Looks Like Kerry Has Been Lying - I Mean "Misspeaking" - Again

No. What I'm saying is that you can look hard enough and catch anybody "misspeaking". Kerry spoke to supporters and got a story wrong.

The president "misspeaks" an awful lot and his wrong stories got us into an unneccessary, unpopular, and unwinable foreign war. It's a matter of scale and responsibility.

It doesn't matter if it was a blatant lie or a simple error. It was a misleading statement, either way.

 

I wasn't really offended. You know how to conduct a debate. You emphasize your valid points and gloss over your weak areas. You scoff at my valid points and hammer any poorly thought out comments I offer. Pretty much the same as me.

I'm just sick of some of some posters whose only response to divergent opinions is to say "Anybody who is against the Iraq war, SUPPORTS TERRORIST and HATES AMERICA!" I don't even bother to respond to those clowns, who aren't articulate enough to explain why they feel the way they do, aren't clever enough to change anybody's mind, and aren't tolerent enough of the democratic process to understand that it is made up of many different opinions.

I just don't want to see constructive political discussions turned into mindless bashing of political opponents. But you haven't done that, pardon my misplaced fears.

 

I know what you mean about Iran, although our good buddy Pakistan is an Islamic power with nuclear weapons already and an unpopular government in shaky control. Osama lives there. I don't trust them one bit. But our biggest potential war is with North Korea. They definitely have a nuclear weapons program and the crazy little bastard running the place is liable to do anything.

Redeploying idle troops and closing unneeded cold-war bases from Germany makes good sense to me. But removing troops from Korea may be inviting trouble.

 

When faced with conflicting intelligence, and there was a lot of it, he should not have acted rashly. He should have taken the time to get the intelligence right. There was no reason to rush to war. The Taliban had been taken down in Afghanistan, Al Qaida finances were being rolled up around the world, and Saddam was hobbled by international sanctions. The military leaders advised against war with Irag, the state department advised against it, our allies advised against it, and the CIA couldn't find any evidence that Iraq was a threat to us.

In this case Bush seems to have selectively ignored the intelligence that did not support his disposition to make war on Saddam. That was neither prudent nor wise.

The first George Bush's decision not to invade Iraq in 1991 seemed like a mistake at the time, but present realities make it clear that he did the right thing. George HW Bush wrote in his 1997 memoir "A World Transformed":

Trying to eliminate Saddam ... would have incurred incalculable human and political costs... . We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ... there was no viable 'exit strategy'. Had we gone the invasion route, The United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

Pity that the son lacks the wisdom and prudence of the father.