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Kerry’s astounding lie
At a recent Democratic candidates’ debate Senator Kerry said: “This president has done it wrong every step of the way. He promised that he would have a real coalition. He has a fraudulent coalition … He promised he would go through the United Nations and honor the inspections process. He did not.” While there are many objections that could be raised to Kerry’s atrocious remarks, I want to focus on one particularly astounding lie of his—that President Bush bypassed the UN and broke a promise in doing so. The truth is the exact opposite, as anyone with a functioning memory of the events leading up to the war well knows. Under a decade’s worth of broken agreements and UN resolutions, the U.S. had the legal right it needed to proceed immediately against Iraq on a unilateral basis. In fact, it could have exercised that right at any time in the previous ten years. After a debate within his administration, Bush decided instead to seek UN support for war. He gave a highly successful speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2002 that silenced his critics and was seen, even by the liberal media, as a major triumph of a newly mature president demonstrating his ability to appeal to and direct global opinion. He got unanimous approval from the Security Council for Resolution 1441, which even his critics considered a masterful display of diplomacy. The Resolution said that if Iraq continued its non-compliance with its obligations to turn over and destroy its WMDs and WMDs programs, there would be “serious consequences,” i.e. war. Bush’s decision to go the UN route meant that the war—which considering Hussein’s long record of non-compliance seemed a foregone result—had to be delayed for several additional months while giving Iraq this one last chance. Bush was willing to pay that price in exchange for Security Council backing, especially from France, for whom the wording of 1441 had been especially tailored during very tough negotiations between Secretary of State Powell and the French foreign minister de Villepin. Then, as everyone with a functioning memory knows, France stunningly betrayed the U.S., not only refusing to vote to enforce Resolution 1441, but actively campaigning to undermine the U.S. position at the UN and turn world opinion against her. The long delay over taking military action resulting from the decision to seek UN approval, combined with America’s betrayal and embarrassment at the hands of its supposed allies, provided an opening in which world opinion against the U.S. rose to an unpredented pitch. In the end, the President was not able to get the UN behind his actions, not because of a lack of good faith or sincere effort on his part, but because he was stabbed in the back by his supposed allies. Yet Kerry describes these events as though it was Bush who behaved dishonestly and dishonorably, as though it was Bush who made a promise to go through the UN and coldbloodedly broke it. The inescapable conclusion of Kerry’s logic is that Bush should have simply called off the effort to topple Hussein because of the opposition of countries which were behaving, not as friends having a disagreement with us, but as adversaries In Kerry’s view, America’s actions on a matter of vital national security should be determined by nations that intend us harm.
Even more damaging to America’s political health than Kerry’s policy of appeasement is his readiness to traffic in sulfuric lies about the President of the United States on a crucial matter of national security; and further, our society’s treatment of such political behavior as normal and legitimate. When we remember that Kerry is considered “mainstream” candidate for the Democratic Party nomination as contrasted with the “wild man” Dean, the situaation appears even more ominous. Email entry |