Bill Clinton Angrily Defends bin Laden Handling (Clinton's Paranoid and Obsessive Rant)

AOL News ^ | 09/24/06 | Karen Matthews

[MikeA]

Clinton to Chris Wallace: 'You Got That Little Smirk on Your Face and You Think You're So Clever'

WASHINGTON (Sept. 24) - In a combative interview on "Fox News Sunday," former President Clinton defended his handling of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden, saying he tried to have bin Laden killed and was attacked for his efforts by the same people who now criticize him for not doing enough.

"That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Clinton said in the interview. "They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try."

Clinton accused host Chris Wallace of a "conservative hit job" and asked: "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, 'Why didn't you do anything about the Cole?' I want to know how many people you asked, 'Why did you fire Dick Clarke?"'

He was referring to the USS Cole, attacked by terrorists in Yemen in 2000, and former White House anti-terrorism chief Richard A. Clarke.

Wallace said Sunday he was surprised by Clinton's "conspiratorial view" of "a very non-confrontational question, 'Did you do enough to connect the dots and go after Al Qaida?"'

"All I did was ask him a question, and I think it was a legitimate news question. I was surprised that he would conjure up that this was a hit job," Wallace said in a telephone interview.

Clinton said he "worked hard" to try to kill bin Laden.

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"We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody's gotten since," he said.

He told Wallace, "And you got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever, but I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it, but I did try and I did everything I thought I responsibly could."

The interview was taped Friday during Clinton's three-day Global Initiative conference.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," also taped Friday and aired Sunday, Clinton told interviewer Tim Russert that the biggest problem confronting the world today is "the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity."

"That's what's driving the terrorism," he said. "It's not just that there's an unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict. Osama Bin Laden and Dr. al-Zawahiri can convince young Sunni Arab men, who have - and some women - who have despairing conditions in their lives, that they get a one-way ticket to heaven in a hurry if they kill a lot of innocent people who don't share their reality."

09-24-06 18:35 EDT

[Wuli]

Getting Jamie Gorelick appointed to the 9/11 Commission was supposed to put and end to BJ Clinton's Al Queda problem. It didn't.

Now he's pissed because (1)the Dims and the media did not help Gorelick's mythm-making work enough, and (2)now that the GOP, conservatives and the alternate media have refused to allow Clinton's myths to succeed, he realizes that his wife is about to clock him for ruining her 2008 chances. With her coming down on me, I'd be pissed too.

[Havisham]

I disagree that Clinton's reaction was planned. Clinton is a narcissistic and schizoid personality. The evil twin is a bully and capable of violence. The good twin doesn't remember his violent outbursts because he wasn't there. I'm familiar with this borderline personality type and Bill Clinton should be studied as a classic case.

And Chris Wallace has real grounds for an order of protection based on the video.

[Havisham]

I love Chris Wallace's smirk. It's sexy. To Clinton that smirk says "all you Jews think you're smarter than me". Both Clintons are well-documented anti-semites.

[Valin]

Very good!

[buffyt]

You are 100% RIGHT!

[zip]

ping

[buffyt]

It is replaying right now. It just gets funnier and funnier. What a pathetic HAS BEEN Clinton is!

[dbehsman]

Thank you for posting that. Very informative and worth book marking.

[EricT.]

given the lack of sexual expression and contact of any kind in muzlim society, that young men are very much taken in by the promises of 72 virgins and rivers of wine that won't hang you over.

Why the heck would anyone want virgins? They don't know what the heck they're doing. That wine thing, though...

[A CA Guy]

[philman_36]

Now the 9/11 Commission was a political document too.
That little snippet should be proclaimed far and wide.
It wasn't intended to be a fair report from the outset and Bubba just as much as admitted it.

[Clinging Bitterly]

...have you ever seen anyone ask him anything like this in a one-on-one?

Back in '02 the sinkmaster made a campaign appearance here in Eugene for 'rat Sen. Wyden and on the way out a local TV reporter asked him a similar question. He blew a gasket then too. There is probably some video on the 'net. It was KMTR TV so maybe kmtr.com still has it somewhere.

[philman_36]

And...
Richard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s bookRichard Clarke’s bookRichard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s bookRichard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s book Richard Clarke’s bookRichard Clarke’s book

[philman_36]

And all this business about Somalia — the same people who criticized me about Somalia were demanding I leave the next day. Same exact crowd.
U.S. Troops May Go to Somalia to Protect U.N. Peacekeepers
The United States has reached no decision on the requests, U.S. officials said. U.S. military planners recognize that the United Nations will need assistance to leave Somalia quickly. But the Clinton administration has not forgotten that 18 American servicemen were killed in the streets of Mogadishu in October 1993. That incident forced the administration to abruptly initiate a pullout of U.S. troops from Somalia that was completed in March.
Administration officials are also reluctant to commit U.S. forces to rescue a failing U.N. mission in Somalia when they are relying on the authority of the United Nations, and eventually on the help of U.N. peacekeepers, to carry out the impending invasion of Haiti.

Interview with Osama bin Laden in May 1998.

Describe the situation when your men took down the American forces in Somalia.
After our victory in Afghanistan and the defeat of the oppressors who had killed millions of Muslims, the legend about the invincibility of the superpowers vanished. Our boys no longer viewed America as a superpower. So, when they left Afghanistan, they went to Somalia and prepared themselves carefully for a long war. They had thought that the Americans were like the Russians, so they trained and prepared. They were stunned when they discovered how low was the morale of the American soldier. America had entered with 30,000 soldiers in addition to thousands of soldiers from different countries in the world. ... As I said, our boys were shocked by the low morale of the American soldier and they realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger. He was unable to endure the strikes that were dealt to his army, so he fled, and America had to stop all its bragging and all that noise it was making in the press after the Gulf War in which it destroyed the infrastructure and the milk and dairy industry that was vital for the infants and the children and the civilians and blew up dams which were necessary for the crops people grew to feed their families. Proud of this destruction, America assumed the titles of world leader and master of the new world order. After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers. America stopped calling itself world leader and master of the new world order, and its politicians realized that those titles were too big for them and that they were unworthy of them. I was in Sudan when this happened. I was very happy to learn of that great defeat that America suffered, so was every Muslim. ...

[philman_36]

And all this business about Somalia — the same people who criticized me about Somalia were demanding I leave the next day. Same exact crowd.
More...

Somalia: Humanitarian Success And Political/Military Failure
One month later, on October 3 and 4, a U.S. Army Ranger mission to capture Aidid ended in disaster with 18 U.S. servicemen dead and 77 wounded. After meeting with his top advisors, the president agreed to a new U.S. strategy to "reinforce the troops, shift from a get-Aidid policy to a more political approach and set a hard deadline for withdrawal."22 Within a week, President Clinton established a March 31, 1994 deadline for withdrawal of all American forces. Other major coalition partners soon followed in announcing their withdrawal from Somalia. For all intents and purposes, Operation Restore Hope was over.

Where was the criticism supposed to be coming from?

[Las Vegas Dave]

The Rush Limbaugh show should be a good one (as usual) today, and not to be missed!

[philman_36]

And all this business about Somalia —...
Perhaps you didn't get it the first time...about that criticism you were talking about, that is...

President Bush the Elder sent U.S. forces into Somalia in December 1992 to aid the United Nations in relieving a massive famine. In May of 1993, four months into his term, President Clinton declared that mission accomplished and pulled out most of the U.S. force. In a speech on the South Lawn to associate himself with the effort, he extolled the decision to intervene: "If all of you who served had not gone, it is absolutely certain that tens of thousands would have died by now." It was a "successful mission," he said, and "proved yet again that American leadership can help to mobilize international action."
But back in Somalia, with no U.S. deterrent, Somalia's warlords began fighting again. After a series of bloody attacks on U.N. peacekeepers, Mr. Clinton launched a new mission: In August 1993, he sent in a force of Rangers and Special Forces units to capture the brutal warlord Mohammad Farrah Aidid and restore order.
That force asked for heavy armor--in the form of Abrams tanks and Bradley armored vehicles--as well as the AC-130 gunship, but the Clinton Administration denied those requests. On October 3 on a mission to pick up Aidid, two Black Hawks were unexpectedly shot down; in the ensuing urban gun battle, 18 American soldiers were killed and another 73 injured.
Snip...
But perhaps the most poignant statement came from retired Lieutenant Colonel Larry Joyce, father of Sergeant Casey Joyce, a Ranger killed in Mogadishu:
"Had there been armor . . . I contend that my son would probably be alive today."

[gotribe]

Given our government's pathetic responses to middle east violence against us for the last two decades, and given that Clark was responsible for our counter-terrorism efforts through Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and early Bush, there must be good reason to try Clark for treason.

[MikeA]

Not to mention, there is no record of Bush ever having passed up a chance to nail Bin Laden when he had the chance, unlike at least half a dozen such opportunities Bill Clinton let pass. After the Cole bombing, Bin Laden largely went to ground and there were no opportunities to get Bin Laden at the point Bush took office.

Also, had Bush taken office and started bombing Afghanistan, Dems. would have called him a "warmonger," "a cowboy" and "trigger happy gunslinger." They would have accused him of wagging the dog to establish legitimacy for his "stolen election." No president comes into office and starts firing off the military.