"SAP"

John Kerry and Jacques Chirac political cartoon.

Aug. 14, 2004...

Vice President Dick Cheney made the case that America does not need a more sensitive war on terror, as Sen. John Kerry promised last week.
Cheney said, "America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive." "President Lincoln and General Grant did not wage sensitive warfare nor did President Roosevelt, nor Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur," he said. "A 'sensitive war' will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans and who seek the chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to kill hundreds of thousands more.''
The Kerry campaign came back stating that in March President Bush used the word sensitive in a speech. "We must be sensitive about expressing our power and influence.''
Kerry offered a counter dig at Cheney, who had draft deferments, and Bush, who was in the National Guard. After one of his standard speech lines later in the day, "I defended our country as a young man," Kerry added, "when others chose not to."
Another of Kerry’s foot soldiers came out with the same line in a more challenging way, Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak contrasted Kerry's service in Vietnam with Bush's service in the Texas National Guard and Cheney's lack of military service. "Do the president and vice president really want to have a debate about who is more suited to fight the war in Iraq and the war on terror?" he said in a statement. "Do they really want a debate about which candidate has the toughness to make America stronger?"
Cheney is expected to take the retired general up on his challenge, "He [Kerry] has even said that by using our strength, we are creating terrorists and placing ourselves in greater danger," Cheney said. "But that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the world we are living in works. Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness."
 

click here to get this button