Tuesday, August 3 2004
THE DANGER WE FACE: "One essential lesson of the last century is this: There are times when the international community must take a side - not merely stand between the sides. For when good and evil collide, even-handedness can be an ally of evil."

I can hear liberals across the country beating their breasts and wailing, "there goes our stupid, Bible-thumping President again with his dangerously simplistic rhetoric about good and evil."

Except these aren't the words of George W. Bush. They're from the speech President Bill Clinton delivered to the much-heralded UN Millennium Summit on September 6, 2000.

Here's the rest of the passage:

"We faced such a test and met it when Slobodan Milosevic, tried to close the century with a final chapter of ethnic slaughter. We have faced such a test for 10 years in Iraq. The UN has approved a fair blueprint spelling out what Iraq must do. It must be enforced for the credibility of the UN is at stake."

A couple of points worth noting. First, it seems a bit odd that President Clinton would choose to cite Kosovo in a speech before the United Nations as an example of the international community "meeting the test" given that the bombing campaign was undertaken without the support of the UN.

Second, Clinton said that for 10 years we had faced a test in Iraq - but he didn't say we had "met" the test. Indeed, by his own preceding example of the challenge being "met" in Kosovo with the use of military force to prevent genocide, Clinton implies that with our inaction on Iraq we had failed to meet the test, thereby putting the credibility of the UN "at stake." Needless to say, eight of those ten years occurred under Clinton's watch.

Be that as it may, despite Clinton's flowery rhetoric about good and evil, the most telling thing about his address was what he didn't say. The theme of Clinton's speech, delivered to the largest-ever gathering of leaders from around the globe, was "the making and keeping of peace." Yet there was not a single mention of the growing threat of terrorism or the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism.

Despite the litany of attacks of which we're all now painfully familiar, dating back to the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 all the way through the foiled "Millennium Plot" in December, 1999 (now touted as one of the Clinton administration's major successes in the war on terror), Clinton stood on the world stage in the fall of 2000 and made no mention of al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden.

Instead, Clinton focused attention on the numerous examples of heart-wrenching civil strife and conflict around the globe ("from Burundi to the Middle East to the Congo to South Asia") that international leaders like to wring their hands over and that liberals like to sit down and draft up humanitarian interventions for:

"We must also work with just as much passion and persistence to prevent conflict, recognizing the iron link between deprivation and war. In too many places, it is easier for children to find guns than textbooks So we must build on our initiative to provide free meals for 9 million children around the world, encouraging families to send their sons and their daughters to school. Too many countries are crippled by debt, so we must further our efforts with the G-7 and other creditors to reduce the debts of developing countries that invest the savings in basic needs. Too many nations face a tidal wave of infectious diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, which cause one quarter of all deaths in the world. So we must intensify our work together to promote prevention and to stimulate the development of drugs and vaccines."

Don't get me wrong: poverty, third-world debt and AIDS are important issues that deserve a great deal of our time and energy. But for the President of the United States to stand before the entire world in late 2000 ostensibly speaking about "the making and keeping of peace" and to not mention the threat of terrorism is beyond negligent and mind-numbingly misguided.

Clinton defenders might say the Millennium Summit wasn't the right forum to discuss the threat of terrorism - to which every American should reply, "No, you're wrong. It was exactly the right place, the right time, and the right audience to speak out about the gravest threat facing America and the rest of the civilized world."

The type of do-gooder gobbledygook in Clinton's speech to the UN would be comical if it weren't so tragic. Five weeks after Clinton gave his address, 17 U.S. sailors died when al-Qaeda operatives attacked the USS Cole.

Unfortunately, this was nothing more than history repeating itself. In March of 1996, the Clinton Administration organized a much publicized anti-terrorism conference in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt dubbed the "Summit of Peacemakers."

Many meeting were held. Much was discussed. Lots of attention was devoted to trying to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were lots of photo-ops with smiley faces and handshakes.

In the end, the group issued a final statement where all parties agreed to:

"promote coordination of efforts to stop acts of terror on bilateral, regional and international levels; ensuring instigators of such acts are brought to justice; supporting efforts by all parties to prevent their territories from being used for terrorist purposes; and preventing terrorist organizations from engaging in recruitment, supplying arms, or fund raising."

Sounds good. Except a short three months later al-Qaeda operatives did this:

Nineteen U.S. servicemen died and hundreds more were wounded in the Khobar Towers bombing.

Part of the problem, of course, is that throughout the 1990's and up until September 11, 2001, neither Bill Clinton, nor George W. Bush, nor the American public had come to realize or accept that we were at war with terrorists. Perhaps more accurately, we hadn't realized that terrorists had declared war on us.

One of the gravest dangers we now face as a country is forgetting this fact or to start believing the struggle we're in is something less than a war. It would be far too easy for us to return to the days of summits, speeches and photo-ops, where much was said about fighting terror but little was accomplished. The days when everyone got along but nothing got done.

My fear is that given everything I've heard John Kerry say about the war on terror and looking at the people who would fill a Kerry administration, that's exactly where we'll end up should he win this election. If he does go on to win, for the sake of the country I hope he proves me wrong. - T. Bevan 7:45 am Link | Email | Send to a Friend