The U.S. Isn't Humble; TV Gestapo; A Symposium Chez Buckley; An Osama bin Laden-Ectomy

Melik Kaylan The Spy

Bin Laden

Time to perform the seasonal Osama bin Laden-ectomy and remove the accretion of nonsense in our collective conscience relating to the bearded bogeyman. No doubt you've all been snorting up the delicious scarefest that the Times and others have peddled as background to the current terrorist trial in New York. The salient function of such Pulitzer-bound Hoch Journalismus is the scary pleasure accorded to readers: we like to ooh and aah with our morning coffee and thank the gods for our comfy consumer universe.

But do we now know anything more than we did before? Why, we might ask, is this hirsute Rajneesh of terror still running around, and where is he exactly, and why is it all so "shadowy" still? The first point should be shouted from the rooftops: Bill Clinton had no intention of apprehending bin Laden. This is one of those stories that grows clearer the farther you get from the U.S., chiefly because foreign news organs tell more truths about our activities abroad than ours do. The Islamic world in general, and the Pakistan/ Afghanistan area in particular, simply effervesces with relevant information. Such information seldom makes it back here.

Last year I visited the Pak/Afghan region on a few occasions. I spoke a number of times to senior personnel on the scene. They wondered why the U.S. seemed so ambivalent on the bin Laden matter. The Taliban had asked for proof of bin Laden's activities. The U.S. reply puzzled them: "We've given the evidence to the Pakistanis. Much of it in the form of a videotape. Get it from them." What the Paks gave them, claimed the Taliban, showed proof of nothing. Either the Paks were holding back or the U.S. was obscuring the process and prevaricating.

Next came the revelation, from other sources, that American agents were working with the Taliban up to Clinton's missile strike against the purported Afghan bin Laden camps. Turned out they were neither his camps nor was he near them. Most locals knew that, and Clinton too, surely. He merely killed Pak-trainee cadres aiming to invade Kashmir. The Paks felt utterly betrayed. From various indicators I now believe the U.S. had colluded with the invasion. Reason? To preside over the eventual India-Pakistan peace talks and dictate nuclear disarmament to both. Clinton's "Monica missiles" scuttled the plan. The trainees invaded anyway, but withdrew soon after. Whatever Clinton's aims, getting bin Laden wasn't one of them.

Meantime, we know from several reports in the public domain (even from the current trial) that Clinton and State received info on bad security at the U.S. embassies in Africa. Said embassies, in due course, were terror-bombed. Intelligence had told them that such embassies were being targeted fully two years before the event. In response to the embassy bombings, Clinton launched cruise missiles against Sudan and Afghanistan, chiefly for harboring bin Laden. So, why did he do nothing until the bombings occurred?for two whole years?

Anyone who bothered to read the brick-sized first indictment against bin Laden, as I did, would be mystified. There's almost no hard evidence in it, to the extent that one wonders why it was made public. What we have here is a picture gradually coming into focus of a president determined to do nothing effective against bin Laden himself.

Why not apprehend bin Laden if one could? Well, the first answer should be obvious. Think of the security risk both to this country and to any other that handed him over. Think of the domestic repercussions of a retaliatory bombing against U.S. interests while we had him in custody. Not the sort of foreign affairs complication that Bill Clinton in particular would invite voluntarily.

Now, what about the positive benefits of a bin Laden at large attacking American "assets"? First, the benefits to Clinton personally: opportunities to act presidential by launching missiles, akin to the bombings of Iraq; to divert attention from domestic woes, as in Monica; to counteract the draft-dodger image generally. Next, policy benefits accruing from periodic bin Laden outrages that underline the dangers of extreme Islamism. Very useful to friendly countries fighting the fundamentalist scourge publicly, such as Egypt, Israel, Turkey, India and Russia.

Everywhere that bin Laden and his followers have popped up, their side has taken a beating, with bin Laden as the excuse. The Russians, for example, have retained their Chechen and Central Asian Muslim colonies by invoking the fundamentalist bogey. Read Paul Klebnikov's book on top Russian oligarch and Kremlin corrupter Boris Berezovsky. It outlines clearly how Berezovsky, operating for the Kremlin, constantly made deals with Chechen warlords over kidnap payments and other rackets. The then president of Chechnya complained incessantly that the Kremlin was deliberately encouraging lawlessness in his country. He warned that the Chechen jihad warlords were serving Russian interests. Their outrages fortified Russian public opinion and created the pretext for the second genocidal war against Chechnya.

Bin Laden has proved very useful to the Russians. They were ingenious enough to understand his cost-benefit value: a few lost lives against major policy gains. Would Bill Clinton be that calculating, and cynical? Naah...silly notion.

Taki Le Maitre

A Symposium

William Buckley is known the world over for his erudition, intelligence, literary talent, and his impeccable manners. He is also innovative. His latest achievement, after 45 books, countless tv appearances, hundreds of thousands of columns and thousands of speeches aside, has been to turn Gstaad dinner parties into literary symposiums by a very simple trick: he tinkles his glass, politely asks for silence, then asks a question to a particular guest. Everyone is invited to follow up, as long as it's one at a time. The community discussion system works like a dream. Whereas Gstaad dinner parties used to be dominated by such lofty subjects as chalet prices, snow conditions and which celebrity had been refused membership to the Eagle club, they now resemble Athenian drawing rooms circa 450 BC.

Last week was no exception. After the first course, Bill tinkled his glass, we all fell silent, and the great man asked Prince Romanov?who would be czar if Russia had not gone bad in 1917?what he thought of the Ariel Sharon election. I cannot repeat what the various guests had to say, as it was a private dinner party, but will confirm that although decorum prevailed, the only thing we agreed on was that it was time to go home some two hours later. Alas, what you will get, dear readers, are the Taki opinions, known to influence the great and the good the world over.

Sharon is a hate-figure throughout the Arab world, a man with a special place in Arab demonology for his role in the Sabra and Shatilla massacre in Lebanon nearly 20 years ago. One of the guests suggested that just as Nixon, a Cold Warrior par excellence, was the only politician who could go to Moscow and Beijing and not be accused of betraying America, so was Sharon the only Israeli who could bring peace with the Palestinians. It's a good argument, hardly original, but full of holes. Sharon is a Sabra who firmly believes the return of 3.7 million uprooted Palestinian refugees will signal the end of Israel. The fact that the right of return does not necessarily mean that 3.7 million would return to Israel is immaterial to him. As is the fact that if their right of return was recognized by the Israelis, the greatest hurdle to peace would disappear overnight. Yet for their part, the Palestinians have already accepted a limitation on the absolute right of return through their acceptance of Israel's existence.

It's all hogwash to Sharon. But let's go on to Arafat. He reminds me of a man who had broken the bank in Monte Carlo, insisted on playing on, lost it all, and was now begging for credit from the bank he owned three hours earlier. No one will ever offer him better terms than Barak did, but Arafat played hard to get, or got too greedy. On the surface, that is. Arafat's plan could be more Machiavellian than we give him credit for. It is very simple, in fact: provoke Sharon into military overkill. Given Sharon's reputation, it ought to be quite easy. Once the Israelis impose a ruthless crackdown, reluctant Arab leaders will have to begin supporting the Palestinian cause actively, rather than passively. This will eventually force Sharon to return to the bargaining table with a weaker hand than Barak had.

Will Sharon fall for it? Dunno, but I doubt it. Sharon is more of a politician than he's given credit for. The reason he visited Jerusalem's Temple Mount, the Holy Enclosure for Muslims, was to wreck Barak's peace plan. However cynical it sounds, it certainly worked, with some 400 mostly young Palestinians dead, six months later. Sharon knows that Arafat's only chance is overreaction by the Israelis, and he just might refrain.

But enough of this depressing situation, and back to Bill Buckley's dinner party. For light entertainment's sake, I was asked my thoughts on the Marc Rich pardon in particular, and the unedifying saga of the Clinton presidency in general. Boy, did I have fun with that one. "Squalid" was the operative word that came up time and again. Let's face it. Bill Clinton has given the word "pardon" a very bad name. Although it won't happen, Clinton should be remembered as the man who pardoned a billionaire crook who, in the words of his lawyer Edward Bennett Williams, "spat on his flag and country to escape justice." There is obviously no limit to Clinton's effrontery. Having disgraced the office by perjuring himself and obstructing justice, he further sullied the presidency by pardoning not only Rich and the Hasidic crooks, but also drug dealers like Carlos Vignali, whose father Horacio became a major contributor to Democratic causes after his son's arrest. How do you like them apples? Ricky Ray Rector, a black murderer whose mental age was half that of Chelsea Clinton's, goes to the electric chair to show the Draft Dodger is tough on crime, but Vignali, whose drugs I'm ready to bet my last drachma caused many more deaths than Ricky Ray, gets pardoned and is as free as a bird as I write.

What a rogues' gallery! Lloyd Reid George, convicted of mail fraud; Richard Pezzopane, an Illinois lawyer who bribed judges; Arnold Paul Prosperi, a lawyer convicted of tax fraud; his own brother Roger, another drug dealer; I could go on and on. But why is anyone surprised? There were 33 convictions of Clinton associates during his squalid presidency alone. The number of congressional witnesses who pleaded the Fifth?Denise Rich aside?and who fled the country or, if they were foreign, refused to show up, was 122.

Some right-wing conspiracy. Clinton would fit right in as a president in an African kleptocracy such as Liberia or Sierra Leone.

But here's one rumor I will lay to rest. It is totally untrue that Clinton will be attending Marc Rich's bash in St.-Moritz this coming weekend. Now that favors have been exchanged (I would guess $50 million is about right) those two crooks can pretend to dislike each other.

Charles Glass The London Desk

License to Chill

ecently I received a letter from the TV Licensing Office in Bristol. Addressed to "The Present Occupier," it said: Dear Sir/Madam Some time ago you informed us that you did not use a television set at the above address. We need to confirm that there is no TV set and therefore an Enquiry Officer will call round in the near future.

If you still don't use a television set, a visit will happen automatically, you don't need to contact us. Once our officer has made their [sic] visit and confirmed that there is no TV set in use at your address we will update our records accordingly.

If you now use a television, please let us know before the officer visits by filling in the form below. Then send this whole letter to us in the envelope provided. Remember, if you use a television set you must have a TV Licence, otherwise you are risking a fine of up to £1,000. [The letter says that a color television licence costs £104 and black-and-white £34.50. It details methods of payment and continues:] If you are registered blind, you will be entitled to a 50% discount on your licence. Please call 0845 603 6999 for more details.

Yours sincerely,

Val Smith

Customer Services

I have been receiving notices from the TV Licensing Office since my return here from Italy a few years ago. My practice has been to write a polite response, pointing out that I do not have a television set. On occasion, I add that I do not want a television set. With the dismal fare on offer from British broadcasters, who would waste the money on the electricity for the thing, let alone the cost of buying one and paying the license fee? Miss or Mrs. Smith's latest letter seems a little more serious than the others, threatening me with a visit from an enquiry officer. I try to imagine some uniformed, otherwise unemployable psychopath coming into my house, searching it thoroughly for signs of a television set, warning me not to try to smuggle one into the place in dead of night and then leaving an official notice to tell the world I'd been warned. Not welcoming that intrusion into my life, I have written to Miss or Mrs. Smith to resist.

Val Smith Customer Services TV Licensing Bristol BS98 1TL

Dear Miss or Mrs. Smith,

Thank you for your form letter of 28 January 2001, which has just arrived.

I have on many previous occasions informed your office that I do not have a television. This letter confirms once again that I neither have nor want to have a television in my house. On the advice of solicitors, it is my understanding that an obligation rests with your office to prove that I do own a television rather than with me to show that I do not. On that basis, I shall not admit anyone from your office into my house. If you obtain a search warrant and show cause that I am violating the law, then I shall again take legal advice.

Thank you very much.

I sent that about two weeks ago and am still awaiting a reply. Perhaps Mrs. Smith is taking legal advice. Perhaps she is enlisting the services of armed security agents whose private companies have been contracted to run third-rate prisons in the UK. Or perhaps she is calling in the police. Maybe she'll take a more conciliatory approach, dropping round herself one evening for a cup of tea and a chat. While I go to the kitchen to boil the water, she could sneak looks under the sofa, behind the china cupboard and under the bathroom sink. Satisfied that there is no television, she might counsel me in the ways of the world. Inspiration might lead her to ask, as people often do, "Why don't you have a television anyway?"

That is not a question for me to answer. I pose another question to those who own television sets, who watch them for hours on end, who spend the money on license fees or cable suppliers, who give their eyes and minds over to the BBC, the commercial companies and their ruthless advertisers: "Why do you have a television?" I'll follow with, "Don't you have friends? Can't you read? Don't you know how to play baseball or tennis? Do you ever go to the theater, the opera, the movies or to dinner with people you love? Can you draw or paint or make love or have a conversation?"

In the U.S., no one charges you a fee to support a state broadcasting corporation. So, no one is likely to break into your house to see whether you have a television plugged in somewhere. But there are still televisions and people watching them across the land. If anything, the question, "Why don't you have a tv?" has an even more aggressive tenor to it in the States than in Britain. Keeping the television out of the house smacks of anti-Americanism, elitism, eggheadedness. It is somehow disloyal and suspect. Dozens of times in New York, when the subject came up, some woman (always a woman, maybe I don't listen to men) asks, "If you work in television, why don't you have one?"

Anyway, Miss or Mrs. Smith, bring on the gestapo. I'm waiting. One other thing, why not give the blind people a 100 percent discount, for God's sake?

Scott McConnell The Conformist

We're Not Humble

Perhaps the phrasing was hatched in a focus group, but it was one of the new President's finest campaign moments. "If we are an arrogant nation," W said in the second debate's foreign policy discussion, "they will resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us." The word "humble" hung in the air, the perfect rejoinder to Madeleine Albright's preening about the U.S. as the world's "indispensable nation" and the Beltway prattle about "benevolent global hegemony" used to justify the bombings and cruise missile strikes and sanctions.

Coupled with his courtship of Colin Powell, whose reluctance to send U.S. troops into battle where no clear American interest was at stake was notorious, and his tie to Condoleezza Rice, who was then suggesting that policing the ethnic boundaries of the Balkans was not something American troops should be doing much longer, Bush's comment seemed to augur a rethinking of American foreign policy. Indeed, there was an entire school of thought behind such formulations, newly emergent since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bush and Powell and Rice seemed to be signaling, in an unpretentious nuts-and-bolts kind of way, that they were aligned with it.

The new school was the product of people who had not been "doves" during the two-generation face-off with Moscow, but interventionist Cold Warriors. But they saw victory over the communist movement as occasion for the U.S. to reassess its global role, to pay greater attention to its domestic problems, to become a normal country again. There was no longer real need to bear any burden, or take any risk, to ensure freedom's survival; indeed, our liberty was more threatened by overextension.

This new current was barely percolating after the Gulf War, but even then there were harbingers. Noteworthy was Robert W. Tucker, an eminent international relations scholar whose articles in Commentary in the mid-1970s urging the U.S. to weigh seizure of the Persian Gulf oil fields had caused a storm. But here in 1991 was Tucker, in the midst of the general triumphalism that followed the smashing of Saddam Hussein's conscripts, suggesting that the disproportion of casualties suffered by the two sides, the imbalance of armaments, the ferocity with which American air power attacked the retreating Iraqi columns raised doubts whether the Gulf War could be called a "just war" according to the West's existing ethical and religious codes.

Tucker's dissent appeared in The National Interest, a quarterly published under neoconservative (i.e., hawkish) auspices and edited by a Welshman, Owen Harries. The publication soon was giving voice to calls for a more restrained, less arrogant foreign policy from conservative authors. It published pieces opposing the expansion of NATO to Russia's frontier; its editor dissented from Clinton's Serbia bombing; authors like James Schlesinger pointed out that other nations did not relish lectures on their failings from U.S. officials. Some argued that a coarsening of American culture at home, a rampant materialism and self-hating multiculturalism, provided a shaky foundation from which to promote a global imperium.

By no means were all conservatives won over to the new approach. The influential Weekly Standard supported every Clinton bombing, every cruise missile strike, every opportunity for the U.S. to promote Bay of Pigs-style insurgencies to topple troubling dictators. But the calls for new restraint did find echoes in the Republican Congress.

The New Republic, well-tuned to Beltway currents (and, in its foreign policy views, similar to The Weekly Standard), pointed out the seeming irony before the election: Gore and his Democrats, it said, had become more "hawkish" than Bush. They endorsed him.

But the real irony occurred when Bush won and it came time to staff the foreign affairs bureaucracy. Then it emerged that while W might wish for a more "humble" foreign policy, the real decisions were made elsewhere. A key indicator was the emergence of Paul Wolfowitz as the prime force under Don Rumsfeld in the Pentagon. Wolfowitz, who had served Bush's dad, in 1992 authored a 46-page memo calling for extending American security guarantees right up to Moscow's border, and sketched a war plan should Russian troops reenter Lithuania. The point was a forward strategy to prevent any other country from becoming a rival to the United States anywhere in the world.

By contrast, Condoleezza Rice, so photogenic during the campaign, is reportedly without much influence. Richard Cheney (at his desk during the late-morning gunman scare two weeks ago while W worked out in the gym) seems to have chosen Weekly Standard-type hawks rather than National Interest-type moderates for key positions. And Colin Powell has shown little taste for bureaucratic infighting. Humble is not the direction in which American foreign policy appears to be going; indeed, the ritual "inaugural" bombing of Iraq shows Bush's new policies can be as senseless as Clinton's old ones.

Seeing the administration officials barely hiding their exasperation?"Gee, we've apologized to the Japanese every way we know how"?after the U.S. submarine sank the Japanese fishing trawler only confirms this. In Japan, a prime minister might apologize individually to bereaved families under the circumstances, and a corporate chief whose company erred might press his forehead to the floor to show remorse. But being the world's only superpower means never having to really say you're sorry, until, of course, you've created so many enemies that sorrow is unavoidable.