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9/21/03
Clintonites Throwing Stones from Glass Houses
If I have to listen to one more Clintonite criticize
George Bush's conduct of the war on terror, I'm going to slip a disk. It's
as if we're listening to the Vichy French criticize the Communist regime of
Granada for surrendering too soon when Reagan sent our forces to the tiny island
nation in 1983. (For those who are history- or irony-challenged, the Vichy
French invented the instant surrender in 1940). I'd describe it as a case
of the pot calling the kettle black, but that would give the Clintonites too
much credit. In this case the pot is far blacker than the kettle.
Let me illustrate by outlining in each bullet below an
allegation currently being circulated by the likes of Madeleine Albright (who
isn't running for anything, but can't stop running her mouth) and/or Gen. Wesley
Clark (Ret.), who is running for president.
- The President had far too little evidence of any weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq before he went to war. He should have let
inspections run their course. In the case of Kosovo, the Clinton
administration took the word of terrorist sympathizers (through the major news
media) that there were massive atrocities taking place in Kosovo, committed by
Serbs against Kosovar Albanians. There were no inspections, there was no
physical evidence tying Serbs to the executions, and in many cases there
wasn't even confirmation that the scenes described even existed. But
Albright and Clark strongly advocated destroying Serbia, if that's what it
took, to stop these atrocities that no one could really be sure were happening
on a scale that would make them objectively worse than the terrorist
atrocities being committed by the Kosovar Liberation Army (a cabal of
drug-running terrorist thugs bent on establishing an Albanian Empire).
Inspectors since the end of the bombing have confirmed that the claims of the
numbers of atrocities committed before the bombing started were more than the
total number committed both before and after the bombing started, by a factor
of two or three orders of magnitude (they predicted hundreds of thousands, and
there were on the order of 3000 confirmed killings, most committed after the
Serbs were being bombed).
- The President had only one Security Council Resolution giving any
nation the right to enforce previous resolutions if Saddam Hussein did not
provide convincing evidence of compliance. He should have worked harder
to get a larger coalition together before his attack. Albright and
Clark neither advocated nor worked toward the goal of getting the U.N.
security council or any coalition outside of NATO for their attack on Serbia.
They had no Security Council authority for any attack on anyone, but they went
to war against Serbia.
- There was no imminent threat of the use of chemical, biological, or
nuclear weapons when we attacked Iraq. Slobodan Milosevic had no
programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. There wasn't even an
imminent threat that there would ever be an imminent threat of his becoming an
imminent threat. But we attacked Serbia anyway.
- There was insufficient planning for how to restore order to Iraq after
the main combat ended. Not only did the Clintonites not have a plan
for how to restore order in Kosovo (other than to aid the Albanians in
ethnically cleansing the region one Serb family at a time), but they haven't
produced such a plan to date. There are still peacekeeping forces in Kosovo, and
they have not stopped ethnic violence, civil strife, and the threat that the
Albanian quest to carve out a greater Albanian Empire from Serbia, Montenegro,
Albania, and Macedonia may yet begin to come to fruition. Five years
have passed and the Clinton policy has failed to achieve order. Bush
deserves at least as long before any of these hypocrites starts throwing
stones.
- There aren't enough troops in Iraq to prevent terrorist attacks.
Hello? Is anybody in there? The lights are on, but nobody's home.
There aren't enough troops in the world to prevent terrorist
attacks. We don't have enough, the Chinese don't have enough.
Why? Because: 1) Terrorists don't walk around with terrorist uniforms
on. They pretend they're human beings like everyone else. 2) Soldiers in this day and age are criticized for
shooting at vehicles careening out of control toward secure checkpoints
because you never know when the car might be full of nuns and orphans.
3) Terrorists pack cars full of nuns and orphans and force them to drive at
high rates of speed toward military checkpoints. 4) Terrorists want to
put soldiers in a position to have to either risk killing civilians or risk
being killed by terrorists, and no matter how many soldiers there are, there
are always some who are not hiding in a shelter six miles below
ground. 5) Soldiers in this day and age cannot shoot suspicious
characters on sight. They have to wait until they're within detonation
range if they're wearing an explosive device. Oh, and did I mention
that there aren't enough troops in Kosovo to prevent terrorists from going
into Macedonia and committing terrorist acts there? Did I mention that
ethnic crimes against Serbs continue even with all those U.N. troops in place?
So even the Clintonites cannot solve that problem. But perhaps one day
soon James Carville will discover Shangri-La and convince its blissful
population that they won't be safe until they're paying higher taxes and their
military budget is dedicated entirely to bringing toys to needy children at
Christmastime.
Wesley Clark knows a lot about how to win wars.
But that is not what is needed in a president. A president needs to know
why we should fight: 1) when it is winnable; 2) when it serves our
own interests; 3) when the situation after the conflict will be better than that
prior to its start. The recent conflict in Iraq fulfills all of them.
We have already won the war. It is in our interest to defang regional
despots who have shown, by continually refusing to comply with Security Council
resolutions and treaties they, themselves, have signed, that they cannot be
trusted. Iraq can move forward now with a regime that bears little or no
resemblance to the despotic tyranny of Saddam Hussein. This will put pressure on
neighboring states to loosen the bonds of repression that currently shackle the
people.
Clark's pet conflict in Kosovo had only the virtue of
being winnable. It did not serve our interests, because Milosevic never
threatened our interests (or anyone else's, other than those of an Albanian
movement with the desire to establish a new regional hegemony). There is
little improvement in the situation post-conflict: the fighting may be over, and
there are no more refugees (other than the thousands of Serbs who have been
driven from their property in Kosovo under the auspices of NATO and the U.N.),
but the political problem has not been solved. The main effect of it was
to tell the world (including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al Qaeda) that if you can
goad a larger power into attacking towns and villages inhabited by people you
claim to represent, the world will come to your aid, defeat the more powerful
enemy you face, and leave you a clear path to establish your own form of
despotism.
It wasn't long after this message was sent by the Clinton
administration that Yasser Arafat spat in Clinton's face by rejecting the best
deal he was ever going to get and starting the new Intifada. Ever since,
the Palestinians have engaged in old-fashioned brutal terrorism and tried to
play the victims when Israel retaliates.
But all of that is lost on Clark, who knows only that he
won. We need a president with more sense than that. President George
W. Bush has demonstrated that he has that sense: he fights winnable battles
against demonstrated enemies of U.S. interests. What a novel concept.
Novel to liberals, anyway. They haven't been a fan
of any battle against our enemies since WWII. The only battles they like,
as Charles Krauthammer has recently pointed out in many venues, are the ones in
which we stand to gain nothing for ourselves.
So, Clintonites, there may be some people out there who
are ignorant of the circumstances and consequences of your own actions.
They will not realize that every time you open your mouths to criticize the
current administration on its conduct of war, you are holding it to a standard
you never even deigned to strive for when you were in power. Like all
demagogues, your chief ally is ignorance. May it fail you in the
upcoming elections, and may it never again come to your aid when you try to pull
the wool over the people's eyes in order to reestablish your hegemony of
anti-Americanism.
Modified: 09/10/2004
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