The Kerry Record: Help of Allies Among Three Key Themes

Published on October 20, 2004 By blogic In Politics

The linked article is a balanced article on Kerry's beliefs regarding foreign policy, and his record. I recommend a look -- it's fairly short. For those of us who believe the Bush doctrine has failed, it's informative to get to know the alternative.

From the Washington Post:

In Senate debates and media interviews over the years, John F. Kerry has repeatedly returned to three axioms on the use of military force: Win as much allied support as possible before going to war, listen to advice from the professionals, and, most significant, heed the many lessons of the Vietnam War.

NATO and the United Nations appear to be touchstones for the Democratic nominee, not just the troublesome hurdles that they appear to be to President Bush. In speeches over the years, Kerry repeatedly has denounced unilateral action.

[snip]

A more recent theme for the senator from Massachusetts has been the importance of listening carefully to military advice. It is a subject he touched on in the past but seems to have emphasized more in the current campaign as he discusses the stormy relationship the Bush administration has had with the Army, particularly with Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who was that service's chief of staff until last year.

[snip]

But the most significant factor in shaping Kerry's views on the use of force appears to be Vietnam -- and not just the lesson that the conflict was a mistake. Indeed, some of his conclusions about the war are surprising, such as his praise a decade ago for President Richard M. Nixon's 1972 "Christmas bombing," the most intense aerial campaign of the war.

Kerry's reading of that war's lessons also leads, unexpectedly, to a similarity with Bush: an inclination to persist once he has chosen a course of action. His bottom line on Vietnam is that the nation must stick to commitments once troops have been sent in. The lesson from that war, he told author Gil Dorland, is that "I won't put American soldiers in harm's way unless the United States is prepared to win."

Comments (Page 2)

Chemicalkinetics

on Oct 20, 2004

Look, I am not asking you to prove to me beyond the reaosnable of doubt. I am just saying if you know at how Bush offended the German and the French, and the way how Kerry is offending the British, Australian and Iraqi. Kerry is more offensive. Kerry campaigned against John Howard for god sake. He was campaigning for the Auastralian party which would have withdraw the troops (that was the labor party's promise). Kerry has called Allawi a liar and Blair being bribed. Has any of Bush action or commments matches that? You may say the Bush adminstration can be more engaging to the German and French. The only remote thing you can call Bush is non-reponsive to German and French, maybe. He was not actively against the German and French by building campaign headquarters in their countries and call them liars.

How can you be so double standards? So it is ok for Kerry to refer Allawi lying and send his sister to campaign against John Howard? Don't forget the Austrulian and the British are the most steadfast allies we have ever, and Iraqi is undenaible important in stabilizing Iraqi. I would make the comment which may be offensive to some but true. It is more important to have the Iraqi government, British and Australian on our side than those of German and French.

Myrrander

on Oct 20, 2004

Blogic. I could respect these posts more if they weren't just cut'n'paste and links. Provide some commentary, yeah?

blogic

on Oct 20, 2004

Hi Myrrander,

I think I answered both your questions as well as I can, and I think my answers were both reasonable and admitted their internal limits. Question number one boils down to "Why did Kerry flip-flip?", and I said that the "9/11 changed everything" answer applies at least as logically to Kerry's views as Bush's. Both Bush and Kerry's views have evolved over time. Are you holding Kerry to a different standard than you hold Bush? Are you arguing that we should only have politicians than never change their views? And if you are, are there any and would they make very good presidents? Please read through the comments for more info.

Regarding the second question, that was also dealt with. Please read through the comments. In the end, we're talking about the future and most foreign leaders are not going to get invovled with this election, so everyone's guessing on this. That said, do I think it's likely that Kerry will be more oriented towards working with other countries. Also, given the fact that Bush is extremely unpopular in most democracies (according to polls), I think foreign leaders will be more likely to work with Kerry.

Can I prove that? Of course not. But I feel comfortable that given how Bush has handled the Iraq War, and Bush's tremendous unpopularity in most democracies, it would be easier and more likely for Kerry to build a larger alliance.

Chemicalkinetics

on Oct 20, 2004

My god. You seriously think Allawi was happy after hearing Kerry called him a liar, and that John Howard really simle when Kerry campaigned against him.... In that case, maybe Bush should have called the French and German liars and campaigned against them. That will make them happy according to your logic. There is no reason to believe Kerry can build a larger coalition. Forget that he has offended most currnet allies. He has repeatly now said this is the wrong war (Iraqi War). Who the hell is going to join a wrong war? If anything, he gives the current allies reason to leave. To be a leader in a coalition, one thing more important than being popular is to believe what you are doing is right. Reagan was vastly unpopular in European during his presidenacy, and you can look that up, but NATO coaltion did not fall apart under him. He is unpopular because he has this cowboy attitude of what I said is right and American opinion is bigger than yours, of course that is unpopular among European, but at the same time they sticked by him because he convinced them that the coalition against USSR is right. The allies stayed not because Reagan is popular but because the cause is just. Kerry in your description is oppose. He tried to be popular but tell other countries that the cause is wrong. Not once in US history has the leader build a grand coalition when he think the war/action is wrong. I gave you an example, of two unpopular president, Truman and Reagan. Truman build a coalition and Reagan although didn't really build anything he maintained it alright. On the opposite, you have Jimmary Carter who is a nice person, but lack the ability to lead. He can't be sure what he is doing is even right at times. If I am a country leader, I want the leader of a coalition be firm. The last thing I want is the leader leaves the war before I do. Popularity that is secondary, and you should know that.

Myrrander

on Oct 20, 2004

Well, I meant your posts in general.

Bush's tremendous unpopularity in most democracies

what about this Republic?

I don't trust Allawi at all. Nor did I trust Chalabi. Nor do I trust Karzai.

Chemicalkinetics

on Oct 20, 2004

Myrrander, Bush is kinda of popular in US. His popularity is at least above 50%. Go read Gallup poll. Regarding Allawi, it is not simply about you trust him or not, the question is "Do you have to work with this guy?". I don't like the a lot of foreign leaders, but that doesn't mean the USA should start calling them liars.

Daiwa

on Oct 20, 2004

"There's no question he's wandered around" on issues such as the use of force, but so have most senators, said a Republican colleague and friend who supports Bush but also admires Kerry. "I don't think he would hesitate to use force if U.S. interests were threatened," he added."He doesn't shy away from defending America's interests . . . but he believes it is important to get international support," said Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

I can't tell you how reassured I am.

Cheers,
Daiwa

blogic

on Oct 20, 2004

Hi Myrrander,

I wasn't talking about his domestic popularity, so I'm not sure why you brought it up -- I certainly never implied it wasn't important. I was talking about Kerry vs Bush's ability to put together an alliance. Do you disagree with me on this? Believe Bush is more likely to work with allies?

Also, as you know, I write commentary pieces periodically. I've always done a mix of link posts and commentary, and even link posts with commentary. I've also often put commentary in my follow up comments.

Finally, if you look through JoeUser, you'll see there are more (as in a greater number) of pro-Bush writers than there are pro-Kerry ones. I understand that you're torn between the candidates, and that you sometimes -- in your own words -- like to play Devil's Advocate; but I'm sorry you're now spending more time critiquing pro-Kerry arguments than pro-Bush ones. It's not as if JoeUser is dominated by liberals with no one willing to stand up and advocate conservative views. I appreciate your independence of thought, but JoeUser has few enough intelligent Kerry supporters taking part in the discussions, and I'm sure you could contribute more balance to the many lopsidedly pro-Bush conversation threads here.

As always, thank you for your comments.

blogic

on Oct 20, 2004

Hi CK,

I think I was fairly clear I was talking about Bush's popularity in other countries, not domestically. When we deal with other democracies, their leaders necessarily care about whether their constituents support alliances with America. In fact, European supporters of the Iraq War are now having political problems precisely because the war is so unpopular there.

So the question is, could Bush have handled it differently so that European leaders felt they would have more citizen support on the war, and on the occupation/rebuliding of Iraq? I think so. As I've indicated in other posts, Bush was warned that the occupation would be much more difficult than for what he planned. I think that if the occupation had gone better, it would be easier to attract allies; and I think Bush bears a lot of responsibility for weakness is the occupation planning.

You can disagree with me on those assertions, but once again, I think it's getting beyond the range of this discussion to move into a larger discussion of (1) could Bush have handled the occupation better and (2) has that occupation affected the willingness of potential allies to contribute troops and resources.

blogic

on Oct 20, 2004

Hi GX,

Putin said this:

I consider that the activities of terrorists in Iraq are not as much aimed at coalition forces but more personally against President Bush ... International terrorism has as its goal to prevent the election of President Bush to a second term, if they achieve that goal, then that will give international terrorism a new impulse and extra power.

Coming from a guy who's made the War on Terrorism central to his rhetoric, that's an endorsement. He did go on to say he would respect the choice of the American people, and that he didn't want to spoil relations with either candidate.

Chemicalkinetics

on Oct 21, 2004

Actually when I used Bush domestic support numbers previously, I was not addressing you, I was addressing someone else (Myrrander). I will use your phase: "I think was very clear I was addressing Myrrander by putting that name in the front of my last reply" No, I don't think coalitions are simply build by popularity as you mentioned. If so, you will have a hard time to explain how Truman and Reagan built and maintained the coalition. How come popular president Clinton never got any grand coalition with him even in Bonsia, Yugolsalvia, Somolia.... You really should not come up with all these theories which are not at all backed up any historical facts or trends. As I mentioned before and before, coalitions are build by interest and strength. Europeans have interest to not see USSR invade them and both Truman and Reagan have great strength. This is the reason why the coalition was strong, not because Truman and Reagan are popular among European -- in fact they were unpopular. The opposite is true of Somolia, Bosnia, that is why Clinton couldn't get a huge coalition. Now you are telling me Kerry can build a coalition because he is simply popular?! Don't forget he calls this war and operation a mistake. I don't think he can build a grand coalition. Moreover I have every reason to believe he will reduce it. You really have to explain to me the fact Kerry campaigned for the opposition party in Australia, the party which promised to withdraw Australian troop from Iraq. He literally campaigned to have the Australian troop to withdraw. How do you exaplain that?

blogic

on Oct 21, 2004

Hi CK,

Sorry for my confusion over who you were addressing.

Please show me a link for where Kerry literally campaigned to have the Australian troops removed. Also, where's your evidence that Truman was unpopular during the mid to late 1940s?

I never said coalitions were built up by the popularity of Kerry in other countries. I said that Bush's unpopularity in other countries makes alliance building more difficult. That's clearly true in the UK. I agree with you that shared interest matters. We didn't convince the rest of the world that Iraq was an imminent threat, and now we have very few allies there. In my opinion, it was more important to convince the world that they are threatened by terrorism than it was to invade Iraq on our timetable. Then again, I think we disagree on whether Iraq is part of the War of Terrorism, and I doubt we'll convince each other here.

Chemicalkinetics

on Oct 21, 2004

You should able to find Diana Kerry activates during the Australian election on your own. Second, I did provide the links in my previous post #13. I would think you have read them by now..... I am also including another for you:

http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/knippenberg/04/diplomacy.html Yes, I doubt we can convince each other about the importance of Iraq in the War on Terror. That said, you still have to agree it is very inappropiate for Diana Kerry to have actively support Latham, right?

Chemicalkinetics

on Oct 21, 2004

Oh and not only it is inappropiate for her to endorse Latham because US in theory should not interve foreign election. More importantly, how do you explain Kerry support a Australian party which promised to withdraw the Australian troop from Iraq. Is that a sign of building larger coalition? No.

bakerstreet

on Oct 21, 2004

I don't think there's a single war in US history that Kerry would have fought according to his personal dogma. According to the rules he sets up I don't see him opposing Germany in WW2, and I doubt he'd have fought a war with Japan, at least not to their defeat. He's a Carter, a milktoast disguised as a "diplomat". Hamlet wouldn't make a good President, neither would Kerry.

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