Kirkpatrick Was Right *** At the 1984 Republican National Convention, Jeane Kirkpatrick, then the Reagan administration's U.N. delegate, gave a speech on foreign policy that has stuck with me. She blasted the Democratic Party's approach to foreign affairs, repeating the phrase "the blame America first crowd." I hated the speech at the time, but have recently reread it. It has aged better than I have. ...........That same tendency to blame America for the moral shortcomings of others unfortunately permeates the left and the Democratic Party. I wish it were otherwise, but I got the first whiff of it after Sept. 11 when some people reacted to the terrorist attacks here by blaming U.S. policy -- in the Middle East specifically but around the world in general.
..........Had we not supported Israel, had we not backed the corrupt Saudi monarchy, had we not been buddies with Egypt, had we not been somehow complicit in Third World poverty, had we not developed blue jeans and T-shirts and rock music and premarital sex, the World Trade Center might still be standing and the Pentagon untouched. .......Below the surface of this reasoning seethes a perplexing animosity toward the United States -- not the people but the government and the economic system. Possibly it has its roots in the Great Depression, when capitalism seemed kaput and socialism so promising, and the government an adjunct of moneyed interests. At the same time, of course, governments on all levels -- federal, state and local -- were unabashedly racist.
Almost none of that still applies -- although money still talks. Yet the impulse to blame America first lingers, an atavistic reflex that jerks the knees of too many on the left and has cost the Democratic Party plenty over the years. Jeane Kirkpatrick, a former Democrat, put her finger on it 19 years ago. It's about time the Democrats listened to what she had to say.***
Colombia undeterred by failed rescue effort - Asks France to take FARC rebels*** According to public-opinion polls published Thursday, 73 percent of Colombians agree with Uribe's tough stance towards the FARC following the executions, while 44 percent don't support a humanitarian accord under any circumstances. Twenty-eight percent would only do so under the conditions proposed by Uribe, while only 22 percent said an accord must be struck as soon as possible.***
Argentina gets 6th president in 18 months [Full Text] BUENOS AIRES -- Nestor Kirchner took office on Sunday as Argentina's first elected president since the economy unravelled 18 months ago, pledging to protect jobs and industry to overcome the country's worst financial crisis in a century. A centre-left politician from a remote province in Patagonia, Mr Kirchner was sworn in as the country's 52nd president. Addressing a packed congressional chamber, he said he hoped his four-year term would signal a fresh start for the financially depressed country. 'We are leaving the past behind,' he told lawmakers and 12 Latin American leaders including Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. 'Today we have a new opportunity ... and change is the name of the future.'
His inauguration was loudly applauded by Dr Castro, Mr Chavez and Brazil's first elected leftist, Mr Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, all of whom have led an ideological shift to the left in a region where free market economic reforms have failed to curb widespread poverty. Mr Kirchner enters office with the weakest mandate in Argentine history after winning the election by default when former President Carlos Menem dropped out of a runoff race earlier this month. The 53-year-old president garnered 22 per cent of the vote in a late April ballot. Sunday's inauguration was seen as a new beginning for a country struggling to steady itself from five years of recession, a US$141 billion debt default and deep currency devaluation.[End]