"Someone posted some old threads from that time (post pulled and account suspended and I have no idea why) and there were more than a few Freepers who were accusing Bill of starting wars to cover his scandals much like leftists accused W of starting wars for ulterior motives."
While the peanut gallery did indeed go after Clinton for wagging-the-dog, most of the elected Republican politicians didn't engage in this same debate. In fact, people like McCain actually chastized Clinton for taking troops off the table...and not being tough enough.
Clinton created his own problems...not because of what he did, but because of when he did it. His attacks were curiously timed at the very moments he was having a domestic crisis. The cruise-missile attack on Afghanistan and Sudan occured the week that Monica was making her apparence before the Grand Jury.
As some in the military even noted, Clinton refused to follow up on other leads, thus Clinton's declared war on terror lasted as long as Monica's apparence before the jury. This was such a spontaneuous attack that many in the Joint Chiefs had no idea it was coming--and even Janet Reno questioned the legality of such an attack.
The same was true of Clinton's Impeachment-eve bombing of Iraq. This was an even greater fraud since it was Clinton who shelved this plan earlier in Oct or Nov...and only pulled it out when he needed it on the eve of Impeachment. You can read several accounts from the Pentagon on why many people were skeptical of this attack since Clinton had scrapped it earlier.
Contrary to Clinton's claims, most elected Republicans supported these efforts. In fact, when Tom Delay spoke out about the "timing" of Clinton's attack on Iraq, it was media, the Democrats and even his own Rpublicans who tore him up, with Maxine Waters literally questioning his "patriotism."
Count me as a proud member of what you called the "peanut gallery". Clinton's missile emissions were just of a kind with his other emissions. As cheap an opportunist as a some lougne lothario who spies a recent widow on her first night of heavy drinking.
With the 20/20 that hindsight affords I'd think even you and the wonderously intelligent Republican elected politicians would see that support given him at the time as the ruination it was. Those one-shot outbursts -- and cut and runs -- were what empowered Bin Laden, so Bin Laden himself as said. We should all thank their committment in support Bill's loose wailings? Nope! They cost us dear.