Wednesday, September 29, 2004
NEWSFLASH: World changed on 9/11
The Note believes that Kerry will bring up this article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Cheney Changed His Position on Iraq". The beef is this -
This can be nothing more than a sign of desparation from Kerry supporters, and Kerry would be stupid to bring this up tomorrow. This article is essentially critical of Cheney for changing his opinion on foreign affairs after 9/11. Yet this is exactly why people support the Bush administration and why no-one trusts a Kerry administration to defend America. All of Kerry's flip-flops on Iraq have taken place on a much smaller timescale and post-9/11.
The article goes on to describe how Cheney listed multiple possible problems with invading and occupying Iraq, ones which "foreshadowed a future in Iraq that is remarkably close to conditions found there today, suggesting that it would be difficult to bring the country's various political factions together and that U.S. troops would be vulnerable to insurrection and guerrilla attacks." Again, this misses the point. Yes, the occupation is difficult and will lead to violence, but the fundamental point is that we now deem it to be worth it, as we didn't over a decade ago. Kerry supporters not only display faulty thinking, they criticise other people for not displaying it as well! These people really are going to crash and burn.
In an assessment that differs sharply with his view today, Dick Cheney more than a decade ago defended the decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf War, telling a Seattle audience that capturing Saddam wouldn't be worth additional U.S. casualties or the risk of getting "bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."
Cheney, who was secretary of defense at the time, made the observations answering audience questions after a speech to the Discovery Institute in August 1992, nearly 18 months after U.S. forces routed the Iraqi army and liberated Kuwait. [Emphasis added]
This can be nothing more than a sign of desparation from Kerry supporters, and Kerry would be stupid to bring this up tomorrow. This article is essentially critical of Cheney for changing his opinion on foreign affairs after 9/11. Yet this is exactly why people support the Bush administration and why no-one trusts a Kerry administration to defend America. All of Kerry's flip-flops on Iraq have taken place on a much smaller timescale and post-9/11.
The article goes on to describe how Cheney listed multiple possible problems with invading and occupying Iraq, ones which "foreshadowed a future in Iraq that is remarkably close to conditions found there today, suggesting that it would be difficult to bring the country's various political factions together and that U.S. troops would be vulnerable to insurrection and guerrilla attacks." Again, this misses the point. Yes, the occupation is difficult and will lead to violence, but the fundamental point is that we now deem it to be worth it, as we didn't over a decade ago. Kerry supporters not only display faulty thinking, they criticise other people for not displaying it as well! These people really are going to crash and burn.
