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Friday, August 11, 2006
Mark Kennedy: in his own words
Good gracious! Go read this mess. Mark Kennedy manages to get a lot wrong with very few words:
Black: ...You voted in favor of the resolution authorizing the war. ... If you knew then what you know now, including that there was no active nuclear program and no stockpiles of useable chemical or biological weapons, and no collaborative relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda, would you still have voted to authorize the war?
Kennedy: Well you’ve made a lot of statements that may or may not represent the complete understanding a decade from now of the facts. I would suggest that there were collaborations as relates to terrorism.
Yes, we should wait a decade -- because maybe in the future Saddam Hussein will have collaborated with Al Qaeda in the past! Continuing:
If you look at what will change that region in order to make us safer, the fact that we’ve had six million women vote for the first, second and third time in Iraq will transform that region and will make America safer.
Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant -- by women in Iraq had more equal rights under Saddam's law than the forms of Islamic law taking hold in Iraq:
Historically, Iraqi women and girls have enjoyed relatively more rights than many of their counterparts in the Middle East. The Iraqi Provisional Constitution (drafted in 1970) formally guaranteed equal rights to women and other laws specifically ensured their right to vote, attend school, run for political office, and own property.
Certainly the right to vote for one and only one candidate is not much of a right to vote. But it's more right to vote than the women in Kuwait.
More Kennedy:
As Adam Smith said, no two countries that are trading with each other have ever attacked each other. And I don’t remember any two countries with McDonalds open that have attacked each other.
Ummm. I guess that means there were no Volkswagens in France in 1939. And no Champagne in Germany, either. Kennedy means that liberal democracies rarely go to war, but he balls it all up.
Next up? Look out, Israel:
Black: But as long as there are always violent dictators in the world, how do you decide when an invasion is justified in order to change those regimes?
Kennedy: You look at the destructiveness that has gone on in the form of Saddam. Also, let’s put it this way, everyone that has snubbed the nose of the world community on over a dozen U.N. resolutions and not responded and complied with those resolutions that they ought to be on the top of your list, and there’s a very short list of those countries.
Israel is not ruled by a violent dictator, but does have a record of failing to comply with UN resolutions. I'm not the one who was everyone that has snubbed the nose of the world community though.
Back to the Hussein-bin Laden link:
Black: No, what I said in my previous statement is that there was no collaborative relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda.I just wondered if you had information that there was?
Kennedy: I would say that that is not an unequivocal statement, that there were no relationships between Al Qaeda and Saddam. I’d be happy to give you the point and verse that I believe has been documented in other connections that there were. But again, let’s get back to the main issue here.
Mark Kennedy: I'm listening. Where's the point and verse on the connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda? Speaking of Iraq, why don't we hear more good news? Because if the publicize the good news, it just gets blowed up:
But one of the more interesting dialogue that we had on the last visit with the embassy is that there is still more good things going on with the infrastructure that they never talk about, that they never brag about, because if they do, it just sets them up as a terrorist target.
Huh? Say what? We'd hear about more of the good stuff going on Iraq, except that if we did, it would just be blown up? Things are so good we don't want to tell anyone for fear of explosion?
And, as far as Mark Kennedy knows, we might have tens of thousands fewer troops in Iraq now than in November, 2005:
Black: Also, to clarify what you said on MPR, you said that a reduction of U.S. troop strength of tens of thousands during 2006 is a plan that the military has in place. And I gather you are saying you support it. And you mentioned that there is a best case, a worst case and a most likely case. Which case is the reduction of tens of thousands?
...
Kennedy: And how many less troops do we have today than we had in November? I would say it’s north of 10,000 if not tens of thousands.
Really? We've pulled 'tens of thousands' of troops out of Iraq. The interview with Mark Kennedy took place on March 14, 2006. Here's what Donald Rumsfeld said that same day:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gave a strong hint today that American troop levels in Iraq may be increased in coming days, perhaps only slightly and temporarily.
At a Pentagon news briefing, Mr. Rumsfeld said any increase in troops would coincide with an upsurge of pilgrims expected to visit Muslim shrines in coming weeks. In both 2004 and 2005, violence was sometimes directed at Shiite pilgrims during religious holidays.
There were 138,000 combat troops in Iraq in December, 2005. There were 133,000 in March, 2006. That said, Kennedy is correct, if you consider that the U.S. military presence was temporarily increased to 160,000 in advance of elections. That's not really a reduction, though -- that's a return to the status quo.
This might be the capper, though. Kennedy seems to object to civilian control of the military:
Let me address that question. Right before, inspired, pushed by an anti-war rally that moveon.org was organizing, it was reported, I think in your paper, that Congress should direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff what to do. That was Klobuchar’s stated position. Congress should direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff what to do.
How can you say, telling commanders in the field, here’s your marching orders for getting out? Not here’s your marching orders for how we want to achieve victory. How can you characterize that any other way?
Yes, Rep. Kennedy, Congress should direct the Joint Chiefs what to do. The civilian government in this country should tell the military forces what to do and where to go. It's called democracy. That's the thing you wanted to bring to Iraq.
