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Hugh Hewitt - Principal Contributor

Mr. Hewitt is senior member of the CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial board. [go to Hewitt index]

The 'Sands of Iwo Jima'
Does Kerry understand war?...
[Hugh Hewitt] 10/14/04

If you need even more proof than John Kerry himself provided in the first two debates that he intends to be America's Neville Chamberlain – a man of summits and sanctions, Kyoto and the International Criminal Court – read Sunday's New York Times Magazine article on him from which the "nuisance" quote is drawn.

As the Times' article shows, Kerry's worldview is, well, other-worldly. It isn't even remotely anchored to the way the world works or our enemies think or act. It doesn't acknowledge the Iraq Study Group report's conclusions, the corruption in oil-for-food, the impotence of the French or Germans to help us even if they were inclined to do so which they are not, or the deadly and savage earnestness with which tens of thousands (at least) of Islamist fanatics intend great harm to the United States.

Like Chamberlain's view of Hitler, Kerry's view of today's enemy is 100 percent wrong. Kerry's view of American resolve and purpose is nearly as wrong as well.

In the most revealing of the many outlandish statements by Kerry in the Times' piece, at least as damning as the "nuisance" quote, Kerry says:

But it's a different kind of war. You have to understand that this is not the sands of Iwo Jima. This is a completely new, different kind of war from any we've fought previously.

I am not sure how that statement will be received in the Marines' quarters around Fallujah or with the 1st Infantry Division's encampment near Samarra, but Kerry's declaration that frontal assaults on territory occupied by the enemy are not part of the global War on Terror is at best surreal. What a naive view of the war. The GWOT has many aspects, and it already has had many fierce battles, equal in intensity – though not American loss of life – to Iwo Jima.

In fact, it is hard to square Kerry's repeated condemnation of Bush administration tactics at Tora Bora with Kerry's rejection of Iwo Jima-like battles in the current war. Kerry's understanding of the war is, in a word, incoherent, but no doubt welcome in places like Teheran and Damascus as it appears to rule out any future major battles no matter what those states do or which terrorists they support.

Perhaps he meant to refer specifically to the John Wayne movie, that it wasn't a war with that old fashioned sort of John Wayne heroism.

If so, he was wrong again – wrong about Pat Tillman, wrong about the more than 1,000 men and women who have sacrificed all for safety at home and the freedom of oppressed people. They are every bit the equal of the warriors who went before them. John Kerry may not know that, but the American people do.

And his candidacy is doomed as a result. A nuisance, for which no Iwo Jimas will be necessary. What a maroon. CRO

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CaliforniaRepublic.org Principal Contributor Hugh Hewitt is an author, television commentator and syndicated talk-show host of the Salem Radio Network's Hugh Hewitt Show, heard in over 40 markets around the country. He blogs regularly at HughHewitt.com and he frequently contributes opinion pieces to the Weekly Standard.