General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Rice under fire from left as Kerry's name won't go away [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Still, I can't justify his insistence keeping the antiwar movement(which, at the time, was soaring in support and clearly represented half the country)totally out in the cold. It simply wasn't the case that there was consensus support for "staying the course" in Iraq, or that falling in line with temporary slight majority opinion was the only possible chance. It is possible to use elections to change people's minds, and millions of U.S. voters were moving further and further away from Bush on this issue.
There was no great courage in making the Democratic position "we can do it better". Nothing there that was being done was worth TRYING to do better. Staying in Iraq for the entire first term of a Kerry presidency would NOT have been peace. And keepiing the war going would have used up so many resources that Kerry couldn't have implemented any meaningful progressive domestic policies, since it's impossible to do anything that's progressive, humane, AND cheap.
And that allegedly "democratic" Iraqi government has turned out to be a dead loss. It banned the labor movement and imposed at least a form of Sharia. Women essentially lost all their rights. The sole point of debate in Iraqi pollitics has turned out to be which "community" got the largest peace of the pie...No one, American or(although most of you who backed the war never thought they were of any value)Iraqi lives were ever worth sacrificing in the name of that sham. And it's still only a matter of time until this "government" falls.
Would Kerry as SoS ever stand with the world's poor against the world's corporations?
Would Kerry as SoS ever even consider breaking with our universally reactionary foreign policy traditions towards Latin America, Africa, and Asia?
Would he EVER break with our reflex attitude that sending in the Marines(or the Delta Force, OR Seal Team Six)must ALWAYS be the default response to a crisis? That negotiations and non-militaristic conflict resolution must never be given a chance"?
Would he ever stand up to AIPAC?
I think we both know the answer to those questions.
Kerry is a nice guy, but It seems clear now that he's abandoned everything he stood for in 1971-that he thinks the status quo and the basic notion that the U.S. MUST "lead the world" are just fine. And that today he'd be glad to ask someone to be the last person to die for a mistake.
If the above weren't true, John McCain wouldn't be pushing for Kerry to be the next SoS. A partisan of the existing order always knows who he can trust to obey orders.