Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Kerry: Building Consensus By Alienating ALL of Our Friends (Revisited)

Original Post Here.

Thanks for the Memory to Drudge via The Jawa Report.

A while back I blogged on how Kerry's attitude towards and comments about our allies on Iraq was in sharp contrast to his claims of being more capable of diplomacey -- that while he claims that he will build consensus, what he's really doing is alienating the countries that are already in our side, in order to gamble that he'll be able to placate those who oppose us.

President Bush brought the same point up during the debate last week -- pointing out all of the countries that are in the coalition, and telling Kerry that he was insulting their leaders. Kerry blew it off, paying lip service to them, but claiming that only US and British contributions were significant.

And how easy was it to predict the result? That's an even bigger slap in the face to our allies. The first one of them has called him on it -- and this is an ally who has been candid about their misgivings regarding Iraq. From Drudge:

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski has slammed Dem president hopeful John Kerry for not recognizing Poland's contributions and sacrifice to the war in Iraq.

"It is sad that a senator with 20 years of experience does not recognize Polish contribution. This is immoral," Kwasniewski told FACTS in an interview commenting on the US Presidential Debate.

"It is sad that a senator with 20 years of experience underestimates Polish sacrifice, this is sad."


I agree, Mr. President.


The Polish President added however that one should consider this was a part of the ongoing electoral campaign.

That doesn't really mitigate the insult, and I, as an American, am sorry you had to hear it.

People criticize Bush for alienating the world. But let's be honest -- a majority of the countries who oppose us now already opposed us before. And most of them will still oppose the US, regardless of who wins the election and what action that president takes. But Bush has showed loyalty to the countries that have stood beside us through it all -- Kerry, on the other hand, manages to alienate them, without any real evidence that he'll endear us to our foes.

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