IMO - Clinton's "peacemaking" needs to be expanded to 'multidimensional peacebuilding' - a consideration of global issues such as climate; infectious disease and harm reduction in the peace process. Watch to see is this happens which I actually doubt at the upcoming summit in Egypt but keep trying to convey. Compared to the military industry - the peacebuilding industry is anemic. All these local wars since World War are failures of a poorly conceived peace process and can be traced to NWO. Is S. Daniel Abraham a Bilderberg wannabe? Can 'multidimensional peacebuilding' become secret Bilderberg agenda? Could this be an improvement, in the long run, to the current peace process? This article is slanted against Clinton but it didn't ask about any future - typical of criticism without constructive solutions but still ---
Subject: Clinton's Mideast Mistakes
From: "Dana" <raff1@home.com>
Date: 2000/10/13
Message-ID: <zdHF5.50346$1_.8536394@news1.rdc1.az.home.com>
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
[More Headers]
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=65000415
Clinton's Mideast Mistakes
Chaos in the Mideast is the fruit of his recklessness.
Friday, October 13, 2000 12:01 a.m. EDT
Yesterday morning Americans woke up to the news that the high-tech destroyer
Cole had been crippled, with some 50 casualties, by an explosive-laden
rubber dinghy during a stop for refueling in Aden, Yemen. At least five U.S.
sailors are dead, and dozens injured. Accompanying that was the word that
two Israeli soldiers had been seized at a police station in Ramallah and
killed by a mob. After taking a wrong turn, two soldiers were taken into
custody by Palestinian "police." The building where they were being held was
then promptly overrun by a murderous horde who beat and stabbed the two to
death. Their bodies were then thrown into the street, and further mutilated
amid cries of celebration.
President Clinton appeared in the White House Rose Garden briefly in the
afternoon to decry all this. He seemed shaken by this further disintegration
of his "peace process" in which so much of his, and this nation's, political
capital has been invested. Meanwhile, the Dow plummeted to near 10,000
yesterday as oil hit a 10-year high of $35 a barrel amid fears for the
Mideast.
This must all be glum news to Al Gore as well. In Wednesday's televised
campaign debate, George W. Bush hewed a bipartisan line on Mideast issues,
praising the Clinton Administration's efforts to calm the current violence
there. Smart as that may be as a campaign tactic, it hardly seems an
accurate reading of the facts.
The Administration no doubt emboldened Arafat's minions last weekend by
abstaining from a United Nations vote condemning Israel's excessive use of
force in handling riots on the West Bank and in Gaza. Administration
officials explained they made the decision so as not to provoke attacks
against U.S. targets in the region. Even now, Mr. Clinton has not
unambiguously demanded that Arafat call off his war.
Apparently hoping the world has lost the moral sense to distinguish between
Israel and Milosevic's Serbia, the Palestinians are repeatedly comparing
themselves to the Kosovars, and demanding the international community
"interfere to save the Palestinian population." It's hard to see any
political upside in this mess for Mr. Gore.
So is this the violence Bill Clinton all but excused when he predicted it
would happen if he didn't get his way at Camp David in July? And if he knew
there was such a risk of this kind of response, why did he abruptly convene
what he portrayed as a last-ditch summit in the first place? Presidents
don't normally participate in summits with no discernible evidence of a
positive outcome.
Because Mr. Clinton is, the world now knows, a man reckless with his office.
In the Middle East, he was reckless enough to gamble that having the
region's only democracy surrender the defensible borders it acquired through
defensive wars against repeated Arab aggression was the path to peace. And
now, if past behavior is any guide, he may be reckless enough to respond to
the destroyer attack by ordering a few cruise missiles lobbed at somebody,
before knowing who's responsible.
He has of course surrounded himself in this endeavor with Mideast doves,
such as Slim-Fast founder S. Daniel Abraham, a mega-contributor to Clinton
and Democratic campaign coffers, who somehow ended up in Israel two weeks
ago arranging a dinner between Messrs. Barak and Arafat. The mind boggles.
Mr. Clinton has built a career deceiving and cajoling comfortable
Westerners, so of course he thinks he can backslap his way to a Nobel Peace
Prize with desperate people in the most volatile parts of the world. Had his
Mideast policy been one of encouraging Israel to hold onto the balance of
power, the Arabs would still have complained. But illusory hopes wouldn't
have been raised, and appetites wouldn't have been whetted by displays of
weakness. Instead, Mr. Clinton's gambles have brought us an unstable Middle
East more awash in anti-American sentiment than ever, as the crew of the
Cole just learned. The Middle East, and Western interests, have suffered a
major setback.
