Speaking Thursday at a State Department dinner, Secretary of State John Kerry said of Nigeria that “only the United States is there offering the assistance to help find those young woman,” adding “other countries, not only aren’t they invited, but they did not even offer.”
Kerry’s comments aimed to brag about the US “leadership” position globally, while presenting American intervention as not only effective but uniquely welcome.
There are a lot of problems with that, but lets first address the most obvious: the facts aren’t true. Several nations are aiding Nigeria in the search, including Britain, France, and Israel. China has also offered to help.
When presented with the facts, the State Department insisted Kerry only meant Russia and China, and meant to show that “we are the partner of first resort to many countries.”
While the Obama Administration’s massive foreign aid budget and willingness to look the other way has indeed made it the “partner of first resort” for many governments, particularly those like Nigeria with egrigous human rights records, the notion that this makes them uniquely welcomed by the people in the areas of those interventions simply isn’t true. A cursory look at places like Yemen and Pakistan, the top US “parntership” targets, show record levels of anti-US sentiment that continue to grow worse with every new fiasco they perpetrate therein.
Source