The establishment strikes back
Last month, I was fortunate enough to hear Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, speak to a haddasah chapter in Northern Virginia. Haddasah is a woman's zionist and charitable organization. May devoted a Sunday afternoon to speak without compensation at a fundraising luncheon. His speech confirmed what his writing demonstrates -- that his is an indispensable voice in the war on terrorism.
For further confirmation, check out May's latest piece about the formation of a group called Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change. May points out that the group consists mainly of those who "were among the architects of the policies that led to September 11 [and are] furious that President Bush decided, following September 11, to change U.S. policy." For example, "President Clinton's policy advisers developed no strategy to infiltrate or shut [known terrorist] training camps; no plan to track the terrorists after they graduated. On the contrary, during the 1990s, intelligence budgets were repeatedly cut, and special forces — Delta, Rangers, SEALs, Marine Recon, CIA paramilitaries — were not expanded." And Stansfield Turner, a key member of the new group, presided over a major weakening of our covert capabilities when he was President Carter's CIA director, for example the firing of 25 percent of U.S. intelligence operatives, including skilled covert operators
May concludes that "until and unless [members of the new anti-Bush group] acknowledge their past errors of judgment — errors that enabled terrorism to grow and prosper — one has to conclude that they are in denial." He also provides a quite plausible explanation for this denial:
"One has to suspect that what these people really want is a return to policies that did not ruffle feathers in parts of the world where they have friends and summer homes, parts of the world that have rarely made a stand against despots but do boast superior food and wine. How disloyal, it must seem to them, to abandon long-held policies simply because those policies have failed."
