John Kerry, Iraq, and U.S. Foreign Policy
Many Americans thought that the war the United States and its allies fought
against Iraq this year, 2003, was wrong. I was among them. For the year preceding
the start of the war, I did everything I could to try to help stop it, including participating
in marches and rallies. Many of us thought that the war was being promoted for the
wrong reasons, and in the wrong manner, and some thought that war per se was wrong.
I was not among the latter group.
The resolution passed by the Congress that authorized the use of force against Iraq
directed President Bush to go through the United Nations and seek international support
for what had to be done. It should be clear to anyone who followed what happened that
the Bush administration failed completely to sincerely follow that resolution. They ignored
completely the results of the UN weapons inspection process to the extent that it was allowed
to proceed, and acted unilaterally anyway. Senator Kerry's vote for the resolution that
that autorized the use of force was a vote for a rational process that would have determined
to what extent Saddam Hussein represented a threat to the world, and that authorized the
use of force if necessary. It was George Bush who misused and abused that process.
There have been many erroneous impressions and ideas that have been put forward by
some of the opponents of the war, as well as by its backers.
First of all, without a credible threat of the use of force, Saddam Hussein would never have
let the weapons inspectors back in. And we would not have had the basis for evaluating
Bush's allegations about WMDs that we did after the limited UN weapons inspection process
that did take place.
Second, it is not true that Saddam Hussein posed no threat whatsoever to the US or the world
whatsoever. It is true that he was not an immediate threat. But if we had not removed him
from power when we did, he would have continued to pose a long term threat to his neighbors
in the Middle East and to people around the world. And the Iraqi people would have continued
to suffer under his tyranny. And the US and the UN would have had to continue to rely
on weak measures like sanctions to keep him at bay.
Now that the war has taken place, the American people face an urgent necessity. We need
to look at the situation in Iraq that we face NOW, not before the war started, and try to decide
how to make it better. And we need to do everything possible to help the Iraqi people
to set up as representative and stable a government as possible, and to withdraw our
troops from Iraq as soon as possible. Senator Kerry has a credible, realistic plan for
accomplishing this.
Senator Kerry also has well thought out positions on other foreign policy issues. I would
urge you to visit his website John Kerry's website
and study his plan for Iraq and his other foreign policy positions.
In addition to his leadrership on Iraq and foreign policy as a whole, Senator Kerry has an
impressive background and well thought out positions on other vitally important
issues as well, including economic and energy policy, womens' issues, and
environmental issues. Please click on the links below for more information.
Links
John Kerry on the Economy
John Kerry on the Environment
John Kerry on Women's Issues
More Info on John Kerry
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