- Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.
- -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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- At the debate last night, John Kerry, asked to give examples
of the administration's deceptiveness on the "war on terrorism,"
said the following:
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- "Well, 45 minutes deployment of weapons of mass
destruction, number one. Aerial vehicles to be able to deliver materials
of mass destruction, number two. I mean, I -- nuclear weapons, number three.
I could run a long list of clear misleading, clear exaggeration...."
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- On Oct. 9, 2002 John Kerry participated in "a long
list of clear misleading, clear exaggerations," to put it mildly.
In his speech on the floor of the Senate just before voting to authorize
Bush to invade Iraq, Kerry said:
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- "Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear
weapons when most nations don't even try? ... According to intelligence,
Iraq has chemical and biological weapons ... Iraq is developing unmanned
aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents..."
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- Kerry became famous by asking senators "How do you
ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to
be the last man to die for a mistake?" Kerry is now himself a senator.
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- Mr. Kerry: How do you ask someone to die for your support
of the invasion of Iraq? How do you ask someone to die for this mistake?
More than a "mistake," how do you ask someone to die because
you voted for an illegal , unconstitutional invasion? How do you ask Iraqis
and Americans and others to die because you backed Bush?
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- How can you tell us that Bush was deceitful when you
uttered many of the same falsehoods? How can you hold him accountable when
you refuse to be held accountable yourself?
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- How can you be "electable" when you have many
of the same skeletons in your closet as Bush? Do you really think the Republican
machine won't cite your speech over and over again -- "Kerry claims
that Bush lied when Kerry said many of the same things!" Fox will
blare. Or, after you get the Democratic nomination, will you be quiet about
Iraq, other than to talk about narrow issues like Halliburton -- searching
for something, anything, that Bush is guilty of that you are not? You will
come off as petty. Bush will come off as the visionary.
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- How could you have been deceived by the administration
on Iraq? You tout your leadership and foreign policy experience. How could
the idea of a government lying systematically about a war not been considered
seriously by you, given your experience in Vietnam? How could you not know
that Bush was lying even before the invasion?
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- How do you explain your speech -- lies in your speech
that were known lies at the time.
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- You said:
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- The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction
is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian
Gulf War. It has been with us for the last four years -- since Saddam Hussein
kicked out U.N. weapons inspectors at the end of 1998. And frankly, after
Operation Desert Fox failed to force Iraq to readmit inspectors, the United
States - and the international community -- erred in failing to find effective
ways to compel Iraqi compliance, thus giving Saddam Hussein a free hand
for four years to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction programs
and allowing the world to lose focus on the threat of proliferation.
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- Can you count the lies here? If anything, Hussein's weapons
of mass destruction capability ended with the Gulf War, the exact opposite
of what it claimed. Hussein did not "kick out U.N. weapons inspectors
at the end of 1998." They were withdrawn by UNSCOM head Richard Butler
at the behest of the Clinton administration so it could launch the "Desert
Fox" bombing campaign on the eve of Clinton's scheduled impeachment
vote. And "Desert Fox" did not "fail" to achieve Iraqi
compliance, it succeeded in destroying UNSCOM. The U.S. government, well
before Bush, clearly did not want a successful weapons inspection program.
If Saddam could continue verifying his compliance, there would be more
pressure to lift the draconian economic sanctions.
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- How can you talk of the administration rushing to war
when you said:
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- But the Administration missed an opportunity two years
ago and particularly a year ago after September 11th to address this issue.
They regrettably, even clumsily, complicated their own case. The events
of September 11 created a new understanding of the terrorist threat and
the degree to which every nation is vulnerable. That understanding enabled
the Administration to forge a broad and impressive coalition against terrorism.
Had the Administration tried then to capitalize on this unity of spirit
to build a coalition to disarm Iraq, we would not be debating this question
now, just a few weeks before Congressional elections. The Administration's
decision to engage on this issue now, rather than a year ago or earlier,
and the manner in which it engaged has politicized and complicated the
national debate and raised questions about the credibility of its case.
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- So that's what raises questions about the credibility
of the administration -- the fact that they leveraged the Iraq invasion
for the mid-term elections, not their pattern of lies. Mr. Kerry, you actually
fault the administration for not being hawkish enough, for not immediately
"capitalizing on" 9-11. It is clear that you merely offer a different
flavor of U.S. corporate global control than the Bush administration.
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- For over a decade, no politician ever lost political
ground by attacking Saddam. But you could be the first.
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- Sam Husseini has put up the web page www.compassroses.com.
He can be reached at: sam@accuracy.org
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- http://www.counterpunch.org
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