Posted by Dan Ewert : 1/31/2003 03:19:00 PM (Archive Link)
I read this on Fox News the other day. More reasons to dislike Bill Clinton. The man gave a speech to a group of health care advocates, but he took the opportunity to cover a range of topics and, of course, to polish his presidential record and legacy.

Among the topics he hit on was Iraq in which he stated, “If there is going to be a military conflict, the rest of the world and most Americans need to feel that the inspections were undertaken in good faith and that they have shown us something -- this process has shown us something -- which justifies the conflict.” I think that if Clinton could have his ultimate wish, it would be that the United States government would dissolve and be ruled by the U.N. Clinton was always a president who wanted to be admired by everybody as opposed to doing what was best for the country. He seemed to lust after the admiration of the international community most of all, which isn’t surprising. In America, there are always plenty of critics because of internal politics and domestic and foreign issues. In international politics, though, it’s easier for a president to suck up to foreign governments since they’re only concerned with America’s foreign policy over which the president has a great deal of control. Now, even though Clinton is long out of office, he still wants their approval.

Here’s what Clinton had to say about North Korea: “I don't want to get into who did what when. What we did was good and if we hadn't done it, they would have 50 nuclear weapons today, and it would be a disaster because they would be under great pressure to sell them since they need money. So we did the right thing, but I think we need to do more now and I think we can do it diplomatically as long as we do it, but we have to be very tough about it and we have to proceed and I am hopeful, I think it can be solved.” This absolutely has to be the most galling aspect of the speech. The goal of the 1994 treaty with North Korea was to halt weapons development. Halt, stop, cease, desist. Since this wasn’t accomplished, that means the treaty was a failure. Clinton is now saying, “They could have 50 by now, but they only have maybe 5, so it worked great!” What he doesn’t mention is that the Framework was supposed to be mean zero. Just one nuclear weapon means that the agreement was ineffective as we now know it was. There was never any reason to believe that North Korea would halt its nuclear weapons program and the former president passed the buck instead of confronting the situation.