Foreign Funnies
John Fund in the Wall Street Journal today has words for Kofi Annan, after the UN Supreme-Majesty, excuse me, Secretary-General declared that the liberation of Iraq was "illegal:"
For example, there was that splendidly legitimate U.N. operation in Bosnia, where its blue-helmeted peacekeepers watched with indifference as Serbian soldiers rounded up for slaughter thousands of Muslim men in the so-called U.N. "safe haven" of Srebrenica. Or Rwanda in 1994, where Mr. Annan--then head of the U.N. peacekeeping office--shrugged off panicked warning calls from the U.N. commander on the ground, thereby allowing the slaughter of 800,000.
Rightly so does Mr. Fund continue to point out Annan's moral bankruptcy, but the observation that immediately comes to my mind is this is just more 'foreign' interference in the US Presidential campaign. This past weekend Kerry's little sister Diana paid a visit down under to scare up a little support.
"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. (hat tip-Tim Blair)
According to a recent international poll co-sponsored by The Program on International Policy Attitudes of the University of Maryland and GlobeScan Incorporated:
[In] France, Germany and Mexico, […] roughly 80 percent of those surveyed thought that the foreign policies of President Bush had made them feel worse about the United States.
The Kerry campaign is deadly aware that since the Republican Convention it's been sinking fast. Part of the reason for this is his Continental (Intercontinental?) attitude of caring more about what other countries want us to do instead of taking care of the business of protecting us at home. Bush is a classic Reluctant Warrior, having run initially on a domestic-based platform, then having had his hand forced in September 2001.
Americans want no 'foreign entanglements,' nor do they want foreign advice. But once they're required to act they prefer to act purposefully, get the job done, and come home. The job in Vietnam wasn't finished, and that black eye drives both liberals and conservatives, albeit from different directions. Kerry's campaign reminded us of our embarrassment, and that he was a major source of that.
Should he lose the election by a sizeable margin, Kerry's foreign friends and international dalliances may well provide an isolationist/unilateral mandate for a second Bush administration. Certainly it would provide a case for those inclined to call for US withdrawal from NATO and the UN. Kofi and company may want to include that in their next budget meeting.
Update: Jed Babbin has more to say about Kofi in today's American Spectator.
