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a berlin blog |
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Friday, September 03, 2004 OK, I give upI have to say something about the convention. One honest remark I've heard from the speakers-of-the-thing-which-is-not in New York comes, as you'd expect, from John McCain. Now, McCain loathes George Bush the way Bush loathes McCain -- he just wanted the podium to set up McCain 2008. But the kernel of his speech is probably true:... While this war has many components, we can’t make victory on the battlefield harder to achieve so that our diplomacy is easier to conduct ... That’s why I commend to my country the re-election of President Bush. I think that is the reason McCain will vote for Bush. And it's a thorny, uncomfortable point. All Kerry has said so far about Iraq is that he would mend our alliances to involve the U.N. and give our troops a rest. Nice idea; but involving the U.N. in practice might do just what McCain says, make victory difficult. Americans have no legitimacy in Iraq only because Bush never had the moral stature (read: oil disinterest) to invade largely by himself, and because there were no weapons to back up his gasbag Cassandra-isms. There were plenty of good reasons to end Saddam's rule, though, and a better president could have done it right, even unilaterally. The problem with this war was the people in charge, not unilateralism. (I know this won't be a popular opinion.) But the same goes for Iraq's reconstruction: Bush and his people said they'd rebuild with a quick unfettered hand, which was also a nice idea; but they proved to be disorganized, irresponsible, or plain dishonest. That's exactly the reason to vote for Kerry. I just wish he could describe a new plan for Iraq. He's right that we should fix our alliances, but handing the mess over to a bureaucracy like the U.N. is not going to solve a thing. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:41 AM
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