The 'Lion of Baghdad'

*** it received a dismissive response from Sen. John Kerry. ***

***…..If you were active in the so-called "peace" movement or in the radical wing of the civil rights causes, why would you tell the truth? Why would you tell people that no, you weren't really a "peace activist," except in the sense that you were against America's war. Why would you draw attention to the fact that while you called yourselves "peace activists," you didn't oppose the Communists' war, and were gratified when America's enemies won?

What you were really against was not war at all, but American "imperialism" and American capitalism. What you truly hated was America's democracy, which you knew to be a "sham" because it was controlled by money in the end. That's why you wanted to "Bring the Troops Home," as your slogan said. Because if America's troops came home, America would lose and the Communists would win. And the progressive future would be one step closer.

…… (Clarence) Thomas' real crime, as everybody knew but was too intimidated by the hysteria to confirm at the time, was his commitment to constitutional principles they hated. They hated these principles because the Constitution was written for the explicit purpose of preventing the realization of their socialist and egalitarian dreams.

……Their cynicism flows from the very perception they have of right and wrong. They do it for higher ends. They do it for the progressive faith. They do it because they see themselves as having the power to redeem the world from evil. It is that terrifyingly exalted ambition that fuels their spiritual arrogance and justifies their sordid and, if necessary, criminal means.

And that is why they hate conservatives. They hate you because you are killers of their dream. Because you are defenders of a Constitution that thwarts their cause. They hate you because your "reactionary" commitment to individual rights, to a single standard and to a neutral and limited state obstructs their progressive designs. They hate you because you are believers in property and its rights as the cornerstones of prosperity and human freedom; because you do not see the market economy as a mere instrument for acquiring personal wealth and political war chests, to be overcome in the end by bureaucratic schemes.

Conservatives who think progressives are misinformed idealists will forever be blind-sided by the malice of the left-by the cynicism of those who pride themselves on principle, by the viciousness of those who champion sensitivity, by the intolerance of those who call themselves liberal, and by the ruthless disregard for the well-being of the downtrodden by those who preen themselves as social saints…..*** Source

_________________________________________________________________

(CBS run article March 2004) Kerry's World: Father Knows Best

[Excerpts]

Father [Richard Kerry]***….. "Americans," he writes, "are inclined to see the world and foreign affairs in black and white." They celebrate their own form of government and denigrate all others, making them guilty of what he calls "ethnocentric accommodation -- everyone ought to be like us." As a result, America has committed the "fatal error" of "propagating democracy" and fallen prey to "the siren's song of promoting human rights," falsely assuming that our values and institutions are a good fit in the Third World. And, just as Americans exaggerate their own goodness, they exaggerate their enemies' badness. The Soviet Union wasn't nearly as imperialistic as American politicians warned, Kerry argues. "Seeing the Soviet Union as the aggressor in every instance, and the U.S. as only reacting defensively, relieves an American observer from the need to see any parallel between our use of military power in distant parts of the world, and the Soviet use of military power outside the Soviet Union," he writes. He further claims that "Third world Marxist movements were autonomous national movements" -- outside Moscow's orbit. The book culminates in a plea for a hardheaded, realist foreign policy that removes any pretense of U.S. moral superiority……***

Son [John Kerry] ***…..From the start, Richard Kerry turned his oldest son into his foreign policy protégé. As Newsweek's Evan Thomas has written, "The Kerry dinner table was a nightly foreign-policy seminar. While other boys were eating TV dinners in front of the tube, [John] Kerry was discussing George Kennan's doctrine of containment." His father introduced the adolescent boy to such luminaries as Monnet and West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Later, when he was at Yale, John Kerry traded letters with Clementine Churchill, Winston's wife.

As early as prep school, John Kerry showed signs that he shared his father's suspicions about America's cold war foreign policy. In a debate at St. Paul's in the late '50s, he argued that the United States should establish relations with Red China. During his junior year at Yale, he won a speech prize for an oration warning, "It is the specter of Western Imperialism that causes more fear among Africans and Asians than communism, and thus it is self-defeating." And, when he was tapped to deliver a graduation speech in 1966, he used the occasion to condemn U.S. involvement in Vietnam, intoning, "What was an excess of isolationism has become an excess of interventionism."

….. When John Kerry came back from Vietnam, his father pushed him to be more outspoken in his opposition to the war. "When Kerry refused to speak out against the government [while in uniform], suddenly his father felt like he was being a wimp," says Brinkley. "[So he] encouraged his son to take off the uniform and to become a critic."

John Kerry, of course, did exactly this, first in Vietnam Veterans Against the War and eventually in the U.S. Senate. From the moment he arrived in Washington, Kerry promised that "issues of war and peace" would remain his passion. And, from the start, this meant that he would criticize Ronald Reagan's war against communism, especially when it was fought through proxies in the jungles of Central America. In 1985, he traveled to Nicaragua to meet with the Sandanista government, telling The Washington Post, "I see an enormous haughtiness in the United States trying to tell [the Sandinistas] what to do." Soon after his return, he pressured Congress into investigating the administration's illegal funding of the Contra rebels, opening a trail that culminated in the exposure of the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran. And, a few years later, in the late '80s, he repeated this success, launching an investigation that revealed that another of the administration's favorite anti-communists, the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, had been deeply enmeshed in drug-trafficking. Kerry was also skeptical enough of U.S. power that he voted against authorizing a popular intervention -- the Gulf war -- and opposed a 1995 resolution that would have allowed the arming of Bosnians…..***

Allawi's speech today before the 'full' Congress was indeed
a great speech . Both inspiring and comforting .
However did you know that only a few democratic members bothered to attend? Kerry ...isn't he a Senator?
As with most things in government he is a party to , he failed to attend . Did Ted Kennedy? doubtful....
But these guys sure do get right on the TV and start putting Allawi down right away didn't they?
Hypocrites! vote this entire rabble out of office , America deserves better than these dweebs. Send them home with their
ill deserved pensions .

***Reaction to Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's speech Thursday to a joint meeting of Congress:

***Reaction to Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's speech Thursday to a joint meeting of Congress: --- "I think the prime minister is, obviously, contradicting his own statement of a few days ago, where he said the terrorists are pouring into the country. The prime minister and the president are here,obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story."_ Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Democratic presidential candidate.

... "We welcome Prime Minister Allawi. I think he's outlined a series of extraordinary challenges that he is facing. But with an administration that has committed blunder after blunder after blunder in Iraq, it seems to me that it complicates his hopes and dreams for his nation. What is called for is a changed policy - this administration's incompetence with Iraq needs to be changed."_ Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. ***

Discussing their overthrow plans for America OR making a date for hell?

So does that mean Sen. Tipple was in fact present?

I don't know if Kennedy was there.

Bump!

"I don't know if Kennedy was there."

I'm fairly sure Kennedy was not there. Only 17 Democrat senators showed up. The cspan camera would have found Kennedy, for sure. These people totally disgust me.

I'm fairly sure Kennedy was not there. Only 17 Democrat senators showed up. The cspan camera would have found Kennedy, for sure. These people totally disgust me.

Bump!

well , good ol Joe Liberman gave Allawi a kiss !
Joe was there.

Kennedy was there.

yes, now I see too Sen. Kennedy was there . Not exactly
smiling much , nor shown standing up and clapping like everybody else , but there....
Also , among the Dem hierarchy , Nancy Pelosi
and Tom Daschle I noticed too.
Senator Kerry must have been told it was another
Senate Intelligence Committee meeting ,he was not there.

Allawi's speech was really great! No teleprompter
and not looking at notes , this man was speaking straight
from his own heart and mind . Those that put him off as a
hand puppet of George Bush do this fine ally of ours a serious disservice.
May he live long an prosper !

Thanks for the info.

"Kennedy was there."

OK. I give him credit for that much at least, however truculently and begrudgingly he showed up.

The speech was historic Leo. PM Allawi had some problems with the teleprompter and a cough (as well the heavy Arabic accent) but his words were crystal clear and a righteous smackdown to Kerry, the RATS and their media co-conspirators.

Yeah, Teddy was about as thrilled as the rest of the Democrats. Allawi was a living embodiment that everything they've been feeding the American people are lies.