The Forgotten Polish

In John Kerry's quest to gain respect for America from foreign countries, he's offended at least one of them. Arthur Chrenkoff provides a translation (from Polish) of comments from President Kwasniewski of Poland:

"It's sad that a Senator with twenty years of experience does not appreciate Polish sacrifice... I don't think it's a question of ignorance. One thing has to be said very clearly: this Coalition is not just the United States, Great Britain and Australia, but there's also contribution of Polish, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Spanish soldiers who died in Iraq. It's immoral to not see this involvement we undertook because we believe that we have to fight terrorism together, that we need to show international solidarity, that Saddam Hussein is a danger to the world.

"From such a perspective, you can say we are disappointed that our stance and the sacrifice of our soldiers is so marginalised. I blame it on electioneering - and a message, indirectly expressed by Senator Kerry - that he thinks more of a coalition that would put the United States together with France and Germany, that is those who in the matter of Iraq said 'no'.

"President Bush is behaving like a true Texan gentleman - he's fighting for the recognition of other countries' contribution in the Coalition."

It may be that Poland is a small country with a relatively small group of troops in Iraq. But if we go around offending all the small countries with relatively small groups of troops, then what do we have left?

(advisory: comments on the linked post above are not all family friendly)