WASHINGTON, D.C. – Thirty seven years after testifying in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a young soldier returning from Vietnam, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) today was named the Committee’s Chairman for the 111th Congress.
Kerry released the following statement from Islamabad, Pakistan as part of his first trip abroad as the incoming Chair. Other countries on the trip include Poland, Georgia, India, Afghanistan, and Kuwait:
“I am honored to serve as Chairman of a committee which I know from my own experience as a young man can impact the course of our security and help advance our values and interests in the world. It’s particularly a privilege to join in the committee’s rich history of bipartisan cooperation alongside my colleague and our distinguished Ranking Member, Dick Lugar. Whether it was under the Republican Chairman Vandenberg or the great Democratic Chairman William Fulbright, this committee has always stood for the best of American foreign policy. I look forward to working with all members of the committee to help strengthen America’s hand in Afghanistan and Pakistan, work towards global climate change solutions, and end the war in Iraq responsibly. We have a big agenda ahead of us, just as our country faces big challenges across the globe.”
In his 23 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry has chaired the Asia and Middle East subcommittees and authored and passed major legislation on international drug trafficking, global AIDS, international money laundering, and climate change – and negotiated the UN’s genocide tribunal to prosecute war crimes in Cambodia’s Killing Fields.
John Kerry has not been in town as he already went to Poznan, Poland for the Global Climate Change summit, unofficially understood as President Elect Obama’s representative and has since moved onto Pakistan and India. Here is typical foreign coverage of Senator Kerry (this one from the India Times)
NEW DELHI: With India not convinced about Pakistan’s crackdown on terror outfits in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, influential US Senator John Kerry arrived here Sunday on a two-day visit with a message of solidarity from the incoming Obama administration to calm tensions in the region.
Kerry will meet External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon Monday to discuss the US’ perception of Pakistan’s action against terrorist outfits which India blames for the Nov 26 terror attacks in Mumbai.
Kerry, who will be chairman of the influential Senate Committee for Foreign Relations in the incoming administration, is also expected to call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
He is carrying an important message from US president-elect Barack Obama, who takes charge Jan 20, that unveils the incoming administration’s plans for close cooperation between New Delhi and Washington on counter-terrorism and regional issues, reliable sources said.
From there he went to Pakistan, and based on press reports, it looks like he will also be going to Afghanistan and Georgia. I view this trip as being his job as a Senator and Chairman-to-be of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but also unofficially for President Elect Obama who can’t, under the One President At a Time Rule, send executive branch representatives during the transition. In short, this trip is important to set the tone for the new Administration. This way the reins can smoothly be given to Secretary of State designate Hillary Clinton to get right to work.
In addition to this transitional work, I have high hopes that Chairman Kerry will be a real independent voice in the Senate. He said in a recent speech in Boston that he seeks to work with the Obama Administration, not for the Obama Administration. I think that is vital, as we need to get back to a real separation of powers, and having strong independent minded leaders in the Congress to make that happen.
As to Secretary of State, I think the Washington Post got it just about right:
John Kerry: It’s no secret that Kerry, the party’s 2004 presidential nominee, would have liked to be secretary of State. With that post going to Hillary Rodham Clinton, however, it appears that Kerry will spend the rest of his political life in the Senate. Those familiar with his thinking insist Kerry is perfectly happy in the Senate particularly given that he will assume the chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee at the start of the 111th Congress — a lifelong dream. (Kerry famously testified before the committee in April 1971.)
As to that famous testimony, I’ll end with some excerpts:
Mr. Kerry: Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can’t say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to dies so that President Nixon won’t be, and these are his words, “the first President to lose a war.”
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
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We are also here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We are here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric and so many others. Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded.
The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputation bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.
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Finally, this administration has done us the ultimate dishonor. They have attempted to disown us and the sacrifice we made for this country. In their blindness and fear they have tried to deny that we are veterans or that we served in Nam. We do not need their testimony. Our own scars and stumps of limbs are witnesses enough for others and for ourselves.
We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission, to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbarous war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and the fear that have driven this country these last 10 years and more and so when, in 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say “Vietnam” and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory but mean instead the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.
Powerful words to this day. Congratulations, Senator on your new post.
but could you please disclose your relationship to Senator Kerry’s office and/or campaign? You only ever post both here and at Daily Kos with press release like diaries heaping praises on him and I’ve never seen you write on any other topic. If you’re his “Netroots Coordinator” or something, that’s fine, but I feel that we, as your target audience, deserve a little disclosure.
I am a supporter who likes to write about John Kerry. It is odd that only on BMG I am asked this question. It is quite normal on places like DailyKos to have a “favorite Democrat” and to write about him/her.
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p>If you check my history on Kos:
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p>http://www.dailykos.com/user/b…
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p>You would learn that I don’t just write about Kerry. But, he is a favorite topic of mine to write about.
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p>Sometimes I’ll cross post over here if I do a diary on Kos. Last I looked, John Kerry is the Senator from Massachusetts. He is not reported on much here.
…Sen. Kennedy has been named Chair of Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Let’s hope his own health allows him to be active in this role.