Chilean terrorist attacks Bush

Well, not just a terrorist but the Chilean ambassador to the UN which, as we've all been carefully taught, is a terrorist organization trying to take over the US starting with the national park system.  Oh.  You don't tune in to the freepers much?  Take it from those who do:  America's national parks are at almost at much risk from the UN as they are from creationists and Bush administration budget cuts.  But now the Washington Post reports that the administration is revealed to have threatened allies who withheld their support for the Iraq invasion.

In the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war, according to an upcoming book by a top Chilean diplomat.

The rough-and-tumble diplomatic strategy has generated lasting "bitterness" and "deep mistrust" in Washington's relations with allies in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, wrote Heraldo Muñoz, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, in his book "A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons," set for publication next month.

"In the aftermath of the invasion, allies loyal to the United States were rejected, mocked and even punished" for their refusal to back a U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein's government, Muñoz wrote.

With with consistently thuggish behavior for a US president, our terrorism-obsessed president threatened other nations and then later, when the war turned out to be unwinnable, turned to them for help.

Muñoz said that threats of reprisals were short-lived as Washington quickly found itself reaching out to Chile, Mexico and other countries to support Iraq's messy postwar rehabilitation. It also sought support from Chile on issues such as peacekeeping in Haiti and support for U.S. efforts to drive Syria out of Lebanon. The U.S.-Chilean free trade agreement, while delayed, was finally signed by then-U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick in June 2003.

Comments

[Humphrey Bogus]

I'm sorry, but what do you think diplomacy is? International politics is always an exercise in power projection, with some nice words on top. If our allies are reluctant to do something, we convince them to do it using carrots and sticks. It's a negotiation, not a party invite. Or perhaps we should just ask nicely and drop the matter if they seem reluctant....

[PW]

What's interesting in this case is that it shows both Bush's weakness and his incompetence.