Don't vote against Bush for Iraq

One of the great parts of college is being surrounded by students who so are politically active.  But this fall I have been dismayed by people who do not champion Sen. John Kerry but try to trample on President George W. Bush.  If you want to vote for Kerry, that is fine, but vote because you think agree more with Kerry’s policies than with those of President Bush.  

Don’t treat this election as a “referendum” on the justified war in Iraq.  Yes, in hindsight there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  That does not take away from the legitimacy behind the Saddam Hussein’s removal.  

Has everyone forgotten that under the Clinton administration we sent a significant military force to Kosovo, which may or may not have deliberately coincided with Clinton’s impending impeachment hearings?  In Kosovo, Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic had been engaging in crimes against humanity, killing his own countrymen of different ethnicities and religions. The United States, blessed as the strongest and wealthiest nation in the world, felt obligated to intervene on behalf of its fellow man, and removed Milosevic from power.  How was this situation any different from Iraq?  

Saddam Hussein had likewise been engaging in mass genocide, killing countless Kurds and Shiite Muslims before he was overthrown.  Why are there so many objections to Iraq?  When we ousted Milosevic, the only people clamoring for Clinton’s head were doing so because of his perjury, not his politics regarding Kosovo.  

Perhaps Iraq was never a threat to our national security, but neither was Kosovo.  Some believe our actions in Iraq to be unjustified because we moved without assembling a large multi-national force. But you cannot argue the virtue of an action based upon prevailing sentiments. Objecting to removing Saddam from power because it isn’t popular is tantamount to objecting to desegregation because it wasn’t popular.  

So please, when you vote today, vote for Kerry because you like his plan for Social Security or education. Unless you were particularly opposed to what Clinton did in Kosovo, it would be highly hypocritical to vote against Bush because of what he did in Iraq.

Drew Stokesbary