For Limeys like me who missed the debate (it was on at 3am here) could you explain the context of this "Global test" remark? TIA.
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Something about that if the U.S. deploys troops, our reasons must pass a "global test". So the E.U., China and the Middle East will tell the U.S. when its O.K. to use our troops.
LEHRER: New question. Two minutes, Senator Kerry.
What is your position on the whole concept of preemptive war?
KERRY: The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for preemptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War. And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control.
No president, though 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 have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.
What Kerry said to a question about US Premtive actions, he said that the President absoutely has the authority to us e premtive actions and He Kerry would not hesitate to use it. But first it must pass the Global Test..meaning to put our soverinty under the umbrella of the UN..
We ain't buyin it...
It's a completely new remark from Kerry, but consistent with his "shattered alliances" and "Traditional allies" rhetoric.
Actually the Global Test is a misnomer. It appeals to Globalists and anti-american left/corporate liberals who privelege foreign anti-american sentiment. It's a misnomer because Kerry really means "French Test." Or "Parisian Test". He has no problem dumping this rubric of globalism and multilateralism for North Korea.
Adding to the confusion he is instructed not to say the words "Chirac" or "France" lest the peeps recall the events before the war. Bush has done nothing to remind people of such so Kerry basically gets a free-ride on his francophilism. He signals it in code words like mentioning DeGaulle, as did his buddy Sen. Biden did at the Democratic National Convention. Biden is the one who had a private meeting with Chirac.
Your British press is enchanted with levels of Eurocentrism and anti-Bushism and liberal/conservative politics, blinding itself to the fact that Kerry wants to tilt away from the UK to France. He's a longtime Francophile. So are some of his advisors.
On the subject of pre-emptive war, John Kerry said: “The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for preemptive strike.” But, then he went on to say: “But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test…that passes the global test.”