Well, the PTSD meds aren't working, so it's been a sleepless night again in LA. Like you, I grieve for every lost life in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like some of you, I can easily visualize the IED nails and whatever other metal trash the enemy of the day are packing spinning wildly into the bodies of our men and women, opening large gashes, exposing organs, splitting entrails, shearing off limbs. Like a few, I can actually feel this happening to my own body (like stigmata, I guess), 1860+ times now. And, as with my brother, I am thousands of miles away, unable to help as they try to stuff their guts back inside, beg for water, or cry for their Mom one last time. And it tears me up.
So I wrote this.
Hello, I'm John Kerry. First, let me say how grateful I am to each and every one of you who helped me in my 2004 campaign, from the people manning the phone banks and walking literature door-to-door, to the precinct captains who kept some semblance of order in a whirlwind, to the campaign advisors and staff, all the way up to rock stars like Bruce Springsteen and Bill Clinton, who just weeks after open-heart surgery was bounding along on the campaign trail like a hound on the hunt. And, of course, the people who contributed money, even when they couldn't afford it.
You are America.
I made mistakes, and more than a few. I cost this nation the chance to turn away from the politics of hate and a "foreign policy" of perpetual war against half the globe. We came close; no "war president" as George liked to call himself until he changed his mind, has ever been unseated in time of war in this country. Still, he only squeaked by with the smallest margin ever, even given that: 1.8%. But I accept full responsibility for losing this election. I was the candidate, and that's that. I listened to advisors who claimed they knew better, when I should have followed my gut. When those Swift boat liars popped up, even though the Navy investigated and proved all their lies false, I was silent when I should have been swearing at those sons of bitches on camera, and calling them out to face me, either one on one, or en masse. Maybe they didn't like me and tens of thousands of other vets turning our backs on the war, but that came later, and I served my tours with honor. I did the best I could under less than ideal circumstances, and I brought back every single man who sailed with me. I don't give a damn about George Bush's flying days. If one day you suddenly don't feel comfortable flying a twitchy old jet at 500 mph, then by God you land that son of a bitch and walk away. His reasons are his own. It's over, and I don't care about what he did or didn't do in Alabama.
There are lots of other mistakes, but this is the one I want to talk to you about now: I was wrong about this war. I thought opposing the war would alienate some of you, and we would lose the greater cause of winning the election. Instead, I "played it safe" and now more of your sons and daughters are gone. Not gone: dead. And they shouldn't be dead. This war is a hopeless morass. Howard Dean saw that from the beginning, and was crucified by the press. Well, Howard Dean was right. He's a man who speaks his mind, sometimes giving out a little too much mind, but that's Howard. He is a patriot in the truest sense of the word. He cares deeply about the future of this country, as do I, and as I'm sure you do. Our soldiers shouldn't be dead, because we should never have let the neoCon gamble veer us away from the pursuit of the people who attacked us on 9/11: Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda supporters.
This war, we are learning, was plotted years before it was begun, and now we know that even the start date was off. Bush stepped up his bombing of the "no-fly zones" tremendously in 2002, as a prelude to war. How many "radar tracking stations" do you think they had? Thousands? No. There are so many lies concerning this war, so much baloney being spun by the right-wingers, that a great many people still think that Saddam Hussein directed the 9/11 attacks. No. It was Osama. Where is Osama? Porter Goss claimed he had a "pretty good idea," which turned out to be somewhere in the Afghan/Pakistani "mountainous border region." Great. Three hundred billion dollars, 2000 dead, and we have a "pretty good idea" of something like 1000 square miles. If he's there at all.
You don't need me to tell you about all the mistakes, deceptions, and plain old lies that have oozed out of this administration daily. You know about the war profiteering, the rancid meat, the nine billion dollars that's just "gone missing." That's right: $9,000,000,000. Is it in the hands of some clever Iraqi clerk, a high-rolling financier, or Al-Qaeda? Nobody knows. And that's the thing about this administration: nobody knows. How long will we be there? Rumsfeld says, 2 years, 3, maybe 12. Well, do we have a timetable for withdrawal at least? Can't tell you that - it would endanger the troops. But you said we'd be there until the elections took place? Yes. They're over. But they need a constitution ratified. So, when can we get our troops home? When the Iraqis are ready. When will that be? When they're ready.
Let me tell you something, friend: I have seen this movie before, up close, and I know how it ends. The goal posts keep getting moved farther and farther back. In my day, we were told that the "light at the end of the tunnel" would appear, milestone after milestone. It's not happening. Iraq is Iraq. We have no right to be there. Would you want to live under a constitution based on Muslim principles, with Allah as the Supreme Being? Then why would an Iraqi want an American style constitution that assumes a Christian God as the Supreme Being? They don't. It's simple: they don't want it, they don't want us, and once we leave, Iraq will be Iraq once again, and do what it will do. It will be a free country with democratic elections for as long as it wants to be. Yes, Saddam is gone. Personally, I hope he hangs. But also gone are tens of thousands of innocent civilians, with huge chunks of cities blasted to rubble. Iraq is in much worse physical shape now than when we entered. Sewage runs in the streets. Clean water is a luxury. Electricity is on now less than when Saddam was in power. And for this, we expended 2000 of our country's brave men and women (and not just the young), and hundreds of billions of dollars. And Osama is still on the loose. And Bush says he "just doesn't think about him that much."
So I'm taking this opportunity to say that I am proud to be a member of the September 24 anti-war demonstration, and I hope you can make it too. If you can't be there in person, hit the web and blog. Do something. Help organize a neighborhood demonstration. Light a candle, put an ad in the paper, anything - don't let them minimalize this. Your voice does matter. And, please, don't think I'm doing this for political gain. This isn't about me. It's about the war. It's about our country's future and your children. God keep them safe. Fight!
John Kerry
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I don't know if this would make me vote for Kerry in a primary, but at least it would be a step in the right direction. I lost faith when he rolled over on the Swift boat attacks.
Yes, I know Clinton is a "bad" name here, but it's supposed to be Kerry's voice, and I'm sure he wouldn't leave out Big Bill in his thank you's.