Tag Archives: George W Bush

President Bush and the War for the Free World

Decision Brief     No. 05-D 51                                       2005-10-07


(Washington, D.C.): In an extraordinary speech yesterday to the National Endowment for Democracy, President Bush clarified in important new ways the nature of the enemy we face – and what is at stake in our war with that enemy. His remarks were laudable both for the clarity and coherence of the message and because they mark further progress by Mr. Bush towards calling this conflict was it is: The War for the Free World.


Naming the Enemy


For the first time, the President described the fundamental ideological underpinning of our global terrorist enemies as “Islamofascism.” He “connected the dots” that have translated into murderous attacks in New York, Washington, Casablanca, Bali, Madrid, London, Netanya and Baghdad as the work not merely of terrorists. Rather, it is murder in the service of an ideology that “seeks the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom.”


Mr. Bush then made a critical point:



Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme. Well, they are fanatical and extreme – and they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed. As [the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi has vowed, “We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life.” And the civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history, from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot, consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history. Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously – and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.


The Face of Totalitarianism


The President reminded us that, as in the past with the totalitarian ideology known as Communism, we have no choice but to defeat the adherents to Islamofascism lest they destroy this country and the rest of the Free World.


Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy pursues totalitarian aims . Its leaders pretend to be an aggrieved party, representing the powerless against imperial enemies. In truth they have endless ambitions of imperial domination, and they wish to make everyone powerless except themselves. Under their rule, they have banned books, and desecrated historical monuments, and brutalized women. They seek to end dissent in every form, and to control every aspect of life, and to rule the soul, itself. While promising a future of justice and holiness, the terrorists are preparing for a future of oppression and misery.


Appeasement is Not an Option


A particularly vivid passage of the President’s address reminded us that foes motivated by such ideological fervor will not be appeased or dissuaded from their ambitions – either in Iraq or elsewhere.


There’s always a temptation, in the middle of a long struggle, to seek the quiet life, to escape the duties and problems of the world, and to hope the enemy grows weary of fanaticism and tired of murder. This would be a pleasant world, but it’s not the world we live in. The enemy is never tired, never sated, never content with yesterday’s brutality. This enemy considers every retreat of the civilized world as an invitation to greater violence. In Iraq, there is no peace without victory. We will keep our nerve and we will win that victory.


An Ancient Struggle in our Time


The Center for Security Policy has long encouraged President Bush and his administration to explain the war in these terms. He has now moved a great distance from the early days of characterizing the present conflict as simply a “War on Terrorism.” He is absolutely right to describe it instead as “the current expression of an ancient struggle, between those who put their faith in dictators, and those who put their faith in the people.”


Throughout history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder is justified to serve their grand vision – and they end up alienating decent people across the globe. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that regimented societies are strong and pure – until those societies collapse in corruption and decay. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that free men and women are weak and decadent – until the day that free men and women defeat them.


We don’t know the course…our own struggle will take – or the sacrifices that might lie ahead. We do know, however, that the defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice. We do know the love of freedom is the mightiest force of history. And we do know the cause of freedom will once again prevail.


The Bottom Line


Now, Mr. President, all that remains is to give this war a name that evokes in a single phrase all these themes – ever reminding all of us about who we are fighting, and why: the War for the Free World.


With the President, we too believe that the murderous ideology of Islamic radicalism is “the great challenge of our new century.” And also like the President we share the belief that our precious values of freedom and democracy are at stake in this struggle. Properly defining our enemy, as the President did today, is a profound service to the men and women of our armed forces as well as to the citizens of the country. And for this, the Center commends the President and his steadfast efforts to confront, head on, our evil terrorist enemy.


 

The War for the Free World

Let’s be honest. The so-called "Global War on Terror" is not going brilliantly just now. While our forces on the front lines continue to do their difficult missions with courage and competence, morale is sagging at home.

Receding memories of 9/11 and a sense of lost momentum – if not of futility – has combined with the effects of natural disasters and political ones. Support has eroded for the war effort and for those who lead it.

Worse yet, our enemies are emboldened by the demonstrations and calls for withdrawal from the Iraqi front. They redouble their efforts to kill and maim Iraqis and, if possible, American and other Coalition personnel. These terrorists are confident that doing so will reinforce popular demands to set an early date for bringing the troops home.

All other things being equal, this cycle could continue for some time in a sort of death-spiral. The problem is that its end result would be not only defeat and mayhem in Iraq. It would have devastating consequences far beyond the Tigris and Euphrates.

First Principles

That is because we are not, in fact, fighting a global war on terror. It is a global war, alright. But it should instead be called the "War for the Free World." Such a designation has the following advantages:

-It is accurate. We who love freedom are locked in a struggle to the death with totalitarian enemies who subscribe to ideologies that require our destruction. Sound familiar? The Nazis, Fascists, Imperial Japanese and Soviet Communists had in mind for us the same fate. We had to wage war effectively (using non-military as well as military means) on a global scale to defeat each of them in turn.

Today, the immediate threat to the Free World comes from Islamofascism – yet another totalitarian ideology, this time masquerading as a religion. Most Muslims around the world do not subscribe to the Islamist agenda. They are increasingly being forced to embrace it, or at least go along with it, however, under threat of violence or other coercive techniques. By demonstrating our resolve to resist the Islamofascists and to help non-Islamist Muslims to do so as well, we can enlarge the Free World and secure the allies we will need to prevail.

  • It makes clear that the war is about much more than Iraq and Afghanistan. Seductive as the idea sounds, withdrawing from such far-flung battlefields is no solution. Since the fight is about nothing less than whether there will continue to be a Free World – one in which we are able to speak, publish, assemble, vote and practice our religions as we wish – ceding ground to our enemies will only bring closer the day when we cannot do any of those things.
  • It restores the moral clarity that Americans – and other democracies – typically need to sustain war’s expensive costs (in both human and financial terms). There can be no moral equivalence between our Islamofascist enemies on the one hand and, on the other, those who are fighting and dying to protect freedom here at home and, as a bulwark for our own security, to promote it elsewhere.

Shortly after 9/11, President Bush rightly said to the nations of the world "You are either with us or against us." That is true. You are either part of, and willing to help defend, the Free World or you are with the unfree. The latter are at best, playing a double-game. Among them are nations like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China and Russia – all of whom profess friendship, but are simultaneously working to support our enemies and undermine the interests of the Free World.

In theory, it is possible carefully to make tactical arrangements with such states. As a practical matter, however, doing so usually results in a loss of moral clarity and an overlooking of the unfriendly, if not overtly hostile, things they do. Examples include successive U.S. administrations; giving the Saudis a pass as they continue to underwrite Islamofascist proselytizing and terror; tolerating the training of terrorists in and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction from Pakistan; ignoring China’s arms and oil deals with our Islamist enemies; and overlooking wholesale Russian transfers to the PRC of weapons designed to kill Americans.

  • It harkens back to a time when the American people understood that they had a critical role to play in the war effort, just as they do at the moment. Today, as in the past, we need to fight as though our lives, fortunes and freedom depend on it, for indeed they do. We need to put the country on a true war footing in which every American can and must be asked to play a part in order to preserve the Free World.

The Bottom Line

Now is, in short, the time for a return to first principles. Properly labeling the present conflict is not a panacea. But making it clear that we are engaged in nothing less than a War for the Free World will make it easier to take the steps necessary, both at home and abroad, to secure the victory we literally cannot live without.

 

No to Islamist Turkey

Decision Brief     No. 05-D 49                                       2005-09-26

(Washington, D.C.): On October 3, representatives of the European Union and the Turkish government of Islamist Recep Erdogan will meet to determine whether Muslim Turkey will be allowed to seek full membership in the EU. It will be best for Turkey, to say nothing of Europe and the West more generally, if the EU’s answer under present circumstances is: “Thanks, but no thanks.”


The reason Europe should politely, but firmly, reject Turkey’s bid should be clear: Prime Minister Erdogan is systematically turning his country from a Muslim secular democracy into an Islamofascist state governed by an ideology anathema to European values and freedoms.


A Classic Creeping Totalitarian Take-over


The evidence of such an ominous transformation is not hard to find.



–Turkey is awash with billions of dollars in what is known as “green money,” apparently emanating from funds Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states withdrew from the United States after 9/11. U.S. policy-makers are concerned that this unaccountable cash is being laundered in Turkey, then used to finance businesses and generate new revenue streams for Islamofascist terrorism. At the very least, everything else on Erdogan’s Islamist agenda is being lubricated by these resources.


–Turkey’s traditionally secular educational system is being steadily supplanted by madrassa-style “imam hattip” schools and other institutions where students are taught only the Koran and its interpretation according to the Islamofascists. The prime minister is himself an imam hattip school graduate and has championed lowering the age at which children can be subjected to their form of radical religious indoctrination from 12 years old to 4. And in 2005, experts expect 1,215,000 Turkish students to graduate from such schools.


–The products of such an education are ill-equipped to do much besides implementing the Islamist program of Erdogan’s AKP party. Tens of thousands of them are being given government jobs, replacing experienced, secular bureaucrats with ideologically reliable theo-apparatchiks. Four thousand others are packing Turkey’s secular courts, transforming them into instruments of Shari’a religious law.


-As elsewhere, religious intolerance is a hallmark of Erdogan’s creeping Islamofascist puscht in Turkey. Roughly a third of the Turkish population is a minority known as Alevis. They observe a strain of the Muslim faith that retains some of the traditions of Turkey’s ancient religions. Islamist Sunnis like Erdogan and his Saudi Wahhabi sponsors regard the Alevis as “apostates” and “hypocrites” and are subjecting them to increasing discrimination and intimidation. Other minorities, notably Turkey’s Jews, know they are likely to be next in line for such treatment – a far cry from the tolerant traditions of the Ottoman era.


-In the name of internationally mandated “reform” of Turkey’s banking system, the government is seizing the assets and operations of banks run by businessmen associated with the political opposition. It has gone so far as to defy successive rulings by Turkey’s supreme court disallowing one such expropriation. The AKP-dominated parliament has enacted legislation that allows even distant relatives of the owners to be prosecuted for alleged wrong-doing. Among the beneficiaries of such shakedowns have been so-called “Islamic banks” tied to Saudi Arabia, some of whose senior officers now hold top jobs in the Erdogan government.


–Grabbing assets – or threatening to do so – has allowed the government effectively to take control of the Turkish media, as well. Consolidation of the industry in hands friendly to (or at least cowed by) the Islamists and self-censorship of reporters, lest they depart from the party line, have essentially denied prominent outlets to any contrary views. The risks of deviating is clear from the recently announced prosecution of Turkey’s most acclaimed novelist, Orhan Parmuk, for “denigrating Turks and Turkey” by affirming in a Swiss publication allegations of past Turkish genocidal attacks on Kurds and Armenians.


-Among the consequences of Erdogan’s domination of the press has been an inflaming of Turkish public opinion against President Bush in particular and the United States more generally. Today, a novel describing a war between America and Turkey leading to the nuclear destruction of Washington is a run-away best seller, even in the Turkish military.


-This data point is perhaps an indicator of the Islamists’ progress towards also transforming the traditional guarantors of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s legacy of a secular, pro-Western Muslim state: Turkey‘s armed forces. Matters have been made worse by Erdogan’s skillful manipulation of popular interest in the European bid to keep the military from serving as a control rod in Turkish politics.


At the very least, over time, the cumulative effect of having the conscript-based Turkish army obliged to fill its ranks with products of an increasingly Islamist-dominated educational system cannot be positive for either the Europeans or the Free World beyond. Especially as Erdogan seeks to implement what has been dubbed a “zero-problem” policy towards neighboring Iran and Syria, the military’s historical check on the gravitational pull towards Islamofascism is likely to recede.


The Bottom Line


Consequently, the EU’s representatives should not only put on ice any invitation to Turkey to join the European Union next week. They should make it clear that the reason is Erdogan’s Islamist takeover: The prime minister is making Turkey ineligible for membership on the grounds that the AKP program will inevitably ruin his nation’s economy, radicalize its society and eliminate Ankara’s ability to play its past, constructive role made possible by Turkey’s geographic position in the “cockpit of history.”


It is to be hoped that this meeting will serve one other purpose, as well: It should compel the Europeans to begin to address their own burgeoning problem with Islamofascism. Both Europe, Turkey and, for that matter, the rest of the world, need to find ways to empower moderate Muslims who oppose Islamists like Turkey’s Erdogan. October 3rd would be a good time to start that process.


 

U.S. narrowly avoids “globotaxes” — this time

Earlier today, President Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly’s High Level Plenary Meeting that brought together over 170 heads of state to endorse a 35-page declaration – the Draft Outcome Document – that will serve as the blueprint for an overhaul of the world body in the coming years. The President’s remarks rightly tackled issues critical to the America’s security – urging, for instance, the international community to do more to combat terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

Left out of his remarks, regrettably, was an explicit commitment to fight an agenda that is equally threatening to the Nation’s wellbeing – one that for a time was the driving force behind the Draft Outcome Document. But for the last-minute heroics of a handful of champions of American sovereignty, in fact, it is likely the President would have been "AmBushed" at this gathering, as advocates of global government would have achieved their single greatest victory in the 60-plus year history of the United Nations – the imposition on the United States of what the Center for Security Policy has termed "globotaxes."

Fortunately, the fight to preserve American sovereignty was taken up by the President’s extraordinarily able representative to the United Nations – John Bolton – as well as by advocates of American interests on Capitol Hill. In his short time at Turtle Bay, Amb. Bolton’s tireless work resulted in a great victory, refusing to accept specific international aid targets contained in the original version of the Draft Outcome Document that would have allowed international taxes to be imposed on nations failing to meet those targets. And just yesterday, a group of 17 Republican Senators fired off a missive (see below) to Kofi Annan affirming that Amb. Bolton "has the will of the Congress of the United States and laws past and future behind him" in opposing international taxes.

At the same time, determined Congressmen and Senators have begun to take steps toward ensuring that the international community is never able to tax American citizens. In late July, an amendment to the State Department authorization bill introduced by House Majority Whip Roy Blunt requiring the United States to "vigorously oppose any international or global tax" was adopted without objection. Meanwhile, legislation is being prepared by Senator Jim Inhofe that would, importantly, condition U.S. contributions to the U.N. on a U.N. promise not to pursue international taxation schemes. That this legislation will become law, however, is far from certain, and it is of critical importance that the American people convey to their elected representatives their strong opposition to global taxes so that the Senate may act on this legislation at the earliest possible time.

The Center for Security Policy commends Messrs. Bolton, Blunt, Inhofe and their like-minded colleagues for their fortitude in opposing international taxation. The narrow-miss in the Draft Outcome Document was, however, only illustrative of the determination of the U.N. bureaucracy, many member nations and their world government supporters to eviscerate the sovereignty of nations like the United States and supplant it with a world governing mechanism vested in the United Nations and funded by involuntary global taxes. It is time to draw a line in the sand.

September 13, 2005

His Excellency Kofi Annan
Secretary-General
The United Nations
1 United Nations Plaza
New York, New York, 10017-3515

Dear Secretary-General Annan,

We wish you blessings of a good heart on this commencement of the United Nations High-Level Event to discuss internationally agreed development goals.

In finalizing the outcome document, please be mindful of the intertwined history of the United Nations and United States of America with regard to proposals for international taxes and fees.

In February 1995, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) organized a conference in Nairobi regarding such international taxes and fees. Soon thereafter on October 10, 1995, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) held a conference and set up a research project on global taxes.

Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali gave a speech in January of 1996 at Oxford University. In this speech the Secretary General embraced the concept of global taxation and fees, automaticity in international development finance, and authoritarian world government.

Later in 1996, the UNDP research project resulted in publishing of a text entitled The Tobin Tax by Mahbub ul Haq et. at. Furthermore, in 1996 the United Nations Economic and Social Council fully debated global fees and taxes.

Within days of the Oxford speech, on January 22nd and 23rd, 1996, respectively, leadership in both the United States Senate and House of Representatives mobilized to introduce bills condemning United Nations’ involvement in "any effort to develop, advocate, promote and publicize any proposal concerning taxation or fees on United States persons in order to raise revenue for the United Nations or any such agency."

This legislation became Public Law 105-118 on November 26, 1997 in the Foreign Operation, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1998. The legislation was again enacted in Public Law 106-113 on November 29, 1999 in the Admiral James W. Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001.

In December of 1996 the embattled Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali lost his bid for another term.

Congressional furor in the United States of America over the Oxford speech and other such efforts to develop, advocate, promote, and publicize international taxation schemes has oft been cited as a significant factor in his lost bid for another term.

Now we once again witness the concept of international taxation and fees rearing its head in the United Nations:

 

  • Bureau of International Organization Affairs, US Department of State (1999). "UN’s Human Development Report 1999 Raises International Tax Proposal" July 21
  • United Nations Development Programme (1999). Human Development Report 1999. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • United Nations, General Assembly (2001). [Preparatory Committee for the International Conference on Financing for Development] Technical Note No. 3: Existing Proposals for innovative sources of Finance, 20 September.
  • The report Zedillo, Ernesto (2001). Technical Report of the High-Level Panel on Financing for Development. New York: United Nations, that in preparation for the United Nations Financing for Development (FfD) world conference concluded, "there is a genuine need to establish, by international consensus, stable and contractual new sources of multilateral finance," to wit, international taxes and fees.
  • A "Conference on Sharing Global Prosperity" held in Helsinki on September 6-7, 2003.
  • The United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics Research study on global taxation issued on November 15, 2004, saying it was critical to mobilize additional "resources" for internationally agreed development goals.
  • New Sources of Development Finance, Edited by A.B. Atkinson, Oxford U. Press, 2005.

    We observe that your address of March 21, 2005, insists that nations "adopt a package of specific, concrete decisions this year." You advised regarding your report "In Larger Freedom" that, "The temptation is to treat the list as an a la carte menu, and select only those that you especially fancy," but cautioned, "In this case, that approach will not work."

    Before we swallow your entire buffet, we advise the chefs to trim the menu of its considerable fat content.

    Please know that the Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations John R. Bolton has the will of the Congress of the United States and laws past and future behind him when he states inter alia, "the U.S. does not accept global aid targets of global taxes."

    Sincerely,

    James Inhofe
    United States Senator

    Bill Frist
    United States Senator

    John Ensign
    United States Senator

    Gordon Smith
    United States Senator

    Kit Bond
    United States Senator

    George Allen
    United States Senator

    Ted Stevens
    United States Senator

    Richard Shelby
    United States Senator

    Thad Cochran
    United States Senator

    Johnny Isakson
    United States Senator

    Mitch McConnell
    United States Senator

    Jim Talent
    United States Senator

    Olympia Snowe
    United States Senator

    Pete Domenici
    United States Senator

    Jim DeMint
    United States Senator

    Tom Coburn
    United States Senator

    Jeff Sessions
    United States Senator

    • Sovereignty levees breached?

    (Washington, D.C.): Since it seems the only news that is fit to print (or air) these days has to do with Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, finding a related angle to call needed public and leadership attention to something else happening in the world requires a little ingenuity. Since the stakes associated with another, largely unremarked story – involving a drama that will reach its denouement at UN headquarters this week – may be nothing less than the future sovereignty and character of the United States, however, a way must be found.


    LOST in New Orleans


    As it happens, the answer lies in the toxic liquid now being pumped out of New Orleans into waterways that will, inexorably, contaminate the international reaches of Gulf of Mexico, and perhaps beyond. The United States has unilaterally determined that this potentially huge environmental damage is justified by the need to recover and restore a major American city, its population and economy.


    Interestingly, shortly before Katrina precipitated this crisis, a gaggle of former senior government officials wrote Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist demanding that he swiftly effect the ratification of a controversial accord known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (or LOST). The authors dismissed concerns expressed by conservatives that LOST would impinge upon U.S. sovereignty and vital interests.


    If the United States were a party to the Law of the Sea Treaty today though, it is very likely America would be enjoined from dumping New Orleans’ toxic stew into Lake Ponchartrain and the Mississippi River . For one thing, this action would violate the Treaty’s environmental obligations to protect marine life and its habitats, obligations whose sweep makes those of the Kyoto Treaty seem modest by comparison.


    For another, the Law of the Sea Tribunal – the sort of multilateral legal institution whose tendency for politicization and anti-American actions has prompted the Bush Administration to reject the International Criminal Court – has already established a relevant precedent. In a case brought by Ireland against Great Britain, the Tribunal has established that its jurisdiction extends to activities on sovereign member states’ soil that can arguably affect international waters. (An important question for Senators to put to Chief Justice nominee John Roberts would be whether, like some other justices, he would regard such an internationally dictated injunction to trump America’s domestic jurisprudence?)


    Unfortunately, since Ronald Reagan’s day, American governments have tended to pay too little attention to sovereignty-sapping treaties and institutional power-grabs by the United Nations and other multilateral organizations. To his credit, Mr. Reagan recognized the Law of the Sea Treaty for what it was intended to be by the World Federalists and so-called non-aligned movement types who had a significant hand in shaping its supranational International Seabed Authority and related entities: a highly precedential, and undesirable, vehicle for establishing world-government mechanisms to control the “international commons” (in this case, the oceans) at the expense of sovereign states.


    President Reagan refused to agree to LOST’s ratification in part because he found anathema the idea of empowering an international organization to raise its own revenues through what amount to taxes on seabed mining and energy exploitation. Regrettably, the Bush Administration has to date chosen to overlook this and the Treaty’s other adverse implications for U.S. sovereignty, and says it supports LOST’s ratification.


    Meanwhile, Back at the UN


    The good news is that President Bush seems in no mood to go along with the logical extrapolation of the Law of the Sea Treaty – the so-called “Draft Outcome Document” for the UN General Assembly meeting on September 14th through 16th. The document has been the focus of intense negotiations ever since Mr. Bush succeeded in getting his representative, John Bolton, in place at Turtle Bay. Despite fresh evidence from former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker that the UN is scandal-ridden, corrupt, poorly organized and managed and incompetently led, Secretary General Kofi Anan wants the American and other world leaders to ratify this week what amounts to his wish-list.


    As of this writing, however, Amb. Bolton has registered strong U.S. objections to language that would bind America to actions that, under this President, it has firmly opposed: ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; opening negotiations on space arms control; creating what amounts to a standing UN army; and foregoing systemic UN reforms, in favor of cosmetic ones.


    Of arguably greatest importance is the U.S. refusal to empower the United Nations to levy taxes – a step that would, as with the Law of the Sea Treaty, advance the organization’s ambitions to promote world government. Globotaxes would also eviscerate what remains in the way of American leverage to effect real reform of the UN and to punish its misbehavior. It is estimated that one proposed tax on international currency transactions alone would be able to generate a staggering $13 trillion in revenue.


    The Bottom Line


    Just as Hurricane Katrina ruptured the levees protecting New Orleans, the UN’s concerted assault on the barriers to further erosion of American sovereignty threatens to swamp our freedom of action and our founding principle of “no taxation without representation.” It behooves President Bush to reject any Outcome Document that leaves the door open to globotaxes, let alone one that endorses them outright. Rather than lend his authority to such an exercise, he should be willing to refuse to attend the UN summit meeting this week that Mr. Anan hoped would be the biggest fund-raiser in the history of the world.


     

    UN AmBush

    (Washington, D.C.): Like John Wayne in a classic Hollywood Western, John Bolton has ridden to the rescue at the United Nations with scarcely a moment to spare. As a result, he may just be able to spare America and George Bush the mugging – let’s call it the UN AmBush – that the denizens of the East River had in mind for us next month.


    The Case for Adult – and Pro-American – Supervision at the UN


    It turns out that, during the months Mr. Bolton was being denied a Senate confirmation vote as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, Kofi Anan’s folks and those from other countries who tend to dominate UN deliberations (generally, undemocratic and unfriendly sorts) were organizing what might be described as a surprise party for President Bush. The idea was, when he turned up for a special summit meeting from September 14-16, to oblige him to sign on to the most far-reaching – and outrageous – UN agenda in years. He wouldn’t be able to refuse at the last minute, lest he reinforce the rap that he is a “unilateralist cowboy.”


    That agenda is laid out in a forty-page paper dated August 5 with the self-important title “Draft Outcome Document of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly of September 2005.” It reads like a wish-list assembled by advocates of world-government and foes of American sovereignty and power.


    A Bill of Particulars


    For example, the Outcome Document would have us believe that the United Nations has a critical role to play in all world affairs. Reforms it envisions for the institution are largely cosmetic, not the far-reaching, systemic and ongoing ones so clearly required. Support is also given to what amounts to an evolving permanent UN army.


    Were President Bush to sign on to this Document, he would commit the United States to “meeting all commitments and obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.” Last time I checked, that was something he has strongly and repeatedly refused to do.


    Then there are the disarmament provisions. Signatories would agree to “maintain a moratorium on nuclear test explosions pending the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and call upon all States to sign and ratify” that treaty – something a majority of the United States Senate refused to do a few years back, judging the treaty to be inconsistent with America’s national security interests.


    They would also authorize “the commencement, without delay, of negotiations on…effective measures for the prevention of an arms race in outer space.” Successive U.S. administrations of both parties have opposed such negotiations as incompatible with our need to have assured access to and control of space.


    A Mandate for ‘Globotaxes’?


    Most egregious of all, perhaps, is the bold grab the Draft Outcome Document makes for “globotaxes” – the authority to raise revenues for UN functions by levying taxes on various international transactions. Obviously aware of the radioactive nature of such an idea with most tax-averse Americans, the drafters have come up with a variety of euphemisms to obscure what they are about: “innovative and additional sources of financing for development on a public, private, domestic or external basis”; “solidarity contributions on plane tickets to finance development projects”; and “other solidarity contributions that would be nationally applied and internationally coordinated.”


    If ever there were proof that President Bush was right to insist on having a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who represented him and the American people, this document is it. Although press reports and Senate critics of Amb. Bolton claimed that the job was being competently done by Foreign Service professionals, none of them (in New York or Washington) seemed to have any problem with these myriad assaults on this country’s policies and interests.


    This cautionary note is all the more worrying insofar as a number of the top jobs in the U.S. intelligence community – newly created in response to warnings that there has been too-much “group-think” in those circles – have now been entrusted to career Foreign Service Officers. These include: Ambassador John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, Tom Fingar, his deputy for Analysis and Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, and Ambassador Kenneth Brill, Director of the National Counter-Proliferation Center – a critically important job for which he seems particularly ill-suited by temperament and past track record of reflexive acquiescence to various instances of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It is far from clear that what U.S. intelligence needs at this juncture is more of the sort of group-think with which diplomats are all-too-often associated.


    Horatius Bolton


    Now that John Bolton is on the job, he is demanding that changes be made to the Outcome Document. The howls can be heard from Turtle Bay to Foggy Bottom. On August 17, Reuters ran as a news article what sounded like a press release issued by the UN Association, suggesting that Mr. Bolton is vindicating his critics’ complaints about his inability to work-and-play-well-with-others at the UN. It quoted diplomats as upset that the United States is trying to “return to square one and launch line-by-line negotiations on the document.”


    No less to his credit is the UN crockery Amb. Bolton broke last week by decrying the direct role played by the organization’s Development Program (UNDP) in inciting further Palestinian aggression against Israel. UNDP logos were actually placed on everything from banners to bumper-stickers to T-shirts distributed in the Gaza Strip that declared: “Today Gaza, Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem.” As the man most responsible for getting the UN to repeal its odious resolution equating Zionism with racism, Mr. Bolton is all-too-familiar with the so-called world body’s virulent anti-Israel bias and absolutely right to denounce this use, in part, of U.S. taxpayer funds as “inappropriate and unacceptable.”


    The Bottom Line


    If the UN’s planned September AmBush is to be wholly avoided, however, John Bolton will require reinforcements. The House Majority Whip Roy Blunt helped when he secured unanimous agreement in that chamber last month to oppose any UN taxes. This legislative prohibition should be enacted as a first order of business when the Senate returns after Labor Day. And, if there is to be an Outcome Document, it had better reflect the sorts of real reforms called for in a House-approved bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Hyde – and leave out new commitments to development, disarmament and environmental initiatives contrary to this country’s interests and, properly, unacceptable to its President.


     

    Poster child for surrender

    Decision Brief     No. 05-D 39                                        2005-08-15


    Cindy Sheehan is the mother of a fallen soldier, Casey Sheehan, a man who volunteered to serve his country and gave his life so that people in Iraq might have a government that did not threaten them, and us. As such, she is entitled to our sympathy and gratitude.


    Emboldening the Enemy


    Unfortunately, she has lately become something else: the poster child for surrender. With her decision to camp out near President Bush’s home in Crawford, Texas for the purpose of demanding an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Ms. Sheehan has morphed into a pawn in the hands of partisans who are indifferent to whether the United States is defeated on the central front in this global war – as long as Mr. Bush, his administration and party are laid low.


    The media circus that has surrounded and amplified every one of Ms. Sheehan’s increasingly strident rhetorical outbursts (she says she won’t pay taxes until she gets her son back and wants the President impeached on war crimes) may, by so doing, have filled a void in their August doldrums programming. Their 24/7 coverage of Casey Sheehan’s mom has done something else, however: Together with polls showing flagging support for the President, it has given further encouragement to the conviction of our Islamofascist enemies that, as they expected, an indolent and self-indulgent United States cannot stand up to determined, ruthless foes.


    That perception can only have one effect: To put an even bigger premium on the lives of every one of Casey’s comrades in Iraq and elsewhere, and to foreclose the outcomes for which he and the other fallen gave their lives. Even before his mom became a spectacle, the Islamists were hopeful that – as in Beirut in 1983 and Somalia in 1994 – killing enough American troops would make the rest of them withdraw ignominiously. Handing the U.S. such defeats enhances the claims to leadership and power of those responsible for driving them out, effectively eliminating alternatives that may have been more sympathetic to Western values and interests.


    Watch this Space in Gaza


    A test case is underway at this writing. Israel is in the process of forcibly removing settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank that will be turned over to Palestinian control. Already, the Islamofascists of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and factions of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement are claiming their terrorism forced the Israelis to “disengage.” The perpetrators of such terror are sure to dominate the emerging Palestinian state, even as they insist that they will continue their violent intifada until the “occupation” of the rest of “Palestine” is accomplished through the complete destruction of Israel.


    Does anyone really believe that, having rewarded the terrorists, there will be less terror against Israel in the future? Common sense tells us that, as the Palestinians obtain billions in financing from the West, arms (at American insistence) from Israel, unimpeded and unmonitored use of a seaport, airport and land border with Egypt, the capacity of Israel’s enemies to increase the number and lethality of their attacks on the Jewish State from behind internationally recognized boundaries will only grow.


    Cut-and-Run…to Where?


    It is inconceivable that we would fare better were the United States and its coalition partners in Iraq to yield to the demands of the Surrender-Now crowd. Iraq would become at best a new safe-haven for terrorism against the West, at worst, a renewed state-sponsor of such terror. The promise of an Iraqi partner in this war would be squandered, the best hope of encouraging the emergence in the Mideast of moderate, peaceable and prosperous states foreclosed, America’s enemies emboldened and her friends forced to reconsider their allegiance to us.


    Worst of all, at least from the perspective of their loved ones, the sacrifice made by people like Casey Sheehan would be for naught. Yet his mom insists, “You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism.”


    Ms. Sheehan is entitled to her pain and anger. She is, of course, entitled to express them appropriately, as well. But her loss of a son does not give her particular standing with respect to analyzing the nature of this conflict or the consequences of abandoning the fight.


    The truth of the matter is that the foes who wield terror against us are not animated by grievances, real or perceived, as much as they are by a totalitarian political ideology. Its stated goal is to impose a global caliphate under a Taliban-like religious code. Withdrawal under fire – surrender by any other name – will not “stop the terror.” It will simply ensure that there is more of it here, enroute to subjecting the United States and every other nation to the Islamofascists’ dominance and Shari’a.


    The Bottom Line


    One suspects that Casey Sheehan understood these stakes, at least intuitively, as do most (if not all) of his comrades-in-arms. They are bravely confronting an evil in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world so as to spare other parents the losses that are sure to flow from capitulating there, only to have to fight it here.


    One hundred and forty-three years ago next month, the single bloodiest battle of the Civil War was fought at Antietam, Maryland. From the perspective of the more than twenty-thousand mothers who lost sons that day, their sacrifice must have been no less wrenching or hard to justify than was Ms. Sheehan’s. Had Abraham Lincoln given up at that point, however, the Nation would have been divided, slavery perpetuated and the prospects for freedom in the world made far more grim. Now, as then, we must stay the course.


     

    Mugged liberal

    In announcing last week a sweeping crackdown in Britain on the "evil ideology" of coming to be known as Islamofascism, Prime Minister Tony Blair declared that "the rules of the game have changed." So, it would appear has he.

    In fact, Mr. Blair has become an exemplar of the old adage that a "conservative is a liberal who has been mugged." The two bombing attacks on London’s mass-transit systems, perpetrated mostly by home-grown Islamist suicide bombers (actual or would-be), not only mugged Britain’s recently reelected leader, but his country, as well.

    The New Blair

    As a result, Tony Blair appears to have broad popular support for abandoning his past, disastrous political correctness – a stance he had clung to even after the September 11th hijackers mugged a great many American liberals (at least temporarily). Gone was his previous commitment to allow Islamist communities to operate impunity in Britain, even those that made no secret of their sympathies with and support for terror. (The extent to which Islamofascists cynically took advantage of this tolerant attitude was evident in an undercover journalist’s chilling account published on August 7 by the Sunday Times of London under the headline "While London reeled under attack, the teachers of extremism were celebrating – and a Sunday Times reporter was recording every word.")

    By contrast, on August 5, the Prime Minister announced that he was "absolutely and completely committed" to ensuring that those foreign clerics and others who come to Britain and condone, glorify or justify terrorism are deported. Ditto those "actively engaged" with websites, bookshops, networks and organizations considered to be inciting hatred. Two such organizations, the radical Islamofascist Al Mujahiroun and its successor, Hizb-ut-Tahira, were proscribed. Mosques where such activities are allowed to take place will be shut down. Asylum will no longer be granted terrorists or their sympathizers. And British nationals engaging in speech that promotes terror risk being stripped of their citizenship and deported or incarcerated.

    Suffice it to say, Tony Blair’s mugged-liberal response to terror attacks in the United Kingdom makes the USA Patriot Act look like the ACLU’s fondest dream. It is also a reminder of the sorts of infringements on civil liberties that may be demanded by Americans if the Patriot Act were not to be renewed and/or terrorists succeed in attacking this country again with devastating effect.

    Incipient ‘Mugging’

    Unfortunately, if Mr. Blair has had an epiphany about the gravity of his past underestimation of the danger posed by Islamofascism at home, he seems as yet unwilling (or perhaps, given his domestic preoccupations at the moment, simply unable) to recognize the ominous implications of the errors of his ways abroad. Specifically, even as the Prime Minister is trying to shut down the safe haven for terror he and his predecessors have permitted in Britain, he continues to insist that a new safe haven be afforded them in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

    Indeed, Tony Blair’s fixation with the creation of a Palestinian state that will, inevitably, become an Islamofascist breeding ground and base of operations is of a piece with the political and strategic miscalculations that animated his indulgence of Islamists in the UK. To demonstrate that he was not George Bush’s "poodle" on foreign policy, to appease his party’s vehemently anti-Iraq leftist majority and to pander to anti-West Muslims in places like Leeds, London, Birmingham and overseas, Mr. Blair has insisted on the early establishment of a sovereign "Palestine."

    The Prime Minister evidently remains untroubled that the bitter fruit of his efforts in the so-called Quartet – the diplomatic equivalent of gang rape involving the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the United States teamed up to stick it to Israel – will be the creation of yet another Islamofascist state-sponsor of terror in the Middle East.

    For example, Mr. Blair has insisted that the "Road Map" be followed to create a Palestinian state, with none of the caveats or safeguards President Bush enunciated in June 2002. At the Gleneagles G-8 meeting last month, Mr. Blair also forced through a multinational commitment to provide $3 billion to the Palestinian Authority (PA). And British pressure is at work in the U.S. government’s insistence that Israel provide arms to the PA – even though the U.S. envoy in charge of this project, Army Lieutenant Gen. William Ward, admitted to Congress in July that he had no idea what had happened to the thousands of M-16s Israel had previously given the Palestinian pursuant to the Oslo Accords. (At Gen. Ward’s hearing before the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, Rep. Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois, noted sarcastically, "Imagine how we felt a year later when we saw Palestinian policemen using those M-16s to shoot Israelis.")

    The Bottom Line

    The evidence is now unmistakable. Tony Blair is as wrong about the foreseeable prospects for Palestine as he was, pre-mugging, about the wisdom of ignoring Islamofascism in Britain. Islamists will soon hold unchallenged sway over Gaza and parts of the West Bank, rightly claiming that their terror forced Israel to withdraw and that its continuation will result, in due course, in the "liberation" of the rest of the "occupied" territory (meaning all of Israel).

    Mr. Blair has long been courageous and visionary on Iraq and Afghanistan. Lately, he has become so with respect to the terrorist footprint in Britain. It is in the interest of all freedom-loving people that he and President Bush act now to prevent a worse "mugging" by far and encourage Israel to suspend its impending, ominous retreat in the face of Palestinian terror.

     

    Amb. Bolton: America’s advocate

    (Washington, D.C.): President Bush’s announcement today that he was giving one of the Nation’s most principled, courageous and accomplished public servants, John R. Bolton, a recess appointment as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was as welcome as it was necessary.

    In a matter of weeks, there will be historic opportunities to determine whether the UN will undergo long overdue and systemic changes – or whether it will be encouraged and enabled to continue to be mired in wasteful spending, corruption, virulent anti-Americanism and malfeasance. The latter would inevitably follow from the authorization the UN General Assembly is expected to seek next month to begin imposing what are euphemistically called "innovative international funding mechanisms" and what the Center for Security Policy calls "globotaxes."

    In a White House ceremony today with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Amb. Bolton, Mr. Bush made it clear that – despite the demeaning treatment his choice for the UN had received at the hands of a small number of Senators – the UN emissary enjoys his "complete confidence." The President went on to note the qualities that he found so important to dispatch to New York at this juncture:

    Ambassador Bolton believes passionately in the goals of the United Nations Charter, to advance peace and liberty and human rights. His mission is now to help the U.N. reform itself to renew its founding promises for the 21st century. He will speak for me on critical issues facing the international community. And he’ll make it clear that America values the potential of the United Nations to be a source of hope and dignity and peace.

    As he embarks on his new assignment, Ambassador Bolton will bring tremendous wisdom and expertise. Over the past two decades, John Bolton has been one of America’s most talented and successful diplomats. He’s been a tireless defender of our nation’s values, and a persuasive advocate for freedom and peace. As a senior leader at the State Department in the 1980s and 1990s, he brought people together to achieve meaningful results at the United Nations — from resolving payment issues, to helping rally the coalition in the Persian Gulf War, to repealing a shameful resolution that equated Zionism with racism. And over the past four years as Undersecretary of State, he’s shown valuable leadership on one of the most urgent challenges of our time: preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

    The Center for Security Policy has strongly supported the nomination of Mr. Bolton to the United Nations since it was first announced by Secretary Rice nearly five months ago. It is proud to have helped illuminate the breadth of support the Ambassador enjoys within the national security policy community and among groups representing millions of Americans who agree that John Bolton is the man needed to help reform the UN and to prevent the imposition of globotaxes. The Center commends President Bush for his choice of Mr. Bolton and for his steadfastness in ensuring that the talents and capabilities of this outstanding public servant will finally be brought to bear for America at the United Nations.

     

    Saudi double games

    Within days of the murderous 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush declared before a joint session of Congress: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

    Unfortunately, under the leadership of King Fahd (actual or nominal), Saudi Arabia demonstrated that it was possible to be with us and with the terrorists. Far from being regarded as a hostile regime, the United States has described the Saudi government as a valued "partner" in the war on terror, notwithstanding abundant evidence that it continues to harbor and support terrorism around the world – including inside the United States.

    Indeed, under Fahd, whose death was officially announced on Monday (although he has been effectively incapacitated for years following a severe stroke), the Saudis perfected their double game: simultaneously being considered in Washington a friend of America while behaving all over the world as a supporter and financier of America’s enemies.

    Friends like These

    A recitation of the evidence of Saudi solidarity with the United States usually starts with King Fahd’s decision to allow American forces to use his territory to liberate Kuwait in 1991. Typically, it claims Saudi Arabia’s cooperation on oil pricing. Some also point to the Saudis’ assistance to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement in counterterrorism efforts post-9/11.

    In fact, what the deployment of U.S. troops on Saudi soil in Operation Desert Shield amounted to was allowing us to defend them. When it has suited the Saudis to have cheaper oil – notably, when it looked (briefly) as though we might actually get serious about alternative energy sources – they forced prices down. When it has not, the Saudis have been fully prepared to help the OPEC cartel drive them up (including today when a barrel of oil it costs them at most two or three dollars to extract sells for nearly $60).

    It is true that the Saudi royal family has lately become more concerned about its hold on power in the face of terror attacks inside the kingdom. Such concerns may produce a greater degree of mutuality of interest with the United States as relates to countering terrorist operations within Saudi Arabia. Even there, however, the transparency has been limited, as with, for example, American access to terror suspects in Saudi custody.

    Far more important is the litany of things the Saudis have done – and continue to do – that encourage and enable terrorism against those (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) who do not embrace the ideology of the Saudi Islamofascist cult known as Wahhabism. A short list of these unfriendly activities includes the following:

    • Providing financial, organizational, logistical and other support for terrorists like Osama bin Laden. While the Saudi leadership doesn’t want al Qaeda to launch any more attacks inside the kingdom, there is reason to believe that at least some among the 5,000 princes think underwriting its attacks elsewhere is the best way to prevent them at home.
    • Founding and running Wahhabi Islamofascist hate-factories in mosques and their associated schools (madrassas) all over the world. The Saudi-financed madrassas of Pakistan have been getting a lot of attention after British authorities identified them as places where the Leeds suicide bombers trained.

    A superb study released in January by Freedom House documented that the Saudi government is also using American mosques – by some estimates 80% of which have their mortgages held by Saudi Arabian financial institutions – to promote jihad. Materials officially produced and disseminated to such mosques by the kingdom are filled with calls to hate Christians and Jews. Those who fail to conform are threatened with violent punishment as apostates. Saudi-trained and -selected clerics serve as enforcers in our mosques and in our prisons and military as recruiters for a rabidly anti-American Wahhabi creed.

    • Since the Saudi-engineered oil price spikes of the 1970s, the Saudis have also spent untold sums (they acknowledge expending some $80 billion in "foreign aid"; the actual total amount is surely far higher) building up a worldwide infrastructure of charities, businesses and front organizations. In the wake of the London bombings, several of these Saudi-backed front organizations have found it necessary to issue fatwas in Britain and the United States that purport to denounce terror.

    More Double Games

    As noted terrorism expert Stephen Emerson has reported ( www.investigativeproject.org/FCNA-CAIR.html), however, some of these groups and individuals associated with them have been prominent supporters of – or, at the very least, apologists for – terrorist organizations. For example, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which organized a press conference to promote the U.S. version of the phony fatwa, has had no fewer than four of its associates convicted of providing financial or other forms of material support to terrorists.

    It is no small irony that the new Saudi ambassador to the United States is a man who exemplifies his country’s double game on terrorism: Prince Turki al-Faisal. For roughly twenty-five years, Turki was in charge of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence operations. In that capacity, he was intimately familiar both with his country’s efforts to promote Wahhabism (including supporting bin Laden’s operations in Afghanistan) and its counterterrorism cooperation with the United States.

    The Bottom Line

    King Fahd’s death, the mounting evidence of the danger posed by ongoing Saudi support for terror and the assignment to Washington of one of the kingdom’s most experienced double-gamers should require Saudi Arabia finally to do what President Bush demanded nearly four years ago: The Saudis can no longer be with us and against us. They must be made to choose.