-Caveat Lector-
Capitol Hill Blue
Some Blame Terror on Interventionism
December 23, 1999
By GEORGE GEDDA
WASHINGTON (AP) - Clinton administration officials need look no
further than their own foreign policy in their search for
explanations for the specter of possible end-of-the-millennium
terrorist attacks against Americans, some foreign policy analysts
say.
They are advancing this thesis as airport security is being
tightened and officials are admonishing Americans at home and
abroad to be on the lookout for anything suspicious in the waning
days of 1999. Officials believe suspected terrorist Osama bin
Laden, a Saudi exile who is wanted for the bombings at two U.S.
embassies in East Africa last year, may be preparing to strike.
Ivan Eland, a defense specialist at the libertarian Cato
Institute, says the unprecedented concern among Americans about
terrorism is the result of the ``profligate U.S. interference in
the business of other nations and groups.''
``What does the average American get from U.S. meddling in
far-flung corners of the world that do not remotely affect U.S.
vital interests?'' Eland asks. ``A much lighter wallet and an
increasing uneasiness when traveling abroad or even when
participating in large public celebrations at home.''
Reform Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan also subscribes
to this view.
``Have we not suffered enough terrorist atrocities - from the
massacre of our Marines (1983 in Lebanon), to Pan Am 103 (1988),
to the World Trade Center (1993), to the embassy bombings in
Nairobi and Dar (es Salaam, 1998) - to awaken our elites to the
reality that interventionism is the incubator of terrorism?''
Buchanan said in a speech last month. ``Or will it take some
cataclysmic act of violence on U.S. soil to finally awaken our
gamesmen to the costs of global hegemony?''
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the majority of the
foreign policy establishment believe that the United States must
not shrink from the use of force to protect what they perceive as
the national interest. They argue that, left unchecked, threats
to democracy, even in distant lands, will come back to haunt the
United States.
World War II could have been avoided and millions of lives spared
if the industrial democracies had stood up to Adolph Hitler in
the late 1930s, Albright believes.
President Clinton justified the use of force by NATO against
Yugoslavia this past spring by warning that to do otherwise could
risk a war encompassing the other Balkan countries and possibly
matching NATO allies Greece and Turkey on opposite sides of the
conflict.
Richard Betts, a political science professor at Columbia
University, said the U.S.-led intervention in Kosovo was a
mistake because it alienated countries that ``matter a lot more -
Russia and China.''
Betts, like Buchanan, rejects the label of isolationist. He said
the administration has had the habit of intervening where it
shouldn't but not where it should. He said the United States
could have headed off genocide in Rwanda in 1994 through timely
intervention.
On whole, he said, the administration has been incautious about
its foreign commitments. ``There are few foreign groups that want
to do us harm unless they see that the U.S. wants to frustrate
their ambitions,'' he said.
Betts acknowledged that forswearing intervention will not be a
cure-all because resentment will persist among some groups
because of the continuing spread of American culture.
Also in the anti-interventionist cabal, not surprisingly, is
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who said on CBS Tuesday it was
little wonder to him that the United States was facing holiday
terrorism threats.
``The U.S. government is hated. ... All the people in the world
are against it, therefore there is a threat,'' he said.
Disputing Gadhafi, State Department spokesman James Foley said
the United States is seen ``as a beacon of liberty around the
world.''
He said terrorists oppose an ``open and free society'' and also
respond to regional crises. ``In the Middle East, it is obvious
that there are enemies of the peace process, those who do not
want to see a final reconciliation and a peace agreement between
Israel and Israel's neighbors,'' he said.
The goal of the terrorists, he added, is to prevent the United
States from continuing to facilitate the peace process.
``We are not going to be intimidated,'' Foley said.
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FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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