Blistering Albright's Bluster
by A. M. Siriano
amsiriano.com
Madeleine Albright's attack on President Bush in her article, Bridges, Bombs, or Bluster? might as well be a summarization of her failure as Secretary of State during the Clinton years. By pointing out the proposed flaws of the current administration, she only clarifies her own. Careful analysis of her words shows just how much the left has strayed from the center, and just how anti-American it really is.
She begins the article by putting herself in league with France by quoting Villepin, who represents all that is lukewarm in the world. Morally bankrupt, France bolstered Saddam and failed its allies, and for that alone, it deserves no voice whatsoever. Yet Albright pits its concerns against our own.
Villepin's beef, and Albright's, is that Bush's "perception of the meaning of September 11"—that countries must choose between good and evil, black and white, terrorism and peace—is not "self-evidently right." While regular Americans have no trouble following Bush's lead, and "radical adversaries" find themselves unable to resist striking out against him, those "caught in the middle" believe there are other choices. She means, of course, our ideological enemies, who are France, Germany, Russia, and the Muslim world. These are nations who believe that somewhere between barbarism and civilization, there are other paths to choose. What they really believe is, we have made friends with the barbarians and we don't dare step on their toes.
Soon Albright attempts poesy when she laments the shift in foreign policy under President Bush: "Soon, reliance on alliance had been replaced by redemption through preemption; the shock of force trumped the hard work of diplomacy, and long-time relationships were redefined."
Exactly, and as it should be. "Reliance on alliance" ignores the Founders' directives, notably Jefferson, who warned that we should pursue diplomacy but avoid "entangling alliances," and Washington, who insisted that Americans should stay "wholly free of foreign attachments." But Albright, much wiser than Jefferson and Washington, holds an opinion that is sharply against traditional Americanism.
The second part of her little rhyme is offensive. Assuming the redemption she speaks of refers to our own, she is implying that we have committed grave sins and are now seeking salvific sacrifice from those we oppose. We can no longer assume a threat is what it is; instead it is merely an excuse for our own aggression. That's like saying that if a sniper decides to hunt innocent civilians, and the police get a chance to kill the sniper before he takes another life, they were really eliminating someone who was on a mission to point out the culpability of society. Thus a threat takes on complex, psychological dimensions, instead of just being, simply, a threat.
It is alarming that preemption has become a dirty word, even though it is wholly sensible. It is not uncommon in warfare, of course, but Albright would have us believe it is an invention of the Bush administration. Historically, had we preempted instead of reacted, many lives might have been spared. Imagine if we had come to the aid of Poland when Hitler decided to roll on in, completely defying his own promises. Imagine if we had confronted Tojo before Pearl Harbor. In both case, how many lives would have been spared, had we assumed a doctrine of preemption?
Those two examples are far more excusable than our activities during Albright's reign of error, in which Muslim fanatics continued to strike at U.S.&nsbp;targets with little or no consequences. Albright's miserable failure as Secretary of State, along with Clinton's inexcusable negligence, are complicit in the death of 3000 U.S. citizens, and the fall of two great towers.
The good Madam Secretary continues spewing venom by pitting Bush Sr. against his son. George H. W. Bush warned against "going it alone," a policy, she insists, that Dubya has reversed.
First of all, we did not go it alone, and this argument is getting very old. Many nations took a stand against terrorism, notably Great Britain, Australia, and Spain. To imply that we took unilateral action is to denigrate the honor of Coalition troops, some who were not Americans but died for the same cause. Secondly, she quotes Bush out of context. When he said, "At some point, we may be the only ones left," he was talking not about current policy, but future possibility. This is not surprising coming from a man who believes principle is higher than fashion, and equally not surprising that Albright, whose principles are defined by the shifting ethics of a world gone mad, should oppose the American moral foundation.
Albright levels a charge against Bush that he has not made "a sustained effort to persuade the rest of the world" that his views are correct. "As a result," says Albright, "the world does not in fact subscribe to the same view," and therein she reveals her ignorance of the philosophical forces that govern this society and those counter-forces that have led other nations to the brink of barbarism. The truth is, no amount of marketing of American ideals will endear the rest of the world to our cause. The French, for example, rejected the American ideal even when they attempted to mimic our Revolution. Consequently they are mired in socialism instead of true freedom. The Islamic nations are driven by religious zealotry, which centers around Jew-hatred, and greed. The foundations of these countries are on sand: Bush is supposed to win them over through diplomacy?
She offers proof that nations can be changed by noting the lip service given after 9-11: "Almost every government in the Muslim world, including Iran and the Palestinian Authority, condemned the strikes."
Actions speak louder than words, Madam Secretary. Where was the outcry among Muslim clerics? Where was the unequivocal denunciation of terrorism among the Palestinians? Where were the systematic and decisive courses of action intent upon dismantling internal factions like Hamas and Hezbollah?
The Muslim community is a moral failure of an immense magnitude. It is a religion of peace in word, a religion of destruction in action. "For months after September 11, it seemed the Bush administration would ... unite the world in opposition to a common threat," but only by coercion. There is little doubt that our so-called Muslim friends, including the Saudis, were reluctant partners in the struggle against terrorism. Furthermore, from the start, President Bush was hampered by resistance within our own country, specifically from the left. It was only weeks that the war against the Taliban was being criticized, and members of the media were having a field day by showing the horrors of war, their implication being, "This is not the course we should be taking. Let's reason with our barbarian friends." Had Albright been in office, there would have been no retaliation and the Taliban would still be in power.
The focus on the "axis of evil" was a no-no, according to Albright, which is an example of the left's inability to understand nuance. Liberals are the first to assume that conservatives are incapable of understanding the subtleties of language and implied intent, but they failed to see that the focus of Bush's phrase was the word "evil," which sent a Reaganish shot around the world that he, like the Great Communicator, was not to be messed with. They also failed to understand that talking about the use of nuclear strikes is effective. Albright and her comrades should take a lesson from the Italians, who understand that a "show of force" is often enough to reduce the risk of using it.
Continuing on with her anti-preemption rhetoric, Albright asks, parenthetically, "Do we really want a world in which every country feels entitled to attack any other that might someday threaten it?" This is an insidious distortion of the Bush doctrine, especially with her use of the world "someday"—as if no consideration for present danger is implied at all. Someday France might attack us, too, especially if its Muslim community grows to majority proportions, but would Bush even think to attack France right now? Albright's remark is absurd.
Saddam, to Albright, cannot be considered "complimentary halves of the same existential threat." Wrong again. The entire Muslim world, from Palestine to Iraq and Iran to Indonesia, has proven itself over and over to be a cancer of barbarism. The fact that Saddam, a secularist who is somehow protected by the very religious people he brutalized, calls for Jihad while on the lam, and Bin Laden periodically lets the world know that he supports Saddam, is ample evidence of collusion. The Muslim world has long ago found their Satan in the U.S.
Alas, but the Security Council was not on our side! The problem with this argument is that it begins with a faulty premise, that the U.N. and so-called international law has legitimacy. The U.N. is a criminal organization that believes world government trumps nationalism, and international law has led to the creation of the International Court and the joke that is Belgium. These organizations have done nothing to stem the growing threat of fanatical Islam and did nothing to protect Americans from a hideous demise at the hand of terrorists. The U.N. should be summarily dismissed from our shores and the land that it claims as its own returned to New York. A small price to pay for the loss of American lives, not only in New York, but for all the past times the U.S. has bailed out the ungrateful nations of the world.
Albright turns domestic in the next section ("Neither, Nor"), wherein she states that Bush deserves no applause because his policies are not "safeguarding U.S. citizens." So the demise of the Taliban and the crippling of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups does nothing to safeguard us? And the many thwarted terrorists plots and the incarceration of wannabe sacrifices to Allah in Guantanamo do not help to safeguard us? Of course, she neither backs up her remarks nor offers a reasonable plan for a better course of action.
But I take that back. She does offer a solution: Al Gore and the Democratic party. They have proven themselves the bastions of strength and defense over the years, right?—as long as we ignore the first terror strike on the Twin Towers, Somalia, the Cole, and dozens of other attacks. "Democrats, after all, confess support for nation building, and also believe in finishing the jobs we start." What? Albright has completely lost touch with reality.
She goes on to pretend that Bush implied that capturing Bin Laden or Saddam doesn't matter, which is an outright misrepresentation (also known as a lie). If this were true, then the hunt for both of these needles in haystacks would not be ongoing. Again, she does a disservice to Bush and to our military who are spending their time in the hunt. Would Gore have done better? Of course he would have "read the intelligence information about his activities differently," and the conclusion would have been more "containment" for Saddam, which she endorses, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands died under this very policy. The blood of innocents are on your hands, also, Madam Secretary!
But Albright doesn't think about that. Rather than truly focusing on American interests, she is thinking about the feeling of our foreign friends. They don't like us very much, she whines. "The citizens of such NATO allies as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy rated Russia's Vladimir Putin more highly as a world leader than Bush. Significant majorities of those interviewed in Russia and in 7 of 8 predominantly Muslim countries (Kuwait being the exception) claimed to be somewhat or very worried about the potential threat to their societies posed by the U.S. military."
Amazing that Bush is a danger to the world, while Putin, who rose on the wings of Communistic brutality, gets little criticism for his harsh handling of the Chechnyan situation. But should it surprise us that the rest of the world favors Putin? No more than it should have surprised that Reagan was opposed by nearly all of Europe for his stand against the former U.S.S.R. The Europeans are Marxists. Their so-called "fear" of our military in Bush's hands is really hatred. They hate Bush because he represents democracy and capitalism, and they hate him for mobilizing a military that had been nearly rendered ineffective by the Clinton administration.
I agree with Albright on at least one point. She states: "The ouster of Saddam has indeed made the world, or at least Iraq, a better place. But when the United States commits tens of billions of dollars to any worthwhile project, that is the least it should be able to say." Her solution, though, involves a multitude of "multis": "multinational, multicultural, multifaceted, and multiyear." She means the U.N. and NATO, of course, whose few successes have largely been due to the U.S. military. Apparently the trick to using our military effectively is to pretend that we need everyone else.
The fight against terrorism requires "the integration of force, diplomacy, intelligence, and law." We have not been doing that? It is of no account to people like Albright, unless it presents a face of globalism.
She also says something else that makes sense, but also ignores the witness of history: "And above all, it will require vigorous leadership from Islamic moderates, who must win the struggle for control of their own faith." Of course, Bush, who has famously and repeatedly called Islam a "religion of peace," is at fault, at least according to Albright. His attack on a despot and the liberation of the Iraqi people has "made more difficult the choices Islamic moderates and others around the world must make."
Why? If "Islamic moderate" implies indecision when it comes to supporting terrorism or upholding civilization, then they are no longer moderates, but animals. Religion, or regard for religion, is no excuse. She speaks of these "moderates" as staunchly opposing al Quaeda, but again, talk is cheap. If the silence of the Muslim leadership was due to disdain for the U.S., then why are so many using our system to further their educational and business endeavors? If due to fear, then they are cowards and equally culpable. What Bush asked of them was the least they might have done. If they want to prove themselves, then let them put down their own radical factions. Were they to throw into such a campaign the sort of fervor they have for Israel, al Qaeda would have been gone longer before it leveled the World Trade Center.
"It is perhaps unsurprising to find attitudes of this sort widespread in the Arab world," says Albright. "But it is more remarkable to find them taking hold in much of Europe." She cites Kyoto as evidence of Bush's divisiveness, ignoring the fact that the President is unconvinced, as is half of the American population, that Kyoto is good for America (our chief concern after all) and that global warming is a reality. We have less evidence and little data that it is true, but plenty of evidence that it is one of the left's chief weapons in its fight against capitalism. But again, Albright believes that foreign relations supercede any silly need to hold to American-born principles. The fact is, any "dangerous rift" that the Europeans and the liberals may nowadays sense is only dangerous to them. How exactly are they are threat to us is a mystery that Albright doesn't reveal, unless, of course, they start to abet terrorists.
After dismissing arguments, made here and many times by other writers and politicians, without backing up here rebuttal, she asserts that we should be more "persuasive." When we talk, they will listen. True enough, if we send in liberals; not so true if our words don't tickle the European's socialist ear.
Albright feels that the War in Iraq "was justified on the basis of Saddam's decade-long refusal to comply with the U.N. Security Count resolutions on WMD." But she has already lamented the Security Council pusillanimous stance and has endorsed a vision of Gore-driven containment. And why did it take more than a decade to come to her opinion? What did she and the Clintons do to stop Saddam?
She sympathesizes with the ant-war crowd, because this war was a "war of choice" (what war isn't?) and understands that the Europeans don't share our concern. But why would they? Have they watched an airliner filled with civilians destroy two of the tallest buildings in the world? Has their pathetic economy been disrupted for the sake of Allah?
The nonsense continues: Albright charges Bush with being eager to pull the plug on the inspection process. A decade is enough to make anyone eager, but even then Bush showed more restraint than eagerness, and months of dickering with the Security Council gave Saddam plenty of time to hide WMD's. Hans Blix was ineffective whose job from the start was illegitimate. If civilization prevails, history will not be kind to this doofus. If barbarism prevails, history will applaud him as a stooge. In either case, he loses and should be marked for eternity as an enemy of America.
Albright makes another assertion: "The idea that the power of the United States endangers the interests of European democracies, rather than strengthens and helps shield them, is utter nonsense." So why the rush to create a European Union? Financial benefits have yet to be proven, and to pretend that power is not a huge part of the agenda is foolish. She rightly warns Europe to ignore "French hyperventilating about American power," and also remarks that the U.S. has "lost it moorings," but it isn't just France that is afraid of American power—Schroeder is proof of that—and what moorings we have lost is because of liberalism, which has made us weak and irresolute.
Diplomacy often calls for forgiveness, but never a blind eye. It is one thing to reward a country for making an about-face, as happened in Japan after WWII, but another for pretending no offense was ever made. Each case must be considered on its own merit, but surely France deserves neither forgiveness nor the right to participate in the effort to rebuild Iraq. Those we should be rewarding right now are England (despite its ridiculous anti-Bush sentiment), Australia and Spain, and every country in Eastern Europe that stood with us. Our foreign policy should attempt to bolster our proven friends to the detriment of all who opposed us. (And if we want to talk about "American pretensions," let's talk about how the Western Europeans snubbed the Easterners.)
Conservatives have been critical of Bush, also, and I am no exception. I have been critical of our efforts in Iraq, though hardly for the reasons given by Albright. She derides him for believing that our acts in Iraq will make the Arab world tremble. I too have misgivings about these notions, but not for the same reason. My misgivings are that the war ended too soon, that we did not utterly destroy the Baathists and other factions, that we are not waging a shock-and-awe right now every time a U.S. soldier dies. Building Iraq I'm all for; doing it upon a foundation of a vibrant culture of fanatism, I am not. The Japanese had such a culture, but its new society was built upon a wasteland. Was it cruel? Of course. But far less cruel than allowing a culture that could produce the animals of Nanking to thrive.
Strangely the former Secretary ends her article with an analysis of evil and denounces the Arabs' insistence on using terror to further their anti-Israel, anti-U.S. campaigns, but not before helping us to understand that evil is relative. The Arabs obviously believe that the end justifies the means, and we need to try to understand that position, thinks Albight. However, she concludes that we "must be relentless in shaping a global consensus that terrorism is fully, fundamentally, and always wrong."
Hear, hear. It's great that we all agree that terrorism is naughty, but how do we deal with people whose ability to reason is marred by blinding hatred? The Clinton administration dealt with them as our modern, effete parents deal with children: if they act badly, put them in time out, and we'll let them get up when they promise to be good. This only makes for angry, destructive children, whereas a good spanking, tried-and-true, does wonders. Albright's miserable career is proof that this approach doesn't work, yet here she is insisting that we try it all over again.
There is only one way to deal with irrational people, and it implies what Albright deplores: a black-and-white stand against evil. To use her own words out of context, "No exceptions, no excuses." It demands that the Muslim community and the entire Arab world, whether secular or religious, comply—or else. This is the Bush doctrine, and my only criticism of it is that we are not being harsh enough. I am proud of the job Bush is doing, and proud of his incredible fortitude in the face of such undeserving attacks from the left, but I also wish he would shut down our borders, round up and deport criminal aliens, and send a clear message to the Muslim world: Either change your evil ways or face annihilation.
Can we impose democracy on the Arab world? For the sake of peace, it is important to try. But the real message should simply be, "Cross us and you're toast." Cowboy or not, it worked in World War II and it would work now. The burden of proof that Islam is a religion of peace, and a religion of civility, is on the shoulders of the Arab world. In the meantime, the burden of security is on us.
Everyone agrees, including Bush, that pushing democracy on the Arabs is no easy task. This is because they are mired in religious fanaticism and a culture of deceit, not to mention the everpresent undercurrent of anti-Semitism. Ann Coulter, who wrote angrily about 9-11 to a liberal world that has lost its ability to recognize irony, is heavily criticized for suggesting that we should "kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Regardless of how one takes her facetious comment, what she was really saying is what we are trying to do: remove evil so that good can be allowed to happen. Christianizing the Muslim world is not likely to occur, but the imposition of its civilizing effect would surely make Muslims reconsider the brutal nature of their societies.
Am I being unfair? Few Americans know what happens to Christians who dare live in Muslim-controlled regions. Not long ago, my uncle, a pastor and missionary, showed me gut-wretching photos of the devastation religious zealots cause: entire Christian villages destroyed, decapitated women and children, fathers and mothers, teenage Muslim gangs collecting heads as trophies, death and destruction all around, leveled at people for simply believing in Christ. It happens—it may be happening right now—and the missionaries who survive it tell the tale, but it is rarely reported, and often as if both sides were a part of the fight.
This is the Muslim world we are dealing with. The recent bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem is the Muslim world we are dealing with. Albright's answer to that world is talk. Well, we are tired of talk, and if it ever hits home, if our children are lost on a bus somewhere, if our neighborhod or place of employment is destroyed, all because some kook wants to die for Allah and send the infidels to hell, and our government doesn't do something, hard and fast, with little or no talk, I would hope that our state militias, fed up, will unleash a holier hell than any Muslim can muster.
Albright does her best to paint a nice picture of Clinton, insisting that he worked wonders to safeguard us. Most of her remarks are simply laughable. "Clinton made himself an expert on the threat of a biological weapons on U.S. soil." Right. Far more believable is that Clinton was an expert at avoiding confrontation, fooling the American public, and getting into the pants of young interns. Regardless of what efforts he may have made—and only historical research will bear it out—they were ineffective precisely for the approach he took, which Albright applauds: "Clinton saw fighting terror as a team enterprise, not a solo act." In truth Bush sees it in the same way, but his team actually acts.
The conclusion to Albright's article is that Bush administration must "adjust its course." More talk, less walk. More light, less might. If we can get the Arab world to just see the error of their ways, we might be able to change them for the better. And, for heaven's sake, stop all this preemption nonsense!
Uh huh. Worked during her days in power, right? In the meantime, how many more will die? How many more buses destroyed? How many more children scarred and maimed? How many more buildings blown up?
In the end, Albright reminds us quaintly that we need to emphasize to people in other countries that we are not just about being afraid of terrorism—no one else is, not really, you know—but that we are concerned for their well-being. We would much rather protect the world from poverty and disease than any phantom threat of terror.
Wrong again, Madame Secretary. We in America are eager to help those who can be helped, as the liberation of Iraq has proved to any thinking person, but not before ensuring that we at home are safe, and that our American way of life will endure—for us, not for them. And that is, after all, the point of the War on Terror.
—August 21, 2003 |
