John Kerry said this in CBS's 60 minutes last night:
"[Vietnam] is young people dying for the wrong reasons, because leaders don't do the things that they should to protect them," said Kerry. "Yes I do [see a parallel with Iraq]. This president breached faith with the lesson...we learned in Vietnam. You truly should go to war as a matter of last resort. This president rushed to war without a plan to win the peace," he added.
Sen. John Kerry voted for the war in Iraq.
But Kerry also had a chance to stop Bush from pursuing his rush to unilateral war, however John Kerry failed to be the very type of leader that John Kerry criticizes as failing to "do things to protect our military".
Lisa English of Ruinate This weblog showed that at time just prior to the war in Iraq, a bill was introduced to stop Bush's rush to war.
John Kerry didn't sign on to this bill and Kerry didn't acknowledge this bill at all.
Lisa English wrote the follow and gave the link to the bill.
Here's an interesting story.
It's an important one, and it's not being covered.
After Colin Powell spoke to the UN Security Council yesterday, a bi-partisan bill was introduced in Congress by Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Ron Paul (R-TX). It wasn't just any bill - this is legislation that looks to repeal the Iraq Use of Force Resolution passed by Congress in October.
If you're wonkish about these things, you might recall that similar legislation was put forward a couple of weeks ago by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). It didn't get more than a mention here or there in the press, but it's important to note that DeFazio and Paul's bill is different. Jackson's "sense of the Congress" bill, if passed would have taken the body's "temperature" on the issue. That's all.
DeFazio and Paul's effort goes beyond the thermometer. Faced with the administration's Rush to War, DeFazio and Paul are looking for a prescription. If they were to get this one passed, the outcome would be legally binding, and the October bill then outright repealed. Congress could at that point thoughtfully revisit the issue of Iraq - the danger it presents and the costs of war.
Big story. Right?
So, where's the media?