European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 31, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Tuesday May 31, 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 13 even those of us who thought president Clinton made the Correct move on the China question cringe at How he did it the words he spoke and the words in particular of Secretary of state Warren Christopher. What Christopher said was that we need to look at american interests a was a whole a and to that end he sue tested an interchangeability that simply does no to work. If in Shanghai they Are torturing political prisoners and buying american Ball bearings you can t put the two on a single scale weigh them and announce gravely that the 3.2 anti Grams of the torture Are. Outweighed by the 3.6 Grams of jobs created in our Ball bearing factories. What you say is on the whole we have determined that economic sanctions of a kind wed be willing to employ Arentt going to and language of government William f. Buckley a Vance human rights in China. And on the other hand Ball bearing sales in a free Market slightly open up shutters closed to individual Freedom if in Shanghai purchasers Are at Liberty to decide whose Ball bearings to buy that Means they Are at Liberty in an area in which up until yesterday there was no Liberty. But the tone of government seems everywhere to be burdened Down with hypocrisy and cant. Over in the judicial world Clinton gives retiring Justice Blackmun a paean president Andrew Jackson would have been embarrassed to pronounce at the funeral of John Marshall a and this Only weeks after Blackmun announced in court that he would never again under any circumstances endorse an opinion that countenanced capital punishment. it have been More Correct for an associate Justice to say that feeling As he does about capital punishment he would recuse himself from any Case coming before the court that dealt with the subject and ought no to a president Deriv ering a Eulogy to a retiring Justice gently remind him that the division of Powers bequeathed us by the Constitution makes absolutely irrelevant what Blackmun a Why do i get the feeling no60dy takes Mese Wousley ? views Are on capital punishment where does one go for Relief not to the House of representatives whose towering figure we learn is about ready to go to jail. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski evidently treated the House Post office As a kind of personal exchequer and the Point finally came when the people who inspect such matters perhaps after lunching with the people who track presidential helicopters taking staff to Golf courses in Maryland decided they had really better get into the act. And before Rosty reportedly ruled out the Deal it was suggested that one term of the Deal would close off further investigations into How others Are dealing with the Post office and other governmental amenities Jim Wright former speaker of the House Ana Tony Coelho a former House majority whip decided a Little while ago to skip town rather than sit around while further exploration of their activity went on. Smart moves. Whose fault is it when the a amp a scandals came up a few years ago we heard from the democrats that after All it All happened on Ronald Reagan Swatch and therefore it was primarily a Republican scandal. A from the republicans we heard that the critical legislative Steps a releasing the a amp is from regulation q restraints and extending coverage even to savings accounts of $100,000 a had been done by democrats. Well both Are True both were True. Without the democratic legislation the scandals could not have happened. And yes the president should have reminded the Congress of its regulatory response by but in the last analysis it is the voters who in a self governing Republic Are responsible for endemic corruption and hypocrisy. Many years ago the poet William Butler Yeats wrote a letter to the Irish times in Dublin that Sticks in the memory. He said As memory serves a Many have written recently to ask what lately has the lord mayor done to commend himself to the people of Dublin i write to ask what lately have the people of Dublin done to commend themselves to the lord mayor a a is there any reason for politicians to fail to take advantages held open to them As recently reported one murder or in 1,400 is executed which is pretty Good Odds if murder is on your mind. And if larceny is on your mind grand or Petit and the chances Are such As infest government then reality begins to change. Language does no to mean what it says. George Orwell spotted it As the critical sign of corruption when president Clin ton 1994, flatly contradicts president Clinton 1993 and 1992, and then boasts about it language and logic Are forfeit and these arc the Basic human rights of self governing Universal press. China a 75 million christians Are forbidden to worship How and where they see fit. Protestant and Catholic clerics Are often imprisoned and tortured. President Clinton is a religious Man. He talks of How much his religion Means to him. He goes to Church regularly. Scr it was natural that when on May 28, 1993, he signed an executive order giving the chinese communists one More year to show Progress on human rights or face Tariff penalties he dealt with religion. A Overall significant Progress in releasing and accounting for religious prisoners was made a condition. Or Clinton believes in the decent treatment of political prisoners too a at least that they not be flogged daily or left in their own excrement. So the condition of significant Progress was made about them too. A Clinton is against the Export of forced labor products so essential to Beijing a profits. The order demanded that China abide by formal pacts to keep them out of the . Quot. Clinton thinks quite poorly of wiping out a captive nation. Therefore the order demanded easing the destruction of Tibet a religion and culture. No kowtowing to foreign pressures. Before his election Clinton talked scornfully of president Bush coddling the chinese tyranny. Bill Clinton believes a president should provide leadership in political morality and democratic idealism. He thinks of himself As a teacher for those who serve under him. Now he has decided that his own executive order does not mean what the american Public and Congress thought and wanted a no real human rights Progress no Low Tariff privileges. He thinks somehow he thinks americans will believe night is Day a that the chinese communists have imperfectly but sufficiently met the conditions of human rights Progress. So he permanently a de linked Trade and human rights a a Complete smarmy turnaround of every moral and political position he has taken on communist China. Clinton and those around him know that More political dissidents More priests and Bishops Are being arrested than released that crackdowns continue harsher. And they know that China still exports slave labor products to the United states and to the world that Tibet a blood still flows. So the Price of serving Clinton is to pretend that Retreat is achievement. Government servants who have built careers and Honor now Are abandoning the latter to keep the former. The moral contagion extends to some members of Congress. They saw the error of their ways after the China lobby began its hugely funded Campaign against relating tariffs to human rights Progress. Two years ago sen. Bill Bradley the proudly Inte Liec Tual Democrat from new Jersey voted for using the threat of higher tariffs to soften the wardens of the chinese gulag. Now he says the idea is just a relic of the cold War. . Rosenthal that would Brand the following As cold warriors 60 percent of the american people the majority of Congress human rights organizations worldwide the Al Cio the . Council of Catholic Bishops and of course some tens of millions of chinese in slave labor Camps torture cells and forced abortion clinics. Bradley is known for speaking on morals and values. Clinton a Retreat is important far beyond the question of whether economic pressures would help human rights in China As they did. In South Africa. The president showed his willingness to Bow to business pressure at Home on a major Issue of foreign and human affairs. He showed himself surrendering to a dictatorship turning himself inside out. The chinese gave him Only contempt. Their Only Promise was that repression would continue. The president did not blink a he surrendered to China and the lobby. Clinton already is criticized abroad for about facing on foreign affairs. The surrender at Beijing will make it impossible for Friend or foe to Trust his foreign policy word a even when he writes it into Law himself. When friends cannot Trust a presidential word alliances erode. When foes do not believe a president the risk is War by miscalculation As in Korea and the persian Gulf. The teaching of Clinton is done to coddle tyrants just surrender. For the president and his country that is a sad and dangerous message to Send. C new Yorac times
