Had it not been for a few little old ladies baffled by the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach, Fla., American foreign policy today would be made by Gore-Reiner instead of the Bush brain trust. Who says God doesn't smile upon the United States of America?
Love that quote!
Gore's Glass House
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 27, 2002; Page A23
A pudding with no theme but much
poison. Such was the foreign policy
speech Al Gore delivered in San
Francisco on Monday. It was a
disgrace -- a series of cheap shots
strung together without logic or
coherence. Most of all, it was
brazen. It was delivered as if there
had been no Clinton-Gore
administration, no 1990s.
The tone of the speech is best
reflected in Gore's contemptuous
dismissal of the U.S. victory in
Afghanistan as "defeating a fifth-rate
military power." If the Taliban were
a fifth-rate military power, why
didn't the Clinton-Gore
administration destroy it and spare
us Sept. 11?
It is not as if, during Gore's term, al Qaeda had not declared itself or
established its postal address. It declared war on the United States, blew up
our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and attacked the USS Cole. What did
Gore's administration do? Fire a few missiles into the Afghan desert and a
Sudanese pharmaceutical factory, then wash its hands and leave the problem
to its successors.
Why didn't the Clinton-Gore administration go after this fifth-rate military
power? This is a question that even Russian President Vladimir Putin has
asked. In an interview with the German newspaper Bild shortly after Sept. 11,
Putin recounted having talked to the Clinton administration about Osama bin
Laden: "They wrung their hands so helplessly and said, 'The Taliban are not
turning him over, what can one do?' I remember I was surprised: If they are
not turning him over, one has to think and do something."
They did nothing. Gore now scorns the success of the man who did
something. Considering the glass house he inhabits, Gore's attack on Bush is
remarkably ad hominem. He implies, first, that the president is going after Iraq
to distract attention from not finding Osama bin Laden. And second, that
Bush is doing this for electoral purposes.
Interesting charges. On Aug. 17, 1998, Gore's president, the one he declared
"will be regarded in the history books as one of our greatest presidents,"
made his Monica confession on national TV and then slinked away to
Martha's Vineyard, Mass., for penance and isolation. Then, less than three
days later, he returned from oblivion with that ostentatious
commander-in-chief walk from Marine One to the Oval Office to announce
his response to the African embassy bombings: his useless cruise missile salvo
against Afghanistan and Sudan.
Then, that December, another bombing spasm, a three-day affair against Iraq
that similarly achieved nothing. Operation Desert Fox occurred right in the
midst of the House debate on impeachment. The timing was so wag-the-dog
precise that it actually caused a postponement of the vote, with some
Democrats suggesting that with the country now in crisis the impeachment
proceedings should be canceled altogether and the whole mess left to the next
Congress.
Gore should be careful about leveling charges about presidents getting
combat-happy to distract attention from other problems. Yet what is most
remarkable about Gore's speech is that for all its poison, it is profoundly
unserious. Take Gore's repeated characterization of the Bush policy on
postwar Afghanistan as "this doctrine of wash your hands and walk away."
Walk away? Our current policy is to secure Kabul, retrain the army, protect
the new president and establish a small central government that can, over
time, expand its political and geographic reach. This is a serious commitment.
Our soldiers trying to fulfill it are being shot at regularly. Tell them they're
walking away.
There is a serious question about how deeply involved in Afghanistan we
ought to be. Are we more likely to bring stability by continuing Afghanistan's
long history of decentralization and allowing warlords to act in their traditional
areas of influence, or by sending an imperial army to go around imposing
order in places where outsiders -- the British and the Soviets most notably --
have not had much luck imposing their own order?
One can argue either way, but the burden of proof is on those urging the more
onerous and risky MacArthur regency. If Gore were a serious man he would
make the case. But he doesn't. He doesn't even try to. He is too thin. And too
cynical.
The New York Times reports that Gore wrote the speech "after consulting a
fairly far-flung group of advisers that included Rob Reiner." Current U.S.
foreign policy is the combined product of Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza
Rice, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and the president.
Meanwhile, the pretender is huddling with Meathead.
Had it not been for a few little old ladies baffled by the butterfly ballot in Palm
Beach, Fla., American foreign policy today would be made by Gore-Reiner
instead of the Bush brain trust. Who says God doesn't smile upon the United
States of America?
© 2002 The Washington Post Company |
