The pace has kicked into high gear here as we prepare for our party's 38th national convention and our first-ever in the Big Apple. New York provides the most outstanding backdrop to showcase President George W. Bush and his vision for a safer world and more hopeful America. I thank Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki, former Mayor Giuliani and all the people of New York for making this opportunity possible for our party. We are confident that the groundwork has been laid to ensure that this is a safe and successful convention.
The 2004 Republican National Convention will showcase President Bush's record of accomplishment, his steady leadership, and his commitment to the American people. Americans share his vision of growing the economy through tax relief, vigorously defending our country in the War on Terror, building a culture of responsibility, and ushering in an era of ownership.
This morning, the 2004 Republican National Convention announced our first-ever convention in New York City will be emceed by a team of five Convention Jockeys who will introduce viewers to people and places beyond the podium. In this issue, you'll also learn more about the Page Program, for which more than 155 youth from across the nation have been selected to serve as general convention support staff. One of the perks of the job for the pages will be getting to attend the 2004 Youth Convention and taking their own seats on the floor of the Garden.
We've just announced that first daughters Barbara and Jenna Bush will be among a star-studded group of Republicans who will participate in the Youth Convention. The event is an exciting opportunity to allow our party's next generation of leaders to access the convention floor and interact with delegates, media personalities and political leaders.
This weekend, we will unveil our expanded Web site for the week of the convention. The cutting-edge design will feature new state-of-the-art features, links to a wider range of valuable resources, an insider's view of convention activities and many other new features. Also, next week we will send daily issues of the eBrief to keep you abreast of the latest news from the Garden. We won't let you miss a minute of the action!
Sincerely,
Bill Harris
Chief Executive Officer
2004 Republican National Convention
It now appears that Senator John Kerry's statement that he would have voted to go to war in Iraq--even if he had known that weapons of mass destruction would not be found--was "nuanced" after all. Shortly after this apparently unambiguous declaration, Rand Beers, one of Kerry's national-security advisers, told the New York Times that there were four "differences" between the Bush and Kerry policies: "Rushing to war is one, doing it without enough allies is two, doing it without equipping our troops adequately is three, and doing it without an adequate plan to win the peace is a fourth." What was not clear from this statement was whether these four elements were conditions--all of which would have to be satisfied before Kerry would act--or simply aspirations, ways that Kerry would have done the same thing better if he'd had the opportunity.
Now we have a statement from the Kerry camp that suggests the senator was once again hiding behind nuance in answering the president's question. In an interview in the Washington Post, Jamie Rubin, another of Kerry's foreign-policy advisers, said he had been wrong in an earlier statement that Kerry would "in all probability" have gone to war against Iraq. According to the Washington Post, Rubin now says that "what we don't know is what would have happened if a president had gone about it in the right way." In other words, by having his campaign advisers enunciate four additional conditions, Kerry has once again left himself an out: he would not necessarily have invaded Iraq--he would have gone to war only if he could have been satisfied that four conditions were present. Not even his foreign-policy advisers seem to know for sure what the senator would have done as president.
It is remarkable enough that a specific question from the president was necessary to elicit any kind of direct response from Senator Kerry about what he would have done about Saddam Hussein. (One wonders what the media has been doing.) It now seems, however, that the president actually didn't get a clear answer--there were unstated conditions, nuances, in Kerry's seemingly unambiguous response--and thus the president must continue his investigation. If the known absence of WMDs was not a condition to action by Senator Kerry, it is now important to know what the real conditions were, and whether Senator Kerry would have required all four to be satisfied before he would have authorized an invasion of Iraq. The president could sensibly ask the following questions about each of the components of the Kerry policy.
The "rush to war." The United States invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003. In late January 2002, a full 15 months earlier, President Bush cited the "axis of evil"--including Iraq, North Korea, and Iran--in his State of Union address. Shortly thereafter, in the first week of February 2002, the New York Times reported from Europe that spokesmen for the governments of Russia, China, France, and Germany were warning the United States and the Bush administration not to go to war against Iraq. So the president was seen even at this early point as having threatened war against Saddam Hussein in his State of the Union address. This was followed by a vote in Congress to authorize action if Saddam did not disarm, interminable negotiations over the first U.N. resolution, and then over a second. If 15 months is a rush to war, the president should ask Senator Kerry how much more time he would have given Saddam Hussein.
Withoutallies. At the outset, it is important to note that the existence or nonexistence of allies was not always so important to Kerry, who voted against the 1991 Gulf War even though we had a much larger coalition--including all our "traditional allies"--in support of our action. In any event, there are now 30 countries currently assisting the coalition in Iraq, including of course Great Britain and Italy. Senator Kerry has not said what additional countries he would have brought into his coalition--apparently because he has not been asked. The only major NATO allies not included are France and Germany. France, with six million Muslims in its population, and enjoying huge profits from selling goods to Iraq, opposed the U.S. attack from the outset. The German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, was saved from defeat in the last election by his open and strident opposition to the U.S. invasion. The likelihood that either of those countries would have joined the coalition in Iraq is virtually nill, so the question nags whether, for Senator Kerry, the "rush to war" meant going to war under any circumstances without France and Germany. The president can clear this up by asking him whether he would have invaded Iraq without the support of France and Germany. This would help the American people understand how important to Senator Kerry are the views of other countries when the interests of the United States are at stake.
Without adequate equipment. Since this is the senator who voted against the $87 billion appropriation that included funds for equipping the troops, it is important to know the degree to which this vote depended on the two previous conditions. Is he saying that he would have voted to equip the troops if we hadn't "rushed to war"--whatever that means--or if France and Germany had approved? The president should now ask Senator Kerry what exactly were the conditions under which he would have voted to equip the troops. It is important for the American people to understand from this complex thinker just what would have been necessary to get Senator Kerry's vote for that $87 billion appropriation.
Without a plan to win the peace. In February 2003--a month before the invasion of Iraq--President Bush spoke at the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute. In an address covered fully by the news media, he stated that his plan for Iraq--if the invasion should occur--was to establish a democracy there that would be a beacon of hope for all the peoples of the Middle East. Sounds like a plan. It even sounds like vision. In fact, that plan is now working itself out in Iraq, which is now a fully sovereign nation. This apparently is not a sufficient plan for Senator Kerry. He implies that that he would have had a different and better plan. If so, the American people should hear it, especially if this is the plan he would implement as president. And again, if the news media won't ask what it is, the President should do it for them.
The problem with being an opportunist is that you can easily forget what you've recently said.
On Monday, during a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, President Bush announced that he intends to modify the configuration of American forces in both South Korea and Europe. On Wednesday, Sen. Kerry, speaking before the same audience, sharply criticized the president's decision.
Appearing on ABC's This Week on August 1, however, Sen. Kerry responded to a question by host George Stephanopoulos on Iraq. Stephanopoulos asked Kerry whether, as president, he could "promise that American troops will be home by the end of your first term?" Kerry's answer:
I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops. . . . I think we can significantly change the deployment of troops, not just there but elsewhere in the world. In the Korean peninsula perhaps, in Europe perhaps. There are great possibilities open to us. But this administration has very little imagination.
Apparently, Sen. Kerry wanted to appeal to the "get-the-boys-back-home" sentiment in the country when he spoke on This Week. Yesterday, addressing a convention of veterans, Kerry was busy burnishing his credentials as a hawk by suggesting that cutting our forces in Korea "is clearly the wrong signal to send" at this time.
Who knows what Sen. Kerry believes? Does Sen. Kerry even know?
Ciao! This blog has been created in order to help George W. Bush to gain the US presidential elections; we are some Italian bloggers, who have supported the choices of Bush administration in foreign policy throughout last four years, and who think that the United States should go on in this way.
We do not think, as many other European people do, that having John Kerry as Us President is a good thing for the world, peace, security and freedom. So, we sincerely hope that George W. Bush will be president four more years.
If you agree with us and our position, please leave a comment or send us an e-mail to support G.W.Bush and Dick Cheney. Moreover, if you'd like to contribute to this blog, send us your article and we will publish it.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
