THE
NEED FOR PRUDENCE
by Timothy Rollins
September 28, 2001
A few years ago, I wrote a column called “Biting the Hand”. In it, I detailed
how the United States had not a habit, but rather a propensity for having a
foreign policy that can only be called myopic. The folks at Foggy Bottom (State
Department) running the show would decide what they wanted and take the shortest
route to get it – regardless of who they alienated, even if it meant setting
themselves up for getting bit on the butt some years later.
This ineptitude was best done by angering potential allies or even worse and much more frequently done, enlisting/exploiting people in need of help, only to hang them out to dry when we no longer had need for them. I cannot help but think that had we continued to work with Usama bin Laden (and yes, folks, he was on the CIA payroll) after the Soviets had left Afghanistan and put in place a sort of Marshall Plan like we did in Europe after World War II and helped these good people rebuild their country, that neither the Taliban would have been able to come to power, and the chances of bin Laden turning on us would have much smaller than they ended up being.
Some of you reading this may be thinking of Bill Clinton as I describe these qualities. The fact of the matter is that this pre-dates Slick Willie by a long and considerable margin. Look back on just the last 40 years. We begin with President Kennedy hanging out to dry a bunch of good men when the Bay of Pigs invasion was called off at the last minute. President Johnson kept the Vietnam War going long after it was determined to be unwinnable. In addition, we had President Nixon lying to the nation and the world to save his hide because he had some third-rate burglars break into the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington – all in pursuit of information he perceived might help his 1972 reelection chances.
With Nixon being the only president to resign from office (so far), President Ford took over and while something of a healer in some respects, he allowed the late Senator Frank Church (D-ID) to run amok with his hearings and completely gut the American intelligence apparatus and in the process endanger the lives of assets we needed to ensure our national security and safety – all in the name of getting his mug on television and advancing his own presidential ambitions.
I cannot help but think that Church’s actions made it nearly impossible for the Agency to later procure the necessary human intelligence (live, breathing assets) in place to help the United States maintain its edge in protecting our national interests as well as our shores. Such moves by Church and others of his stripe in many ways contributed to the events of September 11th.
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The
only senator I can think of more opportunistic than Church since then would
have to been former Vice President Al Gore Jr (D-TN, pictured, right). As a
Senator, he threatened to vote against the resolution authorizing the use of
force in Desert Storm unless he got prime-time coverage of his remarks on the
floor of the Senate. I can tell you this; had Gore not been elected VP in 1992,
he would have almost certainly lost his re-election bid two years later in much
the same manner voters tossed his father out back in 1970. But I digress.
In the wake of the terrorist attack on America, President Bush is being cautious and wise in most respects, and for that, I commend him. In the aftermath, the FBI is finally doing a portion of its job it had long been overlooking – checking up on foreign students attending colleges and universities in the United States.
The Sacramento Bee reports at least three California State University campuses have turned over information about students to the FBI. The University of California's Office of the President said it has not received official reports from the schools, but believes federal officials have asked for details on students at all of its campuses. In addition, other schools across the country have received similar requests.
Investigators began looking at college campuses after learning some of the alleged hijackers or their accomplices were in the country on student visas. Because of the emergency nature of the situation, schools waived normal privacy concerns inasmuch as the U.S. Department of Education told them they can release data without a subpoena or student consent when there is a health or safety emergency, although neither the FBI nor the Justice Department would comment when asked.
One
of the cautions that needs to be taken here is to ensure that individual rights
are respected and that the presumption of innocence remains in place, for that
is usually the first casualty of war – that, and freedom of both speech and
the press. While certain people and policies are justifiably subject to increased
scrutiny from time to time and especially in light of what happened on September
11th, it is extremely important that we keep government (our servant) from appointing
itself Government our Master.
And just as it’s important to ensure that foreign students attending school are in the country legally, so too, is it vital that we return our society as much to normal as possible, and nowhere is that truer than in our airports, and not just because it’s the one industry suffering the most right now.
The fact remains there’s a substantial chance that one of the Big Three (American, Delta or United) could die on the vine and possibly go under as a result of this disaster – no, make that act of war waged against the United States and her people. The fact remains that the FAA is just as culpable for the loss of life on September 11th as those 19 terrorists on the grounds of a combination of rules, security lapses in which fines were not imposed, and airlines looking to fly on the cheap showing there was more interest in the bottom line than in passenger safety. These moves contributed to an atmosphere where something like this was not merely asking, but literally begging to happen.
The fact that a disaster of this magnitude had not happened prior to the 11th was merely the good graces of Providence in action. But now that is has happened, you can bet that emboldened by their success, that bin Laden and his core of terrorists will be setting up Round 2 which will be far more spectacular and more violent with a much greater loss of life.
In a nation of over 280 million people and a choice of well over a dozen major cities possessing “attractive targets”, which combined with a gutting of our military installations, personnel and overall defense readiness over the last 10 years since the end of the Persian Gulf War, we as a nation are reaping what has been sown by one short-sighted administration after another.
It’s rumored (and the rumor is still being looked into) that a 12-year old boy in the Dallas area told his teacher the day before the attack that, “Tomorrow will be the start of World War III, and the United States will lose.”
If in fact that young man did say it, then there will be two concerns that will immediately come to mind, those being (1), he may very well be right; and (2), no 12-year old should have ever had to come up with such a thought. ***
© 2001 Timothy Rollins
COPYRIGHT © 2001 BY THE AMERICAN PARTISAN. All writers retain rights to their work.