Democrats & Liberals: Archives

So Clinton made mistakes in his first military enounter. Are democrats willing to cut Bush the same slack they cut Clinton???

Just curious,

Craig

Clinton’s policy toward Africa was shameful, to say the least. All one needs to do is read We Wish to Inform You Tommorow We Will be Killed With Our Families. It would have taken less than 1000 troops to save almost a million lives in Rwanda, but we failed miserably (along with the UN). Somolia was likely on Clinton’s mind when we made that (non)-decision.

And as we now all know, the Sudanese offered Osama bin Laden to Clinton tied up with a silver bow.

But I guess Clinton and his buddy Clarke were “too busy fighting terrorism” at the time to take Bin Laden into custody.

Hello Demacrats! Now that its out Clark gets bonuses for hitting the NYT best seller list, Im betting Terry McCaullif and his crew will be buying up Clark’s books just as they did with Hillary Clinton’s book. Instant best seller!

> the Sudanese offered Osama bin Laden
> to Clinton tied up with a silver bow.

Hasn’t that story been discredited? I mean, hasn’t Clinton’s decision in this case been shown to be quite rational?

I don’t have the facts at hand (hopefully someone else will), but as I understand it, it wasn’t the Sudanese government making the offer (and they would have been unreliable enough)… but rather it was some dodgy independent operator who was thought to be even less likely to deliver Osama than the the Sudanese government. He was, as I recall, a playa, a Chalabi-type guy who tried to seduce a US President with an easy ride, a free lunch. And, unlike Bush, Clinton didn’t fall for it.

-Cf

So Clinton made mistakes in his first military enounter. Are democrats willing to cut Bush the same slack they cut Clinton???

You posed a question with three question marks, so I suppose your question needs three answers.

1)Clinton could have claimed, like this current Bush, has that the foreign policy of the last president sucked cheez noodles through a flexible straw, but instead, he took responsibility for it, and clamped down on further violence. When US soldiers returned to Somalia, they did so in tanks. He made sure not another US soldier died for his mistake.

2)Clinton never tried to portray the mission as a stunning success after the debacle in Mogadishu.

3)Clinton let the UN take over at the earliest possible juncture, and made damn sure they did. He did not saddle America with the sorry mess.

He wasn’t blameless, but he wasn’t playing politics while the death toll mounted. He said, some people will want us to stomp Mogadishu flat to show how tough we are. Some people will want me to pull out right now.

But in the end, even if he didn’t get us into Somalia, he had a plan for getting us out of there, and for bringing what presence we had there back into useful forms.

By the way, enri, I just wondered when you started considering capitalism and ill suited system for running publishing companies. So far, from what I’ve read, Clarke’s book is well worth the money, on several levels. If you don’t want to pay for it, borrow it from the library or a friend.

Hey Cf,

The ‘broker’ was a guy named Mansoor Ijaz (now a FOX News Channel foreign affairs and terrorism analyst). The way he told it to the the LA Times: In 1996,

The Sudanese offered to arrest Bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to “baby-sit” him—monitoring all his activities and associates. But Saudi officials didn’t want their home-grown terrorist back where he might plot to overthrow them.

According to Steve Coll’s book, “Ghost Wars”, the CIA had been tailing bin Laden “for several years” prior to 1996, so I’m guessing that’s why we turned down the “baby-sitting” offer; it was unnecessary.

BTW, in 1996 the CIA classified bin Laden as a financier, not as a terrorist.

Ijaz goes on to say Clinton had another chance to get bin Laden in 2000, but (somehow), “senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the [Saudi] ruling family,”

I’m not sure how much influence “senior Clinton officials” had within the Saudi ruling family, and Mansoor doesn’t elaborate.

Clinton administration members have commented on attempts to get the Saudis to take bin Laden into custody.

“In the United States, we have this thing called the Constitution, so to bring him here is to bring him into the justice system,” said Samuel Berger, who was deputy national security adviser then. “I don’t think that was our first choice. Our first choice was to send him some place where justice is more” - he paused a moment, then continued - “streamlined.”

And on allowing bin Laden to flee Sudan:

But Mr. Berger and Steven Simon, then director for counterterrorism for the National Security Council, said the White House considered it valuable in itself to force Mr. bin Laden out of Sudan, thus tearing him away from his extensive network of businesses, investments and training camps.

Ijaz is now claiming that it was Clarke who sabotaged all attempts to get bin Laden.

“In each case of things that were involved in the Clinton administration, Richard Clarke himself stepped in and blocked the efforts that were being made over and over and over again.”

Believe as much of it as you want. Berger thought Ijaz Mansoor was an unreliable ‘playa’. He had oil investments in the Sudan (the deals all depended on the US easing sanctions on Sudan), and Clinton officials say they weren’t going to conduct foreign policy through self-appointed private individuals who, they believed, had ulterior motives. When they did approach Sudan on a diplomatic level without Mansoor, there was never any deal offered.

The government in Sudan would have been unlikely to detain Osama Bin Laden.

According to Clark:

The Government of Sudan was dominated by the National Islamic Front, whose leader was Hasan al-Turabi. Although allegedly a religious scholar, Turabi preached a particularly violent form of hatred.pg. 135

He goes on to say that the two knew each other, and that he invited Osama Bin Laden to stay in Sudan when the Saudis started giving him the bum rush for the door. He goes on to say:

The two radical fundamentalists were soulmates, sharing a vsion of a worldwide struggle to establish a pure Caliphate. The two also socialized together, taking meals at each other’s homes. In Bin Laden’s spare time he went horseback riding with Turabi’s son. pg. 136

Later, after describing the blocking of Al Quaeda’s efforts in Bosnia, he details some of the proposals given to knock out the terrorist’s facilities in Sudan, which don’t go over too well anybody in the National Security Council, including Anthony Lake, the National Security Adviser. Lake puts it rather plainly:

This isn’t stealth. There is nothing quiet or covert about this. It’s going to war with Sudan. pg 141

Skip a few paragraphs ahead, as Clarke describes Bin Laden’s exodus to Afghanistan. Turabi and Bin Laden depart as friends, promising to keep up the good fight, and that he’d be welcomed back anytime. Then Clarke goes into Hard Debunk Mode about the Osama extradition theory:

In recent years, Sudanese intelligence officials and Americans friendly to the Sudan regime have invented a fable about Bin Laden’s final days in Khartoum. In the fable the Sudanese government offers to arrest Bin Laden and hand him over in chains to FBI agents, but Washington rejects the offer because the Clinton Administration does not see Bin Laden as important or does and cannot find anywhere to put him on trial.

The only slivers of truth in this fable are that a)the Sudanese government was denying its support for terrorism in the wake of the U.N. Sanctions, and b) the CSG [The US governments Counterterrorism Security Group] had initiated informal inquiries aswith seveal nations about incarcerating Bin Laden, or putting him on trial. There were no takers. Nonetheless, had we been able to put our hands on him then we would have gladly done so.pg. 142

He goes on to say that they could have gotten an indictment on Bin Laden in 1996, had they needed it, and did get it when they went for it in 98.

The Sudan Government could have done exactly what they are fabled to have done, if they had wanted to. Carlos the Jackal was captured in just such a fashion. But Turabi and Bin Ladin, he says, were on the same page ideologically, and were also the best of friends.

This is just another example, I think of a case where rumors and little lies have been repeated so often as to coat them with a veneer of truth. Especially when one administration wants to look tougher on terrorism than its predecessor.

Thanks Lee and Stephen!

-Cf

I see as much reason to believe Ijaz Mansoor as I do Richard Clarke (as long as we’re cherry-picking the terrorism analysts we want to believe here). At least Mansoor’s claim is cooberated by Clinton, and at least his claim didn’t come up as an election year issue, and most importantly, at least Mansoor isn’t trying to sell a book by sensationalizing other-wise humdrum claims.

I see as much reason to believe Ijaz Mansoor as I do Richard Clarke

So does this mean that you do believe Clarke? Because you do seem to believe Mansoor Ijaz, and so I guess that would explain why you have yet to respond to Gaelen’s challenge to refute the latest things that Clarke has said. That makes a lot more sense now.

(P.S. To save time, in response to your inevitable post stating that you don’t actually believe Clarke, my response continues to be that you should respond to Gaelen’s challenge)

at least Mansoor isn’t trying to sell a book by sensationalizing other-wise humdrum claims.

no he just wanted a job for fox:)
just joshin’

Ijaz has a conflict of interest, and if what Clarke says is true, Turabi would have been unlikely to turn over such a good friend.

So what would have happened? Osama finds some way of skipping the country, just prior to the oh-so commendable efforts of the Sudanese to fight terrorism by catching a terrorist bad guy. Other terrorists have been tipped off by governments supposedly cooperating with us. Turabi, who shared a table with Osama Bin Laden, and shared his ideology, would hardly lack a motive for such a tip-off.

Besides, it’s all a moot point by 96. by then he was a guest of the Taliban.

I believe the Somalia was and continues to be principally a failure of the U.N. and it member nations to one again step up to plate and make a difference when it really counts. The rest of the world talks a good game about how the U.S. should turn to the U.N. more and not less, but the body is toothless in the face of real need. And the blame for that lies squarely at the feet of member states who fail to fund a U.N. quick reaction force able to fight and do peace-keeping. Where is the U.N police force; a ready made cadre of professional police ready to keep the peace in places of strife where civil authority has broken down?

We (the U.S.) cannot send troops in anywhere there is trouble afoot; the U.S. military is not a global police force, ready and able to respond every time a country starts murdering itself. The U.N is suppose to respond “before” a crisis begins not after the party is over and rivers run red with blood and body parts, and children starve in the desert.

Let’s face it, the world lacks the collective moral will to intervene forcefully when the situation calls for it, and the American serviceman should not be called upon to pick up the slack. Let the Europeans take the lead for once. Better yet, reform the U.N and give it some teeth with which to bite.

Glad to be able to agree with V Edward Martin about something—so many of our problems in international relations can be traced back to the huge discrepancy between our military power and that of our allies.

In the eyes of much of the world, we’re the Daddy in a deeply disfunctional Oedipal drama. If something goes wrong, everybody wants us to fix it. If we try to fix it and don’t perfectly satisfy the interests of all parties (i.e. the Balkans or Israel), then we get blamed for that too. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. I’d prefer a strengthened EU force, though, to a UN with bite (unless the UN were very radically reformed). The UN now is too often captive to the undemocratic instincts of its members. Right now the only ones I can see them wanting to “bite” are Israelis.

If something goes wrong, everybody wants us to fix it. If we try to fix it and don’t perfectly satisfy the interests of all parties (i.e. the Balkans or Israel), then we get blamed for that too. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

That’s why I prefer my leaders to be smarter than me. :)

I am interested in this conversation about the extradition of Bin Laden if I could steer it back there. There is a local forum, where I live, where one poster is also convinced that there is no way that the Clinton administration could’ve brought Bin Laden to our justice. I am sort of at odds with him in that, if there was a will, there would’ve been a way.

Mr.Ijaz mentions, in his December 2001 article: “In July 2000—three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen—I brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with Bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. A senior counter-terrorism official from one of the United States’ closest Arab allies—an ally whose name I am not free to divulge—approached me with the proposal after telling me he was fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials.”

Mr. Ijaz is kind of vague in how to “deal with him” since, by now, Bin Laden is in Afganistan. The US now has an indictment against him so, if there political will was there, we could have performed an “extraordinary rendition” on him and detained him some place?.?

I guess it does come down to who you believe. The local forum I read is www.bcvoice.com if anyone wants to look at it.

Nonsense. Ijaz has little credibility on this, since he was angling for foreign policy concessions made so an individual (him) could profit richly.

As far as the “will” to get bin Laden, Clarke notes, and no one has ever refuted him on this, that any time Clinton’s advisers came to him and said they could sucessfully do a “snatch” operation on a wanted individual, Clinton approved it every single time. 100%. I repeat, every….single….time.

This idea that somehow if we were only willing it could have happened is simply without foundation.

How badly has Bush and company wanted bin Laden’s head on a platter? And after 9/11 other governments are much less likely to drag their feet than they were during the Clinton administration. And yet…. where is he?

i think i know why bush has kept this war in america’s possesion instead of giving it to the U.N. that might be because the U.N. was funding saddam all along. don’t give your fight to the neigbors of your enemy they are just as wicked. and what’s with you liberals in getting god out of everything? i mean this is a christian based country. you can’t just move along and wipe out the original religion of america “blessed is a nation that god is their lord” notice that god doesn’t have our backs as much as he used to ever since your kind infected the democratic party?