Kerry Is Clueless on Bases

[eablair3]

interesting piece from antiwar.com. I hope Bush is brought up on war charges, but there are some points brought up about Kerry that are worth discussion and/or consideration. I was against this war on Iraq from the beginning, and I'm questioning Kerry:

August 20, 2004

Kerry Is Clueless on Bases
Are the Democrats more interventionist than the Bush administration?
by Justin Raimondo

The case that I have been making in this space – that, from a non-interventionist perspective, John Kerry may be worse than Bush when it comes to foreign policy – was boosted, if not proved, with the Democrats' denunciation of the President's plan to withdraw some 70,000 troops from abroad and close some of those overseas bases. In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Kerry opined:

"Nobody wants to bring troops home more than those of us who have fought in foreign wars. But it needs to be done at the right time and in a sensible way. This is not that time or that way. For example, why are we unilaterally withdrawing 12,000 troops from the Korean Peninsula at the very time we are negotiating with North Korea – a country that really has nuclear weapons?"

Well, let's see: if North Korea really does have nuclear weapons, and would, as many believe, launch a preemptive strike against U.S. and South Korean forces on the peninsula if they thought an invasion was imminent, what good would those 12,000 GIs do? Most would perish in the first few hours of such a conflagration, but Kerry has no problem with incinerating them on the altar of his ambition: anything to score some political points off of George W. Bush.

This ploy, however, is not scoring any points. If anything, it is losing Kerry points among his own supporters. The Democrats have, at least to some extent, previously been critics of our "forward-based" post-cold war foreign policy, but, as an alternately perceptive and maddening recent piece in the Los Angeles Times by Ronald Brownstein points out, the proposed withdrawal:

"Has caused the two major political parties to switch positions. Democrats who long championed reducing U.S. troop commitments abroad now question the idea, while Bush is defending reductions with arguments like those Bill Clinton used against the president's father in the 1992 campaign."

snip

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3414

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[noahmijo]

2. So what you're saying is

Bush's way is better because it brings the troops home only to immediately ship out to Iraq, while Kerry wants to keep them in North Korea where they've been all along, AWAY from Iraq, where they offer a reminder to the NK dictator that we're watching him.

[jcgadfly]

3. The real question

should be "Why is America withdrawing troops from North Korea and Europe when they need to be removed from Iraq and Afghanistan?"

Simple. To score points with people who actually believe he is a peace president.

[eablair3]

5. one of the questions is: Why is Kerry opposing bringing troops home?

I'm a believer that the defense and the military is much too big. I'd slash the Pentagon budget in a big way and use the money for other more socially useful things.

I don't have any illusions about Bush and the Chickenhawks. I'm sure they have other motives at work. I don't trust them at all.

But, one of the questions or points made is why is Kerry opposing bringing troops home? Isn't that a good thing?

[noahmijo]

6. As I answered: Do you really believe they will be brought home?

They'll be brought home...and sent directly to Iraq.

I sense you trust Bush more than you trust Kerry.....I mean do you really believe Bush wants to bring the troops home for a noble cause like letting them be with their families? when has Bush EVER done anything noble for our military?

[eablair3]

7. the truth is .. I don't trust either of them

Like I said, I don't trust Bush at all. The guy will lie and people die. And, it is likely the case that this is a political ploy by Bush. And, yes, he could and would very well redeploy these same troops to Iraq after the election.

But, I'm not liking what I'm hearing Kerry say either. He's pandering to the center-right, and will likely lose a lot of voters by doing so. But, in those swing states and considering the electoral votes, I guess this is his strategy.

truth is .. I don't trust either Bush or Kerry ... I trust Bush even less. but, I don't trust Kerry. The guy is proving he'll do or say almost anything to get elected.

[noahmijo]

8. "The guy is proving he'll do or say almost anything to get elected."

That's a good right-wing talking point.

Study his track record and show me where he's lied or has not followed through in the past when he's said he was going to do something.

"pandering to the center right"

total abortion rights, his environmental record, his plan to decrease healthcare costs, the rollback of tax cuts, refusal to support the gay marriage amendment, wants to roll out a military bill of rights, a patient's bill of rights to protect them from greedy hmo's......

Yea he's so baiting those on center right.

[Politicub]

9. Then why are you here?

You said, "I don't trust either Bush or Kerry."

Kerry is the democratic nominee for President. He's the standard bearer of the party that Democratic Underground is named after. If you don't support him, I wish you would respect those of us here that do, and come back after the election on Nov. 11.

There's so much more riding on this election than the pentagon budget. Like you, I would love to see defense spending cut. There is no viable candidate who is making that proposal. If you say, "Nader is making that proposal," that may be true, but it doesn't make him a viable candidate.

I'm probably pissing in the wind by even making this post, but some of us, like me by virtue of being a gay man, don't have the luxury to sit around a navel gaze and wait on the perfect savior.

Politics is a zero sum game in America. There is a winner and a loser. If you can't see that you would be worse off under Bush, I can't help you.

But, I also don't know you. Perhaps you are wealthy and part of the group that got the biggest tax reduction. Or perhaps you sincerely believe that the Constitution should be amended to say that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Or maybe you are in love with Bush, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Condi and the rest of the crew.

It's Bush vs. Kerry this fall. There is not a third choice. I wish some of you naysayers would put aside your grievances with the democratic party until after the election when we'll all have some breathing room to debate some of these issues. There are a lot of other boards on the net that would be open to debating these points with you. I will be glad to debate the finer points of Kerry's policy proposals then, but now is the time for democratic unity.

[Kierkegaard]

10. Except when he says...

he is 'a war president'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A27179-2004Feb9¬Found=true

Friggin idiot...

[MallRat]

4. The difference lies in what Kerry would DO with those forces.

Belligerence projected from 8,000 miles away is not preferable to responsible stewardship of alliances from a mile away. Our troops in Europe and Asia are a critical part of American foreign relations.

In hot spots like the Korean peninsula, US troops are not cannon fodder. They're DETERRENTS. North Korea wouldn't fire nuclear missiles in a preemptive salvo in a new Korean war.

-MR

[Moderator]

11. Locking.

See DU RULES:

"{o}nce the Democratic party officially nominates its candidate for president, then the time for
fighting is over and the negative attacks against candidates must stop. The administrators of this website do not wish for our message board to be used as a platform to attack and tear down the only progressive on the planet with any hope of
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