522
PARTISAN REVIEW
abuse hurts other people. This would explain at least in part the mixed
attitudes toward Clinton's escapades exhibited in most popular polls. For
much of the population still believes in traditional morality, but is open to
the easy attitudes toward sex of the new liberation movements.
It
would
also tend to stress that the criteria used to judge the President's behavior
should concern matters of taste rather than those of morality.
But, on the whole, Podhoretz's piece gives a clear picture of the whole
story of Clinton's extracurricular activities and of the investigation of the
matter by the independent counsel-even before the President's testimo–
ny to Kenneth Starr.
WP
Terrorism
The appalling attack on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania reminded me of what now has been called the first of such inci–
dents, the attempt on the Pope's life on May 13,1981, which I reported on
in
Partisan Review.
The Italian press (ranging from the far right to the far
left) then noted that the presence of the would-be assassin, Mehemet
Ali
Agca, "was not an Italian creation but that his presence was not fortuitous,"
and probably was facilitated by the recent construction of an Islamic center
at the University of Perugia with funds from "international organizations
which
aim
to subvert civil life, to fuel and extend conflicts between people
and nations, to generate fear and violence and thus obstruct open discourse
and the democratic process." Agca had gone there before shooting the Pope.
The press then noted as well that the Lybian government and the PLO had
provided bombs, machine guns, and other munitions free of charge to ter–
rorist groups, and that it was not yet clear which interests Agca was serving.
Seventeen years later, we are forced to deal with terrorism on a glob–
al scale. In 1981, the Italians argued that democracy had become too
successful, and thus was open to anarchy, fascism, and foreign influences;
and that openness allows for the excesses of self-expression, for manipula–
tions leading to perennial scandals, and, ultimately, for the presence of
terrorists like Agca. That is absolutely true-whether they are trained in
the former Czechoslovakia, the U.S.S.R., Lybia, or in Mghanistan and Iraq.
In America, terrorists have an even easier time. Here alone, neither citizens
nor foreigners are registered after getting across our frontiers. And when
caught they must be considered innocent until proven guilty. Thus the
belief in
jihad
by extremist Muslim ideologues who are willing to die, who
if
caught may be gotten off on legal technicalities, poses an unprecedented
danger not only to our embassies (which wi th enough funds could be suf–
ficiently fortified) but to every place within the country.
We're in a catch-22. We must preserve democracy and religious free–
dom and yet we have to protect ourselves. The only way to do so, I believe,
