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     Pippi Citizen Username: Pippi Post Number: 321 Registered: 8-2003  |
From NY Times: Cheney Warns of Terror Risk if Kerry Wins By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID M. HALBFINGER Published: September 8, 2004 COLUMBIA, Mo., Sept. 7 - Stepping up the battle over national security, Vice President Dick Cheney warned on Tuesday that the country would be at risk of a terror attack if it made "the wrong choice" in November, and President Bush accused Senator John Kerry of adopting the antiwar language of his Democratic primary rival Howard Dean. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney delivered their accusations in separate appearances as Mr. Kerry, for the second day in a row, attacked Mr. Bush's "wrong choices." The Democratic contender said that of all of them "the most catastrophic choice is the mess that he has made in Iraq." Advertisement The debate was underscored as the deaths of American military personnel and Defense Department civilians working in Iraq reached 1,000. Mr. Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, called it a "tragic milestone" and a reminder that "we must meet our sacred obligation to all our troops to do all we can to make the right decisions in Iraq so that we can bring them home as soon as possible." Mr. Bush never mentioned the figure on a bus tour across Missouri. But at the very moment he was criticizing Mr. Kerry as having flip-flopped on Iraq, his press secretary, Scott McClellan, told reporters that the 1,000 men and women had died "so that we defeat the ideologies of hatred and tyranny." As the candidates tried to discuss the economy- Mr. Bush hailed the benefits of his tax cuts for small businesses and Mr. Kerry warned that the administration's tax policy encouraged jobs to move overseas - Iraq and terrorism once again fueled their increasingly bitter cross-country argument an issue that is likely to remain front and center. "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice," Mr. Cheney told a crowd of 350 people in Des Moines, "because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States." He also said if Mr. Kerry was elected the nation risked lapsing to a "pre-9/11 mind-set'' where attacks are viewed as criminal acts, not part of a war against terrorism. Mr. Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards, promptly said Mr. Cheney had "crossed the line." "What he said to the American people,'' Mr. Edwards said, "was that if you go to the polls in November and elect anyone other than us, then another terrorist attack occurs, it's your fault. This is un-American.'' Anne Womack, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, said that the vice president's comment was taken out of context, and that he was addressing policy differences. "Whoever is elected is going to face the prospect of another terrorist attack,'' Ms. Womack said. "The question is whether we will have the right policies in place to protect our country." Mr. Kerry plans to speak on Wednesday about mistakes in Iraq from the restored train station in Cincinnati. That is where Mr. Bush laid out his argument nearly two years ago that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq was amassing large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and might soon be able to strike the United States. No evidence of weapons of mass destruction has surfaced in Iraq. Mr. Kerry's campaign also plans a new advertisement, "Wrong Choices," that links the war and domestic and economic issues. The spot opens with an announcer saying, "George Bush - $200 billion for Iraq," and continues: "In America, lost jobs and rising health care costs. George Bush's wrong choices have weakened us here at home." For his part, from his first stop this morning on a football field in Lee's Summit to a late-afternoon rally at a fairgrounds here, Mr. Bush ridiculed Mr. Kerry for saying on Monday that Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." "He woke up yesterday morning with yet another new position," Mr. Bush told more than 10,000 people gathered for a breakfast-hour rally. "And this one is not even his own. It is that of his one-time rival, Howard Dean. "He even used the same words Howard Dean did, back when he supposedly disagreed with him. No matter how many times Senator Kerry flip-flops, we were right to make America safer by removing Saddam Hussein from power." In citing Dr. Dean's words to mock Mr. Kerry, the president was clearly trying to associate the Massachusetts senator with a candidate whom the White House always hoped that it would face. Mr. Bush's campaign officials have viewed Dr. Dean as the personification of the liberal pacifist wing of the Democratic Party, a candidate they could use to excite Mr. Bush's base and to make undecided voters deeply uncomfortable at a time of threat. Mr. Kerry's campaign has tried to keep the focus on Mr. Bush, arguing that the president, trying to focus solely on the decision to go to war, is avoiding the far more unpleasant subjects of his failure to find the weapons that provided the rationale for invasion or what Mr. Bush called the "miscalculation" of swift military victory that has contributed to the 17-month-long insurgency in Iraq. Advertisement "This was his choice," Mr. Kerry said in Greensboro, N.C. "He chose the date of the start of this war, he chose the moment, and he chose for America to go it alone. And today, all of America is paying this price." At another point, Mr. Kerry said: "Let me explain it to him in a few simple words. It's not that I would have done just one thing differently in Iraq. I would have done everything differently in Iraq. "It was wrong to rush to war without a plan to win the peace. It was wrong not to show the kind of statesmanship and leadership that builds a true international coalition to share the cost and share the burden. And it was wrong to put our young men and women in harm's way without the body armor and the Humvees and the equipment and the reinforcement that they needed." Mr. Bush's aides, roaming the back of the sprawling fairgrounds in Sedalia as their boss spoke about the war against terror on the dirt floor where prize cattle are usually judged and auctioned, worked hard to put Mr. Kerry on the defensive and keep him there. The aides spent the day shooting Blackberry messages to one another and reporters with quotations from Mr. Kerry that seemed to contradict his statement on the "wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." In a debate in May 2003 among Democratic hopefuls, Mr. Kerry was asked by George Stephanopoulos of ABC News whether the decision to invade Iraq was the right one. "George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity," Mr. Kerry said. "But I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." Dr. Dean, in contrast, called it "the wrong war at the wrong time, because we have set a new policy of preventive war in this country," words that Mr. Kerry seemed to echo on Monday. The Kerry campaign said on Tuesday that many people had used similar language and cited a May interview in which Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a retired Marine commander who broke ranks with Mr. Bush over Iraq, called it "the wrong war, the wrong place and the wrong time, with little or no planning." Despite the increasing ferocity of the Iraq debate, neither candidate has been very specific about how to deal with the Iraq that one of them will have to work with on Jan. 20. Mr. Kerry has said he will seek to have all American troops out of the country within four years. Mr. Bush has set no timetables and declined to talk about how much of the mission of stabilizing and transforming the country needs to be accomplished before Americans can leave. Instead, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up while taking questions in Sedalia, Mr. Bush shot back at Mr. Kerry's argument that the president had twisted the arms of unwilling nations to participated in an ill-planned military operation. "My opponent called them 'the coerced and the bribed,' " Mr. Bush said of the other nations in Iraq. "That's denigrating allies. Tony's Blair's a standup guy." Mr. Bush continued, praising the Australians, the Poles and other contingents."These aren't "the coerced and the bribed,' '' he said. "These are the brave and the dedicated." At his "Ask President Bush" event here , Mr. Bush dodged several questions, including one from a supporter who worried about an overstretched military. "We don't need a draft," Mr. Bush said, insisting that the all-volunteer Army could meet the country's needs. Two questioners invited him to denounce Germany and France. "Why are the French so ungrateful for what all we have done for that nation, especially in the past?" one asked. Mr. Bush stumbled for a moment, saying, "We just try to work with everybody as best we can," and discussed the value of coalitions. Then, catching himself, he said, "I'm not going to touch that." Mr. Kerry, at his event said, "We need a president who has the statesmanship and the ability to bring other countries to a table they ought to be at," he said to rousing applause, "because the world has a stake in the outcome of the war on terror." He added that it was also time for the Iraqis to "stand up and say, if they want the freedom, they're going to start to embrace it, and they're going to do their part to make it happen, and we need a president who can make that happen. "You don't shove freedom down people's throats at the end of a gun barrel." David E. Sanger reported from Columbia for this article, and David M. Halbfinger from Greensboro, N.C. Rick Lyman contributed reporting from Des Moines, and Randal C. Archibold from Chillicothe, Ohio. | ||
| thegoodsgt Real Name Username: Thegoodsgt Post Number: 590 Registered: 2-2002  |
Hyperbole. A bad choice of words. | ||
| Duncan Real Name Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 2836 Registered: 12-2001  |
Beyond hyperbole. A calculated choice of words to scare thesh*t out of people into voting his ticket. | ||
| Pippi Citizen Username: Pippi Post Number: 324 Registered: 8-2003 |
Right, Duncan. Because if we don't, we are as good as doomed. Would you want that on YOUR head?? | ||
| Montagnard Citizen Username: Montagnard Post Number: 1028 Registered: 6-2003  |
In dangerous times, the country can't afford a chickenhawk Administration. It's time to get the grown-ups back in charge. | ||
| Guy Citizen Username: Vandalay Post Number: 65 Registered: 8-2004  |
This was Cheney's quote that seems to be ignored by the media headlines and Kerry. "He also said if Mr. Kerry was elected the nation risked lapsing to a "pre-9/11 mind-set'' where attacks are viewed as criminal acts, not part of a war against terrorism. " That was his rationale, but Kerry won't address that. | ||
| steel Citizen Username: Steel Post Number: 561 Registered: 2-2002 |
Guy, your Cheney quote is in the above article, (and many others articles.) The media and any objective viewer could not miss the clear meaning of Cheney's remarks. He could be paraphrased very simply: "Vote for me or die". | ||
| Guy Citizen Username: Vandalay Post Number: 66 Registered: 8-2004 |
Cheney's stance was that if we go back to the terrorism policies of the 1990's , we will be more open to attack. What is wrong with that statement? | ||
| steel Citizen Username: Steel Post Number: 562 Registered: 2-2002 |
Guy, It is clearly wrong because it falsely implies that a democratic administration would be not be vigilant in a protective stance against terrorism and also completely sidesteps the widely made argument that the Bush administration has fallen short of it's pursuit of terrorists in the pursuit of Iraq while still trying to sell the American public that they are one in the same. Cheney's people should at least now have the guts to stand by the clear meaning of his remarks instead of now insisting that they were "taken out of context". Afterall, -it is what they have been implying all along. The problem is that yesterday he was just a bit too blunt about it for his own good. | ||
| Guy Citizen Username: Vandalay Post Number: 68 Registered: 8-2004 |
To say that Kerry would treat terrorism as a law enforcement problem is a valid argument. These were the policies of the 1990's. He is not saying that Kerry would not be vigilant, he is saying that his methods wouldn't be effective. | ||
| Mark Fuhrman Citizen Username: Mfpark Post Number: 597 Registered: 9-2001  |
Nice try, Guy, but Cheney sounds either desperate, or like he drank some of Zell's Kool-Aid. | ||
| Insite Citizen Username: Insite Post Number: 307 Registered: 10-2002 |
desperate with an 11 point lead?..hardly.. this is driving the final nails in the Kerry coffin. | ||
| Mark Fuhrman Citizen Username: Mfpark Post Number: 600 Registered: 9-2001 |
Well, if not desperate, then wild-eyed--I guess it was the Zell Miller Electric Kool-Aid. By the way, this is the kind of thing that can harm Bush-Cheney a whole lot more than it will help. If they are front-running and getting loose based on the polls, that may be a mistake. Cheney has a tendency to become unwrapped (speaking of which, what ever happened to John Aschcroft and Donald Rumsfeld these days--why are they being kept under wraps?). | ||
| Insite Citizen Username: Insite Post Number: 308 Registered: 10-2002 |
Rumsfeld held a presser yesterday. He made the comment which made papers across the nation, "no one gets a free pass from terrorism" referring to the Russian disaster. | ||
| Michael Janay Citizen Username: Childprotect Post Number: 789 Registered: 1-2003 |
Cheney is right. It should scare the •••• out of you. | ||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 1624 Registered: 3-2003 |
It does indeed scare the •••• out of me, Janay. But why would one buy into the concept that Bush is the best man to lead us through the next four years? Do you realize Putin is damning the Bush admin for having conducted talks with men the Russians consider terrorists? The entire international community is chiming in that Putin should negotiate, but who is he supposed to negotiate with? Apparently, even the US admits that Aslan Maskhadov, current Chechen president and least of available evils, is directly tied to the son of a ••••• who planned and executed the Beslan atrocity (Shamil Basayev). Do we even know what our government's role in these developments has been? | ||
| Michael Janay Citizen Username: Childprotect Post Number: 792 Registered: 1-2003 |
The international community is wrong, as many of them were wrong on Iraq. You do not negotiate with terrorists. The Russians consider Maskhadov a terrorist, he may be (we now consider Arafat a terrorist after years of negotiating with him). If the Bush Admin had talks with his administration, what was discussed? When was it? Bush understands that you do not negotiate with terrorists, and that Liberty and Freedom will quash terror. Kerry wants to be sensitive to terrorists. Terrorists know that GWB is coming after them and won't back down... they also know that Kerry will pull out of anything if opinion is against him. We need a strong leader not a flip flopper that changes direction and opinion whenever the wind blows. Thats why GWB is the best person to lead us through the next 4 years. Cheney is right. | ||
| Guy Citizen Username: Vandalay Post Number: 71 Registered: 8-2004 |
Looks like Russia is adopting the Bush Doctrine: MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia is prepared to make pre-emptive strikes on "terrorist bases" anywhere in the world, the Interfax news agency cited the country's chief of staff as saying. "With regard to preventive strikes on terrorist bases, we will take any action to eliminate terrorist bases in any region of the world. But this does not mean we will carry out nuclear strikes," General Yuri Baluyevsky said Wednesday. Baluyevsky added that Russia's choice of action "will be determined by the concrete situation where ever it may be in the world. "Military action is the last resort in the fight agaisnt terrorism." | ||
| Nohero Citizen Username: Nohero Post Number: 3819 Registered: 10-1999  |
Cheney was unbelievably out of line. | ||
| Montagnard Citizen Username: Montagnard Post Number: 1031 Registered: 6-2003 |
Of course, when a strong leader does negotiate successfully, he's at risk of being assassinated by some right-wing fanatic that can't face reality. www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org |
