National Security or Love for Sale?

National Security or Love for Sale?
Written by Ruth S. King
Thursday, April 06, 2006


There is a tale that George Bernard Shaw asked a lady, a doyenne of society, if he could bed her for a million pounds. When she replied “but of course” he offered her ten pounds. “Who do you think I am?” asked the enraged grande dame. Shaw retorted: ''We’ve established that, and now we are just negotiating your fee.''

This story is apposite as our former top officials troll for money among the Arab states. In the September 2004 Outpost I wrote about former diplomats and legislators who lobby for Saudi Arabia. This seedy group has recently been joined by a former president, a former minority leader in the Senate, and a former secretary of state: two of them married to senators.



In 1979, Marion Javits, wife of then Senator Jacob Javits, caused a brouhaha when she did PR work for Iran Air and the Shah. Mrs. Javits issued a public apology and severed her ties to the Shah. Remember the Shah? He was the “tyrant” that freedom and democracy groupies overthrew in order to clear the way for the mullahs--but that’s another story.

When Jimmy Carter’s smarter brother, Billy Carter, registered as a foreign agent of the Libyan government and took $250,000 to lobby his brother for the release of embargoed C-130 airplanes to Libya, public outrage led to investigations and Senate hearings on influence peddling which became known as “Billygate.” Billy famously defended his actions by stating, “There is a hell of a lot more Arabians than there is Jews.” Well, he has a point and even former presidents are not immune to the lure of lucre--even when it entails denigrating our own country,



A prime example is former President Clinton. He is not a lobbyist, but he gets hefty fees for speaking and large contributions to his presidential library in Arkansas. Although his wife is a senator and potential candidate for the presidency, he does not mind throwing in some nasty criticism of the United States. For example, in Dubai on November 16, 2005, he told Arab students that the United States made a “big mistake” when it invaded Iraq, citing “poor planning,” lack of enough troops, and a litany of other errors.



Clinton’s Middle East enthusiasms lead him to some odd assessments. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in early 2005, he said, “Iran today is, in a sense the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It is there that the ideas that I subscribe to are defended by a majority.” On a subsequent interview with Charlie Rose, he described Iran as “the only country with elections including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: Two for president; two for the Parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralties. In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.”

More @ http://tinyurl.com/hy9qn chronwatch.com

Red highlights in the excerpt are mine.

While the article is mostly in an anti-Clinton theme I submit there isn't a dime's worth of difference between 'Clinton & His Merry Band Of Thieves' and 'Bush & Co & His Merry Band Of My Little Cronies'!