Originally posted by JaTo:


Originally posted by Rogerm60:

Flip flopping on the war - web page


OK, the Bush marketing folks have stretched this to a fair degree (and totally miss the point that we gave Hussein a decade worth of chances), but what say you to the following...

From the article: "It's not only Bush who criticizes Kerry's inconsistency on that vote. Rival Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, a senator who also had voted to give Bush authority to use force in Iraq, said: "I don't know how John Kerry and John Edwards can say they supported the war but then opposed the funding for the troops who went to fight the war that the resolution that they supported authorized." Lieberman spoke at a candidate debate in Detroit Oct. 26, 2003.

Another Democratic rival who criticized Kerry for that vote was Rep. Dick Gephardt, who said beforehand that he would support the $87 billion "because it is the only responsible course of action. We must not send an ambiguous message to our troops, and we must not send an uncertain message to our friends and enemies in Iraq."




Two things come to mind.

First - Remember that no one voted to go to war, support the war is not exactly accurate either. They actually voted to give G.W.B. the authorization to go to war if he thouroughly persued all diplomatic and multinational options and they failed, and, there was imminent threat of attack. Some think this is just a technicality. We had supposedly learned our lesson from James K. Polk's mexican war. If you listen to our current administration now, the threat was possible or would be in the future, this is not imminent.

Second and more to the point - Although the administration had sent troops to Iraq without pressing for the procurement of the remaining units of new body armor (about 40,000 pieces), the matter later came to a head and was included in the often refered to $87 billion appropriation bill for reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The body armor was only $300 million of that bill. The reconstruction money included $10 billion for Iraq. If you remember at the time, there was some controversy over wether to call the money a "gift" or a loan. There was also a measure that would have provided the $87 billion while also temporarily reversing Bush's tax cuts for those making $400,000 a year or more. Kerry did indeed vote for a version of the the bill before he voted against a different version of it. Support of the troops was not at issue, rather it was Kerry's fiscal conservatism at a time when the buget was exploding due to America's unilateral decision to persue and finance the war.

I might add that the often used Kerry quote about voting for the bill before voting against it continued - "And I might add, that vote for the $87 billion, which was was a vote to change our policy and get other nations involved and get other people on the ground and take the target off of American troops by sharing the responsibility, it was also a vote that took place long after they already committed the troops, long after they should have had the equipment that they needed."

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" -George Santayana