Kerry’s argument that the requirement to pass a “global test” before the U.S. acts unilaterally does not amount to giving anyone else a veto over our actions is akin to his view that minority set aside “goals” are not “quotas.”
Doesn’t the following Kerry position, from today’s Washington Post, mean that American action abroad is not legitimate unless it receives unanimous support in the Security Council?
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.
Kerry’s belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, “If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops [sic] unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no.”
It sounds like Kerry wants a world where Americans have no right to self-defense or a foreign policy other than that which the UN would dictate. The dictators in their bunkers, however, must not get bombed under any circumstances. He must believe that freedom means freedom-for-aggression, but no freedom-from-aggression.
“In speeches over the years, Kerry repeatedly has denounced unilateral action.”
Of course, he has also repeatedly denounced multilateral action, as in North Korea.
The passage you quote makes the following points:
1. The loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support.
2. U.S. soldiers dying in the course of a particular U.N. effort are making a worthy sacrifice.
3. U.S. soldiers dying in an effort made only by Americans and made on the basis of a false premise are being improperly used.
Which of those three means that “American action abroad is not legitimate unless it receives unanimous support from the Security Council?” None seem to explicitly lead to that position.
I am not asserting that he doesn’t believe in the test as you have posed; I am just asserting that your derivation or proof of his belief from this passage requires a stronger showing than you have made.
I find it perplexing that so many Americans assert a “devine” right to act unilaterally. Even the Declaratiuon of Independence suggests that we are not alone in the world: “We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES;….
I don’t believe the founders were talking about God when they mentioned “the Supreme Judge of the world”. They knew how to seperate Church and State.
To make the claims made above based on the content of Kerry’s statement requires bias. Frankly, I find the name of this blog ever more revealing.
Craig – Truth be told, I believe ALL THREE of your propositions indicate that Kerry believes (and always has believed — no flip-flopping here) that unilateral American military action is illegitimate.
1. The loss of American life is justified if it is determined, by us, to be in the national interest of the United States. It does not become “better justified” if others agree or less justified if they don’t.
2. “U.S. soldiers dying in the course of a particular U.N. effort” are making a worthy sacrifice only if that sacrifice is in our national interest. It is easy for me, but perhaps not for Sen. Kerry, to imagine “a particular U.N. effort” where that might not be the case.
3. “U.S. soldiers dying in an effort made only by Americans and made on the basis of a false premise” may be improper, but it may not. That is, the result might make the sacrifice worthwhile even if the initial premise was wrong. For example, as I’ve implicitly argued in a recent post, a Northerner in 1861 could reasonably conclude that a war simply to keep the Union intact was not worth the sacrifices required, but that a war that would lead to freeing the slaves was worth it. It is indisputable that the “premise” of Lincoln and the Union choosing war over allowing peaceful secession was exclusively to save the Union. Was the resulting war “improper” in your view? (For what it’s worth, I once argued that it was.)
The particular example that prompted Kerry’s quote — Bosnia — would seem to prove the point since the sacrifices he was asked to evaluate were identical, the only difference being whether they occurred with U.N. sanction or not.
I guess the British, the Australians, Italians, etc., are chopped liver.
Why did Kerry object to the first Gulf War, which had the support of allies and was authorized by the UN?
Frankly, working under the auspices of the UN has cause far too much unneccessary suffering for the US military, from the Beiruit marine barracks bombing to the Blackhawk down incident to the various al Qaeda attacks including 9/11. Yes, 9/11. If it weren’t for the unwillingness of the first Gulf War coalition to remove Saddam, we wouldn’t have spent 10 years containing Saddam while putting ourselves in the sights of bin Laden and al Qaeda. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the containment of Iraq and becoming a target for frequent al Qaeda attacks are fundamentally intertwined issues.
GLOBAL TEST. This is the EXACT QUOTE from the Debate by Kerry.
>>>No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you’ve got to do in a way that passes the test
Without getting into it too much, I find it somewhat amusing that cobra believes the “corporate media” to be in Bush’s pocket, while the bombardment of negative images of the war in Iraq and Dan Rather’s recent gaffe imply that precisely the opposite is true. Also, disarming Saddam, removing a mentally unstable dictator, freeing the Iraqi people, and creating a democracy in the Middle East seem like one and the same to me- and all good causes.
Regardless, the second part of cobra’s post, namely that we are a “debtor nation” and thus cannot afford any country disliking us, fails to hold water. We live in a debtor world, with nearly every country in debt to nearly every other country. It is important to remember that a trade deficit is really not the same thing as a hard capital loan from the bank. The idea that China could simply stoop extending us credit is ludicrous- it is true that we would have a hard time without Chinese goods, but China would be hard pressed to survive without an American market for their products. The same is true of most other countries. In this era of the global economy, such a move by a major player could threaten the entire system- including the country that initialized the process. America’s trade deficit and the heavy investment of foreign capital in U.S. markets is a major driving force of the entire global economy, and it would be economic suicide for China or any other country to threaten that balance. Even in 1930, with a much less globalized economy, the downturn of U.S. markets fueled a world wide depression.
But on to Kerry. While it is true that Kerry probably did not intend to suggest that we would never do anything without unanimous global support, it seems obvious that he intends to give the United Nations more say over U.S. actions than it has had in the Bush administration. This is a dubious at best, dangerous at worst position for three main reasons:
1) We are not undertaking the war in Iraq “unilaterally”. We have the support of a great many nations in the endeavor- just not France, Germany, or Russia. While it is true that we are supplying the lion’s share of money and manpower in Iraq, we did the same in the first Gulf War. In fact, the portion of costs and troops we supplied was actually quite similar, percentage wise. We have also shouldered most of the cost of Afghanistan and Bosnia. All three of these ventures are held up as examples of “multilateral” action.
2) Kerry will not be able to gain full support for Iraq either- France (paid by Saddam to oppose us) has flat out stated that it will never send troops to Iraq, no matter who wins in November (which is okay; in the words of the great George Patton, “I’d rather have a German division in front of me than a French division behind me (sorry, couldn’t resist)). Indeed, it seems that Kerry has alienated (e.g. Poland) more allies than he has gained.
3) We can never entrust American security to an organization like the U.N. unless it fundamentally changes. How can we trust a group that has, through Oil-For-Food, demonstrated itself to be every bit as corrupt as even the most leftist liberal accuses Bush of being? How can we fight global terrorism when the 53 member OIC (Order of the Islamic Council, I believe) refuses to admit that Hamas and Al-Qaeda are illegitimate organizations? Of course we couldn’t pass a war resolution- we couldn’t even pass a unanimous resolution condemning terrorism without watering it down to nothing. The problem with the United Nations is that nearly half the countries in the U.N. are completely opposed to what America, Britain, Australia, Poland, and all our other allies stand for. I don’t want a body with 70+ dictatorships and a 53 member group advocating anti-Semitism and extreme Islamic terror organizations defining American foreign policy. I fear that Kerry, though he might do it with the best of intentions, would allow the U.N. to do precisely that.
Garrick writes:
>>>The idea that China could simply stoop extending us credit is ludicrous- it is true that we would have a hard time without Chinese goods, but China would be hard pressed to survive without an American market for their products.
Garrick,
I know the tendency for many on this blog is to defend the President and all of his choices to the bitter end. I understand the sports team analogy
First, I don’t claim to be “rooting for my team until the bitter end”. Bush has made many mistakes, and I am not particuarly fond of his economic policies. However, I don’t find Kerry’s policies to be a viable alternative; many of his proposed programs would only further increase the national debt. If anything, he’s just as likely to scare away more foreign investment with his “end all outsourcing,” pro-U.S. trade union rhetoric.
I apologize for the use of the word “ludicrous” but the fact remains that the economic scenario you propose is simply the bleakest of many possible outcomes, and in no way inevitable (while economists are valid sources, they don’t all agree). In any case, read your own articles:
>>> The ‘disaster now or catastrophe later’ school of economic thinking, led by Steven Roach, Morgan Stanley’s global chief economist, holds that neither Bush nor Kerry can do much to correct the US’s economic course.
So, to argue that ousting Bush and being “less arrogant” will somehow cure all our debt ills is a little off base. In any case, the fact remains that it would be difficult for the global economy to sustain itself without U.S. markets, so, while the our trade deficit should and must be dealt with, it is unlikely that a major economic power will simply “turn off the loan spigot” (the U.S. turning off the aid/loan spigot would also threaten many economies).
Throughout all the threads on this site, you have repeatedly used the fallacy of creating absolutes where they don’t necessarily exist, and misrepresenting other posters’ statements to attack them. I take offense to your implication, “What I
Garrick writes:
>>>I simply reject your doom and gloom picture that somehow the war in Iraq will make everyone stop investing in the U.S. economy and cause a collapse of the entire systemhttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6153860/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/15/national/main649622.shtml
China has ENORMOUS influence as well, even on the largest American corporations.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20041027-0634-china-unions.html
I can’t fathom why you think that NAFTA and globalization doesn’t make the United States more vulnerable to foreign influence. The handwriting is on the wall. Though the US consummer market is huge, it is not the ONLY market worth having in the world, and it depends on American consummers having
enough money in their pockets to consume. A rise in the cost of living almost directly corresponds with a rise in energy prices, which will stifle the ability to grow sales.
>>>First, I don’t claim to be “rooting for my team until the bitter end”. Bush has made many mistakes, and I am not particuarly fond of his economic policies.>>1) We are not undertaking the war in Iraq “unilaterally”. We have the support of a great many nations in the endeavor- just not France, Germany, or Russia. While it is true that we are supplying the lion’s share of money and manpower in Iraq, we did the same in the first Gulf War. In fact, the portion of costs and troops we supplied was actually quite similar, percentage wise.http://money.cnn.com/2003/03/17/news/economy/war_cost/
The cost of the first Gulf War is here.
>>>The cost of the war to the United States was calculated by Congress to be $61.1 billion. Other sources estimate up to $71 billion. About $53 billion of that amount was paid by different countries around the world: $36 billion by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States; $16 billion by Germany and Japan (who were not part of the coalition due to the treaties that ended WWII). About 25% of Saudi Arabia’s contribution was paid in form of in-kind services to the troops, such as food and transportation.
US troops represented only about 74% of the combined force, and the global cost is therefore higher. The United Kingdom, for instance, spent $4.1 billion during this war.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War#Cost
In other words, even the highest estimate put US cost at around $18 Billion.
Now let’s look at the latest reports, TODAY:
The updating, up-to-the-minute price tag
>>>http://www.costofwar.com/
What Bush is asking for:
>>>http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/10/27/war.cost/
Briefly, Bush if re-elected, will put the cost near $220 billion dollars for this fiasco, with no end in sight, no exit strategy, and no definition of victory.
>>>2) Kerry will not be able to gain full support for Iraq eitherhttp://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/03/17/MNGEQ5MBKU1.DTL
So tell me exactly why staying with Bush is the correct choice for building alliances?
>>>How can we trust a group that has, through Oil-For-Food, demonstrated itself to be every bit as corrupt as even the most leftist liberal accuses Bush of being?
Regardless, the whole economic debate is a red herring not directly related (at the very least not essential) to the issue at hand, namely whether the U.S. should cede control of it’s foreign policy to the UN. For the reasons I stated, I continue to believe that that is the wrong course of action.scooter
Dioaiur,
Please post a link to ANY Presidential candidate who has stated on the record, that he would “cede control of US foreign policy to the UN”
Not Rush Limbaugh spin, Sean Hannity, Fox News, Karl Rove, Ann Coulter, et al…
GIVE ME THE EXACT QUOTE, with a source link.
–Cobra