Over-shadowed somewhat by Gore's speech to MoveOn.org was John Kerry's speech about his ideas on foreign policy and the war on terrorism. To me, this speech is far more important since it will be either President Bush or John Kerry in the Oval Office next January. For those of you who missed it, you can watch it on C-SPAN, or alternatively, for those of you who wish to quote portions of it, the basic speech can be found at John Kerry's website. It is a good speech, I encourage all to read it or watch it. Even those of you who, like me, support President Bush in this coming election. Face it, we could lose although I don't think we will, and if John Kerry becomes President, we should know what we have to look forward to. On the surface, rhetoric aside, I honestly don't see a whole lot of difference. From the speech....



Now, please don't limit yourselves to this paragraph in your responses here, it is merely a summary of the proposed Kerry agenda and he hasn't really talked a whole lot about how he's going to accomplish these things, perhaps the difference is in the details. But, what he is saying sounds a whole lot to me like what President Bush is saying and has been doing. We have formed some new alliances, notably with Pakistan and Libya has offered to disarm their own WMD programs. We are working to modernize our military - that's what "transformation" is all about. I think we have used diplomacy and shared intel with other nations and are trying to do more. And, Bush does have an energy bill on the table for consideration to rid this nation of dependance on foreign oil. It is simply how to do these things that makes John Kerry different?

So, my question for discussion here is the following:

Is John Kerry's position on the War on Terrorism really that different than President Bush's is?

If so, how?

Is John Kerry's position on the War on Terrorism really that different than President Bush's is?

Based on the speech he gave, it appears that it is. I'll be very interested to see the more specific details that he promised in the speech.

If so, how?



This is one thing that I believe the Bush administration has failed to do largely because of the way they handled things early on with Iraq. If this administration were to be elected for another 4 years, rebuilding some of these relationships would be an uphill battle and in some cases as difficult as fighting the terrorists themselves.

What Kerry can offer here is new blood, a clean slate and he can get everyone back at the table to discuss these issues. Bush has just turned too many people off with his brash attitude.



Now clearly none of us are privvy to what the Bush administration conjured up as far as plans of attack and an exit strategy. However, current events would lead us to believe that the exit strategy was weak or non-existant.

Admittedly this is just rhetoric at this point, and I'd be very interested to hear specifics from Kerry on this.



There have been several instances where very respected retired officers, and unnamed active duty officers have come out against the strategy the Bush administration is currently pursuing. I believe some of them were quoted in Gore's speech.





What I take out of this is that:
1) George Tenet is going to lose his job (as he should)
2) Kerry will help to break down some of the barriers between the CIA and FBI to improve intelligence gathering. This has been sited during the 9/11 commission hearings by multiple people as a central problem. The Bush administration has made no plans to fix this.



Finally, it appears that Kerry intends to make a real attempt to get away from foreign oil, the right way, by investing in new technology at home and encouraging consumers to buy this new technology with tax credits.

It also appears that he plans to come down on Saudi Arabia, which thus far the United States has refused to do.

I honestly cannot see the Bush administration embracing anything seriously regarding the oil -- they are too heavily tied financially to the oil and auto industries. For them to support something which would eat away at profits would be political suicide. I would be interested in seeing Bush's proposal if anyone is privvy to that info.

Finally, and probably most importantly Kerry coming into the White House would remove the reigns of power from neo-conservatives like Paul Wolfowitz. In my opinion, those ideals are very dangerous and have played a large part in getting us into this mess we are in today. Bush was on the right track until he put his eye on Iraq, it has been downhill from there. It is a shame though, were he not influenced by the neo-conservative movement, we might have accomplished so much more.

Is John Kerry's position on the War on Terrorism really that different than President Bush's is?

If so, how?

My view is that the positions on the "War on Terrorism" aren't that far apart. The difference will be execution of those positions.

The past two years of the current Administration have damaged our diplomatic standing in many Arab nations. Our military is also handcuffed doing Iraq nation-building instead of defending from active threats. We need to adjust course on these (or "waffle", if you want to think of it that way); the current Administration avoids course adjustments until forced into them, so I think some new blood could open up more options than just "staying the course".

To win the WoT, we have to win the Arab street. We aren't doing that by blindly supporting Israel and holding Arabs at Guantanamo without trial or legal rights and being "best buddies" with Saudi Arabia. These are actions that the current Administration appears to be stuck with.

At the high level, the positions would sound similar; when you get down to the execution of those positions, the current Administration has fewer options than a new one would. And that can make all the difference in the world.

Fair enough, but then you go on to quote Gore from his speech. One quote you missed there was the following.....



So, Gore's suggestion is that Kerry not tell us how he's going to accomplish all of these things he's promising to accomplish. I guess we're just supposed to take his word for it? That just doesn't do it for me. It work for you CJ? NOt putting you on the spot here, but it does seem to me that if Kerry does indeed follow Gore's advice and not deal in any specifics, then we are going to have to figure out what he's planning based on his past record of votes in the US Senate.

I think Gore is wrong here Aquilla, Kerry needs to present a concise and clear plan on how he is going to wage the war on terror and how he intends to fix the situation in Iraq.

I do not believe it needs to be so detailed that the information would become outdated quickly, but it needs to be clear that he is thinking about it and has a solid high level direction to take.

If Kerry doesn't take a firm stand on the WOT and Iraq by stating how he'd do things differently, he won't stand a chance against Bush in November. There are plenty of issues he could attack Bush on but people care about this the most, and I think a lot of people are willing to overlook other things they dislike about the Bush administration if they don't feel Kerry has a strong position here.

I believe he has taken the first steps with this speech, but it isn't good enough, he needs to flesh it out further. He also needs to get the message out more broadly, a lot of us watch CSPAN, the average American doesn't.

Honestly, even I would have a hard time voting for Kerry in November if he didn't come out strong on this issue. There are other things to consider of course, but that would definitely give me pause.

Really good answer, Cube Jockey, really good.

In all fairness to Kerry, I have heard that he plans to talk about more specifics in this area at the convention in July. I agree with you, he should and I think it's possible he can contrast his ideas with those of President Bush without "bashing Bush". That's a bad thing to do to a President during wartime.

I guess we'll wait and see.

Just to add some information here, Kerry gave a speech in Florida recently outlining some of his nuclear weapons strategy. Many of these points were in direct contracdiction with the Bush administration's stance.





Seems to me that Kerry has some good thoughts here, and I particularly agree with his point about stopping the development of new nuclear weapons in the United States. I am completely against the more neo-conservative position of the Bush administration here.

As I said on the "Should we Pull Out of Iraq" thread: I believe John Kerry has no idea what he would do were the US attacked in a 9/11 type fashion.

Let's see what he says in the speech Aquilla linked to:



This sounds excellent to me. Security first, "overwhelming and devastating force" against the enemy.

But what if we don't know who the enemy is? What if it isn't a state sponsored attack? What then? No answer, even though this is by far the most likely scenario to occur.

Kerry however, is not content with simply taking one side of an issue. He continues:



Strong stuff, but again he contradicts his earlier statement that said he would pre-empt an attack. I know Kerry's supporters will say he is "nuanced" or "thoughtful". Kerry knows full-well what the situation is right now. He knows that any attack on the US is not going to be perpetrated by a foreign government.

Yet he avoids telling us precisely what he would do differently than our current Commander-in-Chief. It is simply bluster.

"I will bring the full power of the United States to bear..." Oh really? I expected a Presidential candidate to say that he would bring less than the full power to bear...

Kerry needs to explain, in detail, what sets him apart from Bush.

We can go further with Kerry: his details about reforming the intelligence community:

Of course, civil libertarians on the left will hardly balk at such a "Big Brother" statement since Kerry is a Democrat . He wants to make the CIA director a Cabinet level position. That's what he seems to be saying (it's hard to be sure...) The CIA with no oversight.... Sure should be sending up red flags among everyone who opposed the Patriot Act, it seems to me.

I do give Kerry credit on laying out his plan for Iraq. Involve NATO. Appoint a "International High Commissioner" to work with Iraqis in organizing elections, drafting a constitution, and coordinating reconstruction. (Anyone know what an International High Commissioner is?) That's it. He then goes on to blame Bush if the other nations decline. He continues to act as if there is no Coalition and that the US is alone in this battle for Iraq.

Kerry's stance on nukes is well-intentioned and seems sound. However, I don't know how feasible it is:

What if such peace-loving and nuke-toting nations as North Korea refuse? Do we really think stalwart allies like China will allow us to identify and catalog their entire nuclear arsenal? It's a good idea, but much too pie-in-the-sky.

Don't think so Amlord. Bush will be president until at the very least January of 2005. Therefore, specifics of how to address the threat this summer fall to Bush, not Kerry. You cannot expect a presidential candidate to state how he would address a threat where he is not even privvy to all of the information or the options. The only way to even comment on it is to be vauge, the FBI is not giving daily briefings to Kerry. Anything specific he said would inevitably be used against him.

Secondly he said "If such an attack appears imminent, as commander-in-chief, I will do whatever is necessary to stop it." This does not mean that he will go in and attack a country (i.e. Iraq), that is merely one of many options.

Kerry has begun to formulate a platform on Foreign Policy, and admittedly it is still a little vague in areas but he has stated he will continue to flesh out the details.

What I do give him credit for is having novel ideas to bring to the table, and I can't help but wonder if these ideas would be critisized if they were coming from the incumbent president.

Not to turn this into a thread about President Bush's foreign policy or anything, but where are president Bush's new ideas? All I see on his re-election page are things that he has done, very little about future direction. To address the question for debate another way, the difference is that Kerry has direction, albeit high level and President Bush appears to be either resting on his laurels or in a holding pattern.

Edited to add: I also wanted to link this speech delivered by John Kerry on Feb 27th, 2004 at UCLA. Within the speech you'll read more of the same, but there is also a 10 point plan for combatting terror. This is older material, but is submitted as further proof that Kerry has a position on foreign policy and that position isn't new.

I'm about ready to head home, maybe I'll discuss some of the points in the speech later.

NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson spelled out, "11 out of the 19 military members of NATO have got troops either committed to Iraq or already in Iraq, six out of the seven new countries that will join NATO next year have got troops committed to Iraq, and I think it is six out of the ten partner nations of NATO and the partnership for peace are also there."

I guess the NATO solution is already in place.

Kerry's policies are looking more "me too-ish" as this writer points out: ME TOO, ME TOO!. . . . John Kerry's "same policies, only better" strategy..





Kerry can keep beating the "we are not popular internationally" drum. He needs to get a beat more up beat, in my opinion.

I never would have expected such a statement from a source so non-partisan as the National Review.





The article you quoted does make one decent point Amlord. Kerry and Bush are not so very different in their overall approach to the WOT. However, the important difference is style. Bush's "shoot first and ask questions later" approach may produce limited results but in the long run we are going to be better with an approach that includes preparedness, international diplomacy and reserving military force as an option. This is the stylistic difference between Bush and Kerry. So while the people at National Review may call this "Bush-lite", this is what the country and the world needs.

Many people have said that Kerry's proposed policies are exactly the same as Bush's policies... it would be interesting to compare the two and make that decision for ourselves. Anyone up to that challenge from the Bush camp?

John Kerry has frequently stated that he would've "waited" for our fairweather allies to get behind us on Iraq. After 10 years of idle threats, and the disclosure of huge financial interests these "allies" had in Saddam, that "minor" difference between President Bush and John Kerry would've left Saddam in power.

And please don't ask what threat Saddam posed. After proudly bragging about openly sponsoring Palestinian suicide bombers, attacking most of his neighbors without provocation, trying to assassinate an American president, and using WMD to commit genocide, I can assure those of you who have a difficult time grasping it, that this "trivial" difference between President Bush and John Kerry would've ended up costing us big.

No, presence of troops from a narrow majority of NATO countries does not make this a NATO solution. Kerry is most likely referring to the fact that NATO as a body has not taken up the charge (largely because of France's position) to address its collective support for the transition in Iraq.

Amlord, the quote you cited was probably the most telling in this discussion:



The reality is that you won't be able to see polar differences in approach to foreign policy here. The goals are similiar. I do believe the approach, sometimes, will be different. Would we have unilaterally disengaged from the Israel/Palestine conflict? Probably not. The Iraq question would be an interesting one for Kerry. Given what was known at the time (not in hindsight), would a US invasion of Iraq been a part of his approach to the WoT?

From Aquapub:

Sorry Aquapub, you can't make the argument that Kerry would have left Saddam in power and then summarily dismiss any argument that maybe he wouldn't have viewed Saddam as the threat that the Bush Administration did. There has been a ton of debate on this very area and enough question brought forth that waving it away just doesn't hold water.

The reality is, with the exception of the payments to suicide bomber families, the "threats" you refer to all occured prior to or very shortly after Gulf War I. 10 years had passed and Saddam had been caged and defanged. He was a threat to no one except for his own people and if that's your standard for toppling his government then we have a long list of countries to invade.

/sidetrack off


Well, that is a distinction, isn't it? We know Bush "doesn't do nuance".

I suspect as the convention gets closer the desire for detail will be at least somewhat satisfied. I believe, though, that foreign policy will not be what defines the difference between Kerry an Bush for this election. Unless there is an attack on US soil between now and the election. Then it will be viewed as pivotal.

Doc

With all due respect, how does this answer the topic question of what differences exist between Kerry and Bush on this issue?

Um, one huge difference, as I said, is that John Kerry has, and continues to confess that he would've waited for our allies (apparently indefinitely) before going in. (even though he voted for the war).

This is DIFFERENT from President Bush.

John Kerry tries to distinguish himself from President Bush by clarifying that he would've left Saddam in power, which everyone from Bill Clinton , to the UN, to John Kerry's own rhetoric seem to indicate is idiotic.

And if we had waiting a few more months with inspections going the way they were going, perhaps we would have discovered $150 billion ago (but who's counting?) that... there was nothing to discover. That the whole run-up hysteria to war was nothing but hysteria.

Sounds reasonable to me.

And when did the UN specifically advocate overthrowing Saddam? Did I miss something?

We would never have discovered WMD's -- or their lack -- as long as Hussein was in charge of preventing us from discovering anything.

The answer to the main question is: There is absolutely no way of knowing. Kerry keeps contradicting himself on issues. Which of the stated positions he would take on any one of them, we can't know. He might be just like Bush. He might pull out of Iraq and let the terrorists have it. There's no way to tell.

Whether or not Kerry's plan is a good one is a matter of debate on another thread. Do you take issue with the response of how Kerry is so different than Bush's policy as listed by aquabpub?

The difference, as stated above and in my posting, is entirely in the execution. aquapub asserts that Kerry would have waited... and since inspections were being fruitful in early 2003, that looks to have been a more reasonable course of action.

Kerry claims he would have waited? Kerry did not vote this way. He supported Bush's policy with his vote. Kerry can talk all he wants but in the end, how one votes tells the truth. I can not see any difference between Kerry and Bush in regards to Iraq policy by history nor by looking for specifics somewhere in the campaign rhetoric of Kerry.

Really? Congress passed a declaration of war?? Do you have a link to this?

Or did Kerry -- like many others in Congress -- authorize Bush to just "turn up the heat"?

Now, I'll admit that Kerry, like many others, did support the President as we went to war. But, then again, Bush held all the intelligence cards close to his chest, so that we -- and Congress -- couldn't see what they really had and how weak the case was. Even now, Cheney is claiming that he has more intelligence about 9/11 and Iraq than the 9/11 Commission, which is supposed to have ALL the intelligence about Iraq and 9/11. So... given that a veil of secrecy was imposed on the "evidence" so that we were forced to take the Administration's word for what Iraq was doing... is it unreasonable for Kerry to think now that more inspections might have been the better course?

If Kerry had all the same evidence that Bush had.. would he have gone to war? I don't think he would, because he strikes me as being a bit smarter than the C-average student that our current President likes to remind you that he is. Would he have convinced Russia, Germany, and France to go along with it? Those are the questions you get to decide for yourself.

Since you feel there is no difference between Kerry and Bush doesn't it make sense to replace Bush with Kerry to give the perception to the world that we seek change in our leadership? One thing is for sure, the perception of America and Americans in the Middle East WILL NEVER BEGIN TO CHANGE with Bush in office. Right or wrong, Muslims in that part of the world consider him the devil, and I don't think any action by Bush at this point will change their minds in that regard.

If there is no difference, what do we have to lose by replacing Bush with Kerry?

Kerry voted on the same evidence the rest of the country had, as did every other senator in Congress. This evidence later turned out to be incorrect.

Kerry has an article from the Washington Post on his website, which is worth reading.







So, there is but one difference in foreign policy between Bush and Kerry. As I have said before, their goals are similar -- in this case a stable Iraq. However, the methods they chose to go about doing things is completely different, and as we can clearly see Bush tried his method first and it failed. He tried Kerry's method and lo and behold it appears to be working (so far anyway).

We won't get anywhere with a shoot first and ask questions later foreign policy. We need an intelligent leader willing to analyze the situation, make tough compromises and at times swallow his pride and ask for help.

iraq resolution
my emphasis added. turns up the heat quite a bit i think.




That's more like it!

Kerry specifically voted to authorize the war. He's on the armed services committee and had access to every piece of evidence that existed. He repeatedly through 2 administrations said that Saddam had WMD and was a threat to our security, and he finally backed up his feelings with action in voting to use force in Iraq. Any backpedalling from his prior position is just political posturing and honestly couldn't be a better example of 'flip flop' if I wrote it myself. What, he actually did vote for the war, before he voted against it?

The biggest difference on foreign policy =
Kerry - there is a threat to our security, let's talk about it.
Bush - there is a threat to our security, let's do something about it.

CJ, the fault in your logic is that there would have been no free Iraq in which to try Kerry's policies, because he would have only 'turned up the heat' and not done anything.

The biggest difference on foreign policy =
Kerry - there is a threat to our security, let's talk about it.
Bush - there is a threat to our security, let's do something about it.

Kerry - in hindsight, we should have talked about it as the threat was NEVER THERE.

Bush - Wrong and a grave mistake.

Your point?

[b]CJ, the fault in your logic is that there would have been no free Iraq in which to try Kerry's policies, because he would have only 'turned up the heat' and not done anything.[/B]

The fault with your logic is that is that you think something needed to be done.

Context is important Carlitoswhey, context...

By taking action there are other sets of actions that become eliminated as choices and you have to react to that, opportunity cost if you will.

Given that Iraq is a situation that changes daily and Kerry isn't the one making the decisions, you can't take something he said 2 or 3 years ago and use that out of context because the situation today is vastly different.

I have presented things that he said since the time when we invaded Iraq about how the peace process and exit strategy should be handled, and they have proved correct.

To your point, if we had followed Kerry's advice and waited for the weapons inspection report to come back, who knows where we would be right now. No one in the world can say, because we didn't chose that course of action. We would have had completely different sets of issues and challenges. Who knows we might even be at war with another country, or we might be at peace. You certainly can't apply anything that either Bush or Kerry has said to that un-chosen alternative.

Edited to Add:


My point is that what is in the past is history, and the fact that Kerry was right and we should have waited a few months, while interesting (because he was right) is now irrelevant. We have now invaded Iraq and are trying to establish a stable government. What he is saying now is very relevant.

Who knows what would have happened had Kerry been in charge and we waited 3 months? Would 3 months have really been such a grave danger to the country? Do you think Saddam would have magically launched nukes at us? We'll never know how that branch of history might have turned out, but it is interesting Kerry was right even though no one listened.

So I wouldn't classify Bush as being someone that "does something about it", but rather someone that "shoots first and asks questiosn later".

Edited to Add:


The following is an excerpt from a speech Kerry gave a few days before his vote on Oct, 9th 2001.



Kerry did not "flip-flop" as the GOP would like you to believe. Before he gave his vote (and he was one of the last ones to do so), he was very clear that he would speak out if the President took certain actions.

This article in The Atlantic July/August 2004 issue, makes for an interesting read about Kerry's philosophy on foreign policy.

The article provides some background on his position and also compares his position to the current Bush administration positions. I found the following passages interesting, and I happen to very much agree with Biden.



The article goes on to outline distinct policy differences for Iraq, Iran & North Korea and the Israel/Palestine Conflict. Definitely worth a read.