Thursday, August 12, 2004

Kerry outwitted

What constantly amazes The Monk is how a man who is barely intelligent enough to blink his eyes can be the source and cause of all failures in the world. Iraq has terrorists = it's Bush's fault. Iran wants nukes = it's Bush's fault. Israel has Jews =it's Bush's fault. My cats have stinky poo = it's Bush's fault.

And what is more amazing is how this "moron" has outwitted Kerry into admitting he'd do the exact same thing that the dumbfark did, if Kerry had been in the same situation.

As noted by Master of the Obvious, Walter Russell Mead:

"Kerry has always had this vulnerability of looking flip-floppy on the issue and Bush is using this very shrewdly," said Walter Russell Mead, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations. He added "Being silent on the question makes [Kerry] look evasive, and saying something, anything, gets him in trouble with one side of his party or another."

Amazing. If the President were any stupider, Kerry would be out touting his own horrendous Senate record and claiming that supporting Latin American Commies in the 80s, the Nuclear Freeze, and voting against every major weapons system that later proved important in Gulf War II was justified by later events.

Last word for Kerry on this is from Rand Beers, Kerry's national security mouthpiece, and the four problems with Bush's approach to Iraq:

"Rushing to war is one, doing it without enough allies is two, doing it without equipping our troops adequately is three, and doing it without an adequate plan to win the peace is a fourth," Mr. Beers said. "If you want to add a fifth, it's going to war without examining the quality of your intelligence."

OK, The Monk must blow these up one by one:

1. There was no rush to war, period. Seventeen UN resolutions over 12 years, a 14-month wait to give Saddam a chance to come clean about Iraq's WMDs -- this is only a "rush" to war compared to Britain and France appeasing Hitler from 1936-39 before finally saying enough. Appeasement is folly, so was waiting.

2. More than 30 allies aren't enough? Waiting for the sclerotic armed forces of Germany and the heel-digging French tips the scales? Ridiculous. Australia, UK, Spain, Italy, Japan, So. Korea, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Latvia, and 20 others. Is there an indispensible ally not in that bunch? No, the Aussies and UK are there.

3. Lack of equipment for the troops? This is a new line of hooey because the $87,000,000 that Kerry voted against was primarily (around $65M+) to ensure troop equipment sufficiency. Kerry has no credibility on this.

4. Adequate plan to win the peace. I've covered this here and said:
Neither Roosevelt nor Wilson had a "plan for the peace" when they went to war because it is nearly impossible to do so. The victor does not know how much damage it will have to inflict before the vanquished foe relents. The facts of each situation change too rapidly for a "plan for the peace" to be a detailed step-by-step process that can be followed to the letter. That's what Kerry implies he would have had -- a point-by-point program that would have been implemented (that plan is secret, of course, because Kerry never had one to begin with -- he's just relying on general dissatisfaction such that voters will believe his assurances). That concept is garbage -- reality intrudes on those best-laid plans and requires the victorious combatant to be flexible, responsive and attentive to its overarching goals. Despite the relentless carping in the press, the reconstruction of Iraq is going well and that country is FAR ahead of post-war Germany and Japan in both infrastructure and the establishment of an effective governmental apparatus.
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5. This is rich -- essentially Kerry is saying that Bush needed to investigate the CIA's intelligence, the intelligence of MI6, the intelligence of every major intelligence agency in the world, and the intelligence conclusions throughout the US intel community from the first Clinton presidential term through 2003. Furthermore, the book on Saddam's WMD, or alleged lack thereof, is not finished as I've noted here and here. Simply stated, Beers' fifth category is a ready-made excuse for interminable delay -- the type of kicking the can down the road that Clinton did routinely and which finally harmed the US on 9-11-01. That's the exact type of dithering that the US cannot do anymore.

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