Wisdom Abroad
IN THE FINAL important area of debate, foreign policy, our preference for Mondale is equally as p0ronounces, and for much the same reason as in domestic policy. This feeling goes beyond our misapprehensions about the rapidly growing knowledge that the President is lost on many of the most elementary aspects of foreign and strategic affairs. The President has a reputation for being a strong leader, but his lack of hard knowledge on arms control, Lebanon, or Central America has guaranteed that the U.S. will remain direction-less as it searches for solutions to problems around the world.
The truth is that whatever claim Reagan might have for praise on the economy, he has none whatsoever for his diplomacy and military policy, for which he can assert not one triumph-unless one notches a "victory" over a few hundred over-matched Cubans in Grenada Atlantic Alliance firmly through the tribulations of Euromissile deployment, but this is hogwash. Any praise that is to be given ought go to our European allies, who were able to hold together, despite the wholly unreasonable approach to negotiations favoured by the United States.
As with its domestic policy there is a pronounced degree of me-firstism in the Reaganite Foreign polices, of the feeling that is acceptable-if not preferable-that America solve the problems of the world itself. On many foreign policy fronts, from Central America to East West relations, one notices a propensity for going at it alone, and for refusing the patience needed to see through our problems with our allies. The most visible manifestation of this attitude at home is the misguided "New Patriotism," fully encouraged by the Administration, whereby Americans are mistaking pride in their country for an orgiastic jingoism that needlessly inspires resentment by our enemies and unsettles our friends.
Certainly abroad this penchant for cowboy-style diplomacy has proved a recipe for diaster. The Administration waves a big stick to little effect in Central America, while earning the opprobrium of the world for its mining of the Nicarguan harbors. It has bungled relations with our reality of the Soviet gas pipeline. And, through its morally disgraceful policy of "constructive engagement," it has allied the United States with the forces of reaction and racism in Southern Africa.
WALTER MONDALE would provide a salutary antidote to the ideology-in-a-vacuum which has characterized Reagan's foreign policy. No one need challenge this old Minnesotan's commitment to a sound defense, which would hardly be emasculated by the Defense Department cuts he proposes. Mondale wants only to scrap the weapons system-like the MN missile-which have no value either strategically or as bargaining chips in arms negotiations with the Soviets. More important, though, Mondale's vigorous scrutiny of the Pentagon budget would help bring an end to the insidious culture of procurement that has flourished under the free-spending ways of Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger '38, but which has brought no appreciable gains to U.S. defenses.
Around the world, Mondale would offer a moderate voice of reason on behalf of the United States, in which negotiations would be stressed over the role of voice, whether it be in Central America, the Middle East or East-West relations. Nowhere would this difference be more apparent than in the area of arms control, where Reagan's lack of command has been decisive in our inability to reach some kind of rapproachement with the Soviets. While third-rate bureauerats have haggled over the details of what acceptable proposals the United States would bring to the negotiating table on both intermediate and strategic missiles, Reagan has remained remote, ready only to issue a reassuring, but misleading, impression of progress to the American people. Mondale has clearly demonstrated an aptitude for the hard details that make arms control agreements, and his combination of realism with a firm desire to reverse the arms race would do much to bring about a constructive relationship with the Soviets in the next four years.
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THE PUNDITS are saying now, as they have been saying for the past year, that the jig is up of Mondale, that his two good performances in the debates will not prove enough to overcome the President's large lead in the polls. This comes, of course, as part of the Reaganite strategy to convince us that indeed Mondale is the "loser." But it is the American people who will be the losers if they believe this fluff, because Reagan's victory will be the triumph of our own worst instants. It will symbolize the sacrifice of the role of a compassionate government on the altar to greed as symbolized by a few less dollars in income tax returns.
Mondale has often trumpeted his connection that he would rather lose a campaign based on decency than win one based on self-interest. In framing the question thus, Mondale has highlighted precisely the crucial issue of this campaign, and we hope that in fact he will be able to triumph on the theme of decency. American voters should once and for all repudiate Reagan's ideology of selfishness and elect Walter Mondale President.