I don't know what "bullshit" you are referring to but the initial intelligence came from England. Is that bullshit as well? Get a grip and be honet with yourself and others because it seems you don't have a fucking clue of what your talking about. Bill Clinton signed a Declaration To Overthrow Saddam Hussein in February of 1998 because of continued violations of the (what came to total) 16 UN resolutions. Is that FOX News's fault as well? What's with your hard-on for FOX News? Because Keith Olbermann isn't blowing Obama under the table?

You are correct in that the "buck stops" with the President. But if you are going to blame Bush, then you have to give the same blame to the Clinton people as well because it was a Clinton holdover to the Bush Administration that told him the Iraqi intelligence of WMD's was a "slam dunk". Or did you forget that as well?

I enjoy debating who don't agree with my world view or perspective. That's the fun of these blogs. However, you need to put your blind ideology of what you think happened or didn't happen and get with the reality of what is - not the idealism of what you would like it to be.

1) When American servicemen/women are murdered for example in 1983 in the barracks of Beruit, Reagan absolutely should have gotten the intelligence of who did what and began a strategic air campaign to take out the "folks" who authorized the bombings. Similar to what he did with Khadafy. He missed the boat on that one. Ironic considering that far-left liberals who get their information through people like Arianna Huffington and Dan Rather were the same people calling Reagan a "warmonger" and how he was going to "hit the button" as soon as he got into office. By not responding militarily, I believe he emboldened those who did the bombing because America did not response and the world was watching.

2) Bush 41 did the right thing in going into the "Gulf War" but was wrong in not finishing the job. Sadly, most of the other countries who went in with us refused to take part IF we did more than just remove Hussein's armies from Kuwait. Bush acquiessed (sp.) and did not go after him. That was an error.

3) Carter....'Nuff said. It would take a book to detail everything that went wrong with that man. All I can tell you is the following: The hostages in Iran were held for over a year with carter totally ineffective and outsmarted. The day Reagan was inaugurated the hostages were released basically because Reagan threatened to turn the country into a parking lot. They feared and respected a man who had not even stepped in the Oval Office yet. Compare that to Jimmy Carter.

4) Because of our non-actions from the '70's it is my belief that terrorists in the Middle East were growing a bigger set of balls because we really weren't doing anything to combat terrorism. The thinking I think was simply "Well it ain't happening here, so.." However, Bill Clinton was perhaps the most guilty in terms of his dereliction of defending this country. WTC in 1993, The Kobar Towers, the USS Cole, all under his watch and the best he would come up with was bombing an asprin factory. I certainly don't blame him for 9/11 any more than I blame Bush for it. however, I do blame Clinton for 8 years of creating an enviornment that encouraged that kind of attack because we were a country that would go to the UN and seek others approval as if we were teens in high school trying to get the hottest date for the prom. After the '93 attacks at WTC, I would have begun the "War On Terror" and considered it a National security issue and not a criminal issue as it was considered.

Action Alert
Bill Clinton, Anti-War?
Times, Post let Bill Clinton's dishonesty slide
11/29/07

The New York Times and Washington Post (11/28/07) both failed to adequately challenge the dishonesty of former President Bill Clinton's declaration that he had been opposed to the Iraq War "from the beginning." Clinton, in fact, was a supporter of the war, both before the invasion and in the first year or so of the fighting.

In the Times' words, though, Clinton's new stance was just "more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003." The Times went on to claim that around the time of the invasion, "Clinton did not precisely declare that he opposed the war," though he "has said several times since the war began that he would not have attacked Iraq in the manner that President Bush had done."

The Post's account was similarly muddled, with the paper noting that Clinton was "glossing over the more nuanced views of the war he has expressed over time," though "past remarks made by the former president do leave open a question about how fervently Clinton opposed the war at the outset." The Post returned to the story the next day (11/29/07), repeating that Clinton "went far beyond more nuanced remarks he made about the conflict in 2003." The Post did try to challenge Clinton's position by noting that he had participated in briefings with key Bush administration officials, and had allegedly expressed support for the invasion plan.

But Clinton's public support for the war is a matter of record. Just before George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair invaded Iraq, Clinton published an op-ed in the London Guardian (3/18/03) urging Britons to "Trust Tony's Judgment":

As Blair has said, in war there will be civilian was well as military casualties.... But if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam.


Clinton's column included the less-than-prescient prediction that "military action probably will require only a few days."

Soon after the invasion (3/30/03), Clinton appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes with former Senator Robert Dole and endorsed the war, saying, "Senator, unlike some of your Republican friends during Kosovo, I support our troops in Iraq and the president." (Note that while one can support the troops but not the war, supporting the president in Iraq means supporting the war.)

In a 2004 interview with Time magazine (6/28/04), Clinton reiterated this before-the-fact support for the invasion: "You know, I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over."

Clinton went on to claim that Iraq's chemical and biological weapons were of concern, especially after the September 11 attacks:

So, you're sitting there as president, you're reeling in the aftermath of this, so, yeah, you want to go get bin Laden and do Afghanistan and all that. But you also have to say, well, my first responsibility now is to try everything possible to make sure that this terrorist network and other terrorist networks cannot reach chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material. I've got to do that. That's why I supported the Iraq thing.


Clinton added: "So that's why I thought Bush did the right thing to go back. When you're the president, and your country has just been through what we had, you want everything to be accounted for."

Remarks like these should be referenced when a political figure attempts to dramatically recast his record. But establishment media go out of their way to avoid questioning powerful politicians, especially presidents: "You can't say the president is lying," as New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller once proclaimed (Extra!, 1-2/05).

The papers of record have given George W. Bush license to eliminate well-known events from the recent history of Iraq, claiming of Saddam Hussein (7/14/03): "We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." As FAIR pointed out (7/18/03), in fact, after a Security Council resolution was passed demanding that Iraq allow inspectors in, they were given complete access to the country; their well-publicized search for the non-existent WMDs was ongoing until four months before Bush's claim. The Washington Post (7/15/03), describing Bush's remarkable statement, could only say that his assertion "appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring."

Bush has repeatedly made the same claim (1/27/04, 3/21/06, 5/24/07, 11/7/07; see Consortium News, 11/9/07), with little or no note taken by the news outlets that chronicle his every move. "Historians will wonder someday how a free press permitted the world's most important official to say such things without contradiction," Salon's Joe Conason reported (3/31/06).

When politicians are allowed to get away with making such bold misstatements, it can only serve to embolden others to do the same, since there would seem to be no downside to lying. Indeed, at a Republican candidates' debate in June, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney offered his own version of the weapons inspector lie, to little media note (FAIR Action Alert, 6/8/07). Perhaps the press was just treating him as they would if he actually were president.

ACTION: Ask the Washington Post and New York Times why their reports on Clinton's misstatement did not more forcefully challenge his record on the Iraq War.

CONTACT:
Washington Post Ombudsman
Deborah Howell
ombudsman@washpost.com
(202) 334-7582

New York Times Public Editor
Clark Hoyt
public@nytimes.com
(212) 556-7652

Clinton has zero to do with what Bush did. The only reason Clinton is being mentioned is because it is CIA/Pentagon black propaganda being waged into the media and government (and internet) by our criminal authorities posing as fair playing good guys who were fooled. Iraq was a Pentagon/Bush play in order to save US face internationally and to take advantage of 9-11 as an excuse to activate the Plan For A New American Century. If you believe the propaganda being put out to cover Bush you are gullible and doing exactly what they want you to do. If you don't then you are a lying bastard and one of the criminals.

"Slam Dunk" was Tenet telling Bush the evidence was solid after being recorded as being led by Bush and Cheney to produce evidence. You must not have read the reports posted on this site showing how Bush sent the reports back to CIA until they came up with something. You have to think we are fools to think we would accept your truthless version. But you are also not being accurate. If the intelligence was so good during Clinton then Bush wouldn't have needed to fake the mobile labs, nuclear yellow cake, and every other piece of premeditatively false evidence we were conned with in the pubic case for the invasion.

The evidence Bush lied is all clear. It is great to show the world what willing participants in lies Americans are and how credible their claim to self-regulation through the poplace and government check and balance is.

And to say the evidence came from Britain is just more shameful, deceitful obfuscation that ignores how many brits complained about Blair's phony case for war as well...

Yeah, let's all wait for Jetfart to get a grip and be honest with herself. It's gotta happen sooner or later.

You're right, Jetfart, Keith Obermann isn't blowing Obama under the table. He does it an hour a day on network cable for anyone with even a trace of brain matter to see.

I'm not going to continually go back and forth with you. You want to believe what fits your world view and I believe in the facts I've either read or seen from the players themselves. I saw Bill O'Reilly grill Tenet on this very issue and Tenet told O'Reilly that they thought it was a "slam dunk". Period. End of story. Finished. What you have been offering is theory versus fact. All of the afore mentioned terrorist attacks that occurred on Clinton's watch were not answered. If that's your idea of a strong foreign policy then good for you. It isn't for me and history and facts back me up.

Hi Steve,

I understand the strong desire to violently go after people who killed a bunch of our people....I do, steve. But, in the Beirut bombing, it wasn't that easy...and no where near as easy as you are portraying. Comparing the bombing of Gaddafi to a bombing of terrorists inside Beirut, Lebanon is very much an apples to oranges comparison. Bombing nation-states, e.g., government facilities, military bases, etc. is EASY; we've done it many times in the past....and we could do it till the cows come home.....and that's exactly what Gaddafi/Libya was...a nation-state getting out of its box. Again, easy to deal with militarily (similar to the first three weeks of the Iraq War).

However, bombing terrorists inside Beirut....not so easy. Who and where? Unlike nation-states, they don't sit still and are not easy to identify. You say gather the intelligence....again, easier said than done. It takes time...usually on the order of years (my understanding is that it took about 20 years to finally determine who was really responsible...US Courts than handed out the indictments, I believe).

Another tidbit, steve....if you remember, at the time, Lebanon was on the verge of a civil war.....things were very dicey. I don't think dropping bombs around Beirut would've helped the situation. Emotionally, we want to immediately and quickly bomb the shit out of somebody...no doubt; pragmatically, we always need to think it through, investigate, work with other countries and organizations....and, again, that takes time.
I don't know much about this....but, looking back, I like Reagan more and more.
Interestingly, GHWB would disagree with you....


I don't buy your Reagan/Carter depiction here, steve. Reagan faced the same dilemma Carter faced and had the same number one priority....get the hostages home safe. And because of that, the Iranians had no more reason to fear Reagan than they did Carter. Probably the biggest reason the Iranians gave up the hostages.....Saddam Hussein of all people.

Sidenote....my understanding is that in a recent book by SecDef Gates, he claims that Carter deserves far more credit for bringing down the Soviet Union than he has received from history. I haven't read the book, yet. But, as you know, Gates is no liberal...I find it interesting.
Don't forget the strike into Afghanistan....that was actually the more important effort at the time.

First of all, steve, it was considered a national security issue....at least when I was involved in it....and a large chunk of our military resources were allocated to it. I know this firsthand. But, the first modus operand of choice was to first work with countries (when possible) and have them help us find these people, e.g., law enforcement and usually other countries' law enforcement. Because, again steve, at the end of the day, terrorism is a criminal act.....performed by groups/individuals that look and behave very much like criminal organizations. The term "War on Terror" is a misnomer and incorrect...because it makes it sound primarily like a military problem, but it's not. We want it to be...that is more our nature, but again...it's not.

One last question, steve...what would your "War on Terror" have entailed back in 1993? Can you give more details?

__________________
The Lone Ranger of the AWE liberal elitists.....who was that masked man???

And now, I'm the Elitist of liberal Elitists...

Again, I'll respond to this tonight. Work comes first but I'm not ignoring you.

No hurry, dude. I have the fortune of typing and working at the same time...as my computer churns away....

__________________
The Lone Ranger of the AWE liberal elitists.....who was that masked man???

And now, I'm the Elitist of liberal Elitists...

There are a lot of things that Bush and I don't agree on. The fact that I voted for him twice wasn't necesarilly and endorsement. it was an indictment of the lack of a candidate the Democrats had to offer.




Had Carter won re-election, those hostages weren't going anywhere. And that's a fact.


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