Although gaffes like “You Forgot Poland!,” jumping the gun when given the chance to speak, repeating himself several times, and frequently stumbling while trying to say things earned Bush the most notoriety from the debates, I was much more worried to see that several vital points that Kerry made went completely unrefuted. We all already knew that Bush isn’t the most eloquent of speakers, and perhaps public debate is not his forte, but if he really expects to lead this country for another four years, the very least he owes us is an honest explanation as to why he hasn’t answered the following points:
Prior to the war, there were many protests discouraging the US from engaging in the invasion. The most famous slogan from these demonstrations was “No Blood For Oil!” At the time, those in favor of the war would constantly say one of two things (or more frequently, both): “We are going in there NOT for oil, but for WMDs/humanitarian reasons,” and “How will getting Iraq give us oil? Prices are still set by OPEC and besides, the only reason Russia and France are against the war is because they have oil treaties with Iraq which would be broken if Saddam fell.” While I could perhaps understand how someone might give those arguments some creedence then, two statements made by Kerry throw very strong doubt on the possibility that this war was fought for any major reasons other than oil [Transcript of talk here, at washingtonpost.com]:
- “The only building that was guarded when the troops when into Baghdad was the oil ministry. We didn’t guard the nuclear facilities. We didn’t guard the foreign office, where you might have found information about weapons of mass destruction. We didn’t guard the borders.”
- “To save for Halliburton the spoils of the war, they actually issued a memorandum from the Defense Department saying, ‘If you weren’t with us in the war, don’t bother applying for any construction.’”
What message does this send to other countries? We are concerned about WMDs and so we guard the oil ministry? We are here to help the Iraqi people so we spend troops and money guarding the oil ministries while those trying to maintain peace and transition Iraq to a stable government are woefully undermanned and under-trained for their mission? We are not trying to take all the oil for ourselves, so we will allow other countries access to the oil?
People talk about how Clinton shouldn’t have lied in office about his sex scandal; about how he shouldn’t have told other people to lie; about how he was involved in shady real estate deals. Why isn’t everyone up in arms about Bush lying about the true reasons of war (because if he’s not lying, then he would have produced proof to the contrary of Kerry’s statements)? Is it worse that a man got head while in office from someone who wasn’t his wife or worse that billions of taxpayer dollars, thousands of American lives (for those who think that the tens of thousands of Iraqi lives lost don’t count), and the great loss of America’s moral authority, reputation, and sound judgement in the world’s eyes have all been lost? Is it worse that someone might have made a few million dollars in questionable ways or worse that someone’s former company will make billions in the future, thanks to the oil reserves of the Iraqi people and the taxpayer dollars of the American people?
The American people might not be the most knowledgeable about world events, but they understand honesty. And they are going to get really fucking pissed if they find out that they have been lied to, cheated, and stolen from, all to make a few big companies and few people rich and powerful, and so we had better start to see some honest explanations as to what exactly is going on.
BTW on a small aside, despite Bush’s numerous attempts to peg Kerry as a flip-flopper on the issue of Iraq, he always fails to mention the reason Kerry voted in the way he did (and I think Kerry needs to address this publicly and forcefully, once and for all). The great thing about the way laws are written in the US is that each law can have several clauses. These clauses do not have to be related to each other in any way, but each congressman can only vote for the entire law, not individual clauses. And then anyone can say “look you voted against [part 1]” while conveniently ignoring the fact that the reason they voted against the law is because they were actually voting against [part 2]. Case in point: Kerry voted for a bill which authorized the funding for the war, to be taken by reducing tax cuts for those who earn above $300,000. The reason he approved it was because he agreed with both parts, i.e. the funding of the war, and the taking of that money from tax cuts. He voted against a bill which authorized the funding of the war by increasing the federal deficit. He therefore (presumably) still was in favor of funding the war; however, he was not in favor of funding it by increasing the deficit. [San Francisco Chronicle link to story]
In Bush’s defense, I will agree that Kerry has not been entirely consistent in his words on the war, but I feel that Kerry has always held a more nuanced position on the war (i.e. not all or nothing, but somewhere in between–America should attack if nothing else works, if we have true multilateral support, etc.). That line in between has tended to shift at different times (which is at least partially justified based on changing circumstances), although not as much as might be thought based on the sound bites that are frequently played. And if you read my earlier posts, you should have no doubt whether I think having an all-or-nothing approach or one that is not so simple is better.
Tags: bush, debates, kerry
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