More skewering of Chris Wallace, courtesy of Glenn Greenwald [View All]

[NewJeffCT]

Imagine Greenwald actually remembering all the way back to 1993 and that it was Republicans who wanted to cut and run from Somalia, while Bill Clinton and John Kerry thought an immediate withdrawal would be bad. Greenwald must hate America for questioning how Republicans have re-written history on this incident.

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President Clinton's response was refreshingly aggressive because the premise of the question is so patently and outrageously false. Clinton responded: "They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in 'Black Hawk down,' and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations."

As I document in the Salon post, that defense, if anything, is a profound understatement, because it was Clinton (along with Senate Democrats like John Kerry) who wanted to stay in Somalia because a precipitous withdrawal would be panicky and weak, but it was primarily conservatives in Congress -- mostly Republican Senators and some conservative Southern Democrats -- who were demanding that American troops be withdrawn immediately, and were even threatening to cut off all funds for our troop deployment.

"Mr. President, the mission is accomplished in Somalia. The humanitarian aid has been delivered to those who were starving. The mission is not nation building, which is what now is being foisted upon the American people. The United States has no interest in the civil war in Somalia and as this young soldier told me, if the Somalis are now healthy enough to be fighting us, then it is absolutely time that we go home. . . It is time for the Senate of the United States to get on with the debate, to get on with the vote, and to get the American troops home."

GOP Minority Leader Sen. Robert Dole, Senate speech, October 5, 1993

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http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/who-wanted-to-cut-and-run-from-somalia.html