🚀 go-pugleaf

From: sergio calderon <sergio.calderon@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: The Road To Infamy
Date: Monday, September 17, 2001 6:29 AM


The following is an op-ed piece written by Gary Kasparov and published
in today's Wall St Journal, pointing out the failure of our foreign
policy since the end of the Cold War.  While Bush (#41) bears blame
for not wiping out Saddam Hussein, Clinton's 8 years were disastrous
for our intelligence agencies and armed forces.  While Kasparov does
not dwell on that, his analysis of the US fumbling of foreign policy
after Reagan is powerful.

Sergio

======================================================


September 17, 2001
Commentary

The Road to Infamy

By Garry Kasparov. Mr. Kasparov, a former world chess champion, is a
Journal contributing editor.



The scenes from lower Manhattan recall some evil cinematic conspiracy,
with one startling difference: There was no agile, death-defying
superhero around to save the day. In real life, people are protected
from such diabolical dangers not by 11th-hour daring, but through a
slower-moving and far less spectacular craft -- foreign policy. In the
years since the Cold War ended, this particular guarantor of the peace
has failed us. Why?

An operation of this magnitude requires meticulous preparation. Those
who masterminded and carried out Tuesday's attacks may have been
working on their plans for years. But the road to the tragedy began
much earlier.

It began, to be precise, in the early days following the end of the
Cold War. Then, talk of the "peace dividend" was not followed by a
comprehensive Western foreign policy necessary to meet the challenges
and threats of the post-Cold War world. In fact, these threats were
not even properly identified. Undoubtedly, the Clinton administration
bears heavy responsibility for misdirecting U.S. foreign policy. But
we need to admit that the seeds of these wrongdoings were sown by
George Bush senior.

The first mistake was the result of an otherwise admirable human
quality -- mercy. In 1991, the decision to stop coalition troops 24
hours short of destroying Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard was
the decision of impeccable gentlemen. But leaving Saddam unpunished
was the first signal to Osama bin Laden and his ilk that the West will
go only so far in bringing mass murderers to justice, especially if
the necessary measures are not backed by the international community.

The second mistake was a post-Cold War foreign policy that,
increasingly, came to prize regional balance of power and "peace
talks" over the defense of democratic values and the fight against
repression and terrorism. The world owes Israel an enormous debt for
destroying Saddam's French-built nuclear reactor in 1982 and thus
preventing nuclear blackmail in the region and perhaps beyond. But in
the years since the collapse of the "evil empire," terrorists and
their supporters learned how in this New World Order, democracies are
held to a different standard of behavior than dictatorships.

Thus a liberal Western media have put Israel on a moral plane with
those who have unleashed a bloody new intifada. And the Israeli army
has come to look much worse through the eyes of the international
media than the backstage perpetrators of terrorist attacks against
Israeli civilians.

The West's rhetorical, but ultimately weak, defense of freedom and
democratic values has sent a strong message to those who would
threaten our way of life. It's worth noting that no right-wing
dictatorship has been found guilty of sponsoring international
terrorism, while their Marxist counterparts are famous for harboring
terrorists and drug traffickers.

Indeed, it was Vladimir Putin's KGB that nursed and nurtured the world
terrorist web which now appears to have spun out of control. At the
end of the day, what was the common ground for IRA, ETA and PLO
terrorists if not KGB and Stasi training, or a regular supply of
Czechoslovakian plastic explosives? President Putin's hand-on-heart
statements against international terrorism simply do not square with
the regular visits to Moscow of the leaders of the very states that
have harbored terrorists and with Russia's stubborn supply of military
technology to Iran and others.

Such incongruities do not go unnoticed by those seeking to destabilize
the civilized world. They are read, correctly, as weakness. Were the
plans for Tuesday's attack being hatched even as European justice
fought to try Gen. Augusto Pinochet? Certainly, they were well under
way as Europeans engaged in debate over whether Ariel Sharon can be
tried in a Belgian court for alleged crimes in Lebanon in 1982.
Perhaps the final instruction came as Western nations were arguing
with Arab states in Durban over the text of a resolution condemning
Israel as a racist state.

The public mood across the civilized world has now changed -- I hope
forever, or at least for the lifetime of my generation. The anger and
energy that this attack has produced must be harnessed to correct the
mistakes of the past. Secretary of State Colin Powell has a historic
opportunity to rectify the mistake Gen. Powell made 10 years ago.

The task at hand cannot wait for a broad-based international
coalition, and indeed it would likely be hobbled by one. A United
Nations where Syria, Sudan, Cuba and others can vote to expel the U.S.
from a human-rights commission is not equipped to meet the terrorist
threat. NATO is sufficient for carrying out decisive attacks if the
political will is there.

States sponsoring terrorism must be isolated politically, and
confronted militarily if necessary. This will not be accomplished with
a few air strikes. It may well require a large-scale deployment of
American and NATO forces to lands where terrorists have been harbored
and trained. America's aversion to risking the lives of its soldiers
must be overcome in the name of saving the lives of those the soldiers
are sworn to protect.

It might be tempting now to demonstrate resolute action to regain
public confidence. But even the physical elimination of bin Laden and
his henchmen does not constitute a victory in the war against
terrorism. Anything short of a deployment of NATO troops to make
arrests in Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus, Kabul and wherever else
terrorists and their affiliates are found to be, will be a betrayal of
the memory of the victims of the first mass killing of the new
millennium. Without analyzing the mistakes of the past, we will fail
today in devising the right response to the crisis facing the
civilized world.



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