--- Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Wouldn't Kerry's opinion on Afghanistan be a better > test of this > question than his opinion on Iraq? > > I think whether one supports intervening to promote > global freedom and > democracy is a very different question than whether > one supports a war > to directly protect (avenge, deter future taking of, > etc.) the lives of > Americans > > Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/
Sure, but Gulf War I was somewhere between those two, right, it was a war to directly protect and defend US interests (i.e. a harder call than your second example and an easier one than your first). So what we know is that Kerry didn't support that one, and that was not a hard choice to make. As for Afghanistan - the problem is we don't really know what Kerry would have done there, because as far as I can tell, every major act in Kerry's political career can be explained by asking the question "What could he do that will best advance his short term ambitions?" The greatest power of the Presidency is framing the debate, and President Bush framed the debate in a way that made not invading Afghanistan out of the question. It didn't have to be that way. I watched a panel discussion at the Kennedy School soon after 9/11 conducted by four senior Clinton advisors - and all any of them thought we should do is reevaluate our position with regards to the Arab world, rethink our support of Israel, and so on. None of them even mentioned what was, to me, overwhelmingly the most important thing, which was finding the people responsible and killing them. Note, I'm not saying that a Democratic President wouldn't have attacked. I think most Democrats would have - but there's a powerful strain in the Democratic Party that would not have, and Kerry, to the extent he has any principles whatsoever, appears to be a representative of that part of the party. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
