Are there any issues left

about which John Kerry has not spoken with a forked tongue? Arthur Chrenkoff, the Australian blogger originally from Poland, recalls a time when Kerry viewed coalition partners such as Australia and Poland as “some trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted.” Now, however, Senator Nuance is complaining, in effect, that we have not bribed Poland sufficiently. Chrenkoff provides the following translation of statements made by Kerry to a leading Polish-American newspaper:

America must give its allies a stake in stabilizing Iraq. The best way to achieve that is through binding their interests with the peaceful future of that country. On the economic front this will mean granting true and tried friends – like Poland – a share in the multi-billion dollar reconstruction contracts, in a share proportional to Poland’s contribution to the Coalition. I assure you that just as Poland was treated as an equal with other members of the Coalition, so she will be an equal partner in the task of rebuilding Iraq. . . .Visa requirements for Poles in their current form are out of date. They don’t reflect either the strategic relationship between Poland and the US, nor the traditional close ties between our two countries. If we’ll continue cooperating with each other, we’ll achieve that common goal [of changing visa requirements].

In reality, as Chrenkoff notes, the U.S. did not bribe Poland into participating in the Coalition of the Willing:

Countries like Poland got preciously little tangible benefits for their involvement, be it by way of commercial contracts, military assistance, or abolishing visa restrictions for Polish visitors. In fact, in hindsight it seems that Poland did it “for love alone,” in the process copping nothing but grief from her politically and economically influential Old European neighbors.

Thus, both prongs of Kerry’s forked pronouncements on Poland are sickening. The first prong — that Poland was bribed — is a slanderous falsehood. The second prong — that Kerry will build a genuine coalition through bribes — is pure hypocrisy in light of his prior statement.

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