Kerry, part 2: Rejoin the world
Published 6:00 pm Monday, November 1, 2004
Isolationism, as it’s taught in the school books, refers to a national policy of avoiding international entanglements. We fear our nation has moved toward a new isolationism, not by avoiding adventurism abroad, but rather by pursuing it in defiance of international sentiment.
This goes much to the heart of our opposition to the invasion of Iraq, which has become the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s foreign policy and its “war on terror.” Beyond the shifting justifications — weapons of mass destruction, spreading democracy, Saddam was a crumb, whatever – and the dismal spiral of violence that continues to unfold each day, the unilateral invasion has isolated our nation politically when we should be forging new alliances and fortifying old ones.
Last week, this newspaper added its small voice to the chorus of publications nationwide rendering negative verdicts against the presidency of George W. Bush (Current tally by Editor and Publisher magazine: 125 newspaper endorsements for Kerry, 96 for Bush; at least 35 papers that supported Bush four years ago have joined the Kerry camp, while just two that supported Gore have, um, flip-flopped.)
The fact that Bush has been content to pander to a particularly conservative fraction of the country to the exclusion of more moderate views – dividing the nation when he vowed to unite it – is reason enough to deny him a second term. Yet over in today’s letter’s columns, we’re taken to task for skirting the issue of national security. Perhaps rightfully so; it is a subject that is defining the waning days of the campaigns, each candidate touting his qualifications to defend the nation from further atrocities like those on Sept. 11, 2001.
The irony is that whereas Mr. Bush promised to bring the nation together, it was a band of thugs who did it for him in so horrific a fashion that it rallied the world to our side as well. But the president promptly squandered that international goodwill with a senseless foreign war, a costly conflict that segregated us from the international community – and amongst ourselves – and from which there is no imminent or comfortable exit.
We endorse John Kerry because we support restraint and diplomacy, of which the Bush administration has proven itself contemptuous, ridiculing international bodies and asserting its right to launch unilateral, “preemptive” wars against whomever it sees fit. We believe Kerry offers hope to engage other nations in reconstructing Iraq, restoring stability to that region and – most important – internationalizing the fight against terror and violence, surely the only hope of lasting success in that cause.
Whomever the voters choose Nov. 2, we hope he will be imbued with wisdom commensurate with the undertaking of leading our country. And that Americans will find a way to knit themselves back together toward common purpose.
But there again, we think Mr. Kerry understands something we’re not sure Mr. Bush ever will: that we stand stronger when we don’t stand alone.
