When Johnny Comes Marching Home
By NBP Editorial Board | January 9, 2017, 13:49 EST
When John Kerry finishes his tour of duty as Secretary of State in 11 days, does he expect a tickertape parade in his hometown of Boston? Will the men cheer and the boys shout and the ladies all turn out, and will we all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home?
We doubt it!
Kerry ended his career the same way that he started it: trashing America and her friends and giving comfort to her enemies. In 1971, Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the public that U.S. servicemen in Vietnam “raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, randomly shot at civilians, razed village in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.” In doing so, he insulted and dishonored the millions of Americans who served courageously and honorably in Vietnam.
Amazingly, he then sought to build his 2004 presidential campaign on a bogus record of combat distinction in his four-month tour in Vietnam, a record that was thoroughly deconstructed by Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth.
His failed legacy as Secretary of State over the past four years includes the following: Russia’s reentry as a power in the Middle East after 40 years of successful American diplomacy marginalizing Russia’s power in that region; Chinese distain for the Obama administration and America’s unsuccessful efforts to limit Chinese military expansion in the South China Sea; and the Neville Chamberlain-like Iran nuclear deal, some of the provisions of which Iran has already violated.
Kerry’s parting shot as Secretary of State was America’s disgraceful abstention recently at the U.N. Security Council, abandoning Israel, our strongest ally and the only real democracy in the Middle East. Piqued that his many efforts to broker a peace treaty between Palestine and Israel were not fruitful, Kerry went out of his way in his 90-minute speech to blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government which he called “the most right wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements” for the lack of progress in achieving a peace treaty. Somehow Kerry believed that Israel’s refusal to kowtow to his demands on the peace process justified the U.S.’s betrayal of Israel, Apparently it never dawned on Kerry and the Obama administration that you cannot bring about peace when one party has only one real aim: the total destruction of the other party.
No, after Kerry’s disgraceful final act as Secretary of State, we don’t believe that Boston will welcome Kerry with a parade. Most Boston citizens will say good riddance and look forward to a new administration which will support its friends and allies and stand up against its enemy.