John Kerry, Tony Snow, and the Truth About Iraq

So Christians can be suckered by the manufactured brouhaha

over Kerry’s remarks or we can keep our eyes on the ball and realize that on
Tuesday we can begin the end of this unjust war by voting Democratic.

Iraq
remains the single most pressing issues facing Christian voters in this
election.  One of the most outrageous
things White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said as he tried to gin up outrage
over Sen. Kerry’s recent remarks was that Democrats have no strategy for
winning in Iraq.  Why was that outrageous?  Take a look at this excerpt from State of Denial
by Bob Woodward which describes Robert Blackwill’s thoughts on Iraq.  Blackwill was Bush’s Coordinator for
Strategic Planning on the National Security Council:

“Blackwill had taught
strategy at Harvard.  Strategy involves a
series of actions to achieve a goal and entails answering questions such as:
What is going to be done?  By whom?  When? 
Where?  How?  The president, whom Blackwill liked and
respected as a political leader, instead talked about winning and goals.  But as Blackwill taught in his class,
“Aspirations aren’t strategy.”  The
administration had no real strategy, he concluded.”  State of Denial,
page 336.

Blackwill is one tough cookie.  Back in the day he was a guest teacher in one
of my classes at the Kenendy School
at Harvard in which we role played a National Security Council meeting in which
he played the president.  Suffice to say
that he beat us like a bunch of rented mules during that session.  If an insider like Blackwill, who was a
central player in the Bush Iraq policy, says there was and is no strategy for
winning in Iraq,
you can bet there was no strategy.

So Christians can be suckered by the manufactured brouhaha
over Kerry’s remarks or we can keep our eyes on the ball and realize that on
Tuesday we can begin the end of this unjust war by voting Democratic.