European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 01, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Thursday september 1, 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 17 to this has been a Bummer of a is not in the same league As the summer of 1968, when assassinations and riots were running rampant. Itis not As bad As the summer of 1974, when the fast sad chapter of Richard Nixon s watergate charade . But it has been a Bummer. The heat and humidity hit Washington Early in june eve before the season had started officially and did not let up until last week. But you expect hot Summers in Washington so there s no Point in , however Congress leaves for part of july and most of August and that feels like Relief. This year it stayed. A arid stayed. And accomplish what Well it s hard to say. The big Story in to terms was. The Whitewater David s. Broder hearings held in both the House and the Senate. And i defy you to Fin anyone barely a month after the hearings ended who can Tell you what they were , was something about a suicide that was sadly a suicide. V. " there was something about a 28-year-old Prodigy s diary which May or May not have set Down exactly what occurred. There were meetings Between Treasury officials and White House officials which sounded every bit As Dull and inconclusive As the meetings you and i go every so often that fellow Lloyd Cutler popped up from the White House intoning the mantra no Laws were broken. No ethical standards were compared with past summer scandals this was thin Gruel. \. unless of course you like the spectacle of Sens. Ai Fonse d Amato and Don Riegle delivering lectures nonpublic morality. " my sense of humor is not that weird. Of course everything in Washington was Over shadowed by the big summer drama of the . Simp in los a Downer that has been. Here is a mythic Fig ure we All admired accused of a terrible crime an transformed into the Central player in a trashy daytime soap opera. ". It you want a Case study of the tabloid nation of pub Lic life you need go no further than the Simpson Case. What does it have to teach us almost nothing As far As i can make out. But it has spawned a huge volume of rationalization theorizing and pontification about male female relationships Black White relationships and even the relationships Between blood samples on a Doorstep and in a has replaced reputation in this society and a celebrity murder Case is just about irresistible. _ Whitewater hearings so we Are having a Good Wallow in it meantime the armed forces of the United states Are being dispatched almost weekly to places where death is commonplace and suffering All too evident. What is hard to discern is any common thread of policy in their use. In Rwanda they Are feeding the refugees and urging them to go Home / in Haiti and in Cuba our military embargoes Are making the lives of people living under military dicta tors even More miserable but we Are telling them they May not flee at least not to the United states. For much of the summer we seemed to be threaten ing an invasion of Haiti As if we had Learned nothing from a Century of trying to install governments at gun Point in latin America. Now we Are building a huge Camp for haitian and cuban refugees in Guantanamo. J it is hard to explain Why the refugees Are being punished for the acts of the dictators in their lands All this might be tolerable if there were any Evi Dence something useful were being accomplished in Washington Vav. a but the health cafe debate is further from being re solved than it was when the summer began. And the crime Bill which has been the Center of so much parti san tugging and hauling is Laden Down not with the pork its critics claim but with pretence in All the debate almost no one pointed out that every Dollar the Federal government will actually spend on crime fighting in the next 15 months already has been appropriated and the sum won t change under the crime Bill. Vav the 100,000 police it promises Are a fantasy. Rep. Neal Smith a Iowa who Heads the panel that actually appropriates anti crime Money says it will finance at most 28,600 More police but the actual number will be smaller because the Money can to pay overtime or buy fancy equipment for police departments the truth of the matter is that crime fighting is tie business of local and state government not Washington and both the proponents and critics of this crime Bill Are mostly posturing or As rep David obey d-wis., likes to say posing for holy _ All this in a summer with no big league baseball what a Bummer. 7 i m going to the Cabin in Michigan for a week. See you in a better mood after labor Day. C Washington Post plan could have been written in invisible Ink the Clinton administration s most revealing policy document laying out the National Ecurry Strat egy of the United states r a is kept secret by the fiendishly Clever device of making it a month ago in the dead of night the Blue covered National Security strategy of engagement and enlarge ment was dubbed the Enen document by engaging reporters and enlarged struggle Over naming the policy engagement a Gary Hart term favo Redby the state department is. Enlarge went a Tony Lake term favored by the Csc staff was resolved in a quintessentially Clintonia Way both Are used con Juring a vision of involved Tumes Cence. But when a president signs off on a25,000-word exposition of his global Strat egy attention must be paid. Some of it is silly political posturing with . Leadership nato has provided the muscle that is helping to bring about a peaceful settlement in the former some leadership some muscle. The Enen document a serious articulation of this administration s approach to the world deserves academic dissemination and respectful or infuriated analysis by think tanks. It can serve As the basis for great debate hearing when Richard Lugar becomes chairman of Senate foreign relations in s because the strategy has be come so determinedly anti controversial that la should pro Voke controversy. By examining its drafting we can see its policy Evo Lution. In an Early ver Sion of the document this line led a paragraph in the president s cover letter ultimately the strength of our Security derive from the strength of our Gutsy human rights rhetoric. In the final version perhaps after themon China decision a line from a prag Matist was brought up from below As a substitute our National Security strategy reflect both America s interests and our similarly the following fix illuminates a switched emphasis we believe that our goals of promoting democracy protecting our Security and enhancing our Economy Are mutually William Safire supportive was changed at perhaps the highest level to we believe that our goals of enhancing our Security bolster ing our economic Prosperity arid promoting democracy Are mutually different priorities. A Section on european defense undermining nato with a controversy averse partnership for peace invites keeping with our strategy of enlargement pop is open to All former members of the Warsaw pact As Well As other european states. With pop Thebes path toward nato that Means we Are pretending to planto invite Russia to join nato an organization that exists to protect Europe from Russia. The strategy As stated is an Absurdity. Clinton s partnership for peace isa.de-. Vice to Avert debate about admitting Poland Ukraine and other Eastern euro Pean states into nato now. The aim of nato s future expansion however according to Enen will not be to draw a new line in Europe further sic East but to expand stability democracy Prosperity and Security cooperation to an Ever broader that s strategic hot air. As Henry Kissinger writes the administration s Atlantic policy is creating two categories of Frontier in Europe those that Are guaranteed Are not threat ened and those that Are threatened Are not the forum for talk of bringing Security cooperation to an Ever broader Europe already exists in the 52-Nationconference on Security and cooperation in Europe. V Russia and its former satellites arc Parton that . But nato is an Atlantic military Alli Ance with a Clear purpose to subsume Germany and keep russians in Russia. works it should now include the countries most at risk from any future Moscow yearning to visit the a year. Foreign relations debaters should use engagement and enlargement As their text. The near final draft rang with Resolution our National Security requires the patient application of american will and re sources and at times the printed version formally signed by William j. Clinton recoiled from such boldness and at times lives Vas stricken out. C now York times
