Return to John Kerry's Foreign Policy
Allies and Alliances
Kerry has derided our allies, while criticizing the Bush administration for not gathering enough allies. He has called countries that stand with us in Iraq "window dressings" and a "coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted.” (20) (25)
When Prime Minister Allawi made his first visit to the United States and said, "Thank you America" and "Your sacrifices were not in vain" to a standing ovation to both houses of Congress, Kerry called a news conference 30 minutes later and said:
The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story," the Democratic nominee told reporters in Columbus.
"I think the prime minister is, obviously, contradicting his own statement when he said, 'terrorists are pouring into the country,' " Kerry said.
Kerry also took issue with Allawi's comment that elections could take place in Iraq in January. "The United States and the Iraqis have retreated from whole areas of Iraq," Kerry said. "There are no-go zones in Iraq today. You can't hold an election in a no-go zone." (21)
Kerry's Vice Presidential Candidate said,
"Prime Minister Allawi's trip to the United States was filled with all the wrong lessons, lessons from an administration that just can't seem to tell the truth when it comes to Iraq." (22)
The Washington Times reported:
The ugliest treatment of all came from Mr. Lockhart [senior Kerry advisor], the former Clinton White House spokesman. After the Allawi-Bush press conference Thursday, Mr. Lockhart said that "The last thing you want to be seen as is a puppet of the United States, and you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips." (22)
Imagine you were Allawi. What would you think? So, after all this, Newsday rather humorously reported that:
On Sunday, Biden [a senior Democratic senator] rushed to the cameras to "guarantee" that Kerry supports Allawi just as much as Bush does. (48)
Besides disheartening our allies, the Kerry camp has disparaged the reasons for the war.
Kerry's wife, Teresa recently said, "John
will never send a boy or girl in a uniform anywhere in the world because of
our need and greed for oil," (23)
In the first Presidential Debate Kerry said:
That's exactly where we find ourselves today. There's a sense of American occupation. The only building that was guarded when the troops when into Baghdad was the oil ministry. We didn't guard the nuclear facilities.
When you guard the oil ministry, but you don't guard the nuclear facilities, the message to a lot of people is maybe, "Wow, maybe they're interested in our oil." (16)
Just recently Diana Kerry, Kerry's sister, who is in charge of 'Americans Overseas for Kerry', the arm of the Kerry campaign that works at getting the vote of Americans living abroad, told The Weekend Australian:
"Australia has kept faith with the US and we are endangering the Australians now by this wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels," she said, referring to the invasion of Iraq.
Asked if she believed the terrorist threat to Australians was now greater because of the support for Republican George W. Bush, Ms Kerry said: "The most recent attack was on the Australian embassy in Jakarta -- I would have to say that." (24)
Australians responded by reelecting one of America's strongest allies in the war on terror, Prime Minister John Howard, to a 3rd term in a historic landslide, giving his coalition control of the Senate for the first time since 1981.
Another American ally, Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski, slammed the Democratic Presidential nominee's rhetoric as 'immoral':
In the interview for a Polish channel TVN, President of Poland, Alexander Kwasniewski expressed his admiration and full support for President George Bush for his leadership in the war on terror. As a comment to the Bush-Kerry debate, President Kwasniewski said that “President Bush performed like a truly Texan gentleman who was able to notice and fully appreciate the presence and sacrifice of the Polish ally in the war on terror in Iraq. “
“I find it kind of sad that a senator with 20 year parliamentary experience is unable to notice the Polish presence in the anti-terror coalition.”, Kwasniewski commented John Kerry’s stance.
“I don’t think it’s an ignorance.”, said Kwasniewski. “Anti-terror coalition is larger than the USA, the UK and Australia. There are also Poland, Ukraine, and Bulgaria etc. which lost their soldiers there. It’s highly immoral not to see our strong commitment we have taken with a strong believe that we must fight against terror together, that we must show our strong international solidarity because Saddam Hussein was dangerous to the world.
“That’s why we are disappointed that our stance and ultimate sacrifice of our soldiers are so diminished”, President Kwasniewski commented Kerry’s speech during the debate.
“Perhaps Mr Kerry, continues Kwasniewski, thinks about the coalition with Germany and France, countries which disagreed with us on Iraq. (55), (56)
Kerry has not apologized or retracted any of his statements or condemned the rhetoric of those in his campaign.
Finally, Kerry's positions on international treaties are equally confusing. He has criticized the Bush administration for not supporting the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto global warming treaty, but without committing himself to joining either. Rather, it appears he would seek to modify the treaties to take into account American objections. What terminology he uses to explain his positions seem to depend on what interest group he is talking to and whether he is in the Democratic Primaries or in the general election.