I could write a term paper on Gore's speech. It's full of illuminating things that liberals pretend not to believe when faced with voters. With a political career in the rearview mirror, Albert Gore Jr. is now free to tell us how the world (or the unelected judiciary) would do a much better job running America.
He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.
Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind." He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.
Gore would be President right now if the Democrats in the Senate had the integrity to remove Clinton from office. By pretending what Clinton did was a-okay, Gore couldn't free himself from the stink of that administration. You can debate the merits of Bush's policy, but his policy was for the defense of his country. Clinton’s mistakes were for his own self-indulgence.
If Gore had been paying attention he would have understood that Bush's invasion of Iraq was in respect to 17 United Nations resolutions. That the United Nations likes to pass hollow resolutions with no teeth is not the fault of a President.
Do the opinions of our allies count when it can be shown that they had illegal oil agreements with the country in question?
What in the world does he mean by the “role of Congress and the courts”? Congress voted for the war. The courts continue to legislate from the bench. What changed?
The Jefferson quote is beyond me. People in this country have supported the war from the beginning. It’s scary to think that a guy who was this close to being President would defend his country only if other nations are okay with the idea.
To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.
1. Containment was a disaster as foreign policy. Do you build a wall around the fire ant nest or do you give them Amdro to feed the queen? Containment allowed nation after nation to fall to communism. Millions died the same kinds of deaths that were witnessed in Nazi Germany. Vietnam was the ultimate failed example of containment.
2. International Law is not world opinion. The United States was already in a state of war with Iraq because they broke the cease fire agreement signed in 1991. Just because the Clinton/Gore administration chose to ignore Saddam didn’t mean that the cease-fire agreement was null and void.
The United Nations is a great thing for dictators running slave states, but I don’t know how America benefits. And that’s just it. A guy who was one liberal judge away from being President should ask himself if he is an American or a citizen of the world. The United States is the protector of freedom. Any freedom that exists in the world has a friend in the United States.
To take the oath of office to become President a person must pledge to uphold the laws of the land. Too many Democrats want to uphold the laws of other lands. They’re jealous that much of the world has been moving toward a form of central planning that their college professors told them was the most “efficient” way to serve mankind. Since they cannot convince the people in their own country to sacrifice freedom for central planning, they’ll make arguments to tie our hands to international agreements that have nothing to do with our Constitution.
The prison abuse in Iraq didn’t happen because of Rumsfeld or some other bureaucrat. It went on because human beings can’t always be trusted to have power over other human beings. That should be remembered when we decide to give up our freedom to another un-elected government official who promises to “help.” It should also be remembered when the media or an ex-Vice President pretends some country is a sovereign nation when they don’t have a constitution protecting the rights of their citizens. The boot isn't sovereignty unless we allow it to be.
Let's not forget that there would be no international law if the United States wasn't always stepping in and saving the Europeans from themselves. When the United States has a problem it has to be Marshall Will Kane saving the town from Frank Miller all by itself. "Miller was no threat" can be heard all around the world. But the town council (911 commission) will convene the moment another Frank Miller does harm. "Why wasn't this Frank Miller stopped?"
Gore isn't some Michael Moore character trying to sell books or a movie. He doesn't have the personality or humor for that. Gore is an example of a Democrat who doesn't have to temper his views in order to get elected. The Gore approach isn't designed to make us safer as a nation, but to acclimatize us to the bathwater of Internationalism.
France proved that a dictator only has to court one key ally to discredit a United States action to protect itself. Why are French special interests treated as world opinion when American interests are treated as unilateral?
Is John Kerry sending out all the crackpots to shore up for far-left vote against Nader? Or do Democrats want to make us some appendage of Western Europe?
This is becoming a really key question in this election and the media doesn’t want to address it.