Quote:
|
As a result, the Democratic candidates, even those who voted to authorize the war in Iraq, have attacked the Bush administration for its successful effort to remove a regime that was a sponsor of terrorism and a threat to world peace.
|
The regime that didn't have any significant weapon capabilities was a threat to world peace?
Quote:
|
His willingness to publicly entertain the slander that President Bush had advance warning of the September 11 attacks and his statement that America is no safer as a result of the capture of Saddam Hussein should have been sufficient to end his candidacy.
|
How is America safer now if Saddam didn't pose a threat to us, as Tenet recently admitted?
Quote:
|
The Bush Doctrine, simply stated by the president, is: "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
|
If this was really the doctrine we were following, we would have invaded Saudia Arabia or gotten more involved with Israel and Palestine. Iraq is not known for harboring or producing terrorists the way these places are.
Quote:
|
If the bodies of a quarter-million Iraqi dissenters killed by Saddam, some tortured with their eyes gouged and tongues cut out, is not proof enough, there is still Saddam's undisputed use of weapons of mass destruction against his own people and Iran. That record is why Congress overwhelmingly voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
|
Koch is wrong. That record is
not why Congress voted to authorize war, for if it was, why wouldn't we have gone to war in the 80's when these things happened? When Saddam gassed Halabjah, Rumsfeld was still traveling there to shake his hand. I don't dispute that Iraq is
probably better off now than it was under Hussein, but why are we twisting and manipulating our motives?
Quote:
|
As for the new International Criminal Court, it would be downright irresponsible to give this new tribunal the right to indict and try our military personnel for war crimes, given all the enmity directed at the United States nowadays. Instead we should continue to rely on our military justice system, which has an excellent reputation.
|
Actually, I think a commitment to hold our troops to these high standards would have helped to buy back, in large part, the international trust and compassion that we lost by fighting this pre-emptive war. What kind of message does it send when you start wars and appear to exempt your own soldiers from accountability?
Despite these gripes I have with his argument, I think Koch has touched upon an unfortunate kind of voting dilemma that many of us are faced with, whether left or right of center. (I think Ustwo, bless his conservative soul, once mentioned a sort of inverted version of Koch's dilemma, that he liked Bush's foreign policy but thought he was too liberal domestically
).
On the new Bill Maher show, a few people were talking about how there is such a broad field of candidates that no one has the right to say he or she isn't represented. The problem is that though the field is large, only a few candidates have even a blind stab at the presidency itself; in addition, the candidates are alike on too many issues.