The Culpability of William Jefferson Blythe Clinton

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Culpability links

-- (Roger Clinton @ I hate the.ratbastard), July 27, 2002

Answers

Andrew Sullivan

andrewsullivan.com, September 30, 2001

Aware perhaps that the next turn in this story will be a thorough examination of how American intelligence failed so badly to avoid the September 11 Massacre, the Clinton administration uses its favorite paper, the New York Times, for spin control. One major leak about past efforts to get bin Laden killed must have come from someone. Who? Sandy Berger? Does this leak in any way imperil intelligence today? Key ass-covering quotes from Berger and Albright follow. "It was something that we focused on on a daily basis, and pursued with vigor, and I think we accomplished quite a lot," said former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. "'I think we took it as far as was possible to go at the time, and I think what we did has provided the basis for things the Bush administration is trying to do now.'" Yeah, right. And here's Berger: "'This was a top priority for us over the past several years, and not a day went by when we didn't press as hard as we could," said Samuel R. Berger, national security adviser in the Clinton administration. "But this is a tough, tough problem. I think we were pushing it as hard as we could. And I think the Bush administration is handling it in a smart way.'" The Times is forced to concede "mixed results" and it notably doesn't finger Robert Rubin as the main obstacle for shutting down al Qaeda's financial network. How could they when they spent major front-page space puffing Rubin earlier this week? No critic is quoted in the article. I'd say this piece is the first sign that the Clintonites are rattled. They know they bear the bulk of responsibility for this - although, of course, not alone. I'm not absolving any of us from some responsibility - including the two Bush administrations, and pundits who didn't sound the alarm loudly enough. But all signs point to the Clinton administration as the major source of responsibility. No surprise that the Times would be out in front trying to exculpate them.

-- (one culpability link @ many.to go), July 27, 2002.


Yes, there is more to this matter than the Z's of this world would have you believe. Just because something awful did not happen during Clinton's Presidency, he is supposedly blameless for what happened shortly thereafter.

Some weeks ago, Hillary was on a Sunday morning talking head show. When asked why stronger action was not taken against Al Q outrages during her husband's Administration, she bleated that the American people weren't ready to support really strong measures. Ever hear of leadership, you sanctimonious @#&^%$.

-- Peter Errington (petere7@starpower.net), July 27, 2002.


Hillary's remark was self-serving but, sad to say, had a grain of truth. Clinton's own party would have objected to strong anti-terror measures prior to 9/11. Remember, they are the same people who vitiated the CIA's ability to collect information "on the ground" because it would have required us to cooperate with less than lily-pure sources. So, we sat on our lily-pure ignorance until we were sucker-punched.

The same dynamic is alive and well in the opposition to a pre-emptive strike on Iraq. I guess we need to wait until the psychopathic Saddam fully acquires and uses nukes before we can neutralize his war making ability. Maybe he will use them on trollboy's city first.

Appeasement didn't work in the 30s and it won't work now.

-- (lars@indy.net), July 27, 2002.


Paranoia didn't work in the 30's and it won't work now.

-- (kill everybody @ just in case. they might try to kill you), July 27, 2002.

Yes Lars, you are a paranoid right-wing drivelist. If we just treat the Islamic peoples with gentleness and goo-gooey love, they will goo-gooey love us in return, even as they stone us to death and enslave our infidel women.

All We Need is Love. Heeeeheee!

-- (Mark David Chapman @ Yoko's.dojo), July 27, 2002.



"I guess we need to wait until the psychopathic Saddam fully acquires and uses nukes before we can neutralize his war making ability."

LOL!

Given the numerous invasions and slaughter of innocent Iraquis by the psychopathic Bush family, why shouldn't they try to defend themselves? I'm sure you pugs will be happier when you can just wipe out other countries and steal their resources without any resistance, but don't pretend they are the agressors simply because they don't give up without at least trying to survive.

-- (pugs are @ soooooo. ignorant), July 27, 2002.


The Exquisite Corpse Spring/Sommer 2002

link

Osama's Spain

by Judith Beck

In 1938, the leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met with Hitler in an attempt to avoid war. Believing that it would be his first attack on foreign soil and his last territorial demand, they delivered Czechoslovakia with such eagerness that Hitler later complained to his private guard. So anxious was Neville Chamberlain to appease, he ruined the Führer's opportunity to practice Blitzkreig and enter Prague as a triumphant conqueror.

Copying the Nazis, who waged a propaganda campaign listing real or imagined wrongs committed against Czech Germans as an excuse to divert attention and justify attacks on innocents, the Arab countries focus a propaganda campaign on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They claim that's the cause of their hostility to the West--not the fundamentalists' openly voiced hatred for "infidels." Attempts to placate them by abandoning Israel are already being compared to the naïvely hopeful sell-out of Czechoslovakia. But what's often forgotten: before Hitler had his Czechoslovakia, he had his Spain.

Like the present tension between the secular West and the fundamentalist Muslim world, the conflict in Spain was ideological: Spanish Republicanism versus Franco's Dictatorship. Except for the fact that established European governments wouldn't support a Socialist revolution, Hitler didn't much care about ideology; he merely wanted an excuse to test his weapons of war. Spain was where he developed Blitzkrieg; Guernica was the town he leveled, assessing the efficacy of his dive-bombers on a largely civilian population. Spain presaged the worldwide horrors of the coming war; as with all new technology, advances in killing require test runs.

Osama bin Ladin and the other terrorists have a longer timetable than Hitler, but like him, they've been keeping watch on world reaction. They've had their Spain. In 1988, the arch terrorist-supporter Saddam Hussein tested the use of poison gas on an ethnic minority in his own country. The Times of London reported, "On March 16, 1988 the people of Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja were decimated by Saddam Hussein's arsenal of chemical weapons. The Kurds of Halabja and neighboring towns comprise the largest civilian population ever exposed to chemical weapons. . . Halabja was bombarded with a cocktail of chemical weapons including mustard gas, and the nerve gases sarin, tabun and VX. Between 5,000 and 12,000 people were killed immediately and a further 40,000 to 70,000 were injured, many severely."

Though this was obviously against the spirit and letter of the Geneva Convention, the world paid scant attention. The UN didn't send troops to seize Saddam Hussein as a criminal; the other Muslim nations didn't rise up in defense of their Kurdish co-religionists. The Western countries, afraid of the opinion of the oil-producing Arabs, were mostly silent. Women who had died clutching their babies to their chests were photographed lying eerily unmarked in dusty village streets, some with their eyes wide open. Those photos raised only the ghost of a response; the rest of the world merely blinked. Since no one tracked the long-term, continuing effects or the gas or the condition of the surviving Kurds, Saddam Hussein was allowed to continue his genocidal war in peace.

Emboldened, Saddam continued stockpiling chemical and biological weapons and training terrorists in their use. Not even the Gulf War and the burning of the Kuwaiti oil fields proved reason for him to be deposed and tried, his factories and storehouses destroyed.

Had the Allies decisively defended the Spanish Republicans in 1936, driving Franco and the Axis forces into defeat, had they insisted the Treaty of Versailles be honored, World War II could have been prevented. If we had stopped Saddam in 1988, we wouldn't be worrying about anthrax in the crop-dusters or sarin in the subways. Had we shown we meant business then and continued to closely monitor the situation amongst the radical Muslims, we might not be worried about terrorists now.

When Europe handed over Czechoslovakia in a vain attempt to appease Hitler and avoid conflict, Hitler was given the go-ahead he needed to plunge the world into war. He'd already noticed timid world leaders ignored his stockpiling of conventional weapons and the enlargement of the German army, though this meant flouting of the Treaty of Versailles, which restricted Germany to an army of only 100,000 soldiers and a severely limited number of ships, planes and armaments.

The terrorists have had their proving grounds in Iraq, test runs against America in Dar es Salaam and now on our own soil. Let's be sure they don't have their Czechoslovakia--not while we can still avert world war.

-- (Kurdish Liberation Front @ Saddam's.charnel house), July 27, 2002.


Trollboy, The Ezquisite Corpse, edited bt Andrei Codrescu, is not a "right-wing"/"pug" publication. Just thought you'd like to know.

-- (rhymin' simon @ poetics.com), July 27, 2002.



-- (-@-.-), July 27, 2002.

whatever

-- (-@-.-), July 27, 2002.


BWAAAAAHAHAAAAAHAHAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAA!!

Another retard who can't even handle HTML, trying to tell us what's going on in the World!!

It has never been proven that Saddam ever poisoned anyone, looks more like that was right-wing propaganda by the Bushies or similar repugnants in order to advance their own disgusting agenda.

As long as you're talking about Hitler though, you should look back into the history of the Bush family. They were good buds with Hitler and helped finance his Nazi army. Now we see Dumbya basically trying to do the same thing as Hitler, he's just a lot more deceptive and careful not to put any labels on it. His keywords are "anti-terrorism" and "axis of evil", but his goal is global fascism.

-- LOL (get@clue.dimwit), July 27, 2002.


So HTML literacy defines intelligence? I think you may be confusing intelligence and nerdiness. Hang out at slashdot do you?

"his goal is global fascism." How do you know what his goal is?

-- (Kurdish Liberation Front @ Saddam's front yard.pissing), July 27, 2002.


Do you mean to say that Unc let a nerd sneak in here? Jesus, Unc!

-- Peter Errington (petere7@starpower.net), July 27, 2002.

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-- Cherri (whatever@who.cares), July 28, 2002.


links don't work, or is that intentional?

-- (roland@hooter.mail), July 29, 2002.


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