August 12, 2004
Four questions...
Mr Candidate Kerry recently posed four questions for the President:
"Now, there are some questions that a commander-in-chief needs to answer with a clear yes or no," Bush said. "My opponent hasn't answered the question of whether knowing what we know now, he would have supported going into Iraq."I noticed John Hawkins answered them decisively here. But maybe I'll just try myself..."I have given my answer," Bush said. "We did the right thing, and the world is better off for it."
Kerry challenged Bush to answer some questions of his own -- why he rushed to war without a plan for the peace, why he used faulty intelligence, why he misled Americans about how he would go to war and why he had not brought other countries to the table.
1. Rush to war? What rush? A whole year we talked about it. My favorite memory is of those Democrat congressmen who kept pompously saying "we need to have a national debate!" I wanted to scream, "Well, so start a debate, if you want one. It's easy to do, you just state your position, and your evidence and facts, and challenge the other side to answer them!" Of course they didn't really want a debate. (Much like the leftybloggers.) And President Tar Baby, he jes say nothin'. And then, in Sept '02, he stuck it to them, and put the question to Congress. Debate time! And boy, didn't they just choke on it!
As for the plan, we had one. And it was to do pretty much what we have done. And it's gone more slowly than we hoped, because Iraq was in much worse shape than we guessed, and because those who hate the possibility of freedom and capitalism in Iraq (Terrorists, Ba'athists and Democrats) have fought more fiercely than we expected. So what. Life's like that. The plan is working, though you have to read blogs to find out the good news.
2. Why he used faulty intelligence? For the same reason the UN, France, Germany, and Kerry and Clinton and Edwards and Gore and the Democrats used faulty intelligence....
3. Why he misled Americans about how he would go to war? I'm not sure what this question means. The attack went much as I had hoped and expected, though I was surprised by how bold and successful it was. I'm trying to imagine how a Democrat thinks (it's hard, logic ain't in it)...perhaps Kerry means it was unfair of us to win so easily. There's a lot of odd rubbish floating on the surface of the Democrat mind. I remember somebody pushing the idea that it violated the "laws of war" for us to use machine guns on enemies armed only with rifles.
4. Why he had not brought other countries to the table? Because the other nations don't want to DO anything. That's the dirty secret of our times. Only Red State or conservative Americans, Tony Blair, and a few pockets of the Anglosphere are still willing to actually tackle difficult tasks to try to make the world a better place. The rest blink grumpily and say, "Why did you wake me up? I was having such a lovely nap."
Re: Number 4, even if France and Germany HAD come along with us, they have no more than a few companies of deployable troops between them. Germany, in fact, never deploys troops anywhere there might possibly be combat. France, never more than a few hundred combat troops. No matter what, both countries could never muster more than 2% of the total force.
The "Bush went in alone" meme had always been a fraud. The only truth behind it means that Arab countries did not go in with us. But the American people have enough sense to know that they would not have been with us, even had president John "sensitive warfare" Kerry been in the White House. So they demagogue and propagandize, trusting big media to give them a pass. To committed lefties, Bush can do nothing right.
Posted by: Michael Gersh at August 14, 2004 08:20 AMNeither Dems nor Republicans really want to confront the question whether allied troops will actually fight. Apart from British, Australian and Polish, they won't, they don't. (And the El Sals will fight. Wish we had more of them.)
In today's world, even "humanitarian " missions can be attacked. Soldiers who won't fight back agressively, and governments that won't take casualties, are liabilities to us.
Interesting about the El Salvadorians, innit?
Could it possibly be b/c we spent a whole lot of time training a lot of their officers at places like the School of the Americas, so that, when they finally became a democracy, their military operated more like ours?
Could it possibly be b/c these people know what it's like to fight in a dirty war, and understand that backing down isn't the solution?
Here's the kicker: How would it have turned out if Senator Kerry had had his way, back in the days of supporting the El Salvadorians and the Contras against the Communist insurgencies? How would it have been, if El Salvador had turned into another Cuba? (Remember, it was Ronnie Reagan who WANTED to support the government, and the likes of SEN Kerry who opposed him.)
Posted by: Dean at August 15, 2004 02:34 PM
