Someone should tell Kerry that we've already been attacked, many times. To go back to a tit-for-tat strategy for countering terrorism would be the worst thing that this country could do.

After 9/11 Bush decided to take us on the offensive. The 9/11 commission backed up this idea in their report. What John Kerry is saying is downright scary.

On this site you talk a great deal about how bloggers are better journalists than the traditional media.

But this "report" is absurdly one-sided. If you read the speech, just a few lines earlier Kerry said, "And we need to rebuild our alliance, SO WE CAN GET THE TERRORISTS BEFORE THEY GET US." (emphasis added)

And before you go into paroxysms, saying that Kerry will give our national security into the hands of others, here is what he said immediately following the quote you provided: "I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. I will build a stronger American military."

There is nothing wrong with saying an attack will be met with force -- Bush would say that too. And like Bush, Kerry is willing to meet an imminent threat with force as well.

If you are going to claim to be a journalist, then please give the whole story.

Bruce

" ... and we need to rebuild our alliance" gives the game away. Yes, Kerry would prefer not to have another Islamoterror attack. He'll respond in some way if there is one -- how could he not? But he is fixated in a pre-9/11 mindset in which defeating terrorists is best accomplished through alliances. With whom? France? Germany? The Philippines? Spain? The UN?

He and those who think like him can't get their heads around the fact that (a) we have alliances with the countries that are willing, and (b) we have done backflips to get everybody we can on board already. When you look at national security through the lens of "how will this play in Paris (Algiers, Madrid, the General Assembly, whatever)?" you are giving other countries or institutions a vote, if not a veto.

I don't doubt that during the campaign, Kerry will say many of the right things. But my instincts tell me his heart won't be in it; he really thinks the threat of Islamic terrorism is overrated. He will continue to see every side of every question and fail to act unless a plan is validated by all kinds of outside sources.

We can't afford to have this man making decisions -- or failing to make decisions -- whose consequences will shape history.

Kerry can say all he wants and his followers can point to specific lines out of these latest speeches all they want. However, that won't change the fact that if he had done and said in 1944 the things he's done and said from 1971 to present that not only would he not be the democrat party nominee for president, he'd be in prison for treason; not on trial, but already in prison. He has repeatedly aided and abetted our enemies, sewn discourse in the government and consistently and repeatedly tried to damage our military and security. It simply does not matter what he says now. His long disgusting record of anti-American activities says we would all suffer from this cretan's disasterous "leadership".

The threat of Islamic terrorism is overrated. All we have to do is pull back from the Middle East, allow them to control their oil in a free market, and to abandon Israel (which we, of course, will not and should not do).

Greater Islam would sanction its miscreants and would not care if the Christian world gets to Heaven or not. Even if they did kill all Christians, aren't you anxious to get to Heaven as soon as possible?

Many of you have been whipped into a frenzy by politicians and televangelists who know a good opportunity when they see it. One group tosses a few crumbs to the populace while the other buys racehorses with widows' tithes.

For me, right now, Kerry is not the ideal. The important thing is that he is not George Bush.

Responding to Rick: Stopping al Qaida and its spin-offs is going to take a lot of intelligence work inside other countries. In the post 9/11 era, cooperation with other countries is more important than ever if we are going to be able to figure out what al Qaida is doing and shut them down BEFORE their plots hatch.

It will mean working not only with other intelligence agencies, but with local police forces, etc in order to detect and then shut down terrorist cells. That is NOT something we can do on own. But Bush has reduced the wilingness of other nations to work with us. .

With respect to your paragraphas about us having all the alliances we need, and us having done backflips already.... You have fallen for Bush's line that there was some link between Iraq and al Qaida, and have allowed those two things to come together in your mind. Bush failed to gain international cooperation for the war against IRAQ, which is NOT the same as the war against terrorism.

So it is important to keep separate the list of nations working with us in Iraq and the nations working with us on the war against terrorism.

To deal with the Iraq coalition (which is what I assume you are referring to when you say we have all the allies we need): This list is woeful: http://www.geocities.com/pwhce/willing.html#list4 A bunch of powerless developing nations, a few developed nations, and a group in the 2nd tier.

With respect to fighting terrorism, the US continues to work with the major nations in the developed world -- France, Germany, Russia, etc, and with nations in the islamic work -- especially Indonesia. But Bush's war against Iraq has made those efforts more difficult, not easier. We need a president to rebuild those relationships, to facilitate the ongoing work of the real war on terrorism, which is not a headline grabbing kind of thing, but is mostly intelligence and detective work.

The real war on terror is not sexy, "shock and awe" stuff, but quiet, tedious, crucial intelligence and detective work. That is something everybody should understand. The real war on terror is not headline grabbing stuff. It is being fought, and will continue to be fought, behind the scenes by our intelligence agencies.

Finally, I don't know upon what your "instincts" are based, nor your claim about what Kerry really thinks, except perhaps bias against him because he is not republican. I doubt that after 9/11 any American - much less anyone in our national leadership -- thinks fighting the threat of al Qaida and its spin-offs is not an absolutely huge priority.

To respond to "clayusmcret" - Believe it or not, during WWII there were pacifists who protested the US going to war. Check out the history of the Quakers and the pacifist movement if you are not familiar with them. They were not sent to prison. In case you forgot, America is a country where dissent is enshrined in the Consitution.

Also, Kerry is not a pacifist by any stretch of the imagination. He is actually very hawkish. Being a hawk does mean that you think every war is OK, or that you think it is OK to cut taxes and then lead a nation to war.

"Sew discourse"? I think maybe you mean "sow discord." sheesh.

I didn't say he was a pacifist. I said he was a traitor. His exploits during the vietnam war were not pacifistic, they were treasonous. His meeting with the vietcong in france during the war talks were treasonous. His efforts as a senator to kill the search for MIA's were treasonous. His efforts to aid and abet the sandinistas were treasonous. His efforts to kill major portions of the intelligence community, regardless of your own personal animosity towards them, was treasonous. No my misguided ABB voter, Hanoi John has been no where near pacifistic. He has been treasonous. Oh, his lies, under oath, in front of congress, when considering their detrimental effects on our troops who were in battle at war, were treasonous. And as to my spelling at 0631 in the morning, get over it. Sheesh my ass.

The following Vietnam Vet POW says it best :

Statement from Col George E. "Bud" Day, USAF, Ret., Medal of Honor Recipient, Former POW in Hanoi, North Vietnam, regarding Presidential
election support:

"I am solidly in the camp for the reelection of President George W. Bush. While opposition to my legal efforts to restore WWII/Korea era
earned medical care by the Bush Administration was discouraging, the Kerry Vietnam anti-war movement directly encouraged the vicious torture
I received as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, was demoralizing for other POW's and their families, and provided aid and comfort for North Vietnam
to continue the war. I can think of no action more despicable than false public condemnation of warriors on the field of battle, as John Kerry
made under oath. Senator Kerry is unfit to become President and our Commander-in-Chief."

Col, George "Bud" Day,
USAF, Ret., Medal of Honor recipient,
Former POW in Hanoi, North Vietnam

I state again that Kerry and his (and this is where your term "sheep" comes in most handlily) blind anti-Bush followers can nitpick his latest statements. However, history will never (and should never) be kind to this jerk. Last word on the subject.

What exactly do you think Kerry said under oath? Watching and listening to the video recording of his testimony clearly has him saying HE WAS TOLD BY SOLDIERS that they (the soldiers who talked to him) and others they knew had committed atrocities.

A number of people, such as Wesley Pruden of the Washington Times, and Sean Hannity of Fox News have written or spoken that Kerry directly accused the soldiers of atrocities. He did not--he only reported to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 what had been told to him. Much of what had been originally related to him later proved to be unsubstantiated--kind of like what George Tenet told George Bush.

Wesley Pruden even went so far as to carve out a phrase in Kerry's testimony and replace it with an ellipsis (...). His verbal acrobatic changed the entire meaning of what Kerry said.

Kerry said, "They told us that they had cut off heads...".

Pruden wrote, "They...cut off heads...".

Pruden, Hannity, et al don't even try to hide such behavior any more.

Bruce is wrong. We DO have cooperation with other nations, even France, as far as intelligence work and hunting down cells is concerned.

Politically there are differences, but these do not stop our countries from working together professionally.

Honestly, I would wager Chirac has given Kerry some promise of something. And it means as much as Chirac's promise to Powell about okaying a second UN resolution before Iraq...then stabbing Powell in the back. Chirac is a sharp operator and Kerry is going to look very foolish when he ends up being duped if he's elected. Kerry is waging his whole career on trusting France. What a fool.

To respond to Syl -- I exactly said that France and other nations ARE cooperating with us in fighting terror. I tried to make a careful distinction between nations that are working with us in Iraq and nations that are working with us on the real war against terror. I said: "With respect to fighting terrorism, the US continues to work with the major nations in the developed world -- France, Germany, Russia, etc, and with nations in the islamic work -- especially Indonesia." Please re-read my e-mail if you think I was saying something different.

Thanks SemiPundit for providing some facts about what Kerry said at the Vietnam hearings. Could you provide any links to that information?

Clayusmcret - The charges you are making are completely unfamiliar to me. Not having spent much time in this republican world, I don't understand that your shorthand references are pointing to. If your charges are verifiable, they would indeed mean that Kerry should not become president. Would you please provide more information so that I can determine whether or not these claims you are making are true?

With respect to Col. Day's remarks. It is terrible that he suffered torture, and I cannot even imagine what that would be like. But while it is rhetorically powerful for him to mention his torture and his views on Kerry together, this doesn't make his claims about Kerry true -- except his claim that while he was a POW, he was demoralized by the antiwar movement -- when he says that, he is talking about his own experience. But even with respect to that, the Vietnam era was demoralizing for everybody who went through it -- what a terrible time that was! So while his statements are rhetorically powerful and remind us of the horrible things that can happen to POWs on either side of a war (bringing in torture also brings in Abu Ghraib), at the end of the day you still need evidence to prove treason -- not just passionate statements.

Bruce

Responding to Bruce Tomen, who in his first comment seems to say that if one is truly a journalist, then one will evenhandedly tell both sides of a story.

Let me see, now Bruce, are you now saying the vast majority of the journalistic staff of the NYT, CNN or the WP are therefore "not" truly journalists?

If so, then I agree with you. Good point.

Hi Dwight:

I wondered if anyone was going to respond to that! You will note that I said nothing about the traditional media -- I just mentioned Mr. Hobbs' claim that bloggers do journalism better. But to take a single sentence out of context and build it up into something that contradicts the context like he did was just really crappy journalism. I don't know why the claim of being a journalist is a big deal to him -- it seems to me that it is mostly important to him to give his opinion about what is going on (which is often an interesting opinion!) which is not journalism at all, but rather punditry.

Sadly, journalists in the traditional media often take quotes out of context and smash them up into something that they never were. Which is why most media outlets are a big waste of time. So in terms of journalism, Mr. Hobbs is as bad as the rest, and certainly not better. He is an interest pundit.

Bruce, the link below talks to the charges against Kerry and explains his actions (and partially why he's a disgusting pig). What it does not talk about is how Hanoi John got the investigations and further searches for additional missing soldiers (MIA's) killed through his efforts on several committees; all for one of his family members to get lucrative contracts with vietnam. Believe what you want, but unspun history proves him to be a turd.

http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/07/19/Politics/Vietnam.Pows.Say.Kerrys.Words.And.Deeds.Were.Used.By.Guards.To.Torture.Them-697393.shtml

Thanks for providing the link, clayusmcret. I will check it out.

With respect to the the MIA issue... I thought Kerry worked closely with John McCain on that. Is McCain a disgusting pig in your eyes too?

Hi clayusmcret:

OK, I just read the article. It does give detail on how the anti-war movement in the US - and Kerry's words and picture - were used by the vietnamese to demoralize POWs.

To me, America is a place where we have freedom of speech. Millions of Americans, including Kerry, opposed the Vietnam War, and spoke their dissent. That is not treason, and that does not make him or them pigs or turds. Our leadership at that time led us into, and kept us in, a war without having built a consensus among the People. That was stupid, and if you are angry at anybody, it should be them.

Again, if you are going to say Kerry in particular is a traitor, you have to be able to provide some kind of evidence for that.