A case of rotten apples

By Steve Farrell
web posted October 30, 2000

Shakespeare informs us: "there's small choice in rotten apples."

If you are one of those American's who, like this American, believes that America's business is to mind her own business, and to mind it well - no doubt during this season's presidential debates you've felt nature's compelling nudge to . . . hold your nose.

Sorry to say, behind the sweet - but separate - trappings of both media selected "top" candidates, lurks one bottom of the barrel, rancid approach to foreign policy. To be sure, both men, out of their own mouth, reflect a passionate belief that their job title should be something more akin to Holy World Emperor than mere President of the United States.

In debate number two, Vice President Al Gore led the two's "Empire or Bust!" charge by openly calling for a "new . . . nation building . . . Marshall Plan." Wherein the old Marshall Plan focused on rebuilding the nations of post W.W.II Europe, Gore said his new plan would not "shy away from going in anywhere."

This boundless ambition of Gore's should not be permitted to pass unnoticed. First, because it smacks of Empire. Second because nation building under the Marshall Plan was not just "economic and military" as claimed by Gore, but highly political. Third because nations were not built, but A nation was built, the left leaning European Union.

Cut away the hype which surrounded the Marshall Plan and its partner NATO and you get this: A plan which used the excuse of "rescuing" Europe from economic turmoil and military vulnerability (from the Soviets) following a crippling war, not to help each European nation to once again stand up on its own as a strong, free, and independent nation, but to bring all of Europe into a state of interdependence, with three successive goals in mind: first, European Union; second, transatlantic union; and third world union. The timeline for goal one was fifty years, and fifty years later, it's a done deal.

Now Gore's "new Marshall plan" hopes to spread the stinking carnage. Voter beware.

But shouldn't the voter beware of Bush too? Is his view of an American Empire any less expansive, or any less dangerous than Gore's?

According to the Partisan Republican Pundits you would think so. They're the ones who play over and over again that rehearsed sound bite from Governor Bush: "We can't be all things to all people."

Great quote. The problem is it was delivered as part of a package. It was the second half of a sentence. The first half reads: "Yes, we do have an obligation in the world . . ."

That's George W. Bush's central problem; this quote, like every quote coming out of his mouth, is double edged. Face it, here's a guy who is the spitting image of being "all things to all people." That's what compassionate conservatism is all about - an unsettling smorgasbord of political beliefs.

For example: Bush opposed Gore's proposal to use of our military as social workers because said he, "[it] destroys morale;" but when asked point blank if he supported our mission in Somalia, he answered, "Yes, [because] Somalia started off as a humanitarian mission."

Bush opposed "[putting] our troops all around the world," but then said, "I think our troops should be used to overthrow a dictator [anytime] its in our ‘best' interest . . ." That is, if it's on our "priority list." Bush's "list" includes: "the Middle East . . . Europe . . . the Far East, and our own hemisphere."

That's a pretty big list. There's not much left, but then Bush has a plan for those "left behind." We must "build coalitions," and come in and train the locals "to prevent atrocity" like we did in East Timor, and as we ought to do in Africa.

Further, he wants the US to develop an anti-ballistic missile system; and why? "To share with our allies in the Middle East, if need be, to keep the peace; to be able to say to the Saddam Husseins of the world or the Iranians, 'Don't dare threaten our friends.'" As if pro-Soviet, dictatorial Kuwait was and is our friend.

If this isn't sending our troops everywhere in the world, what world is Bush referring to?

And while Mr. Bush supposedly doesn't want our troops to be social workers either - except in Somalia, or in Bosnia, where he says of the latter, it's too late to pull out - he does want NATO to step in and do the social work. Except that we are, as Bush admits, "an important part of NATO."

Not to worry. Beyond using NATO commitments as an excuse for US involvement in international welfare aid, he has plenty of other back door ways to sneak in social workers everywhere. The US taxpayer backed IMF will be part of that plan. Here the double talk continues:

"I think the IMF has got a role in the world, but I don't want to see the IMF out there as a way to say to world bankers, "If you make a bad loan, we'll bail you out."

Then he counters: "[The IMF] needs to be available for emergency situations. I thought the president did the right thing with Mexico."

Of Russia, Bush condemned the fact that foreign aid got into the hands of a few corrupt people - a subtle attack on Clinton/Gore - but then provided the out: "if we're convinced that a . . . country that's got a lot of debt would reform itself, that the money wouldn't go into the hands of a few, but would go to help people, then I think it makes sense for us to use our wealth in that way."

That's why, a bellicose Red China, for instance, deserves the advantages of US taxpayer subsidized loans and other privileges offered to non-market economy countries who "promise" reform, according to Bush.

This mixture of conservative sounding rhetoric with new world order ambition fits right in with Governor Bush's pre-election mandate to our Republican Congress "not to tie his hands," or as he put it in this debate, not to "hamstring his administration" by establishing a set date for the withdrawal of troops from Serbia, as if to say to Congress, "Read my lips, I am emperor! Don't wave that Constitution at me!"

Strip George W. Bush of his double talk, and insist Republican pundits stop blowing our way only the sweet perfumes coming out of the right side of Bush's mouth, and it is clear that Bush has just as much of the bad stench of emperor in his breath as does Gore. Where then is the choice? There is none, not among the "electables" anyway.

Pat Buchanan, on the other hand, one of those "unelectables" asks:

"Can you imagine what the founding fathers would have said if they'd seen these people talking about setting up a global government?" he exclaimed. "Lock and load!"

Buchanan is right. The founding fathers believed manhood had its duties. But the year 2000's version of manhood is something quite less. It goes like this: Hold your nose, lock arms with the party pundits and lackeys, and whisper under your breath, over and over, that sacred hymn of John Lennon's, "Imagine," until the vision of the coming Utopia blocks out the lingering memory in your nostrils.

Notes

All of the quotes in this column, with the exception of Mr. Buchanan's, can be found in the full text version of debate two here.

Steve Farrell is a freelance writer, a graduate of the University of New York, and a constitutional law student at George Wythe College. His column appears every Tuesday and Thursday in NewsMax.com. Missed a column? Visit Steve's archives at http://www.newsmax.com/columnists/Farrell.shtml.

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