This remark by John Kerry has been getting some attention in the blogosphere:
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass., who was in town Sunday to help Gov. Jennifer Granholm campaign for her re-election bid, took time to take a jab at the Bush administration for its lack of leadership in the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.
"If I was president, this wouldn't have happened," said Kerry during a noon stop at Honest John's bar and grill in Detroit's Cass Corridor.
Bush has been so concentrated on the war in Iraq that other Middle East tension arose as a result, he said.
First, we state the obvious. Governor Granholm is a capable executive with a track record that merits her re-election. I hope she plays a role in national politics soon. Kerry helps her re-election bid not by association but as a foil.
Second, we read through to the end of the article and find something deeply puzzling. Consider:
Hezbollah guerillas should have been targeted with other terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaida and the Taliban, which operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Kerry said. However, Bush, has focused military strength on Iraq.
"This is about American security and Bush has failed. He has made it so much worse because of his lack of reality in going into Iraq.…We have to destroy Hezbollah," he said.
If he is going to use both "targeted" and "destroy" to describe the U.S.'s posture toward Hezbollah, then he must be talking about military strikes. Hezbollah did not launch an attack on American soil--why target them militarily? And if they were to be targeted for what they did do recently to the Israelis--kidnap two soldiers--then why wouldn't Saddam Hussein be targeted militarily for what he did to the Israelis--paying the families of suicide bombers who killed innocent Israeli citizens (to say nothing of what he and his revolting sons did to innocent Iraqis)?
I don't think we can have it both ways. Either the international community is willing to step in with its full range of economic and militarily tools to prevent violence against civilians or it isn't. And if it isn't, why should we expect a better outcome than what we are seeing in the Middle East?