Posted on 11/13/2002 10:41:55 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
President George W. Bush´s leadership in the War on Terror, amazingly has led to a unanimously passed United Nations Security Council resolution that seems to be creating a massive realignment both in the UN and in the media. That resolution states that United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency "shall have the right at their sole discretion verifiably to remove, destroy, or render harmless all prohibited weapons, subsystems, components, records, materials, and other related items, and the right to impound or close any facilities or equipment for the production thereof" in Iraq.
Most Arab nation leaders are urging Saddam Hussein to agree to the requirements of the resolution, showing, for the first time, that the courage of George W. Bush is rubbing off on other world leaders.
Yet, some in America seem terrified of the thought that the United States has a courageous leader who can unify the squabbling members of the UN Security Council. On the other hand, people in other nations are beginning to see the benefits of Bush´s world leadership for their own country.
For example, on November 4th, CNN reported "Six suspected al Qaeda members -- including an al Qaeda chief wanted in the bombing of the USS Cole" -- were killed in the remote desert Marib area of northwest Yemen when a CIA drone launched a ‘Hellfire´ missile and struck the car they were traveling in. One of the dead was Abu Ali, also known as Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, a former Osama bin Laden security guard who planned the October 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 sailors.
The day after the election, 82-year-old Maureen Dowd, an out-of-touch left wing Washington journalist who hasn´t had a new idea in a half century, made a blistering attack on President Bush. Her first thought on waking up each day, she said, is: "Who do I hate today?" Her short list of answers one reporter observed, "seems not to vary from war, President Bush, timid office-holders, a muffled press and cowed citizens, pretty much in that order." Chances are, if you voted last Tuesday for a Republican, you are on Maureen´s hate list.
"I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war, Bush's policy of pre-emptive war is immoral," she said to enthusiastic applause. "Such a policy would legitimize Pearl Harbor. It's as if they learned none of the lessons from Vietnam."
Actually, of course, it is Maureen Dowd and her enthusiastic audience, who failed to learn the lesson of Pearl Harbor that was: When one´s nation is bombed, war is an appropriate response if one wishes to remain a free nation.
On the other hand, the Yemen Times talked to a number of Yemeni sheiks about the U.S. missile that surgically removed a car full of terrorists. Some of them understood the issue quite well. For example, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah Saleh al-Qarda'ee, a prominent sheik in the Marib government, said "The US has its ultimate goals to track their enemies. There is only one enemy. Qaed Salem Senyan al-Harethi, (was) a prime suspect of destroying the USS Cole destroyer in Aden. During two years the Yemeni authorities have been incapable of arresting him. The US has the right to kill their enemies wherever they are and the US has the right to defend itself."
The September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon killed more people than were killed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. And, while it was the first terrorist attack that took place in the Bush administration; it was not the first terrorist attack on America. During the Clinton administration, the first terrorist attack took place a few weeks after his inauguration, in February 1993 when al Qaeda terrorists detonated a bomb in a van in the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center, killing six people and wounding 1,042.
That attack got basically no response from the Clinton Administration. It was followed by:
Nov. 13, 1995: A car bomb in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killing seven people, five of them American military and civilian advisers for National Guard training.
June 25, 1996: A bomb aboard a fuel truck explodes outside a U.S. air force installation in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. 19 U.S. military personnel are killed in the Khubar Towers housing facility, and 515 are wounded, including 240 Americans.
June 21, 1998: Rocket-propelled grenades exploded near the U.S. embassy in Beirut.
Aug. 7, 1998: Terrorist bombs destroyed the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In Nairobi, 12 Americans are among the 291 killed, and over 5,000 are wounded, including 6 Americans. In Dar es Salaam, one U.S. citizen is wounded among the 10 killed and 77 injured.
The Clinton Administration response was to bomb the El Shifa pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan and fire off a few cruise missiles at Khost, Afghanistan. El Shifa manufactured about 70% of the medicines used in the Sudan. The people who were punished were not the terrorists, but were the people who died for lack of the drugs manufactured there. Apparently, the missiles aimed at Afghanistan killed no one. There was no follow-up.
On Oct. 12, 2000, a terrorist bomb damaged the destroyer USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39. Yemen captured some of the terrorists, but the Clinton Administration mostly did nothing, except suggest to ground forces that they step up their security measures.
While I don´t remember Maureen Dowd EVER criticizing Bill Clinton for bombing the Sudan pharmaceutical factory that only killed innocent civilians, she is apparently really bent out of shape about President George W. Bush authorizing the missile attack that killed those actually guilty of killing American sailors on the USS Cole.
Sheik al-Qarda´ee correctly observed that the al-Qaeda operatives in the car had ALREADY attacked the United States when they bombed the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. THAT, and the September 11th 2001 bombing of the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, were the 21st century equivalent of Pearl Harbor. Maureen Dowd and her enthusiastic audience of Americans, on the other hand, are the equivalent of the World War II Nazi sympathizers after war had been declared.
Things really are changing when Yemeni Sheiks understand America´s rights and responsibilities better than many Americans seem to.
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