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Richard A Clarke’s
Against All Enemies:
Inside America’s War on Terrorism
Some Thoughts

By Connie Corcoran Wilson, M.S.

I just completed Richard A. Clarke’s book, and, with the Bush-dominated media bashing President Clinton, once again, (claiming he didn’t do enough against terrorism during his eight years in office), it seems like a good time to share a few timely quotes from Mr. Clarke, the true expert, on both that subject and the entire subject of the Iraq War and its effects on us, as a nation.

Let’s just begin by quoting Clarke from page 272-273:

It is difficult for the world’s sole superpower to be popular, but it is not impossible.  A superpower has different responsibilities and perspectives than other nations, but many other nations’ governments and peoples will understand and sympathize if they believe that the super-power is a good global citizen that respects the rights and opinions of other nations.  I thought this was the concept behind candidate Bush’s call for a “more humble” U.S. foreign policy (presumably one more humble than the Clinton foreign policy.)  That thought seemed to be lost quickly after candidate Bush because pResident Bush. It was not just that the United States objected to the Kyoto Treaty on the environment, or the International Criminal Court….it was the arrogance in the way we objected.  At a meeting with my staff in the summer of 2001, I suggested, “If these guys in this Administration are going to want an international coalition to invade Iraq next year, they are sure not making a lot of friends.”
    
No kidding! Talk about your understatements! When the invasion of Iraq did come, in 2003, Clarke notes that it “lost us many friends….Elsewhere, we were now seen as a super-bully more than a superpower, not just for what we did but for the way we did it, disdaining international mechanisms that we would later need.”

Adds, Clarke, “When the United States next needs international support, when we need people around the world to believe that action is required to deal with Iranian or Korean nuclear weapons, who will join us, who will believe us?”

Who, indeed?  Not many. Not unless we replace the current untrustworthy occupant of the White House, who is viewed as a loose cannon throughout the civilized world. And a loose cannon about three fuses short of a full set.
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