Posted on 05/04/2004 10:58:15 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Though John Kerry would like his early 1970s radicalism to be forgotten, he is still promoting essentially the same subversive positions as a presidential candidate.
‘‘I’m an internationalist," Kerry told the Harvard Crimson during an ill-fated campaign for U.S. Congress in 1970. "I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations."
Explaining his 1970 statement to Tim Russert on Meet the Press on April 18 of this year, Kerry tried to dismiss that radical — even treasonous — proclamation as a moment of reckless, youthful idealism: "That’s one of those stupid things that a 27-year-old kid says when you’re fresh back from Vietnam and angry about it. I have never, ever, ever, in any vote, in any policy, in any speech, in any public statement advocated any such thing in all of the years I’ve been in elected office. In fact, I say the following and I say it very clearly, I will never cede the security of the United States to any institution and I will never cede our security to any other country. No country will have a veto over what we need to do to protect ourselves." Kerry here was echoing President George W. Bush’s unilateralist rhetoric. But as is the case with President Bush, a wide gap separates Kerry’s rhetoric from his actions.
Despite Kerry’s protestations on Meet the Press, the Massachusetts senator has consistently supported the gradual removal of sovereignty from the United States, and the empowerment of the United Nations and its affiliated international bodies. For example, Kerry recently called for UN control over the Iraq operation, claiming that he would like to "de-Americanize the effort and begin to put it under the United Nations umbrella."
Kerry’s most recent book, A Call to Service (2003), states essentially the same thing as the 1970 Crimson interview, albeit with a softer spin befitting a presidential candidate: "In contrast to the dangerous mix of isolationism and unilateralism that characterizes the Republicans, [I support] speaking from a position of strength on international issues — the multilateral cooperative tradition of democratic internationalism forged in the course of two world wars and the cold war. It acknowledges that multilateral organizations are vehicles for the promotion of our ideals and interests around the world.... America has taken a rare step in human history in arguing that its interests and the world’s are one." (Emphasis added.)
Although Kerry recently complained about the UN-affiliated NAFTA treaty’s provisions allowing a NAFTA tribunal to overturn American courts, he voted for the NAFTA agreement, as well as the World Trade Organization, or WTO. Moreover, he has publicly favored creation of an International Criminal Court under UN auspices. "I support U.S. participation in the International Criminal Court," Kerry proclaimed during the Democratic Party debates, despite the fact that the ICC would be empowered to arrest Americans on vague "crimes against humanity" charges and then bring them to "trial" without a jury, and without provisions to compel witnesses to testify on their behalf.
But John Kerry’s political radicalism manifests itself not only in his public stances, but also in his professional associations. Perhaps no organization best links the Establishment left with the radical left more than the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), which has been closely tied to the Soviet KGB and Cuban intelligence. Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate in 1985, Kerry traveled to Nicaragua to aid the Communist Sandinistas on a propaganda junket arranged by IPS activist Peter Kornbluh. The trip was scheduled on the eve of a vote for aid to the anti-Communist Nicaraguan Contras, who were trying to overturn the Communist/gangster regime of Daniel Ortega. The Soviet-backed regime had already established a well-known record for torture, religious persecution and genocide (of the Miskito Indians), but Kerry declared that his Sandinista comrades "just want peace." The Kerry-IPS efforts succeeded in influencing Congress to turn down the $14 million military aid package. Kerry eventually hired an IPS fellow, Gary Porter, to be his legislative aide.
Whether it’s support for NAFTA, the WTO, the Kyoto agreement, or any other global treaty, there have been few more consistent supporters of globalism than John Kerry.
No US President could possibly have the wisdom, standing and moral authority in the world that the head of the United Nations, such as Kofi Annan (or, shudder, Bill Clinton) would have. That train of thought makes me ill.
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