Goldberg on Kerry

Jonah Goldberg pens an on target column looking at the Kerry fetish for allies. I particularly liked this part,

How many times have we been told that George W. Bush "squandered" the good will of the world "community" after 9/11? The assumption behind all of this seemed to be that anything which cost America the support of allies like France or Germany was, in effect, too costly. In other words, the means - "strong alliances" - are more important than the ends - winning the war on terror, toppling Saddam, and so forth. Listening to these folks, one gets the sense that America's greatest foreign-policy triumph was to get sucker-punched on 9/11 because it resulted in sympathetic newspaper headlines in Paris and Berlin.

In fact, I heard Kerry speaking on the news last night and when asked if he would have gone to war with Iraq, he did not say yes or no. He said it would depend. He suggested he would have exhausted all means, ensured that Saddam did or did not have weapons, etc. In other words, he would have dithered around with UN inspectors for possibly another 12 years. Point is, had Kerry been in office, Saddam would still be in power and we would still have no idea what weapons he had and who he might be interested in sharing them with. All for the sake of not spoiling good will, one presumes.

I simply don't get this fascination with having France and/or Germany on our side. The UK has stood strongly by us, as has Poland, Italy and Spain for most of it. And these countries are only a small sample of those that have contributed something to assist our fight against terrorism both in Afghanistan (where Germany actually does have troops) and in Iraq.

I agree with Jonah that it would have been nice to have more, but just because the operation does not say U.N. on the side of the box, or NATO on the helmet does not mean that it was not supported by a good many countries in the international community. It comes down to this - those that were serious in fighting the war on terror did so, and those that were not attempted to stall the entire way. Now the question is - why? Methinks the old adage "follow the money" might be appropriate, but I digress.

Edit on 8/14/04 - I have added this post to my featured posts because of the great discussion that it prompted. And allow me to thank those that contributed. Very good points made and certainly worthy of including for possible future readers (if there are any.)

That is all.

Comments

[EasyRider]

I don't know who Kerry thinks he is fooling. If Gore(or Kerry) was president during 911 we still would have invaded Iraq. Popular opinion polls showed that a vast majority(Allen could you help me with a %#?) of Americans supported the invasion of Iraq, and if there's one thing the Dems(Gore especially) hold sacred it is the public opinion polls. Hell, Clinton ran the country based on public opinion polls for at least 6 years.

Gore would have invaded Iraq and if he had the Pubs would be the ones bitching about evidence. The only difference would be that Michael Moore would have kept his big fat mouth shut if Gore were president.

Easy Rider

[Al Hurd]

Actually, to the best that I can determine (remember, these are polls taken over a year ago and thus hard to track down) between 47% and 39% of Americans were in favor of invading Iraq.

I'm not so sure, even at the high end, that a Democrat would have invaded. And certainly not without spending a few more months (or years) allowing the UN to "inspect" (read search) for weapons (though I readily agree with you about the Clinton fetish for poll driven action.) The whole point of the Kerry campaign is to suggest that he would have given the UN "more time", he would have "tried harder" with allies. As Elaine was so fond of saying on Seinfeld - "Yada, yada, yada."

How much more time should Iraq have received? Was 12 years not enough? How many more UN resolutions should it have required before we finally said "enough" and made damn sure that there were no WMDs to sell or give to terrorists?

Kerry would have given them far more time, as I should think Gore would have as well. But that's not really the point. The point is, Kerry suggests that good will was squandered, that not enough time or effort was put forth to gain allies. I'm not sure what you call the UK, Poland, Italy, Spain, etc. but they seem like allies to me. And just because the French don't like us...well, what else is new?

By the way, good to have you back ER - I thought I'd lost you. :)

AL

[Lewis Maskell]

If you want my guess Al is that it is because of the illusion - now being shattered - that in the EU (which people see as being all of Europe even thought it isn't) once France + Germany had decided something the rest would follow, and if they decided not to do something no one else would do anything either. For a long time this had at least som validity if you ignored the UK (which is ok because Britain is not really European in the continental sense of the word). Hence why France + Germany acquired a special significance in people's minds.

However, the situation is now changing. France and Germany merely split the EU over Iraq, and now in a couple of things their motor has now proven insufficient to bully the other Euroepan countries. But it is unsurprising that a party whose candidate campaign is so deeply rooted (probably unwisely) in the past cannot properly appreciate the changing reality of the modern-day.

[Al Hurd]

Lewis -

Agreed on the France + Germany equation, and agreed that such an illusion is being shattered. And thank you my Brit friend for pointing it out.

Actually though, I would suggest that France and Germany are in the minority. Most of the Eastern European countries are in line with the war on terrorism and outside of the above two countries and the ever pacifist Sweden, most of the Western European countries are behind our fight (until Spain so fecklessly pulled out.)

I readily agree with you that Kerry is anchored in the past, but I dare say not so much in theory but simply in rhetoric. His idea is not so much that of a world since passed but that which he might hoodwink the American people into believing. The vast majority of people voting in November will not think of such things. Why? Because they are perhaps the ones anchored in the past, thinking that France and Germany represent the majority opinion in the so-called EU.

God Bless your country for being at least semi-wary of such an amalgam. I would be interested to see your opinion of such on your site if your ever have the chance to write on such. It would be most illuminating.

AL

[EasyRider]

I beg to disagree Al. Kerry himself has recently stated that he would have supported using force against Iraq even if he knew there were no WMDs.

http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/381249|top|08-09-2004::17:46|reuters.html

My favorite Bush criticism from Kerry in this article is Kerry criticizing Bush for using "bad intelligence".

First off the British, Soviet, and Italian intelligence agencies told the president that Iraq was searching for WMD and uranium in some piss-ant, booga-booga, African country whose name eludes me. Secondly, Bush went to George Tennent(sp) and asked him if this information was not only correct, but a "slam dunk". Thirdly, there may very well be WMDs in Iraq. We know for a fact that they have had them in the past. Are we to believe that Sadam merely rid his country of the WMDs on his own accord without bothering to tell anyone when a public destruction of said WMDs would certainely have taken some of the heat off of him? The U.N. in particular could have become an ally of Sadam if he had publically destroyed even a small portion of his WMDs.

If Bush had not acted upon this information, the Dems would be criticizing for not doing enough to stop terrorism, just like they did for 911.

Basically, it comes down to the Dems criticizing any and everything the president does in hopes of getting themselves into power. Plain and simple, and a "slam dunk" of another sorts.

If I were a Dem I'd be spending more time on bringing to light the fact that our President and Vice President are most assurdley draft dodgers, which they are. Hell, the Pubs played the Clinton draft dodging hand as far as they could and look where it got them.....ooops, never mind.

Easy Rider

[Al Hurd]

ER - Yes, but that is a recent statement by Kerry (like this week), and I think your further points indicate why he has said such. It worked well for the audience of the moment. But in the end, there is no way to really know what anyone would have done. It's better to focus on what they indicate they might do, and I frankly have no idea which way a President Kerry might go - he flip-flops too much to tell.

Oh, and that country was/is Nigeria. As for the WMD's - I think they are in Syria. But let's not get on a discussion of whether or not to attack them. Iran would need to come first.

AL

[Alex Smith]

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EDIT BY AL HURD - PLEASE DO NOT ADVERTISE WITHOUT PERMISSION. LINK REMOVED.