The Terrorism Spectator: Striking Out

...In the doublespeak language we have come to expect from this administration on all matters, Albright railed at accusations of timidity, arguing, according to the Post, that she and her colleagues were trying "only to control the pace of confrontation with Iraq to create the best conditions in which to prevail...

...There is still no indictment, warrant, or extradition request for Abu Nidal, the most dangerous terrorist in two decades...

...Secretary of State Albright categorically announced that she would not lend her personal prestige to the Middle East "peace process" until and unless there was real progress on security between Israel and the Palestinians, but she was on her plane within three weeks, following a new round of terrorism against Israel...

...It is much delicate lace and little iron substance, stitched together by the fanciful conceits that war can be waged at long distance, and that the world can be manipulated as easily as American public opinion...

...Instead of organizing the downfall of the rogue states, they are coming to terms with the tyrants...

...William Cohen, and fears them not...

...It is hard to imagine now, when Bill Clinton is the object of ridicule, when we are in retreat from Qaddafi, when our chief inspector in Iraq resigns in shame and decries our lack of will, and when the evidence to support our token response to mass murder in Africa is unconvincing even to those who want to believe it...

...or U.K...

...court, and has offered to lift our embargo against Libya if Colonel Qaddafi agrees to a trial in the Netherlands...

...Anti-American demonstrators in the Middle East wave placards reading "Don't Monica Us," signaling the transformation of the Clinton administration into a laughingstock...

...In like manner, we lack the instruments capable of hunting down and destroying the sort of terror network put in place by Osama bin Laden...

...Clinton and his gang have no stomach for this fight...

...It is not a new question...

...56 October 19 9 8 • The American Spectator years that Osama bin Laden was plotting against the U.S...

...The terrorist assaults against American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (and against other diplomatic targets as well) had been expected for some time...

...There is no request for extradition of Palestinian terrorists who murdered American citizens in Israel, nor of Abu Abbas, responsible for the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, the American pushed overboard in his wheelchair from the Achille Lauro into the Mediterranean in 1985...

...Bombings may be called "surgical," but they are not...

...Tyrants will inevitably attempt to weaken and destroy us, because our very existence deprives them of legitimacy...

...and has worked to arm his assassins with chemical weapons...

...A salvo of cruise missiles will no more destroy the terror network of Osama bin Laden than they destroyed the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein...

...Instead, we have infamously abandoned those Iraqis who organized a truly threatening resistance to Saddam—the Iraqi National Congress—led by a famously brave and honest man, Ahmed Chalabi...

...A real war against terror is very different from our latest gesture, spectacular though it was...

...Most of the political and journalistic classes praised our response, gravely echoing Clinton's warning that we are in for a prolonged war with sinister forces, but they failed to ask the basic question: Given the obvious seriousness of this threat, not only to Americans throughout the world but even to the president himself, and given the abundant advance notice of the murder of American citizens, why are we still unprepared for this challenge...

...04 The American Spectator • October 1998 57...

...Cruise missiles are Clinton's weapons of choice, because no fighting men or women are put in harm's way, hence the president will not have to account for casualties...

...We need the help of foreign intelligence services and militaries to arrest or attack his killers and eventually bin Laden himself...

...When Clinton learned that Saddam had planned to assassinate George Bush, he lobbed a couple of cruise missiles at an Iraqi radar site, nothing more...

...Indeed, the existence of such evidence is itself yet another indictment of Clinton's leadership, for our knowledge should have driven us to act before the embassies were bombed...

...Such cooperation is rare in the best circumstances, when our closest allies are themselves targets of terror and we have proven our courage and resolve...

...The whole thing is make-believe, a Harry Thomason production with special effects from the Pentagon...

...As suggested by the bombing of the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Cape Town, South Africa, this mix of emboldened enemies and anxious friends is lethal, because we cannot fight this kind of terrorism by ourselves...

...Even Ronald Reagan was forced to choose between the blunt instrument of military assault and the feeble reed of diplomatic and judicial demarche...

...On the other hand, we have known for A foreign policy failure's latest hoax...

...We did not act for the same reason that has paralyzed us with regard to Saddam Hussein: we are not prepared to take serious action...

...But striking at the actual killers is only part of a serious war on terrorism...

...THE TERRORISM SPECTATOR by Michael Ledeen Striking Out B ill Clinton's glorious war against international terror is cut from the same doily as his glorious victories against Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, his mastery of the Middle East, his celebrated anti-proliferation campaign in India and Pakistan, his peace-making in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and Kosovo, his masterful de-nuclearization of North Korea and his brave struggle for democracy in China...

...How could it be otherwise, given our record of fecklessness in the face of direct challenge during the past six years...

...Unless you believe we live in the Age of Miracles, and this administration somehow acquires the will, the courage, and the skill to dramatically advance our ideals and interests in an increasingly threatening world, Clinton's War will be remembered as the latest hoax from an administration that has long since lost any semblance of credibility in international affairs, and another invitation to our enemies to take heart and redouble their assaults against us...

...I do not doubt that we believed we had compelling evidence of sinister activity at the now-smoldering pharmaceutical complex in Khartoum, and of the gathering of terrorists somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan, but the constantly changing story from the administration encourages the belief that this operation, and the attendant intelligence on which it was based, were done sloppily...

...Our friends and enemies have drawn the obvious conclusion: there is no priceto pay for attacking us, while our allies face greater risks...

...The Washington Post revealed on August 27 that Clinton, Albright, Berger and Cohen had been calling off inspections in Iraq ever since last fall, because we have refused to put in place any meaningful challenge to Saddam's regime...

...We need information from foreign governments on the locations of bin Laden's training camps, laboratories, and safe houses...

...In simple English, since we weren't ready or able to mount a serious threat to Saddam's regime, we ran from a conflict that would expose our impotence...

...As I have argued for nearly twenty years, the core of an effective antiterrorism strategy is the same force that should drive our foreign policy in general: unrelenting support for democracy and democrats, and an unwavering campaign against freedom's enemies...

...When we learned that Osama bin Laden had twice planned to kill Clinton himself, nothing was done...

...17 we have forbidden Americans to have any involvement with actual or would-be assassins...

...It was inevitable and proper that Republicans should rally round the president when he finally showed some sign of life, but their long silence on the foreign policy debacles of this administration made it impossible for them to discuss the matter in its real context...

...Two of the four camps we bombed were being used by Pakistan for training of fighters to be sent to Kashmir, a matter in which we have no business intruding...

...To make matters even worse, to date there is no sign of any national leader in the Republic, on either side of the political aisle, who is capable of giving voice to these truths and leading the nation in a successful struggle in our behalf...

...Terrorists need safe havens, false passports, methods of transporting weapons (including diplomatic "pouches"), and reliable intelligence not only on the locations of targets but on the intentions of other governments...

...No terrorist organization, even one as rich as bin Laden's, can long operate successfully without assistance from governments...

...A larger battle must be waged against the indispensable state sponsors and facilitators of the terrorists...

...The real world outside Washington has taken the measure of Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, and MICHAEL LEDEEN, TAS's foreign editor, holds the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute...

...That is why we have long had a public list of "rogue states" who support terrorism, and that is why it is no accident to learn that Iraq has its long claws in the production of chemical weapons in Sudan, or that Iranian-sponsored terrorists have long benefited from Sudan's benevolent indifference to their activities on its soil...

...They are the politically correct weapons of those who believe that war is show biz, that death is yet another computer-assisted image, and that elegantly written and dramatically pronounced words are as lethal as bombs and bullets...

...Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, and Bill Clinton have all routinely reasserted the pious prohibition of targeting the actual killers of our citizens, diplomats, spies, and military officers, even though such action is the most effective means of dismantling a terrorist organization, and least likely to cause the deaths of innocent bystanders...

...Clinton has dropped the just demand that the accused murderers of hundreds on Pan Am flight 103 be tried in a U.S...

...We will know that Clinton's War is serious when the Executive Order on assassination is rescinded, and the president enlists the support of Congress to target the murderers of Americans, instead of using the Executive Order—as he did in the case of CIA support of the Iraqi resistance—to restrict American assistance to valiant friends...

...Sooner or later we will have to deal with them, and common sense dictates that we should choose the time, the place, and the method of the fight, rather than waiting for them to attack us at their convenience...

...We need cooperation from foreign governments and foreign banks to unravel bin Laden's corporate structure and to deprive him of his wealth...

...Ever since we decided that we were too noble to kill those who killed us,44 Two of the four camps were being used by Pakistan for training of fighters against Kashmir...

...Clinton offers an end to the Libya sanctions in exchange for permission to try two accused murderers, he sabotages inspections in Iraq because of his failure to advance freedom in that ruined country, and he publicly winks at the regime in Tehran when enraged Iranians manage to express their hatred of the mullahcracy by electing the least evil candidate on a regime-dictated ballot...

...they are just another high-tech method of mass killing, and it is a moral outrage that our leaders cannot demand that we go after specific killers rather than military targets...