Former President Bill Clinton has joined a growing list of liberal American apologists who have taken to blaming the United States for the events of Sept. 11.
Speaking at the ornate Gaston Hall on the campus of George Washington University this week, Clinton said – now get this – America was attacked because in the past America practiced slavery and treated American Indians badly.
“Here in the United States, we were founded as a nation that practiced slavery, and slaves quite frequently were killed even though they were innocent,” Clinton bellowed to a crowd of about 1,000 students.
“This country once looked the other way when a significant number of native Americans were dispossessed and killed to get their land or their mineral rights or because they were thought of as less than fully human,” he said. “And we are still paying a price today.”
Wait. There’s more:
I submit to you that we are now in a struggle for the soul of the 21st century and the world in which you students will live to raise your own children and make your own way,” he said. “In the first Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it and proceeded to kill every woman and child who was a Muslim on the Temple Mount. I can tell you that story is still being told today in the Middle East and we are still paying for it.
It is true, unfortunately, that slavery is a blemish on American history – a history which is otherwise filled with successes in terms of liberty and freedom for our people. But we were a nation founded on opposition to tyranny, not because we so desperately wanted to own slaves.
It is true that, unfortunately, our government, in the past, treated American Indians badly. But indeed, Congress and the behemoth of bureaucracies lawmakers have created since those days continue to lie to Americans and treat us badly, so Indians needn’t feel like the Lone Ranger.
I have no idea what the Crusades example was supposed to mean, considering that – at that time in history – America did not exist so Americans had no part in the killing of Jews or other Muslims.
As I recall, though, Americans did liberate millions of Jews from Adolph Hitler’s deadly grip during World War II. In fact, for the second time in a half-century, Americans died by the tens of thousands to liberate an entire continent.
So what exactly was Clinton saying?
He said, of course, that because of these past injustices, we Americans got what we deserved Sept. 11.
Worse, he was actually paid a lot of money to make these accusations. Only in America.
The fact is, however, when terrorists attacked us nearly two months ago, they attacked every bastion of liberty and freedom enshrined in our current way of life, our form of government, our fabric of society. They attacked everything America has become since its creation.
Furthermore, poll after poll shows that most of us are united behind President Bush in a bid to rid the world of such evil, fanatical maniacs – they don’t show that we believe that, as a nation, we had this coming.
You know, it’s not ironic to me to see bitter, envious zealots attacking the United States. Deprived, depraved people who don’t know what it is to be free tend to do such things. It is ironic, however, to see such behavior condoned – especially by a former president.
This is not about denying Clinton his right to speak freely and express his views. But it is about drawing a distinction between Americans who are damned grateful to be living in the freest, wealthiest and most open society in the world and who are willing to protect and defend it, vs. those – like Clinton – who obviously are not.
More than anything, perhaps this speech has finally shown why Clinton was so limp-wristed and demure when it came to punishing the many terrorist attacks that occurred on his watch. Maybe, judging from his speech, he didn’t do more because he thought we deserved it.
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