Tiptoeing in the Mideast Minefield
SCHORR, DANIEL
Washington Notebook By Daniel Schorr Tiptoeing in the Mideast Minefield The speech Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered November 19 at the University of Louisville had long...
...Inevitably the question arises: What is it about old Reagan documents that has this President so concerned...
...America worked at toppling Leftist leaders in Latin America, supported military dictatorships from Indonesia to the Congo, and fought a war in Vietnam in the name of resisting the spread of Communism...
...For the Executive branch, it stands at 51.5 per cent, and for Congress at 43.4 per cent...
...Not until the November 12 American Airlines crash in Belle Harbor, New York, though, did House Republicans, fearing the political cost of their stand, agree to a compromise with Senate negotiators that led to passage of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act three days later...
...He significantly omitted mentioning Communism, since that might have alienated China...
...But a call for normalcy strikes a jarring note for many who find that today life does not feel normal at all...
...In another speech on November 8, he urged Americans to engage in community service...
...In February 1976, President Ford signed Executive Order 12333, forbidding anyone employed by the United States government to "engage in or conspire to engage in assassination...
...The prohibition on government-sponsored assassinations goes back to President Gerald R. Ford's Administration...
...And, in a separate Gallup Poll, Americans listed terrorism at the top of the problems facing this country...
...It has, in any case, been treated by the Bush Administration as—pardon the expression—a dead letter...
...Foreign Policy Watchword A NEW organizing principle for collective security may be emerging from the effort to cobble together an antiterrorist coalition...
...The House Republican economic stimulus bill seems bound to an outdated orthodoxy as well...
...Washington Notebook By Daniel Schorr Tiptoeing in the Mideast Minefield The speech Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered November 19 at the University of Louisville had long been planned as an effort to promote a ceasefire and jump-start the stalled IsraeliPalestinianpeace negotiations...
...The Reagan Administration adopted an interpretation exempting death incidental to a military action...
...These snapshots of America in a time of travail depict an apparently resilient nation learning to cope with an assault of unprecedented proportions...
...How much we will learn about the inner workings of more recent presidencies has been thrown into doubt by an Executive Order President Bush has signed...
...All this may appeal to the Republican conservative base...
...Three billion dollars in emergency grants to help the unemployed with health benefits could be diverted by the states from a children's health program...
...It came in the wake of revelations that under Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, the CIA had plotted the murder of eight foreign leaders—most notably Cuba's Fidel Castro, but also including Sukarno of Indonesia, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo and Rafael Leonidas Trujillo of the Dominican Republic...
...Representative Doug Ose (R.-Calif...
...America...
...We may see a Russia finally willing to ally itself with the West...
...Unemployment benefits would be extended, but only in states where unemployment increased 30 per cent or more...
...To keep his initiative from being rejected from the outset by one side or the other or both, Powell had to tiptoe his way through a minefield...
...And, despite all the country has been through in recent months, a majority of Americans—54.4 per cent—thinks human nature is basically good...
...There may also be, in the Reagan papers, references to officials now serving under the incumbent, like Powell and Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels...
...But the current White House postponed their release three times, saying that further review was needed...
...Instead, the Secretary introduced a preliminary stage that might be called prenegotiations...
...Powell made no explicit reference to that...
...a member of the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over Presidential records, says the Bush order "undercuts the public's right to be fully informed about how the government operated in the past...
...It was therefore necessary to present the United States as evenhanded in the Arab-Israeli conflict and supportive of the creation of a Palestinian state...
...Conservative columnist Robert Novak called the bill "a hodgepodge that only a lobbyist could love...
...It would cut taxes almost $100 billion—$25 billion more than the limit set by President Bush...
...Richard Reeves' new book, President Nixon, drawing on documents and diaries from the Nixon White House, fills out the picture of this tormented, paranoid man...
...In 1978, after acourt fight over the Nixon records, Congress passed a law permitting the release of Presidential records 12 years after a President leaves the office...
...In 1961 President John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural Address, said that in theCold War, Americans would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship" in defense of liberty...
...The idea reflected in Presidential speeches that Americans, rich and poor, are in the antiterrorist war together, is not reflected in the House legislation...
...Michael Beschloss' new book, Reaching for Glory, based on White House tapes and records, reveals the depths of President Johnson's depression as he privately concluded that the Vietnam War was unwinnable...
...Snapshots of Today's America In 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, ina"CalIforSacri fi ce," summoned the "home front" in World War II to "selfdenial" and the abandonment of "many creature comforts...
...Regard for the government has almost quadrupled...
...ABC News correspondent Lynn Sherr, in her book telling the story behind America's favorite song, "America the Beautiful," reveals that the New England poet Katherine Lee Bates originally wrote, in 1894, a third verse now almost forgotten...
...Youmight be surprised to learn, however, that this buoyant sense has actually increased since 9/11...
...The Bush Administration is exploring cooperation with former pariah state Iran, which happens to oppose the Taliban...
...Powell said he has asked General Zinni to remain in the region to work with the Israeli and Palestinian committees, and lend our strongest efforts to the establishment of a ceasefire...
...For one who remembers gas rationing, tin can collection and Rosie the Riveter, it is a strange kind of war that requests Americans to fly their flags, attend their memorial services, and then go on living their lives...
...Democracy and human rights took a back seat as Ronald Reagan's Administration proclaimed support of "moderately repressive" anti-Communist regimes...
...They are giving blood, volunteering for rescue and recovery tasks, contributing generously to disaster relief funds, donating food and supplies, and extending consolation and counseling for the bereaved...
...In his address to Congress, President George W. Bush denounced the terrorists who "follow the path of Fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism...
...That figure is up from 90.4 percent last year...
...But it is understandable that Americans are cutting back on spending as job layoffs spread, and are declining the invitation to make risky investments...
...It may be time to rescind Executive Order 12333 and spare us from Presidential double-talk about designs on the lives of foreign foes...
...Confidence in all of America's institutions—banks, major companies, organized religions—has also risen...
...Russia's President Vladimir V Putin, in summit meetings with President Bush, indicated his willingness to join an alliance with an America that is no longer giving him a hard time about Chechnya...
...For most of the 20th century, nations aligned along the Communism/ anti-Communism divide...
...The collapse of the Soviet empire a decade ago left both this country and its former antagonists without an easy rallying cry...
...After that, airport managers may shift to using private security companies if they meet the newly established Federal regulations...
...It went this way: America...
...What are Americans proud of...
...It has provided a sense of momentum without requiring the adversaries to surrender dug-fn positions...
...In any event, you probably will not be surprised to learn that we remain, generally, a proud people, enjoying confidence in ournation and its institutions...
...Indeed, it was in the Middle East that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger introduced the expression "shuttle diplomacy...
...The whole purpose of the Presidential Records Act was to avoid another Nixon type battle by taking the decision out of the hands of the ones most concerned and placing it in the hands of the National Archives and historians...
...The Palestinian Authority (PA) had said it would not negotiate unless Israeli forces withdrew from all Palestinian territories...
...That bin Laden might not survive was tacitly understood...
...The first to become eligible, last January, were some 68,000 pages of Reagan records...
...The percentage of those who feel the interests of our allies should be considered went up from 48 to 59 per cent...
...On a personal level, we tend to find each other more fair, more helpful, more trustworthy than in the year 2000...
...A return to normalcy is supposed to show the terrorists that they have not succeeded in bringing America down...
...Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had served pre-emptive notice that he would not enter any negotiations before there was a weeklong halt in violence...
...The Senate, responding to the postSeptember 11 surge of reliance on the national government, voted unanimously on October 11 to create a Federal airport screening service to replace the failed system of private contractors...
...In the Gulf War, a similarly dry-eyed President George H. W. Bush ordered the bombing of the presidential palace in Baghdad, and said, "We're not in the position of targeting Saddam Hussein, but no one will weep for him when he is gone...
...But the House Republican leadership staunchly opposed creating a new force of civil servants that might form unions and might vote Democratic...
...Something else seems to be developing: a new sense of internationalism...
...This mandates a full Federal takeover of all screenings at commercial airports for three years...
...September 11 brought a profound change of perspective...
...Armed Forces, American history, and economic advancements...
...And perhaps most of all, it has signaled to Islamic members of the antiterrorist coalition that the United States does care about the Palestinians...
...The Congressional Budget Office estimated that of the $ 100 billion stimulus package, just $2.3 billion would go to extend cash and health benefits for unemployed workers...
...Russia and China displayed skepticism about the American bid to fashion an international community around free enterprise and democracy...
...God shed His grace on thee, "Till selfish gain No longer stain The banner of the free...
...As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote in the Washington Post, "There is no patriotism in being a spendthrift, no heroism in exposing one's family to unwarranted financial stress...
...Thus, the Bush Administration has now presented itself as engaged, but not tilting toward either side...
...According to a study by the Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations, by about 2:1—61 per cent to 32 per cent—Americans believe that taking an active role in the world is a better way to deal with terrorism than not being involved...
...Another interpretation of the assassination ban, during President Bill Clinton's Administration, made an exception for killing a foreign leader engaged in terrorism against America...
...Eventually, the President apparently realized the false note he had struck...
...Sanctions against Pakistan and India, because of their nuclear programs, have been dropped...
...Powell made no explicit reference to that condition...
...Successive Presidents renewed the order, but some found ways of evading it while paying lip service to it...
...The new patriotism is expressed in consumerism and stock purchases...
...President Bush has said he wants him "dead or alive...
...President Bush has put himself in the odd position of ruling on papers of a period when his father was Vice President and claimed to be "out of the loop" in the Iran-contra scandal...
...Uniting against terrorism is becoming the watchword of American policy in the way that uniting against Communism once was...
...Powell said Sharon and PA Chairman Yasir Arafat have agreed to form committees on negotiation and cease-fire implementation that will deal, in the first instance, with the Bush Administration's new mediator, retired Marine General Anthony C. Zinni, along with Ambassador William J. Burns...
...He may also have had in mind five former Soviet republics in Central Asia whose cooperation he needed, now governed by reprocessed Communist Party bosses...
...The World War II alliance with Stalin promised a change, but proved to be only an interlude between chapters in the Cold War...
...The technique of dealing through a third party is not new in Middle East politics...
...Executive Order 12333 Double-Talk The Presidential ban on assassinations may or may not be formally rescinded...
...Scientific and technological achievements, followed by the U.S...
...Americans have found their own ways to express patriotism...
...Ordering the bombing of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi's compound in Libya in 1986, President Reagan said he was not trying to get one man, but added, "I don't think any of us would have shed any tears if that happened...
...A National Tragedy Study conducted by the University of Chicago found that 97.4 percent of Americans would rather be citizens of this country than any other country in the world...
...Finally, Bush signed an order permitting an incumbent, or former President—in some cases even the family of a dead President—to veto the issuing of such papers...
...Bound to an Outdated Orthodoxy In ways other than shutting up shop because of an anthrax scare, the House of Representatives, often called the "People's House," has seemed curiously out of touch with the people...
...But only 41 per cent of those polled said that life had returned to normal for them since September 11...
...The objective was to try to restore confidence in flying in time for the Thanksgiving travel rush...
...After September 11, what was billed as a major address acquired a new purpose: to keep the Arab-Israeli conflict from undermining Islamic participation in a coalition generally united in condemning the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon...
...Majority Whip Tom DeLay called on lobbyists for the airlines and the private security industry to support a Republican bill that would give the President the option of retaining commercial screening under Federal standards...
...Clinton signed a secret order authorizing the use of lethal force against Osama bin Laden's "organization...
...President Bush, in his speech to ajoint session of Congress on September 20, addressed himself to the home front in the war against terrorism, saying, "Americans are asking, 'What is expected of us?' I ask you to live your lives and hug your children...
...It is not in step with the spirit of the times...
...What Is Bush Hiding...
...Its benefits would flow predominantly to corporations and the wealthy...
Vol. 84 • November 2001 • No. 6
