january 31, 2006

No Surprise Here: Bill Clinton Encourages Dialogue with Hamas

During his eight years in office, former President Bill Clinton did next to nothing to protect America from the gathering threat posed by radical Islam. Need proof? 1) From 1992-2000, Clinton enacted massive cuts in America’s defense budget which the U.S. military has yet to recover from. 2) In 1993, Clinton chose to cut and run rather than stay and finish the job after 18 U.S. serviceman were killed in Somalia by Al-Qaeda linked rebels during the Battle of Mogadishu (as seen in the film Black Hawk Down). 3) The 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassy buildings in Kenya and Tanzania—which were carried out by Al-Qaeda—killed over 200 people and wounded more than 4,000. Clinton’s response? Fire a few cruise missiles into purported terrorist training camps in Sudan and Afghanistan, and then move on. 4) The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia—a joint Iran/Hezbollah/Al Qaeda job which killed 19 U.S. servicemen—was greeted with little more than lip service and threats of legal action by the Clinton administration. 5) The Al-Qaeda bombing of the U.S.S. Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000—which killed 17 U.S.sailors and wounded 39 others--was met with another heaping dose of Clinton inaction. 6) It’s been well-documented that Clinton bypassed several opportunities to kill Osama bin Laden, years before 9/11. 7) It should also be mentioned that Clinton presided over the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, an event which should have alerted him quite early on in his presidency as to the looming threat posed by radical Islam.

But for Clinton, battling terrorism was a law enforcement issue similar to the War on Drugs. During his presidency, he never did quite catch on to the massive ramifications of the global jihad for U.S. security--and from the sounds of things, he still hasn’t.  Over the weekend, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Clinton encouraged the Bush administration to open a dialogue with Hamas in the wake of the terror group’s sweeping victory in last week’s Palestinian parliamentary elections. To their credit, President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have already ruled out such contacts. Perhaps Clinton is giving us a sneak peek at his wife’s Middle East policy should she seek the presidency in 2008 (as is widely expected). Here’s more, from Newsmax.com:

"You've got to find a way to at least open doors," Clinton told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Saturday. "And I don't see how we can do it without more contact."

In quotes picked up by the Associated Press, Clinton said Hamas might "acquire a greater sense of responsibility, and as they do we have to be willing to act on that."

He then complained: "One of the politically correct things in American politics ... is we just don't talk to some people that we don't like, particularly if they ever killed anybody in a way that we hate."

An interesting observation by Bubba. Most Americans “hate” the way Al-Qaeda killed 3,000 of their countrymen on Sept. 11, 2001. But I suppose we should open a dialogue with Osama bin Laden? Clinton went on to say there was a good chance that Hamas "may wind up like the IRA and Sinn Fein." He also argued that Palestinians who voted for Hamas weren't necessarily endorsing the terror group's aims: “For every one person who said they voted for Hamas because they wanted to see Israel destroyed, there were one hundred who said they just wanted a change and better life,” he insisted.

I would argue that it is just the opposite: that the appeal of Hamas to the Palestinian masses was precisely the group’s vow to wipe Israel off the map. As conservative pundit David Horowtiz observed recently:

“The Palestinians are the first people in the history of humanity to embrace terror and genocide as a way of life. Palestinian schools train kindergarteners and first graders to aspire to murder innocent Jews by blowing themselves up alongside them, and then tell them that if they're lucky enough to be males, they will go to heaven and have 72 virgins attend their every whim. Palestinian parents murder their own children by telling them to murder Jewish children so that Allah can reward them.”

The Hamas victory merely validated Horowitz’s argument. But whether it's Hamas or Al-Qaeda, Bill Clinton remains unable to acknowledge the aggressive, uncompromising culture of death that is radical Islam.  

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