Thursday, June 16, 2005

Kerry's still right.

Today's Liberal Oasis post makes a great argument against Tom Friedman's assertion in his column from yesterday's NY Times that democrats "deep down don't want the Bush team to succeed." In doing so, he quotes John Kerry's words from the September 30, 2004 debate.
    KERRY: And I think a critical component of success in Iraq is being able to convince the Iraqis and the Arab world that the United States doesn't have long-term designs on it.

    As I understand it, we're building some 14 military bases there now, and some people say they've got a rather permanent concept to them.

    When you guard the oil ministry, but you don't guard the nuclear facilities, the message to a lot of people is maybe, "Wow, maybe they're interested in our oil."

    Now, the problem is that they didn't think these things through properly. And these are the things you have to think through.

    What I want to do is change the dynamics on the ground. And you have to do that by beginning to not back off of the Fallujahs and other places, and send the wrong message to the terrorists. You have to close the borders.

    You've got to show you're serious in that regard. But you've also got to show that you are prepared to bring the rest of the world in and share the stakes.

    I will make a flat statement: The United States of America has no long-term designs on staying in Iraq.
Liberal Oasis notes that Bush would make no such statement. His point is that this is the critical sistinction the democrats should be making on Iraq: The Democrats of the United States of America have no long-term designs on staying in Iraq. The Repugs can make no such claim.

John Kerry was right; Bush is wrong.

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