Oh come on; the main benefit there was that Clinton at least didn’t get 140,000 troops mired in a quagmire. The war was still ineptly run, as NATO succeeded in mostly killing innocent civilians and Chinese embassy staff, rather than enemy soldiers, and turning Kosovo into just as much of a hellhole as it was before except with different people getting run out of the country.
It still wasn’t the monumental, Olympic-sized fuckup Iraq is, but it wasn’t competent.
“If Clinton did not exist, the Republicans would have to invent him.”
Originally posted by New Iskander
"During the first month of the war on Yugoslavia, the NATO planes and cruise missile made over 10,000 attacks. More than 2500 cruise missiles were launched and over 7,000 tons of explosives were dropped. The following list is based on information provided by the Yugoslavian Foreign Ministry.
About 1,000 civilians, including 45 children … were killed and more than 4,500 sustained serious injuries "
Let’s guess how many American troops died during the Kosovo operation. I’ll give you a hint: It was less than 1.
Clinton didn’t “authorize” jack-shit and you know it. There is a huge difference between stating a goal for the future (regime change in Iraq) and launching a full-scale invasion under false pretenses. And what’s really funny is, if Clinton had NOT signed off on the goal of regime change in Iraq, you and your ilk would be screaming “Saddam-lover” from the rooftops.
Liberal may be dying (sadly, at the same rate as the rest of us) but it’s looking more and more likely that december’s protege had a fairly serious stroke.
-Joe
Damn. Think how much better off our country might have been if someone had just given old George a little “tea and sympathy” behind closed doors.
Them A-raybs are really sneaky. Do you have any idea how many rocks there are in Iraq? There were, like, 13 guys hiding behind every rock.
Maybe next our Fearless Leader will move from Faith-Based Mission Planning to just plain divination using the entrails of a chicken?
-Joe, sorry for the chicken but you know, eggs, omlettes
I never said it was flawless leadership. And considering the relatively low cost in lives and money, it looks like freakin’ genius next to Dubya’s Damn Fool War.
You must be confusing me with someone else that fucked ya.
No, what you said was that it was competent. It wasn’t. It was simply a case of a big country bullying a smaller one and not even doing a good job of it, and incidentally doing plenty of lying to get us there. (Of course, in this case it was many big countries bullying a smaller one.) The fact that Bush has fucked up even worse does not make Kosovo a good thing. If you don’t want the chickenhawks making dumb-ass Clinton comparisons, don’t make any yourself. (Not that it will stop them.)
I was opposed to the U.S. actions in Kosovo, but you have to admit it came off better than the charlie-foxtrot in Iraq. It was interesting, since Wag The Dog had somewhat recently been released, that the U.S. went to Kosovo shortly after the Lewinski affair came to light. My cynical nature saw too many parallels.
Yes, Clinton called for regime change in Iraq; but I do not believe he would have fabricated information and lied to the American people and the world in order to invade. Yes, he ordered strikes in Iraq; but those were legitimate under the UN rules since our aircraft were being targeted. Would he have captured or killed ObL? Maybe, maybe not; but I think he would have put more troops in Afghanistan and would have done a more thorough job. He would have gone after the terrorists and would have left Iraq for another day.
Clinton wouldn’t have authorized the Iraq invasion because it would have been hugely unpopular before 9/11 (“nation-building”, anyone?) It would have given the Republican congress more fodder than they already had to accuse him of being a loose cannon and wanting to start a lot of unnecessary and ill-conceived wars :rolleyes:.
Clinton and Bush both made mistakes. Their mistake was not pressing the war hard enough. By Bush, I mean HW Bush. So now, instead of armed militia groups vying for control of Iraq, several of which actually support the U.S., we have armed groups that all hate us (except maybe the Kurds?) since we let Saddam kill all the pro-american resistance. Thanks, Bush.
And we have Clinton to thank for helping millions die in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Thanks a lot.
I hate coming in late to something: the original link doesn’t work anymore.
Horses tasted the water and suddenly galloped away…
Fish ran the Indy 500 on Einstein Day…yellow.
PS-The above link was for Chefguy and/or anyone else who missed reading the article from the OP’s link.
You are implying a false equivalence between Clinton and Bush that simply does not exist, a common tactic of right-wing apologists for Bush. Clinton would NEVER have invaded Iraq, not would Gore have, because the FACTS available at all times indicated that Saddam had NOTHING to do with 9/11 and that the case for Saddam’s possession of WMDs was weak at best and nonexistent if you were reasonable. This blunder is strictly a result of idiot cowboy Bush wanting to ride off to war in a cloud of glory. There is NO equivalence to be had on the issue of Iraq between Gore and Clinton and Gore and anybody else. It’s HIS stupidity and HIS arrogance that got us embroilled in Iraq, and no one in recent history comes even close to him.
I think it’s very telling that a knee-jerk rightwing dimbulb like Iskander can’t think of any better line to justify the Iraq misadventure than “Well Clinton would have screwed up just as bad!” Of course, if the war were going well, Iskander and his ilk would never suggest in a million years that either Clinton or Gore would have had the balls to do it. That fact that he is alleging that Clinton would have done it is pretty much a concession that even he understands the whole thing is completely FUBAR.
This would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic.
Thanks. I’m completely unsurprised by this turn of events. The following:
is stunning in its stupidity and naivete. In a region where hate and feuding is a way of life, what did they think would happen? That old tribal and religious animosity would just evaporate because some petty dictator was deposed? This is colonialist thinking at its worst. We never fucking learn, and it’s most disheartening.
The aftermath of this whole thing will be as bloody and brutal as Saddam’s regime ever was, and we will end up with a religious dictatorship now funded, trained and equipped by the U.S. Sound familiar?