Is a Vote for Kerry a Vote for Peace?

It's time John Kerry properly distanced himself from the so-called "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive invasion and the whole neo-conservative agenda for US Empire.

I have been willing to give Kerry the benefit of the doubt, assuming his lack of pronouncements on the subject was just clever politics: better to take a centrist stance than a far-left stance when Bush is so far way out in right field. But now I am not so sure.

The SMH says "a lot of people in the US are opposed to the war in Iraq, and they want to vote for a party that will bring the troops home. The Democratic Party has not promised to do that, which is why many protesters have gathered in Boston."

Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo says the Democratic party isn't interested in antiwar protests:

"Their candidate is for the war: he voted for it (but not to fund it), he wants to expand it (by sending in at least 40,000 more American troops), and his only argument with the Bush administration is over which direction to escalate. The Bushies want to invade Iran, and perhaps Syria, while the Kerry-ites are straining at the leash to go after Saudi Arabia, as evidenced by Kerry's pronouncements and the Democratic party platform, which threaten to impose draconian sanctions on the Kingdom.

Rand Beers, Kerry's foreign policy chief, is a longtime veteran of the national security bureaucracy, having served under the last four presidents in some capacity or other, including Special Assistant to the President for Combating Terrorism, under George W. Bush."

Raimondo points out that Kerry himself did "questionable things" while on active service in Vietnam, while Beers has stirred up the anti-terrorist hysteria by bizzarely linking Colombian FARC rebels with Al-Quaeda.

"We are in for a very bad time, and there isn't any way out of it," Raimondo concludes. "The electoral system is rigged against the expression of antiwar sentiment through any "legitimate" channels, and, thanks to Congress, our rights to assemble, to organize, and to protest the actions of our government, without being harassed, spied on, and otherwise intimidated into silence, have been signed away.

I'm afraid that we're just going to have to grit our teeth, endure the next few months as best we can, and wait out the partisan static until the air clears after November. Then we can face what has to be faced and move forward from there."