|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
News & Notes From Around the Globe Christopher Ruddy
1. The Fox Poll and Clinton's Culpability
1. The Fox Poll and Clinton's Culpability Some encouraging news this weekend, broken by NewsMax. A recent Fox News poll found that two-thirds of American believed Bill Clinton, and not George Bush, was responsible for leaving America vulnerable to the events of 9-11. These poll numbers prove the naysayers wrong: Americans aren't brain-dead, and they aren't always manipulated by the big media – despite the media blackout of any significant criticism of Clinton since 9-11. Hats off to the new media sweeping the nation. NewsMax has taken the lead exposing Clinton's role, as has talk radio, led by Rush Limbaugh. People are listening to us and will continue to do so as Bill Clinton's bitter legacy becomes even clearer. 2. Still Quaking Over 'See No Evil' I'm still quaking after reading Robert Baer's "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism." Once the CIA's most senior man in Iraq, Baer alleges that the Clinton White House made sure Saddam Hussein was able to smuggle oil that helped pour billions into his coffers and helped him stay in power. How duplicitous! This incident reminded me of other traitorous acts by Bill Clinton. We know that after receiving at least $10 million from the Chinese for his 1996 campaign, and considerable sums from Loral Corp and Bernie Schwartz, Clinton authorized China to acquire America's most-guarded ballistic missile technology. Before Clinton's transfer, China had no long-range missile that could hit, with any degree of accuracy, the United States. More treason: During Bill Clinton's first term, he had a private conversation with Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Clinton told Yeltsin that the pair should do nothing that harmed each other's election chances, and should conspire to help each other win re-election. We know this happened because the verbatim State Department transcript of the conversation between Clinton and Yeltsin was published in Bill Gertz's book "Betrayal." Imagine for a moment if such a transcript had been released of Ronald Reagan having such a conversation with the leader of a foreign power. This would have been front-page news in the New York Times and every major paper in America. Calls for congressional investigations and possible impeachment would have been close behind. No matter how much the media covered, and continues to cover, for Clinton, his duplicity has caught up with all of us. Sept. 11 proved that. 3. Skakel Case More media cover-up. Martha Moxley was murdered almost a quarter of a century ago. It took that long for her murderer to be brought to justice. Why? The question becomes even more when you realize that this sensational murder case involves a Kennedy clan member. Precisely because a Kennedy family member was involved, the liberal media went easy with the story. Michael Skakel was given a free pass, much as his Uncle Ted had received after the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Only when Mark Furhrman's book "Murder in Greenwich" exposed the facts – all of which were known for two decades by anyone who cared to look – did officials take an interest in seeing that justice was done. Even today Furhman, not a media favorite, has not been given the full credit he deserves for re-opening the case.
4. Homeland Security Department Oh no, not another government agency! If Sept. 11 taught us anything, it is that we cannot depend on government. Sept. 11 was a day of infamy, a day that demonstrated the catastrophic failure of government. President Bush's plan to create a Homeland Security Department may be well-intentioned, but I believe it will only contribute to the problem. Did the Department of Education, created in the 1970s, fix America's schools? No. In fact, things have gotten only worse if we look at standardized test scores. Did the Energy Department, also created by Jimmy Carter, fulfill its mission to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil? You know the answer. I believe the U.S. government had all the funding, all the bureaucrats and all the laws necessary to empower it to prevent Sept. 11. Of course, the government's "solution" to every problem is always more government, especially if government was responsible for the problem in the first place.
5. Clinton Appointees Still Governing While the Bush administration has done many good things to prevent another terrorist attack, most notably our successful action in Afghanistan, a similar approach must be made to clean house with the Clinton administration folks who still run many government agencies. The Bush administration has been very slow in making changes. For example, IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti, who oversaw the IRS's political witch hunts against conservative organizations that criticized the Clintons, and who never bothered to investigate Islamic "charities" that served as fronts for terrorists, still holds office. But my friends in Washington tell me that even beyond agency chiefs, the top layers of many agencies and departments are still run by Clinton appointees or the people they promoted from the bureaucracy. As a student of public administration, I know it is a basic dictum that "personnel is policy." Bush will be sabotaged by his own bureaucracy if he doesn't quicken the pace of appointments. 6. India & Pakistan Donald Rumsfeld is off to bring peace between India and Pakistan. If anyone can do it, he can! The persuasive exhibit he is set to show the adversaries is a Pentagon study concluding that some 12 million people will die immediately if the two powers engage in a full-blown nuclear war. The Indian and Pakistan leaders will likely be thinking, "Is that all?" With over a billion people in India and nearly 150 million in Pakistan, each side probably believes it is overpopulated, and their values are different from Western ones. The key to stopping a nuclear showdown there is for the U.S. to keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power. Radical Muslims have pervasive influence in Pakistan's government, and Musharraf is a moderating force. If Musharraf goes, a Pakistani nuclear bomb may end up anywhere – New Delhi or New York.
7. More News & Notes The Pakistan-India showdown, not to mention the belief by many that a nuclear device will be detonated in the United States, raises an interesting question: Did any American leader in 1945 or soon thereafter consider that the U.S. should have made sure that no other nation could acquire nuclear weapons? Now the U.S. is faced with becoming a global policeman ensuring that some pipsqueak rogue nation doesn't acquire such weapons. Such is the thinking of those who want to oust Saddam Hussein. And Iran is also building such weapons, and is perhaps closer to having one than Hussein. Iran is just as likely to use such a weapon against the U.S. as is Iraq. Maybe some in Congress would like to put their heads in the sand. Such was the case this Wednesday, when a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee chaired by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., held hearings. Dodd was trying to expose as "fantasy" Bush administration claims that Cuba has a bioweapons program. Assistant Secretary of State Carl Ford told the senators that Cuba has "at least a limited, developmental, offensive biological warfare research and development effort. That assessment and our concerns have not changed in the intervening two and a half months." Any apology from Dodd? No way; he likes Castro. Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Shelby disputed a report in the Washington Times. He told CNN's Jonathan Karl he had no intention of leaving the Republican Party. Shelby said, "My only regret is that I didn't become a Republican sooner." More politics: Conservatives in California are disappointed with Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon. Simon is not planning on spending much of his personal fortune on the race. Meanwhile, Gray Davis has a war chest of $30 million. Liberal Republican Richard Riordan had told friends he would have spent $50 million or whatever it took to win. But he also told the New York Times his goal in winning the election was to help turn the Republican Party leftward. Even thinking conservatives couldn't stomach that.
Off the Record with Gary Aldrich "Betrayal: How the Clinton Administration Undermined American Security," by Bill Gertz "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism," by Robert Baer
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
| All Rights Reserved © 2012 NewsMax.Com |