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Sep 16, 2005
Bill Clinton Is Back
by Srdja Trifkovic
Former president Bill Clinton has assembled "his own mini-General Assembly
of presidents, prime ministers, kings and other pooh-bahs" to devise plans
for "addressing poverty, global warming, religious conflict and better
governance."
The inaugural meeting of what the perjurer-in-chief modestly calls the
Clinton Global Initiative has brought together 800 bigwigs who paid $15,000
each for a seat (which adds up to a neat $12 million in entrance fees alone).
Clinton also asked each attendee to "commit" to doing something to improve
the world, by which he really means money. They've obliged and over 50 such
pledges have been made so far totaling more than $300 million, including an
Africa investment fund and a plan to fight HIV-AIDS. "What is happening here
is the kind of intense dialogue between different people and cultures which
should take place at the U.N. but can't anymore because of highly
ritualistic structures, protocol and conflict avoidance," explained Richard
C. Holbrooke, U.N. ambassador under Clinton and John Kerry's former foreign
affairs advisor.
So far so predictable: a failed President with no scruples and a flair for
PR is fighting for his post-legacy and making a killing along the way. The
bad news is that the circus was attended by Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice. Her predecessor, Colin Powell, is reported to have cancelled an
appearance at a conference on AIDS in Nigeria in April 2001 because Clinton
decided to attend. For reasons mysterious the Bush administration has
decided to re-legitimize Clinton.
That the administration is making a mistake is evident from the record and
character of Clinton himself, of course; but it is also evident from the
list of "Distinguished Panelists" given by the Initiative itself: With such
illuminati in charge, it is bound to end in ignomy.
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki is there, whose major contribution to
the AIDS debate is his highly controversial assertion that there is no
proven link between HIV and AIDS and that such "traditional attitudes" of
African men as violence against women and promiscuity do not play a
significant role in spreading the disease—for which he has been attacked,
among others, by his predecessor Nelson Mandela. The position of South
Africa's doctors is clear: unless the president changes his views on the
matter, "he will not be in the position to lead the country's campaign
against the virus."
Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo is there, too. His experiences may be
useful to the "better governance" panel as he is the head of what is
arguably one of the most corrupt states in the world—certainly so in terms
of the estimated amount of money directly stolen from its coffers ($420
billion!) by its leaders past and present—which is as much as the entire
Western aid to Africa over the past four decades.
Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko is on board, which is appropriate in
view of his almost-Clintonesque talent for not letting mere facts stand in
the way of his creativity. Yushchenko's claim that the former Ukrainian
authorities tried to poison him using dioxin came very handy during the
stage-managed presidential campaign last November, but it remains unproven
more than a year later because Yushchenko has reneged on his pledge to
undergo tests in Ukraine.
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Erdo_an is also there, presumably as a
specialist on "religious conflict." Before re-inventing himself, this
"post-Islamist" leader of his anything-but-post-Islamic country has declared
that "the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our
bayonets and the faithful our soldiers." His party resisted legislation
aimed at reducing violence against women, and last year its deputies were
persuaded only with difficulty to remove jailing adulterers from the statute
books.
The role of Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, who is also
on board, will probably be to work in tandem with Obasanjo on "better
governance." To that task he can contribute his extensive experience, e.g.
in managing the Oil for Food Program in Iraq.
The grim list goes on: that prominent humanitarian Madeleine Albright, Al
Gore (remember him?), Paul Wolfowitz, Rupert Murdoch, and, of course, George
Soros.
The last-named is probably the most deserving member of the Clinton Global
Initiative. He has contributed tens of millions to America Coming Together
and www.MoveOn.org and to the "Center for American Progress," run by the
"third way" Clintonites John Podesta (formerly of the Democratic Leadership
Council, DLC), Morton Halperin, and Gene Sperling.
Soros wants to fight poverty in the Third World, having made a contribution
to its spread. His major contribution to the AIDS epidemic has been a
successful kick-start—through a network of his "Open Society Foundations"—to
the previously non-existent homosexual activism all over Eastern Europe. The
campaign for "LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Rights" is directed
from Budapest, publishing lesbian and gay books in Bulgaria, Czech Republic,
Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia, and opening Gay and Lesbian Centers in
Ukraine and Rumania.
Clinton's and Soros's brand of one-world transnationalism are one and the
same. Their radical mindset dominates the Democratic Party, of course; but
it is puzzling that their rabidly anti-traditionalist and deeply
anti-Western worldview and political agenda should be legitimized and even
implicitly supported by the Bush administration.
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