How can Kerry or MoveOn go on the offensive? nt

[Eric J in MN]

nt

[Old and In the Way]

1. Glad you asked.

Submitted by A Possum:

"Bush did business with Bin Laden's bankers while Kerry...
was fighting to shut it down to terrorist and drug connections."

"Long before September 11, 2001, Bush got a 25 million dollar loan from the same bankers that dealt with bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, while John Kerry fought to stop this bank's global laundering of money for drug lords and terrorists. John Kerry shut it down. He's been fighting terrorism at its roots since before George Bush ran for office."


I likes it. It's based on the Washington Monthly article on Kerry and how he worked to stop the funding of terrorism and drug money laundering at BCCI.

This is an important area to pursue in this election. It also acts as a good rebuttal to those who enjoy SMEARING Kerry by accusing him of being a poll-driven political coward. They couldn't be MORE wrong.

excerpt:
>>>>>>
Bin Laden's bankers
Kerry's record in the BCCI affair, of course, contrasts sharply with Bush's. The current president's career as an oilman was always marked by the kind of insider cronyism that Kerry resisted. Even more startling, as a director of Texas-based Harken Energy, Bush himself did business with BCCI-connected institutions almost at the same time Kerry was fighting the bank. As The Wall Street Journal reported in 1991, there was a "mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding since George W. Bush came on board." In 1987, Bush secured a critical $25 million-loan from a bank the Kerry Commission would later reveal to be a BCCI joint venture. Certainly, Bush did not suspect BCCI had such questionable connections at the time. But still, the president's history suggests his attacks on Kerry's national-security credentials come from a position of little authority.

As the presidential campaign enters its final stretch, Kerry's BCCI experience is important for two reasons. First, it reveals Kerry's foresight in fighting terrorism that is critical for any president in this age of asymmetrical threats. As The Washington Post noted, "years before money laundering became a centerpiece of antiterrorist efforts...Kerry crusaded for controls on global money laundering in the name of national security."

Make no mistake about it, BCCI would have been a player. A decade after Kerry helped shut the bank down, the CIA discovered Osama bin Laden was among those with accounts at the bank. A French intelligence report obtained by The Washington Post in 2002 identified dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden after the bank collapsed, and that the financial network operated by bin Laden today "is similar to the network put in place in the 1980s by BCCI." As one senior U.S. investigator said in 2002, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations."

Second, the BCCI affair showed Kerry to be a politician driven by a sense of mission, rather than expediency--even when it meant ruffling feathers. Perhaps Sen. Hank Brown, the ranking Republican on Kerry's subcommittee, put it best. "John Kerry was willing to spearhead this difficult investigation," Brown said. "Because many important members of his own party were involved in this scandal, it was a distasteful subject for other committee and subcommittee chairmen to investigate. They did not. John Kerry did."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sir...

[volosong]

2. KERRY CAN GO ON THE OFFENSIVE MANY DIFFERENT WAYS

(1) Running ads that put his statement about soldiers raping and ravaging in Vietnam into context. He should run the whole sentence before those excerpts since that would show that the soldiers,

"...They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads..."

Kerry never accuses anyone specifically of committing atrocities; all he says is just second hand, hearsay information. He blames the atrocities on the nature of the warfare and the countryside, not on the soldiers. That needs to be established or most of the votes that he lost during the smut boat attacks will remain lost.

(2) Running ads that show Bush wearing ribbons for which military documents cannot account and demanding an investigation. Challenge Bush publicly to tell the American people, "And what did you do during the Vietnam war?"

(3) When addressing crowds, talk less in generalities and about the Kerry-Edwards programs for America, and really dig in and go after Bush's records on domestic and foreign policy. Be as confrontational as possible.

(4) Challenge Bush to meet with him (and a moderator) for a live televised session whereby each candidate will ask the other any questions they wish with no exceptions.

(5) Having lived through the JFK assassination, I almost hate to mention this suggestion but it would ignite the public (hopefully positively) and it is something that Bush cannot do: Towards the closing days of the campaign, start doing some motorcades like in the old days. I really think the crowds would go wild.

Anyway, so much for my stupid suggestions!