Hi Catherine, I’m not blaming Clinton directly for either the Katrina outcome or 9/11 AT ALL! However I am arguing that some of his policies, or lack of, went some way toward creating conditions that contributed to later outcomes in both instances.

Neither incidentally am I lauding Bush as some antidote to Clinton who can stand beyond crticism. The Iraq campaign was dreadfully managed and many stupid mistakes were made.

While I’m on the right on a lot of issues, I’m neither a card carrying Republican, nor a member of the “fundamentalist” Christian brigade. I call it as I see it.

So let us lay blame where blame is due…and Aidan make arguments that are reasonable if you really want “dialogue.” If not, continue to provoke away!

I posted here looking for dialogue but what is increasingly evident is that as soon as the the partisan note gets struck, debate quickly descends into name calling and caricature.

Someone said recently that left-to-right dialogue is no longer possible in the States. I’m beginning to believe it.

As a friend of mine pointed out, the Chinese are acquiring dollars and treasuries in the quite reasonable expectation that at some point, at their convenience, they can convert them into something more tangible. If a few more Unocals convince them this is not so, well the house of cards may collapse sooner than we imagine.

Well, the original post is pointing out how the party of “limited government” is anything but; I suppose it’s only fair that aidan point out that the “personal responsibility” that Republicans repeatedly squeal about is just as false. Because it’s always someone else’s fault.

First of all Clinton was the President of the USA, not a school boy living in fear of the Republican Party. In saying that he didn’t follow through on needed offensive actions because he was worried about Republican objections, you are making him out to be ineffectual and weak – which is precisely my argument. On the foreign front, he was.

Many of his foreign policy decisions were regarded as farcical – not merely by the Republicans – but by the enemy. Clinton became a laughing stock. Not only did he lack the courage to go out and have a real affair with a real woman in real time – but he played around with a young and impressionable intern, toying with cigars and sexy phone chat when he should have been about the nation’s business.

This is merely on a level of personal conduct, and on that level already he had forfeited any fear and respect the enemy may have had, because above all else the Islamic fighter looks for evidence of manhood in an adversary.

You know to find evidence of this man’s inept handling of foreign affairs in this crucial period, you really have to look at detail, because the devil is indeed in the details when it comes to the true facts of Clinton’s bungling.

In the middle of so-called “Monicagate”, Clinton signed something called a Memorandum of Notification which ostensibly permitted U.S. forces and the CIA to take out bin Laden. Now here is the type of absurdity that characterized the pussy footing of this man … while this Memorandum was CLEARLY designed to take bin Laden out … Clinton undertook no provisions to overturn the ban on political assassinations. What this meant in practice was that bin Laden was meant to be killed … BY ACCIDENT! This is typical of Clintonesque obfuscation and double positioning. It speaks volumes about the way in which he hedged his bets and was content to merely pose, rather act. Bin Laden could only be killed “accidentally on purpose”!

To understand the roots of this, you have to understand the psychology of the administration at that time and the weird cognitive dissonance that compelled them to resist force on one hand while posing as brave “New Democrats” on the other.

This impotency is best illustrated by the Clinton reaction to the first World Trade Center attack which occurred just some 39 days into the WJC Presidency. To quote Dick Morris …

“Clinton chose to treat the Trade Center attack as an isolated criminal act, devoid of serious foreign policy or military implications.”

This mindset made it impossible for Clinton to offer a realistic response to the threat that was building toward the culmination of 9/11. He was a man caught in a limbo state, betwixt and between. Afraid to commit, and loathe to withdraw … content to offer tokens of force, which of course the enemy saw through. Sensing this paralysis, Al Qaeda, naturally upped the ante and penetrated American security on the home front with an audacity that I argue they would have lacked, if they had been properly confronted in the field.

Clinton I believe is well aware of the price America has paid for his policies, or lack of.

Clinton warned Bush to take al Quada seriously. Bush did not, until it was too late. Clinton left behind plans for military action to take out al Quada, but when Bush was elected, he declined to hand an incoming president a war. He left the option of carrying out the plan to Bush. Bush had nine months to do something about the threat. He did nothing. 3,000 Americans died.

Quite aside from the non-action after the Cole attack, which many operatives in both the CIA and State Department regarded as paving the way for 9/11, there were many other decisions that the Clinton administration took which helped to set the country up for what was to follow.

After the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, Billy went on the box and announced …

“The explosion appears to be the work of terrorists. The cowards who committed this murderous act must not go unpunished. America takes care of its own.”

Yeah right! Forensic investigations revealed that there was a Lebanese source for explosives used in the Khobar attack. Despite evidence that tracked the origins of the attack , Clinton went on auto-pilot and carried on with business-as-usual. He restored diplomatic relations with Lebanon. There was no requirement whatever on the part of Lebanese authorities to act against the perpetrators – let alone compensate US citizens (remember aside from those killed there hundreds wounded in this attack).

After the embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania resulting in hundreds of deaths and thousands of wounded, Clinton ordered at attack … on a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum!! This is an in-joke amongst many Jihad enthusiasts to this day, who view it as weak man’s effort to look tough, while essentially doing nothing. They’re right on the money. Clinton was a straw man and a weak leader when it came to taking assertive action to defend American interests abroad, and he helped to embolden the enemy and give them the will to take the assault into the heart of America.

Larry Johnson – ex of CIA and State Department had this interesting comment to make …

“Clinton was always good about biting his lip, tears welling up in his baggy eyes and talking about, ‘waging a new war on terrorism,’ and yet also during this period he basically cut the heart out of the CIA,”

I have seen many videos of the man, yet I have never once see his hooves leave smoking craters and blights behind him, as some people would have me believe.