Taking Clinton to Task

As much as some people may dislike conservative commentator David Horowitz, they should pay closer attention to his views. Horowitz’s criticisms of the U.S. government—specifically of the policies of former President Bill Clinton in combating terrorism—are legitimate. Horowitz was right when he spoke last week to assert that Clinton was partly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

“The terrorist war has been going on for more than a decade, and Clinton knew it was going on,” Horowitz said during his speech last Thursday. “He was asleep on his watch, leaving 300 million Americans depending on his protection exposed to danger.” Clinton’s insufficient response to the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 is a testament to his failure to protect the American people from terrorism.

In fact, combating terrorism was never one of Clinton’s top priorities. For example, he tried to minimize the role of the State Department Office of Counterterrorism by attempting to chuck it into the larger Bureau of Narcotics, Terrorism and Crime. This merger would have only diminished the significance of the office, submerging it in a bureaucratic morass and depriving it of the special attention and adequate funding it needed.

If the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was not enough to convince Clinton to take a serious look at terrorism, what about the following bombings of American embassies around the world? In 1998 rocket-propelled grenades exploded near the heavily guarded U.S. embassy in Beirut. Shortly after, al-Qaeda terrorists bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, leaving 258 people dead and more than 5,000 injured. What was Clinton’s response? He blew up a pharmaceutical facility in the Sudan that he claimed was financed by Osama bin Laden. Later, serious doubts were raised about whether the facility was actually involved in terrorist activities, and more importantly, whether the U.S. was making progress combating terrorism at all. The Sudanese bombings certainly did not impede terrorist networks abroad from hatching their plots against Americans.

Granted, Clinton did take some steps to combat terrorism on U.S. soil by signing the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act in 1995, which made an international terrorist act committed in America a federal crime. The bill, however, was grossly inadequate because it did little to address terrorist threats on foreign soil. Making terrorism a federal crime will hardly dissuade fanatics from executing their plans abroad.

Clinton was also wrong to minimize the importance of governmental agencies, especially that of the CIA. Horowitz made the valid claim that the CIA has been reduced to a weak and vulnerable body of disconnected parts, lacking effective leadership and the proper means to protect the nation.

Moreover, Horowitz cleverly explained, “You can’t fight suitcase bombs with missiles.” The Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) is also to blame for lax protection against terrorism. Six months after Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi flew two jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Florida flight school that trained the men received paperwork showing that their student visas had been approved. How is it possible that terrorists were able to enter the country on tourist visas and be trained without the paperwork to stay? This is a strong indication that, in addition to the CIA, the INS also requires significant reform.

As provocative as Horowitz may be, he has a constitutional right to criticize the government. Unfortunately, certain student groups have a misconceived notion of diversity and freedom of speech. They disagree with some of Horowitz’s views and so dismiss others out of hand. The entire purpose of having Horowitz come and speak at Harvard is not just to promote one set of beliefs, but to provide a public forum for both supporters and dissenters to think critically and raise important questions. Former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, a staunch advocate of civil liberties, once put it plainly: “Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.” If the government listened to Horowitz, we might be safer from future terrorist attacks.

Svetlana Y. Meyerzon ’05 lives in Greenough Hall.