SAY WHAT YOU MEAN, SENATOR:

Kerry must become the new anti-war candidate (Howard Zinn, September 17, 2004, Newsday)

If John Kerry wants to win, he must recognize that our military intervention in Iraq is a disaster - for Americans, for Iraqis, for the world.

Kerry needs to stop boasting about his physical courage in fighting in Vietnam and instead start talking about his moral courage in opposing that war.

He needs to stop saying, as he did recently in the Midwest, that he defended this country when he was fighting in Vietnam. That is not an honest statement. If it were true, then he would not have turned against the war.

He was not defending this country when he fought in Vietnam. He was defending this country when he said we were wrong to be in Vietnam and we should get out.

He should not be saying that he will wage the Iraq war better, that he will replace U.S. troops with soldiers from other countries. If it is immoral for our soldiers to be occupying Iraq and killing Iraqis every day, then it is immoral for foreign soldiers to do the same. [...]

To those who say we must not "cut and run," Kerry can say, with some authority, we did cut and run in Vietnam - and it was the right thing to do.

Mr. Zinn is wrong about both Vietnam and Iraq, but right about what honest opposition to them means--that you think your nation immoral.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 17, 2004 11:13 PM