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ULTRAMAN VH
10-31-2006, 07:54 AM
Clinton Is Gone, But His Policies Carry On
by Steve Chapman
Posted Oct 30, 2006











The president's arrogant, go-it-alone style has done much to alienate our European allies, so you will not be surprised to hear this complaint from the French foreign minister: "We cannot accept either a politically unipolar world, nor a culturally uniform world, nor the unilateralism of a single hyper-power." But you might be surprised to find that the statement was made in 2000 -- in a fit of pique at President Clinton.

On the TV news in June 2004, Britons waiting in line to buy copies of Clinton's memoirs were mooning about the good old days when the Atlantic alliance was strong and America was regarded with affection in Europe. Compared to George W. Bush, the people interviewed thought Clinton was a fine president.

Apparently Americans are not the only people with short memories. Most of the complaints made about Bush's foreign policy were also made about Clinton's foreign policy. In many ways, Bush represents a dismal continuation of what went before.

He's not the first to antagonize the world community by launching an attack against Iraq without much support abroad. Clinton was criticized for doing that in 1996 -- even by Bob Dole, his Republican challenger -- after he hit Iraqi air defense sites with cruise missiles. Vice President Al Gore responded in words that could have come from Dick Cheney: "Sometimes the U.S. has to take unilateral action when our interests are at stake."

It was under Clinton that America got a reputation for acting on its own in defiance of international opposition -- as when it vetoed a second term for U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, refused to sign the treaty banning land mines and proceeded with plans for a national missile defense.

Sometimes Clinton was right, and sometimes he was wrong, but he was attached to multilateralism only when it helped him do what he wanted to do. His high-handedness annoyed foreign governments so much that in 2000, candidate Bush made a point of insisting that America should "be a humble nation."

Humility was as scarce in Clinton's administration as it is in Bush's. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once announced, "If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."

Legend has it that until Bush came along, the U.S. government believed in working within the U.N. In fact, many of the people who objected when Bush bypassed the Security Council in going to war against Saddam Hussein in 2003 supported Clinton when he bypassed the Security Council in going to war against Slobodan Milosevic in 1999.

Everyone has heard about Bush's contempt for international law. But most people have forgotten what Albright said when her British counterpart reported "problems with our lawyers" over whether NATO could attack Yugoslavia without Security Council approval. "Get new lawyers," was her retort.

The Kosovo war has other uncanny parallels with Iraq. Yugoslavia had not attacked the U.S. or anyone else, but Clinton proclaimed our right to use force against countries merely because they were violating human rights at home. In 2004, Al Gore denounced Bush's "assertion that he has the inherent power -- even without a declaration of war by Congress -- to launch an invasion of any nation on Earth, at any time he chooses, for any reason he wishes, even if that nation poses no imminent threat to the United States." Funny -- Clinton took exactly the same view when he started bombing the Serbs.

In "My Life," Clinton exhibits great pride in the Kosovo victory while ignoring the terrible mistakes his administration made there. Like Bush, whose cocksure approach to Iraq blinded him to reality, Clinton stumbled into the Kosovo war because of wishful thinking. He expected Milosevic to surrender as soon as the first American bombs fell, if not sooner.

In fact, that capitulation came only after 11 weeks of aerial bombardment -- during which time the Serbs slaughtered as many as 10,000 Kosovar Albanians and expelled 800,000. "NATO went to war in the hope it could win without much of a fight," wrote Brookings Institution scholars Ivo Daalder and Michael O'Hanlon. "It was proven wrong." Sound familiar?

Democrats complain that Bush lacks an exit strategy in Iraq. Clinton, however, sent ground forces to Bosnia in 1995 with a promise that they'd return within a year. They didn't leave until nine years later.

When it comes to foreign policy, there's a lot of Clinton in Bush. And that's no compliment to either.

The following column was originally published in June 2004.


Mr. Chapman is a columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune.




humaneventsonline.com

Seshmeister
10-31-2006, 08:02 AM
Cherry picking.

Kosova was a just war not fought for self interest.

In Europe Bush is almost uniformally detested and ridiculed, Clinton was viewed as a bit of a bullshitter but a safe pair of hands.

The US is now regarded as dangerous. Guantanamo and state approved torture means that in any issue it is no longer assumed the US is not the bad guy. What used to be the attitude of the antiglobalists and the far left has now spread to the centre ground.

ULTRAMAN VH
10-31-2006, 08:17 AM
Originally posted by Seshmeister
Cherry picking.

Kosova was a just war not fought for self interest.

In Europe Bush is almost uniformally detested and ridiculed, Clinton was viewed as a bit of a bullshitter but a safe pair of hands.

The US is now regarded as dangerous. Guantanamo and state approved torture means that in any issue it is no longer assumed the US is not the bad guy. What used to be the attitude of the antiglobalists and the far left has now spread to the centre ground.

I agree with some of your points but Kosovo remains a mess.

[edit] Aftermath
The most immediate problem — the refugees — was largely resolved very quickly: within three weeks, over 500,000 Albanian refugees had returned home. By November 1999, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 808,913 out of 848,100 had returned. However, much of the remaining Serb population of Kosovo fled fearing revenge attacks. Gypsies, Turks and Bosniaks were also driven out after being brutalized by Albanians. The Yugoslav Red Cross had registered 247,391 mostly Serbian refugees by November. The new exodus was a severe embarrassment to NATO, which had established a peacekeeping force of 45,000 under the auspices of the United Nations Mission In Kosovo (UNMIK). According to Amnesty International, the presence of peacekeepers in Kosovo led to an increase in the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation. [17] [18]



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War

EAT MY ASSHOLE
10-31-2006, 09:23 AM
Clinton was taken to task by the right for his bullish approach to foreign policy. In fact, in 2000 Bush campaigned on his belief that Clinton foreign policy amounted to "nation-building" and that he would NOT do anything of the sort.

(One of the very few things Bush did say Clinton was right about was that he kept the country from doing anything of value in regards to the genocide in the sudan)

DrMaddVibe
10-31-2006, 09:42 AM
Rwanda??????

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/

DrMaddVibe
10-31-2006, 10:05 AM
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/

"The Triumph of Evil" is a vivid and revealing report on how the 1994 Rwanda genocide could have been prevented.
Drawing on dramatic footage, previously confidential cables and interviews with U.N. and U.S. officials, FRONTLINE investigates how months earlier the U.S. and U.N. had been warned by a key Rwandan informant about the coming slaughter. Despite the warning, the West didn't try to prevent it. And once the genocide started, didn't try to halt it. In just 100 days, the Hutu majority of Rwanda murdered an estimated 800,000 of their Tutsi countrymen--a rate of killing that was faster than the Nazis.

In its indictment of the West's failure to act, "The Triumph of Evil" chronicles significant points in the unfolding genocide. It shows how a U.N. peacekeeping force of over 2,500 was unable to protect Tutsis seeking sanctuary. How, as the massacres spread, the U.N. withdrew its force, abandoning Tutsi refugees. And, at a point when Rwanda was literally overflowing with corpses, the program shows how U.S. and U.N. officials still refrained from calling it genocide so they wouldn't have to get involved.

In candid, on-the-record interviews U.S. officials detail how the U.S. held many inter-agency meetings and struggled with a response to the slaughter. In the end, the Clinton administration hesitated to act because of the so-called Somalia Syndrome; a few months earlier a U.N./U.S. peacekeeping mission in Somalia ended with the deaths of 18 U.S. Rangers. The Clinton administration didn't want to be dragged into another African quagmire.

As Philip Gourevitch, an expert on the Rwanda genocide, bitterly notes at the conclusion of this report, the Clinton administration's failure to intervene in Rwanda "wasn't a failure to act. The decision was not to act. And at that, we succeeded greatly."

DEMON CUNT
10-31-2006, 10:17 AM
But Clinton...But Clinton....But Clinton...

Nice copy/paste, ULTRADOUCE!

Get over it you idiotic bitches. He has been out of office for 6 years and the Republicans have in charge of the farm.

Your desperate attempts to blame Clinton are pathetic and now officially laughable.

http://www.culturefreak.com/blog-cabin/archives/Crybaby-Frist1.jpg

ULTRAMAN VH
10-31-2006, 11:02 AM
Originally posted by DEMON CUNT
But Clinton...But Clinton....But Clinton...

Nice copy/paste, ULTRADOUCE!

Get over it you idiotic bitches. He has been out of office for 6 years and the Republicans have in charge of the farm.

Your desperate attempts to blame Clinton are pathetic and now officially laughable.

http://www.culturefreak.com/blog-cabin/archives/Crybaby-Frist1.jpg

Glad you chimed in with your pathetic drivel. The article gave comparisons on Bush and Clintons foreign policies and showed similarities between the two. The separation is that Clinton did not have a 9-11 to deal with. Out of curiosity, I would have liked to have seen how Clinton would have handled that??

4moreyears
10-31-2006, 01:02 PM
Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
Glad you chimed in with your pathetic drivel. The article gave comparisons on Bush and Clintons foreign policies and showed similarities between the two. The separation is that Clinton did not have a 9-11 to deal with. Out of curiosity, I would have liked to have seen how Clinton would have handled that??

You did. You saw how little he did after Osama'a first attempt in 1993.

ULTRAMAN VH
10-31-2006, 01:15 PM
Originally posted by 4moreyears
You did. You saw how little he did after the first attempt in 1993.

You know what, your right.

BigBadBrian
10-31-2006, 01:17 PM
Originally posted by DEMON CUNT
But Clinton...But Clinton....But Clinton...

Nice copy/paste, ULTRADOUCE!

Get over it you idiotic bitches. He has been out of office for 6 years and the Republicans have in charge of the farm.

Your desperate attempts to blame Clinton are pathetic and now officially laughable.



The only thing laughable is you...the Hypocrite!! :D

If it's so bad to mention KKKlinton, why did you post HERE? (http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1043742#post1043742)

:cool:

EAT MY ASSHOLE
10-31-2006, 01:44 PM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian
The only thing laughable is you...the Hypocrite!! :D



You might be right about DC being the only thing laughable. Because you sure aren't. You're much too much of an idiot for it to be funny.

FORD
10-31-2006, 01:48 PM
Originally posted by 4moreyears
You did. You saw how little he did after Osama'a first attempt in 1993.

How little he did?

You mean like find the suspsects, arrest them, put them on trial and then throw their asses in prison?

Yeah, that really sucked, didn't it?

Goddamn this Busheep history revisionism is really sickening, and it's straight outa Stalinism. (Much like electronic voting is)

4moreyears
10-31-2006, 01:59 PM
Originally posted by FORD
How little he did?

You mean like find the suspsects, arrest them, put them on trial and then throw their asses in prison?

Yeah, that really sucked, didn't it?
(Much like electronic voting is)

Funny how Bin Laden was able to plan Sept. 11 from prison.

Seshmeister
10-31-2006, 02:18 PM
I thought he just funded it.

ODShowtime
10-31-2006, 06:20 PM
Wow Ultra. You found your calling. Blaming Clinton.

You could really carve out a niche here and make a name for yourself with more creative efforts like this one!

:rolleyes:

LoungeMachine
10-31-2006, 07:25 PM
Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
I agree with some of your points but Kosovo remains a mess.





Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
Glad you chimed in with your pathetic drivel. The article gave comparisons on Bush and Clintons foreign policies and showed similarities between the two. The separation is that Clinton did not have a 9-11 to deal with. Out of curiosity, I would have liked to have seen how Clinton would have handled that??



Another pathetic op-ed cunt-n-paste by Brie-Lite.......

And this is ALL you have to offer in your own thread?

again?

Let us know when an original thought crosses your mind between cartoons.....

We'd be interested in hearing it.

DEMON CUNT
10-31-2006, 07:30 PM
Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
The article gave comparisons on Bush and Clintons foreign policies and showed similarities between the two. The separation is that Clinton did not have a 9-11 to deal with. Out of curiosity, I would have liked to have seen how Clinton would have handled that??

Sorry stupid, this is just another one of your jerkoff copy/paste OP-ED pieces designed to distort. Once again you are having trouble telling the difference between fact and opinion.

The Bush administration didn't do a goddam thing about Osama and the threats from Al Qaeda pre-911. They did NOTHING!

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DID NOTHING TO PREVENT 911!

I noticed that none of you Clinton blaming jerkoffs had anything to say in this thread:

What did the Bush Admin do about Bin Laden/Al Qaeda during those first 8 months? (http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40446)

You will never see how Clinton "would have handled that" because he took action to prevent it, you disingenuous ass.

LoungeMachine
10-31-2006, 07:36 PM
LMMFAO

Cunt = 1

UltraVagina = 0


We'll be back after these brief messages.....

DEMON CUNT
10-31-2006, 07:45 PM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian (R - Really Stupid)
The only thing laughable is you...the Hypocrite!!

If it's so bad to mention KKKlinton, why did you post HERE? (http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1043742#post1043742)


Hey BigLyinBrian (fake Christian and Bush apologist), I never said that it was "bad" to mention Clinton. This is simply another one of your many, many lies.

As far as the post you referenced- that is and example of what us grown-ups refer to as sarcasm.

ULTRAMAN VH
10-31-2006, 07:54 PM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
LMMFAO

Cunt = 1

UltraVagina = 0


We'll be back after these brief messages.....

Clinton's failure to mobilize America to confront foreign terror after the 1993 attack led directly to 9-11 disaster




http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- WHEN the terrorist gang controlled by Bin Laden exploded a bomb in the World Trade Center in 1993 killing six and injuring 650 others, President Clinton did not even visit the site of the attack. In his radio address the next day, he expressed his grief and outrage and four days later visited New Jersey where he sent a message to New Yorkers saluting our courage. Other than those statements, he remained aloof and uninvolved.


The attack occurred in the second month of Clinton's presidency. Issues like gays in the military, the recession, and withdrawing our troops from Somalia loomed larger than the 1993 attack. Clinton deliberately remained removed from the attack perhaps in the hope that he would not be blamed so early in his presidency.


Where Bush insisted, from the outset, that the Trade Center attack that took place on his watch was a declaration of war by foreign terrorists against the United States, Clinton treated the attack as a criminal justice situation not unlike the subsequent bombing of the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. But while in Oklahoma, he connected emotionally with the victims, he had nothing to do with them in 1993.


His failure to mobilize America to confront foreign terror after the 1993 attack had dire consequences and led directly to the 2001 disaster. Two years after the 1993 attack, Sudan, sick of sheltering Bin Laden, offered to turn him over to the United States for prosecution. But, without the president breathing down their neck, investigators had not yet discovered that Bin Laden was behind the 1993 attack. Claiming that we lacked evidence to proceed, the US refused Sudan's offer and suggested they turn him over to the Saudis instead. In doing so, the US was disingenuous. We knew full well that the Saudi Arabian kingdom could not afford politically to prosecute their home-grown terrorist.


Clinton was removed, uninvolved, and distant where the war on terror was concerned. CIA director Woolsey now reveals that he never had a private personal meeting with Clinton during the first two years of his tenure as head of the CIA - exactly the key period in investigating the 1993 attack.


I had a good illustration of Clinton's remoteness from terrorist issues in 1996 when Dick Holbrooke called me, several months after the terrorist attack on US barracks in Ridyah, Saudi Arabia. Holbrooke, who told me that he had never had the opportunity to speak with Clinton directly during the months that he was negotiating the Dayton peace accords in Bosnia, asked that I get hold of the president to pass along a message. Holbrooke said that he had information that the terrorists were planning another attack in Ridyah and that our troops were highly vulnerable.


"They are stuck in the same buildings the terrorists attacked last time," Holbrook told me. "All that has changed is that there are more formidable concrete barriers against car bombs. But a bigger bomb would be just as lethal. They need to be dispersed and camped in the desert in tents with a secured perimeter," he warned.


I called the president and passed along Holbrooke's message. He had no idea that the troops were still in the barracks and said that he had ordered them dispersed to the desert six weeks before. "I've got a meeting with the Joint Chiefs in the morning," the president said "I'll raise hell with them."


Shockingly, he was so little involved in protecting our troops - already the object of a terrorist attack - that he had no idea that his order had not been executed until I happened to call.


Clinton was a one-thing-at-a-time president. Capable of intense focus on the issue du jour, he neglected all back burner concerns. And terror was always on the back burner.


Throughout the first part of his second term, Clinton was immobilized by impeachment. Battling desperately to save his presidency, he simply had neither the time nor the mental energy to immerse himself in a war against terror. Blame him for the perjury that caused impeachment. Blame the GOP for pursuing him. Blame whoever you want, but we were without a president from January, 1998 until April, 1999.


Thereafter, his administration was almost wholly devoted to electing Hillary to the Senate and, to a lesser extent, to making Gore president. Once again, terrorism was not the priority.


It never was. Now it is.









JWR contributor Dick Morris is the author of, among others, The New Prince. Comment by clicking here.








Dick Morris is a pretty reliable source on The Big Dog.

DEMON CUNT
10-31-2006, 08:25 PM
Another copy paste, ULTRADOUCHE!?!

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/5691/ultrawu6.jpg

Dick Morris!?! Ha ha!

Pop quiz: Dick was fired by Clinton for what?

Bonus question: What did the Bush Administration do about terrorist threats for the first 8 month they were in power?

"but Clinton...but Clinton...but Clinton..."

LoungeMachine
10-31-2006, 08:29 PM
LMMFAO....


Can you string more than two sentences together without the right click, UltraVag?

pathetic.

How it must suck to be a mere speck of Brie, a lightweight among lightweights....

ODShowtime
10-31-2006, 09:20 PM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
pathetic.

How it must suck to be a mere speck of Brie, a lightweight among lightweights....

there's gotta be a pecking order

Nickdfresh
10-31-2006, 09:30 PM
Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
I agree with some of your points but Kosovo remains a mess.

[edit] Aftermath
The most immediate problem — the refugees — was largely resolved very quickly: within three weeks, over 500,000 Albanian refugees had returned home. By November 1999, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 808,913 out of 848,100 had returned. However, much of the remaining Serb population of Kosovo fled fearing revenge attacks. Gypsies, Turks and Bosniaks were also driven out after being brutalized by Albanians. The Yugoslav Red Cross had registered 247,391 mostly Serbian refugees by November. The new exodus was a severe embarrassment to NATO, which had established a peacekeeping force of 45,000 under the auspices of the United Nations Mission In Kosovo (UNMIK). According to Amnesty International, the presence of peacekeepers in Kosovo led to an increase in the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation. [17] [18]



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War

Hey dummy con, the fuckup War's in Iraq.

Are you buffoons this desperate? Who gives a fuck about Kosovo?

DEMON CUNT
10-31-2006, 09:32 PM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
Cunt = 1

UltraVagina = 0


LOL

ULTRADOUCHE is too easy. He begs for it!

At least BigBland can pull a miniscule historcal reference out of is ass once in a while.

LoungeMachine
10-31-2006, 10:20 PM
Originally posted by DEMON CUNT
LOL

ULTRADOUCHE is too easy. He begs for it!

At least BigBland can pull a miniscule historcal reference out of is ass once in a while.


Brie is intelligent.

No denying that.

He's just misguided, petulant, and myopic.....

But smart.:cool:

Seshmeister
10-31-2006, 10:54 PM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
Brie is intelligent.


Not recently.

I think he's just trolling these days.

FORD
11-01-2006, 02:23 AM
Originally posted by Seshmeister
Not recently.

I think he's just trolling these days.

He definitely has been more hateful the last few days.

ODShowtime
11-01-2006, 07:30 PM
BBB may have read a couple books in his day, but in my opinion he's just smart enough to be dangerous. Sound familiar?

LoungeMachine
11-01-2006, 08:28 PM
Let me clarify....

You can be smart, and still be a troll

You can be well-read, and still be a hypocritical douche

You can be Cuntservative, and still see what an idiot your party's leader is..........I think