February 20, 2003 - On September 11, 2001 the sun set on
a tower of billowing smoke. 3000 people hailing from 60 countries
around the world had been murdered by a band of international terrorists
in a plot that both shocked and unified the world. From nation after
nation the sounds of grieving tears blended with voices vowing to
cooperate to bring the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice.
On September 12, 2001 the world stood shoulder to shoulder with America
and looked to her President to lead the world wide posse in pursuit
of the criminal who hatched and directed the world’s most atrocious
crime. The international pursuit of the guilty began then and crossed
both national borders and cultural frontiers as the world supported
the United States even into the incomplete Afghanistan War.
Unable to find Bin Laden the Bush Administration tried to convince
the international community that Saddam Hussein should replace the
Sheik on the world’s wanted poster. But the world that was so
much in support of us in the fall of 2001 has not accepted the substitution
International solidarity has been frittered away and the posse has
disbanded. Only that faithful companion Tony Blair is riding with
the Lone Ranger and the closer the clock ticks toward High Noon he
seems to be lagging further and further behind.
Don Rumsfeld has been sent to round up the cavalry and lead them into
hostile territory with rhetoric intending to sound like George Patton
but increasingly reminiscent of George Armstrong Custer approaching
the Little Big Horn. Look around, George, the Crow scouts have ridden
for home.
Colin Powell, playing the prosecuting attorney, promised a convicting
case but presented one constructed a transparent tissue of old intelligence,
vague photographs and discredited claims. He did not bring back a
verdict. He could not even secure an indictment.
Bush League “my way or the highway” diplomacy is trying
to bully the UN and NATO into line. “Do it our way or you are
irrelevant. Back America’s play or you are irresponsible.”,
has not won us allies but rather has driven away those countries who
have been among our staunchest supporters; among them the Germans
who have been the only nation to have brought one of the 911 conspirators
to trial.
Now America is haggling in a Turkish bazaar trying to buy the loyalty
of an essential ally on the cheap while it points to phantom Romanian
regiments, Bulgarian battalions, Croatian companies, and Polish patrols
as evidence of the “Coalition of the Willing”. How many
Spanish squadrons will march in the column?
17 months ago there were many Indians sitting on the shelf waiting
to be led. Look up, look around, and now there is one – and
he is increasingly reluctant.
