July 27, 2004
Democrats Embrace Foreign Policy Failures
I’ll admit that I couldn’t stomach actually watching Jimmy Carter speak to the Convention. Reading his words in text later was bad enough. I see that Democrats have rediscovered foreign policy—it is unfortunate that they have learned so many of the wrong lessons.
The most sickening thing from Carter is found in this passage:
We understood the positive link between the defense of our own freedom and the promotion of human rights. Recent policies have cost our nation its reputation as the world's most admired champion of freedom and justice. What a difference these few months of extremism have made!
The United States has alienated its allies, dismayed its friends, and inadvertently gratified its enemies by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of "preemptive" war. With our allies disunited, the world resenting us, and the Middle East ablaze, we need John Kerry to restore life to the global war against terrorism.
In the meantime, the Middle East peace process has come to a screeching halt for the first time since Israel became a nation. All former presidents, Democratic and Republican, have attempted to secure a comprehensive peace for Israel with hope and justice for the Palestinians. The achievements of Camp David a quarter century ago and the more recent progress made by President Bill Clinton are now in peril.
Instead, violence has gripped the Holy Land, with the region increasingly swept by anti-American passions. Elsewhere, North Korea's nuclear menace -- a threat far more real and immediate than any posed by Saddam Hussein -- has been allowed to advance unheeded, with potentially ominous consequences for peace and stability in Northeast Asia. These are some of the prices of our government's radical departure from the basic American principles and values espoused by John Kerry!
For the moment I'll skip over the fact that as recently as the primaries, Kerry wasn't entirely sure that he would need to be a 'war president' when asked about the war on terrorism. But there is something truly galling about Jimmy Carter lecturing America on foreign policy.
Carter wants to talk about the Middle East ablaze? So often we hear liberals complaining about the Iranian revolution as being a response to U.S. meddling, but they never name Carter's government when they talk about propping up the Shah. Carter's response to the Iran hostage crisis was the beginning of the region's favorite image of the U.S. as having technological might, but being unwilling to actually fight after Vietnam. And Carter dares to talk about Middle East peace when he has repeatedly embraced Arafat's even while Arafat was in the midst of terrorism against Israel? The so-called recent progress of Clinton at Camp David was put in to peril not by Bush, but by Arafat even before Bush came to power when Arafat decided to encourage a renewed intifada rather than continue negotiations.
It is the repeated Democratic refusal to acknowledge that responsibility often lies with parties other than the U.S. which makes it so difficult for them to take action.
But the truly shocking line is about North Korea's nuclear menace. When Carter swooped onto the scene in 1994, North Korea did not have nuclear weapons. In his apparent belief that papering over problems is the same as bringing a solution, Carter negotiated the 1994 Agreed Framework in which North Korea agreed to cease all nuclear weapons research, follow through with their pledge for a 'nuclear-free penninsula', and shut down their plutonium-producing reactor in exchange for massive subsidies. For all his talk of 'human-rights' Carter negotiated an agreement for the U.S. to prop up one of the most repressive and torture-embracing regimes in the world in exchange for their promise not to build nuclear weapons. And in exchange for supporting them we gave them enough time to build the nuclear weapons which they did not have at the time of the agreement.
Perhaps the agreement looks worse in retrospect than it did at the time. But that is no excuse to use a diplomatic disaster largely of your own making as an example of Bush mishandling North Korea. Bush wouldn't be facing a nuclear North Korea if Carter's Agreed Framework had been more than a paper ruse for the North Koreans to buy time. Bush wouldn't be facing a nuclear Korea if Clinton had ignored Carter and taken action then. Or if we could not have stopped Korea from gaining nuclear weapons without a war that we weren't willing to engage in, we could have at the very least avoided spending our money propping up the deeply sadistic North Korean regime. How dare Carter talk about policy failures based on a lack of attention to human rights when he was directly involved in a huge diplomatic disaster which traded support for one of the most depraved countries in the world for practically nothing?
This is not a Democratic Party that has learned from its diplomacy mistakes. It still embraces Carter and acts as if his diplomatic disasters were triumphs. They don't have foreign policy, they engage in foreign fantasy.
Posted by Sebastian Holsclaw at July 27, 2004 02:09 AMThe North Koreans didn’t actually start producing weapons grade uranium until Bush squashed the reunification program and threatened them.
As stupid and dangerous as that was, I would have loved to see the “Oh, S#!7!” expressions on Bush & Rice’s faces when they first found out the North Koreans took them seriously and pulled the plug on the IAEA cameras. :)
And at least you know Carter served out his full term in the Navy. It’s hard to go AWOL from a submarine. :D
Oh yeah. I should also point out that Carter brokered the peace deal between Egypt and Israel. Even though Bush is pushing it to the breaking point, it’s still holding.
BTW, Where did Bush’s road map get to?
AP:
The question is not when did North Korea actually succeed in producing weapons grade uranium. The real question is when did they break the treaty they entered into to start developing the capability. And below is the answer:
“…North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, entered into an agreement with the Clinton Administration to stop the nuclear-weapons program in return for economic aid and the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors that, under safeguards, would generate electricity.
Within three years, however, North Korea had begun using a second method to acquire fissile material. This time, instead of using spent fuel, scientists were trying to produce weapons-grade uranium from natural uranium”
Your assessment reminds me of a friend I had who never changed the oil in his car. He loaned it to me once and in my short 50 mile drive, the entire engine froze up. He blamed me since I happened to be driving it at the time of the problem. He couldnt understand that an engine doesnt just freeze up instantly, but rather does so over time due to inadequate maintenance.
North Korea broke the treaty during the Clinton years, but no one called them on it. Bush accurately called them on it and brought their subversion to public notice. And so you decide to blame Bush for Clinton’s failed policy simply because Bush happened to be in the driver’s seat at the time. Rather simplistic, in my book.
Posted by: joebagodonuts at July 27, 2004 08:11 AMJoe,
To follow your auto analogy, I assume you didn’t start your drive by accusing your friend of “driving like a wuss”, then starting the car in second gear and pulling out of his driveway at 30 miles an hour.
Posted by: Woody Mena at July 27, 2004 08:36 AMWell, if Kerry isn’t sure whether he’s a war president, he’s in good company. Your candidate, after more than a year of bearing the title War President, has suddenly decided that he wants to be a peace president. When your president is more sure about what he wants to be, you can criticize Kerry for being less sure.
Carter did send a military response, but unfortunately fortune and nature conspired to crash the Delta Force helicopters he sent. Then an administration made one in a number of deals with the Iranians, making sure that despite successful negotiations, it wouldn’t be until after the election that the hostage would be released.
In the meantime, he managed to work a peace deal between the Egyptians and the Isrealis, two groups that had been at each other’s throats for years. You may site Iran as a Carter problem, but it’s the policies that start with Nixon and Kissinger that created such a profound problem with the Shah, and the unrest in Iran. They made us reliant on a brutal dictator, in order to open up a third front in the cold war.
Now regarding North Korea, what is your candidate prepared to do? Nothing. The Open Framework was an option. It was something that could have been used to open up the country and crack the shell that the communists have made around the country. That’s where the real victory can be had, where a more exclusionary tack may not do as well. We all know what the leaders of North Korea want. The evidence indicates they want to be taken seriously, despite their now isolated status in the world. They want to be taken seriously as threat, despite the fact that they trully lack the resources to survive any kind of extended campaign against American firepower. They know that America could bomb them out of existence easily. They want the Bombs, they make the missiles so that people take them seriously.
So lets do that. Let’s do that and worm, cajole, and finagle our way into getting North Korea opened up. Once that goes on, we can pretty much degrade their fervor, and defrost their Cold War mentality. Once North Korea is opened up, the war is over.
Sun Tzu said that the best generals can take over the cities of their enemies without a battle, without a siege. Those who can do so are far more powerful than those who have to go through the time and the expense of taking the city by force.
We won the Cold War by breaking open the shell of Communist Russia, and letting our culture flow through. Why deviate from a successful strategy?
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at July 27, 2004 09:39 AMI find your attack on President Carter repugnant and only further solidifies the rights position as the near-sided party of half-truths, and arrogance. Here is a man who has dedicated his life to peace and good will toward ALL human beings. He has been and will continue to be one of the most selfless Americans this country has ever produced. Yes he was a weak President in a time when strength was called for and Americans showed him the door, but that does not negate his leadership since he left office. President Carter, like President Clinton is far more respected among the world’s leaders, past and present the George W. Bush ever was or will be; indeed Bush is despised in most segments of this planet.
What selfless act has George W. Bush committed? Did he serve his country? No. Has he held a peace summit to even attempt to bring the Palestinians and Israelis together? No. Has he put forth any bold new strategy to quell the North Koreans, the Iranians? No. that would require leadership, and Bush is not a leader, he is a follower, and also ran, a dunce who would be President.
Everything, everything President Carter said last night is true, do you dispute the validity of his statements or his right to say them?
Posted by: V Edward Martin at July 27, 2004 09:47 AM> The most sickening thing from Carter is
> found in this passage:
I don’t get it. I can’t find anything in this passage to disagree with, nor can I find anything in the passage that I imagine you would disagree with. You may find it offensive to be reminded of the failures of the Bush Administration, but what exactly did Carter say that you think is inaccurate (besides, of course, the partisan premise that Kerry will improve the situation). Carter’s statements, as V. Edward Martin points out, are factually correct.
> they never name Carter’s government when they
> talk about propping up the Shah.
What are you talking about? Carter was the first American president in nearly three decades to not support the Shah! He cancelled America’s covert bribes to the Ayatollahs, he threatened the cancellation of arms shipments to the Shah’s regime, he secured the release of (liberal, secular) political dissidents from Iranian prisons. He only reluctantly permitted the Shah to stop in the US for medical treatment. All of the above was a striking contrast with the Republican and Democratic leadership the preceded him, and in fact he was largely criticized from the right for not escalating his support for the dictator. You can’t blame Carter for the Iranian revolution (which had been brewing for a decade) and also blame him for supporting the Shah (which he did not).
> But that is no excuse to use a diplomatic
> disaster largely of your own making as an
> example of Bush mishandling North Korea.
The point is not who is responsible for the situation in North Korea before 2000. The point is what has been done since Bush took office. The answer is a resounding “nothing.”
Joe wrote:
> The real question is when did they break the
> treaty they entered into to start developing
> the capability.
Joe, could you provide a source for your “three years” quote? Never mind, I looked it up myself (Seymour Hersh, New Yorker, Jan 2003). Here is some more from that fascinating article:
In 1997, according to the C.I.A. report, Pakistan began paying for missile systems from North Korea in part by sharing its nuclear-weapons secrets. According to the report, Pakistan sent prototypes of high-speed centrifuge machines to North Korea. And sometime in 2001 North Korean scientists began to enrich uranium in significant quantities.
So while they may have chosen to break the rules in 1997, they didn’t actually start building the weapons material until 2001. And they’ve been cranking it out for three years now — while we were invading Iraq to pre-empt nothing
If the CIA reports in this article (and in more recent and more shocking stories), this agreement between Pakistan and North Korea (which may still be in effect today for all we know) far outstrips the dangers ever posed by Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda put together. While North Korea’s nuclear weapons program may have germinated under Clinton’s fatally flawed nuclear policy towards North Korea, it has clearly grown, flowered, and prospered under the Bush Administration’s non-policy towards North Korea. If anything, the Bush Administration has simply allowed the Clinton nuclear/energy policy towards North Korea to limp along, but without any accompanying high-level diplomatic involvement or political attention. Yet all along the Bush Administration knew quite well that Pyongyang was continuing it’s relentless march towards nuclear armament.
Nevertheless, on July 5th [2002] the President’s national-security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, who presumably had received the C.I.A. report weeks earlier, made it clear in a letter to the congressmen that the Bush Administration would continue providing North Korea with shipments of heavy fuel oil and nuclear technology for the two promised energy-generating reactors.
It’s been nearly four years now, folks. It’s time to stop blaming Clinton for Bush’s problems!!
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at July 27, 2004 09:56 AMChristopher:
You have it backwards. It is high time to stop ignoring the critical mistakes that Bill Clinton made. You admit that the KETO treaty was broken during the Clinton years, and then you simply ignore that fact as having any relevance.
The bottom line is that Clinton policies DO affect us now, even 4 years later. If they didn’t, then one would have to assume that his 8 years as President accomplished nothing. I’m willing to admit that he had both good and bad policies, both effective and ineffective policies.
You seem only to suggest that any successes are Clinton’s and any failures belong to Bush. How simplistic and partisan that is.
Lets take that a step forward and if Kerry is elected, and a US soldier dies in Iraq on the 2nd day of a Kerry presidency, do we then blame Kerry? Of course not. But some would only NOT blame Kerry since he is a Democrat. You wont take that same logic and apply it to a Republican.
Bush took on Iraq in part because Iraq was NON-compliant with UN resolutions, in part because most of the world said he had WMD’s, and in part because we COULD!! To take on Kim Jong Il could have disastrous impact, and the difficulty would be far greater than what we have faced and still face in Iraq.
Its a simpleton argument though to say that if you hold one country accountable, that you should hold ALL countries accountable. Had we thought that way in WWII, we never would have allied with Russia and Joe Stalin, and we wouldnt have won that war. Pragmatism counts for something in world politics. Your simple dogmatic thinking doesnt seem to account for that.
Posted by: joebagodonuts at July 27, 2004 11:46 AM> The bottom line is that Clinton policies DO
> affect us now, even 4 years later.
Of course.
> You seem only to suggest that any successes
> are Clinton’s and any failures belong to Bush.
I called Clinton’s policy “fatally flawed”, what else do you want? Am I ignoring Clinton’s mistakes? No way!
If Bush offered an alternative policy (besides his existing combination of continuing Clinton’s policies, criticising Clinton’s policies, and generally ignoring the problem), then maybe you’d have grounds for critiquing Clinton’s policy. As it stands, you have no such grounds.
I am in no way saying that Clinton does not share responsibility for the problems with North Korea (if you think so, please re-read my post). You and the Republicans, on the other hand, continuously excuse the Bush Administration from any responsibility for those problems, which have certainly evolved and grown since Bush took office.
My point still stands since you have not refuted it: After almost four years in office, it is time to hold the current Administration accountable for our current foreign policy situation.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at July 27, 2004 12:02 PMCan anyone think of an example of President Clinton, in 1996, blaming George H. W. Bush for his most urgent foreign policy crises? Or even domestic problems? Sure, he was fond of saying things like “after 12 years of Republican rule, we have a lot of work to do, etc”… but by 1996 that kind of talk was long gone.
Can anyone think of an example of any President running for re-election blaming his predecessor for inherited major problems nearly four years after taking office? Even Nixon took responsibility for America’s policies and strategies towards Vietnam, a crisis which clearly wasn’t of his making!
You can bet that in 2008 President Kerry won’t be whining about how the situation in Iraq is not his fault.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at July 27, 2004 12:12 PMChristopher:
I DO hold Bush accountable for his actions. Yet its also easy to see when Democrats hold him accountable for things beyond his control, or for things that were begun before he was in office.
The economy is a great example. It was dropping before he got into office, yet Democrats viciously blamed the recession on Bush. (Note that a recession takes 6 months to be official and it became official in March 2001, meaning that the downturn began 6 months earlier during the end of the Clinton era). I hold Bush accountable for his actions to restore the economy. Major point here: The economy is surging forward now (possibly due to tax cuts, and certainly with a deficit that is too large).
Likewise, I hold bush accountable for how he is dealing with Kim jong Il. I think he is doing a good job given the hand he was given to play. Many out there suggest that we should have invaded NK instead of Iraq, thereby destroying their own argument that we shouldnt be invading anyone. But I find Bush keeping NK in check—-and its a long process with lots of turns back and forth. But so far, its working.
And by the way, Bush rarely says much about Clinton—just as Clinton rarely said much about Bush 41. MY comment referring to the Clinton KETO policy was simply to refute what AP had to say (“The North Koreans didn’t actually start producing weapons grade uranium until Bush squashed the reunification program and threatened them.”) and to show that blaming Bush for the NK situation was a fallacy.
Posted by: joebagodonuts at July 27, 2004 01:06 PMCarter-Reagan-Bush brings high crimes and treason to mind. Former CIA director Bush41 (Carter supposedly fired him) put together a secret election year deal with Iran to trade missiles for hostages. #41, a friend to Muslim extremists, an unchartered secret government, the same thug who traded guns in Nicaragua for crack in East LA. Later he made sure his son Neil avoided S&L fraud charges by firing 50 prosecutors. Now the goon has his Ambassador Negroponte in Iraq. It doesn’t matter to them how many people they kill or how much American taxpayers pay, as long as they make money.
Posted by: bayviking at July 27, 2004 03:06 PM> I think he is doing a good job
But really, what has he done besides, as I said previously, a combination of sorta-continuing Clinton’s policies and ignoring the issue altogether? You say you’re holding him accountable, but for what? What has he accomplished? Anything? Since January 2001 we’ve barely even been talking to North Korea!
> Many out there suggest that we should have
> invaded NK instead of Iraq, thereby destroying
> their own argument that we shouldnt be invading
> anyone.
Who the heck has ever advocated invading North Korea?!? Many have used the concept as a rhetorical device to show how Iraq didn’t justify invasion, but I’ve never heard anyone (except extreme right-wing wackos) advocate or even consider the idea of invading North Korea. I think you are confusing (perhaps deliberately perhaps not) hypothetical questions with actual policy suggestions.
> And by the way, Bush rarely says much
> about Clinton
Bush rarely says much about anything!
Fair enough, though… let’s recast the question, replacing “Bush” with “Bush’s people” and “Clinton” with “Clinton’s people”. Did Clinton’s people ever claim, in 1996, that the nation’s problems were George H.W. Bush’s fault? Nope. My point holds: The Bush Administration is abdicating responsibility and their supporters are letting them get away with it.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at July 27, 2004 03:20 PMLeave it to Republicans to confirm suspicions that they are opposed to Peace, opposed to human rights, opposed to civility, and willing to attack a Nobel Peace Prize candidate for having worked for peace. Thanks, Sebastian, you make it just too easy! :-)
Posted by: David R Remer at July 27, 2004 05:20 PMI DO hold Bush accountable for his actions. Yet its also easy to see when Democrats hold him accountable for things beyond his control, or for things that were begun before he was in office.
If after four years there are ‘things beyond his control’ then i dont think that another four years will help. Maybe if the democrats are to blame for everything then they should come back to office and fix things up, (the late nineties were certainly a horrid time to live, right? budget surpluses, jobs, prosperity) because apparently Bush doesnt seem to be able to.
Posted by: Nick at July 27, 2004 05:31 PMLeave it to Republicans to confirm suspicions that they are opposed to Peace, opposed to human rights, opposed to civility, and willing to attack a Nobel Peace Prize candidate for having worked for peace. Thanks, Sebastian, you make it just too easy! :-)
David,
More correctly one should say we are opposed to appeasement, communist enslavement, divisiveness, and a Nobel ‘Appeasement’ Prize winner who would rather have us surrender rather than defeat evil. Is that any easier?
Posted by: Eric Simonson at July 27, 2004 05:44 PMand a Nobel ‘Appeasement’ Prize winner who would rather have us surrender rather than defeat evil.
Eric,
This is the kind of over-the-top, shrill rhetoric that does great injury to your side’s credibility. Is this Bush’s idea of ‘moral clarity’? Obviously, its black or white - or, your either for us, or with the terrorist!
If the Camp David Accords are ‘appeasement’, then the Roadmap To Peace is…well, the Roadmap To Peace. When was the last time Colin Powell was in Israel?
Posted by: Bert M. Caradine at July 28, 2004 01:22 AMNorth Korea broke the treaty during the Clinton years, but no one called them on it.
Haha! Because no one knew about it. It wasn’t until after Bush derailed the reunification talks and threatened North Korea, that they made the surprise announcement that they had been working on a program - that was nowhere near producing a weapon, hence their immediate start on reprocessing spent fuel rods that continues to this day.
Lets take that a step forward and if Kerry is elected, and a US soldier dies in Iraq on the 2nd day of a Kerry presidency, do we then blame Kerry? Of course not. But some would only NOT blame Kerry since he is a Democrat. You wont take that same logic and apply it to a Republican.
Actually, you guys won’t apply that same logic to a Republican. I’ve never heard any of you guys blame the 93 Twin Towers bombing - less than a single month into Clinton’s presidency - on Bush Sr. But then, neither did Clinton. Clinton didn’t start whining like a crybaby that it was his predecessor’s fault. Rather than running around desperately blocking investigations to avoid blame, Clinton went out and arrested, convicted, and jailed the guys who did it.
AP:
In regard to the 93 WTC bombing, no one blamed Clinton for it. Nor did they blame Bush Sr. The blamed the RIGHT people—-those who committed the crime. Oh, and while I’ll certainly credit the Clinton admin for catching a lot of the terrorists involved in that bombing, they did not get the masterminds of it. They cut off some of the arms, but did not strike at the head, unfortunately.
Nick:
To hold Bush accountable for things that occurred before his presidency is sheer lunacy. It would be akin to holding Harry Truman responsible for WWII. Bush, like Truman, has played his hand well, despite not having been left with a great hand.
Chris:
First, its well known that part of negotiation IS silence. It can force the other party’s hand. Additionally, not all negotiation has to be done in public, and I’d submit that you have no idea what is going on behind the scenes with regard to NK. There have been US conversations, and there has also been multi-lateral conversation with NK. This would seem to fit what you wanted to happen with Iraq, yet here it is happening in front of your very eyes, and you can only criticize it.
Secondly, if some on the left suggest invading NK as a “hypothetical”, its a bad hypothetical.
Thirdly, I leave you with your own NON-comment. I guess when you dont have an answer, you just change the subject. By the way, I havent seen Bush’s “people” blaming Clinton either, so poof!!—-there goes that theory down the drain too.
> And by the way, Bush rarely says much
> about Clinton
Bush rarely says much about anything!
First, its well known that part of negotiation IS silence.
There’s that blind faith again, just like with the WMDs. Yeah, sure, it might look like they’re doing nothing, but they’re secretly making a lot of progress. If that’s the case, maybe they should let the governments of Japan and South Korea in on their little secret, since they can’t seem to stop complaining about how the US isn’t helping the situation at all.
> There have been US conversations,
Wait, I thought you just said they were secret?
> and there has also been multi-lateral
> conversation with NK.
That’s true, but the US is not the leader of those multi-lateral conversations. As far as the eyes of the world are concerned (and they are correct), Beijing is the regional peacemaker, the leader of the effort to bring the North Korean rogue state under control. Where America has abdicated our role in the region, China has stepped up to the plate and filled the vacuum. Our open ambivalence to the crisis has weakened our influence in the region and has strengthened China’s.
> This would seem to fit what you wanted to
> happen with Iraq, yet here it is happening in
> front of your very eyes, and you can only
> criticize it.
Huh? I never wanted us to deal with Iraq by simply keeping our mouths shut and hoping that her neighbors would deal with Saddam.
In both Iraq and North Korea, America should be the leader, leading other nations in a cooperative effort to bring these rogue regimes under control. The world cannot and probably will not do these jobs without the United States leading the way. The Bush Administration, however, has failed to truly lead in both cases: With regards to Iraq, we led only ourselves. With regards to North Korea, we aren’t leading at all.
There was apparently something of an improvement in NK-US contact today, and I am glad to hear it. But these “breakthroughs” seem to pop up every few months and then fizzle into nothing, so we’ll have to wait and see.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at July 28, 2004 04:34 PMBush rarely says much about anything!
Just what I want in a president! He doesnt read the papers either. woohoo!
To hold Bush accountable for things that occurred before his presidency is sheer lunacy. It would be akin to holding Harry Truman responsible for WWII. Bush, like Truman, has played his hand well, despite not having been left with a great hand.
I beg to disagree. Harry Truman took office at the closing moments of WWII, Pearl Harbor didnt happen during Truman’s presidency. It happened during FDR and three years later the end was certainly in sight. The fact is that Bush unlike FDR has not played his hand well at all.
The best equivalent picture I can think of would be if after Pearl Harbor FDR started by going after the axis power but then halfway through declares war on Switzerland because ‘you are either with us or against us’ and Switzerland obviously had Nazi links, and it wouldnt have been hard to frame them for having WMDs in all those mountains. And Switzerland is certinaly next to Germany, Nazi generals were clearly hiding there. Oh and you know those Swiss banks financing Nazi operations.
Posted by: Nick at July 29, 2004 01:59 AMIn regard to the 93 WTC bombing, no one blamed Clinton for it. Nor did they blame Bush Sr. The blamed the RIGHT people—-those who committed the crime.
And yet you guys try to blame Clinton for 9/11 and the bad economy? Which side are you arguing, joe? :)
Oh, and while I’ll certainly credit the Clinton admin for catching a lot of the terrorists involved in that bombing, they did not get the masterminds of it.
Yeah. Clinton did get the mastermind. It was Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, “the blind Sheik”.
