-Caveat Lector- ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: "Linda Muller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date sent: Fri, 21 May 1999 13:00:21 -05:0 Subject: [BRIGADE] Clinton's Kowtow...Sorry, so sorry Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dear Brigade, This column mentions "President Buchanan" so I guess it qualifies as "appropriate" for the BRIGADE list!! GO PAT GO - !! Linda --------------------------------------------------- The Washington Times - COMMENTARY May 21, 1999 Sorry, so sorry In the 19th century, Western governments hoping to do business with China would sooner or later come to a ceremonial brink: To kowtow to the Chinese monarch - kneeling three times, head touching the ground three times at each prostration - or not to kowtow. One early 19th-century British envoy, fearing for the dignity and prestige of Great Britain, proposed to bend one knee and bow his head three times and then repeat the performance twice more, "so as," in the words of one historian, "to approximate the three kneelings and nine knockings of the head that were required." This choreography was not acceptable to the Chinese - and the mission stalled for 10 days before ending in failure. A half-century later, John E. Ward, an American representing the Buchanan administration, journeyed to Peking and back again, also forgoing an audience with the emperor; he would kneel, it was said, only to God and women. The kowtow is just a figure of speech now, but it is one that comes to mind when reflecting on the spate of diplomatic bowing and scraping by the United States following the unintentional bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade earlier this month. Five times President Bill Clinton begged pardon, his secretaries of state and defense amplifying and embroidering his sentiments, as the United States variously offered regrets, condolences and protestations of sorrow. Other forms of breast-beating and hair-rending included the unprecedented decision to fly American flags in China at half- staff for the bombing victims - and what the White House said was Mr. Clinton's purely coincidental approval of a Motorola satellite launch via Chinese rocket next month. The diplomatic frenzy was capped by an exceptional statement of apology by Mr. Clinton. As William F. Buckley, Jr. put it, "The big mistake was to apologize. It's ok to regret killing three Chinese in the embassy in Belgrade, but what is one apologizing for?" This is not semantic hair-splitting. It is appropriate for the government to regret the incidental casualties of war without assuming, in Mr. Buckley's words, "a heavy obligation in conscience." In diplomatic code, there is a world of difference between "apologizing"and "regretting." In fact, the historical record indicates that literal apologies, with their connotation of indefensible fault, are rare - even as nations admit costly errors to one another (or don't, as in the special case of Japan, which has yet to express any remorse for such crimes against humanity as the 1937 Rape of Nanking). In 1915, for instance, when 124 American lives were lost on the Lusitania after it was torpedoed by a German U-boat, Germany expressed regret to a still-neutral United States. More recently, Ronald Reagan conveyed "deep regret" to Iran in 1988 after the USS Vincennes mistakenly destroyed an Iranian airliner, causing the deaths of its 290 passengers. In 1991, Russia expressed its regret to South Korea for the Soviet Union's shoot-down of KAL 007 in 1983, killing all 269 passengers. Even Mr. Clinton, who has so very much to apologize for and regret, sticks to the diplomatic script when it comes to state apologies. Regarding a training accident in Italy that left 20 dead when an American military plane severed a gondola cable last year, Mr. Clinton has said he is "profoundly regretful" about the incident. But when the Chinese refuse to take the president's telephone calls, support the tens of thousands of rioters in Beijing who effectively imprisoned our ambassador for four days, providing bullhorns and government-approved slogans of anti-Americanism - and persist in accusing the United States of intentionally murdering its people - Mr. Clinton decides to apologize. The Chinese, having exploited the erroneous Belgrade bombing on a grand scale, have been at least partly successful in distracting world attention from next month's 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the congressional investigations into their theft of American nuclear secrets. It must be remembered, however, that an oafish American administration has unwittingly assisted them in this ruse, providing everything but the crepe paper. And who deserves an apology for that? ----------- end ----------------- Help Pat and the Brigade in our Battle for the White House... Go to: http://www.gopatgo2000.org/000-v-helppat.html Spread the word -- forward this email across the USA! *********************************************** Don't Miss Out - Join the BRIGADE Email List! - Visit: Official WebSite for Patrick J. Buchanan for President Web: http://www.gopatgo2000.org Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: 1-703-734-2700 WebMaster - Linda Muller - [EMAIL PROTECTED] ********************************************** A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller, German Writer (1759-1805) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." 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