Reply #38: Dean Had Total Control Of The Promises He Made [View All]

[DrFunkenstein]

This is not about current levels of spending on aid, if I get you correctly. Dean has promised to quadruple spending on military aid and loan guarantees for "construction" (which frees up money for defense, and pays to pave over Palestinian homes).

Those are pledges of what he will do when he becomes President. He did not ask for conditions to those pledges, which is more than even Wolfowitz was willing to broker. I appreciate the seeming change in language, but even that is insufficient. He called on a reduction of violence ONLY from Palestinians, and promised that a Palestinian state would be "demilitarized." His words, not mine.

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I have yet to see him reconcile these quotes:

“Perhaps Dr. Dean's most unequivocal policy stance is his staunch, hawkish support for Israel, which will attract the support of America's hugely influential Jewish lobby. Earlier this month Dr Dean, whose wife is Jewish, traveled to Jerusalem for a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, declaring afterwards: ‘I do not think that as long as Yassir Arafat is president there will be peace.’”

"That Sharon agreed to meet him at all shows how seriously the Israeli leader takes Dr Dean as a political force. Just as significant is that Sharon asked him to support the Israeli request for new loan guarantees from Washington, ‘and I promised him I would.’ Israel is asking the Bush administration for up to $10 billion in loan guarantees to shore up its economy.” (The Times of London, December 18, 2002)

Note: That's 2 billion more than I've previously seen mentioned. That would make it 5x the current level.

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“Asked if his appearance at the Peace Now event should be read as a signal of his views on the Middle East, Dean said, ‘No, my view is closer to AIPAC's view…At one time the Peace Now view was important but now Israel is under enormous pressure,’ he continued. ‘We have to stop terrorism before peace negotiations.... I don't do things for political reasons. I'm very loyal to my friends. Nobody should read anything into my ideology.’” (The Forward, November 22, 2002)

http://www.aaiusa.org/dean_quotes.htm