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Kerry made that point during this section of his speech last Saturday. Bush's WH spends more time planning politically than planning how to win against Al Qaeda.
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The leaders of this administration have shown in recent days that they will say anything, do anything, twist any truth, and endanger our nation's character as one America in a desperate ploy to survive a midterm election. But I think, and you think, too, that Americans now see through this charade. They know the truth.
We have a Katrina foreign policy: a succession of blunders, and of failures that have betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. Every time this administration is down in the polls, every time their political opponents at home appear to gain, what do they do? They trot out the fear card. And instead of reinforcing in Americans, as a great President did, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself,” they have nothing to offer but fear itself.
The President wants Americans to believe that only one party wants to fight terror. That is a desperately cynical game to try to win an election. I believe we need a game plan to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda – not a few Congressional seats.
I believe we need national leadership capable of raising hopes and inspiring trust, not raising fears and demanding blind faith. We need to marshal all of our resources: military, diplomatic, economic, and moral. And first and foremost, we need to always tell the American people the truth.
That is why, on the eve of this midterm election, we Democrats, and Independents, and, hopefully, thoughtful Republicans have a responsibility into every corner of our nation. Not just to oppose what has failed, but to propose a new direction that can restore a bipartisan foreign policy that can actually defeat jihadist terrorism once and for all.
In order to change course, we must level with the American people about the magnitude of the challenge. We have to face reality in order to be able to change it. This starts by leveling with the American people about Iraq's true position in the overall fight against jihadism. The President pretends again and again that Iraq is the central front on the war on terror. It is not now and never has been.
The truth is, the truth is that his disastrous decisions have made Iraq a fuel depot for terror, fanning the flames of conflict around the world. There is simply no way possible to overstate how Iraq has subverter our efforts to free the world from global terror. It have overstretched our military. It has served as an essential recruitment tool for terrorists. It has divided and pushed away traditional allies. It has diverted critical billions of dollars from the real front lines of the war on terror, and from homeland security. It has unleashed dangerous, pent-up historical forces of radical religious extremism. It has weakened moderate leaders in the Middle East. It has strenghtened and played into Iran's hands. It has diminished our moral authority in the world.
And the demagogic drum beat about fighting terrorists over there instead of here, even though they weren't in Iraq until we went in, and it's now a civil war we're fighting has compromised America's real interests, and it has made us less safe than we ought to be five years after 9-11. And lest any American question that, the true measure of that reality is the stark fact that worldwide terrorist attacks are at an all-time high, and there are now more terrorists in the world who want to kill Americans than there were on 9-11.
After all the tough talk of “Wanted Dead or Alive,” after the administration bragged and boasted, they meekly backed off in the mountains of Tora Bora. Osama Bin laden escaped because this administration consciously held back the best military in the world – ours – and they outsourced the job to local militias. And since then, Al Qaeda has spawned a vast, decentralized network, operating in 65 countries. Only Dick Cheney could call this a success.
The situation in Afghanistan deteriorates steadily, sqandering the sacrifices of our troops and allies in the military campaign of 2002. The Taliban now controls entire portions of southern Afghanistan. And just across the border, Pakistan is only one coup away from becoming a radical jihadist state with a full compliment of nuclear weapons. Only Donald Rumsfeld could proclaim this a victory.
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