The unlucky Senator Kerry
By Alan Caruba
web posted October 11, 2004
Once you get passed the question of personality and character, it is fairly easy to see why Senator John F. Kerry will lose the forthcoming election. It's what you don't see that is the best predictor.
What you don't see are armies of anti-war protesters in the streets of American cities.
Americans, whether they call themselves liberal or conservative, appear to be united when it comes down to the question of waging war against the Islamic Jihad. They may disagree on where or how, but they agree they do not want to see another 9-11 here at home. And there has been none since President George W. Bush launched the war in Afghanistan and expanded it to include Iraq.
Kerry is running out of luck. On October 4, CNSnews.com reported an exclusive story revealing that Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by US forces, "show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans. They demonstrate that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders."
If you are so naïve to believe that Saddam did not deliberately encourage the belief that Iraq had WMDs, then I have a bridge to sell you. On the other hand, if you think that's the real reason the US invaded, you are still naïve.
Putting aside the issue of WMDs, the Washington Times has reported that, according to Department of Defense estimates, Iraq had anywhere between 650,000 to a million tonsof weapons cached around that nation. Most were sold to Saddam Hussein by China, Russia, and France. These three nations sit on the United Nations' Security Council. They were selling Iraq weapons all through the long years of endless UN resolutions demanding he disarm!
During the first debate, Sen. Kerry identified nuclear proliferation as the greatest threat to world peace and there was no mention of chemical or biological weapons, either of which could kill just as many people, possibly more. He specifically said that, if he were President, he would stop the building of nuclear bunker-buster bombs; the kind that would be needed to penetrate the facilities in North Korea or in Iran where nuclear bombs are being built.
I didn't hear a single "expert" comment on that amidst the endless blather that followed the first debate, but it is singularly important when compared against the Senator's voting record during his twenty years in Congress. Nor has anyone been impolite enough to point out that Kerry's offer to send nuclear fissionable materials to Iran in return for a promise to only make electricity, not bombs, was rebuffed by the mullahcrats who run that nation. Even they thought it was "irrational"!
After the second debate, Sen. Kerry would have voters believe that he would, despite his view that this is "The wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time", vigorously pursue victory over al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgency. This is so ludicrous on the face of it that one wonders why he doesn't just go home to Massachusetts and sit out the rest of the campaign.
For the record, here's a brief look at Sen. Kerry's positions on national defense:
- President Reagan's entire strategic modernization effort, including the Peacekeeper missile, the B-1 and B-2 bombers, the Trident submarine and the D-5 missile.
- In the 1980's he was one of the few Democrats arguing for a "nuclear freeze" for America's nuclear weapons program. It would have rendered nuclear weapons obsolete at a time we were on the brink of winning the Cold War.
- He opposed the production of the AH-64 Apache helicopter, Patriot missile, the F-15, F-14A and F-14D jets, the AV-8B Harrier jet, the Aegis air-defense cruiser, and the Trident missile system.
- He voted to cut back production of the M1 Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Tomahawk cruise missile, and the F-16.
- In 1991, Kerry voted to cut more than $3 billion from defense and shift the funds to social programs.
- In 1992, Kerry voted to cut $6 billion from defense.
- In 1993, Kerry voted against increased defense spending for a military pay raise and he introduced a plan to cut the number of Navy submarines and their crews. He also wanted to reduce tactical fighter wings in the Air Force, and require the retirement of 60,000 members of the armed forces in one year, reducing the number of light infantry units in the Army down to one.
- In 1995 and 1996, he either introduced legislation or voted for a reduction in defense spending.
- In 1997, he advocated cuts in America's intelligence budgets.
Can you imagine an America without the defense systems that Sen. Kerry voted against? Neither can I.
Other than stalwart allies like Great Britain and Australia, why haven't other nations joined the US effort in Iraq, contributing large numbers of troops to safeguard that newly emerging, democratic nation? For one thing, most of Europe stopped spending money on any serious military defense decades ago. They didn't need to. They had the United States to defend them. So Poland sends what it can, and Italy, and, for a while, Spain. In all, some thirty nations have participated in the current conflict.
The two nations the US liberated and/or defeated in World War II, France and Germany, have opposed the war. These are, presumably, the "allies" Sen. Kerry is convinced he can bring to a grand summit conference for the purpose of ending the war in Iraq fast enough to bring our troops home in four months or four years. It isn't going to happen. These "allies" want to see the US fail.
Voters instinctively know this. That's why Sen. Kerry will lose on November 2nd unless the battalions of lawyers the Democrat Party is amassing can produce a coup d'etat and, unlike their efforts in 2000, steal the election. 
Alan Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs", posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center © Alan Caruba 2004
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