EDITORIAL: Foolish posturing by Peters

PAUL TAGGART
Winston Peters thinks New Zealand's spending of taxpayers' money in the South Pacific is undervalued overseas.
And to make his point, he took a dig this week at the US and Britain, saying he suspected the US had overlooked New Zealand's contribution to security and stability in the Pacific for a long time.
And, of Britain, he said the region had once been under its colonial rule.
"You once had dominion over these people," he said. "You can't exit it and leave for somebody else to pay for and help build."
If his objective was to irritate two major powers and trading partners, Mr Peters will have succeeded admirably. But why?
The United States made an enormous contribution to the people of the Pacific by liberating them from Japanese occupation and by preventing that occupation spreading to Australia and New Zealand. It may have been more than half a century ago, but there are still many Kiwis who owe their lives to the US presence in the Pacific during World War 2.
Their waging and winning of the war in the Pacific far outweights the US's unreasonable attitude to this country over both major parties' anti-nuclear stance.
Britain - for better or for worse - instilled the democratic ethic in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji before all three gained independence without the need to resort to a single bullet or bomb.
Britain still funds and administers remote Pitcairn Island and contributes substantial aid to other Pacific nations, as does the United States.
So Mr Peters' petulance was not only inaccurate, it was inflammatory. If there is a specific duty that the US or UK is failing to discharge in this region - in Mr Peters' opinion - then it would be smarter to raise it through diplomatic channels rather than in a tub-thumping speech to the Institute of International Affairs at Victoria University.
At the end of the day, New Zealand is a flea in the animal kingdom of international diplomacy. And as the French showed at the time of the Rainbow Warrior bombers' release from prison, following intense diplomatic pressure and trade threats, size matters.
Mr Peters seems to have adopted a style that is the reverse of Theodore Roosevelt's famous dictum of speaking softly and carrying a big stick.
Hot air may win him points in the debating chamber in Wellington but out in the real world it only serves to make him look foolish.