Posted on 12/05/2010 9:19:45 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Kerry: 'Afghanistan is just not Vietnam' By J. Taylor Rushing - 12/05/10 11:33 AM ET
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Sunday gave a firm defense of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, rejecting any comparison to the Vietnam War in which he served.
Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" to host David Gregory, Kerry said the Obama administration has acted correctly in continuing the war in Afghanistan and should be able to withdraw troops as planned in 2014. Gregory had played Kerry a video clip of his 1971 testimony before Congress in which Kerry famously called the Vietnam War "a mistake."
"In my judgement, Afghanistan is just not Vietnam," Kerry said. "We shouldn't have been in Vietnam. It was a surrogate war, it was a cold war. There are any number of reasons it was a gigantic mistake. In Afghanistan, we're there for a purpose. I don't believe the size of the footprint we have doing everything we're doing, as I've said publicly many times, and I don't think the president, in the long run, wants to do that, which is why he has committed to this transition.
"I believe the president and our military are on the right track, which is to turn this over to the Afghans as rapidly as possible in a way that meets their needs to have sufficient stability and capacity to survive, and our needs to prosecute counter-terrorism efforts. I think you can do a lot of counter-terrorism with a smaller footprint and still manage the progress of Afghanistan.
"Can we do it by 2014? Yes, I believe we can, and I think the president is absolutely intent on preventing this from being the mistake that begged the question that I posed in 1971."
from the FRchives (etc):
Kerry’s Shifts: Nuanced Ideas or Flip-Flops?
Posted on 03/05/2004 9:23:15 PM PST by FairOpinion
NY Times | March6, 2004 | DAVID M. HALBFINGER
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1091912/posts
1998: Kerry calls for ground troops to topple Saddam; Clinton not tough enough
The Boston Globe | February 23, 1998 | Aaron Zitner, Globe Staff
Posted on 06/20/2004 9:29:57 AM PDT by nwrep
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1156895/posts
Transcript of John Kerry acceptance speech
“You don’t value families if you force them to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service, if you deny veterans health care, or if you tell middle class families to wait for a tax cut, so that the wealthiest among us can get even more.”
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04212/354246.stm
[voted against body armor]
Whopper: John Kerry
Stop lying about your record!
By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, March 15, 2004, at 3:15 PM PT
http://slate.msn.com/id/2097201/
Patriot Games
Posted on 03/01/2004 4:50:02 PM PST by RWR8189
The Weekly Standard | March 7, 2004 | Fred Barnes
Why is John Kerry so defensive about his national security record?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1088673/posts
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/003/801oeivl.asp
Kerry Misfires In Economic Blame Game
Thw Washington Post | 06/16/04 | Steven Pearlstein
Posted on 06/16/2004 5:23:06 AM PDT by TonyInOhio
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1154425/posts
NYT: The Face of Scare Politics
Posted by Mathew Gross
03:34 AM Wednesday, December 17, 2003
http://www.blogforamerica.com/
[regarding anti-Dean ad run by Kerry]
The Trouble With Kerry
Updated Monday, March 1, 2004, at 3:20 PM PT
http://slate.msn.com/id/2096408/
Bush Or Kerry?All the Democratic presidential candidates supported the invasion of Iraq, bar one: Howard Dean. Kerry not only voted for the invasion, but expressed his disappointment that it had not gone according to plan. He told Rolling Stone magazine: "Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did." Neither Kerry nor any of the other candidates has called for an end to the bloody and illegal occupation; on the contrary, all of them have demanded more troops for Iraq. Kerry has called for another "40,000 active service troops". He has supported Bush's continuing bloody assault on Afghanistan, and the administration's plans to "return Latin America to American leadership" by subverting democracy in Venezuela.
Look Closely And The Danger Is The Same
by John Pilger
March 04, 2004
New Statesman
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