September 09, 2004

The Bribed and Coerced Are People Too

That's the problem every time you try to list everyone that helped:

South Korean officials were shocked when U.S. President George W. Bush, in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, failed to mention South Korea in expressing appreciation to U.S. allies in the war against terror.

South Korea has pledged 3,600 troops to help U.S. operations in Iraq, the largest number of foreign soldiers following the United States and Britain.

In his acceptance speech, Bush named eight countries according to the number of troops deployed in Iraq. They included Britain, Poland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, El Salvador and Australia. El Salvador and Australia had only sent 380 and 300 troops to Iraq, respectively.

I suppose that John Kerry could make some hay on this issue as a better diplomatist than President George W. Bush if he hadn't already dissed the South Koreans' motives for helping the US in Iraq to begin with.

Posted by Charles Austin at September 9, 2004 01:30 PM
Comments

It would be interesting to see how someone who has maintained that we acted unilaterally can criticize Bush for leaving out an ally when listed all those that helped us. It would take a lot of... what't the word I'm looking for... ah, nuance.

Posted by: Jon at 02:56 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the South Korean contingent fairly recent? I believe the countries listed by Bush were there for the invasion.

Posted by: Karen at 07:21 PM

The South Koreans are so easily offended. If it's not Paul Hamm or Anton Ono infuriating them in sports it's Jay Leno joking about their taste for dog. I believe S. Korean officials demanded Leno be sacked over that joke a year or so ago.

Posted by: Lawrence at 12:42 PM