his party’s nomination and ultimately becomes president will neither detract nor change the role he has come to play on the American political and sociological landscapes.

On a daily basis, John Kerry is a reminder that Vietnam remains with us. More than 30 years since the last American soldier was pulled out of Saigon, Kerry presents us with an inescapable symbol of just how unresolved Vietnam is in the nation’s psyche.

Of course, no one wants to talk about it directly. Both political parties share in that sad, arguably disgraceful chapter of the country’s history. The Democrats, under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, initiated our military presence and pressed us into war, and it was the Republican presidency of Richard Nixon that duplicitly continued that war and disengaged the country only when it proved politically expedient for a presidential re-election campaign.

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. . . from that speech to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.

“When 30 years from now,” Kerry told that committee, “our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say ‘Vietnam’ and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.”


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[bigtree]

1. kick

:kick:

[polpilot]

2. Substitute 'Iraq' for 'Vietnam' for an update to 2003-2004. Same war

mantra just different white men sending the young to die unnecessarily.

Dean '04..,Anti-Iraq War...Anti-Establishment

[molly]

3. Dean supported the Biden-Lugar amendment - was that

anti-war? Dean was a corporate enabler when he was Gov of Vermont - is that anti-establishment?

[retyred]

4. Shhhhh! Old news

Time to move on, bringing up the facts now is counter productive. </sarcasm>



retyred in fla
“Good-Night Paul, Wherever You Are”
So I read this book

[private_ryan]

5. Dean?

how's he doing in the Wisconsin polls?

[bigtree]

6. This is the big lie

Iraq is Vietnam. Not.

The resolution was not an open-ended, blank check as was the TGR.

Letter from the ACLU on the Joint Resolution Authorizing Use of Force Against Iraq:
http://archive.aclu.org/congress/l100902a.html

"The compromise resolution before you addresses the first two concerns, but not the third. It limits the use of force to Iraq and specifically reaffirms Congress's role in approving military force by referencing the War Powers Act.

However, instead of stating an objective for the use of force, it delegates to the President the power to take action he deems necessary to "defend the national security of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq." This language creates a potential danger in that the President might use the authority granted by Congress in ways Congress did not anticipate and would not have approved."

1. Defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.

According to whom? According to what evidence presented? Doesn't the administration have an obligation to present the threat in a accurate and truthful manner? Did they? Weren't they obligated to under this resolution?

U.N. Res.1441 was negotiated with bogus evidence presented by Powell. But the public still doesn't know the nature or the amount of evidence presented. Some were convinced some weren't. You can see in John Kerry's floor statement that he didn't abide risking the possibility that Iraq might restart a nuclear program, remote-controlled bombers, whatever. That was on the basis of bogus info.

But remember, there were no inspectors inside Iraq to verify anything. One of John Kerry's intentions in the resolution was to pressure Iraq with the U.N. resolution backed up by the threat of force. It worked until Bush pushed ahead and drove them out again. Those who would hold the president accountable are indebted to Hans Blix for his presence there and his candor.

Still some will insist on holding those who sought to reign him in responsible for the sins of Bush. It makes no sense, politically or on the facts at hand, to claim that John Kerry advocated or acquiesced to unilateral, preemptive invasion and occupation in their support for the IWR.

The authority to commit forces is not inherent in the IWR. That authority is contained in the War Powers Act which decades of presidents have used to commit forces for 60 days without congressional approval.

Some Democrats saw the resolution as a way to restrain Bush and send him back to the U.N. My candidate was desperate to stifle Bush's argument for immediate invasion and sought to mandate a return to the international table by limiting Bush's authority in the resolution.

Whether or not the resolution had passed, Bush was intent on invading and occupying Iraq. He had gone around for days proclaiming that 1441 gave him the authority to do whatever he wanted.

If the resolution had failed, the president I think, would have committed forces anyway as decades of presidents had also put troops in the field for 60 days without congressional approval. In that event, I believe, the Congress would be loath to retreat and remove forces. Then, by law a resolution would have been drawn up, likely resembling the one we have now; urging Bush back to the U.N. and calling for internationalization of the conflict.

That is how determined presidents get us into war. Check and checkmate. It's democracy-lite. It stinks, but it is difficult, if not impossible, to restrain a president from committing forces because of the loopholed prerogative inherent in the War Powers Act, which is referenced in the IWR. I believe that the only way to effectively direct him is through some sort of resolution passed by Congress.

It is possible that a unified front of opposition to the resolution could have turned the public against the plan to invade. But I don't think that was at all possible with the republican majority in the Senate, and in view of Bush's plan to invade with or without congressional approval.

[oasis]

7. Great article.