NEWFANGLED
LIBERALS
Old
is bad, of course, and new is good. Having abandoned (indeed,
reversed) their onetime antiwar stance, today's liberals have
at least retained their loyalty to the newfangled. But, hey,
wait a minute: what's so "new" about internationalism, anyway?
The American people have been handed this line since 1914,
for god'ssakes, ever since Woodrow Wilson dragged us into
a European war that soon led to another. Heck, the
Roosevelts, both Teddy and Franklin, derided non-interventionists
as cowards, sissies, traitors, and worse – and the same
line of guff was handed out during the cold war, this time
by conservatives. In the post-cold war era we are hearing
it from the left again, straight from the pursed lips of the
First Lady Herself. In her most extensive treatment of foreign
policy issues to date, Hillary Rodham greeted her fellow warmongers
at the CFR by thanking the Council "for what you have done
and stood for over the last century. To challenge the forces
of isolationism and champion internationalism, reflecting
both in our enduring values and our strategic interest." In
short, there's nobody here but us interventionists, so let's
get down to brass tacks.
MURKY
WATERS
God,
how ungrammatical and deadly dull a speech it was!
Filled with malapropisms – "But these are albeit a necessary,
but not sufficient understanding of the world in which we
live and lead" – the speech was the verbal equivalent
of a startled squid secreting a protective cloud of murk.
The murk, however, was lit up with strings of bright code
words and catch-phrases: "This new internationalism must be
shaped, of course, to meet new challenges," and "Second, new
challenges require new thinking about national interest and
security." But of course. Our "core values" determine that
we must "stand by Israel" during the current Middle East crisis.
Ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The effect was to give Hillary's
talk a hectoring and sloganeering style, as if it had been
written in some Orwellian Newspeak of her own invention, an
abbreviated staccato language known only to internationalists.
STYLE
AND SUBSTANCE
Why
is it that us isolationists always have the best orators?
One thinks of Senator William C. Borah ("the Lion of Idaho"),
William Jennings Bryan, and Patrick J. Buchanan. The other
side hasn't had a star performer since Franklin Delano Roosevelt
went on to his just reward: one thinks of the pipsqueakish
Harry Truman (a terrible speaker), the tin-mannish Al Gore,
and, worst of all, the grim harridan Hillary Rodham Clinton.
But the interventionists rarely address the people directly,
and so they don't have to worry so much about the niceties
of style: just as long as politicians like Hillary get their
message across to the people who really matter –
don't worry, guys, I'm with you all the way.
A
TERRIBLE RIGHTEOUSNESS
The
Council on Foreign Relations is, of course, the organizational
incarnation of the foreign policy establishment, a bipartisan
alliance of big business, big government, and bigtime academia
that traces its roots back those well-born Anglophiles and
New York banking circles so eager to get us into World War
I. Sizing up her audience, like any New York City ward-healer,
Hillary told them what she thought they wanted to hear: she
attacked the "refrain" that "that we should intervene with
force only" in the cases of "wars that we surely can win,
preferably by overwhelming force in a relatively short period
of time." Clearly presenting herself as the Joan of Arc of
a newly militant internationalism, she pronounced anathema
on those evil "isolationists" and scolded them for their lack
of her own terrible righteousness:
"To
those who believe we should become involved only if it is
easy to do, I think we have to say: America has never and
should not ever shy away from the hard task if it is the right
one. Just because we are living in a new and uncertain world,
it does not mean we cannot continue to exercise our leadership."
NONE
TOO THRILLED
While
this received hearty applause from the mandarins in attendance,
the New York Post reports
that
"Not
everyone in the audience was thrilled with her speech. One
man said her doctrine amounted to a 'new imperialism' and
asked her if she believed in President Kennedy's vow at his
1961 inaugural to "pay any price, bear any burden" in helping
other countries. Clinton replied: 'I do not believe we should
pay any price or bear any burden. That is an extreme statement
that I certainly could not ascribe to. I think we should pay
appropriate price for appropriate return in advancing our
interests.'"
It
may come as a surprise to her fellow Democrats to learn that
John F. Kennedy was an extremist, but then this startling
revelation didn't seem to bother members of the Kennedy clan
who later joined her on the campaign trail.
MARBLES
AND MARMALADE
"An
appropriate price for appropriate return" – a curiously
empty and soul-less formulation, a cold phrase that
may one day come back to haunt her, especially if she fulfills
her long-rumored presidential ambitions. How many American
lives is, say, Israel worth? What about Kosovo? How is this
amoral calculus to be calculated? By what standard are we
to judge when a "return" on our investment in lives and treasure
is "appropriate"? Just who is getting this "return," anyhow
– and what form does it take? So many questions, and
so few answers. Does she mean campaign contributions –
or just the intangible psychic reward of watching our "core
values" – as she puts it – "spread all around the
world" like marmalade oozing over a marble?
THE
ORACLE SPEAKS
Like
the ancient Sibyl who presided over the Delphic Oracle, Hillary
often speaks in riddles and her language is meant to obscure
rather than illuminate her ultimate goals. But of one thing
we can be sure: this Amazon has a warlike agenda, and she
has to be stopped – yes, even at the price of voting
for the prepubescent Rick Lazio.
SHE'S
NO FOOL
She
may be evil, but Hillary is no fool. She knows that the constituency
for our foreign policy of global intervention is narrow. The
First Lady bemoans the lack of support for overseas "engagement"
– she never uses the word "war," of course, although
her husband started more than any President in modern history
– and she scolds the business elite for not being internationalist
enough:
"If
we are serious about combating any of our long term global
challenges then would have to create a broader, deeper, stronger
constituency for engagement. I think one of our greatest threats
to an international leadership is not just opposition to those
who probably don't have passports, but apathy of those who
do. And this is from polling data and research information
from the 1960s. And it was striking to me how business leaders
understood clearly the need for a bipartisan foreign policy
and a very strong presence in support of American leadership.
That has certainly changed over the last decade. That's where
people's eyes often glaze over when we are talking about foreign
policy issues we clearly need to bring home the stakes in
these issues put human faces on them but we need leadership
in the private sector and the public sector to do that."
HILLARY'S
"MARSHALL PLAN"
Hillary
is right to be worried about the popularity of her husband's
foreign adventures: support for the Clintonian "humanitarian"
version of global interventionism is narrow, shallow, and
weakening among the very classes it is meant to benefit: the
elites in business and academia, who, in the past, have provided
a key base of support for our bipartisan policy of global
meddling. Business wants to know why we have to export our
wealth to Eastern Europe and the third world, and redistribute
US tax dollars in the name of a new Marshall Plan. This is
what Hillary is touting, along with Al Gore, but the Marshall
Plan was specific to the time and place in which it occurred.
Postwar Europe was in ruins, and, while critics maintained
that the only path to European recovery was in freeing up
markets, and that the plan amounted to a windfall subsidy
for US exporters, at least a superficially plausible case
was made for massive US aid in the wake of a devastating world
war. But what is the justification this time? There has been
no devastating war in Europe, except the one started by her
husband against the people of a sovereign state who had never
attacked us – and who were subjected to devastating economic
sanctions, up until very recently. If she is talking about
paying reparations to the people of Yugoslavia for the effects
of the barbaric bombing and the brutal sanctions, then yes,
I'm all for it – but what do we need a "Marshall Plan"
for a post-cold war Europe in which the Soviet bloc imploded
without a shot being fired?
.
. . AND THE MOURNERS
That
is why peoples' eyes glaze over when the old-fashioned rhetoric
of interventionism is rolled out once more, and Uncle Sam
assumes his aspect as the Bulwark of the West, the Defender
of Global Peace, the Great Humanitarian Interventionist. They
listen politely, but aren't fooled. They know we cannot save
the "problem" peoples of the world, not from their own Byzantine
history, and surely not from themselves. Those Arab boys will
be heaving rocks at Israeli occupiers unto eternity, or however
long the occupiers decide to stay, whichever comes first.
The Kosovars will always hate the Serbs, and vice-versa, inter-tribal
warfare will wrack Africa far into the foreseeable future,
and all plans to suburbanize Colombia will come to naught.
Furthermore, there is nothing Hillary Rodham Clinton –
and all the gathered might of the United States armed forces
– can do about it. But oh, the misery they will
cause in the process of proving themselves wrong: the trouble
and the bloodshed, the body-bags – and the mourners,
who will ask: What did they die for?
PRESIDENT
HILLARY – THE NIGHTMARE UNFOLDS
It
is no secret that Hillary Rodham wants to be President: in
playing with her Ouija board, communing (as she often does,
according to her own account) with Eleanor Roosevelt, one
can only imagine the conversation:
"
Eleanor, why didn't you run for President?"
"I
didn't have to, my dear. . . ."
HILLARY'S
BOMBS OVER BELGRADE
But
Hillary is not one to stay at home baking cookies, nor is
she content to play the power behind the throne. Remember,
it was she who really bullied her hapless husband into
ordering the bombing of Yugoslavia: she called him up and
argued that the Serbs were engaged in "genocide" on the scale
of the Holocaust – and reportedly threatened him with
some pretty dire but unspecified consequences if the air raid
sirens weren't wailing over Belgrade and soon. What
she clearly wants, most of all, is not to have to get
on the horn with anybody but the Joint Chiefs of Staff –
and then only long enough to give the order to attack. . .
.
TRICK
OR TREAT!
As
a member of the US Senate, representing the key state of New
York, she will be within striking range of reaching her goal.
If and when she reaches it, God help us all. The rigid righteousness
of this woman, combined with the armed might of the US, would
constitute a lethal and immediate threat to all the world's
peoples. For no one would be safe from her "humanitarian"
ministrations, from bombing to outright invasion, from Inner
Ruthenia to Outer Mongolia. It is scary, this Halloween season,
to ponder the ominous prospect of President Hillary Rodham
Clinton, but it is a possibility that cannot be discounted.
If Gore fails, who will face Bush in 2004? Isn't it time for
a woman President: and not just any woman, but Hillary the
amazonian War Goddess, Pallas Athena in full armor and wielding
a sword?
PAY
ANY PRICE
She
must be stopped. In pursuit of that end we must be willing
to pay any price, bear any burden – yes,
we must even be willing to vote for Lazio, whose foreign policy
positions are for the most part either incoherent or indefensible
– to make sure this amazon never leaves her tent and
ventures forth on the field of battle. The peace of the whole
world depends on it.
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