Dealing with a Contention

Why are the Swift Boats relevant? Because, the right wing tells us, that's what Future President Kerry's whole campaign is about. It's all he's running on. Of course these are the same people who tell us that Kerry wants to solve terrorism by being sensitive to Terrorists so you have to take what they say with a grain of salt.

At any rate to deal with this contention I've decided to spend a day dealing with President Kerry's actual proposals. While you might disagree with what he proposes; at least that's a step up from saying that he has no proposals at all.

So let's start with National Security. If you go to Senator Kerry's website, and click on one of the issues, you see a page divided into too parts. The top part is a general overview of the issue, and the bottom part are several specific proposals. I'm going to focus on the proposals, and assume that you are at least somewhat aware of the problems facing our nation in the area of National Security.

Launch And Lead A New Era Of Alliances
The threat of terrorism demands alliances on a global scale - to utilize every available resource to get the terrorists before they can strike at us. As president, John Kerry will lead a coalition of the able - because no force on earth is more able than the United States and its allies.

This is one of Mr. Kerry's most repeated criticisms of how the Bush Administration handled the run-up to the Iraq War. Bush Diplomacy, which I've referred to as bully diplomacy on more than one occasion, basically means that all the rest of the nations of the world should do whatever the hell we say. It seems like Kerry will bring a more balanced approach to dealing with our allies; an approach that involves listening as well as telling. So of course this gets distorted into "Senator Kerry won't protect America unless France says we can."

Modernize The World's Most Powerful Military To Meet New Threats
John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to transform the world's most powerful military to better address the modern threats of terrorism and proliferation, while ensuring that we have enough properly trained and equipped troops to meet our enduring strategic and regional missions.

This is standard boilerplate. Everybody promises to upgrade the military. But one advantage Senator Kerry will have over President Bush in this regard is that he won't be as determined to protect a tax cut for the very wealthy. That will probably free up some cash to spend on this and other goals.

Deploy All That Is In America's Arsenal
The war on terror cannot be won by military might alone. As president, John Kerry will deploy all the forces in America's arsenal - our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas - to make America more secure and prevent a new generation of terrorists from emerging.

I have to say I really like this approach. One of my criticisms of the Bush Administration, which I touched on above, is their near total disdain for Diplomacy and the Diplomatic Corps. I get the impression a Kerry Presidency would see these people in a different light.

Free America From Its Dangerous Dependence On Mideast Oil
To secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Mideast oil. By tapping American ingenuity, we can achieve that goal while growing our economy and protecting our environment.

I don't know whether or not this goal is achievable in the short term, but it definitely has to be part of our long term goals for a number of reasons. We don't have an infinite supply of oil for one. For two, on of the biggest difficulties we have with dealing with the Middle East is that it does have oil so we can't really get tough with countries like Saudi Arabia. So I applaud putting this on the table.

Anyway that's all for now. Some of you might disagree with these proposals; I expect that there will be ones that I'm not 100% comfortable with. But at least it's a discussion about his actual proposals rather than pretending that he hasn't got any. If you want further details on these proposals, you can visit the link above. On the right side of the page are speeches and plans on the subject.