Kerry's coalition building skills

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Registered: 02-23-2004
Kerry's coalition building skills
Mon, 09-13-2004 - 12:04am
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/612vfwyb.asp


A Not-So-Phony Coalition

From the September 20, 2004 issue: Does Kerry think insults will win allies?

by Gerard Baker

09/20/2004, Volume 010, Issue 02

LAST NOVEMBER, suicide bombers killed 19 Italians stationed at a military police barracks in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq. It was the largest single-incident loss of life for the Italian military since the Second World War, and the shock and pain that reverberated through the country was palpable. Hundreds of thousands of mourners paid tribute at a memorial service in Rome. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi cut short a visit to the United States to return home.

Inevitably, the tragedy led some Italian politicians to call for the withdrawal of the country's forces from Iraq. The war was never popular with Italians, and such a setback might have resulted in an early exit.

But the defiant mood of the country was better captured by Cardinal Camillo Ruini at the massive and moving memorial service. He said terrorists would not defeat Italy's spirit: "We will not flee from them. Rather we will confront them with all the courage, energy, and determination that we are capable of." Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government stood firm. Acknowledging the gravity of the loss and articulating the nation's pain, Berlusconi also gave a ringing defense of Italy's commitment to the struggle in Iraq.

"We feel pride for the courage and humanity with which our troops . . . have worked, and still work, to make the situation tolerable for children, women, the elderly, and the weak who live in that martyred region," he said.

Today, almost a year after the tragedy, more than 2,700 Italian military personnel are still in Iraq, still gallantly striving

to make that country's life more tolerable.

But John Kerry doesn't share the Italians' pride in the gallantry of their soldiers, it would seem.

Instead he prefers to mock the role played by the Italians and all the foreign military in Iraq, and to insult the governments who support the United States.

Last year, during the early stages of the Democratic primary, Senator Kerry told supporters that the more than 30 nations in the international operation to remove Saddam Hussein represented a "trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought, and the extorted."

Evidently pleased with this formulation, Kerry revisited it last week. Promising again to build a real coalition to replace the current one in Iraq, he heaped contempt on the efforts of those countries already there.

"When they talk about a coalition--that's the phoniest thing I ever heard," Kerry said at a rally in Pennsylvania. "You've got 500 troops here, 500 troops there, and it's American troops that are 90 percent of the combat casualties, and it's American taxpayers that are paying 90 percent of the cost of the war."

Not for the first time, Kerry's facts were a bit wayward. In addition to Italy, Britain still has 8,000 troops in Iraq, Poland has 2,400, Ukraine 1,500, the Netherlands 1,400, Romania 700, and South Korea 600.

It is true that these are small numbers compared with the vast U.S. force. But most of these nations are already supporting U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan and, given in many cases their exiguous defense budgets, their contributions are not insignificant to the countries themselves. And, strikingly, despite Kerry's scorn, they have borne a sizable, roughly proportionate burden of total casualties. The United States has lost 1,000 servicemen and women; but the allies have between them lost more than 150, including, in addition to the Italians, 64 British, 10 Poles, 12 Spanish (whose government has since departed the coalition), and seven Ukrainians. ....

(remainer available at link above)