Reply #57: Not exactly true

[Donna Zen]

While I'm not sure about the thoughts of every candidate, the Carnegie Foundation had worked for two years and developed a policy of coersive inspections. Something had to be done about the sanctions which were clearly a fucked up policy. Clark has spoken about them, and iirc, Chris Hedges talked about it. No war, just a return to inspections and NGO's.

There were definately alternatives out there.

While it is a litmus test for me, I also have to consider the the rationale given for their votes. Lieberman is unrepenting, and absolutely thinks we did the right thing. Leaning on the ol' but I hate what they are doing now, doesn't cut it. All of the others are a matter of degrees or view points including Dean who is not as clean on this as he would claim. By this I mean the resolution, although he did call for 60 more days of inspections before the first bomb.

Kucinich is certainly the purest of the group and probably Sharpton. CMB (?) if she were in the Senate and voting with the party...who knows, but I would think she might have voted with Hillary and the leadership. Did she say anything during the summer of 2002?

Clark is a different story for me, while many would call him out, I've done my homework on that one and what he says is strictly according to his philosophy. International law trumps diplomacy---diplomacy trumps use of force. His testimony is very clear and although a restrictive resolution dumping the problem on the UN might have been possible. No war. The UN did need to work with Iraq, the sanctions were unworkable and bad for the Iraqi people. Some watchdog-inspectors inside the country were a good thing. Saddam is actually not a person I would want to lead anything.

BTW, bush fails the litmus test again. When you have a lying sack-o-shit for a resident, how can anything be right?