A friend of mine sent me a column written by John Hoagland of The Australian. Basically, if the anti-war crowd thinks Kerry will be an improvement over Bush, guess again. According to Hoagland, Kerry is only likely to continue the current path of death and destruction.
A patrician grandee with a pleasing mix of liberal and patriotic views might seem to many Americans a welcome relief from the bellicose Texan with his faux swagger and his team of men who seem to have military-industrial complex written across their menacing foreheads. But if anti-war Americans do elect Kerry for that reason, they will have duped themselves. Warmongering will be worse under Kerry than under Bush and real peaceniks should therefore vote for Dubya. Bush and Kerry agree on almost everything in foreign policy but, where they disagree, Kerry is more hawkish.
"Real peaceniks should therefore vote for Dubya"? Is this guy in the mainstream down under?
Kerry might be just what they need to draw the sting of that left-wing anti-Americanism around the world and in the US that inspires so much anti-war feeling. The Kosovo war showed that a war for human rights and against oppression, fought by a slick Democrat, plays far better with world public opinion than all that red-neck bull about dangers to national security. It will be far easier for president Kerry to fight new wars than for the mistrusted and discredited Bush. So to those who think that the election of a Democratic president will put an end to US militarism, I say: You ain't seen nothin' yet.
I don't remember Kerry saying any of these things, but he isn't about to get us out of Iraq, either. What say you, Kossacks? Does the world now fear America in general?
The original column is here.
(All that being said, I'm still voting for Kerry.)