Liberal Challenge: "Nobody Died When Clinton Lied"

1-/24/03 | zeebee

[alnick]

You let the debate turn to which "lie" is worse. Did you just concede that Bush lied? He got you with a Red Herring.

THIS BEARS REPEATING!!

[Charliehorse]

How agout: nobody was freed when Clinton was treed.

[Coleus]

How about the 800 or so in the Bosnian war where he almost started wwIII after bombing the chineese embasy, commuter trains, hospitals, etc.

Then over 2 million black christians in Sudan and Rahwanda
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/969591/posts

And how about the aspirin factory he blew up and the bombings in Iraq, Sudan, etc.

go to http://www.alamo-girl.com

there's tons of stuff on there.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the heads up, Freemeorkillme!

To answer your question, cwboelter - most all of the information in the Downside Legacy was posted at one time or another on Free Republic. I acted like an unofficial secretary-archivist picking "3x5 card" type information and organizing it for the researchers and activists on the forum.

It used to be an series of threads but grew too large (it's 10,000 pages now) so I had to host it separately.

[montag813]

The correct answer is "Bush didn't lie".

Duh. Why does this guy get caught in the Liberal trap by agreeing with the assumptions. BUSH NEVER LIED. That is the answer.

[Alamo-Girl]

Here are a few tidbits out of the Downside Legacy ---concerning the Clinton administration foreign policy --- that have been bothering me for some time. Emphasis mine:

vny.com/UPI 1/26/01 Richard Sale "...Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamicterrorist suspect sought by the United States in connection with the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, had months earlier been linked to the 1993 deaths of 18 U.S. Rangers in Somalia. A Justice Department indictment of those responsible, however, was suppressed and no action taken, U.S. intelligence sources revealed Friday. ..... According to former U.S. intelligence officials, bin Laden was secretly indicted for the Ranger killings in 1997. "I personally discussed the indictment with the FBI," one former U.S. government source said. But the indictment was later "torn up" and then made part of a public indictment of bin Laden and 17 co-defendants filed in 1998 by the Justice Department following the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in which 224 people died. The Ranger murders are mentioned specifically on pages 18 and19 of that indictment. ...According to former U.S. military sources, the U.S. military leadership, led by Adm. Jonathan Howe, senior officer of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Somalia, believed that Aidid's Somalia National Alliance forces were behind the July 12 murder of Pakistani troops in the U.N. force, and that the warlord should be captured and tried as a war criminal. Howe requested a Ranger force to hunt Aidid down. ......By the early summer of 1993, Aidid began an escalation. There were attacks by Islamic detachments operating out of Aidid-held areas of Mogadishu on U.N. forces, and on June 5, 24 Pakistani soldiers were ambushed and killed....."

“…..Madeleine Albright, the U.S. secretary of state, has refused to appear before a United Nations-mandated independent inquiry probing why the world body failed to prevent the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the National Post has learned. Ms. Albright was the U.S. ambassador to the UN at the time of the genocide and can provide key information about high-level decisions that led the U.S. to call on the UN Security Council to dramatically reduce the number of UN peacekeepers in Rwanda shortly after the killing began in earnest in April. ….. However, she and members of her senior staff, including Susan Rice, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa both at the time of the genocide and now, have declined invitations from Ingvar Carlsson, a former Swedish prime minister who is chairing the inquiry, to meet with him and his two fellow panelists when they visit Washington this week…..” Edwards, Steven. “Albright Shuns Investigation of Rwandan Genocide.” Global Policy Forum. December 6, 1999. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/rwanda/albrite.htm

I wonder what carnage could have been prevented with a different foreign policy.

[cwb]

Great posts and great points. Love your research. When you think about the death-toll in relation to Clinton's actions, we most also take into consideration the deaths from Clinton's inactions. Becasue of his passive style, he ignored obvious threats (OBL) that grew to bigger threats, while engaging soft-targets that allowed him to claim political victories. His policies were analagous to someone taking a couple swings at a hornets nest. While he may have killed a couple hornets that allowed him claim victory, he did nothing more than piss-off the hive.

His inactions caused as much death and destruction as his actions. I think Charles Krauthammer described it best in his "Holiday from History." Bill Clinton did just enough to at least look like he was doing something. He didn't want to rock the "economic" boat, nor did he want anything to interfere with his Mid-East Peace Plan. Therefore, he ignored the growing terrorist threat because that would've given the perception that Clinton was anti-Arab. And he couldn't have that while trying to negotiate with Barak and Arafat. In the process, he "kicked-the-can"...and the problems, down the road for the next administration.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your excellent analysis! I agree with your characterizations of the Clinton foreign policy.

I recall reading an article that pointed out Clinton's use of force was inversely proportional to the body count. He used a heavy hand in Haiti with a death count of 200 and in Kosovo with a death count of a few thousand - but did nothing in Rwanda with a death count of nearly a million, or Tibet or Timor or Sri Lanka etc. with death counts in the tens of thousands.

There was evidently no moral compass to these decisions. Likewise, there was "feeling the pain" for AIDS victims but nothing substantive to actually help prevent the massive deaths in Africa.

If there had been a firm sense of good and evil in those years, al Queda would have been confronted at any one of the flashpoints: 1993 WTC bombing, Somalia, Embassy bombings, USS Cole.

Sadly, Americans tend to take national security for granted. Because they don't feel threatened and change their focus to the economy or whatever - not realizing that another 911 - only much, much worse - is lurking just around the corner. We cannot, absolutely cannot, afford another Clintonian foreign policy until the war on terror is decisively won.

[Coleus]

thanks.

[zencycler]

You should attack the underlying implication of his premise. He implying that many did die because Bush did lie....

1) Bush did not lie, make him prove that he did.

2) Many more would have died if Bush took no action, as Clinton did (Many Died Because Clinton "Lied Around The House Doing Nothing About National Security).

3) Dying for a worthy cause is not a negative. What do liberals have against the pricipal of making the ultimate sacrifice for liberty?

[auron_20]

Watergate? as in The Nixon Downfall, YOu are meaning WHITEWATER yes?

[auron_20]

an ass and a fanatic because he disagress with you? I think that would make you the ass sir

[bmwcyle]

Yea right and Vince got in the wrong color Honda and threw his dead body in the Park all by himself.

[DM1]

Cite USS Cole - Clinton Did nothing
Cite Khobar Towers - Clinton did nothing
Cite the US Embassy's being Bombed - Clinton did nothing but throw a few rockets at Afghanistan that did nothing more than make a few swimming pools for Al Qaeda
Cite Clintons shackling of our troops in somalia - they died because they had to be under a UN flag.
Lots of Americans died in those incidents and Clinton did nothing about them worth salt.

[kidd]

Kosovo was a BIG lie.

Clinton promised that the troops would be there ONE year. They are still there. Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Americans are dying there daily.

Clinton's justification for the war was to stop Milosivic from his campaign of ethinic cleansing. Milosivic has been captured, but has not been found guilty of ANYTHING, and it is unlikely that he ever will.

[theDentist]

No, an ass and a fanatic for not bothering consider another's point of view dispassionately, and for passing judgement on books he won't read because he doesn't like the source without seeing the cases they lay out (right or wrong).

Go away newbie troll.

[hershey]

Those butchered rangers in Somalia...died because Les Aspin and Clinton wouldn't supply backup tanks/armament. Aspin, the defense sec. at the time, said to the press that 'we're saving the tanks for Bosnia'. Nobody had asked the US public if we agreed to send ground troops or anything to Bosnia. Clinton admin. lied and rangers died, were butchered, and dragged through the streets. The killers were Al Qaeda thugs, by the way.

[hershey]

Boy, the Clinton monstrosity list is endless.

[Paul_Denton]

Last I check several people died. Complete body count.

[Paul_Denton]

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