Editor, N.H.: This is in reply to J.N.’s letter "Gore the lesser of two evils. (Dec. 6, 2000) .In German there is a saying: Mitgegangen, mitgehangen -you went along, you hang along; in other words, Gore was part and thereby is tainted by the Clinton administration. .
Clinton's great misdeed was not his perjury, as bad as it was, but the giving of an unconditional loan guaranty of $10 billion to Israel. J.N. speculates if the editor is one of the Know Nothings, but I wonder about N.’s memory. Let me therefore take him back to 1992.
George Bush had just won the Gulf War which I very much opposed and which even now I don't like any better in spite of the fact that it was this war which gave us unprecedented low oil prices which fueled the boom times of the past eight years. Bush must have thought he would be a shoo-in for an eight -year presidency. But in the eyes of the "Israeli firsters," he committed an unforgivable sin. He wanted to attach conditions to the $10 billion loan guaranty for which Israel had asked.
Bush's intent was clear. He wanted to push the Israelis to settle the conflict with the Palestinians. Clinton however during the campaign promised and subsequently gave the loan guaranty unconditionally: The Israelis were not supposed to use that money to build illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. and Gaza. But, that is precisely what they did since money is fungible.
The second intifadah is the result. This uprising and the brutal Israeli attempt to suppress it has very much entered the consciousness of the Arab and Islamic masses. We are guarantied their hatred. And let's have a little bit of honesty. The 17 sailors who died on the USS Cole did not die for freedom or democracy, or to protect our interests in the Middle East. They died because the Clinton/Gore team became subservient (much more so than previous administrations) to the ambitions of a ministate for a greater Israel. In other times Clinton and Gore would have been branded as traitors.
I did not vote for George W Bush, the lesser of two evils. I voted for Buchanan.