The Requirement for Decisiveness

We need a decisive president in the White House and that president is not John Kerry. What follows is an explanation of that stance.

In the recent debates John Kerry claimed that his stance on Iraq has been "unwavering". His own words would disprove that:

• "We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." - October 9, 1998
• "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime .. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real." - January 23, 2003
• "Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president" - December 16, 2003
• "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." - May 3, 2003
• "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it's the right authority for a president to have. But I would have used that authority as I have said throughout this campaign, effectively." - August 9, 2004
• "Iraq was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." - September 6, 2004
• "We should not send more American troops. That would be the worst thing."- September 4, 2003
• "If it requires more troops . . . That's what you have to do." - April 18, 2004
• "I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops." - August 1, 2004
• "We're going to get our troops home where they belong." - August 6, 2004

I fail to see the words of a decisive man, nor do I see an "unwavering stance". Further Kerry claims that we have no real coalition, that they are a coalition of the "coerced and bribed". Yet that would seem a fallacious claim if one protracts the following:

Korean War (peak troop numbers, by country, excluding Republic of Korea forces):

• United States: 348,000
• Great Britain: 14,198
• Canada: 6,146
• Turkey: 5,455
• Australia: 2,282
• Philippines: 1,496
• New Zealand: 1,389
• Thailand: 1,294
• Ethiopia: 1,271
• Greece: 1,263
• France: 1,119
• Colombia: 1,068
• Belgium/Luxembourg: 944
• South Africa: 826
• Netherlands: 819

Total: 16 nations; 387,570 combat troops, US troop contribution: 90%

Iraq War (troop numbers, by country, as of July 2004, excluding Iraqi forces):

• United States: 126,500
• Great Britain: 8,300
• Italy: 3,120
• Poland: 2,400
• Ukraine: 1,650
• Netherlands: 1,400
• Australia: 850
• Romania: 800
• Japan: 600
• South Korea: 600
• Denmark: 520
• Bulgaria: 485
• Thailand: 450
• El Salvador: 380
• Hungary: 300
• Singapore: 200
• Norway: 155
• Azerbaijan: 150
• Georgia: 150
• Mongolia: 140
• Latvia: 120
• Portugal: 110
• Czech Republic: 110
• Lithuania: 105
• Slovakia: 105
• Albania: 70
• New Zealand: 60
• Tonga: 45
• Estonia: 40
• Kazakhstan: 30
• Macedonia: 30
• Moldova: 10
  

Total: 32 nations; 149,985 combat troops, US troop contribution: 84%

In a liberal's point of view, the first "coalition" was valid, but the second, despite the numbers of nations and the percentage of contribution, is not. How does this prove John Kerry to be decisive if he can't even get his facts regarding foreign policy correct? He claims that holding "summits" is how to build a real coalition but obviously wouldn't recognize one if it bit him the ass. In truth all he is doing is pandering to the anti-war/pacifist vote and let's not forget, John Kerry most certainly is a pacifist as is evidenced by his post-Vietnam activities and that is not a defining quality for a war president.

With that I hope to have proven that John Kerry is certainly not decisive. Now some liberals will claim that decisiveness is in fact, an inability to admit failure. They will cite the current state of affairs in Iraq as their point-in-case for that failure. The fact remains that most Iraqi's still support the US goals in Iraq. I know that's not what CBS will tell you, but those who know better will tell you otherwise.

Despite all the hub-bub about WMD's and disarming Saddam, Bush's other and perhaps more important goal was as he said:

"An initial goal in going to war was to democratize Iraq, so that, gradually, neighboring peoples would feel the positive pull of a more open political system at the heart of the Arab world. As the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks proved, American, indeed Western, national security depends on the success of this endeavor." -George W. Bush

If one protracts all of the governments in the Middle East, one will find that all save Israel are theocracies or monarchies. Both forms of government are less than conducive to an individual's pursuit of happiness. This generates a large pool of disaffected youth; youth who are easily drawn to the extremist's promises of other-worldly happiness in exchange for martyrdom.

Clearly, George Bush reiterated that sentiment (albeit far too subtly for most liberals to comprehend) when he said that the war on terrorism could be truly won but that "you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world".

Clearly you can not completely eliminate the use of a specific tactic (terrorism), but you can reduce its employment by altering the environment that spawns those who espouse it.

In all their haste to seize a tasty sound-byte, the liberals failed to make an effort to understand the common sense that was actually being expressed. You can not kill off every person who will potentially be drawn to the extremist-pied-pipers charms, that is just a stop-gap measure, until a more permanent resolution can be achieved. That more permanent solution is to force the extreme forms of government to be abandoned in favor of those more conducive to the pursuit of happiness.