By Marc A. Thiessen
When John Kerry ran for president in 2004 he dismissed the allies fighting alongside the United States in Iraq as a trumped-up so-called coalition of the bribed the coerced the bought and the extorted."
Now as secretary of state Kerry is going hat-in-hand to many of the same nations he insulted asking them to join a U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
No wonder hes having so much trouble.
As Kerry lobbies potential coalition partners at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York this week it is worth recalling how he offended the 30-plus nations that sent ground troops to fight alongside us in Iraq including the United Kingdom Italy Poland Ukraine the Netherlands Australia Romania South Korea Japan Denmark Bulgaria Thailand El Salvador Hungary Singapore Norway Azerbaijan Georgia Mongolia Latvia Portugal the Czech Republic Lithuania Slovakia Albania New Zealand Tonga Estonia Kazakhstan Macedonia Moldova Spain the Dominican Republic Nicaragua Honduras the Philippines Armenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina plus the many others who supported the mission with basing overflight and other crucialassistance.
Kerry dismissed as window dressing" the sacrifice of those nations including the 14 coalition countries who by then had seen their soldiers die on the battlefield in Iraq. His cavalier comments prompted the president of Poland (a country that led Multinational Division in Central-South Iraq and lost 23 soldiers in battle) to declare Its sad that a Senator with twenty years of experience does not appreciate Polish sacrifice . . . I dont think its a question of ignorance. . . . Its immoral not to see this involvement we undertook."
