Kerry is for smart defense spending only, no pork and no new nuclear programs.
All these expensive insider deals costing us billions for stuff the troops don't need.
If I recall correctly, Kerry supported the deployment of troops in Afghanistan, and supported giving the President authority to use troops in Iraq (though perhaps not the circumstances under which they were ultimately deployed). One would think that he therefore would want the troops to have the best equipment available to (a) carry out their missions; and (b) protect their lives in the process. And yet, there are an awful lot of programs that, as a member of the Senate, he voted against. The Republicans claim (though of course if you care to look up the votes and prove this wrong you can post any corrections) that Kerry voted against, supported the cancellation of, or advocated the reduction of the following weapons programs:
1. B-1 Bomber
2. B-2 Stealth Bomber
3. AH-64 Apache helicopter
4. Patriot Missile
5. The F-15 jet
6. The F-14A jet
7. The AV-8B Harrier jet
8. The Aegis air-defense cruiser
9. The Trident missile system
10. M1 Abrams tank (reduction)
11. Bradley fighting vehicle (reduction)
12. Tomahawk cruise missile (reduction)
13. F-16 jet (reduction)
Most of these items were critical to carrying out missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and minimizing U.S. and coalition casualties and risks.
In his earlier days, Kerry was certainly anti-defense (there are some very strong anti-defense quotes from him when he was first running for office), but I tend to attribute that to the anti-Vietnam fervor of the time and not applicable to his current beliefs (whatever those are).
But even when he had matured as a politician (if politicians can be said to mature; "ripen" might be a better word choice), he continued to exhibit a certain hostility to defense. For example, he served on the board of the "Jobs With Peace Campaign", which had the avowed goal to "develop public support for cutting the defense budget". A defense budget whose programs he has many, many times voted to cut.
(The Republicans that are against Kerry have a compendium of these items on their Web site: rnc.org. Obviously that is not an unbiased source, but what they are reporting seems to be simply quotes from Kerry himself and his voting record.)
In 1993, the year of the first World Trade Center bombing, and again in 1995 and 1996, he introduced bills or plans (introduced, not just supported) to cut or freeze defense spending.
He seems to be positioning himself as more pro-defense these days, but I can't help but think that his heart's not really in it. |
