[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 140 (Friday, September 30, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 30, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
              COMMENTING ON THE PRESIDENT'S FOREIGN POLICY

  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise today to again comment on the 
President's foreign policy, or lack thereof.
  I am astonished by the indifference of the President's foreign policy 
and national security team to the unfolding events in Haiti. It is 
truly incredible that the administration could allow former President 
Carter to travel to Haiti and hijack our Nation's foreign policy and 
substitute it with his own, ``peace at any price'' policy.''
  Mr. President, I will say no more than if the story is true that 
while former President Carter was in Haiti negotiating, Secretary of 
State Christopher and Deputy Secretary of State Talbott attended A 
Saturday matinee showing of the movie ``Quiz Show,'' on the day before 
the President was planning to authorize an invasion of Haiti, then what 
use are they? Logic would dictate that they should be in the White 
House participating in the planning. Obviously, they were not needed.
  This Nation's foreign policy is in a sad state of affairs. Let us 
hope that our adversaries do not try to take advantage of this fact.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of an article by 
Joe Klein, appearing in the October 3, 1994, issue of Newsweek, be 
printed in the Record, following my remarks.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

  Empathy for the Devil: The Republican Fantasy of Democratic Foreign 
                           Policy Comes True

       It is said that Colin Powell closed the Haiti deal in a 
     conversation with the president late that remarkable Sunday 
     afternoon. Bill Clinton was in the throes of one of his 
     famous, exuberant agonies: should he approve the agreement 
     negotiated by Jimmy Carter or not? Powell induced action by 
     talking to the president as he had been trained to do by 
     Republicans--and in a manner foreign to Democrats: he talked 
     about power, not principle. By the end of this week, he said, 
     you could have 15,000 troops on this island without a shot 
     fired in anger. You can use this power to impose any result 
     you want.
       Gulp. It is not an easy thing for a Democrat to contemplate 
     the use of power; postponing it until next week is always 
     better. But, to Bill Clinton's credit, he did the right 
     thing. It's even vaguely possible, if the president proceeds 
     steadfastly, that his bizarre Caribbean adventure will not 
     prove cataclysmic. The Haitian army may be disarmed and the 
     police restrained. The junta may resign. Aristide may return 
     (he may even be a reasonable democrat). The extremists on 
     both sides may choose not to shoot, beat and necklace each 
     other. American troops may escape the crossfire; they may 
     leave before the millennium. But don't bet the farm.
       Even if it does work, Bill Clinton has done massive, 
     perhaps irreparable, damage to his presidency, to his party--
     and, worse, to America's status in the world. His jittery 
     performance seems a vindication of the perennial Republican 
     canard about how Democrats act in office: they either launch 
     the country frivolously into war or act cravenly, undermining 
     American power. It's always Vietnam or Munich, quagmire or 
     capitulation. Indeed, Clinton has proved the accusation 
     insufficiently creative: he has combined the two, 
     capitulating into a quagmire. And he has done this with an 
     all-star cast--a timid secretary of state; an invisible, 
     moralizing national-security adviser; an ignored, 
     technocratic secretary of defense . . . and, to top it off, 
     Jimmy Carter, Prince of Peace. The stray details of the 
     operation are a profound American embarrassment: the helpless 
     secretary of state and his deputy, Strobe Talbott, going off 
     to see the movie ``Quiz Show'' on Saturday afternoon, as 
     Carter negotiated in Haiti; Carter, telling the Haitians he 
     was ``ashamed'' of this country's policy, Carter, ignoring 
     the demand that Cedras leave the country because it would be 
     a violation of the dictator's human rights. Who could invent 
     such stuff?
       ``None of this would be happening,'' a Republican quipped, 
     ``if Warren Christopher were still alive.'' Which is only 
     partly true. Christopher did detach himself from Haiti 
     policy--in silent protest, apparently--from the very start; 
     and he did, reportedly, oppose the Carter mission. But he is, 
     even when not inert, a Democrat--and prone to the party's 
     peculiar proclivities. ``Republicans make many of the same 
     mistakes, but they manage to hide it better,'' said Leslie H. 
     Gelb, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. ``They 
     couch it better. Democrats talk about principle; Republicans, 
     about hardheaded national interests. Democrats want to work 
     things out with their adversaries; Republicans reduce 
     everything to raw considerations of power.''
       It is true, Republicans screw up, too. Nixon compounded the 
     ignominy in Vietnam. Reagan put marines into Beirut on an 
     ill-conceived mission that ended disastrously. But Reagan 
     also understood--as most Democrats never did--that raw power, 
     as symbolized by the introduction of Pershing missiles in 
     Europe (and the threat of Star Wars, for that matter), might 
     push the Russians past the breaking point in the cold war. 
     The Republican foreign-policy grammar is simply more 
     plausible than the Democrats': the protection of national 
     interests seems a lot more solid than the promulgation of 
     national principles, however worthy.
       Moreover, there is a fatal, effete high-mindedness in the 
     Democrats' method. It is a two-step prescription for 
     paralysis, perfected by Jimmy Carter. First, a principle is 
     formulated: America should act to expand democracy, to stand 
     up for human rights, to root out thugs. But step two, the 
     all-purpose application of empathy, inevitably negates step 
     one: we must try to understand evil rather than condemn it. 
     There are root causes. Society produces a Cedras (just as it 
     produces our own street thugs). Redemption is always 
     possible. Thugs can evolve. Raoul, is there something you 
     want to share with us? In this case, Carter's ladling of 
     empathy served to create an embarrassing step three: a 
     questioning of Bill Clinton's initial motives. If Cedras were 
     ``honorable'' enough--Powell's word--to adhere to this 
     agreement, maybe Clinton was motivated by domestic politics 
     to overstate the case against the thugs.
       One wonders about Clinton. ``There is no instinct for 
     power,'' says a disgusted administration official. ``Policy 
     discussions are conducted on a level of abstraction entirely 
     disconnected from real experience. There is an operational 
     incompetence that is profound and intractable. Nor do many of 
     these people [in the inner circle] have practical political 
     experience. None of them has ever run for sheriff.'' It gets 
     worse. On the day after Jimmy Carter publicly denigrated the 
     Clinton Haiti policy--and after Carter, remarkably, boasted 
     to The New York Times that he lobbied foreign leaders to 
     oppose the United States position on the gulf war--the State 
     Department smiled on the peanut farmer's pending efforts to 
     solve . . . Korea. ``He is a unique asset,'' said Assistant 
     Secretary Robert Gallucci. The mind reels.

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